A few years ago, many businesses were focused on delivering shareholder value in the form of profit – usually above all else.
The world has changed. People expect more from the businesses they work for and with and the brands they consume.
“Societal expectations have changed really quickly,” says Rob Kosova, QBE’s general manager of people and risk.
In 2015, the United Nations set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals affect us all – from a single consumer to a multinational – and we can all contribute to achieving them.
“With businesses and customers looking for solutions to support their own SDG ambitions, QBE’s commitment to sustainability and our values in supporting people, businesses and community are a logical alignment,” Kosova says. “At QBE, we help businesses better respond to change, and while we have our own plans for building sustain-ability, we’re also supporting our partners and customers by sharing our knowledge and insights to support their journey.”
From a broker’s perspective, initiatives that focus on these goals provide a compelling story to tell customers. QBE has launched a number of people- and risk-related initiatives that directly link the day-to-day business – and premise – of insurance and help deliver sustainable development.
So what initiatives is QBE delivering that can help brokers achieve their own sustainability goals?
To enable QBE to keep helping and educating customers and partners during the pandemic, the company launched an online professional development portal, Q Academy. It offers courses and training to build expertise in risk and leadership, with a host of resources to support that learning.
“Our company purpose is to give people the confidence to achieve their ambitions,” Kosova says. “We’re providing high-value courses, and it’s generated tremendous feedback.”
A workers’ compensation claim can be incredibly challenging for the claimant – so QBE has rebuilt its claims processes by combining empathy with innovation and analytics to deliver a claimant-centric experience, powered by machine learning, artificial intelligence, behavioural insights and wearable devices.
Of course, it’s far better for all concerned if incidents are reduced and prevented from happening in the first place, so QBE is harnessing the power of its claims data and working proactively with its customers and partners to deliver industry-specific risk prevention insight and expertise through the Q Risk Insights hub.
QBE’s partnership with wearable technology brand dorsaVI aims to help reduce the number of injuries in the workplace. The brand provides motion sensor technology that monitors postures, repetitive movements, sustained movements and muscle activity, with the aim of identifying unsafe work practices and flagging risks early. “The whole idea is to prevent an incident happening in the fi rst place,” Kosova says.
Premiums4Good channels a portion of customer premiums into investments that have social or environmental benefits, with the aim of having US$2bn of impact investments by 2025. Already, this has impacted areas such as sustainable energy, financial inclusion, social inclusion, diversity and gender, and urban and community development.
“It doesn’t cost customers anything, and it genuinely does good,” Kosova says. “It’s not about the warm and fuzzy stuff anymore – it’s about making a real impact and a real difference to our society. By partnering with QBE, we can achieve these ambitions together.”
