Good afternoon, this is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Unipol Full Year 2025 Preliminary Results conference call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Matteo Laterza, CEO of Unipol, for a brief introduction. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning. Thank you to all of you for participating to this call. Before opening, as usual, the floor to the question, let me make some remarks on the number that we disclosed this morning. We closed the first year of the industrial plan, achieving results mainly above our targets in all the principal industrial and financial KPIs. First of all, in P&C, as you have seen, premium performed very well, both in motor and in non-motor, where, in non-motor, as usual, the main driver was the health insurance, where we are following a very solid and important trend in the Italian market. The combined ratio closed at 92.9%.
That is in line with our target, but I think it's important to underline once again the prudence that we decided to adopt in assessing our technical reserve and in particular in defining the loss component related to Nat Cat event in the property line of business, which explains in the big part the impact of Nat Cat event of 9 percentage point in a year where, as a matter of fact, was quite benign in terms of Nat Cat. In life, we had a very strong performance in terms of premium, driven both by agents distribution network and bancassurance .
At the same time, we reached our target of new business value and contractual service margin. So also in life, we performed very well. In terms of investments, we had a very robust contribution coming from the ordinary yield, which means coupons and dividends coming from our investments, and it has been a very important driver for the result that we achieved in 2025. As a result of all these item, we reported a consolidated result, as you have seen, of more than EUR 1.5 billion, which reflect, of course, a positive impact also the positive impact coming from the participation to the tender offer that BPER launched in Banca Popolare di Sondrio.
But much more important for us, and you have to focus on the insurance group net result that was above EUR 1.2 billion, because it represents the contribution coming from the insurance business, and it gives to you the idea in a sort of sense of the cash remittance of the group. We think this number is very robust in term of quality of all the items that contributed to produce this number. And this is the reason why we decided to pay and to propose a dividend of EUR 1.12 per share, which means more than 70% of the insurance group result.
We think it is a very solid number that can be considered a floor in terms of dividend that can be paid also for the year that will last for in the present industrial plan. It is a very solid number, also considering the very strong solvency that we reported, 233%. That, as you know, is burdened by the very expensive contribution coming from our banking stakes. If you look at the number of the insurance group, we are at 281%, which is a very solid number.
Again, the main contribution to the solvency number comes from the organic capital generation with that we achieved in 2025, that once deducted the EUR 804 million of dividend is close to EUR 500 million. That is more or less half of the capital generation net capital generation target of all the industrial plan. So summing up all these numbers, we are above the first year KPIs in terms of industrial and the financial numbers. Of course, we are still in the first year of the industrial plan.
We have still two years ahead of us, but our commitment, as we said, when we disclosed and we published the industrial plan, is to deliver and hopefully over-deliver the number that we have as KPIs and that we disclosed one year ago. Having said that, with Enrico San Pietro, we are open to answer to your questions.
Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and One on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press Star and Two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press Star and One. At this time, the first question is from Tommaso Nieddu of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hello, and thank you a lot for taking my questions. The first one would be on dividend distribution. As you said, you moved the payout to around 71% of insurance group earnings, which I believe surprised the market. But how should we see it going forward, also giving that you have had a very strong capital generation, a lot of excess of capital? Why shouldn't we consider 70% the new structural payout, but even if we consider the EUR 0.12 dividend per share would be already well above the cumulative guidance of your industrial plan. So either perhaps you can give us a bit more color on the payout or on the cumulative guidance. The second question is on technical profitability.
It was very strong, but with, as you said, slightly higher NatCat load in non-motor. So my question is, are you running with additional prudence buffer and why is that? I thought you were already very, very prudent. And the last one on solvency. Yes, that there was a very strong factor coming from organic capital generation, but part of this strong number also seemed due to lower SCR. Can you explain us the dynamics there? Was it all due to BPER? Thank you.
