Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to IAG's financial results for the six months ending 31 December 2023. My name is Mark Ley. I'm Head of Investor Relations. This morning we have presentations from our CEO, Nick Hawkins, and our CFO, William McDonnell. We've left aside plenty of time for your questions. If you're watching on the webcast and you'd like to ask a question, the teleconference details are on our website. On that note, I'll hand over to Nick.
Thanks, Mark, and good morning to everybody. So to begin, we're meeting today on the lands of the Gadigal people, and I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. IAG acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognizes their continuing connection to lands, waters, and of course, the communities. Welcome to all of you here in the room with us today, and all of you also on the phones. We know it's a busy day, and we appreciate you taking the time to come along or dial in. I'm joined here today by our new Chief Financial Officer, William McDonnell, who will talk to us all shortly, as well as other members of the leadership team, who are all seated here today in the front row.
Before I start on the financial results, and the key messages that we're gonna be delivering today is that IAG is on track, I'll make some comments about our current environment. At recent results announcements, I've talked a lot about inflation, reinsurance, and perils, and the impact this has had on us and importantly, on our customers. We're well aware that customers are feeling pressures from premium increases. I wanna spend a bit of time talking about how we're responding to that at IAG. Despite the high levels of customer retention, we know it's tough. We offer a promise to our customers to protect them in times of need and pay claims. Of course, we need to be financially strong to deliver on that promise, and paying claims is core to what we do here at IAG.
In the first half of this year alone, we settled more than AUD 6 billion in claims, following another period of severe and damaging weather events. That's 730,000 claims in Australia and New Zealand. This shows how we really do act as a shock absorber for consumers and businesses throughout Australia and New Zealand. We've worked hard to manage the business to help minimize premium increases, but of course, there are some factors that are outside of our control. That's why we're working with government, businesses, and communities to increase community resilience and to help reduce risks. You'll all recall the devastating floods in 2022 that profoundly impacted many of our communities in Australia. The government is rightly looking at that and how the industry, and in fact, the country responded at a House of Representatives Economics Committee inquiry that's underway right now.
You know, we were disappointed to hear about the experience of some of our customers they had with us in the aftermath of those floods, and I acknowledged that when I appeared in front of the inquiry over a week ago, and of course, I apologize to those customers again. You know, we play a critical role in protecting our communities and businesses. So of course, we welcome feedback that helps us improve and making sure we're delivering better customer outcomes. At the time of the floods, we experienced an unprecedented number of weather events, while of course, we were still grappling with COVID impacts to supply chain, skills, and labor shortages. We received 64,000 claims from those events, and over 96% of those claims have been finalized.
Since 2022, we've reviewed the way we prepare for and respond to these large events, and we know, of course, there are areas where we need to improve around claims handling, vulnerable customers, dispute resolution, and of course, how we're communicating. Fixing and improving these really is a top priority for the leadership group of IAG. As an example, within Julie's business in Direct, we've employed extra claims teams, and we've scaled up our partner workforce. We've improved at the way we have oversight of claims to make sure we really are identifying vulnerable customers more of those vulnerable customers, and we've expanded our network of tradespeople in regional areas, so we can access, importantly, skilled labor when we need it at short notice.
We revitalized what we call internally our All Hands on Deck program, so we can scale up at pace. You know, unfortunately, we will continue to face major events in Australia and New Zealand, and it is critical that we have a strong insurance industry, ready and able to support customers and pay claims when that happens. You know, we wanna continue to be able to play this important role for our country. So sort of in that environment, how have we been going here at IAG? And I'll just start with the progress we've made against our strategic priorities over the last six months. Our strategy is focused on our core insurance business to build out a stronger and a more resilient IAG, and of course, importantly, delivering on our purpose to make your world a safer place... as you know, we've got four pillars.
First, they're around growing with our customers. Over the last six months, we have increased numbers of customers in our Australian direct business. We've also continued to see strong retention rates in our direct businesses, both in Australia and New Zealand, even though we have continued to reprice to cover the ongoing impact of inflation and increases in perils and reinsurance costs. These retention rates speak to the high regard our customers have for our brands. And of course, a key factor here is trust. We know our customers and the communities of Australia and New Zealand trust us. We saw further evidence of this last month when NRMA Insurance was named the second overall, second strongest overall brand in the Brand Finance Australia report. And in New Zealand, AMI was Canstar's Car Insurer of the Year for 2023.
During last financial year, we completed 320,000 repair assessments in Australia, more than 70,000 motor repair quality inspections, and over 3,200 property repair quality inspections. Our overall quality score was 97.7%, reflecting the priority we place on delivering safety and quality to our customers. But of course, we're not settling for that. As an organization, our focus is all about the 2.3% of times we did not quite achieve the quality outcomes that we aspire to. We've also seen improvements in our transactional net promoter scores over that, over the half. These increased from 46.8- 49.5 within our Australian businesses, and from 44.9 - 49 in New Zealand. In terms of building better businesses, our intermediated business here in Australia continues to make solid progress.
