Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the Allianz Conference Call on the Allianz Group financial results for the third quarter of 2025. For your information, this conference call is being streamed live on allianz.com and YouTube. A recording will be made available shortly after the call. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to your host today, Claire-Marie Coste-Lepoutre, Chief Financial Officer of Allianz SE. Please go ahead, Claire-Marie.
Thank you very much, Andrew, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm very pleased to report on another very strong quarter for the Group, which is building to an excellent contribution to the year on our three-year plan. Our results are supported by both ongoing top-line momentum and an attractive margin development. Across the organization, we are working on our three strategic levers of smart growth, productivity, and resilience, with first signs of materialization in our numbers. As you can see on page A4, year-to-date, our business volume growth continues to be very strong at 8.5%. As previously, this growth is diversified from a segment perspective and within the segment across businesses and geographies, which gives us a lot of strength for the future. Our operating profit is now up by more than 13% versus last year. That number, F/X adjusted, would even be 13%.
Here as well, we see positive developments in all segments. Our core net income growth is accelerating compared to the first half of the year. Year-to-date, it grows by 10.5%, or 8% adjusted for the disposal gains on the life JV with UniCredit in Italy that we did book in the second quarter, and the anticipated tax effect on the disposal of our stakes in Bajaj in the first quarter. Our core EPS adjusted for the same effects is now up 10%, which is very strong and ahead of our 7%-9% target range. Similarly, our core ROE is above 18% and well ahead of our target level as well. Our solvency ratio emerged at 209%. Our operating capital generation continues to be very strong, which gives us flexibility for current and future capital deployments.
Given the excellent performance of the organization at the end of September, I'm very happy to indicate that we have adjusted our outlook upward yesterday night and that we expect to land for the full year at least at EUR 17 billion operating profit. Of course, the year is not over, and we can still see natural catastrophes or market movements, but clearly, we are very confident in the overall outcome. Turning to P&C and having a look at page A5, here we had another excellent quarter, building on previously excellent quarters, achieving another record level of operating profit, now up 15% versus last year, as you can see on the right-hand side of this slide. Year-to-date, our total business volume is at plus 8%, which is excellent. This 8% growth is ahead of our assumed medium-term growth rate of 6%-7%.
Approximately half of the growth is volume, rises price. Compared to the first half of the year, the volume growth has been accelerating from both retail and commercial. Our internal top-line growth for the third quarter is in line with what we have seen for the second quarter, as is our rate change on renewal for the full book at around 5%. The renewal rate continues to be higher in retail at + 7% versus commercial, which is at + 1%. The competitive conditions clearly are differentiated market by market in general, but in general, actually, personal lines continue to see a positive environment, especially in core Continental Europe, with retail, motor, and fleet as an example pricing at + 9%. Commercial lines remain more resilient in mid-corp than large corporate, but no real significant change compared to the second quarter.
We are as well making good progress with growth initiatives in the retail P&C business, which nonetheless will take time for full impact as we expect, actually. We see good traction in Germany, in France, in Latin America, in Australia as an example, and we will keep the focus on continuing to roll out our tools to deliver higher retention, new business, and cross-sale to grow volume. In commercial, we have good ongoing momentum in some areas like our partners' business, in particular on the health side, and we remain disciplined as required where pricing conditions are tight. As you can see as well, we achieve a very good level of combined ratio at the end of the third quarter at 91.6%, with both retail and commercial performing. Also, as you can see in our material, this performance is very broadly spread across the portfolio.
In particular, I'm very happy with the development of our attritional loss ratio with more than 1 percentage point progress year-to-date. This has been particularly driven by our retail business with the benefit of the underwriting and pricing actions earning through. Also, our constant focus on productivity continues to deliver with our expense ratio down around 30 bps to just below 24%. The third quarter was very mild from a natural catastrophe perspective, but we booked no runoff overall, so we further increased our reserve confidence during the quarter. Overall, our PNC business is doing excellently. We see volume growth, which reflects a mix of strong ongoing developments, especially in retail and targeted growth in commercial, as we are also working together with the cycle management.
Our profitability is not just a reflection of more benign NatC at, but also very strong attritional improvements, relentless focus on productivity, and significant prudence when it comes to the recognition of runoff. Let's turn to our life results on page A6, where you can see here that we are fully on track to meet our targets. The numbers are more impacted compared to P&C by F/X, and as a reminder, we also have the disposal of the UniCredit JV in the third quarter that is impacting our numbers. Our value of new business is up 4%, F/X adjusted, with our PVNBP up 5% at a very stable new business margin, which is well above our 5% ambition level. We see good developments across businesses. Life new business can always be a bit lumpy, and last year, our third quarter was extremely strong, benefiting from various promotions.
You may remember that our U.S. life business was up 60% last year in the third quarter, and we had some large ticket transactions, in particular at Allianz Life. If you want to get a good illustration of our fundamental growth in new business value, you can take the growth over the last two years between 9M 2025 and 9M 2023, which is 20%, which gives an estimated annual growth rate of around 10%, F/X adjusted. We also continue to have a strong year-to-date increase in net flows, even with lower new business growth in the third quarter versus the first half.
