Tag Archives: IICF

Insurance Industry

Insurers Respond to COVID-19 (4/24/2020)

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The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF), announced today that it has raised nearly $500,000 in just over 3 weeks through its national fundraising campaign, the COVID-19 Crisis: IICF Children’s Relief Fund.

IICF’s crisis relief campaign enables donors to focus resources on children at risk of food insecurity, educational disruption, family homelessness and other issues exacerbated by COVID-19. With the support of insurance companies, associations and individual industry professionals, funds raised will benefit 14 nonprofit partners operating throughout IICF’s four U.S.-based divisions.

Overall, U.S. insurers and their charitable foundations have donated approximately $220 million in response to the COVID-19 crisis. And well in excess of $100 million has been contributed internationally, according to Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) estimates based on information collected by IICF.

Insurance industry contributions have gone beyond financial donations, as tracked by IICF. These efforts include:

  • More than 400,000 masks donated to frontline healthcare workers
  • An industrywide commitment to deliver more than 1 million meals to families in need
  • Hosting blood drives
  • Purchasing and donating to healthcare workers gift cards from small businesses
  • Offering no-cost life insurance policies to frontline healthcare workers
  • Providing additional time off to volunteer in the community
  • Increased matching of employee donations to local charities

In addition, insurance companies have made commitments not to furlough workers due to the pandemic. And U.S. auto insurers will return more than $10.5 billion to their customers nationwide as part of their COVID-19 response, Triple-I estimates.

To donate to the IICF Children’s Relief Fund, please visit the IICF website and designate the region of the country you’d like to support.

“For more than 25 years IICF has marshaled the philanthropic will and resources of the insurance industry in support of communities. By uniting philanthropically through the industrywide IICF Children’s Relief Fund, we’re able to help children across the country be safer and healthier. “

Bill Ross, CEO, IICF

Donations can also be made directly to IICF here to support the organization on a national level with its mission to help communities in need.

To view a list of insurance organizations that have made philanthropic contributions related to COVID-19 please click here and view IICF Children’s Relief Fund contributors.

Insurance Industry

Insurance Industry Charitable Giving Nears $600 Million Annually, IICF/McKinsey Study Finds

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By Loretta Worters, Vice President, Media Relations, Insurance Information Institute

Millennials – the generation born between 1980 and 2000 – have begun to influence charitable giving.  They prefer to work for companies that are involved in charitable causes, seeking a greater desire to make a social impact through their work, compared with previous generations.  In addition, they tend to share these values on social media.  These are some philanthropic trends in insurance industry Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), identified in “Charitable Giving in the Insurance Industry,” a report by the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF), released in partnership with McKinsey & Company. The report, along with IICF’s 2019 Philanthropic Showcase, highlight each of its Key Partner Company’s charitable endeavors in 2019.

The McKinsey report found that the level of giving has remained consistent, with a focus on education, health and social services, and community. One key factor behind this finding is industry consolidation, which has lowered the number of companies engaged in corporate giving. Insurers are also orienting philanthropy more around volunteerism. As a result, industry-wide giving has held steady between $560 million and $600 million in cash, grants, and other donations since 2015.

In addition to the influence of millennials on the types of charitable engagements companies pursue within their communities, the report offers a glimpse of the industry’s philanthropic commitment and highlights opportunities to expand programs and fuel community engagement. Charitable giving in the insurance industry continues to be an important focus. 

Some of the report’s key findings, based upon responses from property and casualty companies and for the first time since 2011 life insurance and wealth management segments of the industry, include:

• The industry’s desire to work toward a single cause has increased to 33 percent in 2019 from 17 percent in 2015.

• The importance of giving within their own communities was evident as about 30 percent of respondents in 2019 prioritize contributions where employees live and work and where significant business is already done.

• Insurers have shifted their charitable focus toward increased volunteering opportunities, recognizing millennials prefer to work with companies directly involved in charitable efforts and activities, rather than those making only monetary donations.

• Measurement of charitable giving has increased, to 41 percent in 2019 from 26 percent in 2015, as more companies use key performance indicators to evaluate the impact of their philanthropy.

For organizations looking to amplify either the impact of their philanthropic efforts or the range of causes, the findings point to a few key opportunities including planning for greater employee engagement, with a special focus on millennials to further employee-focused giving strategies;  to measure the impact of philanthropy to identify and build on charitable successes and refine metrics and giving standards; to rethink roles across the giving organization as CSR leadership and employee-driven engagement become increasingly common and CEOs continue to set broad direction; and finally to consider the value and benefits of a united, collaborative industry approach to CSR.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Recruiting young workers through a culture of volunteerism

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photo courtesy of State Farm®

Did you know that volunteering your time and expertise can make you happier and healthier? It’s been shown that unpaid work for the good of others enables people to make new friends, learn new skills and experience reduced stress levels.

And it’s not just individuals who benefit. Companies that create a culture of volunteering have better employee morale, workplace atmosphere and brand perception. A Deloitte study found that a large majority (89 percent) of employees think that companies that sponsor volunteer activities offer a better work environment. Volunteer activities were also reported to be more effective at boosting staff morale than company-sponsored happy hours, and more than three-quarters of workers said that volunteering is essential to employee well-being.

The insurance industry is no slouch when it comes to volunteering. The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF) has contributed more than 300,000 volunteer hours to hundreds of community nonprofit organizations since its inception in 1994. The industry gives back to communities in significant and varied ways including pro bono and skills-sharing support to nonprofit organizations, disaster response, relief and recovery, employee-driven outreach in local communities and many other creative corporate social responsibility initiatives.

The industry is also hoping to recruit and retain workers by emphasizing the culture of volunteering. On April 10, the IICF released a white paper documenting the findings of its Millennial Ideas Summit. The summit convened in late 2018 with more than 50 young leaders and emerging talent from across the insurance industry to discuss key topics and challenges facing the industry. These included talent and recruitment of millennials; technology, innovation and change; and social responsibility, particularly the industry’s philanthropic response following natural disasters.

The paper, What Millennials Want, how are we engaging the millennial workforce, concluded that communicating to the younger workforce that insurance is a business of service and one that helps people in their times of need is critically important to millennials, who want opportunities to give back and make a difference through experiences and grassroots ways that help their communities.

April is National Volunteer Month. What is your company doing to promote volunteerism? Let us know in the comments section.