Engaging our stakeholders on Net Zero

We recognise QBE’s success relies on the collective progress made by individuals, businesses and economies to transition towards a low‑carbon economy. To this end, in 2023, as part of our commitment to ‘Foster an orderly and inclusive transition to a net‑zero economy’, we made progress against our Scorecard, particularly on engagement, to better understand how our customers, strategic suppliers and investees are transitioning. More specifically, we released a formal engagement target for underwriting to engage priority customers on a regular basis through to 2030. We commenced a strategic suppliers’ engagement program across the business, and we continue to strengthen our engagement with all our external fund managers. We also progressed our targeted engagement with the top 20 highest emitters in our investment grade corporate credit portfolio. In March, we included a set of sustainability questions in our Voice Pulse employee engagement survey to benchmark our employees’ understanding of sustainability. Insights from this will help inform how we educate our people on sustainability in the future.

To find out more on how we are addressing our Net Zero commitments, please see our Annual Report, Climate Risks and Opportunities section.

QBE Foundation

The QBE Foundation partners with community organisations, focusing on climate resilience and inclusion. Investing in communities globally, our QBE Foundation operates locally across our divisions. Each division works through local partnerships, grants and employee engagement opportunities. QBE launched its Global Disaster Relief and Resilience tri-partnership with Red Cross and Save the Children in November 2019. Since inception, by partnering with QBE, Save the Children and Red Cross have supported community need during disaster response and recovery while also investing in preparedness and mitigation initiatives in 21 countries through 71 initiatives, achieved through the provision of $4.6 million in funding. Other partnerships across our divisions can be found here.

Disaster preparedness

The QBE Foundation partners with Red Cross and Save the Children to support communities to prepare for, respond to and recover from, disasters. This year, QBE Foundation provided funding towards the Italian Red Cross’ Early Warning Systems Project, which aims to enhance local preparedness, management and response capabilities through capacity-building initiatives. QBE’s funding purchased one training kit and enabled 129 civil protection trainers to be trained in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Over 500 Red Cross local emergency volunteers have subsequently been on-trained, as part of over 60 courses held in the first quarter of 2023 by Italian Red Cross Emergency Operations.

Premiums4Good

Premiums4Good is our industry-first initiative where we allocate a portion of our customer premiums to impact investments that aim to create positive environmental and/or social outcomes. At no extra cost to customers, it is another way we help to enable a more resilient future. As a responsible investor, we believe that we can deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns, while also seeking to deliver positive social and/or environmental impact.

City of New York Social Bond

One of our investments that supports Premiums4Good is the City of New York Social Bond. The City of New York Social Bond will help increase the supply of affordable housing in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens, for low-income earners and those previously experiencing homelessness.

In New York City, homelessness is a social issue that affects many low-income earners. While the paths that lead people into homelessness are complex and unique, there are recurring themes, including people leaving home care, experiencing financial difficulties, mental illness and domestic violence. The continued shortage of housing options further contributes to the ongoing affordability and homelessness crisis, impacting millions of New Yorkers every year.

In a first for New York City, the government has issued social bonds to help accelerate and increase capacity for new housing supply citywide. It will fund the development of more than 3,200 affordable housing units across 16 projects in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens.

QBE Ventures

We recognise the importance of looking externally and working with early-stage companies to access novel ideas, emerging technologies and talent to help us deliver on our strategic priorities, including portfolio optimisation, modernisation and growth. QBE Ventures is the InsurTech-focused investment and development arm of QBE. The team takes a multi-pronged corporate venture capital approach. This means that we not only invest in, but also build alongside, technology companies with the objective of creating long-term, strategic value.

Geospatial solutions

In 2023, QBE deepened its focus on leveraging data and emerging technology to improve being there for customers after a natural catastrophe. Resiliency in the face of increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters is a priority for us. Through QBE Ventures’ investments in Geosite and TensorFlight, QBE has accelerated access to next generation spatial data, machine learning and computer vision capability. These capabilities are being applied to understand the damage profile of a disaster more quickly, for example, Hurricane Ian in Florida, and the Maui wildfires. These solutions enable us to activate QBE’s claims teams more quickly, as they are able to access a digital version of what is happening on the ground.