IRB-Brasil Resseguros S.A. (BVMF:IRBR3)
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Sep 17, 2026, 12:40 PM GMT-3
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Earnings Call: Q4 2022

Mar 9, 2023

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the results presentation of the fourth quarter of 2022 of IRB-Brasil Re. In our conference today, we have the presence of Mr. Marcos Falcão, Director and President of the company, Mr. Willy Jordan, Financial VP, Mr. Wilson Toneto, Technical and Operations VP, Mr. Carlos Guerra, Risks, Compliance and Legal VP, and Mr. Daniel Castillo, Underwriting VP. We would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded and all of the participants will be on the listening mode during the presentation. Afterwards, we shall begin our Q&A session. Should you require any help, please dial star zero. This presentation has been prepared by IRB-Brasil Re and should not be considered as a source of information for investment.

This presentation may contain some forward-looking statements and information pertaining to the company, which reflect current outlooks and/or company's expectations, and also expectations with regards to its management and to its performance, to its business and future events. Forward-looking statements include, without being limited to, any declaration that has any estimation, forecast, indication, or any prospects about the future results, performance, or objectives, as well as words such as we believe, we anticipate, we hope, we estimate, and we project, among other words that have a similar meaning. Such prospective declarations are subject to risks, uncertainties and future events. We warn all the investors that several important factors affect the actual results, and those might be significantly different than planned. Those can differ from the objectives, expectations, projections, and the intentions that are expressed in this presentation.

Under no circumstances, neither the company nor its subsidiaries, board members, directors, agents or employees will be held accountable for third parties, including investors, for any investment decision that is made based on the information and declarations that will be heard in this presentation, or for any damage that might result from it, either corresponding to it or specific. The market and its information with regards to competitive position, including the market projections that will be mentioned throughout this presentation, have been obtained through internal research, market research, publicly available information, and also corporate publications. Mr. Marcos Falcão, President of IRB-Brasil Re, will now begin the presentation.

Marcos Falcão
Director and President, IRB-Brasil Re

Good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure to be here with you in our results presentation for 2022. I took on as the President of IRB last year, and my mission was to accelerate the changes that were started by Raphael, my predecessor. With the main changes already implemented by myself, we have Luciana Martos as our new People Director, and we hired Galeazzi & Associados to help us review the structures and processes of the company, as well as validate the budget for 2023.

Daniel Castillo has recently stepped in as Chief Underwriting Officer, having accumulated over 30 years of experience in renowned companies abroad. Daniel and myself sat at the board since 2020. Thays Vargas, who was an external member of the investment committee, she is now leading the internal controls and compliance areas. Over here we have a very qualified staff with years of experience behind them and a lot of know-how of the investment market in Brazil. Now, in the board, we already kept tabs on Wilson Toneto's and Carlos Guerra's work. They have been re-establishing the company after going through many changes that came to be in 2020. With that team, I have no question that IRB will be very successful.

Next slide, please. Let's remember our main events from 2022. We've had some impacts from COVID, from the drought, from the agribusiness. We had a reformulation of the regulatory indexes, a reframing of those which increased our necessity for increasing capital, 1.2 billion BRL. That was in September. In November, as I stepped into the job, we have done some changes on the structure of the company, like I mentioned. Therefore, the main model for 2023 is to develop the underwriting process, which we are going to touch on in this presentation. Next one. Even though we had impacts from COVID in 2022, and some impact from the agribusiness, we almost reached our breakeven in the fourth quarter. Also in the fourth quarter, our operating cash flow generation came back to being positive. I'll hand it over to our Chief Underwriting Officer, Mr. Castillo.

Daniel Castillo
Underwriting VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Thank you, Falcão. Welcome everyone. Right now, I want to touch on our strategy for Brazil. Slide number five, you can see the reduction of our international business to the tune of 51% in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 30% in the fourth quarter of 2022. On the bottom side of the slide, we can see the reduction of the combined index of 174% in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 118% in the fourth quarter of 2022. In terms of our strategy to resume our focus on Brazil and LATAM, we can see on slide number six, on the bottom left, the reduction of the premium in the fourth quarter of 2022 as compared to the same period in 2021.

