Within a.s.r., employees increase their awareness of integrity topics through yearly training courses, presentations, dialogue and other (voluntary) means of raising awareness. By communicating important integrity topics regularly, employees can refresh their knowledge of the Code of Conduct and follow important developments. Topics that were highlighted in 2024 include ancillary business activities, incentives, privacy, customer due diligence, information security, sustainability, inclusivity and diversity, and insider trading. In addition, all a.s.r. employees are regularly presented with three mandatory questions regarding a.s.r.’s Code of Conduct, information security and cybercrime. A new tool was implemented for this purpose at the beginning of 2024.
For a select group of employees that perform CDD-related activities, a mandatory training programme and education programme concerning CDD-related legislation and regulations (including the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act) is operational.
Ethical themes
Employees are encouraged to speak up regarding integrity issues and engage in dialogue with each other about daily dilemmas within the company.
a.s.r. facilitates open dialogue on ethical dilemmas and challenges by organising ethics workshops and dilemma sessions, as well as by providing ethical guidance on relevant topics. This encourages and strengthens ethical awareness among employees. In 2024, two ethics sessions were organised to develop ethical awareness and encourage critical reflection and informed decision-making, focusing on work floor culture and behaviour, as well as critical ethical decision-making in sustainable insurance to promote necessary transitions towards a more sustainable world, amongst other things.
Complex daily dilemmas are a natural part of operations for a large insurance company. Several risk committees within a.s.r. discuss critical issues through critical dialogue regarding non-financial risks and possible instances of immoral behaviour. This dialogue aims to balance stakeholder interests and make well-informed business decisions.
a.s.r.’s Sustainability Committee advises the Management Board on complex dilemmas by discussing issues regarding the transition to more sustainable business practices and providing tools and support for business units to make ethically self-aware choices that are in line with a.s.r.’s vision and strategy. The Sustainability Committee advised on several sustainability related matters in 2024, including:
Ethical dilemmas surrounding the use of AI, where balancing the known moral costs (such as extensive energy use and socially abhorrent labour circumstances) and moral benefits (such as cost reductions through efficiency and more complex and human-focused work) is crucial for responsible deployment and use.
a.s.r. has made a change to its Policy on Responsible Investments, allowing investments in Dutch companies or activities related to the defence industry under strict conditions.
Further refinement and development of the Policy on Sustainable Insurance to help business lines make careful ESG risk assessments when accepting business clients and help business sectors transition to more sustainable business models without excluding necessary economic sectors.
Ethical data use
The ethical framework for data-driven applications for the insurance sector helps a.s.r. to establish an ethical data vision and encourages critical reflection on issues such as discrimination and exclusion, accessibility of data applications, privacy, transparency and explicability.
Ethical data use requires customer trust, a self-aware vision regarding desirable contexts of data collection to generate useful insights, and appropriate tailoring of these insights to product and service delivery to serve customer's interests. In an increasingly data-driven world, critical reflection is needed to avoid risks of discrimination and exclusion, keep applications accessible for vulnerable groups, and protect customer's autonomy and self-determination, as well as their privacy, in all relevant processes. In 2024, an ethical framework session was organised for the Data Science department of HR to promote awareness on data ethics and the use of the framework.