Thank you to you. The first of all, in terms of, of distribution, as I said, we look very closely to the insurance group result, because gives to you the idea of, of the cash remittance of, of the group. Seventy-one percent is a very solid number, and, we think, that going forward, we are able to consider it, as a sort of, floor in terms of, dividends also for the next couple of years. Of, as you can see, it is above, the target that we disclosed in the, in the industrial plan.
So, consequently, concerning at least the dividend, we are working on an over delivery compared to the EUR 2.2 billion of dividend accumulated in the, in the industrial, in the industrial plan. You talk about excess capital. I don't think it is excess capital. I think that we must be always in the condition to have capital and to raise capital when there are good market opportunities to do it. Because once you need it, you must have in your, in your balance sheet, the capital to finance the growth in the business in which you have, you want to growth, like bancassurance or, or health insurance, or for whatever opportunity that you can have in the future.
Because when you have the opportunity, you must have also the capital. You must, it is not suggestible on our point of view, to take in consideration the opportunity, without having the capital, in your, in your balance sheet. And this is the reason why I don't consider it excess capital, but only a good buffer that we can have, in order to face any kind of scenario. Also, the fact that we are in a very good situation in terms of performance of financial market, and consequently, you can also have in the future, a risk-off period for financial market that can have also a negative implication on, on your solvency.
Concerning solvency, you said correctly that the main driver is the organic capital generation. There has been something also in the reduction of SCR, mainly driven by some change in the solvency capital requirement coming from the banking business in the final quarter of the year. But mainly, the increase in the solvency is due to the organic capital generation, and there is also a positive contribution from the economic variance as a consequence of the fact that financial markets performed very, very, very well. On the technical profitability, I said that we were very prudent in both motor and non-motor, but I leave Enrico to elaborate on it.
Yes, good morning, Tommaso as far as NatCat is concerned, we decided to take a very prudent approach on what is, as we all know, a very volatile risk. So basically, we calculated the risk adjustment on this specific risk, taking the distribution curve of what the expected loss, and put at the 92nd percentile the figures that amounts around EUR 220 million of additional risk adjustment. This is probably the most visible prudent move, but the overall technical profitability was very good, both on motor and non-motor business.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Andrea Lisi with Equita. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my questions. The first question comes back on the solvency, which increased significantly in the quarter. We know that then you issued an 81 at the beginning of the year, and so this will further increase, no, the capital position. So, just to understand what are you planning to do with such a level of capital? I am understood that it is not considered excess capital in for you because you won't have wide buffer, but also to understand if you currently see M&As opportunities in the sector, or are there ways to deploy to accelerate organic growth?
Related to that, we have seen that you already achieved 0.5 billion of excess organic capital generation. It is half of your business plan target. Can we consider this margin to be distributed to shareholders at some point? The other question is on the evolution of the business. We have seen a really good dynamic on non-motor premium, while a bit of deceleration on motor. I think that is mostly related to comparison basis, but just to have a bit more insight on about what are you observing in the industry currently. Thank you.
Thank you to you, Andrea. Yes, we issued a Restricted Tier 1 in January that, of course, strengthened further our capital position today. As I said before, when there are opportunities in the market, we tend to take advantage of them, and the credit market situation at the end of last year, beginning of this, is very positive. We were able to issue a Restricted Tier 1, where we had plenty of room of eligibility, was executed at a very moderate cost, 6% of coupon, and we took advantage, we took advantage of it.
And, of course, we have a very, very strong capital position, and it will be used to finance our opportunities of organic growth, in excess of our assumption of the industrial plan. You know that we are growing very fast in health insurance, in bancassurance. There are no M&A transaction on the table, but once you have, and this could be an opportunity in the future, as I said before, you must have the capital to exploit it. And, finally, we are in a very positive situation in terms of financial market, but you never know.
The geopolitical situation is very uncertain today, and we must prepare ourselves to the worst. This is the reason why we decided to take advantage, also following a lot of insight that we received from our investors to take advantage of the very positive situation of financial market. This is not excess capital, so of course the redistribution of capital to our shareholders is not an alternative for us at the moment. We recently raised EUR 1 billion, and the reason why we did it are the one that I mentioned before.