This reduction of the international revenue is due to the reduction of our global business outside of LATAM, catastrophic nature business in the U.S., the Caribbean, the agribusinesses in India. Those are businesses that we do not wish to continue. On the top right of the same slide, we can see the year 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. In this graph, we can observe that we maintained the same written premium in Brazil with regards to the foreign premium for the reasons I already mentioned. We had an increase in Brazil business to 68% of our total portfolio. The foreign premium is now reduced to BRL 2.5 billion, being that LATAM now accounts for 13% within our objective of having a portfolio that is 80% Brazil and 20% foreign.

On the bottom side of the same slide, number six, we can see how we are set up, how we are broken down in our portfolio. 37% assets, 12% special risks, 7% maritime transportation, and we have also financial reinsurance. You may notice that our smaller portfolio has been further reduced. On slide number seven, on the top left, we can see the development of our retrocession premium in the fourth quarter from BRL 1.3 billion to BRL 744 million. The reason for that reduction is because we reduced our purchasing of retrocession in this quarter. On the top right, we have the reduction of the annual premium from BRL 3.2 billion in 2021 to BRL 2.9 billion in 2022.

In terms of percentage, this retrocession maintains at the same level because the total written premium also is reduced in 2022 as a result of our portfolio changes. On the bottom side of the same slide, number seven, we can see a comparison between the fourth quarter from 2021 to 2022. We have a reduction of the foreign premiums and an increase on the Brazilian premiums from 2.5% to 2.1%. I will hand it over to Toneto so he can comment on the next topic here, which is the loss ratio.

Wilson Toneto
Technical and Operations VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Thank you, Castillo. By the way, we are on slide number eight. On the left-hand side, we have the development of the history of claims throughout the quarter. The comparison between the fourth quarter of 2021 and 2022, which is seen in the bars, shows just how stable the volume of retained claims are.

In the last quarter of 2022, we have BRL 1.3 billion. Above the bars on the same graph, we can see the claims with and without the LPT effects. You may notice at the fourth quarter of 2022, we had an index of 93%, which was substantially lower to the 112% recorded in the same period in 2021. So we had a positive impact because of the claims in the domestic business that went from 99% to 80% in 2022. On the right-hand side, we are comparing the accumulated retained claims, 2022 and 2021. You may notice that the nominal value in 2022 is actually lower to the tune of BRL 663 million. The loss ratio from 2022 is slightly above what we saw in the previous year.

As it was mentioned before in the presentations of our previous quarters, this year was substantially impacted by atypical climate events that were seen in the 2021 and 2022 seasons in the agribusiness that caused some significant losses in the insurance market, thus affecting IRB as a leader in this segment in Brazil. One other effect that is really important in our results, which was a big impact, was COVID-19. In the first quarter of 2022, we still had some claims that came from the wave that we had on 2021, early 2022. Once we normalized our claims in the rural side, the impact was BRL 965 million. The COVID brought a BRL 228 million effect on our results. Without COVID and with a normalized agribusiness, that would be 81%.

Once we put both of them together, we are at BRL 1.2 billion in effect, which is slightly above the results before taxes in that very same year. Therefore, once you exclude the atypical variations that we observed, our results would be slightly positive this year already. Finally, it's noteworthy to mention that for the rural side and the life business, we are adjusting prices, we are reducing our exposures with canceling or reduction in the participations on different contracts, as well as aligning our commercial conditions and technical conditions on the renewed business. We hope that with these actions, we may resume and pick up the pace. Next slide. On this slide, we have the retained claims in 2021 and 2022, broken down by year and underwriting.

