Good morning or good afternoon all, and welcome to the Alm. Brand Q4 2024 earnings call. My name is Adam, and I'll be your operator today. If you'd like to ask a question during the Q&A portion of today's call, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand the floor to Rasmus Werner Nielsen to begin. So, Rasmus, please go ahead when you are ready.
Yeah, good morning, and thank you for joining us on our conference call. I'm here today with our CFO, Andreas Ruben Madsen, and our head of IR, Mads Thinggaard. This morning, we published our interim report for the fourth quarter, and as usual, I will walk you through the operating highlights, and then Andreas will comment on the financials. Let us move to slide two. Overall, 2024 ended better than expected with large claims of just 4.7% and weather-related claims of 2.9% being in the normal range we expect and somewhat lower than 4.1% in 2023. We had strong growth in our Personal Lines in 2024 of 7.7%, while also ending the year with a Q4 growth rate above 7%. Thanks to our strong partnerships with local as well as countrywide banks, we're taking market share in Personal Lines.
We view growth in Commercial Lines as decent in 2024 with around 3%, while ending the year at a high note above 5% growth in Q4. Despite a significant headwind on motor claims, we had an improvement in our undiscounted underlying loss ratio of 120 basis points in 2024, while ending the year with 190 basis point improvements in Q4 following profitability initiatives kicking in along with an uptick in the synergy effects. The synergies continued to tick in as planned, with the run rate increasing quarter by quarter. On the cost side, we improved the cost percentage to 18.3% in 2024 as planned, but we did need to make an extra effort to make this happen. Combined with a very satisfactory investment result for 2024, the profit before special cost and tax reached DKK 1.75 billion, somewhat above our latest guidance of DKK 1.58-DKK 1.68 billion.
Our proposed dividend of DKK 0.6 per share and total buybacks of DKK 250 million represent a record high normal distribution of DKK 1.15 billion and a payout ratio of 96%. The Codan transaction is simply paying off on our distributions as well. Now I'll turn to slide three with our financial highlights for Q4. The insurance service result of Q4 2024 of DKK 440 million was a big improvement from DKK 287 million last year, which was driven by much lower weather-related claims, but also with support from strong growth in Personal Lines of about 7% and underlying improvements on claims. The investment result of DKK 74 million in Q4 was satisfactory despite being lower than last year, and we ended 2024 at a very satisfactory level for the investment result of DKK 439 million.
Special costs of DKK 109 million are somewhat lower than last year and contain DKK 52 million for the integration of Codan, as well as DKK 50 million in costs for our FTE reductions announced in October 2024, and now I'll turn to slide four with just a few additional remarks on 2024. Here, I wanted to highlight the improvement we made with an insurance service result of DKK 1.4 billion despite the headwind we saw on motor in 2024, while run-off gains at 1.4% were 1 percentage point lower in 2024 than in 2023 and a bit below the long-term expected level of 2%. We are repricing on motor following the uptick in frequency in recent years, as well as average repair cost was up in 2024. We expect the repricing effects to kick in into 2025, while recent additional uptick in motor frequency seems to moderate quite a bit.
Thus, we see 2024 form a good basis for reaching our targets in 2025. Now I'll turn to slide five and six. Both slides illustrate that we had major claims below our normal level in seven out of the last eight quarters. On a group level, we had major claims of 4.7% on average during the last eight quarters compared to our normal expected level of 7%. Despite some volatility between the quarters, we feel we are in a better overall position. Our continuing business is reflecting the upcoming divestment of Energy and Marine. However, we will continue to work with a further reduction on the volatility in major claims. On slide seven, you can see the payout ratio for 2024 of 96%. The payout ratio is achieved for the actual net profit with some add-backs after tax related to the integration of Codan and amortization of intangible assets.