Concerning the trend in P&C, before leaving the floor to Enrico, as I said before, the main driver is health insurance, but all the lines of business grew in the P&C area, both in motor and in non-motor. Of course, our commitment is to combine this strategy of growth in premiums with our commitment in maintaining a decent level of technical profitability in all the lines of business. But on this, I leave it to Enrico to elaborate on it.
Okay. So, as Matteo just said, we had growth in all our business lines. Of course, in non-motor, the main driver of growth for us, but also for the market, is health. That is growing double digit in this period, and in which we are market leader. And we can add also that property business is growing. Property business is growing for the market and also for us. There is, of course, an impact related to the compulsory NatCat load in non-motor cover for Italian companies, and this is something that is driving growth on all our distribution channels. So, good growth on property for Unipol and agency network, but also on Arca. So means deeper network.
As far as motor is concerned, we have growth of 2.6 in motor third-party liability. That is the result of an increase above 3% in the average premium and a small, very small decrease in the number of contracts. And a solid growth in motor other damages 6.7. That is due both to a price effect and also an increase in the demand of motor other damages cover.
Thank you.
The next question is from Michael Huttner of Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. I had four, please. Two of them on motor, one on health and one on the CSM. On motor, my first question is on the frequency benefit, the 12 bps, which you mentioned on the slide. I just wanted to understand how to measure that. It sounds big, but I don't know what the base number is. Is it like a 5% improvement or 10%? In other words, 12 divided by what? And maybe you can give a feel for if how sustainable this is. In other words, is it structural or cyclical? Then on motor pricing, I wonder if you can give us a quick update of where we are now.
On health, just so I understand the business better, can you outline what the product is? It's just to understand what the risk is. The feeling I have is it's an annual policy, it's not a lifetime policy, and therefore, the pricing therefore resets, and it gives cover for hospital and medical care. I mean, a fairly standard thing, but just to understand. And then the final thing, you did mention it, but I just wondered whether you can give a little bit more color. The CSM is up, I think, 15%. A large chunk of that is the economic variance, and I can just I just wondered if you can give us a bit of color of where it's coming from. Thank you so much.
Yes. On CSM, I will answer, and then I'll leave Enrico to answer on motor and health. The increase in CSM is driven by also by the economic variance. Of course, the contribution to economic variance comes from the change in the assumption in financial, in the assumption, in the trend of financial, of financial market. Concerning the solvency, I said that also in this case, economic variance gave a positive contribution as a consequence of the fact that equity market, credit market, the spread of government bonds narrowed versus the Bund.
And, as a consequence of that, we had a very positive contribution coming from the economic variance. Also, in the case of CSM, we had a positive contribution coming from the trend of financial market, and in particular, the contribution come from the widening, sorry, narrowing of the spread, the contribution of equity and consequently from the mark-to-market value of the financial guarantee.
Oh, understand. Thank you. Mm-hmm.
Hi, Michael. So, as you have seen, we had very good results in terms of technical profitability as far as motor business is concerned. As I told a few minutes ago, there was a relevant contribution in this improvement related to motor other damages classes that is not only growing at a quite fast pace, but also improving the technical profitability since, of course, 2025 was a very benign year for Nat Cat events, but also for the overall business line. But also in Motor Third-Party Liability, we were able to improve our loss ratio. And the loss ratio has improved since basically, we were able to offset the increase of the average cost of the claim with the increase of the average premium.
We can consider about your question that the improvement in loss frequency, sorry, sorry, was something that is explaining the improvement in the current year loss ratio in motor third party liability. We also have to add that in motor business there was a more positive evolution of prior year reserves compared to 2024. So a couple of point are about this issue, in which in 2024 we suffered a little bit in motor other damages because our reserves of the NatCat event of summer 2023 were not perfect, and so we didn't have the positive evolution we usually have in this kind of business.