If you look in more detail at the profile of our business development, you will see as an example that we continue to grow at 93% in our preferred lines, that our health business in Germany continues to show exceptional momentum once again, with year-to-date new business profit up 56%. Italy as well is really worthwhile to mention because we see very good growth of 13% if you exclude the UniCredit business, with a vast majority of that growth coming in unit linked. Moving to the contractual service margin, as you know, the net CSM development is the indicator which matters most for us, as this reflects on the stock of profit to be earned by us in the future. The net CSM year-on-year is up 5% or 8%, F/X adjusted.
This is well on track for our targets, as is the normalized growth of the CSM just under 4% at the end of the third quarter. In the gross CSM work, there is some variances this quarter from the annual assumption update and the tax adjustments. This is mainly coming from the lapse patterns we see in the Easy Life business, which is an offset in the net view given the reinsurance that is in place. The trajectory of our net CSM is a better indicator for the business. Net of reinsurance, the non-economic variances and the assumption changes are actually negligible year-to-date. Our life operating profit emerged at EUR 4.2 billion, growing 6% adjusted for F/X. This puts us well on track against our targets, and this emergence of operating profit is driven by both the CSM release and improved variances in the underlying.
Overall, our life business momentum is good. Our new business profitability is at attractive level, and our IFRS profitability is emerging as expected from a diversified portfolio. Moving to asset management on page A7, here you can see how structurally our business is doing well at navigating the market environment, delivering outstanding net flows, performance, and profitability. We had our best third quarter ever in terms of net inflows at EUR 51 billion, which brings the annualized year-to-date growth rate to around 7%. Net flows in the third quarter are positive both at PIMCO and AGI across various strategies, platforms, and geographies. Our asset management franchise continues to be supported by the performance we deliver to our clients, with 92% of our third-party assets under management outperforming their benchmarks on a trailing three-year basis as of the end of the third quarter.
If you look further in our material, you will see that our third quarter revenues are up 9%, F/X adjusted. They are supported by the higher average assets under management, continued resilience in fee margins at both our asset managers, together with performance fees in solid territory. Overall, this leads us to revenues at EUR 6.2 billion at 9M, which translates into EUR 2.4 billion of operating profit for the segment. This is supported by the continuous focus of both asset managers on productivity, which is fueled by cost discipline, operating leverage as we grow our revenues, overall resulting in a cost income ratio improving 60 bps year-to-date to now below 61%. Overall, on asset management, we see an attractive diversified franchise with growth momentum and profitability.
On page A8, you can see the development of our solvency ratio, which is characterized by continued very strong operating capital generation fueled by the excellent performance of our P&C business in particular. This capital generation continues to support our attractive payout, both dividends and share buyback, together with some of our recent capital deployment, like the investment into Viridium or the partnership with RAA in South Australia. As part of our capital market decommitment, we are focusing on the implementation of our capital management framework, and we are confident to achieve our full year objective of more than 20% in terms of operating capital generation. Our sensitivities are almost unchanged at a low level and continue to offer confidence on the resilience of our profile. Overall, we are in a very good position, both in absolute level, sensitivities, and ability to generate solvency through our business portfolio.
While we benefit from some positive runoff in our operating capital generation this year, there are fundamentally a lot of positive elements to be appreciated here. On page A9, we are actually focusing on special events we had this year. As you can see, we are celebrating the 25-year partnership with PIMCO and Allianz following the completion of our first investment into PIMCO back in 2000. We thought it very worthwhile to do a zoom on this. Clearly, it has been an exceptional partnership. We are very proud of it, and it has generated considerable value. If we move to the next page, we will see its evidence on multiple metrics. PIMCO has, for instance, grown its asset under management seven-fold, its operating profit nine-fold, the latter now making up nearly 20% of Allianz Group operating profit.
PIMCO is as well adding value through its strong management of almost 50% of the group's assets. PIMCO's franchise as a leading active fixed income manager has been underpinned by consistently strong investment performance. At the end of the third quarter, as an example, 97% of assets under management were outperforming on a three-year basis. As I have already mentioned, PIMCO has seen outstanding flows this year and continues to capture a high market share of the flows seen by the industry into active fixed income strategies, together with the support from some recent initiatives, as an example, the activity of product I have already mentioned in the second quarter. We continue to look for ways to further increase the synergies between PIMCO and the wider Allianz Group as we leverage the benefits of an integrated asset management and insurance group.
The relationship is very symbiotic alongside PIMCO being a manager of our general account assets. Allianz insurance businesses can seed new strategies for PIMCO and help expand distribution. PIMCO as well is supporting and benefiting from our third-party capital optimization vehicles such as Concept for Allianz Life in the U.S.. Beyond all of this, and what may be less identified in the case of PIMCO, is how innovative this business is. The success of PIMCO lies as well in its ability to constantly look across the business at new and better ways of acting or investing. You have multiple examples of that in the Capital Market Day presentation performed by Christian Strack as an example.