We are close to a 100% payout ratio again for 2024, as we have been for recent years. This reflects our strong underlying capacity for distributions. We already completed the first buyback of DKK 150 million related to the 2024 earnings, while we will soon launch the second tranche of DKK 100 million to run in February. So, adding together the remaining ordinary share buyback in February with DKK 1.6 billion buybacks we expect to do related to the divestment of Energy and Marine after the expected closing in March and the DPS of DKK 0.6 to be paid in April, we expect a total effect of DKK 2.6 billion in distributions in 2025. Let's go into the detail with the insurance service result on segments on slide nine.
Commercial Lines did quite well in the fourth quarter with an insurance service result of DKK 238 million compared to DKK 181 million in fourth quarter last year. The main driver for the improvement was weather-related claims dropping to 3.4% in Q4 2024 from 10.4% in the quarter the year before, while a 0.8 percentage point drop in the cost ratio helped Commercial Lines as well. Personal Lines almost doubled on the insurance service result to DKK 202 million in Q4 compared to the year before, but for Personal Lines, the improvement was driven by lower weather-related claims as well as a huge improvement in the underlying claims ratio with a drop of about 3% year on year. For Personal Lines, a 1.1% drop in the cost ratio helped as well. And now, please turn to slide 10. Insurance revenue grew by 6.2% in the quarter with a good growth in both lines.
In Q4, growth was 7.2% in Personal Lines and 5.1% in Commercial Lines. In Personal Lines, we are still taking market share due to our strong partnerships, bank partnerships, while repricing related to high motor claims helps as well. Commercial growth is coming back to a level around inflation of 3%, while a 2 percentage point effect from new legislation on workers' compensation comes on top of this in the fourth quarter growth rate of 5.1%. And moving on to slide 11 and the claims ratio. The Q4 claims ratio was down 3.8 percentage points year on year, driven by much lower weather-related claims. The 6 percentage point drop in weather-related claims was countered by a 3% drop in run-off gains.
The underlying claims ratio improved by seven basis points year on year, driven by Personal Lines and successful repricing on motor claims, while Commercial Lines was adversely impacted by a lower discounting effect on claims and remaining headwind on motor, even though we viewed this headwind as moderating in the quarter. Moving to an undiscounted basis, we reached 190 basis points improvement in underlying claims year on year, which is very positive for the improvements we are expecting in 2025. And now, please turn to slide 12 and the Personal Lines. Here, you can see the drop in the cost ratio of 1.1 percentage point I mentioned before, following necessary FTE reductions as well as synergies kicking in.
The drop in the claims ratio is a massive 5%, and with underlying improvements above 3 percentage points as the main driver, I'm quite proud of this and believe we are standing out compared to our peers on the underlying development in Personal Lines. Please turn to slide 13 and the Commercial Lines. Again, I've already touched upon the improvements we are seeing in our Commercial Lines. In Q4 2024, we are seeing much lower weather-related claims than Q4 last year, but also much lower run-off gains and an adverse effect from the lower discounting rate on claims. In sum, the underlying claims experience is not that different from last year, but still with a moderate headwind for motor. Our expense ratio in Commercial Lines in Q4 is down 0.8 percentage points year on year.
With these comments, I will now hand over the word to Andreas, who will walk us through synergies, investments, and the guidance.
Thank you, Rasmus. Please turn to slide 15. We continue to move forward on our various synergy initiatives according to our plans, and this quarter, we have realized DKK 138 million, leading to DKK 460 million harvested in synergies for 2024, slightly above our target of DKK 450 million. DKK 138 million harvested synergies in Q4 is a significant uptick from the DKK 75 million in Q4 2023, as we are now seeing more support from IT and administration for the year-on-year uptick. I'm proud to point to the fact that we are moving into 2025 with a run rate for synergies of DKK 550 million, which is not that far from the DKK 600 million targeted in P&L synergies for 2025. And now I move to slide 16 and the investment result.
