Utmost Life and Pensions is committed to making a positive difference. Our responsibility to our customers combines with a sense of responsibility in our corporate actions to the environment, to our employees and to the wider society in which we operate in order to maximise the positive impacts we can create. As well as being an overall positive for society, this also makes business sense in keeping with our long-term vision.
Our sustainability strategy is defined along four pillars, which are underpinned by policies and targets across the Utmost Group, recognising that sustainable business encompasses a range of topics.
An important aspect is in providing good customer outcomes. We seek to communicate transparently with our customers, provide good customer service and our proposition is continually assessed to deliver good outcomes.
We recognise the importance of our role as a long-term allocator of capital. Responsible investing is a key issue facing our industry and wider society, and an important factor when allocating funds. Utmost Group and Utmost Life and Pensions takes its responsibility seriously and are committed to taking an active approach to responsible investing.
Read more details about our approach to sustainability under each key pillar.
Utmost Life and Pensions is part of the wider Utmost Group, founded on the belief that all stakeholders are better served as part of an active and growing franchise. The provision of good customer outcomes is front and centre of our strategy. Our overall purpose is to build a brighter future for our customers and better serve all stakeholders.
Utmost Life and Pensions is built upon the combined strengths of trusted sector expertise, secure financial foundations and commitment to customer focus, and is here to help every policyholder in our care achieve future peace of mind with their life and pension policies.
In order to support our mission of providing good customer outcomes, Utmost Life and Pensions:
Projected population ageing in our society has far-reaching implications including an increased requirement for individuals to provide for their own retirement. Our business is particularly sensitive to the needs and consequences of an ageing population and our solutions help support policyholders planning for their retirement.
Our responsibility to our customers stretches throughout their lifetime. The provision of good customer outcomes is front and centre of our culture. We look to provide good customer service at every stage of the customer journey. Customer Service is performed in-house so that we can maintain our high standards and controls and focus on maintaining customer service excellence.
Our employees are committed to providing excellent levels of service through clear communications and are appropriately trained and engaged to support our customers. The demographics of our client base mean it is imperative that our staff are trained and able to deal with customers whose situation makes them vulnerable and ensure they are treated with empathy.
Utmost Life and Pensions aims to make a positive difference to our employees, our customers and our communities.
Our employees are core to the success of the Company, both individually and collectively. It is an important priority of Utmost Life and Pensions that our employees enjoy a diverse and vibrant work environment.
An important focus is embedding our culture and values across our business. We want each employee to embrace our value of collaboration to make a positive difference, approaching their work with a motivated attitude. We want to create an environment where our people can achieve their aspirations and reach their full potential.
It is important we are viewed as an attractive place to work and sustain an environment where we can continue to attract and retain the best talent. Our HR team actively encourages internal mobility of our existing employees to offer career opportunities which enhance their skills and experience, as well as external hiring to enrich our skillset and provide fresh perspectives.
Our culture values difference and looks to our employees to embody our ethos of making a positive impact. We are committed to a policy of equal opportunity for our employees and continue to select, recruit, train and promote the best candidates based on suitability for the role.
We treat all employees and applicants equally and recognise people from every background and experience bring valuable insights to the workplace and enhance our organisation. Discrimination has no place at Utmost Life and Pensions and we engage with our employees, our partners and our local communities to promote equality and inclusivity.
Utmost Life and Pensions believes it should have a positive impact not only on the lives of its employees, but also on the communities in which it operates. Local initiatives include fundraising events for local charities selected by local staff, donation matching schemes and the availability of community support leave to help local organisations.
The Utmost Challenge is an exciting part of Utmost Group’s community engagement programme. The Group has set up the Utmost Challenge to support its employees’ charitable giving, helping engage with, and contribute towards local communities. Employees can apply for a donation to their chosen charity. To be selected for a donation, the employee must complete an outstanding challenge. The challenges which are selected are highly notable and have a significant “wow” factor i.e. the “utmost” achievement in their field.
Utmost Life and Pensions has a responsibility to reduce its environmental impact and to protect the environment. Our business and our employees take this responsibility seriously.
As an insurance business, our direct environmental impact is lower than other industries. Nonetheless, we are committed to reducing and minimising the environmental impact of our operations and embedding a sustainable mind set into our corporate philosophy.
Our business has delivered various initiatives in order to lower the carbon footprint of our offices. Utmost Group, are also actively taking steps to reduce the initial carbon footprint, as well as supporting carbon reduction programmes.
Within our supply chain, we look to work with select organisations which operate in line with our corporate philosophy and help us deliver our long-term vision. We encourage use of recycled materials and look to evaluate the environmental impact of any products we source as well as considering how they are disposed of in order to reduce our environmental impact.
We continue to take committed action to reduce our environmental impact. As the business develops, we continue to identify ways to deliver efficiencies and reduce our impact further. Across the Utmost Group, through carbon reduction and offsets the operational emissions footprint is now carbon neutral.
Utmost Life and Pensions recognise the importance of our role as a long-term allocator of capital, and we consider Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors as part of our investment activity. Sustainable investing is a key issue for our industry and an important factor when allocating funds. Utmost Group is a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment and the asset managers we use must also be signatories to these Principles.
Utmost Life and Pensions are taking an active approach to responsible investing. The Utmost Group Responsible Investment policy sets out our commitments and is the cornerstone of our commitment to be net zero by 2050 in our shareholders assets, as measured by carbon intensity. This commitment is aligned with a maximum temperature rise of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels as outlined in the Paris Agreement.
Our policyholder funds that have worldwide or specific geographical focus may hold assets where aims for net zero carbon emissions are different to the shareholder assets. Responsible investing is a rapidly evolving area with measures, customer and societal expectations changing over time. Our strategic approach to investing will be regularly reviewed in line with the Utmost Group's sustainability strategy.