So, this is about the overall result in motor, but if you can go to the second one, second question is about motor pricing. The market had an overall average increase of prices related to what happened on Milan court schemes for a permanent disability indemnification. Now, we are entering a new phase in which prices are still going up, but at a very slow pace. So, basically, my opinion is that we are in a very good situation. Our profitability is above our expectation in the strategic plan, so we are now below the 95% Combined Ratio that is our target.
I expect that in 2026 price increase continue to be quite low, because also the other players were able to recover profitability. As far as health insurance is concerned, there are different kind of product line we offer. The main one is related to corporate big businesses. So UniSalute was set up 30 years ago, 1995, believing that the Italian market will need some health insurance cover to have with faster way services that the national health system is more and more in trouble in delivering.
So what's happening is that, for many years, this was the main business line for health, for UniSalute, so big agreements with trade unions, but also big corporation and funds. We were able to grow this way. We are still growing. Now, of course, there is also a relevant price effect on that, because the loss frequency is increasing, and we are one step ahead, increasing prices and changing condition to keep the profitability good enough. But in recent years, there is another relevant growth engine in the individual offer, both with the bank assurance and our agency network, with our individual products that cover, basically, all your possible health needs.
So diagnostic examination visits for specialist doctor specialist, and of course, also if you need surgery or other medical services. So, the big part of the portfolio is still corporate business, but the individual business is growing at a very fast pace.
It's helpful. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Gian Luca Ferrari of Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Sorry to come back on solvency and economic variances. I was trying to reconcile the 15 points increase, thanks to the economic variances, and as Matteo mentioned, BTP-Bund spread going down, but actually, it went down 50 basis points, which means 5.5 points if I look at your sensitivities. Equities up could have added another couple of points, so I can reconcile only half of these 15 points. So if you can help us with all the moving parts to rebuild this impact. The second is, I cannot find any more the PVNBP and the new business value in the presentation in the press release.
I was wondering if you don't consider these KPIs any relevant, and if they are just somewhere else, if you can provide us the numbers. The third is some write-downs in Q4. I think it is as usual, linked to some realignment of real estate assets, but if you can give us some color on what are these write-downs in Q4 in the P&C segment. And I cannot avoid asking you the hard questions of the moment, which is about autonomous driving and AI, how these two factors can change your industry going forward, if you see only threats or, or also opportunities? Thank you.
Thank you to you, Gianluca. Concerning the economic variance, this is the breakdown of the economic variance versus the number at September 25. We had a positive contribution in the whereabouts of EUR 300 million plus, where we had a positive contribution of EUR 240 million coming from the spread. The 200 million coming from equity plus our non-insurance stakes. And the negative contribution coming from interest rates of EUR 131 million. Maybe you were misguided by the fact that there were a negative, also a negative contribution coming from interest rates. Then, if you have, you want to have more color on that, you can ask our IR to have more color on it.
Sure. Thank you.
The other question was the...
The new business value.
Oh, yeah, New Business Value. New Business Value is a very important KPIs for us. It is not a secondary, a tier two, industrial CPI. I said that this in the introduction to the results. We achieved a New Business Value that is in line with our target. And for us, it is important because you know that in life, it is not so important on our point of view, to be number one in terms of premium collected, but it is much more important the quality of the premium that you collect.
A proxy of this quality is the new business value that is, of course, strongly related to the contractual service margin that you produce with the new production. It is a number where we reached our target overall. I have to say that in 2025 we grew in life premium more than 20%, also because of the 2 very important and very big contracts in the pension funds. Pension funds is a very interesting business, but with a very low profitability in terms of new business margin.
So what we have to do going forward is to work more on the high profitability line of business, like term premium, annual premium, where I think that we have room for improvement. Finally, on AI, autonomous driving, there is also some study, if I remember well, concerning the AI applied to the brokerage business. The negative impact on the performance of the sector. We are discussing for a very long time on the implication of the autonomous driving on the motor TPL business. Of course, there is this trend. As usual, there are threats, but also opportunities.
