Focus: Digital Responsibility

Digitalisation is accelerating across the re/insurance value chain. This is creating substantial benefits for end-users and is helping to close protection gaps. Not only does digitalisation make insurance more affordable by enabling efficiency gains, it also makes insurance more relevant to end users by facilitating the use of data-driven personalisation services and granular/predictive risk knowledge. We therefore consider it important to actively promote digitalisation. This includes the use of responsible algorithms in a world where (almost) real-time data is becoming more widespread. However, the use of artificial intelligence and digital personal data also raises concerns about fairness, inclusion, hardship, solidarity and data security.

In light of these concerns, various regulators around the world have started to evaluate the need for regulations on the topic of big data and digital responsibility or have issued initial guidelines. Digital governance requirements have recently been increasing in both number and complexity. Fragmentation of digital governance requirements has resulted in uncoordinated governance approaches, making it difficult for owners of digital services to navigate and reconcile the various requirements that are in place.

We are actively engaging with authorities to co-develop frameworks for digital responsibility. For example, Swiss Re is one of two pioneers to have a digital product tested and successfully certified by the Digital Trust Label, the world's first-ever label for digital responsibility. Launched in early 2022 by the Swiss Digital Initiative, the label enables users to easily identify trustworthy digital services. Swiss Re has successfully certified Magnum Go, an automated life and health underwriting solution, with this label.

Moreover, Swiss Re is working with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and other partners in the Veritas Consortium to create a framework for financial institutions to promote the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence and data analytics (AIDA). This aspirational framework enables financial institutions to evaluate their AIDA-driven solutions against the principles of fairness, ethics, accountability and transparency that MAS defined in 2018.
We led the Veritas Consortium to enhance the fairness assessment methodology in 2021, resulting in several whitepapers, and illustrated its application in predictive underwriting to cross-sell life and health insurance products for the Singapore market.

In 2021, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) published a report by its consultative expert group on digital ethics, setting out governance principles for the ethical and trustworthy use of artificial intelligence in the European re/insurance sector. The report builds on recent international and EU developments and considers the challenges created by the emergence of new technologies when seeking to maintain the principle of fairness. EIOPA convened the consultative expert group in 2019 to identify the opportunities and risks associated with the growing use of AI in re/insurance. A Swiss Re representative chaired the workstream on fairness and non-discrimination.

We will continue to actively engage with external stakeholders to advance frameworks for digital responsibility. Furthermore, we treat digital responsibility as a priority focus area for Swiss Re as we strengthen our responsibility practices in line with our digitalisation efforts. For example, we have started to develop our own digital principles to ensure that we harness the benefits of digitalisation while maintaining customers’ trust, differentiating our services and safeguarding our reputation as a leading re/insurer. In addition, we have a well-established Digital Governance Framework (DGF), which aims to balance the need for fast business innovation with effective risk management, and positions governance as a fundamental pillar of digitalisation.