Looking ahead, and as we outlined at the Capital Market Day last year, we are very positive about PIMCO's future as a leading active manager with skill in both the public fixed income markets and across a broad range of alternative strategies, which are a fast-growing part of its business. The focus is there mainly on asset-based finance strategies that support the real economy, as an example, by investing in data centers. Overall, after 25 years of success, we look forward to many more years of working together, sizing growth opportunities, and delivering excellent performance to our clients. Let me wrap up on page A11. Clearly, we have an excellent year so far where our delivery momentum continues across all our segments. Together, we are working on executing the capital market delivers, including the focus on higher capital generation and the strengthening of the resilience.
As part of that, both the fundamentals and the diversity of our business continue to give us confidence, even if the environment can be volatile or uncertain. With all of this in mind, and given the performance achieved at the end of the third quarter, we have confirmed yesterday in our ad hoc a EUR 17 billion-EUR 17.5 billion range for the outlook. This is subject to the traditional caveats, but clearly, we are very confident. What is important for me to highlight is the fact that we would want to land the year at a level which gives us confidence in our ability to sustainably grow from and to deliver on our planned trajectory.
This may mean that even if we are already today very comfortable with the quality of our balance sheet and underwriting, we are prepared to do as we did in the third quarter last year when it comes to our current accident year or previous accident year bookings. This may lead us to a higher combined ratio for the fourth quarter versus what we have experienced year-to-date, bringing our combined ratio for the year up versus nine months. With this, I will be very happy to take your questions, and I hand over back to you, Andrew.
Great. Thank you, Claire-Marie. Okay, so we're ready for your questions. Just to remind you how to do that, if you're on the web call, there's a talk request button on the top right. If you're on the phone, it is star five.
Again, some housekeeping, if I could ask you to restrict yourself to two questions, and then we may come back for follow-ups if we have time at the end. Okay, great. It looks like the first question is from Andrew Sinclair of Bank of America. Go ahead, Andrew.
Thanks, Andrew. First for me, we're just on P&C, and you've confirmed you're building more prudence in those reserves, maybe even some more prudence to come in Q4. Can you help us put some numbers around that? It's always tough to quantify and put context in the reserving strength. Anything that you can do to give us some color on the reserving strength, strengthening, shall I say, that's taken place over the past year or so. The second question is on PIMCO. You talked about the opportunity for PIMCO in private markets.
That's a space which has also fully attracted a bit more scrutiny recently. Just what's your outlook on private fixed income risks for that market, and what Allianz has done to really mitigate those risks across the group? Thank you very much.
Thanks a lot, Andrew, for your question. I think you were first asking because on our side, we need to work on that further. The line is not very good, so it was a bit difficult to fully understand. I think you were asking to provide more color on the P&C reserves, right, and basically what was the level of confidence we have increased. Please understand that in general, we do not provide detailed information when it comes to our overall level of reserves. As I have mentioned already, we are very comfortable with the quality of our balance sheet.
We have increased the level of confidence in our reserves in the second quarter and in the third quarter as well. When I look forward, we are now in the process, in the yearly process to do this fundamental revisiting of our reserve level, and globally at group level, we are also in a very comfortable situation. What I think is important is we are obviously benefiting this year from a lower level of natural catastrophes, and as much as possible to leverage that environment to further provide flexibility for the future is an important aspect, I believe, for us overall. I think on PIMCO, you were more asking questions on the private fixed income environment overall, or that was more related to our own portfolio in general?
Probably both of those, to be honest.
Kind of outlook for private credit at the moment, and I say it's an area that's got a lot of scrutiny recently. What you've done across the group to manage those risks?
Yeah. Thanks a lot for the questions. Obviously, we are very well aware of the current discussions which are happening today around private credit or private debt in general. We are very confident with the quality of our own assets. As you know, we have been invested here for a very long period of time, and we have also a very long experience when it comes to the management of private debt in general.
There are different ways to look at the numbers, but clearly, we have disclosed, we have provided, or I have provided a full detailed disclosure at the Capital Market Day on those numbers, and we have also updated those numbers at the end of last year. If I look at the portfolio provided at the end of the third quarter, actually, the numbers have not changed much compared to the disclosure we have provided at the end of the fourth quarter last year. You can definitely refer to the appendix to get the full details on the portfolio. In general, clearly, I mean, in this portfolio, there is nothing very exotic at all, right, given the fact, I mean, given what I have already mentioned.
If we do a bit of a zoom high level, right, into that portfolio, approximately, I mean, over 50% of that portfolio is real estate related. Approximately 20% of that portfolio is connected to infrastructure. Both the middle market lending portfolio and the private credit portfolio are of very high quality, highly diversified, with very good loss experience. As an example, in the middle market lending portfolio, we have an average loan size that is lower than EUR 10 million. That is just to give you a sense on how that looks like. Finally, I think when you think about credit, about private credit, we have a lot of insights within the group, right? We have PIMCO on one end, but we also have Allianz Trade.
This is a very natural place for us to be, and this is why we are extra comfortable, I will say, with our own balance sheet from that perspective too.
Great. Thanks, Andrew. Next question is from Andrew Baker from Goldman Sachs. Go ahead, Andrew.