Now in the second column of each frame, we can see the impact of the contract signed in the previous years in the results of both years. On the right-hand side, on the very last column, we can see that 75% of the retained claims that were recorded that year came from contracts signed before June 2020. The same interpretation for 2022 shows a lower, smaller effect, which is close to 17%. With that, we may say that this effect, or the runoff effect that we commented, was actually subdued, and the representation of those old contracts will be much smaller, much less serious for the next few years. We can go to slide number 10.

The top side of this slide, which is recurrent in some of our presentations, indicates that our balance today is in much better shape than we had in 2016 all the way to 2019, reducing the risks of deviation for future results. We always bring up that in the past, we had some relevant premium growth with greater risk exposure and the reservation index that in 2019 reached in the bars. Today, this index is actually doubled, and it stays consistent. On this year, we had greater speed in payment, and therefore, we had a reduction of our claims to be liquidated. On the other side, we had an impact of our IBNR due to the projections we made. On the bottom side, in the last column, we have the breakdown of our technical provisions, which totaled in December 2022 in BRL 14.8 billion.

The reduction with regards to the previous year happened due to the greater speed in claims payment, as well as the reduction of the non-GAAP premium provisions due to the lower volume that we saw. That was offset by the increase of the IBNR that I mentioned. With that, I conclude my presentation, and I hand it over to my colleague.

Willy Jordan
Financial VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Thank you, Toneto. Moving on slide 11, we show the cost of acquisition, which in Q4 totaled BRL 249 million, a 33% drop relative to the same quarter of 2021. If we exclude the effect of LPT, the commissioning ratio would be 18.3% in Q4, vis-a-vis 21.7% in Q4 2021. The acquisition cost in 2022 was BRL 1.1 billion, BRL 103 million, a 22% reduction year-on-year, which is in line with our strategy to negotiate with a view to improving the combined index. The commissioning index ex LPT would be 20% in 2022, relative to 22% in 2021. On the lower part, we show that the SG&A in Q4 was 92.4, which was stable relative to Q4 2021. The SG&A was 6.1% in Q4. But if we exclude the LPT effect, which affects the unearned premiums, the ratio would be 6.8%.

In 2022, SG&A totaled BRL 329.7 million, a 14.9% reduction relative to 2021. This was due to the reduction in expenses with our own personnel and legal fees. The ratio on the earned premium went from 6.6% in 2021 to 6.5% in 2022. I will turn the floor over to Daniel Castillo, who is going to talk about the combined ratio.

Daniel Castillo
Underwriting VP, IRB-Brasil Re

I would like to comment on slide 12, and I would like to make some comments about our combined ratio in 2022 vis-a-vis 2021. On the left-hand side, you can see the combined ratio in Q4. The reduction of loss ratio, commissioning, expenses, all reduced in Q4, and our combined ratio went from 174% to 118% in the same period of 2022.

If we analyze what happened throughout the year on the right-hand side, we see that the combined ratio practically was flat in view of the loss ratio, as Wilson Toneto said. Q4 gives us an indication of our direction. This started two years ago and has been picking up since 2022. On the lower part, you see the amplified combined ratio, which takes into account the financial results. In the quarter, the ratio went from 150% to 107%, and in the year it remained practically flat. I now turn the floor to Willy.

Willy Jordan
Financial VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Thank you, Daniel Castillo. We are now on slide 13, where we see that our asset portfolio was at BRL 9 billion in December 2022, a BRL 300 million growth relative to September, but flat relative to the end of 2021.

The stability of the portfolio has to do with the restricted offer of shares ended in September, which gave us BRL 1.2 billion, and the sale of our headquarters in Rio and of our share in CasaShopping. On the other hand, as was said in the beginning of the presentation, we generated negative operating cash at BRL 1.3 billion in 2022, and this was due to the lower volume of premiums in the year. This has to do with the adjustments in the underwriting policy and with the higher payment of rural claims. Also here, as we said in the beginning of the presentation, in Q4, cash generation was positive for the first time since Q3 2021, and we generated BRL 220 million in operating cash. In Q4, the financial and property result was positive in BRL 153 million, a 9.2% drop relative to the same period of 2021.

