Well, good morning everyone, and welcome to our First Half Financial Results Presentation. I'm joined here today by our Chief Financial Officer, William McDonnell, and members of the group leadership team of IAG. We're holding this briefing in IAG Sydney offices on the lands of the Gadigal people. We acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, and we recognize their continuing connections to lands, waters, and their communities. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. My key call-outs this half are the resilience of our business and our confidence for the future. The headline profit is a strong outcome and demonstrates our underwriting discipline and ability to absorb the seasonal weather impacts that we've experienced, of course, while putting our purpose into action.
Our own growth outcomes were good across the majority of our portfolios, particularly in retail, where the underlying growth across Australia and New Zealand is around 4%. We've maintained our focus on pricing discipline, and this is delivering results. Our strong, stable earnings funded the RACQ acquisition from organic capital generation, and we're in a position to announce an on-market share buyback today of up to AUD 200 million. The outlook is strong. We're forecasting top-line growth in high single digits and maintaining our FY 2026 reported insurance profit and margin guidance, despite the severe weather that Australia's experienced. When it comes to supporting our customers, the experience measures in our much-loved brands are strong, and our retention rates continue to remain really high.
Over the half and continuing into this calendar year, we've seen hailstorms, bushfires, flooding across Australia, as well as terrible landslide in New Zealand, and I've spent time visiting impacted customers and communities. Of course, as always, I'm incredibly proud of our frontline teams and the role they play in supporting rebuilding efforts. Of course, this reinforces the critical role that we play as a shock absorber in Australia and New Zealand, while also playing a leadership role in advocating for risk reduction, ensuring a sustainable and insurable future for Australia and New Zealand. I mean, this slide is important. It really highlights the strategy of IAG in action. It demonstrates the quality of us and the success in delivering a more stable earnings profile, which is much less at the mercy of weather.
The last six months have shown the strength of our model in a period that has tested the entire industry. Our proactive strategy to manage perils risk and maintain underwriting discipline is delivering clear results. We also attribute our success to the world-class customer franchises and leading brands, which we've now supplemented with RACQ, and to the operational improvements we have made right across our businesses. We've transformed our commercial businesses, and they're delivering valuable contribution. In Australia, this is well above the original AUD 250 million target that we set. Our sophisticated reinsurance program provides a significant strategic advantage and materially improves the group's earning profile. Combined, these factors create much greater certainty around our future earnings in a world where there's increasing demand for the protection that we provide. Now, turning to growth.
Our retail businesses in Australia and New Zealand are delivering, with solid underlying growth of around about 4% for the half, complemented by the strong margins they've delivered. In addition, we've strengthened our business with the RACQ acquisition, which contributed a 6% growth this half and will deliver around about 9% growth in the second half. Our commercial businesses, particularly in New Zealand, have some challenging market dynamics, and we've also seen the impact of a weak New Zealand dollar in the results. Our Australian commercial business delivered solid underlying growth of around 3.5%, and it benefits from the WFI rural business and greater focus on SME. So as our business in Australia here is less exposed to the global capital that is impacting corporate insurance markets around the world.
Going forward, we'll maintain our vigilance on pricing and underwriting disciplines, ensuring we can continue to deliver strong and sustainable profits. In relation to our margins, we're in a strong position coming into the result, and we continue the positive momentum over the last six months. Pricing capability, underwriting disciplines, and claim supply chain initiatives are driving and improving our claims ratios across IAG. Our comprehensive reinsurance arrangements supported the margin by keeping the perils allowance relatively stable and delivering an increase in profit commissions. Disciplined cost management is providing a material benefit through an improved expense ratio. These sustainable and ongoing underlying benefits have offset the temporary reduction in investment returns and some one-off impacts from RACQ in the half.
As we head into the second half of the year, investment yields have rebounded strongly, and the RACQ portfolio is now protected by our comprehensive reinsurance arrangements, delivering the targeted synergies. If I sort of turn now into the divisions, I'll start with our Australian retail business, which has delivered top-line growth of 14.4%, which does include four months of RACQ, building on underlying growth of that business of around 4%. Within all of that, the underlying growth is around 7% in our home portfolio, where we've been growing both customers and policy numbers ahead of system. So we've taken a little bit of share across Australia. Underlying growth is lower in motor at around about 1.5%. And with here, we chose to maintain discipline when pricing new business in the highly competitive market, particularly here in New South Wales.
But importantly, our retention in our motor book continues to remain really strong. That said, we have responded to some of the competitive challenges. The changes we've made in the last quarter within our New South Wales business are improving new business volumes, and we're seeing that occur in January, and in fact, in the weeks of February already. Our Australian retail business continues to generate strong financial results and high levels of customer trust. Before RACQ, the retail business delivered an insurance margin of 14.7% and an underlying margin that's actually increased half on half from 15.2%-1 5.9%.
When we incorporate RACQ into that, the Queensland weather events are affecting the headline and the underlying result, with a reported margin for retail of 7.4% and underlying of 13.4%. RACQ's integration is on track, and all the costs associated with that are reflected above the line result, in the above the line result. And we're well protected, as I mentioned before, from our comprehensive program from 1 January. Beyond the financials, Julie and the team are ensuring our Australian retail business remains set up for success. Key customer metrics, such as tNPS, have improved further from our already strong starting point. And NRMA Insurance has again been rated the most trusted insurance brand by Roy Morgan and continues to climb in ratings by brand strength and brand value.
NRMA Insurance continues to support climate resilience through the establishment of the NRMA Insurance Help Fund, and will continue to position NRMA as a leading help company as we attract new customers in 2026. Turning to our New Zealand retail business, where Amanda and the team have delivered a strong result in a challenging economy. We've reset the strategy and brand positioning, and the benefits are demonstrated and the results delivered. The AMI Connected Customer Strategy and Roadside Motor Support Initiative are delivering above-market growth in policies. Our headline growth was 3.4% in NZD, and it's good to see volume growth contributed to the majority of that 3.4%. Reported insurance margin continues to be strong at over 28%, with an improved underlying margin of 26%, and we achieved this through improved capability.