We set a target of achieving the insurance profit of AUD 250 million by the end of this financial year by reinvigorating our underperforming CGU and WFI part of our company. With Jarrod's leadership and the team focusing on underwriting discipline, we're confident of delivering at least a AUD 250 million-dollar result this year. In terms of creating value through digital, we continue to roll out the Enterprise Platform, delivering a common pricing, policy, and administration system for personal lines products across our Australian and New Zealand businesses. What this does, it fixes 25 years of complexity that's really a result of the history of acquisitions of IAG. Today, we have 600,000 policies on the Enterprise Platform, and over the next 12 months, we plan to renew approximately five million retail and partner personal lines policies onto the platform.
Finally, we're pursuing continuous improvement and integration of our non-financial risk management. We head into 2024 with a strong reinsurance program. As you know, last year we locked in a whole of account quota share arrangements with four of the world's largest reinsurers. Our main CAT program has been renewed, and this will limit the maximum event retention for a first and second event to AUD 236 million for the rest of this calendar year. Our risk approach, along with our strong capital position, has led to Standard & Poor's to upgrade our credit rating in December. This took the issuer credit rating on our main operating entities from double A minus to double A.
The strength of our balance sheet and our capital position means we can announce today an on-market buyback of up to a further AUD 200 million, and so completing this will take our cumulative buybacks of up to AUD 550 million over the last couple of years. We've not adjusted our COVID-19 provision over the last six months, but we will continue to review that. So just some of the headline financials for the half year results. Starting with net profit, which was AUD 407 million for the half. Now, that's slightly lower than the prior corresponding period, although that prior corresponding year period did have a AUD 360 million business interruption provision release. We've delivered a pre-tax profit of,
Sorry, pre-tax insurance profit of AUD 614 million, and that's an underlying and reported margin of 13.7% for the half. The reported margin does show significant improvement, but it is towards the bottom end of our FY 2024 guidance range and reflects the ongoing inflationary impacts and additional reinsurance costs that we continue to earn through. Our top line growth is strong, at 12.5%, and that's consistent with our low double-digit guidance that we provided to the market in August. In addition to the buyback of up to AUD 200 million, we've also declared an interim dividend of AUD 0.10 per share, which is an increase on the AUD 0.06 per share interim dividend that we declared same time last year.
So turning to our divisions, and I'll start with Direct here in Australia, which delivered top-line growth of 13.3%. You know, breaking that down, that's 14% growth in motor and 16% growth in home. A s we've actively repriced those portfolios for the greater perils, reinsurance costs, and of course, inflation. CTP, which is the other part of our portfolio, saw low single-digit growth. Our direct in business was impacted by short-tail claims inflation, particularly affecting prior year perils events, amplified by some late notification of claims. This has been factored into our reserving estimates at 31 December. The underlying insurance profit of AUD 333 million in this business equates to an underlying margin of 15.9%, and that's up 270 basis points on the prior corresponding period.
At a strategic level, Julie and her team have deployed our Earnix pricing engine across the business, and what that does is significantly improve our pricing capability. In the coming months, the majority of this business is expected to be renewing onto the Enterprise platform, allowing us to rapidly deploy and enhance our digital functionality. In our Australian intermediated business, and we know there, the focus has been all about underwriting discipline, is delivering results. Reported an insurance profit for the half of AUD 162 million, and are confident of delivering at least AUD 250 million insurance profit this financial year. Average premium rates are up 8%-12% in our commercial portfolios and around 15% across our personal lines.
Specific underwriting and portfolio management actions have driven, though, a reduction in policies in force, and our overall growth in this business was 5.8%, 5.8%, which was consistent with our expectations of what we'd be delivering. Jarrod and the team have improved attritional losses, but I'll highlight the business has been impacted by some unfavorable large loss experience, which is limited, though, to some single portfolios. On an underlying basis, the 9.5% margin we've delivered continues the positive trajectory, and we expect this to increase based on the team's continued focus on pricing and underwriting discipline. We've also commenced our Commercial Enablement program, which will drive a material uplift in efficiency across the business as that's being delivered over the next couple of years.
We've had a strong performance from New Zealand, and I think this time last year, Cyclone Gabrielle was hitting the North Island, and a state of emergency had been declared. That event, along with the earlier rain bomb that hit Auckland, resulted in us incurring over 52,000 claims, and the gross cost of those claims was over NZD 1 billion. In managing these claims, our teams really have played a critical role in the rebuilding process. In terms of the financials in New Zealand, our top-line growth is over 20% in Aussie dollar terms, and we've delivered a reported margin that's also over 20%, although that margin has been assisted by a relatively benign perils period in the last six months in New Zealand.
Strategically, our business has made great progress as Amanda and her team transform it into a digital first, customer-focused organization. We now have distinct offerings for New Zealanders, with State and AMI offering differentiated value propositions. Both brands have apps that include claims updates, and roadside assistance requests, and tracking. In New Zealand, we've also opened up the eighth Repair Hub site, and the first one, though, that's branded entirely AMI, as we continue to deliver great customer service and of course, importantly, reduced motor repair costs. In terms of our Enterprise platform work, in March this year, State will be our first direct brand to go live in New Zealand, starting with new business for home, contents, and landlord. Then AMI is expected to follow shortly after in the fourth quarter of this financial year.
