Investment policy
1. OOM’s investment policy
If you’re insured with us, you pay an insurance premium. But what do we do with your premiums?
We use the premiums we receive to pay the claims of our insured persons. But we also use the money to pay for our company operating costs such as our employees’ wages. We also take into account the money we’ll need to cover future claims and set this aside.
In addition, we also have our own capital. This is a general reserve that ensures OOM can handle potential future set-backs. Having sufficient capital of our own means we are a financially stable insurer.
As an insurance company, we manage a significant amount of assets. We invest these assets to create a return on investment.
As our client, you need to be able to trust our ability to manage these assets with care. We share our clients’ wish that premiums are invested sustainably. This means choosing funds that focus on the environment, human rights, working conditions and good corporate governance. Our investment policy is based on the OESO and United Nations guidelines and is in accordance with the ICSR-covenant of the Dutch Association of Insurers.
2. Sustainable investment
Sustainable and green investment is a broad concept. Another definition is: ESG investment. This stands for: Environmental, Social and Governance. In other words, when investing, you take into account environmental aspects, social aspects and the way a company is run.
More investors are not only focussing on the profits a company makes, but also on other aspects such as:
- A company’s CO2 emissions.
- Employee working conditions.
- If the company is avoiding paying taxes.
At OOM, we’re convinced that investments that take environmental, social and governance aspects into account provide better returns in the long run than those that do not. We also want our investments to contribute to a more sustainable world. This is the social responsibility we have as an insurer.
3. Green investment through an asset manager
We don’t make investments ourselves. We work together with an external specialised investment manager. We expect our asset manager to take sustainability into account when making investment decisions. For example, by considering a company’s sustainability score.
Our investment manager reports to us on how the investment portfolio scores with respect to sustainability. Our sustainable investment policy describes exactly what we ask from our investment manager.
4. Vote and involvement policy regarding sustainability
When you own shares in a company, you become a shareholder. As a shareholder, you are a co-owner of the company and can influence its policies and operations. For example, by voting during shareholder meetings, or by talking to the company you’re investing in. This means you can influence a company’s approach to sustainability. At OOM, we’ve outsourced the voting and involvement policy to our asset manager.
We want our investment manager to focus on the topics that are important to us. The investment manager must be able to show that they’re working on the priorities of OOM Verzekeringen. If necessary, we ask our investment manager to focus even more on these priorities.
Sustainable investment priorities
The United Nations has set 17 goals to improve the world by 2030.
We choose to prioritise the sustainable investment policy on these two goals:
- Development Goal 3: Good health and well-being
- Development Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth
In consultation with our asset manager, we look at how we can contribute to realising these goals. We prefer to invest in companies and investment funds that have one of these two goals as their sustainability objective.
5. Sustainable investment policy
It’s possible that we might exclude certain investments altogether. In the first instance, we want our asset manager to focus on positive changes. For example, by entering into a dialogue with companies in the investment portfolio regarding making their business operations more sustainable. If companies are unable to make the necessary positive changes, we will exclude them from our portfolio.
We support the United Nations Global Compact Principles. The Global Compact is a worldwide initiative of the United Nations with ten principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and corruption. Our investment manager must use these ten principles as a guideline when making investments.