There has been a significant and critical public debate in recent years regarding the transparency of banking and insurance products and the care financial institutions take of their customers. The discussion has focused in particular on the responsible provision of consumer finance products and on the clear presentation of the risks and costs associated with insurance products. These are among the most material CSR issues for Fortis and we take them very seriously. Our customers, together with our shareholders and employees, are our most important stakeholders, which means the quality and honesty of our products is crucial in terms of CSR as well as commercially. In addition to our continuous focus on our customers and the quality of our products and services, we have launched two initiatives to address the issues raised here: the Fortis Code of Responsible Lending and the Insurance Transparency Working Group.

Code of Responsible Lending

Consumer Finance (CF) is a growth engine at Fortis and as such requires particular care in terms of responsible business conduct. That’s why we drew up our ‘Consumer Finance Code of Responsible Lending’ towards the end of 2007, consisting of ten FCFG principles of responsible lending.

Transparency of insurance products

In response to the critical public debate in the Netherlands regarding a number of our insurance products, Fortis Insurance Netherlands has worked hard to make its offering more transparent.

General information about investment-linked insurance was made publicly available on the websites of the different labels marketed by Fortis Insurance Netherlands, and holders are provided with an annual statement of the movements in value of their policy. On surrendering a policy, meanwhile, the holder receives a breakdown of the surrender value, showing how it is structured.

Market research has also shown that Dutch consumers consider the available information about investment-linked insurance to be too fragmented. To address that issue, Fortis Insurance Netherlands has produced a new brochure with the title ‘Is investment-linked insurance for you?’ (Dutch only), containing all the important information about these policies. Fortis commissioned an independent market researcher to perform a consumer test on the clarity and content of the brochure.

Together, these measures provide consumers with the complete and comprehensible information they need to make a properly considered decision.