The first one is just on the P&C attritional loss ratio. It looks like there is some noise coming through in the fourth quarter from AGCS accounting change, and I guess presumably some continued underlying earn-through. Are you able to give us a sense of how you think the attritional will develop, I guess, in fourth quarter and then into 2026? Secondly, on the asset management cost-income ratio, clearly third quarter was very strong. Top line has helped there. I think the press release mentioned some management actions.
Are you able to just give a bit more detail on what those management actions were, and then sort of is Q3 a good level that we should be thinking about going forward, or is there any one-offs in there? Thank you.
Thanks a lot. Just to start with, indeed, it's good you are highlighting this point. Indeed, it's related to IFRS 17. I mean, we have the so-called non-distinct investment component, and we need to do a small adjustment in the AGCS portfolio to adjust for that effect as part of the IFRS fine-tuning of the transition, if you want. It's just a story of geography. The overall combined ratio is the same, but we have an effect between the runoff and the attritional loss ratio which is coming.
For the discrete fourth quarter slice, we would expect to have an undiscounted attritional loss ratio to have a negative effect of 1 percentage point, and the runoff ratio to be better by 1 percentage point as well, because we have a catch-up effect which is materializing in the fourth quarter. You should not extrapolate the fourth quarter effect to 2026 because the run rate will be lower from that one. If you want more details on the exact IFRS 17 effect, you can reach out to the IR team. They will explain with pleasure, but I will spare everyone the details of that one. On the cost-income ratio of the asset managers, actually, I will not say that there is anything specific that is coming into the cost-income ratio at this point in time for both asset managers.
I think it's really the focus that they are aiming on general cost discipline, and then the earnings through of some of the growth that is coming through. We have obviously also dedicated projects which are aiming at harvesting some of the benefits, in particular of the technological improvement that are being pushed through by both asset managers into their operating model.
Great. Thank you.
Okay, thanks, Andrew. Next question is from Michael Huttner of Berenberg. Go ahead, Michael.
Thanks, Andrew. You must be really happy, Claire-Marie, to most profitable insurer in the world, I think. Anyway, two questions. The first one is on PIMCO, and actually three because I'm not sure on PIMCO too, or asset management more generally, is there any exposure to the two names, first Brand and Tricolor?
More generally on PIMCO, given the enthusiasm, you put more slides in there about PIMCO, are you closer to buying in the minorities, and how much could that cost, and what would be the benefit? Is there some numbers there? You alluded to further progress in retail P&C from the message you're taking, which I think are mainly to reduce churn, but there may be others. I just wonder if you can talk a little bit more about that, the potential benefit to come. I can't see where it would come because you're already sky high. Your revenue's up 8%, your pricing's up, your combined ratio's down. I just wondered if you were to get a benefit from reduced churn, so from increased retention, where would it be, and how much would it be worth? Thank you.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much for your kind words. Obviously, as an organization, we are very proud of what we are delivering. Thank you. Also, I mean, I did not mention it, but obviously, it is the outcome of a lot of hard work by many people. It is nice to hear as well from your side. Maybe just to start on the PIMCO minorities, today we own 91% of PIMCO. We are very happy with the current arrangement. We also like the alignment that we have between us and the PIMCO partnership. There is nothing additional to report at this point in time when it comes to that setup. I think to the specific names you were mentioning in terms of credit, you know we never report anything on a name-by-name basis.
That's very important for us not to do so, also given the engagements we have with our various parties. I mean, it's maybe an opportunity just to highlight the very strong performance of Allianz Trade in particular. You have seen the results as well. Allianz Trade continues to operate at an excellent level of profitability, and we are extremely confident in the ability of Allianz Trade to manage in the current environment we are experiencing in particular. The names are mainly related to the automotive industry, right? That's a sector that is definitely under the radar screen of trade, given, I mean, the tariff and also the supply chain issues in particular. Those are the typical names where we have an ability to see things coming and to react as appropriate to basically secure our trajectory.
Now coming to retail P&C and where we are standing today in terms of gross experience, I would say. What we see in the underlying of the numbers, and it's maybe interesting to have a look at, is that our overall, I mean, where we see, I think overall we are in the context of the capital market, of the execution of the Capital Market Day strategy, right? The execution of the Capital Market Day strategy, you remember, and P&C was in particular going against two angles. One which was the platform play, and the second one was more the retail and the gross triathlon where we want to generate that plea of 3%-4% volume growth, right? On the platform play, we see good progress at this point in time.
As an example, Allianz Direct has achieved a very strong level of internal growth of 14%, out of which 7% is actually volume. We also see good trajectory when it comes to partners. On the retail side, we are at 3.5% volume growth at the third quarter, which is promising clearly, and we are happy with the development we are seeing, which is related, as I mentioned, to the pickup out of the toolbox of some progress in some geographies. In a way, at the end of the year to date, we are slightly above 2% in terms of volume growth. We are on the right path, if you want, but we are not yet at the path we would want to be of this 3%-4% growth.
That is important we continue to execute, and we are happy with what we see, but we still need to continue to work hard, actually, to deliver fully against our target. Why is it that I am saying that? Because we also expect that the pricing momentum is going to reduce itself over the next few years, and we need that volume effect to offset some of the pricing momentum. That is a way to think about it, and that is the way we have constructed, actually, our plan.