Our scale and targeted claims initiatives are driving improvements in our cost to repair, and our pricing capability, enabled by the rollout of the Retail Enterprise Platform, is delivering improved underwriting profitability. Our new Chief Executive, Phil Gibson, joins the business on 23rd of February, and we're looking forward to welcoming him in to the leadership team. Our Australian Intermediated business is showing the benefits of disciplined execution of core underwriting, pricing, and expense management strategy. This is clear. There is clearly a soft market in some commercial lines, so it's pleasing to be able to report underlying growth in this business here in Australia of 3.5% and a strong reported margin of 17.5%. That reported margin, though, was boosted by AUD 86 million of prior period reserve releases, demonstrating the strength and prudence of our reserving approach, which continues to deliver value.
Notably, Jarrod and the team have delivered a strong improvement in the expense ratio, realizing the benefits of last year's revised operating model that we put in place. We're driving our technology transformation towards a continued investment in Commercial Enterprise Platform. Based on the successful implementation so far and confidence in the benefits that have already been achieved, we are accelerating this program to complete 12 months earlier than what we previously anticipated. From an operating perspective, our rural and regional businesses, WFI, has improved its NPS to 63, and our investment in the brand is continuing to strong premium and earnings growth. Looking ahead, we're confident this business will continue to deliver improved financial returns, powered by its strong foundations and ongoing investment that we're making in capability.
Finally, our New Zealand Intermediary business, NZI, which has demonstrated its resilience, maintaining strong discipline in what is clearly a soft market. In local currency terms, premiums was down 10.4%, while the stable underlying insurance profit of NZD 78 million reflects the discipline that we're putting in place. The reported profit was also strong at NZD 86 million, with a margin of 20%, and you'll see on the chart that the prior corresponding period did include the benefit of benign perils environment. In the soft New Zealand market, our core strategy is to leverage our strong customer relationships, combined with assurance tools to drive retention. During recent renewals, we retained 33 of 34 of our large accounts.
Before I hand over to William, I just want to highlight the progress on our key strategic alliances with RACQ and RAC in WA, which will expand our ability to protect more Australians. We successfully completed the RACQ acquisition on 1 September, and its integration, as I mentioned before, is progressing well. It's been great to welcome more than 800 new people to IAG and have the opportunity to serve the club's 1.7 million members. We're committed to the alliance with RAC, which would see it maintain its highly regarded local brand and WA-based services while strengthening the business through our technology, global reinsurance arrangements and scale. We're confident the partnership would ensure RAC members, and in fact, Western Australians, are well protected for a safe, sustainable and connected future.
As you're aware, we're going through the process of reapplying for approval under the ACCC's new mandatory merger regime, acknowledging the decision that we received in December. I'll now hand over to William, who's going to run us through the financials in a bit more detail.
Thank you, Nick, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with the high-level financial summary shown on slide 15. We're pleased that in this half we've generated over AUD 500 million in NPAT, demonstrating our strong earnings capacity and capital generation. In addition to funding the RACQ acquisition and the buyback of up to AUD 200 million that we've announced today, we're also paying an interim dividend at AUD 0.12 per share, representing a payout ratio of 56%. This strong profit is down slightly from the prior corresponding period headline, which was boosted by the AUD 140 million business interruption provision release and AUD 215 million in favorable peril experience. In this result, the reported insurance margin of 13.5% has been impacted by the RACQ severe perils experience.
However, excluding this, we recorded a very strong 17.7%. Finally, on this slide, I'll note that the underlying insurance profit of AUD 804 million or 15.1% margin, also allows for the additional cost from our strong reinsurance protections, including our long tail adverse development cover and the stop loss perils protection, which I've previously indicated have a 50-100 basis point impact on margin. I'll now focus on some of the key financial line items. Slide 16 shows the benefit of IAG's comprehensive reinsurance protections. There were several material peril events in this half, and we've recognized recoveries against the adverse experience on the ex-RACQ business. This is a demonstration of our strong downside protections, and it results in net perils being in line with our half-year allowance of AUD 646 million.
Separately, until the first of January this year, RACQ operated its previous standalone reinsurance program. The severe Queensland weather events saw the portfolio experience over AUD 800 million in gross perils claims or AUD 224 million net of reinsurance, which was AUD 152 million above its AUD 72 million perils allowance. For the full year, we have a revised perils allowance of AUD 1,465 million, which reflects the inclusion of the RACQ portfolio into the group reinsurance program, as well as an increase in the quota share to 35%. Our non-quota share reinsurance costs increased by 8% this half to AUD 676 million. AUD 60 million of this cost relates to the RACQ business. So excluding this impact, we saw a 1.5% decrease.
We also had a favorable first of January renewal, providing further margin support into 2026, and we've now integrated RACQ into our broader reinsurance program, which delivers the target of at least AUD 50 million in synergies on an annualized basis. In terms of the underlying claims, which exclude all perils reserving and discount rate effects, the ratio has improved by 70 basis points from 1H 2025 to 51.9%. This figure includes an approximately 50 basis points negative impact from RACQ, and excluding this, the underlying claims ratio improved 120 basis points. This ratio was assisted by around AUD 115 million in profit commission on reinsurance arrangements, compared to around AUD 40 million in 1H 2025. New Zealand saw a proportionally greater allocation of the profit commission based on its strong earnings.
This further contributed to the strong improvement in its underlying claims ratio. In RIA, there was a modest improvement, and the ratio was steady in IIA. Across IAG, we're focused on operational efficiencies to mitigate ongoing claims inflation, including an array of artificial intelligence initiatives. And some specific call-outs for each division are: in RIA, we saw benefits from claims handling and supply chain initiatives while experiencing a further moderation in motor inflation, assisted by a reduction in total loss claims, which was partly offset by the ongoing impact of third-party credit hire activities. IIA has seen improvement in long-tail experience, improved cycle times, and reduced fraud, but slightly adverse large loss experience in commercial property, predominantly in the first quarter. And in New Zealand, we're seeing reduced frequency levels compared to prior year in the home and commercial property portfolios.
