GVZ: Significant increase in damage amount
The major fire near Zurich's main train station, as well as the natural hazards "Burglind" and the thunderstorms at the end of May, caused a marked increase in the loss amount to 98.9 million Swiss francs, as GVZ Gebäudeversicherung Kanton Zürich writes about the 2018 financial year.
Compared with the previous year (cf. also GVZ-fiscal year 2017), gross premiums increased by 1.3% to 125.9 million Swiss francs, according to data, and fire protection levies increased to 35.2 million Swiss francs, GVZ writes. The main reason for this increase was the continuing high level of construction activity in the canton of Zurich and the associated increase in insurance capital. As a result of the three major loss events mentioned above, which amounted to more than 65 million francs, the loss total rose to 98.9 million francs. Of this, 55.2 million francs were due to fire damage and 43.7 million francs to natural hazards.
Total result of -34.6 million Swiss francs
The result from investments fell to -22.8 million francs (previous year: 20.8 million francs). GVZ closed the 2018 financial year with an overall result of -34.6 million francs. The increased claims amount and the weaker investment result had a negative impact. The loss will be charged to the reserve fund as part of the profit and loss distribution in 2019. However, GVZ's financial condition remains very solid, he said. "Major events like we had in 2018 and the volatile situation in the capital markets have once again shown how important a strong financial basis is for GVZ. We have sufficient funds to cover the financing needs arising from the loss events," explains Lars Mülli, Director of GVZ.
Constant insurance premium
The total premium of 32 centimes per 1,000 francs of insured value can be kept constant for 2019 and thus continues to be the cheapest building insurance premium in Switzerland, as GVZ points out.
Digitization advanced
Last year, the company made further progress with its strategic digitization projects. Examples include the introduction of a document management system (DMS) as the basis for further digitization projects and the launch of e-recruiting. A milestone was the connection of the building insurance to the geo-information system GIS-ZH of the Canton of Zurich, which enables access to geo-data on specific topics of the Canton of Zurich, such as building areas, road or water networks. In this way, any geographic area in the canton can be accessed and information about spatial conditions can be queried or visualized. The system is used for the visualization of natural hazards or fire department areas of responsibility. Further topics from the GVZ specialist areas are now being prepared for integration into the GIS-ZH.
Committed to training
As a building insurance company, the focus is not only on claims settlement. In addition to consulting and prevention work, the company is also dedicated to training firefighters in the canton of Zurich. Every year, the GVZ would train more than 7,000 members of the fire department and youth fire department in the Andelfingen training center (AZA) in a very realistic exercise environment and prepare them for the demanding firefighting missions.
Source: GVZ, Download the Annual Report 2018
