HDI earns award as “Brand of the Century”

Florian Langenscheidt, initiator of the award “Brand of the Century”, describes the HDI brand in his appraisal as “one of the outstanding insurance brands in Germany during this century”. He continued by saying that HDI had succeeded in writing a history of partnership with German industry, which made the insurance group one of Germany’s most prominent brand ambassadors. HDI was currently ranked among a series of companies like Ritter-Sport, Miele, Bosch, Siemens and others. All these brands represented the highest possible quality aspirations and were really formative in their category. That’s why the companies with their brands in global markets had such a lot of business success over the long term. The reason: “Quality never goes out of style,” emphasised Langenscheidt.

“We’re delighted to have been awarded the accolade of being the ‘Brand of the Century’, and to rank with other prestigious and familiar German companies,” commented Torsten Leue, Chairman of the Board of Management of Talanx AG, which the insurers of the HDI Group belong to. “We are well aware of our long heritage and our high brand value. This value has been built up since the company’s foundation in 1903 based on decades of hard work. Generations of HDI employees have transformed the Haftpflichtverband der Deutschen Industrie (Liability Association of German Industry) – a mutual insurance company – into a world-ranking insurance group. This is our motivation and part of our daily function,” commented Leue. He continued by saying that this was also the hallmark of the HDI brand promise: We transform the world into a place full of opportunities for our customers and partners.

Three divisions are grouped under the HDI brand within the Talanx Group: Industrial Lines (as HDI Global), Retail Germany (as HDI Versicherung and HDI Lebensversicherung) and Retail International (e.g. as HDI Assicurazioni in Italy and as HDI Seguros in Argentina and Brazil). Industrial insurance is the nucleus of the HDI Group. It was founded in 1903 as “Haftpflichtverband der deutschen Eisen- und Stahlindustrie” (Liability association of the German Iron and Steel Industry). Later, the Versicherungsverein auf Gegenseitigkeit (VVaG, mutual insurance company) changed its name to “Haftpflichtverband der deutschen Industrie” (Liability Association of German Industry), abbreviated to: HDI. Since the establishment in 1903, the main purpose has consistently been provision of high-quality insurance solutions for German industry.

When HDI was reorganised, the insurer entered retail customer business in 1953, and since 1966 a reinsurer, Hannover Re, has also been part of the Talanx Group. Today, the Group ranks among the three biggest insurance groups in Germany. In Europe, it numbers among the top 10. Together with all the subsidiary and peer companies, it employs approximately 23,000 people worldwide, around half of them in Germany. In 2020, gross premium volume amounted to around EUR 41 billion.