I'm not very worried about it, both concerning the autonomous car and the use of artificial intelligence for the brokerage. But on this, maybe Enrico is much more skilled to answer to this issue than me, so I leave the floor to him.
Thank you.
Concerning the real estate. The real estate... Yes, we took the opportunity to make some provision on the real estate portfolio, above all, in some of the buildings that we have. In particular, there are the headquarters that we have in San Donato Milanese . There is a tower that is not used as instrumental, but is rented, and this rent has got to maturity, and we are looking for a new tenant.
In the meantime, we took this opportunity to restate the value of the tower to the fair value of the asset, and we took a charge in this case of EUR 20 million. On top of that, we did other restatement of a little bit less than EUR 10 million, but are very fragmented in a lot of buildings. The main one is the one that I mentioned.
Yes.
Hi, Gianluca. So let me add something about both autonomous driving and AI. On autonomous driving, yeah, I remember we were able to organize, in 2015, an international congress in Rome, that was named Mobility 2025. International experts coming from USA and also all over Europe, about what could be the evolution of autonomous driving. What can we see now after 10 years, and is that this phenomenon was slower than expected. Of course, it's limited today to shared mobility, so the Waymo taxi in San Francisco, that now are expanding in other 10 cities in U.S. But is what we understood in that period, that is slower and probably strictly related to a change in the pattern of mobility.
So, much more keen to used for shared mobility solution and not yet visible for private vehicles mobility solutions. So in the end, we still are really interested in this, but I see something that will have a very limited impact on our business and very, very slow impact on our business. As far as Gen AI is concerned, we can probably discuss about the impact on our business in term of distribution changes. And of course, we are interested in what's happening, but I think that the impact, the perception of this issue was really exaggerated.
Basically, what is concerned is for Italian market digital distribution that never became a real relevant distribution channel. And so I don't think we'll have a visible impact on the Italian market for a very long time. On the other side, Gen AI is a very important new technology in which we are investing, already investing both to become more efficient, but also to be able to serve better our customers.
Brilliant. Thank you.
The next question is from Elena Perini of Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for taking my questions. I've got two of them, and then two follow-ups. The first question is about your dividend. You mentioned the possibility of over-delivering versus your EUR 2.2 billion cumulated target. Are you also considering the possibility of potentially introducing an interim dividend? The second question is about your Combined Ratio evolution.
Considering that you have already overachieved compared to your target for the motor business, would you expect the convergence to your 2027 consolidated target to be driven by the non-motor business, also considering the higher weight of higher margins businesses like the bancassurance and also the health? And how could the property business produce some noise in this?
Then about the two follow-ups, I was wondering whether the pension funds mandates, which impacted the Q1 for Life, were limited to the Q1, or did you have something also the final part of the year? And then on the real estate, I was wondering whether the write-offs impacted only the other sector or in some aspects also the P&C business. Thank you.
Thank you, Elena. Concerning the dividend, we said quite clearly that EUR 800 million is for us a floor going forward. So, we are already today in a sort of over-delivery mood in the dividend. So it is not a possibility, but is a thing in which we are working on. And we are in the condition to say that we can propose this number also for the next couple of years. EUR 1.2 billion of insurance group result is a very good number. Above all, if you consider the quality-
... of the number, in terms of contribution coming from the technical profitability, the investment income, and and whatever. So, we are in the condition to say that, 800 million is, today, the, the, the floor, of, in terms of dividend, payment, in cash. The interim dividend, of course, it has not an economic, impact, but also not only a financial one. I know that the market likes, this kind of, payment strategy. We, we, we have to consider, if, our bylaw, I don't think that, allow us today to do it, but, in the future, we can, we can, by changing the bylaw, we can, think about doing it.
It is not, it is not, a strategy that is on the table today. I can't exclude it in the future. Concerning the Combined Ratio evolution, I leave the floor to Enrico, and then I will answer maybe to the other one later.
