The year 2021 was a success for Veritas especially in terms of sales and customer retention. In sales, we smashed all our previous records both in the amount of premium income and in the number of new insurance policies issued, while simultaneously considerably improving our customer retention rate compared to preceding years. The coronavirus pandemic was still widely reflected in our operations in 2021. In an effort to adapt to the changed circumstances, we further refined the new working methods and tools adopted in 2020.

Veritas published its very first corporate responsibility report in April 2021. The publication marked a milestone in our endeavours to clarify and highlight our approach to implementing our corporate responsibility. The four focal components of corporate responsibility at Veritas are the same as last year: Customers and Beneficiaries, Responsible Investment, Good Governance and Responsible Employer.

Customers and beneficiaries

Every month, Veritas pays out pensions to nearly 38 000 recipients. For many of them, their pension represents their primary source of income, which requires us to operate without any disruptions. Veritas is responsible for the statutory pension security of over 116 000 Finns, when considering both insured entrepreneurs and the employees of our customers. The task is one of utmost responsibility, and we approach it with humility.

Veritas aspires to provide individual and personal customer service. We are in the position to do so, because each of our insurance customers has a designated contact person, whom they can contact with any inquiries. Veritas’ customer retention rate has improved even further during the last few years, which serves as the highest testament to the supreme quality of our personal customer service. Fewer and fewer customers decide to transfer their insurance cover to another pension company. Simultaneously, an increasing volume of customers are transferring to Veritas from other pension companies. More and more new entrepreneurs and new companies select Veritas, when they are due to take out their statutory pension insurance policy.

Responsible investment activities

Pension insurance companies must invest the funded pension assets as profitably as possible, while maintaining a moderate risk level. This is why we need to also ensure that our investment objects conduct their operations responsibly. Our assessment considers environmental factors, social factors and good governance. We are convinced that responsibility mitigates our own risk and enhances the long-term return of our investments.

In late 2021, Veritas published a new climate roadmap for investment activities. The climate roadmap confirmed the actions and interim milestones that will allow us to attain our long-term objective, i.e., the carbon-neutrality of our investment portfolio by the year 2035. As concerns our direct real estate investments, the objective is to reach carbon neutrality already by 2030. Thus far, the interim milestones have been confirmed in relation to our publicly listed equity investments and direct real estate investments. Going forward, the intention is to include also other asset categories in the climate roadmap, once reliable information is more readily and comprehensibly available.

In 2021, Veritas updated its ownership policy so as to also encompass fund investments, alongside direct equity investments. The ownership policy determines, inter alia, how Veritas identifies itself as an owner, what our expectations are as to the operations of any given company or fund, and how we exercise the rights conferred by our holdings.

Reporting constitutes an integral part of the responsible investment activities of a pension company. The reporting framework is constantly evolving, rendering reporting more standardised, enhancing its quality and improving comparability. The harmonisation of the reporting of responsible investment activities also serves to improve the availability of comprehensive and reliable information. The supply of information has increased in the past few years, but not all of the requisite information is available as of yet. This applies especially to unlisted investments.

Good governance

In 2021, Veritas updated its Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct sets out Veritas’ way of operating in accordance with the values of the company and in compliance with the requirements of the regulation governing pension insurance companies. General principles of ethical conduct are supplemented by detailed guidelines pertaining, inter alia, to good insurance practice, secrecy and confidentiality, insider rules, recusal, avoidance of conflicts of interest and bribery. The detailed guidelines adopted by Veritas’ Board of Directors are updated regularly.

Responsible employer

The new working methods and tools introduced due to the pandemic have established themselves as part of our daily routine, and will remain in our day-to-day work also after the pandemic. Remote work will represent a crucial aspect of work in the future, despite the fact that the proportion of remote work will decrease from its current level. Remote work and on-site work will in the future need to be combined in the appropriate proportion, because the support of the working community is of vital importance in promoting personnel well-being. The dialogue and creativity necessary for the development of customer service, as well as other operations, are also more easily implementable when the personnel are regularly physically present at the office.

At Veritas, personnel satisfaction is at a solid level and it has developed slowly but surely into the right direction in the last few years. It has been substantially impacted by the development of managerial work, lying at the heart of personnel well-being. This is also demonstrated by the fact that in our regularly conducted personnel surveys, the assessments for managerial work are continuously improving.

I would like to extend my gratitude to our growing customer base for the trust that you have shown in Veritas, as well as to our collaboration partners and our entire personnel for outstanding work during what was already our second year of exceptional circumstances!

Tommy Sandås
Interim CEO