During the half, we've delivered a material reduction in the expense ratio. Our admin costs on an ex-levies basis has improved 20 basis points compared to 1H 2025, and a material 80 basis points compared to the temporarily elevated level we saw in 2H 2025. This includes the impact of the acquired RACQ business and ongoing technology investment, including GenAI capabilities. This positive trajectory is anticipated to continue for the remainder of the financial year, and I'm confident in the work the team is doing to achieve a level below 11% in FY 2027. Investment income has been a solid contributor to this result, although slightly lower than previous halves. The income on technical reserves of AUD 90 million was impacted by mark-to-market movements following the increase in the risk-free rate towards the end of the period.
The underlying investment yield declined 90 basis points from 1H 2025 to 4.6%. We continue to deliver a spread of around 100 basis points above risk-free, with positive active manager performance. Given recent market movements, we also expect an uplift in the yield in the second half of the financial year. The exit yield at the half year was around 5%, and based on the recent increase in the two-year govvie rate, our investment team is currently forecasting a further yield improvement. Our shareholders' funds income delivered a strong contribution of AUD 186 million, with the majority of this reflecting a strong performance in the equities portfolio. The shareholders' funds portfolio remains defensively positioned, with a growth asset weighting just under 30%.
On capital, we finished the half with a CET1 position above our target range, and I've shown some of the material movements in this waterfall. Our solid earnings are the source of capital generation during the half, and this has been partially offset by the payment of the FY 2025 final dividend. The other major item is the 21-point impact from the completion of the RACQ acquisition. Other call-outs in the waterfall include the stop-loss reinsurance recovery that I mentioned earlier, which reduces the excess technical provision. This is a timing issue at the half year and is expected to unwind by the end of the financial year. Lastly, the weaker New Zealand currency relative to the Australian dollar has a negative impact on the foreign currency translation reserve.
Given the strength of our capital position, we're confident in being able to fund the RAC acquisition and announce an up to AUD 200 million buyback. We've shown this waterfall chart previously to demonstrate that our current surplus and the projected organic capital generation can fund the RAC acquisition. It's another example of the confidence we have in the downside protection from our reinsurance program. We've indicated an 8-point benefit, which includes the reinsurance recovery timing impact that I mentioned on the previous slide, as well as the capital benefit from increasing the whole of account quota shares to 35% from the first of January. We're not providing 2026 NPAT and dividend guidance, but you can see we've included an indicative 23 points of capital, reflecting earnings in line with our through the cycle 15% margin target, less the final dividend.
This is consistent with analyst consensus expectations. We've also included a net 5-point impact of other capital movements, and this reflects the potential benefits from our capital-light strategies that I've previously discussed. Finally, I'll remind you that we've maintained our CET1 target range at 0.9x-1.1 x, despite the risk reduction from the downside protections from our comprehensive reinsurance program. As I said last time, our confidence in the projected earnings quality means that we're increasingly comfortable to operate in the lower part of the capital range. With that, I'll now hand over back to Nick.
Hey, thanks, William. So, sort of turning now to guidance for FY 2026. So, sort of firstly, with growth, and we're forecasting to deliver premium growth of high single digits for the full year. And this is slightly lower than our expectations at the beginning of the year, with a key driver for the change being the impact of the strong Aussie dollar relative to the Kiwi dollar and the slightly softer New Zealand commercial markets. We do, though, expect second half growth to be double digits, which is stronger than the first half, and of course, that includes six months of the RACQ portfolios and our retail businesses growing at least or above the 4% that we've just delivered in underlying growth in the first half. We'll also maintain discipline in our commercial businesses, where we expect markets to remain soft.
We're maintaining our FY 2026 insurance profit guidance of AUD 1,550 million-AUD 1,750 million, which aligns to our target to deliver a 15% reported insurance margin and reported ROE on a through-the-cycle basis. Importantly, we're retaining our range, but do expect to be around towards the bottom of those range, really reflecting both the strong underlying performance that we've been delivering, together with, against that, the one-off RACQ impact that we've absorbed before the full comprehensive reinsurance cover came into play on 1 January. Our ability to retain this guidance range, despite these perils, really does reflect the strength and the resilience of our businesses. Five years ago, we set out to create a stronger and a more resilient IAG, with reduced volatility and a capital-light profile.
Here is the successful model that we've created, with some of the best customer insurance brands in the world. Julie, Jarrod, and now Phil are set up to grow these businesses. We've got a modern, leading, scalable technology that supports our brands and our partner brands with insurance products that meet the needs of their customers. As we look to support 10 million Australian and New Zealanders, we'll deliver strong, sustainable shareholder returns, driven by a stable margin and low volatility and capital efficiency, and which improves the ROE. The results we deliver today are the culmination of everything that we've put in place. William and I now, of course, are happy to answer any questions. Why don't we start in the room?
Morning. Kieran Chidgey from UBS. Morning. A couple of questions, if I can. I might start, Nick, on GWP growth. Just interested in a little bit more color, predominantly around sort of the home and motor book in Australia. You talk about 4%-
Yeah
... underlying growth in aggregate, but perhaps you can give us a feel for the composition between rate and volume and some of the differences between home, which looks like it's done better, and sort of I suspect you've seen some volume or unit loss in your motor book in the period?
Yeah. I mean, that to some sort of the overall story is we've obviously got an acquisition coming in that's delivered 6% first half; it's going to deliver 9% second half. We've got sort of currency going against us between New Zealand and Aussie, but the retail businesses are going pretty well, I think. Commercial is in a soft market, and so that's, you know, some challenges there, but I mean, Jarrod's business grew at 3.5% underlying. Pretty pleased with that. NZI is quite tough. So then we sort of come into, I think, the Australian retail, where we're at and where we're going. I mean, within that, the Australian retail, the home portfolio grew just over 7% underlying. Pretty pleased with that. Volume and price, I'd say we held and probably grew a little bit of share around Australia.