I'll now hand over to William, who's gonna talk more about our financials.
Thank you, Nick. Good morning, everyone. It's great to be here with you all today, presenting my first set of results. I'll start with the financial summary. At a high level, this shows a solid set of numbers. We've reported good top-line growth, improved margins, and a strong capital position. While the net profit after tax has declined, this is largely due to a one-off in the prior period. In the first half of last year, we recorded the AUD 360 million pre-tax release of the BI provision. When we normalize for this impact, cash earnings has grown strongly, allowing for an improved dividend to shareholders. I'll now focus on the drivers of the underlying result. We've recorded strong GWP growth of 12.5%, in line with our guidance of low double digit, which was largely driven by rate increases.
We've shown previously the relative patterns of GWP growth and GEP growth to highlight how GWP gives a forward indication of earnings that will flow through into our financials from premium rate rises. For the first half, our GEP grew by 10.2%, and GWP remained ahead, giving confidence in benefits to flow in the second half of this financial year. Turning to underlying margin performance. For the first half, we've delivered 13.7%, compared with 10.7% in the first half of last financial year, around the lower end of our guidance range, as we indicated at our AGM last October. This does include the balance of the AUD 65 million of reinsurance reinstatement costs, which were incurred following the New Zealand events early in the 2023 calendar year.
The increased natural perils allowance, after a true-up, which I'll come to, resulted in a 120 basis points drag, while the underlying claims ratio decreased 260 basis points from the elevated level in the first half of financial year 2023. Although we have seen an 80 basis points increase in the expense ratio, largely driven by commission mix, higher levies, and one-off effects, this has been more than offset by higher investment income from improved bond yields. I'll now talk to some of these individual movements in more detail. Delving further into the underlying claims ratio, which excludes all perils, reserving, and discount rate effects. The ratio has declined to 55.6%, an improvement of 260 basis points from the level in the first half of last financial year, which saw elevated claims inflation from a variety of factors.
The underlying claims performance has improved across all three of our operating divisions, while the individual, which has included the benefit of earn through of rate increases. In addition to this, DIA has benefited from expanded network capacity, as well as the decline in secondhand car prices, particularly in Victoria, where a higher proportion of motor policies are on a market value basis. IIA has seen improvement in workers' compensation and professional risk through a combination of active portfolio management and claims initiatives, but there has also been slightly higher large loss experience. New Zealand is still experiencing elevated claims inflation pressures, but there are signs that this has stabilized in recent months. Repair Hub in New Zealand has just opened its eighth site, and for the first half, accounted for 18% of private motor repair volume.
On reinsurance, in January, we provided an update in relation to the placement of our calendar year CAT program. We outlined that we were able to purchase greater reinsurance protection than we originally expected, following a stabilization in global reinsurance markets over the course of 2023. As a result, we purchased an additional drop-down cover, limiting a first event retention to AUD 350 million on a gross basis, and therefore, our maximum event retention for a next event is AUD 236 million after quota share. A reminder that we do also purchase some protection on a financial year basis, including our aggregate cover, which provides AUD 250 million of protection for low to medium-size events.
Following the natural perils experienced during the first half, this aggregate cover deductible has been eroded by around AUD 250 million of the total AUD 600 million deductible. Despite the storm and flood activity that occurred in December, the relatively benign experience over the first few months of the half ensured a perils outcome slightly below our expectations. The additional perils cover we purchased, as I explained on the previous slide, as well as the impact of premiums paid for entering into the Cyclone Reinsurance Pool in October, has resulted in us revising our perils allowance. Truing up for these two factors has resulted in a AUD 49 million reduction to approximately AUD 1.1 billion for the full year, or a AUD 24 million pro rata reduction for the half.
The overall greater availability of reinsurance has effectively improved our financial strength and will lower our earnings volatility. On expenses, gross admin costs have increased 8.6% year-on-year due to the increased spend we are incurring from rolling out the enterprise platform, as well as the commercial enablement initiative across Australia and New Zealand, which will allow us to position the business for the future. Furthermore, we have absorbed additional regulatory costs in relation to a range of initiatives, including inception of the Cyclone Reinsurance Pool and around data safety. In this half result, our admin expense ratio, ex levies, has shown a modest increase of 10 basis points compared to the first half of last financial year.
While our top line has grown strongly, additional one-off reinsurance reinstatement costs have resulted in proportionally lower NEP growth, and adjusting for this, the first half admin expense ratio is flat compared to the same period from last year. Some of the overall spend was weighted to the first half, and we do expect a decrease in the admin ratio in the second half as NEP continues to grow. Longer term, I will be focused on the efficiency of IAG and on reducing the expense ratio further. A key contributor to our margin improvement has been the increase in investment returns. We've achieved a higher underlying yield on technical reserves due to the higher risk-free rates and active manager performance. Based on our recent view of bond yields, we can expect to return in excess of 5% for the second half of the financial year.
