In the years immediately following World War I, there are initial signs of a return to growth and commercial success, but the stock exchange collapse of 1929 and the resultant economic crisis once again destroy the upward trend. Bankruptcies, mass unemployment and political turmoil lead to the Nazi era.
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1929
Stock market crash and global economic crisis |
After the Nazis' rise to power in January 1933, the German insurance companies fear nationalization, and this fear hangs over them practically until the end of the war in 1945. This makes it easier for the Nazis to use the insurance industry for their own hidden war financing. In the light of this pressure, the companies try to follow the party line. Although AachenerMünchener do not regard themselves as a political companies, like most buisnesses in the "Third Reich" they support the political leadership at official occasions.
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1933 - 1945
Nazi regime
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Under the Nazi dictatorship, Jewish citizens are ostracized, persecuted, imprisoned and murdered with systematic cruelty, and they are also robbed of their insurance claims. The persecution of the Jews causes many to surrender their life insurance policies prematurely. In 1935 the authorities confiscate all remaining movable assets of the Jewish population. Insurance policies held by Jewish customers are terminated by state intervention and the surrender values of life policies impounded by the regime. The pogrom events all over Germany in the night of November 9, 1938, during which thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues are devastated, are declared by the Nazis to be war-like events not covered under the terms of insurance policies. At the same time, however, the insurance companies are instructed to pay to the state the indemnities that would have been due. In 1941, finally, the regime orders all insurance policies of Jewish customers to be terminated mandatorily.
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The Holocaust and the German insurance industry |
As the successor in law of the German Reich, the Federal Republic of Germany has accepted responsibility for the Nazis' expropriations. Since 1953, under the Reparations Act, compensation has been paid on an individual basis for confiscated assets, including life insurance policies.
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1953
Reparations Act |
In 1997 and 1998, in the U.S. survivors of the holocaust and their descendants sue a number of German insurance companies affirming that the companies enriched themselves with the policies of Jewish customers during the "Third Reich". The defendants include Assicurazioni Generali and Aachener und Münchener. As a response to the wave of individual and class-action suits against the insurance industry, and also to requirements imposed on the whole of the industry by the German insurance regulator, the companies that were in business during the Nazi era search their archives for life insurance policies under which benefits may not have been paid to victims.
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Compensation for Holocaust victims
Steles of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin |
In 1998 an international commission is set up to clarify and deal with any outstanding claims from holocaust victims and their heirs, the "International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims" or ICHEIC, also known as the Eagleburger Commission. Its members include not only representatives of the U.S. and Israeli governments but also organizations representing Jewish victims, US insurance commissioners and European insurance companies - including Assicurazioni Generali. In the scope of the ICHEIC activities, the Group undertakes to search for missing policies and to make payments to victims or their surviving dependants in cases where claims are established on the basis of simplified rules of evidence.
After a worldwide call, the ICHEIC receives applications for Compensation under unpaid policies, mainly from life insurance policies. These are passed on for examination to the member companies and, since the end of 2002 to the German insurance industry through the intermediary of the German Insurance Association. The Group's life companies Aachener und Münchener and Volksfürsorge, which due to the Commission membership of Assicurazioni Generali have been involved in this process since the foundation of the ICHEIC, have since then paid compensation in those cases where it is established that the victim had an insurance policy, even if it cannot be proved that the policy has remained unpaid.
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Creation of the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC) |
The victims are paid compensation from the compensation fund managed by the ICHEIC. That fund is part of the foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" set up in 2000 by the German parliament. The Foundation has a fund into which the German Government and the foundation initiative of German business have paid € 2.5 billion each; the German insurance industry has made a contribution of € 275 million. In May 2000 the Generali Deutschland Group becomes one of the first companies in the industry to join the Foundation.
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Federal German Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" |
After the 1945 collapse, AachenerMünchener makes a new start. Before the end of the war, the company headoffice had been transferred to Erfurt for reasons of security and it turns out to be very difficult to bring the documents and funds back to Aachen. Central and Eastern Germany are lost as business territories. Until 1948 the process of economic recovery is painfully slow, but then the currency is reformed and the deutsche mark introduced. This becomes the spark that fires up the German " Wirtschaftswunder" (the economic miracle), which also gives the insurance industry a perceptible boost. 1951 turns out to be the most successful year for AachenerMünchener so far, with a premium income of more than DEM 46 million. The following years bring a genuine boom and by 1956 gross premiums have doubled again.
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1945
End of World War II and a new beginning |
The insurance portfolio of Oldenburger Versicherungs-Gesellschaft is taken over in 1964 and brings the company another step closer to the present-day insurance group. In the early 70s, with the restructuring of the shareholding situation, an insurance and financial services group starts to establish itself in the form today known as Generali Deutschland Group. In 1970 the previous Aachener und Münchener Feuer-Versicherungs-Gesellschaft starts to operate everywhere in Germany (including Bavaria) under the name of "Aachener und Münchener Versicherung AG", which takes into account its broader business range. When the life insurance company Volkshilfe Lebensversicherung is merged into Aachener und Münchener Leben in 1970, the Group is endowed with a strong life insurance company. In the same year, the Group under construction increases its stake in Badenia Bausparkasse thus including building-society business in its activities. A year later it acquires the health insurer Central Krankenversicherung, the oldest health insurer limited by shares in Germany. This completes the Group's range of insurance services. The Group parent is Aachener und Münchener Versicherung AG.
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1970
Aachener und Münchener Group starts to emerge
Cologne headoffice of Central (1935)
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In 1972, Aachener and Münchener takes over the German portfolio of Cosmos Allgemeine Versicherungs-AG, Saarbrücken.
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1972
Take-over of the Cosmos insurance portfolios |
In the wake of the sales success achieved by German and foreign investment companies, the investment approach becomes more and more established in the financial community. With the launch of unit-linked life insurance in the mid-70s, Aachener und Münchener successfully responds to the wishes of many customers who want to participate directly in economic growth. This is not only the beginning of the success story of unit-linked life insurance for the Generali Deutschland Group; today, the Group companies have reached a market share of about 30 percent and are the market leader in this business. This product innovation is also closely linked to the name of Prof. Dr. Reinfried Pohl and the successful distribution partnership between the Generali Deutschland Group and Deutsche Vermögensberatung starting in the mid-70s.
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Product innovation of unit-linked life insurance
Prof. Dr. Reinfried Pohl |
Generali Deutschland
Corporate Bodies
Company Presentation
Company History
1824 to 1860
1870 to 1924
1929 to 1972
1975 to 1995
1997 to 2002
2002 to 2010
Spokesman of the Board of Management / Chief Executive Officers of Generali Deutschland