Really strength, great brands, the proposition we're delivering, the service that we're delivering, really feel pretty strongly about that. Motor, as you say, was quite tough in the last six months. That underlying, you'll see in the pack, we call it out, underlying motor was around about 1.5%, in total. We found New South Wales and Vic particularly tough. It's been highly competitive. Sort of behind all that, it's a new business story, around... You know, our retention rates at IAG and our retail businesses are holding, in fact, improving slightly. So it's really- there's a lot of traded new business that's happening in the market, very competitive. I mean, what we've done, and Julie and the team have sort of, you know, wanted to maintain their diligence. We also sort...
know that in Victoria, we've had, you know, frequency issues around car theft and, you know, some challenges there on just increasing claims costs that we've had to reflect in pricing. So there's a trade here. What we've done, you know, we've reflected that in pricing. We just hadn't... We're looking again at our new business pricing in New South Wales, where we've definitely been under pressure, probably the most in motor. And we've just slightly adjusted our go-to-market. What we have seen, though, in the last month or two is a tick-up in our new business volumes in motor. So we can see us actually improving. So we've probably dropped back a little bit of share. You know, we're holding and probably even starting to grow a little bit now, really driven by that new business.
Retention rates are strong. And so we're seeing some signs of just the slight adjustments to that strategy working, and with our January results, and we've got a couple of weeks of February, we can see that looking a bit better as well. So, I mean, the overall story here is we've got underlying in our retail business, TransTasman, it's about 4%. There's always ups and downs in that, but the underlying, we expect that to be stronger in the second half. A little bit of volume and price flowing through, so we sort of expect a stronger second half retail growth than first half is sort of the story we want to leave investors with.
Nick, just specifically on the motor book, I know you don't provide margins by portfolio-
Yeah
... but the actions you're having to take on price to improve new business, how should we think about the implications into margin?
Oh, I mean, that margin is... I mean, there's ups and downs in that margin. We've got, you know, the strong underlying margin that we sort of started the six-month period with in the retail business. We've got RACQ that came in that, you know, we've had to unwind certain arrangements that were in place, and we have run all the RACQ costs above the line. So, you know, there's nothing below the line at IAG. So all the integration, first off, unwinding some of the reinsurance arrangements, that's had a bit of a drag in the first six-month period. That's going to come off going forward. We've, you know, we've made those adjustments, run those costs, changed things around.
And so within that overall targeted margin that we sort of talked about for retail, yeah, we can make some pricing adjustments within the portfolio, that it doesn't go to the heart of... Is that a margin story? No, you know, there's some pricing adjustments that can make us more competitive in New South Wales. We're seeing it happen, and that won't go to margin. We're probably also seeing some of those inflation and claims stories just come off a little bit, so there's probably room to come down a little bit, too.
Thanks. And second question, just sort of taking that discussion into a group margin-
Yeah
... sort of outlook. There's a lot of noise in this result, obviously, with RACQ making an underlying loss.
Yeah.
The group's still looking pretty good at 15.1%, but, you know, as we look forward, that loss, hopefully, in RACQ unwinds. I'm keen on your thoughts on what the underlying run rate there is from a margin point of view. You've got synergies coming in. You're talking about a higher underlying yield. You've got admin expense savings coming in. You've got a quota share that's been dialed up in the second half that should, in theory, give you a higher margin as well. So there's a lot of positivity in terms of that underlying margin trajectory that, to me, would suggest you should be tracking closer to 16%. But keen on your thoughts-
Yeah
... on the aggregate.
I mean, yeah, and so just one last in that big list of things, probably just add in, we've unwound and removed some of the specific quota share arrangements that RACQ had for the first four months. Those they've all gone, and there was definitely a drag from all of that, and we've replaced that with our programs. So there's ups and downs. I mean, I'm working on the basis that when we're doing this presentation in August, we're not talking about RACQ as part of any sort of ups and downs. It's just part of the portfolio. Of course, within Julie's business, we've got different products, different states, different portfolios, and they're not all exactly the same.
But as a package, you know, we'll be delivering at the sort of the margin that you mentioned. Some of the... I mean, that's why we've called them one-offs. You know, we genuinely believe there's some one-off things that have occurred that are sort of have brought that margin down in the first half, and that's not going to be part of our story in the second half.
Okay. And the Group 15% target, Nick-
Yeah
... you've had for a while, will that be revisited at the end of the year, particularly post these Quota Share changes and sort of everything else that's come through the reinsurance profit commissions?
Yeah, and we've added 2.5%, so it's not hugely different. You know, we're about 32.5% whole of account quota share, and we've moved to 35% at 1 January. I mean, the financial sort of profile, call it that, is, you know, we're trying to run the business at a through the cycle 15% ROE, with way lower volatility, capital-light, we know that story. That relates to about a 15%. There's definitely some upside on that. You know, we sort of talked about these profit commissions as part of a these comprehensive programs that are coming in from a few places now. You know, there's a 100-200 basis point additional opportunity in that, and we've talked about that before.
Now, we're not, we don't want to bank that in every year because we, you know, we've got inherent volatility in running of our business. But importantly, the cost of all of that is in the 15%. So that's, that's the message that, you know, we want to keep reminding investors, that we're within our earnings profile is the cost of the protection that's giving us the earnings protection, right? So the downside risk of IAG and its earnings profile is a lot different than probably most other market participants. You can see that on one of the pages that I went through, and there's a little bit of RACQ that wasn't included, but that's all now included from 1 January. And so the sort of the certainty of future cash flows are a lot stronger. But yeah, there's some...
I think that 15% ROE, 15% margin, that story, that sort of mass of that is consistent, but with some upside on that, which is what we've talked about.
Thank you.
Hi there. Hi there, Nick and Will. Simon Fitzgerald from Jefferies.
Simon.
Just wanted to maybe start off just with the Queensland situation, with the hail, et cetera. Just interested to know what your sort of thoughts are going forward in terms of pricing, and I'm also curious to know what your sort of thoughts are in terms of the consumer and affordability, 'cause I'd ought have thought that you're now starting to sort of hit up on some of those levels.
Yeah, I mean, just I'll answer that, the second bit first, maybe. Just on affordability, I mean, we compared to where we were a couple of years ago, actually sort of the premium rate environment is obviously better. For, you know, it's still tough, and we're still seeing, you know, costs increase, inflationary pressure within the business. We're sort of seeing mid-single digits in motor, more than that in property, just as a theme. You know, against that, there are some frequency ups and downs as well, so it's not as direct in that into pricing, and there's other things. Reinsurance markets are more favorable, so there's not—there's always parts to our story. It's never as simple as just one thing. I mean, maybe I'll say it this way, that we are seeing our retention rates...
