Münchener Rück

Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft Aktiengesellschaft in Munich

Company type	Aktiengesellschaft
Industry	Reinsurance; Insurance; Asset management
Founded	3 April 1880
Key people	Joachim Wenning (Chairman of the Board); Thomas Blunck; Nicholas Gartside; Stefan Golling; Michael Kerner; Christoph Jurecka; Achim Kassow; Clarisse Kopff; Mari-Lizette Malherbe; Markus Rieß Nikolaus von Bomhard (Chairman of the Supervisory Board)
Revenue	60.8 billion EUR (2024)
Number of employees	43,584 (as of 31 December 2024)
Website	www.munichre.com

The Münchener Rück in Munich (short: Münchener Rück) is a German reinsurance company headquartered in Munich that operates worldwide. Since 2009, the company has operated under the brand Munich Re. It is considered the largest reinsurer in the world. The group also includes the Ergo Group, which conducts primary insurance business.

The company’s shares are traded on all German stock exchanges and on the Xetra electronic trading system. They are included in the DAX, DivDAX, and the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 indices.

In the 2022 financial year, Münchener Rück recorded gross premiums written of €67.1 billion and a group net profit of €3.4 billion. Of the group’s 41,389 employees, approximately 25,500 work at the Ergo Group and 13,800 in the reinsurance division. The asset manager MEAG employs 850 staff members.

Main building

The main building at Königinstraße 107 was constructed in 1912–13 based on designs by architects Oswald Eduard Bieber and Wilhelm Hollweck. Its entrance courtyard, framed by Ionic columns, and the elaborate interior decoration were intended to reflect the company’s stature. Since 1973, the building—characterized by Art Nouveau and Neoclassical elements—has been listed as a historic monument.

History

In 1880, Carl von Thieme, who since 1870 had served as Bavarian general agent for the Thuringia insurance company where his father was director, founded Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft with the help of industrialist and financier Theodor von Cramer-Klett and his associates—particularly Wilhelm von Finck (co-owner of Merck Finck & Co.) and Hermann Pemsel (since 1872 general representative of Cramer-Klett)—as well as the Darmstädter Bank for Trade and Industry. In 1890, the Allianz-Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft (Allianz AG) was established. Carl von Thieme led Münchener Rück until 1921, and Wilhelm von Finck served as chairman of the supervisory board until 1924.

Münchener Rück gained notoriety after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, as it was the only insurer still solvent after settling all claims.

During the National Socialist era, Münchener Rück indirectly profited from the persecution of Jewish customers who were forced to surrender life insurance policies prematurely at a financial loss and to sell real estate below market value. From 1940 onward, the company also participated in insurance agreements for the SS operations of Allianz, covering barracks and facilities in seven concentration and extermination camps. Board member Kurt Schmitt joined the SS and the Nazi Party in 1933 and served briefly as Reich Economics Minister in Hitler’s cabinet. From 1938 until the end of World War II, Schmitt was chairman of the board of Münchener Rück. The other four board members at war’s end were not members of the Nazi Party.

In the 1970s, Gerhard Berz founded the “elementary hazards” division—later renamed GeoRiskResearch—which earned a reputation as a world-leading institute for georisk research in the insurance industry.

Since 2002, Münchener Rück has held a stake in Extremus Versicherung, a German specialist insurer for large losses resulting from terrorism.

Since 2009, the company has operated under the brand Munich Re. The “Re” in the name is an abbreviation for reinsurance.

In September 2018, Münchener Rück acquired the Berlin IoT sensor startup Relayr for USD 300 million.

In January 2019, Münchener Rück and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) announced that Münchener Rück had acquired a stake in DFKI. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Group overview

The Münchener Rück group is active in reinsurance and, through the Ergo Group, in primary insurance. In addition, Munich Re’s asset manager MEAG (Munich Ergo Assetmanagement GmbH) manages a large portion of the group’s investments as well as the assets of private and institutional investors.

Reinsurance division

Münchener Rück assumes parts of the risk for about 4,000 different insurers worldwide and advises them on insurance matters. In addition to its headquarters in Munich, the company operates more than 50 branch offices. Its reinsurance covers life, health, liability, personal accident, motor, transport/aviation/aerospace, fire, and engineering insurance. In 2020, gross premiums written in the reinsurance division amounted to approximately €37.3 billion (2016: €31.5 billion).

Some primary insurance companies are grouped under the reinsurance division, particularly specialty insurers. These fall under the newly created “Global Specialty Insurance” board division as of early 2023 and include American Modern Insurance Group (AMIG), Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company (HSB), Munich Re Specialty Insurance, Munich Re Syndicate and Aerospace, and Great Lakes Insurance (GLISE).

Ergo Group

The Ergo Group offers primary insurance products in all lines of life and health insurance, as well as most lines of property and casualty insurance. Ergo operates in more than 30 countries and serves around 35 million customers. The Ergo Group includes subsidiaries such as D.A.S., DKV Deutsche Krankenversicherung, ERGO Reiseversicherung, and the financial sales organization Ergo Pro. With gross premiums written of approximately €17.6 billion (2016: €17.4 billion), Ergo Group was one of the major primary insurers in Germany and Europe in 2020.

MEAG

In 1999, Münchener Rück and the Ergo Group founded the asset manager Munich Ergo Assetmanagement GmbH (MEAG). MEAG manages assets totaling €336 billion worldwide.

Shares and shareholders

The company’s share capital is composed of approximately 136 million no-par-value registered shares. Free float accounts for 100 percent. The number of shareholders registered in the share register totals 341,000 (as of 31 December 2024). Private investors hold 24.1 percent of share capital and institutional investors hold 75.9 percent. After doubling over ten years from 2010 (10.5 percent), the private-investor portion has stabilized above 20 percent.

The shareholding structure as of 11 April 2025 is:

Shareholding	Shareholder
6.18 %	BlackRock
93.82 %	Remaining free float

The geographic distribution of shareholders is: Germany (43.6 percent), the rest of continental Europe (18.2 percent), North America (20.5 percent), and the United Kingdom (17 percent).

Dividend policy

Münchener Rück is known as one of the most reliable dividend payers among publicly listed German companies. The company states its intention to increase the dividend annually, or at least maintain it at the previous year’s level. In fact, since 1970, Münchener Rück has never reduced or suspended its dividend distribution. Even in years with profit declines, the dividend has been kept constant compared to the previous year. Over the past ten years, the payout was raised eight times and kept constant twice. Due to consistently high dividend yields, Münchener Rück’s share has been included in the DivDAX since September 2005.

Literature

• Johannes Bähr, Christopher Kopper: Munich Re. Die Geschichte der Münchener Rück 1880–1980. C.H. Beck, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-68361-9.
• Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft (ed.): Talking Images. Munich Re Art Collection. Munich 2012.
• Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft (ed.): Münchener Rück. Bauen und Gestalten. Munich 1993.

External links

• Offizielle Website der Munich Re
• Template:Pressemappe