Thank you. Just a little add-on, any idea of timing? Are you ahead of plan or just behind plan on this 3-4?
It is a bit difficult to answer this one. I think we are happy with the pickup at this point in time, and I also think we need to continue working quite hard, yeah.
No, Michael, that was four questions. I'll make a shut-up. You've got a yellow card.
No idea. Red card next time. Sorry.
Okay. Thanks, Michael. Great. Next question is from William Hawkins from KBW. Go ahead, William.
Thanks, Andrew. Hi, Claire- Marie. Given how well 2025 is going, when you think back to the 7%-9% EPS CAGR you presented a year ago in your raising the bar slide, what key line items are most front of your mind that need revising? That's question one, please. And then question two, sorry, maybe to focus on a negative when everything is really so good, but can you just come back and explain in simple terms the impact of the lapse assumption review in AZ Life and what this means for future earnings?
Because on my side, I see an assumption change for higher lapses as a bad thing and sharing with reinsurance to make a gross negative into a net positive, again, sort of a mixed message. I think you have got a more constructive view on what is going on, so I just wanted you to help me get a bit more comfortable with what we have seen in AZ Life, please. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. I think while we are very happy with the development of our results year to date, right, I think the way to read it is clearly we are, I mean, this is a very strong contribution to the three-year plan. This is putting us ourselves also in a very strong position to deliver against the plan, but we still have, I mean, quite some time to go.
The environment is a complex environment, and we also need to manage the overall pricing environment quite carefully. Clearly, I continue to see the 7%-9% CAGR on the EPS being both a very good base and as well also challenging for the organization to deliver. Clearly, we have no intention to revisit that at that point in time. On the lapse assumption review for the AZ Life, you are right. We did revisit our lapse assumption, which is clearly an industry situation because with the increase of the overall yields, there was an increased level of lapses, which is also translating itself on the positive side into a higher level of new business in the industry in general. There is a sort of recycling in the overall logic.
We have reflected in the third quarter the lapse levels that we see in the AZ Life business at the current industry experience level, if you want. That is coming as a negative into the gross CSM. As you know, this book is, I mean, is partially reinsured, and we get also a partial benefit from the reinsurance we have in place because the reinsurer has to take a share of that negative effect. What we see as well is that we have reflected also some of those effects into the investment results, which is also contributing as a positive into the quarter. That is a way to look at it. The tax effect is a different topic. The tax effect is related to the German health business, where we are sharing the benefit, where we are sharing the tax effect with our policyholder.
This is coming as a negative effect in the gross CSM because we are sharing with the policyholder the future profits, benefits out of that one. On the net CSM, it's actually coming as a benefit to us because we are also benefiting from the change, from the future change in the tax effect on the health portfolio side. That's a way to look at those two effects.
Thank you, Claire- Marie.
Thanks, William. The next question is from Vinit, Vinit Malhotra from Mediobanca. Go ahead, Vinit.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much, Claire- Marie and Andrew. My question is one on PIMCO, please, and one on P&C. On PIMCO, it's quite remarkable the 97% number that you obviously flagged on slide 18.
I'm just curious, has that been driven by some recent push to alternatives, or how would you say this happened, and has this been, in your view, really instrumental in this very record-breaking 3Q that we have seen? I'm just curious to hear your views on the importance and relevance of this number. My second question is just on the retail P&C strategy or story. The motor is an important part of that, I think, and motor has been, I thought, benefiting. When I see 2Q and 3Q combined ratios, I think that the disclosure is they were unchanged at 94%. I'm just curious, is that something that we should have expected to be getting better? Is that in line with your expectation? If not motor, then where is the retail improvement coming from?
Because I think that is driving some of the underlying improvements too. Thank you.
Okay. Let me start with the PIMCO question. I think the performance of PIMCO is simply related to the way they are basically managing the environment and assessing the environment. It is a structural performance of the asset management as an organization. Nothing particular, I believe, to reflect there.
The flows from our perspective are the outcome of, obviously, the performance and the relationships that PIMCO has been having over many, many years and has been developing over many, many years with multiple counterparties, but is also linked to the environment when it comes to active fixed income strategies, the fact that the absolute level of rate is a good one, also the fact that the slope of the curve is also a good one, and that there is also an overall positive environment which is leading to inflows in the active fixed income strategies. That is one angle to it. The second angle to it is that there is also good success and pickup on some of the recent initiatives that PIMCO has been sponsoring or fueling, like the Active ETF product, which is also contributing to that positive development.
When it comes to motor, we have been seeing strong improvement, actually, in terms of our combined ratio in motor. If you look at the year-on-year comparison of the combined ratio in motor, it is now at 94%, as you rightfully mentioned, but a year ago, it was at 97%. We have a very strong improvement coming there, which is in line with what we were expecting to see also given the underwriting actions we have been pushing through in the portfolio. We are very happy with the development, and that is definitely one of the drivers as well of the improvement in the attritional loss ratio.
Okay. Thank you, Claire-Marie.