The investment result was a profit of DKK 74 million, driven by a positive return from our free portfolio amid a drop in interest rates in Q4, while the match portfolio delivered a return a bit above zero. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the investment result for 2024, which ended close to the DKK 450 million that we guided for. Even though we focus much more on the insurance sales results than the investment result, it's clear that a positive investment outcome like we had in 2024 is a nice add-on to our distributions of dividends and buybacks for the year. And now, finally, please turn to slide 18 for the outlook for 2025, initially stated on January 22nd. Our guidance includes a technical result excluding run-offs of DKK 1.5 billion-DKK 1.7 billion, including expected synergy gains of a total of DKK 600 million.
The guidance also reflects continued pricing efforts in commercial as well as Personal Lines. The cost ratio is expected to be at 17%, and the combined ratio excluding the run-off result is expected to be at 85.5%-87.5%. We expect an investment result of DKK 200 million in 2025 based on the current return for the free portfolio and a zero result for the match portfolio. For other activities, we guide a deficit of around DKK 125 million. Consequently, group profit excluding special costs is expected to be DKK 1.58-DKK 1.78 billion before tax, excluding run-off gains for 2025. In addition, we guide for the restructuring costs of DKK 175 million, of which DKK 25 million relates to the separation of our Energy and Marine business, while we expect depreciation on intangible assets to affect the income statement by approximately DKK 335 million in 2025.
Lastly, we expect a result after tax in discontinued activities of DKK 250 million. And with this, I conclude our presentation and hand over the word to our moderator. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your headset is fully plugged in and unmuted locally. Star followed by one. And our first question today comes from Asbjørn Mørk from Danske Bank. Asbjørn, please, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on a strong set of numbers. Basically, first of all, trying to understand a little bit the underlying improvement, the 190 basis points for the group undiscounted, considering the impact you also mentioned from the health and accident business and the sort of the impact in Q4 on the premium side versus the claims, which, if I understood you correctly, were still there in Q3. So I guess that's around 50 basis points of sort of a switch for the underlying into Q4, a tailwind on the underlying for the group, and hence 100 basis points or 110 basis points for the Commercial business. Is that correctly understood that we should sort of adjust for that to get to the real underlying, so to speak?
Yeah, hi, Asbjørn. This is Mads. I think it sounds a bit high. I mean, we're talking about DKK 15 million extra in Q4 stemming from Q3. So we have a double effect of DKK 30 million, which would normally be DKK 15 million in Q4. And I think in the Commercial Lines, that would produce a positive or a drop in the underlying loss ratio of around 70 basis points. So on a group level, 30 to 40 basis points help from that.
All right. That was a fair comparison. Then if we then look at the 190 and adjust for this, I guess still for the true underlying, you are seeing somewhat better underwriting momentum than what you at least sort of soft-guided for at Q2 and Q3. So what is it that has sort of gone better here in Q4? Is it that the price acceptance for clients has been better, or is it early signs? If we look at the motor claims, for instance, the last three months have been pretty benign. Is that the trends we're starting to see coming through, or could you give a little bit more flavor on what it is actually that is sort of on the margin doing better than you thought three, four months ago?
Yeah, hi, Asbjørn. Andreas here. I'll try to answer that. I think we have a few things which have moved in the good direction. In general, we've had another solid quarter in Q4 for Personal Lines also where some of the, apart from motor, a lot of our other lines have had a quite good, strong quarter, which is a bit better than we would normally see. And then on top of that, I think Commercial Lines, we are beginning to see the effect of the repricing come in. We also see them. We see motor frequency moderate a bit now, and they come in almost flat if we adjust for interest rates on Q4.
Even though we still have some headwind on motor, I think we are beginning to see maybe the first signs of also the part of the renewal we've had in 110 for the last quarter. We do see some tailwind coming in maybe a bit sooner than we had originally expected.
Okay, fair enough. If it then comes to the private lines and the five percentage points improvement to the claims ratio year over year, is there a retention risk here that you have repriced more than maybe your peers or that you have repriced for a little bit of a more adverse claim scenario than what we're seeing right now? Is there a sort of a do you see an increased turn risk going forward here?