I mean, this is a retail question, I think. Our retention rates are strong and improving, so that, I mean, that goes to the quality of the franchise, the brand proposition, but also, I think, you know, that sort of sticker shock that we've seen maybe in the past has caused greater frequency to churn. That's... I'd say that and the market has changed a little bit, favorably. We do know, though, that new businesses, as I mentioned around motor, is very competitive. But, you know, I would say that it's more stable, would be the way I would describe it. So specific, Queensland had a lot of perils, you know, across the industry, like a lot, and it was a lot of events.
It wasn't sort of one big event, it was multiple events. Then that's been followed by bushfires and storms in early this calendar year. You know, that'll be impacting the overall pricing environment in certain geographies a little bit.
And then, just a little bit about the above-average reserve releases. Just wondering-
Yeah
... if we could get a little bit more explanation in terms of the drivers of that.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, thank you. So,
Can I just make a comment?
Yeah.
One thing, we're very pleased. I mean, we're nothing worse than a reserve top-up, and that, you know, we've spent a lot of time, and Jarrod and the team, it's, you know, it's potentially in the long tail classes, obviously, within our commercial businesses. We've spent a lot of time going back through that, really ensuring that we're not in that position. So the lens to which Jarrod and the team have around reserving, long tail liabilities, is a bias to conservatism. So that's just the... And, you know, we know that we disappointed a number of years ago with some top-ups that, you know, I was not happy with.
I would say just the bias of our business and the way we're conducting and creating our balance sheets and reserving and loss ratios are, are definitely taking a conservative bias. I mean, that's... I know there's some detail. Sorry, William, but I think that's, that's the setting of the reserves in the first place.
Yeah, exactly. So we believe our reserves are strong, and but a feature of those strong reserves is that we also will have releases. Just to give you a little bit of color in there, so in the releases, we have some releases across long-tail lines. We have some releases from the remaining part of that business interruption provision. On short-tail lines, we also have some releases from prior period from perils positions in prior years. We have some increase against that in motor and home, where average claim sizes increased a bit due for both fire and water losses. But obviously, the net of all of that is the release that you can see.
Hi, guys. Andrew Buncombe from Macquarie Securities. Just two from me. Hopefully, the first one's an easy one. Apologies if I missed it in the scrum of announcements this morning.
Hope I can answer it then.
What is the new attachment point on the volatility cover now that Queensland is included?
It is AUD 1,465 million.
That is the attachment point? That hasn't changed since Queensland went in?
No, no, it has changed, but of course, it would come down a bit for the change in the Quota Share, but then goes up for RACQ coming in.
So it's still flush with the allowance?
Yeah, so that maybe that's the... So there's ups and downs in that a little bit because of some of the mechanics of the 32.5%-35%, but it's the attachment of the allowance. Yeah, so there's no gap between allowance and attachment.
Yeah, perfect. Thank you. And then the second one, just in terms of the capital waterfall slide, there was still the 5 basis points of additional capital optionality from additional reinsurance.
Yeah.
I'm just wondering whether that's contingent on getting the Lloyd's license by 17?
Maybe I'll make a comment, and then you come in, William. The concept of us being capital light is one that, you know, it's, it's part of the, part of the thing about IAG. And so there's a cost to that, and, you know, we're. There's various structures that we've got in place. And we have, we have quite a lot of optionality around how to make that all happen, and we're trying to create some variability in the forms and structures to which we're delivering a capital light strategy. Lloyd's is kind of just one of the many, many ideas that we've got, so we shouldn't. I don't want to overweight that as a thing. And so, you know, we are constantly thinking and looking for...
I mean, we've got traditional structures we could just expand, which we're, in a way, we've just done with 32.5%-35%, and we've got many other counterparties that would like to be part of that, so that would be... But we're always looking at what are some other ways we can do that, just to make sure we've got appropriate diversification and counterparty structure tenure, so that's the package. So it's not- we're not sort of relying on one thing ever, but, I mean, you can comment specifically on Lloyd's, but-
Yeah
... that's just one of many ideas.
Yeah, I don't have much to add to that, but we continue to believe, as we set out, at the strategy day a year ago, that a logical next step for us would be to bring a bit of additional reinsurance behind the intermediated businesses. So that's something we continue to explore.
Thank you.
There's definitely... Just on that, Lloyd, there's definitely lots more examples of that happening in the market, and that's probably a good thing 'cause that means sort of non-traditional capital providers will be getting more familiar with structures like that, and that'll probably ease off transaction. It'll, it'll make it better. Right. Well, I thought Mark was about to answer us because Mark's guiding. For those on the video, Mark's guiding me to go to the video, so I apologise to go to the video.
Your next question comes from Julian Braganza with Goldman Sachs.
Good morning, guys. Thanks so much for taking our questions. Just the first one, could you maybe just talk a little bit more, just about the premium rate increases that you're seeing at the moment across the portfolios and also just the claims inflation? If you could put some numbers just around it, that would be great. Thanks.
Yeah, I mean, I'll do a sort of around the ground, so the problem is we end up being quite high level, don't we? You know, what we're experiencing. Obviously, commercial markets are quite tough. At the... I mean, in Australia, we've got WFI, and we're sort of at the SME smaller end of town, so we're definitely seeing rate flow through those portfolios, and Jarrod delivered 3.5% underlying.
I'd say in New Zealand, that's a lot tougher, and probably average premium is relatively flat or even slightly negative, but our 10% is really also driven by often where we're taking a smaller share of risks, so that we're just sort of coming back as well, and, you know, it's not so much a volume game, it's we might be taking a smaller share, so that's sort of driving the 10% more than... It's not a 10% price reduction, it's 10% reduction in, in, sort of exposure almost. The price is flat or probably slightly negative. That's driven by lots of factors around the world. So then into the retail businesses. If I start with New Zealand, I would say I mean, the margins in the retail businesses are strong, obviously.