Lastly, our shareholders' funds portfolio delivered a strong AUD 147 million contribution this half, with positive performance across growth and defensive assets. This portfolio continues to remain more defensively positioned, with a growth asset weighting of around 24%. Lastly, on capital, we completed our on-market buyback in December, which resulted in a reduction of over 63 million shares in issue. And despite this, we finished the period with a strong capital position. A few other call-outs on the capital waterfall. You'll see the benefit of the first half earnings, partly offset by payment of the final dividend from last financial year. The other large positive factor of 12 points is the decrease in the deferred tax asset balance, arising from utilization of tax losses, as well as an associated tax impact related to the change in APRA treatment on excess technical provisions.
Our investment in technology has continued, however, the capitalized impact has been partially offset by increased associated amortization, leading to a net three points impact. Finally, following our cat reinsurance renewal in January, the insurance concentration risk charge has increased to AUD 343 million, compared to the temporarily lower amount that we itemized at the June 2023 result. Overall, the strong position has allowed us to announce a further on-market buyback of up to AUD 200 million. Assuming completion of this and payment of the AUD 0.10 per share interim dividend, the pro forma capital position is in the middle of our CET1 target ratio. I'm very focused on maintaining a strong balance sheet and regulatory capital position, and note that these were key drivers in S&P recently upgrading its view on our credit rating to double A.
With that, I will now hand back over to Nick.
Hey, thanks, William. And just some final comments from me before we open it up for questions. So you can see today, you know, our key message is that there's a good result, and that importantly, IAG is on track. Our financial guidance for FY 2024 remains unchanged. We continue to expect it to deliver low double-digit premium growth and a reported insurance margin in the order of 13.5%-15.5%. In terms of insurance profit in FY 2024, that's expected to deliver something in the order of AUD 1.2 billion-AUD 1.45 billion. Going forward, our guidance will be increasingly focused on this reported insurance profit as we further transition to the new accounting standard, IFRS 17.
So as you can see, we're focused on delivering against our strategy, about growing with our customers, about building our better businesses, transforming the company's technology platforms, and of course, importantly, managing our risk. So on that note, William and I are happy to take any of your questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your first question comes from Kieren Chidley with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Morning. Morning, guys. Nick, maybe just starting on home and motor, the GWP growth there around 15% i n the half across those classe, j ust looking back, obviously, to the end of 2023 in your slide deck in August, was pointing to pricing in both those classes sort of running at 20%+. And I know there's a bit of disconnect between sort of deductibles and mix impacts. So just wondering if you can break out sort of broadly where pricing is trending from a rate point of view, in both those classes at the moment, as well as inflation.
Yeah, yeah, sure. Hi, Kieren. I mean, essentially, our volumes are pretty flat, so the sort of growth rates that we talked about there, you know, sort of blended 15, you know, that's roughly what's happening with pricing over the last six months across the Australian business. And, you know, home is probably more, you know, higher than high teens and motor, slightly lower. I don't think much has really happened on those portfolios since we talked about it. You know, that sort of pricing positions, to your point, it's across the whole portfolio. There's mix, there's a bit of movement in deductibles. Not that much, though. A couple of % movement only, probably. That's impacted a little bit.
So the themes are the sort of the blended 15, probably slightly lower than that in motor, slightly more than that in home. That's the current pricing environment across our Australian personal lines business. And actually, I mean, it's similar to Jarrod's. We said for Jarrod, the sort of average was about 15. That's probably the same for the partner personal lines as well.
Your expectation is that for that to persist through the second half of 2024? I'm just wondering if you can also talk to sort of inflation.
Yeah.
In both those classes.
I mean, there's a few. I mean, there's, so I'll break them up, if that's all right, because I think there's some slightly different drivers. So, I mean, even though, you know, the reinsurance renewal was better at 1 January than it was 12 months ago, we're still paying more for reinsurance per sort of unit of risk. And so the themes for property are increased costs of reinsurance. We know perils are up, and, you know, the outlook on frequency and severity of large events is sort of up. And so, you know, the driver of home, yes, in addition to that, is inflation, building product supplies.
You know, the outlook is still, you know, there's still, unfortunately, quite a lot of cost still coming through, and so the outlook on pricing will, I think, be similar because of that. I think motor's a little bit different. Less of an impact from reinsurance and perils in the way that the pricing for motor works. And we're definitely seeing, you know, new car or secondhand car, prices are coming down a little bit. And some of the, you know, parts costs, the, I would say, the slowing down of some of the inflationary pressure. The sum of all that over the next sort of six and 12 months, is probably gonna provide, I think, a better outcome for customers and a better outcome, obviously, around pricing.
So a slowing down of some of the increases in motor pricing compared to what's just happened the six months. So I think there's two slightly different stories there. Property, I sort of see similar. Motor, over the next 6-12 months, probably a slight coming back a bit.
All right, thanks. And just a second question on the change in the catastrophe budget. You were always going to go into the Cyclone reinsurance pool, so just surprised the initial budget for 2024 didn't already capture that. So just to be clear on the AUD 50 million reduction there, was that already envisaged within your reported dollar profit, insurance profit guidance you gave at the start of 2024? And also, you know, is there a number we should be thinking about on the reinsurance side, even though sort of the cap budget's come down circa AUD 50 million, presumably there's a reinsurance payment to the government. So just wondering what the net impact from that change is.