This can be explained by the impact of the variations of the dollar on our portfolio, given that the real decreased by approximately 3.5% relative to the dollar in Q4, whereas in the same quarter in 2021, the real was up against the dollar by 2.6%. In Q4, we also made BRL 53 million with the sale of our share in CasaShopping. In 2022, the financial and property result was positive by BRL 690 million, 11.6% higher than in 2021. Relative to the changes in financial results, if we compare the fourth quarter and the whole year, we have to think in terms of the increase in the domestic and international interest rates, especially the American interest rate.

In Brazil, the increase in the basic interest rate took us from 1.84% in Q4 2021 to 3.2 in Q4 2022, and from 4.4% in 2021 to 12.37% yearly in 2022 as an interest rate. We had a very substantial financial result in 2022, but some factors reduced the potential of our financial result, such as the increase in the cost of the ventures in view of the interest rates and inflation, which was higher in Brazil this year, and the result of the portfolio abroad, which was marked to market. Again, according to our ALM strategy and the need to guarantee our international operations, approximately 42% of our cash is denominated in foreign currency, and the profitability and the yield is therefore not linked to the CDI. I'll turn the floor over to Guerra to talk about our regulatory limits.

Carlos Guerra
Risks, Compliance and Legal VP, IRB-Brasil Re

We are now on slide 14. We are going to talk about the regulatory indicators of the company. SUSEP follows two regulatory indicators which have to be met by the company. The first one has to do with the sufficiency of net income, adjusted net income relative to the minimum capital required, as you can see on the top part of the slide. This is slightly different from solvency, because solvency assesses the coverage of technical provision, and we see that there was a mismatch in some moments of the year. This was straightened out after September, after the capital increase. The first indicator, which should be above 100%, and for which there was a mismatch in June, recovered in September and ended the year with a sufficiency of BRL 18 million.

When we observe the total solvency of the company at the top part of the graph, 260% shows that we are in a good situation, in line with the situation of the international industry. The second indicator assesses the amount of assets which are eligible according to SUSEP to meet the actuarial commitments of IRB. There was again a mismatch between March and July or August this year and went positive as of September. The sufficiency at year-end was BRL 332 million. The company's projections indicate that these indicators will remain within the regulatory standards. I turn the floor over now to Castillo for his final remarks about the underwriting strategy.

Daniel Castillo
Underwriting VP, IRB-Brasil Re

On slide 15, we see our strategy to focus on our competencies, we want to focus in 2023 on Brazil. 80% of our business should come from Brazil, because it is in Brazil that we have the greater experience. We will focus on our cedents and reinsurance brokers, and we are going to be more proactive with our clients to better support the needs of the reinsurance market. We intend to concentrate our efforts and activities of marketing in some markets in Latin America. We want to underwrite 15% of our portfolio in Latin America whilst keeping a small share of 5% in the global market. I now turn the floor over to Falcão.

Marcos Falcão
Director and President, IRB-Brasil Re

Thank you, Castillo. This is our last slide 16. I wanted to remind you that within the scope of Galeazzi & Associados, they were charged with reforecasting the budget. We are going to validate the premises, and in Q1, we are going to align our efforts in that direction. With a more agile structure with clear targets, I am certain that we can accelerate what we have been doing.

As was said many times throughout this presentation, excellence in underwriting is going to be our motto. We are going to serve the market with financial discipline, with a view to bringing returns to our shareholders. We have been lucky. We started 2023 with markets and rates that are more favorable to underwriting, a hard market. The interest rate is also higher, which improves our financial results. We know that IRB needs time to go back to the results that it may achieve, and we are here to achieve exactly that.

