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The property/casualty insurance sector that already does a lot of good work is interested in doing more and having even more of an impact, according to the lead author of a landmark report on the property/casualty industry’s charitable giving.
“If you look at how the industry is performing today, it’s doing a tremendous amount of giving. It’s doing a tremendous amount of good work,” Peter Hahn, a partner at McKinsey & Co. and author of the charitable giving report, told Insurance Journal. “And what we heard from the industry was that the industry would like to continue to increase the impact of giving and increase its recognition.”
This research arose out of discussions McKinsey had with industry representatives and with the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF). “The genesis of this report came from discussions last year about the need within the industry to put some fact base around the state of charitable giving within the P/C industry,” Hahn said.
He said McKinsey felt this was an important topic where it wanted to invest resources to “create the fact base and to share our perspectives and find best practices and ideas on how the industry could increase the impact of its giving and increase its recognition to the fullest.”
How to Give Better
The McKinsey report stresses several themes including the need to combine social and business goals in the individual company’s charitable giving program and the benefits of utilizing skills and capabilities that are unique to the insurance industry.
According to the McKinsey report, more insurance companies could better utilize their unique insurance-specific knowledge and expertise to contribute to society in ways that others cannot. “If you look at the results of the research, 60 percent of the industry felt that disaster relief and preparedness was one of the top three causes for them as a company,” Hahn said.
Hahn said this is one area where industry collaboration could potentially have greater impact and achieve greater recognition.
The report advises companies to manage charitable giving like they do other major business investments. “There are a number of aspects to that,” Hahn said. “They include deep senior management commitment, focusing on a defined number of topics, and committing for the long term.”