CSR SPOTLIGHT · 6 min read

Union Assurance Measured Something That No Sri Lankan CSR Program Measures. The Strongest Number Is Not in the Annual Report.

Union Assurance’s Suwamaga program screened more than 23,000 people for diabetes across all 25 districts and commissioned an independent assessment of the subsequent changes. Roughly 3% were diagnosed for the first time. That figure appears in a standalone impact report obtained through a web form — not in the audited annual report that investors read.

By the ESGNexus Editorial Team · August 2026 · Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

KEY TAKEAWAYS Union Assurance is the only Sri Lankan company ESGNexus has found that commissioned a third-party impact assessment of a CSR program, described the instrument, and published a case-finding chain from it. The Suwamaga Impact Report 2025 states that 13% of beneficiaries were referred for HbA1c testing, that 76% of those referred were at diabetes stage, and that approximately 3% of all beneficiaries were diagnosed for the first time. None of those three figures appear in the Annual Report 2025. That report carries 23,000+ beneficiaries, 263 locations, a 52:48 gender ratio, and the single softest figure available — 71% self-reported behavioural change. Rs. 39 Mn is Union Assurance’s company-wide CSR investment for 2025 (AR 2025 p.22), not the Suwamaga budget. No program-level investment figure is disclosed. The outcome the program’s own logic points to — whether the people it detected entered treatment — is not measured in either document. WHO estimates 2.4 million Sri Lankans with diabetes are on no treatment at all.

Approximately 3% of the people Union Assurance screened for diabetes found out they had it. On a base of more than 23,000, that is roughly 700 Sri Lankans who did not know, and now do.

That number is the single most consequential figure ESGNexus has found associated with any corporate community program in Sri Lanka. It is a measured change in the condition of an identified beneficiary — not a count of people reached, liters delivered or labs built. It is also not in Union Assurance’s annual report. It appears in a standalone impact report, launched on 24 November 2025, which the annual report links to via a QR code on page 24 that opens to a page with a form.

This is the first of a weekly ESGNexus CSR Spotlight. The series exists because a sweep of roughly 45 listed and 30 large private Sri Lankan companies found that almost all corporate community reporting in this market is output reporting. What was built, what was delivered, how many were reached. Union Assurance is the exception that shows what the rest of the market could be publishing — and, in the same breath, how easily the best evidence a company holds can end up outside the document that carries its name and its auditor’s signature.

What Suwamaga Is, and What It Has Done

Union Assurance PLC (CSE: UAL) launched Suwamaga on 10 September 2024, built on four stated pillars: diabetes awareness, healthy lifestyles, early detection and risk management, and community engagement. A mobile screening unit followed on 27 November 2024. Screening captures BMI, random or fasting blood sugar, HbA1c where indicated, current health status, and family health history, and is delivered in partnership with the Diabetes Association of Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Health, both of which are named in the company’s media releases and in the 2024 annual report.

The scale of the problem it addresses is not in dispute. WHO estimates Sri Lanka’s age-standardised diabetes prevalence among adults aged 30 and over at 31.2% in 2022, with approximately 4.2 million people living with the disease and 2.4 million of them on no treatment. Union Assurance’s launch material framed the problem using the International Diabetes Federation’s 2021 estimate of 9.8% of adults — a different age base, a different method, and a considerably smaller number. The scope difference is worth naming: it is the gap between a screening program sized for one in ten and a national burden closer to one in three.

Two Documents, One Program, and the Stronger Numbers Are in the Wrong One

Union Assurance publishes Suwamaga results in two places. The comparison is the whole of this piece.

Disclosure	Annual Report 2025	Suwamaga Impact Report 2025
Period covered	Year ended 31 December 2025; the period the Suwamaga figures cover is not stated	June 2024 to August 2025 (15 months)
People reached	23,000+ beneficiaries	23,000+ screened across all 25 districts
Screening locations	263	263
Referred for HbA1c testing	Not stated	13% of beneficiaries
Of those referred, at diabetes stage	Not stated	76%
Newly diagnosed with diabetes	Not stated	Approximately 3% of beneficiaries
Reported behavioural change	71% of beneficiaries	71%
Target and achievement	Not stated	15,000 goal; 155% achieved
Named partners	None named in the Suwamaga disclosure	Diabetes Association of Sri Lanka; Ministry of Health
How a reader obtains it	Published in the annual report	Via a form at unionassurance.com/suwamaga

Source: Union Assurance PLC, Annual Report 2025, pp. 22, 24, 25 — unionassurance.com; Union Assurance PLC, Suwamaga Impact Report 2025, as reported in the company’s media release of 24 November 2025.

The right-hand column is materially stronger than the left. It carries a period, a target against which performance can be judged, a named delivery partner, and a chain of three clinical figures that turn a screening count into a case-finding result. The left-hand column sits inside the integrated report, alongside the financial statements and the independent practitioner’s assurance opinion. Union Assurance obtained limited assurance over selected sustainability indicators in 2025; the Suwamaga metrics are not among the indicators assured.

76% were found to be in the diabetes stage. — Mahen Gunarathna, Chief Marketing Officer, Union Assurance PLC, on the Suwamaga Impact Report 2025

A second, smaller discontinuity is worth noting. The 2024 annual report separated two things: Suwamaga “created awareness amongst 16,000 people and tested over 7,000 people for early detection” (AR 2024, p.25). The 2025 report cites a single undifferentiated figure — 23,000+ beneficiaries. Across the company’s documents, “aware”, “tested”, “screened”, and “beneficiary” are used without definitions, and a reader cannot reconcile their meanings. A one-line definition in the next report would close it.

Reading the Chain: Input, Output, Outcome

ESGNexus assesses every CSR program against four levels. The distinction matters because Sri Lankan reporting rarely climbs past the second, and because conflating the levels lets a large reach number stand in for evidence of effect.