It's Rasmus here, no, we don't see that. We have had this very good momentum for the last, I will almost say, many quarters. So I don't see that as a major risk. We also see our competitors that they really increase prices, and some are even doing it higher than we are doing. So I think it's a moderate risk.
Let's say the motor claims numbers that we've seen for November, December, sorry, and January, that trend sort of continues. Does this change your pricing policy in 2025? I guess you have been repricing for continued sort of deterioration or at least a slight improvement, but still some adverse scenario on this. So is there anything there we should be aware of?
I think we still see increases. They're more moderate, and I think it's too early today to say how that will affect in the last half of 2025. But we definitely look forward to seeing more moderation on the pricing hikes, so to say.
Okay. Then final question from my side on the PIM model. You mentioned now in the Q4 report that the process is ongoing. You have, of course, discussed it a couple of times, but now you actually write it. Is there a change in why you put it sort of in text? And this is sort of like you being extremely firm on this to a level where you can sort of put it in the report and be actually able to release any estimate on that and when we should expect that to come back to shareholders?
Yeah, Asbjorn, we put it in the report because I know that we verbally mentioned this a number of times, but we feel, for full transparency for all our stakeholders, we felt it was good to put it in the report so that was out there for everybody to see in writing where we are in the process. But we're still too soon to be able to give any estimates for the effect.
Okay, that's fair. Final question on the renewable sale. Since the date is very fixed in early March, what is it sort of we're waiting for that deal to close? Is there any deal risk at all?
Yeah, well, we don't see any deal risk. We are waiting for the final part of the regulatory approvals, the one coming from the Norwegian FSA, and we still expect that to be within time so that we can close in the beginning of March. And there's been no problems arise in the process so far. We're still waiting for the final approval, but basically, we are where we're expecting to be at this point in time.
All right. Thanks a lot.
The next question comes from Jan Erik Gjerland from ABG. Jan Erik, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question as well . The first one is on the sale here. What happened to the is it a run-off gain you will sort of write in the report that gives you this fantastic sort of discontinued earnings for these two, three months of DKK 250 million? Secondly, the growth in your market share in the private area looks to be stemming from your banking operation or banking channels. Could you shed some more light into who you are taking clients from? And if it's price-driven, or is it new volume, or is it sort of added volumes from your clients? On the price increases in general, you mentioned last year that you had repricing for DKK 100 million each of profitable growth in the Commercial as well as the private lines. How are you doing on those numbers?
If you could shed some more light into how well you have been succeeding in those sort of successful repricing. And finally, on the PIM model, as Asbjørn talked about, when could we expect anything? Is it in the second half of this year, or is it early 2026 that you would think that you could get some approval from the regulator? Thank you.
Yeah, hi, Jan Erik. Andreas here. I'll start out with the first part around our discontinuing operations guidance. There are a few moving parts in there. We have the—I'm not sure this is the right English term, but we do have the depreciation of the goodwill relating to the sale. We have the depreciation of also the other intangible assets, the brand and customer relations. Then we have the actual payment from Gard in there also. And then, as you rightly mentioned, we have, let's say, the profits we expect for the business as such until March 3rd. And in the end, we also have a minor part coming from some costs related to the sale we're handling this year also.
So there are some moving parts in there, and that all sums up to this after-tax number of DKK 250 million for the year, all expected to be booked in Q1. So that was me, and then I think Rasmus would take the.
Yeah, I can take your second question about the growth in Personal Lines, and you're right. Very much of that can be connected to our bank partnerships, and we are definitely taking market shares in this area. I think we have solid products. We have a very good relationship with Jyske Bank, and it's now kicking in as one quarter takes the other, that we are improving ways of working. It's becoming more digital to arrange meetings. We are better in having the meetings, less cancellations, and all that, so step by step, this partnership is just becoming stronger and stronger, and as they have a 40% market share of the total banking activities in Denmark, we really have good growth opportunities in this area, I think, as we had phrased before, but it is definitely kicking in quarter by quarter, and who are we taking our customers from?