Yeah, I mean, I'll answer that. It probably happened before William started. I mean, it's on the first point, I mean, we just assumed, because we weren't sure exactly when we were entering, we kind of just went for the simple option of not including it, and then we've adjusted once we did join. So that's, we've kept it pretty simple. You know, we haven't tried to attribute. Well, I think we went in end of October, so two months versus six months. We sort of just, you can see what we've done. We've just attributed it 50/50 or into the allowance, even in the half-on-half numbers. And, you know, most of that, sort of, approximate AUD 50 million reduction is driven by that a little bit.
You know, we obviously have some benefit in the cat reinsurance purchase, because an element of risk is now moved to the government pool, essentially. You know, sort of quantifying that with in all the other ups and downs is a little difficult. And then, your other question was, the net of all of that story, was that included in our thinking around guidance in the first place for the full financial year? I mean, the answer to that is yes.
All right, thank you.
The next question comes from Siddharth Parameswaran. Please go ahead.
Hi there, gentlemen. Just a couple of questions, if I can. Actually, I missed the first question from Kieren, so I don't know if you'd asked this, but just on the, on the volumes, I think to understand, it seems to me like there has been, some slippage in momentum on volumes in pretty much all the divisions. I was hoping you could just firstly comment on, on your commitment to, you know, to volume growth, at some point in time, whether we will see a, a reversion to that, and maybe if you could just give us some trends on the, on the volumes as well in each of the divisions, so DIA, IIA and New Zealand.
Yeah, sure. Hi, Sid. I mean, we've definitely seen a slowing down in that. And so, you know, we sort of within our New Zealand direct business, we went backwards a little bit in the half. Julie and the team within the direct business in Australia grew it, but thought it was like net 20,000 customer growth. So yeah, to your question, I mean, I think the pricing environment, affordability, there's a lot going on obviously. It's pretty tough for our customers, and so that's definitely slowed down that sort of customer growth over the last six months. I mean, importantly, our retention levels are still pretty high, you know, sort of around 90. So the sort of customer retention is strong, but new business is really quite difficult. If I looked...
And then sort of the third part of that is obviously, so that's New Zealand direct, you know, the Australian direct business, then Jarrod's business definitely has lost volume. And we sort of talked about rate increases of 10%-12%, or 8%-12% in commercial, 15% in personal lines, but the whole package of that story is about 7%-8% growth. And that's because we've lost volume within the, within the intermediated businesses. We're just very focused on underwriting discipline and profitability within, within that part of the company. And then, Sid, I think the last bit was then sort of the aspirations around growth. I mean, we said in June that, you know, obviously the environment is probably tougher than we, when we set some of those aspirations.
New Zealand's had all sorts of challenges that we've had to, as has Australia. And so directionally, you know, we want to be able to grow our company. We know we've got population growth across both Australia and New Zealand. The current economic environment is making that growth quite challenging. Medium term, though, you know, we see opportunities to grow as our, as our countries are growing.
Okay, thank you. And if I could just ask a second question. I think you touched on kind of inflation trends in the answer to the last question, but just, again, just to get your perspective on exactly where you're seeing, you know, the movements in inflation. I think we've had differing views on, particularly motor inflation. I think it was, you said, it was around six or so, six months ago, is your trailing, you know, trailing view, and now I take it, it's higher. I think it's, I mean, it's close to double digit or something. You're flagging, you're expecting it to drop. Just keen to get some, you know, get some views on whether you're actually seeing that in, actually,
I mean, is this, are there any signs of that actually happening? And also just on home, I think you said you're expecting inflation to continue. We've seen it high for a while. Just, we used to get charts showing that trailing number. I don't think I saw it this time. Was just keen to get your perspective on, you know, any hard data you have on what-
Sure.
things you're seeing.
Um.
And sorry, New Zealand as well, where I think you were flagging very high inflation or, you know, worried about very high inflation before. Those seem to have come down.
Yeah, there's a few, there's, like, five questions in that. I said, why don't I go through that slowly? So I think with home, we continue to see inflationary pressure and repair costs. You know, we've got a number of event-led type inflation challenges, too, across Australia and New Zealand. The challenge with home is, if you sort of then go to pricing, we've also got higher reinsurance costs and higher perils allowance and expectations of that continuing up. So that's sort of, you know, that, that feels quite tough, actually. Home, home pricing, driven by that inflationary pressure on reinsurance costs, perils, allowances, our expectations of perils going forward, as well as repair costs, building supply, things like that. So that, so that sort of feels similar going forward. I think motor is, got a few different parts to the story.
