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Business model

Foundations of the Group
Business model

With a gross premium volume of around EUR 14.0 billion, Hannover Re is the third-largest reinsurer in the world. We transact reinsurance in our business groups of non-life and life and health reinsurance. Through our worldwide presence (see section Global presence) and our activities in all lines of reinsurance we achieve optimal risk diversification while maintaining a balanced opportunity/risk profile. Most significantly, diversification into both the non-life and life and health reinsurance business groups enables us to effectively deploy our capital and is thus crucial to our ability to achieve an exceptionally high return on equity.

Our lean structures enable us to maintain one of the lowest administrative expense ratios in the reinsurance industry.

As a reinsurance specialist, we transact primary insurance business as a complement to our reinsurance activities in selected niche markets. In this context, we work together with partners from the primary sector, just as we do in our reinsurance business.

Our subsidiary E+S Rückversicherung AG, as the “dedicated reinsurer for the German market”, offers a range of products and services focused on the peculiarities of the German market – especially for those mutual insurers with whom we have established a particularly trusting cooperation that is underscored through their participation in E+S Rück.

The business models in both non-life and life and health reinsurance support our higher-level Group mission of “Growing Hannover Re profitably”. This includes, among other things, our aspiration to be the best option for our business partners when they come to choose their reinsurance partner. It is for this reason that our clients and their concerns form the focus of our activities.

In the non-life reinsurance business group we consider ourselves to be an undogmatic, flexible and innovative market player that ranks amongst the best in any given market.

Thanks to our worldwide presence and infrastructure, our organisational approach is optimally geared to customer and market requirements; working together with our client, it enables us to act on specific business opportunities. With our three pillars of target markets, specialty lines and global reinsurance, we are in a position to successfully meet individual client and market needs.

Central risk steering in combination with local talent is the key to our success. In markets where an on-the-spot presence opens up additional profit opportunities we write business through local branches and subsidiaries. Risk management functions are, however, always exercised centrally. These include, for example, capital allocation, resource planning, retrocessions and the use of capital market instruments. These centrally exercised risk steering functions serve the goals of maintaining consistent underwriting decisions, facilitating the maximum allocation of capacity and efficiently deploying resources, underwriting know-how and capital.

In the life and health reinsurance business group Hannover Re has established itself as one of the major professional, globally operating reinsurers that combines sophisticated solution models with a long-term, partnership-based approach.

At the core of our activities is a customer orientation that stresses the cultivation of mutually beneficial profit and growth opportunities. This includes the provision of reinsurance solutions for risk management as well as those featuring financing and/or capital management components together with the associated services – by which we mean, inter alia, the optimisation of processes, access to global expertise and the acceleration of new business growth, always individually tailored to the needs of our customers.

In life and health business we are represented on every continent by 23 units in 19 countries around the world and we offer reinsurance protection in all lines of life and health reinsurance. Our portfolio covers all traditional risks such as mortality, morbidity and longevity. Within the business group we strive for a balance between these risks so as to ensure diversification among them.

Our potential clients include not only life and health insurers but also banks, sales companies and pension funds. Thanks to our decentralised approach our customers enjoy the benefits of advice and support provided on the spot in their own language.

This local approach furthers our aspiration to be the preferred business partner for our customers. In view of the long duration of contracts, we consider close and trusting cooperation with our clients to be a fundamental element of a successful business relationship.

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