I think it's very much spread around all of our competitors. It's not to say that it is one or the other. It's definitely spread out. The bank partnerships are very strong in Jutland, as an example, with Spar Nord and Sparekassen Danmark. It's also coming in in Copenhagen and in Zealand with Arbejdernes Landsbank. Coming in strongly has now been part of this family for some period. So all in all, it's working out. You can say exactly as we want it to work out.
Okay.
Yeah. I can try to get a status on the repricing also compared to what we had, our profitability initiatives and what we had been communicating earlier. I think in the overall state of this, that in terms of round numbers, we've been talking about around DKK 100 million coming from both, yeah, from Personal Lines and Commercial Lines respectively. And I think that is still a good estimate for the proportion of benefits we see coming and what we have sort of set in motion. And we don't see, and back to some of the other questions, we've seen, as some of you noticed, that maybe we've seen a moderation now in motor frequencies. We still feel that's too early to sort of see a structural. If that was to materialize later on as a structural benefit, then we would take action.
But for now, we still feel we have the right plans in motion.
Okay.
Then I think Jan Erik, you had a question on the PIM timing as well. And we write in the report, we say it's a process for Q1 to Q3 2025. So we don't want to put any pressure on anybody, but I think, I mean, by the end of Q3, we would expect an outcome of the process.
Okay, very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Martin Birk, SEB. Martin, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much. Perhaps a couple of small questions from my side. The special cost is a little higher than anticipated. What's the reason for that? Also, what's the reason for that, and also your guidance for 2025 and special cost also seems in the high end? If you look at discontinued activities, additional activities, what's happening in the quarter? And then finally, when I look at your tax rate, I guess your average tax rate over recent eight quarters has been like 34%, which is a lot higher than the statutory tax rate in Denmark for financial companies. Are there any moving parts to this tax rate that we should be aware of going forward?
Yeah, I'm about to go through that step by step. First question was around the special cost. For Q4, I think we more or less landed where we have been expecting. We had, let's say, we have DKK 52 million coming from the ordinary integration, and then we have the DKK 50 million on top. We also communicated earlier related to the layoff, the reorganization and SEE takeout we had in October. So I think that's in line with what we said earlier. And you're right that if we move to 2025, with the guidance there, DKK 175 million in total, DKK 25 million of that has to do with Gard, Energy and Marine, and that's in line with what we've never been very specific on timing, but we have communicated a total cost of around DKK 50 million related to the separation.
Some of that has already been held in 2024, and some relating around DKK 25 million to 2025. So that's more or less also in line. So if you add it all up in the integration when we're done in 2025, we will be at just below DKK 1.1 billion for the integration as such. That's a bit higher than the DKK 1 billion in round numbers we started out communicating, but just below DKK 1.1 billion for the integration as such. And then we've had this need to do further on costs along the way, among them the DKK 50 million we just did in the end of last year. So I think that's at least where we are now for integration and special costs.
Then you asked also to the discontinued activities, as I recall, that was related to the Q4 result, Martin, or maybe you could repeat that.
I'm wondering why what's happening this quarter on the discontinued activities. It's coming out a little lower than what we had hoped.
Yeah, I think we've not had a fantastic quarter, but we are doing that process. In after-tax terms, this is not too far from what we would normally see. And then there are also these costs that I mentioned before. I think there's about just below DKK 20 million of costs being booked related to the separation in Q4 also.
Okay, gotcha. That explains it. And lastly, on your tax rate, which, in my book, is very high, and it's been very high for, well, now eight, nine quarters in a row, and I'm wondering why that is the case.