Obviously, we've made change, we've made improvements, efficiency, productivity in the way we manage motor repair claims across Australia and New Zealand, so we're definitely getting the benefits of that. We've got, we've got our own businesses that we're increasingly doing more, more of our own repairs, and we're seeing the better financial outcomes from that. At the same time, you know, we have seen inflation, and probably to your comment, you know, we know we said we continue to see inflation probably slightly more than we thought, sort of the beginning of this financial year. That's got better, so we definitely had some, you know, continued motor inflation. It's probably slightly longer than we originally anticipated, although we are seeing it come down a little bit, motor inflation, motor parts, repair costs.
There's unpacking that, you know, it's just sort of the utilization of the network, the efficiency that sort of it is back in the system, parts are sort of becoming more manageable, labor, things like that. Against that, though, there is a structural change that's happening in the motor fleets of Australia and New Zealand. We know that as more of the fleet has more of the collision avoidance technology on it, so that's sort of, you know, churning over the next 10 years or so, that those repairs are more expensive. So that's sort of like a structural change just in the portion of accidents that relate to motor vehicles that have more expensive stuff on the outside of those cars that are more expensive to repair.
The hypothesis that that's the negative, that they're more expensive, and the hypothesis, obviously, that frequency is going to be better because that collision avoidance technology reduces the amount of car accidents. At the moment, maybe for other reasons, that's not evident that's occurring. So there's a bit of a structural change in the motor fleets of Australia and New Zealand, and in fact, all over the world. We're not getting a benefit of frequency, so those average repair costs are going up because of the change of the fleet, and that's sort of in the middle of this story as well. So, you know, I see property outlook in a double digit, motor definitely coming back, and, you know, that sort of that high single digit type inflationary environment over the next couple of years, or sorry, the next 12 months. Leave it at that.
Okay, thank you.
Your next question comes from Nigel Pittaway with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, morning, guys. Sorry, I'm hopping in the sort of same sort of topics, but, but just coming to the home and motor units again, I mean, it looks like you've had sort of flat units in motor, some losses in home, which probably means you've lost market share in both. I mean, how happy are you about that continuing? Because it does seem to run against, as you said, your sort of original aspirations that you sort of set out when you took over as CEO and, you know, is this something that you're happy to let persist on the basis you're getting price above claims inflation, or is that something at some stage that you will be looking to address?
Hi, Nigel. I mean, I would describe it as a very tough environment. We know there are all sorts of challenges with affordability. You know, we know we've had significant change in the cost structure of the company, inflation, reinsurance, perils. You know, we've had a difficult pricing environment to manage our way through. And, you know, sort of, I'd sort of think of it as a point in time. The last six months has been tough. You know, we've definitely had challenges with home, the way you described. Motor, we're probably roughly held. Sort of, it's hard to look at exactly how, you know, has there been a slightly, have some insurance dropped out of the system a little bit in motor?
But, you know, the medium-term view sort of unchanged. That, you know, I, You know, we've got very, very strong retail brands, that our countries have got population growth. Yes, the current economic environment is very tough, but over the medium term, we've got, we've got population growth, we've got wonderful brands, you know, so we should be able to grow our company in line with that. And the same for New Zealand, sorry.
Okay, thanks for that. And then just, a little bit more on, on the motor inflation. I mean, you've said sort of high single digits over the next 12 months, you think it'll come down to that. I mean, are we still talking in that, you know, like, is that sort of a normalization of parts, but labor is still difficult? And, and maybe can you give us a little bit more color about just the components that you think are sort of, running above normal? And, and, you know, is that high single digits over the next 12 months, does that still envisage that after that, it will come down to a more normal level, or are you saying high single digits is, in fact, the new normal?
Yeah, I think unless, Nigel, unless we get frequency benefit. I mean, I think the structural change among all these other challenges that we've been managing our business to, and the impact, that's impacted our customers, the structural change in the fleets of the world is also important. You know, cars are more expensive. Forgetting inflation and other issues, cars are more expensive to repair. New cars are more expensive to repair because of the extensive amount of collision avoidance technology and even windscreen technology, and the cost of repairing that is materially more. And despite lower frequency, so average repair cost goes up, frequency should come down to then impact motor pricing is not occurring at the moment.
Now, you know, logic would be that over time, that should occur, so it's hard. That's why I'm a bit cautious about sort of multi-year forecasts on motor. But at the moment, unless. If we don't have a frequency benefit across the fleets of Australia and New Zealand, then that, the cut what I described in the next 12 months, I think there's a chance will remain. And that, so that's the, that's the question that at IAG, but the insurance industry, motor vehicle industry, and it's happening all over the world, people are pretty focused on this. You know, what does that long-term outlook look like? Unless we have that frequency benefit, you know, these cars are more expensive to repair, newer vehicles.
Okay, thanks for that. And then just, it's probably in the pack somewhere, but I haven't had a chance to look. But just the, I think it was AUD 15 million of long tail releases, where the to offset some of the short tail topics. Were those mostly New South Wales CTP, or?
Hey, Nigel, I'll let William answer that one.
Yes. So, in the long tail, yep, there's a modest net release there. I think particularly, workers' comp, and yeah, but obviously, that's a component in that broader PYD movements that you can see in the pack.
Yeah. Okay, thanks very much.
