In September 2021, ICMIF members NongHyup Life Insurance (NH Life) and NongHyup Property & Casualty Insurance (NH Property & Casualty) from the Republic of Korea both announced they had has signed the United Nations Environment Programme’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative (PSI), which support the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement and provide an international framework for the development of responsible business.
Both NH Life and NH Property & Casualty provide insurance services to members of agricultural cooperatives, supporting farmers and rural communities across the county.
NH Life, with KRW 65 trillion in total assets, provides more than 50 types of insurance products including whole-life and annuities to help three million customers develop financial plans according to their life events. It is the only company to offer insurance plans for farmers, the government policy product, to ensure safety and help them to concentrate on organic farming.
By signing the Principles for Sustainable Insurance, NH Life will take into account ESG factors in all decision makings related to their insurance business such as management strategy, risk management, product development, sales and claims management.
NH Life aims to work together with their customers and business partners to raise awareness of ESG issues and the government, supervisory authorities, and key stakeholders to actively communicate for management and improvement of ESG issues.
“NongHyup Life Insurance is proud to participate in the implementation of the international standard principles through the signing of the UNEP FI PSI. Since the importance of ESG management in consideration of the environment, society, and governance is emerging worldwide, we want to establish a sustainable management system that enables actual ESG management over the long term.” said In Tae Kim, CEO of NH Life and a member of the ICMIF Board of Directors.
“It is expected to lay the foundation for sustainable growth and become an insurance company beneficial to all stakeholders including customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders.” he added.
As an insurance company with the identity of the cooperative, NH Property & Casualty is taking the lead in protecting customer safety and property through various customer-oriented products such as agricultural accident insurance, general insurance and long-term insurance, as well as expanding their social role.
NH Property & Casualty aims to strengthen their global partnership and strives to spread sustainable insurance management culture throughout all their business areas.
Launched at the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, the UNEP FI PSI serve as a global framework for the insurance industry to address environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities.
Endorsed by the UN Secretary-General, the Principles have led to the largest collaborative initiative between the UN and the insurance industry—the PSI Initiative. Over 200 organisations worldwide have adopted the four Principles for Sustainable Insurance, including insurers representing more than 25% of world premium volume and USD 14 trillion in assets under management. The Principles are part of the insurance industry criteria of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices and FTSE4Good.
ICMIF itself is a Supporting Institution for the UNEP FI PSI and other ICMIF member which are signatories are: AM Best, Achmea (Netherlands); African Risk Capacity (South Africa); Desjardins (Canada); Länsförsäkringar Sak (Sweden); LocalTapiola (Finland); Peak Re (Hong Kong); Swiss Re;, and Co-operators (Canada).
The vision of the PSI Initiative is of a risk aware world, where the insurance industry is trusted and plays its full role in enabling a healthy, safe, resilient and sustainable society. The purpose of the PSI Initiative is to better understand, prevent and reduce environmental, social and governance risks, and better manage opportunities to provide quality and reliable risk protection.
Read more about the UN Principles for Sustainable Insurance: https://www.unepfi.org/psi/