Level	What Suwamaga reports	Assessment
Input — money in	Rs. 39 Mn company-wide CSR investment (AR 2025 p.22)	Partially disclosed. No program-level figure for Suwamaga exists in either document.
Output — what was delivered	23,000+ people screened, 263 locations, all 25 districts, 52:48 female:male	Fully disclosed, and unusually granular on geography and gender.
Intermediate outcome — a measured change in capacity or status	13% referred for HbA1c; 76% of those at diabetes stage; approximately 3% newly diagnosed	Disclosed, and close to unique in this market — but only in the impact report.
Outcome — a measured change in the beneficiary’s condition	71% reported positive behavioural change, on a Survey Research Lanka assessment using computer-aided personal interviews and stratified random sampling	Self-reported, with no control group and no clinical endpoint. Treatment entry among those newly diagnosed is not measured.

Source: Union Assurance PLC, Annual Report 2025, pp. 22, 24, 25; Union Assurance PLC, Suwamaga program page and Impact Report 2025 — unionassurance.com/suwamaga.

Where the Evidence Stops

The 71% is the figure most likely to be quoted and the one that carries the least weight. It is a self-report: beneficiaries were asked whether their behaviour had changed and 71% said it had. The instrument behind it is better than most — Survey Research Lanka conducted computer-aided personal interviews on a stratified random sample across urban, rural and estate strata, which is a real methodology and more than any other Sri Lankan CSR figure ESGNexus has examined carries. But sample size, fieldwork dates and confidence intervals are not published; there is no comparison group, and self-reported behaviour after a health intervention is a well-documented case of respondents reporting what they know they should be doing.

The 3% is the stronger figure and the one the program should be judged on. It rests on a blood test rather than a question. And it is precisely where the disclosure stops. Suwamaga’s stated purpose is early detection and risk management, and its logic runs from detection to treatment: find people who do not know so they can be treated before complications arise. Detection is measured. Treatment entry is not. Against a national picture in which 2.4 million Sri Lankans with diabetes are on no treatment at all, whether those roughly 700 people reached a clinic is the question the program was built to answer.

Two further items limit what an outside reader can check. The impact report is reached through a form rather than an open link. Hence, the underlying document is not available to a researcher, an analyst or a regulator on the same terms as the annual report. And the annual report gives the Suwamaga figures no period label, while the impact report covers fifteen months — so the same 23,000+ appears in a twelve-month report without a stated basis.

What the Next Report Could Add

None of the gaps above requires new fieldwork. Each is a reporting decision, and Union Assurance already holds the data for three of the four.

1. Move the case-finding chain into the annual report. The 13%, the 76%, and the approximately 3% belong in the Social and Relationship Capital section, with the period they cover. They are the strongest evidence the company has, and they currently sit outside the document its auditors touch.

2. Publish the Suwamaga Impact Report as an open PDF. A QR code in an annual report that resolves to a lead-capture form is a weaker disclosure than a link. The report is already written.

3. Add a treatment-entry figure for those newly diagnosed. Even a partial follow-up on a sub-sample — how many of the newly diagnosed reached a clinic within three months — would be the first outcome metric of its kind published by a Sri Lankan company.

4. Define the terms and disclose the program budget. One line separating people made aware from people tested, a prior-year comparison, and a Suwamaga-specific LKR figure would make three years of this program comparable to each other.

Two Questions Union Assurance Could Answer

Both are open. Neither has been put to the company, and neither is answerable from the public record as it stands.

• Access. Will the full Suwamaga Impact Report be made openly available for independent review, rather than through a form?
• Budget. What was the budget for Suwamaga, and how does it relate to the outcomes achieved? Rs. 39 Mn is for company-wide CSR; without a program figure, anyone outside the company cannot calculate the cost of finding a single undiagnosed case.

ESGNexus will track whether the FY2026 annual report, due in the first quarter of 2027, carries any of the four. The CSR Spotlight runs weekly and applies the same four-level test to one program at a time, from the public record. Where a company has published more than the market standard, this series will say so first — as it has here — and then say precisely where the evidence stops.

Sources & Further Reading

Union Assurance PLC, “Annual Report 2025”, March 2026 — unionassurance.com

Union Assurance PLC, “Annual Report 2024 — Folds of Value”, March 2025 — cdn. cse.lk

Union Assurance PLC, “Union Assurance Suwamaga Impact Report 2025 Reveals Eye-Opening Insights About Silent-Killer”, 24 November 2025 — unionassurance.com

Union Assurance PLC, “Union Assurance Unveils Suwamaga Mobile Screening Unit to Combat Diabetes in Sri Lanka”, 29 November 2024 — unionassurance.com

Union Assurance PLC, “Union Assurance launches Suwamaga, setting new standards in enriching community well-being”, September 2024 — unionassurance.com

Union Assurance PLC, Suwamaga program page — unionassurance.com/suwamaga

World Health Organisation Sri Lanka, “World Diabetes Day 2024: Breaking barriers, bridging gaps”, 14 November 2024 — who.int

Newswire, “Union Assurance Suwamaga Brings Free Diabetes Screening to Thousands During Poson Pilgrimage”, 30 June 2026 — newswire.lk

About ESGNexus ESGNexus is Sri Lanka’s independent platform for ESG, CSR, and sustainability intelligence. We track company-level ESG performance, regulatory developments, and sustainability data across Sri Lanka’s listed companies, large unlisted corporates, and state-owned enterprises. All editorial content is independently produced. Sponsored content is clearly labelled.

Data disclaimer: Information in this article is sourced from publicly available documents. ESGNexus does not independently verify company disclosures. Errors and omissions excepted.