Thanks, Vinit. Next question is from Iain Pearce of Exane. Go ahead, Iain.
Hi, afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is just on business volumes in P&C.
If I take out AGCS, Xfronting, and reinsurance and look at the business volume growth, it looks like it's roughly 3% versus 7% at each one. I'm just trying to square that with the 8.1% retail internal growth number that you've given, and also just trying to understand why the reinsurance number was so strong in Q3. The second one was just on PIMCO and then the really, really strong flow number that was delivered. I'm just trying to understand if anything is sort of viewed as one-off in that number. I mean, you mentioned data centers in your commentary. There was clearly a very big data center deal announcement in the quarter. Is that included in the net flow number?
Is there sort of an expectation of a strong pipeline for that sort of deal that could lead to these sorts of flows being benefiting in the coming quarters?
Just on PIMCO, very briefly, the short answer is no. There is nothing of that. It is very natural inflows that we have observed during the third quarter. By the way, actually, at this point in time, we are seeing also inflows in our overall asset management portfolio at the similar pace as what we have seen as well in the third quarter. Now on the P&C, I think on your question on the overall, is on the overall growth, or maybe I can focus on the volume growth, which I think will give you a good sense, a good sense overall on where we are standing.
What we have in terms of overall internal growth for commercial, we are at 11%, right? We have in that number, I mean, I think the commercial business, you always need to think through that it can always be a bit lumpy, and we always have also non-recurring items that may happen from one quarter to the next. I think that is also the way to look at this quarter, and I will not take that as being the forward-looking level of growth you should anticipate in the commercial portfolio. Indeed, for AGCS, we have a growth effect which is linked to the fact that last year we had a lower level of ART business, and this year it is higher. It is contributing very positively to that growth effect.
For the rest of our portfolios, we see good development in our mid-core business, which is growing nicely in the mid-single-digit level. We also see a good growth level, as I've been mentioning, on Allianz Partners' side. That is coming from the health business, which is also developing very nicely this quarter, but also with a bit of lumpiness there for sure. At Allianz Trade, we see a good growth development, as well as on the reinsurance side, in particular, where we have captured good opportunities in the structured reinsurance business side together with some of the Allianz X strategy as an example. I think, as I mentioned, volume growth overall for retail is at 3.5%, which still gives us room for further development.
Overall, I will always go back to the 6%-7% overall growth range we have given as being the right reference to consider for our business at this point in time.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Iain. Next question is from Kamran Hossain from JP Morgan. Go ahead, Kamran.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. First, just on P&C, I think it is clear in a few markets there have been frequency benefits, particularly in motor. Can you just talk about to what extent you are seeing kind of that come through, and is this fully visible in the attritional performance in P&C? The second question is on Solvency II. I guess recent changes going on with Solvency II. Can you just outline any kind of high-level assumptions on how much this might benefit Allianz? Thank you.
Yeah.
I think indeed on the frequency benefits on P&C motor, we actually have indeed identified a bit of that. I will say in an anecdotal manner, in some of our countries or operating entities, we also see in some operating entities actually the opposite. We have not, I mean, we have not reacted yet at those frequency benefits neither in our reserving, I mean, nor in our pricing conditions at this point in time because it is too anecdotal, I will say. It may very well be that some of the frequency positive effects are simply related to the fact that we had no natural catastrophes as an example, and then you were simply driving under better conditions, which is also supportive in terms of frequency experience at this point in time.
I think on the Solvency II reform indeed, that is going to come up into place on the 1st of January 2027. At this point in time, I have no refined update to share with you in terms of number effects. We had previously mentioned to you that we were estimating 5-10 percentage points positive effect into our Solvency II ratio. We are, as we speak, actually recomputing the effects. I will definitely come back to you with more insights to answer and numbers.
Thanks so much, Claire-Marie.
Thanks, Kamran Next question is from James Shuck of Citi. Go ahead, James.
Thanks, Andrew. Hi, Claire-Marie. I just wanted to return to the NABs point, actually, on the FIAs in the US.
I appreciate there's no impact for you net of reinsurance, but I just wanted to understand just conceptually what is driving the increase in NABses and whether this actually has any implications for Sconcept Re because I know part of that portfolio was reinsured into Sconcept Re and the plan was to try and develop that unit more. Secondly, just on the expense ratio in P&C, so 23.9%, I know you sort of indicated before should fall by about 30 basis points per annum. Are you able to split the expense ratio for me into kind of admin ratio and kind of acquisition strike other? And kind of what's the outlook for the admin side of things? I guess I'm trying to think about the potential for positive operational leverage given your quite strong volumes in P&C at this point. Thank you.
Thank you.
The lapsing point in the books of Easy Life, as I've been mentioning, is an industry situation overall, right? With the higher level of interest rate, actually there is also a fiduciary duty to the intermediaries to the customer, actually, to migrate contracts that have been signed under a lower interest rate environment towards the new contracts which are benefiting from the higher interest rate environment. What we see is that it comes in phases, obviously, because some of those contracts still have penalties, right? You need to wait for the penalty periods to be over before you start transferring some of the contracts. That is why you have this recycling effect, if you want, into the portfolio. I am not so sure what was your exact question related to Sconcept, but I do not think it has a direct implication to Sconcept.