This morning, we disclosed a material fact where we announced that Willy is going to be on leave to look after his health. From now on, I will be also the IRO at IRB in addition to my other roles. I will ask Willy here, who is taking part of this presentation, to close the cycle of the results of 2022. We are here to support him so that he can overcome this challenge as soon as possible.

Willy Jordan
Financial VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Thank you, Falcão. Thank you for everything. There are moments in life where despite the challenges, the good work of the management, and the trust that I have in the strategy that is being executed, we need to prioritize our health and victory in the major challenges that are placed ahead of us. So from now on, I will be away from the company to dedicate myself to look after my health. But I will be available whenever needed to help you in the efforts that you are now employing. We will be most pleased to answer any questions you might have, and I now turn the floor over to the operator.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session. To ask a question, please press star one. To remove your question from the queue, please press star two. Please hold while we collect the questions. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star one on your phone. Our first question comes from Mr. Prato from UBS.

Kaio Prato
Analyst, UBS

Good morning. Thank you for the call. I have two questions. First one has to do with the LPT operations. I know that in this quarter, if we take the retrocession ratio, LPT is higher instead of lower, which is different from the others. Was there any difference in the LPT operation in this quarter relative to the others? If I may, my second question has to do with the business in Q1. Have you seen an improvement in loss ratio and in underwriting? Can you give us an order of magnitude? What is your expectation for 2023 in terms of underwriting in general and loss ratio?

Wilson Toneto
Technical and Operations VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Hello, Kaio. This is Toneto speaking. Thanks for your question. As regards to LPT, there was a negative effect of LPT in this period, and this affects the retrocession ratio. LPT mitigates against some demands relating to the coverage of technical provisions. So we have made provisions for a certain number of claims, which are then sent back to the retrocession. Now in this quarter, a certain contract ended, and because of the characteristics of this contract, the reminder claims were retroceded to IRB. So there is a small effect there. The other effect on the retrocession ratio came from the renegotiation of protection contracts of IRB, which affected the ratio you were talking about. Relative to the business outlook in terms of loss ratio, I turn the floor to Falcão.

Marcos Falcão
Director and President, IRB-Brasil Re

Hello, Kaio. Good morning. As you said, in Q4, we saw a lower loss ratio. We nearly broke even, and we believe that the gradual improvement will happen quarter on quarter. Looking ahead, it is a hard market in the beginning of the year. The renewals in January saw better rates. In terms of underwriting, we are bringing the portfolio from abroad to Brazil, and we are going to concentrate 80% of our business here in Brazil, 15% in Latin America, and then 5% globally. With this, we will benefit from higher interest rates. So our reserves will be better employed, and the financial result should be better as well. We envisage going back to profitability. We will still feel the effects of the past, but this will be diluted, as you well know.

Kaio Prato
Analyst, UBS

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. Guilherme Grespan from JP Morgan.

Guilherme Grespan
Analyst, JPMorgan

Good morning. Thank you for the presentation and for taking my question. First, in the aviation segment, you have the underwriting year. Can you give us a little bit more color, what was this set of claims, and what will be the duration of this segment? Then the financial result abroad, can you give us a little bit more color about where this money is invested, how it is remunerated? So can you explain what type of assets you have the funds invested abroad in?

Marcos Falcão
Director and President, IRB-Brasil Re

I'm going to turn the floor over to Castillo to answer the question about aviation, and Willy is going to take your question about the portfolio abroad.

Daniel Castillo
Underwriting VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Good morning, Guilherme. We have been reducing our presence in aviation as much as possible. This is part of our strategy, especially abroad. The rates for aviation are not appropriate, and it is not where our competencies are put to best use. So we are reducing this portfolio in aviation.

Willy Jordan
Financial VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Good morning, Guilherme. I'll talk about our investments abroad. For this to constitute our reserves, the funds have to be invested in eligible assets, eligible according to SUSEP, of course. So these are assets with limited risk. On the one hand, we have some investments in T-bonds, American T-bonds, with very low risk and with very low remuneration as well. Some other bonds of first-line Brazilian banks and Brazilian T-bonds as well abroad, which are denominated in dollars. So these are the main assets.