Hi, Elena. The motor combined ratio is already better than our target, but still, I think it's prudent to keep the 95% combined ratio target for the plan, considering that we had a very good year for motor other damages, and also that market condition in MTPL can change in the next two years. As far as the non-motor is concerned, the relevant growth, both in bancassurance and in health, of course, is a very good news, but it was already for a very big part included in our strategic plan. Our aim is to grow where profitability is high and volatility is low, and so both of those businesses are perfectly fit in this strategy.
So maybe could be a little better, but the biggest part was already included. And the third question was about the property business. Yes, it can produce some noise because, of course, Nat Cat is volatile, but we are very careful in growing in property and especially in Cat Nat. Very careful to avoid risk concentration, both geographical risk concentration and also peak risk concentration. And last but not least, we have a very solid reinsurance coverage, so we added to our traditional reinsurance program about the excess of loss treaties, the aggregate treaty that protect us also from frequent medium-sized events that can be below the attachment point of the reinsurance treaty in excess of loss. So it could happen, but, I think in this case, we will be able to deliver good results, anyway.
Elena. Elena, concerning the pension funds, we had, as you said, the impact in the Q1 of the year, but also in the final quarter of the year, there was an impact as well. And concerning the contractual service margin, overall, the contribution to the CSM is overall coming from the pension fund is EUR 25 million on a total of EUR 287 million of total new production profitability. And finally, concerning the provisions, there are a part in the P&C business, in particular, EUR 20 million concerning the tower in San Donato that I mentioned before.
But also, in P&C, there are EUR 30 million of charge that we very prudently booked on the financial investment in fiscal credit coming from the bonus 105%. Very prudently, we decided to put this further EUR 30 million. So total EUR 50 million, and other EUR 10 million are in the other activities.
Okay, thank you very much.
There is in life also, more or less, EUR 10 million coming from the integration of Cronos, that, as you know, we incorporated in the final part of the year.
The next question is from Antonio Gianfrancesco of Intermonte. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. Two from my side. The first one is on the financial investment deals. You reported a gross financial investment yield of 5.2% in 2025, with a 4.2 running yield. So, given the current rate environment and your asset allocation, how should we think about the forward-looking running yield for the next 2-3 years? And I was wondering if do you see scope for improvement, or should we assume a sort of stabilization around current levels? And the second one, so for that, is a follow-up on the CSM, because I understand that in 2025, there was, there were some let's say, one-off, for example, Cronos integration and extremely favorable economic variances.
But looking ahead, how should we think about the sustainable growth rate of the CSM? For example, a 15% growth year-on-year before release could be a reasonable assumption, also considering your what you said about the driver for the life premiums in the future. And thank you.
Thank you to you. Concerning the financial investment yield, looking forward, you should trust on the ordinary component of the investment yield, because, you never know, and, we never do assumption, neither positive nor negative, on the performance of financial markets. So we tend to assume no capital gain or capital loss coming from the mark-to-market of financial assets. And, consequently, the 4% running yield could be assumed as a proxy also of the ordinary contribution coming from the investment.
Having said that, in the history, we always succeeded in producing additional alpha on that, but it is not, of course, a certain event, and so prudently, you can maintain the 4%. Concerning the CSM, our target, and it is what we achieved in the past, is to have a final CSM that is in line or higher than the opening CSM. It means that the CSM creating from the new production, plus the expected return, that is a part of the organic and ordinary CSM, is in line or above the CSM released.
We don't consider the economic variance component because it is something that has nothing to do with the performance of the company, because it is a by-product of performance of financial market. And, as you correctly said, in 2025, there was the extraordinary contribution coming from the CSM that we inherited from Cronos. That is a one-off. In life, we are working on the quality of the production in order to increase the contribution coming from annual premium terms, product, and all the line of business where we can have a profitability that is a multiple of the profitability that can have from investment product.