I think Sconcept had two parts, right? There was a part which is simply reinsurance, right? When there is a reinsurance, there is this side-by-side, I mean, this translation of the effects we are seeing into the reinsurance portfolio. There is a forward-looking part in Sconcept where basically together with our partner, we are benefiting from the new business being underwritten. You had a question indeed on the expense ratio where we are structurally aiming at this 30 basis points improvement. What we see in our third quarter number on a standalone basis is that our admin ratio moved down from 6.2- 5.8, and our acquisition ratio actually moved up from 17.5 - 17.8.
You are right to point out that we, I mean, we are obviously directly focusing and acting with our productivity initiatives, which are leveraging in particular automation, AI, where there is a lot of activity that is ongoing in the organization to drive the improvement on the admin side. On the acquisition side, you always have to be mindful of the mixed effect that is always playing a very big role. You can always see swings associated to the admin side, to the acquisition side. As well, we want to improve also the developments on the acquisition side because we want, as an example, to make our agents even more productive.
And so that's also part of the plan because there is a moment at which, I mean, we will be at a level of admin cost where you cannot do much, and so you really need as well to have a focus more broadly on the acquisition expenses as well.
Yeah. That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
Great. Thanks, James. Next question is from Andrew, Andrew Crean from Autonomous. Go ahead, Andrew.
Afternoon, all. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple. You talked a little bit about mid-corp saying that the volumes are growing 5% and the combined ratio is 89.6%. Could you actually tell us a bit about large corporate, what's happening to volumes, rates, and combined ratios there? And then on the life side, I think your new business margins are at 5.7% and stable at that level. Your target is 5%. Why is it higher?
Should we assume you can keep it at this higher level? Therefore, what are the factors which are keeping it there, or what are the factors which might drive it down to the 5%?
Yeah. Thank you very much. On the large corporate on the volume side, right, for the third quarter on a standalone basis, you have two effects. You have this catch-up effect or like this lumpiness effect, if you want, which is related to the ART business, where we were particularly low in the third quarter, and we have been running at the normal level of new business, if you want, in the third quarter this year, which is creating that high level of internal growth that you can see in our disclosure. On the rest of the business, on the other line of business, we are flat year on year.
When it comes to the rate change on renewal, we are obviously, as seen there as well, we are in negative territory. What we see is that, I mean, overall, we are still in terms of pricing adequacy on average across the portfolio rate adequate. We are at a level where we can underwrite the business, but we have to be cautious. We see that there is, I mean, there is quite some sharp price decrease in general across the portfolio, but liability, which is maintaining a positive price development at this point in time. It is quite anecdotal. You have other parts of the business, like as an example, airlines that also finally is starting to move slightly up as maybe now bottomed in terms of pricing adequacy.
Now, on the new business margin, we are indeed happy with our excellent level of new business margin. What we think, I mean, it's not what we think. Basically, it's related to the fact that we have a different business mix compared to what we have exactly planned with. In particular, we have a higher share of protection and health into the new business mix, which is coming with a 9.5% new business margin. That is also explaining why we are above. I will take at this point in time the strictly above 5% as being a good reference point for the future as well.
Thanks.
Thanks, Andrew. Okay. We have a couple of follow-ups. The first one is from William. William Hawkins from KBW. You're on again. Go ahead, William.
Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Andrew. Sorry, I know it's tricky to follow up. Small question.
On slide B21, Claire- Marie, what is the life in force running yield against which the 4.7% reinvestment rate that you disclosed should be compared? I'm really not sure whether your reinvestment rate is implying that you've still got an uplift in new money or a downdraft. Thank you.
Just looking that number up, William, give us a second.
I think your question was on the, so actually, right now, we are running slightly higher. In 2024, we were at 3.7%, and now we are at 4.6% reinvestment yield. Obviously, slightly higher is the answer.
Sorry, was the 3.7% the in force yield?
Yeah, indeed.
Okay.
Thank you. It's about 100 basis points uplift.
Yeah.
Yeah. You can follow up, Will, if you want more detail on that.
Yeah.
Lovely. Thank you, Andrew. Thanks, Claire- Marie.
Okay.
Fahad, sorry, next question is from Fahad Changazi from Kepler . Go ahead, Fahad.
Hello. Thank you for taking my question. Can I just follow up on retail, please? It's good to see the 3.5% in the middle of your range, but you'll get to deploy your tools and get the growth. I suppose on the other side, as pricing turns, the pool of business that you will be getting will be, I suppose, smaller. We shouldn't get more excited. We should just stick to the 3%-4% at this stage of the whole plan. It's probably the likely right answer. Could you still get some color around that? Just a question on some of the capital generation. The Q3 had a non-economic variance in life. What was it and how much was it?
On the SCR, I mean, it's a tiny little increase of only EUR 40 million. Could you get some color around that? I suspect we still should stick to the 2%-3% guidance you've given. Your final question, management actions to get us to 24%-25% part of the strategy and the visibility or any update on that? Thank you.
