26.02.2013
ARAG with New Branch Structure
The Düsseldorf-based insurance group ARAG has successfully completed a cross-border merger of six of its European units. The former subsidiaries in Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia and Spain with a premium volume of 408 million euros were merged into ARAG SE one by one last year and transformed into branches. As in the past, they operate independently in their national markets with due regard to their country specifics.
“We are pursuing a long-term strategy that corresponds to our international corporate reality: this reorganization has reduced the complexity in the group significantly, enabling us to manage our international units more directly and flexibly,” says Dr Paul-Otto Faßbender, Chairman of the Management Board of ARAG SE. “This extremely complex undertaking is true pioneering work because no other German insurance company has yet completed a cross-border merger of six subsidiaries,” he adds.
With this step the ARAG Group has adapted its corporate structure to future challenges and taken its growing internationalisation into account. ARAG already changed its legal form from an AG to an SE, a Societas Europaea, in December 2011, thereby underlining its self-conception as a European company headquartered in Düsseldorf. After more than 50 years of international business, the family-owned group has grown into an internationally successful and versatile quality insurer. It is successfully operating in 14 European countries as well as in the USA and the international legal insurance business is now its largest business segment. Today ARAG SE is one of the most internationalised insurance companies in Germany. Thirty-two percent of its premiums are earned outside Germany.
The international branches also benefit from the changes as they can now position themselves in their domestic markets with the group’s total business volume – 1.5 billion euros respectively 703 million euros from the newly formed ARAG SE (individual financial statement) – and are perceived more directly as part of an internationally successful company. They can also participate more strongly in the planning and strategic processes in the group through the newly established “Group Executive Committee”.
“As an independent family-owned company we stand out for our adaptability, which is one of our strengths. We act pro-actively and have restructured and reoriented ourselves fundamentally since the end of 2010. Our brand, corporate structure and business model do not have much in common with the ARAG of three years ago,” concludes Dr Paul-Otto Faßender.