You know, we sort of talked about 3%-4% growth there and sort of expect that to be stronger in the second half underlying. At the moment, that would be mostly volume and not much price, as an average across that retail. I would expect that to be stronger in the second half, price as well as continued volume, so that's why that number will be higher in the second half compared to first half. We are putting through rate in New Zealand on our retail business now. And then it sort of comes into Australia, where, you know, I'd expect home to be similar second half to what we've just experienced first half. We are seeing sort of mid- to high-single-digit claims inflation.
We're seeing reinsurance costs come, you know, more favorable. We're seeing some movements in frequency. We had a discussion around Queensland hail, so there'll be some perils affected areas that'll be different than others. But I would expect, you know, rates, rate increases to be flowing through in home in sort of that 5%-10% type range. And then motor, you know, we've had, you know, high single, double-digit most rate increases in motor, particularly so in Victoria. There's probably a bit of pressure coming off that, and similar in New South Wales. We are seeing a little bit of relief around inflation. That's why that comment around new business for motor we made. And so that's probably, you know, slightly lower.
Then if I look at what's driving that, you know, reinsurance is obviously slightly more favorable. We are seeing a little bit of cost increase year- on- year. We call it, we call everything inflation now. I'll just keep using that word, but, you know, we're seeing year- on- year cost increases in repairing a car that's smashed. Against that, though, you know, it's like total losses and sort of, you know, value of second-hand cars coming back a little bit in some markets, so that is sort of working as favorably against some of these, but I sort of that sort of mid single digit type rate increases. You know, and what-
Okay
... the thing about motor, I'll just say again, and, you know, and Julie and the team are all over this, we definitely have had it, found it a bit tough, and, you know, we're not happy with 1.5% underlying growth for the first six months, and we'll expand that in the second half.
... Okay, no worry. That's, that's clear. And then maybe just in terms of margin expectations by division, you've made, you flagged there as well that NZ and margin's quite strong. So just as that starts to normalize, where, where will the expansion come from? And how, how useful are you expecting the expansion to be, and whether it's intermediated through expense ratio benefits or, or even just in, in, in the retail business from here? Thanks.
I mean, there's a few parts to it, aren't there? I mean, we, you know, we know that, you know, commercial business has really, really set ourself up differently, here in Australia, and there's an opportunity, and we sort of set Jarrod and the team a target of AUD 250 million. They're delivering against that, and they've got a lot of strategies in place to, you know, improve expense ratio capability. We're deploying technology now, and we're accelerating into that program of work. So we really see we, we, I mean, we've said many times that, you know, we, our starting position in the CGU business here in Australia, you know, we're starting behind some of our global competitors, and we just can't keep...
That can't be the structure of us going forward, and we're closing that gap, and I would expect to continue to see that over the next number of years. And so that, that's probably some margin improvement there. We know that within... And Julie's business retail here in Australia, that... I mean, we called it, we sort of called it out, some one-off. That's not really saying anything about the business we bought. That's just saying, you know, we bought it in, we had some very large perils. We had to unwind some arrangements in place all in the first four months. We took all that cost into the margin. We haven't tucked anything below the line, so there's obviously that drag will be gone in the second half, so we should see some expansion there.
And then probably in New Zealand, which is high, you know, the margins are pretty strong there. There's probably, you know, some risk that could drift down a little bit, as a blend. Against that, we've got profit commissions, we've got, you know, quite a few things going our way, and from how we see the next sort of six, 12, 18 months.
If I could just add, so then RACQ obviously will be a lot closer to its run rate, because, as we said, the reinsurance synergies, which originally we talked about getting those synergies of in excess of AUD 50 million in the first full year, which would be FY 2027. We've already got that from the 1st of January. Against that, the underlying for the RACQ part will just have a little bit of a drag in the second half because we've got a little bit more reinstatement premium, just to expense that we incurred during Q2 under its old program.
Okay, now that's clear. Then maybe just a question around just the stop loss and the profit commission. So AUD 115 million this period. Just want to understand, again, any comments on how conservatively that estimate is being estimated at, and is there further upside on a best estimate basis? And secondly, how much did you rely on your stop loss protection over the last six months? Are you able to provide some commentary just to help us understand the other side of the equation in terms of just the benefits that you're getting on that stop loss aggregate?
Yeah. So, just to take that second part, so for the stop loss, for ex-RACQI, we were AUD 137 million, perils were over allowance before allowing for that. And then, so the stop loss recovery accrued at the half year is AUD 137 million. And then I think your other question, were you asking about the AUD 115 million of profit commission? Did I get that right?
Yeah. How conservatively is that being booked, or is that now a more best estimate view of profit commission?
Yeah, so I mean, we assessed that in with some risk adjustment on it. So that is a conservative calculation, and that number includes both profit commission on the multi-year peril stop loss and on the whole of account quota share. And indeed, the increase relative to last year is mainly whole of account quota share profit commission.
Got it. No, that's clear.
But I say, all on a risk-adjusted basis.
Got it. And just a final question for me: Is there a reason why the BI provision release was taken in the reported margin as opposed to the corporate extension line this period?
So we said, I mean, we said last year, when we did that substantial release of AUD 140 million, AUD 200 million pre-tax, we said at that time that the remaining part of the provision, which I think was about AUD 50 million, we would then just, you know, just treat as BAU, and you'll remember previously, we also had our dividend policy was about paying out net of BI, and then we just changed that. So we just treat it as part of BAU.
I mean, at a practical level, I mean, we obviously have... We're calling it out, and we're not including it in an underlying margin. Actually, I just didn't want anything below the line. We're trying to, we're trying to make our results super simple. That's just part of our normal process. It's relatively modest amounts of money now. And so, sort of in the spirit of simplicity, in the way we report, go to market, run our company, we just wanted to run it like that. And the same, the same on the negatives, remember. So that's why we, you know, in Julie's business, have had to wear some of the additional, some of the sort of one-off costs associated with the acquisition, where everything's just...
Everyone's had to wear everything in their business unit results, and that's, that's sort of how we want to run it.
Got it. Thanks so much for talking to me.