Yeah, and I think we do have some moving parts there also. Just to give you sort of the flavor of the moving parts, we have a difference in tax rates between our parent company and Alm. Brand A/S with a tax rate of 22%, and then we have almost all of our profits and losses are in the insurance company with a tax rate of 26%. Then you can also, on top of that, have some fluctuations, which I can come back to. But if you look at the structural thing, we do see an effect from having the depreciation of intangibles as the main item in the Alm. Brand A/S part of the perimeter, which is only on 22% deduction. That is not really affecting anything in terms of cash value because it's related to the intangible assets and the depreciation there.
On top of that, we can also see fluctuations when we have, as we have had last year also. If we see losses on some of our strategic investments, which are placed in the mother company, that will also be at a lower then we have a loss if that's the way it goes, which has been the case for the last year. We've seen some losses there, which also are deducted on 22. That could also be gained in other periods. But just to sum up, I think most of that sort of what you're seeing is from the depreciation of intangibles in the mother company.
Okay. So if you sat in my chair, what kind of tax rate would you put into 2025?
I think if you're looking at depending on how you build your model, but if you're looking at what actually generates.
Reported tax rate.
For the full 25, I think I have to get back to you on that, Martin.
Okay. Thanks.
But for the part generating actual cash in the insurance company, it's 26.
Okay. Thanks.
So we can make a follow-up if you need more on that item, and maybe we can spell it out a bit clearer for you on a different session.
Okay. Excellent. Thank you.
As a reminder, that star followed by one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Mathias Nielsen from Nordea. Mathias, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot, and congratulations on the strong underlying results this quarter. So my question is firstly on motor. Now we have seen motor frequency coming down in Denmark recently. As far as I remember, like a year ago, we had this double whammy effect of both the frequency increasing, but also triggering basic repair shops and distressed supply chains, which also caused the claim inflation, like the cost of repairing them, to spike quite a lot. How do you see it this year around? And at this time, have you already seen any benefits from that, or is it something that you expect to see in the early 2025 that the cost inflation is also coming down on claims?
Yeah, I can take that, Mathias. I think you're very much you're right in the overall picture. We've seen frequency come up for some time. Now, very recently, we see maybe a slight moderation. What happened in especially the second part of 2024 was that also repair costs came up, and that pushed average claims up. We're still not seeing a much different picture there. We're still at these higher levels. You might argue that in a blue sky scenario, over time, if frequency comes down a bit, and we still, just to repeat that, we don't feel that that is structural yet that we can make that call, but if that was to happen, then we would also expect over time the average claims to come down as there was less pressure on supply chains.
But for now, we feel we have the plans in motion we need, and we haven't seen anything that we consider structural at this point in time.
Okay. Thanks a lot on that. And then the second question on competition, how do you feel the competition is out there right now? Earlier this week or so, one of your competitors changing the way they do the list prices by changing the way they do discounts just to appear cheaper on the list prices than, for example, you on certain products. Have you seen the competition intensifying over the past quarter, or how should we think about that?
Yeah, I think just to put it out, I think we have quite tough competition at the moment in general, especially in the Personal Lines, but also in the SMB and lower lines of commercial. There are always different ways to do it, and we're doing it our way. It's working quite good at the moment with our partnerships in the banks, as we just mentioned before. So yeah, I cannot comment on what others are doing and how they do that, but I can just say that the customers, they know more and more about prices. They have better views into the policies and all that that they have had ever before, so you cannot really do anything to hide it for the customers at all, so competition is quite tough out there, just to mention.
But is it getting worse, or is it just the same as it has been for quite some time?
I think it is.
Competitive products?
Yeah, you have a point. I think it's more or less the same. I don't know exactly, but I have a feeling that being a small competitor is, by definition, in terms of all the AI coming in and whatever, will be tougher and tougher to be small and not having the scale. There's a lot of compliance issues coming in for the European Union and all that. Everything takes time. It takes cost, and it will end up in higher prices.
Thank you. That was very clear, and then my last question, sort of a technical one, on the DKK 250 million in result from the discontinued operations in 2025, how much is that actually impacting the combined ratio? All of it, or is it like it sounds like it was quite a few of accounting profits rather than cash profits, so is there any change in how we should think about that on the combined ratio?