Guilherme Grespan
Analyst, JPMorgan

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question was asked on the webcast platform, and it came from Mr. Ricardo from BTG Pactual. Could you make comments about the potential impact on loss ratio from some events which took place in the beginning of the year, such as drought in the south of Brazil and Argentina, storms in the coast of São Paulo, and a major case of corporate fraud in Brazil?

Carlos Guerra
Risks, Compliance and Legal VP, IRB-Brasil Re

[Carlos] going to answer this one. With regards to the agribusiness, the drought in the south and Argentina, first of all, our exposure in Argentina is quite low. There is not a lot of effect coming from Argentina. Indeed, the southern drought, while it is early for us to give you a precise estimate, the fact is it has generated some effect on some of the regions. But it is important from an IRB perspective to understand that we have a concentration that is a little higher on soybeans. In the south, the volume of business and the exposure that we have is just a small portion of our overall portfolio. Even though we have an increase in the loss ratio in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, we still have great prospects in the other regions.

In other words, we have a positive prospect in the different farming regions. When you analyze the overall context, we do not really see or whether we do not expect a big impact in the southern portfolio as far as our results. As a matter of fact, we had already priced for that. Now, with regards to the rainfall in the north shore of São Paulo, we do not have any significant exposure from a housing perspective or a marine perspective for that matter. There is nothing that relevant. Now, with regards to the roads which have been damaged as well, a lot of those roadways were from DAER. They were not conceded, so they did not have the insurance or the reinsurance. A lot of the times, the insurance do not cover for floodings.

Unfortunately, a lot of the residences that were damaged, they were lower income residences, and a lot of them did not have any insurance coverage either. In terms of our activities, we do not foresee any significant impact. There might be an impact on the automobile portfolios, but for reinsurance, the exposure is quite low on that front. To the last question, I think that this is related to the Americanas S.A. case. We do not have any credit risk exposure. We do not have any D&O exposure. We have a bit of exposure here and there on financial warranties and others, but it is quite small. So we do not estimate that there will be any significant impact from that perspective. We do have a legal warranty portfolio, and that is a little higher, but it is very scattered, our exposure.

From a legal warranty perspective, that proved to be very resilient and not a lot of claims come from that. Again, we have the legal warranty portfolio and for it to become a claim to us, first you need to lose a legal proceeding. In that hypothesis that you are losing a legal proceeding, you can negotiate the value, so then you can use the insurance or the reinsurance. When it comes to the businesses that went into legal recovery or judicial recovery or Chapter 11 recently, our risk is definitely lower on that side. So we do not see a lot of impact from that front. You did not ask that, but I will take an opportunity to say, because there are some lingering questions with regards to the Turkey earthquake and IRB, I just want to put you at ease.

We reduced a lot of our exposure in that region, so we did not have any effect. There is going to be something from a global contract perspective, but it is going to be a very small number. That is the positive aspect. Of course, the market is going to be impacted. That was quantified between BRL 4 billion and BRL 6 billion, I would claim. Those were the first estimates, and of course, that is going to have an impact on price somehow, some way, that can even have a positive effect for us here in Brazil. So that is it. I hope I was able to conclude and answer your question.

Operator

We are now going to continue with the questions that were established. The next question was asked by Mr. Ricardo from BTG Pactual. The question is the following: Given the excess of regulatory capital, which is relatively low, does IRB intend on increasing capital in the short term?

Daniel Castillo
Underwriting VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Good morning, Ricardo. Thank you for your question. Well, Ricardo, first of all, the increase in capital that we did in 2022 was derived from the catastrophe of the agribusiness. Looking for IRB has a lower volume of premium. We have less of a capital demand, and we are not forecasting any catastrophes. Our resume of profitability is also going to improve our margin. So we foresee a better future in this sense.

