a.s.r. takes the view that complaints handling requires specific knowledge and skills. The Complaints Management Team monitors the implementation of a.s.r.’s complaints policy and manages the complaints scheme. Complaints handling itself is decentralised within the organisation. Core principles and targets of complaints management are:

• a.s.r. is open to complaints, making it easy for customers to submit a complaint.

• a.s.r. communicates its views and the resolution of the complaint in a comprehensible manner.

• a.s.r. wants to learn from complaints.

Complaints officers keep their knowledge and skills up to date through continuous education. This means that they must regularly earn points with training courses. Customers give a.s.r.’s complaints management and its complaints officers an average score of 8.4 on a scale of 10 for the second year in a row (2020: 8.4).

The complaints settled figures show the number of accepted / rejected complaints. Accepted complaints are those that are considered partially or fully justified. These include accepted complaints concerning advisors, where a.s.r. acts as mediator. Rejected complaints are those that a.s.r. considers unjustified, i.e. it does not accept the customer’s argument and / or it regards the arguments as unfounded. The latter are addressed to a.s.r., but are not intended for it.

At the end of last year, the focus of the digital strategy shifted to customer complaints. A large proportion of customer complaints are service and performance complaints, especially on failure to keep agreements. This has been further researched and many tips have been received from employees. As a follow-up all business lines have formulated action plans and objectives with the aim of reducing customer complaints. Including the aim of a 49% reduction of service and performance complaints for the end of the second quarter of 2022.

Unfortunately, sometimes things go wrong. For example, in October 2020, a customer reported to a.s.r. that his pension statement showed a stranger as his partner. He wondered how this was possible and requested an amended overview. Because he did not receive the overview, he filed a complaint via the website in January 2021. An investigation brought to light that a different person’s name appeared wrongly on the pension statement . A human error, which was immediately corrected. a.s.r. called the customer to apologise and explain the cause, and a.s.r. sent him a bouquet of flowers and, of course, a new, correct pension statement.

Sustainability is reflected in the complaints that a.s.r. receives. Growing numbers of customers regard this theme as important and consciously opt for a sustainable insurer. a.s.r. can only welcome the fact that customers also express criticisms in that regard and uses this to realise further improvements in this theme.

More detailed information about customers can be found in chapter 7.5.