Julian, I don't want to open up a can of worms, but I'll also just say, comment on that recovery from the stop loss. That's also a drag in our capital. So let's not go down a hole on this one, but there is AUD 130-odd million dollar drag on our capital calculation from that. Now, we settled that at 30th of June, so that'll go away. But so that's sort of a sort of the way APRA rules work. So there's probably the capital is slightly stronger than the way we represented it by AUD 135 million, because that recovery is not recognized from an APRA point of view.
But of course, it's real and we'll, you know, that position stays, that we'll cash settle that with the counterparties at 30th of June.
... Yeah, but it should throw up at the full year, I don't-
Yes,
exactly.
So that'll be a capital reversal at that at 30th June. So the capital numbers go... We highlight that in the detail in the pack, but I just didn't want to miss the opportunity just to highlight it when we-
Yeah, it's purely a half year effect, 'cause at the half year we haven't technically got to the attachment point.
It's a positive to the capital count.
Okay.
Okay.
Thanks so much, Nick, and much appreciated.
Your next question comes from Siddharth Parameswaran with JP Morgan.
Good morning, gentlemen. A couple questions, if I can. Firstly, just RACQ. I just want to understand some of the moving parts in that result in the first half 2026. You know, I calculate the underlying margin at -7%, and I think, Nick, you said that you're expecting that book to come in, you know, similar to the group. Maybe that was including the reinsurance synergies. But even if I include what you expect to get, it still has a very, very low underlying margin, you know, near zero. So just sort of to understand where, you know, how we should think about... Or, well, firstly, you know, is this book coming on a lot worse than you thought? And what steps are you taking to remediate it?
Yeah, sure. Hi, Sid. I mean, there was a few parts to that. Obviously, there were some headline perils that impacted that number, but I know you're talking underlying, so we sort of, if we park that. Within that, there were some, what we see as pretty unfavorable reinsurance arrangements, particularly around the way the quota share, which is quite a drag, and we call that underlying. So that's not really remediation, that's just been sort of 1 January, that's changed. And so that drag that was in that P&L, and the way that arrangement worked was it was compounded by the perils. So the arrangements got a lot worse because of the perils. Unfortunately, that all plays out in underlying, so we didn't call it perils. It also impacted the actual underlying margin.
We've completely. Well, those, all those arrangements are canceled, so they just don't exist anymore. So I would say that, you know, that, that business is sort of you know, in, coming into us pre-synergies, I'll, you know, as we expected. You know, probably, you know, we're sort of running, you know, high single digits, close to maybe 10% type margin, and then with, if we sort of add the synergies and benefits and opportunities and some of the things we can do differently with that business, we sort of quickly get that business to, to sort of that 15% plus type margin that the blend of the retail business is operating at. And I don't see that as that much of a stretch. And so that's so sort of the, the words we...
I don't think of this as a remediation at all. I think of this as we've, you know, materially changed some of the drivers of that just by changing the arrangements, which is what we've done. Of course, you know, we've got an environment where pricing is flowing through in Queensland, and so there are changes we are making. And then against that, we're developing, we'll be delivering synergies. So, you know, that's why I said I don't expect RACQ to be a major theme or a theme really in the second half. There's a tiny drag that William highlighted before around some of the reinstatement on some of the reinsurance that we paid in so during the spring, but that's relatively modest.
So I don't see this as a remediation story at all, but I see it as a great business that's coming into IAG that's going to deliver some, you know, some solid returns into Julie's business.
Okay. I mean, so I just want to be clear, were they reinserting premiums in the first half?
Yeah.
Yeah. Were they material? They might have impacted those numbers just-
A little, a little, dear.
I think my numbers are right, but, but yeah.
Yeah, Sid, I mean, unfortunately, we don't call the unfavorable quota share reinsurance arrangements perils. So we sort of call that reinsurance. So, you know, we sort of highlight the actual perils cost. The knock-on impact into the underlying margin driven by the perils was quite material. That's why, you know, I sort of have the confidence. I don't see this as the way you described it. I see it as, you know, 1 January, this business is sort of operating, you know, maybe a little bit below where the rest of the retail business is operating, but if we put in the synergies benefits, it's definitely sort of gets us there.
Yeah.
And we wrap both of those parts up in the... When we talk about the AUD 174 million that we talk about in terms of the one-off RACQ impact associated with perils. So part,
Yeah
... some of that is the underlying part as well.
Yeah. Okay. Just a second question just around rates versus inflation. So, I mean, the comments that you've made through your report suggest that, you know, I think you're saying home, you're getting high single digits on claims inflation, motor mid-single digits. These numbers seem higher than what you're getting on rate and, you know, quite a bit higher. I'm just wondering, you know, on a go-forward basis, are you hoping to cover the inflation?
I mean, we know that's the problem with some of these, you know, spot sort of parts of the story. We know that in property, you know, reinsurance and perils is a big chunk of the cost. We know our reinsurance costs are, you know, be more favorable in 2026 versus 2025. We know that our perils allowance are capped in the way we've put in place those reinsurance arrangements and discussion we had before around, you know, having the volatility cover sit right on the lid of the perils allowance. So yes, some elements are growing like that. We know there's some ups and downs in frequency as well. So I think, Sid, if your question is, you know, how does all that work, and what does that do to margin?
I mean, we're comfortable that the pricing that we are going to market with is covering the cost, the inflationary costs we're experiencing, factoring in frequency, factoring in what's happening with perils allowance, factoring in what's happening with the cost of reinsurance, and that's the package. Because there are, you know, as you know, there's more to pricing than just, you know, the cost of building products. There's more to that story. So that's the blend that we're experiencing in relation to inflation.
Okay-
I don't, well, this won't be a margin. This is not... this is. You know, we're pricing to maintain the margin of the company and grow the business.
Okay. Just one final question. It's been asked a couple of times, but I just want clarity around that profit commission contribution. So I think you said AUD 115 million taken in the half last year. I think it was around AUD 85 million for the full year. Just, I just want clarity. I think it suggests that, you know, an annual run rate of up to AUD 200 million before was possible. So it seems we're tracking ahead of that, and that's taken in both your underlying and your reported margins. So it doesn't suggest that there's more upside, but you seem to be suggesting that there is more upside.
