61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

this transaction, the company secured the support of the Union Bank of
Switzerland which held 10% of the shares for Münchener Rück on a fiduciary
basis. After 1933, Union Rück stood as guarantor for insurance contracts held
by Münchener Rück clients in Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands and Portugal –
whose confidence had been shaken by events – in case political developments
prevented a German company from fulfilling its contractual obligations. In the
late 1930s and during the war, Münchener Rück transferred well over
500 contracts directly to its subsidiary in Switzerland. Shortly before the
outbreak of war in 1939, the shares were transferred via the Union Bank of
Switzerland to Swiss fiduciaries in order to conceal the German ownership of
Union Rück; after 1942, however, the Munich company started to buy back
these titles. During the post-war negotiations, the Allies’ representatives
attempted to persuade the Joint Commission (Commission mixte) set up to
regulate property claims that it should prevent the Union Bank of Switzerland
from taking on a leading role in the new placing of Union Rück shares again.
Business abroad grew between the two wars, thus making insurance companies
one of the few business sectors which – even under the unfavourable conditions
of those years – are an example for the successful activity of Swiss companies
abroad. At the end of the 1930s, there was no other country in the world where
the insurance and reinsurance sector’s foreign business comprised such a major
share of the market compared with domestic business. Foreign business
accounted for around one-quarter of life insurance and 60% of the accident and
property insurance business, with the largest company, Zürich Unfall, regularly
achieving more than 85% of its premiums abroad. Swiss insurance companies
also had a strong position in reinsurance – in the late 1930s, they were responsible
for one-quarter of the global market and conducted 90% of their business
abroad; the same applied to property and transport insurance. In 1939, foreign
operations accounted for around 675 million francs (life insurance: 85 million;
property and accident insurance: 275 million; reinsurance: 315 million) of total
premium revenue, which amounted to 1.1 billion Swiss francs (including around
350 million francs in life insurance and reinsurance respectively, and in excess of
400 million in property and accident insurance). In contrast to the banks, for
which the 1930s were a difficult and unprofitable decade, the Swiss insurance
companies continued to expand.
In the field of life insurance, the German market became increasingly important
after 1933. For the four Swiss life insurers operating in Germany – Basler Leben,
Rentenanstalt, Vita and Winterthur Leben – reichsmark policies accounted for
between 50 and 85% of the total foreign portfolio in 1939 and remained
constant at this level throughout the war years. Swiss companies and shareholdings
maintained a 4.4% share of the German life insurance market between
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