For many of Zurich’s customers around the world, 2009 was an unsettling year, as the ongoing economic crisis continued to undermine confidence in the security of both income and retirement savings. And while the crisis had clearly changed the marketplace for financial services, it remained unclear how the market would look in the future, with even less certainty as to which providers could be relied on going forward. In Global Life we found many ways to let customers know that we understood their concerns and needs, and showed that we can be there when it matters.

 
In Germany, agents helped customers understand the maximum earnings available if they optimized the contribution from their salaries into the government’s Riester contract. Across the country, agents talked with customers during our European Telephone Day to let them know that their optimized contributions would entitle them to higher government supplements including, where appropriate, a child allowance. Many customers were simply unaware that they qualified for supplemental savings under the program. Zurich went yet one step further by setting up a telephone hotline customers could contact for continued support. Through such individualized consulting we made it clear to our customers that we were proactively looking out for their best interests. Similar efforts took place across Europe and in the United States. As a result of this initiative, many of our customers were able to increase their savings, and Zurich was able to book the highest volume of Riester allowance payments since launching the proposition in 2007.

In Hong Kong the team at Zurich International Life (ZIL) also made an impact. They engaged with local brokers and financial advisers, as well as Zurich colleagues in the United Kingdom, to re-engage with existing customers, and begin conversations with new ones about how the crisis had affected them. As a result of their feedback, brokers introduced customers to what became known as the Wealth Rebuilding Strategy. Says Rosetta Fong, CEO of Convoy Financial Services, Zurich’s biggest distributor in Asia: “The Wealth Rebuilding Strategy met the needs of customers at a difficult time; it also helped to strengthen our consultants’ cooperation with Zurich.”

Global Life’s Bank Distribution group teamed up with General Insurance in 2009 to meet retail banks’ needs for extended product offerings for their own customers. In Spain, customer needs for transparent and safe investments arose as a result of the financial crisis. In response, we quickly offered customers unit-linked products that wrapped deposits with a guaranteed interest rate. At the same time we also protected customers from losses in the stock markets through our various offerings in protected unit-linked savings plans. As a result of the solutions we developed, overall Bank Distribution APE in 2009 grew by 55 percent on a local currency basis.