Allianz Malaysia Bhd’s corporate responsibility (CR) initiatives — managed under the Allianz4Good brandname — revolve around building a stable and inclusive society.

“We seek to contribute to building a stronger and a more resilient society by contributing our time, skills and money,” CEO Zakri Mohd Khir explains in its 2016 annual report.

In 2016, employees of Allianz — one of the country’s top insurance companies — dedicated about 2,370 hours to volunteering activities nationwide.

Recognising that risk is an inherent part of its business, Allianz chooses to tap that expertise to focus on five areas in which it thinks it can effect the most meaningful change — safety, financial literacy, disaster risk reduction, environment and community.

For example, in the area of safety, Allianz, a leading motor insurer, is a strong advocate of road safety. Together with its partner, Jabatan Keselamatan Jalan Raya, it runs road safety campaigns where employee volunteers, trained as road safety ambassadors, distribute safety items and advocate safe road behaviour to the public. Such campaigns are held in accident-prone areas, at schools and during festive periods.

Last year, Allianz funded a study by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research to study the impact of behavioural change intervention on the use of high-visibility windbreakers for motorcyclists, and how this affects accident and fatality rates. Over 1,300 motorcyclists from 22 companies nationwide took part in the year-long study.

The results of the study indicated that intervention programmes can improve the wearing rate of high-visibility windbreakers, and this corresponded with a reduction in the accident involvement of study participants. Allianz believes studies such as these help with its decision-making on future initiatives.

Some of Allianz’s most interesting activities are in the area of financial literacy. Last year, it approached the topic of financial literacy in three ways — an employee volunteering programme called My Finance Coach (MFC), a competition for secondary school students under the Allianz Finance Challenge, and carrying out fun learning activities in one of Pintar Foundation’s buses that travel to schools and orphanages.

These three activities enabled Allianz to reach over 31,000 children last year.

Under the MFC programme, which it started in 2012, Allianz volunteers are trained as finance coaches who then visit schools and non-profit organisations to share their knowledge on money matters. MFC ultimately seeks to prevent young people from falling into debt.

As for its activities on the Pintar bus, one of the more fun things it did last year was to sponsor an activity that simulated a shopping aisle, complete with barcodes and a scanner, which challenged students to plan and spend within a specified budget and at the same time, exercise their logical and critical thinking skills to make wise spending decisions.

Meanwhile, as one of its initiatives to serve marginalised communities last year, Allianz delivered over 9,000 pairs of school shoes to children of primary school age from the rural and interior areas of Sabah and Sarawak. Shoes were also given to children, supported by the Partners of Community Organisations in Sabah Trust, a community-based organisation that aids indigenous communities in Sabah.

Allianz is a firm believer that initiatives like these not only benefit the communities it works with, but also serve to engage its employees in meaningful activities that leverage their strength.