Sony Assurance Donates to the Sorabear Foundation in Initiative to Support Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions
March 2, 2009
Sony Assurance Inc., a wholly-owned non-life insurance subsidiary of Sony Financial Holdings, today announced the launch of new social contribution initiatives to start from March 2, 2009 that capitalize on its method of calculating automobile insurance premiums based on the distance driven in a year. Growing steadily along with its number of automobile insurance policies in force, which exceeded one million at the end of 2008, Sony Assurance expresses gratitude towards its stakeholders and aims to contribute to environmental conservation activities as one of its corporate social responsibilities.
Sony Assurance's business serves a motorized society. However, the emission of carbon dioxide by automobiles affects global warming and burdens the environment. Sony Assurance therefore aims to reduce the burden as much as they can. To this end, Sony Assurance has initiated a program to install solar power generators at kindergartens in collaboration with the Sorabear Foundation, a non-profit organization engaged in global warming prevention activities.
Program Outline
Based on the concept of "covering only the distance driven", Sony Assurance's automobile insurance premiums are calculated on the basis of the estimated distance driven in a year forecast by customers when they purchase a new policy. When the policy is renewed, Sony Assurance confirms the actual distances driven during the contracted period and provides a Kurikoshi (carry-over) discount that applies towards the next year's insurance premiums for those drivers whose annual distance driven falls below the forecasted amount.
The program to install solar power generators at kindergartens is linked to the calculation of actual distances driven when renewing policies. Policyholders whose actual distance driven is less than their forecasted, are considered to be contributing to environmental conservation through this reduction in the estimated emission of carbon dioxide. Sony Assurance will further enhance its policyholders' contribution to environmental conservation by donating ¥1 per 100 kilometers of distance not driven to the Sorabear Foundation.
Money raised through Sony Assurance's donations will be used by the Sorabear Foundation to install Sorabear Power Generation Equipments at kindergartens and nursery schools across Japan.
To further promote environmental conservation and social contribution activities, Sony Assurance has created an ecology section on its website (Japanese language only) encouraging further customer participation.
Sony Assurance will continue to differentiate itself through both its products and services and its environmental conservation and corporate social responsibility activities as it aims to achieve a greater presence as a direct insurance provider.
Note: This is an English-language summary of a Japanese announcement made by Sony Assurance on March 2, 2009. The summary was prepared by Sony Financial Holdings Inc. solely for the convenience of non-Japanese readers.