We look forward, as a consequence of that, to increase the contribution coming from CSM, but it is a very long path that you have to follow through a strategy focused on the quality of the product, the kind of product that we distribute, the quality of the distribution with our agents, that are all drivers in which we are fully committed to execute an improvement of the quality of the production in life. But in general, what we look for is to produce, with the expected return, more than we release.
Thank you. Very clear.
The next question is from August Marčan of UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. My first one's on your reinsurance renewals. Some of your European peers were saying they could either get quite better terms and conditions or lower prices, so I was just wondering if you have any comments on how your renewals went. The second one is, I just wanted to get your thoughts on, it seems that the dividend is going to run ahead of the target. The motor combined ratio already is ahead of target. I was just wondering, have you considered internally just upgrading the 2027 targets? And then finally, on capital, I think you made it quite clear that you want to be ready if there's any inorganic opportunity on the market.
My question is, if it's the case that there's no opportunities by end of the plan, would you then consider returning that capital to shareholders? Thanks.
Okay, I start answering to the first question about reinsurance renewals. Yes, the market has evolved after a couple of years of our market started a new phase of softening market for insurance cover, especially, of course, net cat covers, that accounts for the vast majority of the premium we are paying to reinsure to cover our profit and loss account and our capital position. So yes, it was a year in which due to the improving results of the reinsurance market on a global basis, but also on our home book, on our risk management activity, we were able to obtain a risk-adjusted decrease of low double-digit decrease.
Of course, at the same time, there was an increase in the amount of risk we have to cover, and this partially offset this decrease in the cost of the main treaties, that is the excess of loss in property. So, for the near future, we expect that there could be another period in which, if things on Nat Cat business continue to go this way, we could obtain a further reduction in prices and improving in condition of reinsurance treaties. On the other question, again, on dividends, it is not in our attitude to restate target in any way. Our commitment is in over-delivering the target.
We said quite clearly, several times, that EUR 800 million is a floor. So, by multiplying by three, 800, you can understand what our target is today. It is not necessary to restate target, but what is important is the substance of the concept that says that 800 is a sustainable number in our industrial plan. On the capital, I've been doing this job for more than 30 years, and I have been also a portfolio manager, and I did the same question several times to the CEO of the companies.
Believe me, it is not a good situation being my shoes, to be short of capital when you need it. So asking to restate capital to a company could be, in the short term, a very positive action for the stock price, but it is not a good idea in the medium, long term. Because when you are in a situation like the COVID that we had a few years ago or the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008, being short of capital is a very awful situation for a CEO of the of a company, and asking for capital in a very bad situation in financial market is not very easy. And and so it is not an option for us.
We are committed to use this capital in a very profitable way. It is a duty of an administrator or a CEO of a company, and this is the commitment in which I can assure that this capital will deliver a very good and satisfactory remuneration for the shareholders.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
The next question is from Alessia Magni of Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, morning, thank you very much. Last question for me on the others have been asked. On capital, if you have to invest outside, so inorganically, what would be the areas of interest that you potentially look at? And would you also look for assets outside Italy? Thank you very much.
Yeah, we are interested to all the opportunities that can create value for our shareholders, of course. And in our country, there are not so many opportunities in the market, also because we are the first player in P&C. And so there are no, no, no opportunities at the moment to use the capital that we have. It doesn't mean that in the future we can have some opportunities that we can exploit in the insurance business where we have our core business. Outside the country, as we always said, we look at all of the opportunities that can create value. It is quite difficult to create synergies in a cross-border transaction, but nevertheless, and it is a commitment that we have already had in the past.
We don't have a bias in an area or in another. Of course, we are interested to our core business that is P&C, and if we would have an opportunity to look at, we would do it with interest. At the moment, there are not, also in this case, interesting opportunities also because, in this moment, in the other area outside Italy, again, we don't have transaction that can be in which we can be interested, too.
For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. Mr. Laterza, there are no more questions registered at this time.
Thank you very much, to all of you, and we will see you again in May for the Q1. Thank you very much.
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