Insurance company DEVK beats the AML compliance deadline

DEVK beats the compliance deadline

DEVK was founded as a mutual self-help society by railway workers in 1886. In the 1970s it set up a subsidiary offering private insurance to the general public and has become a modern, independent insurance company. Based in Cologne, DEVK is a highly decentralized organization employing 3875 people through 19 regional offices across Germany.

In recent years, life insurance has replaced auto insurance as DEVK’s most important revenue-driver. With some 1.5 million life insurance policies on its books, assets totaling € 7.7 billion and annual premiums totaling € 729 millions, DEVK has a growing share of the German market.

Jürgen Klein has worked for DEVK since 1981 and in 2006 was took charge of the antimoney laundering program, in particular with a view to combating potential terrorist financing. The duty of care on insurers to prevent money laundering changed quite fundamentally when a new law (the Geldwäschebekämpfungsergänzungsgesetz) came into force on 21 August 2008. Klein explains: “Previously, the statutory regulator would say to us, ‘you have to do this, that and the other to comply.’ Now the regulator says, ‘you must fully understand and quantify your own risks.’ That was a huge challenge because it was a completely new way of looking at things for the insurance industry