Operator

Our next question is from Matheus Amaral from Banco Inter.

Matheus Amaral
Analyst, Banco Inter

Morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. Just wanted to go back to my first question. I think you made it quite clear that there is no measure to provide any cushion, so to speak, but I do not know if you are pricing for that, in terms of, I know that you grew quite a bit on the rural side in Brazil, and I do not know how you are pricing for that. There has been some developments in the insurance market, in the rural market overall. Are you susceptible to any potential event? Can there be any future loss due to any event that you are susceptible to? I wonder if you are just planning on the normalcy of conditions, normalcy of results from now on, so there will not be any necessity in the future to do any further adjustments in your assets.

My second question, if I may, is what led you to change the strategy from 70/30 in terms of Brazil and abroad? What led you to change that ratio to 80% Brazil, 15% LATAM, and 5% rest of the world?

Marcos Falcão
Director and President, IRB-Brasil Re

Thank you. Well, Matheus, thank you for your question. Here is the answer. We are in a hard market with the best financial results, with the least premiums, and looking forward with profitability. With that, we do not see any necessity to increase capital. It is what you said, it is normalcy. It seems odd because after a period where we had too many fluctuations, we are actually in a position to say that. But it is what we believe, and it is what we budgeted for the year, and this is what we intend to do. Okay? Now to your second question with regards to reframing our foreign portfolio and our Brazil portfolio, I will let Daniel Castillo comment as well, but in Brazil, we have experience.

This is where we have the most history in IRB, and this is where the profitability is. In the past, we went abroad, and that decision was because of a policy to increase our top line, our premiums, and not the results. That being said, Daniel Castillo can comment on that as well.

Daniel Castillo
Underwriting VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Well, I think you said it very well, but our premium actually was 50% foreign, 50% Brazil. Now we are concentrating on what we do best, which is Brazil and LATAM markets, where we see more necessity for reinsurance.

Matheus Amaral
Analyst, Banco Inter

It is very clear. Thank you.

Daniel Castillo
Underwriting VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Thank you, Matheus Amaral.

Operator

Our next question was sent via the Webex platform that was asked by Anna from the Santander Bank. She asked, "Would you be able to say something else about the retrocession ratio throughout 2023?"

Daniel Castillo
Underwriting VP, IRB-Brasil Re

Yes, we can comment further on the retrocession ratio for 2023. Our strategy is to reduce our foreign exposure even more. We already reduced it a little bit, but we want to reduce it even further and concentrate more in Brazil. So our retention with that tends to be higher. In other words, our operating retrocession index tends to be lower. We are going to take on this commitment, which is to have more of a retention capacity here in Brazil.

One side effect from that initiative is to have less purchasing of protection. We are talking about retrocession now from the protection point of view. We also estimate that having as little catastrophic exposure as we could have by reducing our exposure abroad, we would have to buy less retrocession for protection, and therefore the index, in this case, would be a little lower. In other words, the cost for protection will be a little lower. These are the two changes that we are seeing, a lower protection cost on the one hand, and a higher concentration here in the domestic market on the other hand. I hope that this answers Anna's question. We can go to the next one.

Operator

We remind you that in order to ask questions via the telephone, all you have to do is dial star one. To remove your question from the list, press star two. We ask you to please stand by while we collect further questions. Good. I would like to hand it over to Mr. Marcos Falcão for his final address. Mr. Marcos, please.

Marcos Falcão
Director and President, IRB-Brasil Re

Thank you all for your attention. We will always be reporting our facts with transparency, and we count on all of your support and your positive, constructive criticism to our management, and we hope to have a 2023 that is in normal levels with profitability, a lot of hard work with this wonderful team that we have. Again, thank you so much. Have a great rest of your week.

Operator

The conference for IRB-Brasil Re is hereby concluded. Thank you so much for all the participants, and have a great day ahead.