So, just want to be clear, what is the final message you want to give us on profit commission's contribution to this result versus what is likely going forward?
So, the 100-200 basis points upside we've talked about before was in relation to the whole of account quota share profit commission. The 115 for the first half includes also the perils protection profit commission, which was pretty much the 40 you saw last year in the same period. So that increase from year-on-year is largely what's happened to the whole of account quota share profit commission, which I think, you know, we'd indicated we believed would be starting to emerge this year and increasingly become a feature of our result.
Of course, we get that because the underlying business is performing well and generating profit, and then the profit commission, you know, above a certain level, then we just have that sort of slight multiplier on the profits that we are generating across the business.
Sid, I'd use 100-200 on that. I mean, it's... We've got some... We now have, I think, a better structure where we have a few different drivers, which is what William just went through, so we're not sort of reliant just on one thing. Obviously, in itself, that we're more diversified in the earning stream of the profit commission, say that. I'd be sort of using 100-200 as a potential upside in a period that where the company's sort of delivering results like we're delivering.
Sorry, upside on the first half 2026?
No, just in total.
In-
In total.
In total versus which period?
Just, I mean, there will be a little bit of volatility here. I just think in relation to sort of if you're factoring in what could profit commission add to the IAG results, I'd be using 100-200 basis points. On average. There may be some volatility in that, right?
Okay. Okay, in total.
Yeah.
Okay, so we're already getting, we're already getting the top end of that included in this?
Yes, but these, these are multi-year deals, right?
Yeah.
So that doesn't mean one year can't-
Yeah
... can't make more than that, but they're all multi-year. I mean, we're trying to you know... We're trying to run a capital light, confidence in earnings profile. But there's a cost to that. So the downside risk on the cash flows of IAG are mitigated because of the actions we've taken, and there's definitely some upside that we can receive. We're just being cautious about that, right? We don't want to get to a position where we disappoint on these. So I think using 100-200, yes, it might be slightly more in some years, but as a way of valuing the company, I'd be thinking that way.
Okay, thank you.
Your last question today comes from Nigel Pittaway with Citi.
Oh, good morning, guys. Most of my questions have been answered, but I did just want to delve a little bit more into the margin volume trade-off in the Australian retail market. I mean, it seems as if, you know, this time you're obviously disappointed in motor units, you're slightly happy with home units. But my understanding is home maybe got a little bit more competitive towards the end of the half, and it seems like you're putting in price increases there. So, I mean, are you, are you really sort of in a position, you think, where those unit- you can improve on that unit growth, given the action you're, you're needing to take on pricing to, to cover the claims inflation you've identified?
Yeah. Thanks, Nigel. I mean, we're seeing... I'm not sure. I mean, our business is very strong in home. That's what we're experiencing. Strength of the brand, go to market, you know, we know we've performed well. You know, with some of these large perils have occurred in the territory, you know, spring of 2025, and then, you know, what's happened January and February this year. And actually, well, I'm not really seeing what you said in our home portfolio. We're seeing the business be very strong. On motor, yeah, we just found it really tough and on new business. I mean, our retention on motor is still great and improved slightly. It's a new business story, motor, and we took a price position in Victoria.
We obviously had a lot of disruption in that market, that's real. Victoria and New South Wales, but particularly New South Wales as well. That new business we really found quite tough, and Julie and the team have been all over this. And we sort of... We've seen some probably slightly more positive inflation around our pricing point, so we've sort of changed that slightly. The evidence that we've actually got is in the last few months, in that our new business volumes are increasing... So we know that we are growing that business slightly more today than we were three months ago. And we know we're winning more new business, and that hasn't, and that our retention rates are holding and probably slightly improving.
So that, you know, if we can keep running that story, that'll be a good story for the next six months. And, you know, we've sort of spent a lot of time on this, and that story is playing out. So we feel pretty good about the second six months for where we're at. The pricing, obviously, it's helpful the business has got a strong margin, and some of the one-offs from that conversation we just had with Sid around RACQ, some of that drag is going to go away. So we sort of have a neater story in the second half around our retail business here in Australia. It's definitely been tough, though, and, you know, it's been very competitive later in Australia.
Okay, and then maybe just on the topic, as you're on the profit commissions as well. I mean, is there any sense to which that release from the whole of account this time has been influenced by, you know, the relatively high perils? 'Cause that doesn't get the benefit of the stop loss, does it, in terms of the profit commission accumulation.
I mean, actually, the biggest perils, of course, were in the RACQ business, which weren't in the-
Yeah.
Which is why we didn't get the protection.
Yeah, still relatively, still quite a bit higher than PCP, even stripping out RACQ.
Yeah. No, we've got a methodology we're employing. We're trying to take the volatility out of that. We're trying to take a conservative lens on that. We have got multiple arrangements now that sort of make that more of a blend, which is better, rather than just having one. A bit like the whole capital structure, in a way. We're trying to diversify by counterparty, by product, by design, so that we really have a package, and we can... You know, within that, we've got these big picture earnings volatility covers. You know, now we're into the detail on an element of it and the way that's being delivered. We're trying to even create diversification in the way that works, so that we can ensure that's more of an annuity. That's the concept we're putting in place.
Yeah, it's not on all on identical terms-
Yes
... and indeed, the durations also. Yeah, there's a range of durations on it.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. As we have come to the end of the call, I'll now hand back to Mr. Hawkins for closing remarks.
Mr. Hawkins, I feel like I'm talking to my dad. Hey, thanks, everyone. I mean, thanks for turning out. We're pretty pleased with the result. You know, you can see the strength of the franchise. You know, what we've delivered in the first six months, it leaves us in good shape for the second. You know, we've got expectations of sort of underlying growth or growth in our retail businesses. We expect stronger second half than first. We've got RACQ for the full six months, which will deliver around about 9%. Margins are strong. We know commercial's challenging, but we're being very disciplined in our underwriting approach and, you know, we expect to have a strong six months and look forward to talking to you again in August. Thanks, everybody.