ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Environmental Social Governance Report

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India, September 17, 2020: ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company believes in ensuring its long term sustainability through the adoption of sustainability principles across business activities. The sustainability framework is built on the three pillars of:
Environmental – Leaving the planet a better place for our next generation
Social – Giving back to society
Governance – Transparency in functioning

As a Company, we are in the fortunate position of being in the business of Life Insurance which is a  unique financial planning tool that provides families with a financial safety net by enabling them to achieve their long term financial goals and protection of their families in the event of specific exigencies. Life Insurance is a key social need in India in the context of the current social security framework for our citizens. Our endeavour is to ensure that every Indian family has adequate financial protection whilst taking into account our wider responsibilities to society and the environment.

The past two years have seen a significant transformation of our business model and more specifically, on our articulation of strategy as well as our aspiration of value creation for our shareholders. As our business model is intertwined with the sustainability objectives, we have now holistically documented our objectives and approach on the aspects of the ESG framework i.e. Environmental, Social and Governance. Our ESG framework is based on our Company’s vision which is to build an enduring institution that serves the protection and long-term saving needs of customers with sensitivity.

Our Executive Committee, comprising of senior leaders of the Company, oversees the integration of ESG within the organisational framework and undertakes initiatives to balance the growth and profitability objectives whilst serving the welfare of society and the preservation of the planet, and thereby, ensuring sustainability.

 Our ESG Report highlights the following:

Waste Management and Reduction: Waste reduction and management have been one of the focus areas to improve our operational efficiency as well as minimise the impact on the environment. The waste generated through our operations can be broadly classified as dry waste (primarily paper waste), e-waste and wet waste (primarily from the cafeteria). Since the Company is a financial services entity, there is no hazardous waste being generated. Similarly, our raw material procurement is very limited in scope and it is largely confined to paper and electronic equipment. We believe in Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and manage solid waste efficiently. Reduction of paper consumption has been a key strategic thrust.

Water Management: Being a financial service entity, water usage is limited to domestic purposes. Yet, we take appropriate precautions to conserve the resource. Sensor-based urinals are provided in all new offices, and waterless urinals are installed at many branches. Also, our two largest offices are equipped with sensor-based taps. Our head office has a sewage treatment plant.

Customer Centricity: We work towards aligning our business interests with the interests of our customers, thus creating value and building long term viable relationships. The Company tries to enhance the quality of the customer experience by providing products and services suited to the needs of the customer. Our products are designed to suit the different life stage requirements of a cross-section of customers. Our multi-channel distribution architecture enables customers to choose their preferred mode of purchasing products. Our presence across channels ensures that we are able to cater to the varied needs of customers across all touch-points. Our device-agnostic digital platform allows customers 24×7 access to their policies, to register claims online, to initiate and conclude service requests (self-service) etc. As part of our endeavour to be future-ready and to cater to the millennial customer, we are the first Life Insurer in India to officially offer WhatsApp as a customer service channel. Our AI-powered Chatbot LiGo is equipped to provide accurate responses and to learn with every customer interaction. We are committed to investing in technology, which we see as a key business enabler, to deliver superior products and service to our customers. We follow an integrated investment management approach in which we follow the three pillars of safety, stability and returns. We generate and deliver consistent and risk-adjusted returns to our customers through a systematic and structured investment process. We also offer micro-insurance products such as Sarv Jana Suraksha, a protection product, Anmol Bachat, a savings oriented product, Shubh Raksha Credit and Life, a group micro-insurance protection product thereby catering to the rural and social sector obligations of the Company. We partner with ICICI Bank in promoting PMJJBY (Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Beema Yojana) a social security initiative aimed at making insurance services available to the weaker section and low-income groups. As of March 2020, more than 3.9 million lives are covered under the rural/social sector obligation and PMJJBY scheme. Our determined efforts to ensure customer delight have been rewarded with customer loyalty which reflects in our 13th-month persistency and self-help service usage which are 85.3 per cent and 87 per cent respectively

Employee Diversity and Management: Our commitment to employees is based on the three pillars of our employee value proposition or our Cornerstones namely, Fairness and Meritocracy, providing a Supportive environment and Learning and Growth. We cater to the priorities of different employee segments such as millennials, mid-career employees, late-career employees, and women employees through various policies, practices and initiatives across employee segments. Our Company is a gender-neutral, equal opportunity employer and there is zero-tolerance for any discrimination based on gender, religion, caste or class. Gender is not a consideration in compensation fitment and all reward actions are as per the Company policy. We have a strong and dedicated workforce from a diverse background, education and experience. At March 31, 2020, we had 14630 employees. This includes 3,748 women employees comprising about 26 per cent of the total workforce. To support women colleagues for their life stage needs and to build a more inclusive workplace, we provide twenty-six weeks of paid maternity leave  (even before it was made mandatory under the Maternity Benefit (Amendment Act, 2017), three months of paid adoption leave, special maternity leave for recovery from miscarriage/illness related to maternity/tubectomy, fertility treatment leave, sabbatical and part-time employment options and also special workshops and seminars on a variety of themes.

Inclusive Growth: Our vision is to build an enduring institution that serves the protection and long term saving needs of customers with sensitivity. In line with this vision, our objective is to proactively support meaningful socio-economic development in India and enable a larger number of people to participate in and benefit from India’s economic progress. Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Policy is our commitment to provide resources and support activities focused on enhancing economic and social development. Some of our key focus areas for inclusive growth include skill development and sustainable livelihood, health and education. We generally contribute 75 per cent of our CSR budget to ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth (ICICI Foundation) which is involved in CSR activities for the ICICI Group, and the balance is deployed to directly undertake various initiatives to serve the underserved.