Sorry, Farhad, just to summarize, your first question is a bit confusing. You just want an update on the 3%-4% retail volume growth objective. Is that right?
Yes. Yes, because you haven't deployed all your toolkits, but then you shouldn't get excited.
Sure. The second questions are all focused on cap generation, it sounds like. Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
I think on the P&C side, as I mentioned, we are at indeed 3.5% volume growth in the third quarter on a standalone basis. If you look at it year to date, we are at 2.1%. We are not yet entirely where we want to be within the 3%-4%. I think it's really good, really good first progress, but we still need work to be in the 3%-4% full execution of the capital market actions or landing point we want to see. The way to look at it is that overall, we also expect, because we benefit still from a good level of price increase, right? We believe there will be in the coming years a reduction of price increase, which is going to be offset in our thinking by the volume growth we are capable of achieving.
As such, overall, for our entire portfolio, right, we are confirming the 6%-7% overall growth for the P&C business. That is really the way I will think about it at this point in time. I think on your question on OCG, OCG overall, at this point in time, at this stage in the year is extremely good. We are at 19%. I think we had promised for the year that we will be strictly above 20%. I think that is the right way to think about it. We have benefit from some variances at that point in time. If I normalize a bit for those variances, I believe the right reference point for the OCG for the entire year is something like 21-22 percentage points for the full year.
That is a way to think about it. Now, when you look at the third quarter on a standalone basis, you had the negative effect of the assumption change and of the adjustment of the tax that basically did come through on the life side, but you had also very positive elements that came on the P&C side. In particular, on PNC, the fact that we have a very strong performance for the quarter. As well, the fact that we have been working very hard as an organization in deploying the capital management framework. There is really good pickup within the organization, as an example, revisiting entirely how we are parameterizing, as an example, the P&C business, which has led also to some positive effect into the P&C capital generation for the quarter on a standalone basis.
That is why you have very strong positive on P&C this quarter, a bit of negative on life and health. You had some positive on the life and health side at the beginning of the year. Overall, when you step back and you look at where we are now, I would say 21-22 percentage points OCG for the year is a right reference. Very successful. I am very happy with the development, but with some nuancing or normalization of the variances.
Okay, Fahad.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thanks. Okay. Final question. Michael, you are very lucky. I am allowing you a follow-up despite your yellow card. This is not setting a precedent.
I will stick to two. Sorry. And thank you. And thank you, Claire- Marie.
The medium and the pipeline for deals and non-life, the EUR 1,000, which Oliver sometimes refers to and whether this number could grow because you've just gone into partnership with HUK-Coburg on the garages. That's it.
I'm completely confused. I don't understand my question.
I thought I was doing really well. Viridium, what's the pipeline on deals there? More generally, what's the pipeline on M&A? You remember at the dinner and I think in previous occasions, Oliver has always mentioned this. If you get your policyholder to go to the garage where you have an agreement, it's a EUR 1,000 lower charge for the repair. I just wondered, A, how successful that strategy is? Is it still a theoretical number? Is it actually happening? B, whether you're now in partnership with HUK-Coburg on those franchise garages where that EUR 1,000 is going up?
Okay.
I think the second one is more about our claims initiatives in Germany, if I was to interpret. Yeah. The first one is Viridium.
Is Viridium more of an investor?
Is Viridium specifically, Michael?
Both. I mean, if I have the opportunity, both.
Claire- Marie can answer other deals, but I'm just on Viridium, which you clarified. We're an investor. We do not own or run Viridium, Michael. So we do not have a view on the pipeline of deals. On other M&A, Claire- Marie, do you want to?
No. So basically, on other M&A, there is absolutely no update to be shared with you. I think, I mean, the direction we have always, I mean, you know the principle of our M&A strategy. It is bolt-on.
It's focusing on gaining scale in our P&C businesses where we are not in the top three because we believe we really need to be in that top three to be able to deploy our infrastructure in terms of technical excellence in particular. This is also focusing on Southeast Asia where we would like to further grow in terms of geographical diversification in particular. As required, constantly screening and looking and being open as well if anything could make sense for our asset management business. No update whatsoever on that side. I think overall, there is a lot of initiatives on the side of Allianz Versicherungen in Germany when it comes to claims and claims management and claims steering as well together with Solvd.
I don't have an update on the specific number you were mentioning, but there is quite a number of initiatives that are very successful, in particular leveraging AI, which allows to do either fast settlement or to facilitate as well the reading of the conditions by the claims handler to accelerate as well, as an example, the indemnification of our clients. As well, I mean, together we solve both for Allianz Direct and for Allianz Partners, really leveraging the system for the steering and then creating benefits for our clients. This one is in full swing. I don't have the exact impact available with me, but last time I discussed with both CFOs, they were very happy with the outcome on that side.
Excellent. Thank you. Great. Okay. Thank you, Michael. That concludes our Q&A call and call for the third quarter.
I appreciate it's been a very busy week with results across the sector, so thank you for your interest. If I could do a small plug at the end, just to remind everyone, if you haven't registered, our next Inside Allianz will take place in London on the 28th of November. Please reach out if you'd like to attend that. Great. With that, thank you very much and good weekend, everyone.