The next question comes from Julian Braganza with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Just an initial question. I think you may have touched on this earlier, but just wanted to round it out. In terms of the reported margin guidance for FY 2024, and I know it's unchanged, but the comments there just around better perils, better perils budgets, better reinsurance renewal as well, than what you were forecasting. Yields also appear to be holding up, over FY 2024. So I just want to understand there, just given the benefits relative to initial expectations as to when you first put the numbers out, is there any offsets there that you're factoring in or you're cautious about into second half?
I mean, plenty would be what I'd say. You know, we're cautious. I mean, the results we've just delivered, you know, at high 13s for the actual half. You know, our guidance of 13.5%-15.5%, so, you know, we're at the sort of the bottom end of guidance, as I said. Now, we all understand the earn through and the amortization of some of our reinsurance costs and things like that, so we're expecting a better margin in the second half than first half. But we're cautious still. I mean, no, no, no, there's not some big negative that we're worrying about, but, you know, we're running the business in an inflationary environment still. Reinsurance costs do cost more. You know, perils, you know, we continue to have perils.
So I think we're just being cautious with our approach and how we're thinking about guidance. No, there's not some big other negative that we're sort of worrying about within that construct.
Okay, great. Now, thanks for that. And then just on, I mean, putting it all together, just in terms of volumes, pricing, and so just the pressure on volumes, so just at a high level from a pricing strategy perspective, do you think, in terms of your way to sit relative to markets, you've perhaps gone too far in terms of how far you've pushed the pricing lever? And when, given, I guess, the trajectory for improving margins, do you think there's scope now to refocus back more holistically towards volume over the short to medium term? Or is this more a longer dated, sort of view from your perspective?
I mean, we're super focused on sort of the affordability of what we do to the communities of Australia and New Zealand. And you know, we've had significant change in the cost structure of our business, as you know, reinsurance, perils, inflationary pressure. We know that's, you know, that's resulted in higher premiums, and we know that's put more pressure on household budgets, so that's, that's worrying us. So, you know, we're looking at lots of ways to try to ease that, because that's, we know that's difficult and not you know, difficult to sustain. You know, making sure, you know, we've made changes to how we run the business, supply chain, the claims models. We're building, you know, continuing to build out our own repair business, try to take, you know, the lower the cost there of motor vehicle repair costs, as an example.
I do think, and I've said it a few times around motor, the outlook does look slightly better around inflationary pressure. I worry against that about property, because reinsurance costs, perils, increased frequency of severity, events, you know, that outlook's pretty tough. And so I don't think we can walk past that, and that's why stakeholders engaging in those sort of medium-term issues, investment, mitigation, strengthening, and resilience of our country are really important. Because, you know, in a way, we're gonna be the shock absorber until we can see some sort of structural change in our, in our country, and with property. And, you know, we need to make sure we're strong as part of that story.
Okay, great. Thanks for that. And just last question, business interruption provision, just any update on what's holding you back there from making a further release there? Thanks.
Yeah, so the business interruption provision, we've held at the same level, and that is, you know, pending further information. There is a class action. If that gets declassified or anything, then that'll be a key moment for us to review.
We're hoping for that the next six months. So hopefully we can. We'll update you again in August, and we're hoping that'll go through the courts during this period.
Great. Thanks so much for that, guys.
Your next question comes from Andrew Buncombe with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just the first one on the IIA division, please. Its earnings are doing exceptionally well. Do you still think that the above AUD 250 million target is still appropriate for this year? And I suppose further out, how should we be thinking about the targets in this division over the medium term? Thanks.
Hey, thanks, Andreiw. I mean, what we said, at least AUD 250 million, this sort of was our thinking. And I might just come back a moment to say, you know, I set that target before Jarrod had really put together the team and the strategy. It was really a point that this business has not delivered the return profiles we want, and we need to change that. And, you know, we sort of put a number out there of AUD 250 million just to almost galvanize within the company, but externally as well, that this is an important part of the company that we can't have returning not much.
And so, you know, as you can see, we've gone well there, and, you know, that we're confident of AUD 250 million, at least AUD 250 million this year. The key for me is also not just obviously getting to 250, it's delivering a much more sustainable return to IAG and the shareholders of IAG. And that, there, there's still some more lifting that we need to do there. That's why we're investing in this commercial enablement program of work. It's gonna take a couple of years to deliver. But that's gonna create some productivity efficiency within the business, as well as greater connectivity with our broker partners. And, you know, that, that's really the key for me. But not,
Yes, it's nice that we are delivering a much better return, and, you know, we expect to be able to take that forward over the next couple of years anyway. But the medium-term sustainable return profile needs further investment, and that's what we're doing, to really ensure that we get more stable returns for shareholders going forward, and it's not just a sugar hit.
Yeah. And then my second question was in relation to the workers' comp portfolio, which you've called out in the documents as growing. Peers are calling those out for reserve strengthening at the moment. How can you give us confidence that the business you're picking up is priced correctly? Thanks.