I can start out, then that's where you can help me. But I think the overall picture is that we have a lot of moving parts. Some of the parts I went through are handled also in terms of taxation in a different way, some of it being taxed on ordinary tax rates, some not being taxed, for instance, the goodwill depreciation. So in effect, what we communicated when we started out was that we had a total price, so to say, of DKK 1.6 billion, and we committed to pay DKK 1.6 billion because that was our estimate for the capital effect we would be able to pay out after the and that still holds. And then within the DKK 250 million, I can add the clarity that we for now have not had a fantastic quarter in Energy and Marine.
So we do have, and that's a small number in the big picture here, but we do have at least an after-tax loss of DKK 50 million we've booked on top of what we would normally expect for that. But most of what we see here is not actually impacting the capital position. There, I would go back to the DKK 1.6 billion, and that's more or less what we are. That's also what we'll be paying out in the rights issue following that adjustment.
Yeah, I think I can perhaps add a bit. I mean, I'll say it in a bit different way also. I mean, of course, you have money coming in from Gard on equity as well as liquidity, but that's going out again. Then you have a disposal of intangible assets, but that is already deducted in capital. So you're not really seeing any difference on that in the solvency ratio. And then you have a bit of pluses and minuses in the line.
That was all for me. Thanks a lot for your answers.
The next question comes from Marvin Russell from HSBC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my call, CFO. So the first one that I have is on the Commercial book again. Are you able to quantify the quantum of price increases that you were able to put through on your Commercial book at the recent renewal in January? And in conjunction to that, are you seeing change in terms of customer behavior? Are you seeing any pressure in terms of customer retention when you are able to put through those rate increases? The second one would be on your reinsurance program. It would be helpful if you could provide some colors in terms of have you made any changes with respect to your reinsurance coverage at the recent renewal period? And the last one would be on your investment result target of DKK 200 million.
Can you provide us the underlying macro assumptions that you have baked into that number with respect to interest rate movement or equity market movement? Thank you.
Yeah, hello, as I can take the first one in terms of Commercial and the rates. As Andreas mentioned before, we had the first round 1st of October, and we actually, as you see in our numbers, it ended up quite well, and we had a quite nice increase in our accounts in Commercial in fourth quarter. Now, the big one is, of course, 1st of January, where we also increasing prices also significant in some areas. It's a little bit late to conclude, but we feel that we are in a very good position in terms of customers staying with us. So retention is good, and we're getting the rates we are asking for. So I would say from what we have seen so far, all in all, it's very positive in the commercial part. Yeah.
Yeah. And in terms of reinsurance, we have more or less the same. There's no major changes to our program or structure going into 2025. So we still have the same retention level limits for all our major programs. So nothing new to report in terms of structure for the reinsurance. Then I think you asked also around the investment result. As you may recall, our expectations on the investment result stems from a combination of us assuming that the hedge part of the portfolio, which is most of the portfolio, we will on average reach a zero expected return for that. And then the return that we generate will be from what we call the free portfolio. And we've come a bit down in annual expectations here, arriving at the DKK 200 million. That stems from two, let's say, effects.
One of them, the major one being that rates have come down quite a bit. We still have a lot of bonds and also illiquids, which are tied up to interest rates. So we don't have that. We're not heavy on equities. So we do follow sort of the overall interest rates expectations in the macro, and that's what's pushed down a bit. And then also we will also see a reduction in the capital of the free portfolio coming after the Gard divestment because some capital is freed up from that, as we talked about earlier. So those two effects are what's pushing down annual returns for investments a bit.
That's very helpful. Thank you so much.
The final reminder, that star followed by one. We have no further questions, so I'll hand it back to the management team for any closing remarks.
Yeah, thank you very much for having your questions. We hope that you will have a nice day. Thank you.
This concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your lines.