Yeah, I mean, I think we've done quite a lot of heavy lifting in that portfolio over the last couple of years and reweighted where we operate. It's predominantly a West Australian book. And we've seen, you know, we're seeing the benefits of that. You know, we've spent quite a lot of time on that portfolio. I know Jarrod and the team have effectively re-underwritten a lot of it, and I feel like we're getting the results of that. You know, it takes a few years, though. And I mean, I'm confident we're not-
Right.
Sorry, just to answer that last bit, we're, I'm confident we're not growing into problems, if that's the question.
Great, that's it from me. Thank you.
The next question comes from Andrei Stadnik with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning. My first question, and I apologize, it is around personal lines. But am I reading correctly that this time around, the retentions in Australian direct motor and home are around 90%, 90? And that the FY 2023 result, the comment was that they were around 90%-95%. So is that fair to say that retentions have reduced?
Yeah, a little bit, mate. Yeah, retentions have come back. I mean, we're feeling the pressure of affordability that our customers are experiencing on retentions a little bit. I mean, but I'd sort of slightly flip it the other way around, is we're still maintaining very high retention rates. Of course, the point you're raising is important to us, that we don't wanna see continued slippage in that. But, you know, we also recognize it's been a very challenging environment around, across Australia and New Zealand.
Thank you. A kind of related question. Like, you know, what steps are you taking to help customers, you know, manage affordability in personal lines? You know, like, I think previously you've hinted around, you know, changes to excess amounts or deductibles. Like, what are you seeing, you know, customers do? And are you trying to be proactive in helping them to manage just the, you know, the price sticker shock?
Yeah, I mean, we are. You know, we're encouraging movements in excesses, but to be careful with that, that people don't take on deductibles, that they put them also in a challenging financial environment in the moment of a claim. But yes, we are definitely doing that. We're encouraging installment payments versus sort of six monthly or annual premiums, and we have a sort of package of, you know, things that are available, to customers if they're, when they're feeling under pressure. And also, of course, the bigger issue is, you know, how we're running our company, how we can continue to look for opportunities to actually run more efficiently, claims costs, supply chain, purchasing reinsurance, things like that, that can
You know how we're running the cost base of the company to sort of give some relief to those premium rates. Because we know it's very tough. And we know that we're creating a challenge for our customers and what's happening with pricing, and that's really center of focus for us and the leadership group: how can we help ease some of that?
Thank you.
The next question comes from Brett Le Mesurier with Perpetual. Please go ahead.
Thanks. William mentioned the reinstatement costs of AUD 65 million for the reinsurance in respect of New Zealand that you incurred in the last half. That doesn't recur this half, does it?
Correct. Yeah, that's the completion of the reinstatement cost in respect of the New Zealand events a year ago.
That's about 1.5% of NEP, right? You know, group NEP.
Yeah.
And so you're really starting this half with an insurance margin of slightly over 15%. That's correct, isn't it?
Uh, yeah.
On an underlying basis.
Yeah.
Sorry, sorry, Nick.
Oh, Brett, I would say, I mean, we've just renewed the main cap program on 1 January, and so we are, you know, we are even though, yes, I mean, I said this at the beginning, that the renewal was, I don't know, the word is better, but we definitely paid more for reinsurance 1 January 2024 than we did, where we were on 1 January 2023. So there's a bit of, I hear your point. We sort of add a portion because of the no longer paying for the backup. We do have a new program that we are paying slightly more for, so that does come against what you said around that starting position.
You must be pretty close to your aspirational target already of the 15% margin.
I mean, we're trying to, you know, as you know, the settings of the company, we've sort of said 13%-14% ROE, 15% margin over time. You know, we haven't been running the company like that, as you know. And we've had a number of challenges that we've been working through, but we definitely feel more positive today than we did six, 12, 18 months ago.
I would just add that, I mean, we did have a benefit in the margin in the first half of the year from investment result, and we, while we expect that, the investment result in the second half would be, you know, 5% or maybe a little bit more, you know, that, that level we expect may come down a bit from the first half. So that, you know, there's other things moving around.
Okay, great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Anthony Hoo with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi, sorry, can you hear me?
Yeah, mate. Got it.
Hey, so thanks. Just quick one. Just in terms of capital or shareholder returns, you know, you're, you're announcing a buyback today, but your dividend payout ratio of 59%, just below your normal 60%-80% range. Just wondering if you can comment around, you know, what does it indicate about your intended payout ratio on an ongoing basis looking forward?
Our guidance on our dividend, I mean, it stays same, 60%-80% on a full year basis and, you know, AUD 0.10 in the first half. We'll true up when we get to the year end.
Yeah, I don't think that there's. I think we should be clear. There's, there's no change in dividend policy. You know, you know, we're sort of 60%-80% and then capital in excess of that range. You know, the preferred return to shareholders is through a on-market buyback, and that's what. That's sort of the, the, the capital model which we're operating to, and there's no change in that.
Yeah. Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time.
All right. So, I mean, we'll just leave you with the messages that, I mean, we feel pretty good with the strong set of results for the first half. But importantly, you know, we feel like the company's on track in delivering against the plans that we've set out over the last couple of years. So thank you again for attending both in person here in the room, as well as online. I know it's a busy day and appreciate the time. Thank you very much.