Good morning and welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our annual results media conference of Allianz. This time, due to the circumstances, a fully digital version. We're glad that you're joining us via screens and telephone lines. We would have liked to welcome you here in person in Munich, but unfortunately, that's not possible, so we hope you're all doing fine. As usual, you will first hear from our CEO, Oliver Bäte, who will give you an overview about the financial results of the year 2020 and the most important events, and following this, we will have our CFO, Giulio Terzariol, who will go through the financial figures in detail. Following this, we will have a Q&A session in both German and English, and we're looking forward to your questions, and with this, I would like to hand over to Mr. Bäte.
Thank you very much, Ms. Schwarzer.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much for your interest in our media conference this morning. And I will be using the English slide, which we also use for the communication with our international customers, but I will present in German, so as the largest part of, or the majority of the participants this morning is from German-speaking countries. I would like to start with an overview of the year, and I will switch to the first slide. And as Ms. Schwarzer hinted at, I will give you a short overview about the year 2020 from my point of view and the point of view of the board of management. And then I'll give you also a short outlook on the year 2021. Following that, Mr. Terzariol will give you more information about the factors that influence our annual results in detail.
After that, we will have time for your questions. At the end of these slides, we also have a slight, a little glossary so that you don't get lost in all the abbreviations we have. Let me start with a very important topic. We at Allianz can be glad that, against the difficult backdrop for many people across the globe, not just in Germany, that we still ended the year with an excellent result, and that holds true for customers who have given us the highest trust ever, the Net Promoter Score, so the willingness of our customers to recommend us to their friends and family has reached a historic high, and also satisfaction of employees has reached a record high in 2020, and for this, we want to thank our employees.
We've done this by handing out employee shares, free employee shares, which has led to the fact that more than 50% of our employees have become shareholders of Allianz, and that figure will continue to increase. We started at a relatively low value of 17%, so we've seen a huge increase in this. And secondly, as a thank you to our employees all around the world for their great efforts, we will offer them one additional day off so that they can relax a bit from the huge efforts of the past year, because our colleagues have made sure that our customers were always serviced in a great way, also from back home remotely. So also, thank you very much to the employees and also their representatives for all their efforts for our customers and for the great trust, which is also reflected in our brand rating.
Now, let me first talk about the topic of COVID-19 and our view on that. There's a large social effect, and we haven't come to the end of this crisis, certainly not, especially here in Germany. We're all waiting for the vaccine and for the vaccination campaign to start in full, and other countries are going back into lockdown. We're hoping to get out of the lockdown. Other countries, such as Sweden, might go into the first lockdown ever, so that means, not from a social perspective, but if you look at this from an economic or a business perspective, which is our main task, this means that we have to distinguish between risks and opportunities.
So on the one hand side, due to the recession, which happens all around the world, and even if there should be a short rebound in Q3 and Q4, which we'll be talking about, but there will still be larger pressure on margins and growth. Many people are concerned about their future. There are many companies who won't be able to get through this crisis successfully. So there will certainly be pressure on the margin growth side, not just in our home market in Germany, but in many countries around the world. And that is why we need to continue the transformation we started towards much simpler, much more scalable, and much more digital products and processes more than ever. That is highly important.
The next point, which we've underlined time and again at Allianz, but which has become clear in the ongoing crisis, that is that both on the financial but also on the operational side, we need resilience to enable us to withstand those hits we receive from the outside world. This is what we've showed in our key parameters, in our solvency ratio, but also in our ability to serve our customers in spite of the lockdown. That will remain important and gain ever more importance in the future. You have to see Allianz always has a rock in the surf in this regard. There are also opportunities in this. First of all, Allianz has always had and still has a clearly defined business strategy and business purpose, which says we are there for our customers. This is our most important priority.
Even if we gain at the customer interface and have become the best, that's the only possibility for us to secure the jobs at Allianz. We have benefits and advantages others don't have. We have a size and diversification across the areas, like health, property casualty, but also Asset Management, as you could see in 2020, which enables us to balance hits which can't be avoided, and to show strength through this. We have the scales to develop new products and roll them out globally. We have the strongest brand by far in our industry, and we have a technology platform which is stronger than what at least most of our traditional competitors have to offer. We can differentiate ourselves by a strong balance sheet, our high solvency ratio, and I'm truly proud about what our financial and capital management colleagues have done in 2020.
We're far north of the 200% solvency ratio, and we have very resilient processes. We have great people and a strong culture, and all of that will hopefully enable us to tackle the major challenges stemming from COVID, stemming from a strong competitive situation between the U.S. and China, for example, and also from challenges through new technology platforms, not just through startups, and especially also from the low interest rate environment, especially Europe. That, in spite of all these factors, we'll be able to move successfully into the future, and the next topic is then climate, the climate debate and stakeholder capitalism. We want to be a driving force towards and offer a role model in the development with this, so these are our expectations with COVID-19 in the center, in the epicenter, and this is a topic to remain also in 2021.
Therefore, looking at the background, with the background of these conditions, I would like to look at the results, then talk about where we stand with our strategy, and then give you a short outlook on 2021. But let us start with our key figures 2020. Revenues amounted to EUR 140 billion, slightly below the previous year's level. Operating profit, EUR 10.8 billion. So looking at the impact of COVID-19, which we've estimated very conservatively, EUR 1.3 billion in property and casualty, EUR 200 million in travel and life health. Then you have to say that we were at the mid-point of our outlook, taking out the COVID-19 impact. And that doesn't take into account that we had to take some hits early on in our capital investment result through write-offs that we could balance over time.
We reached a shareholders' net income of EUR 6.8 billion, which enables us to propose a dividend to the annual general meeting of EUR 9.60, so on par with the previous year's level. There's a so-called rigidity in our dividend, so if we can, we always want to pay as much dividend as in the past year. Our payout ratio is usually at 50%, so we'll be slightly above this at 56%, I believe. Mr. Terzariol will let you know in detail, but why is that important? Dividends are not just a luxury for investors. We have more than 500,000 private investors whose pension income depends on our dividends, and also the customers behind the institutional investors need regular income for their foundations, for example, that they can't get from interest rates, so dividend is an important part of that.
And we're also glad that the colleagues have done a great job in our financial department to strengthen our financial situation so that the regulator has also told us, given us the approval that we can pay out this dividend to our shareholders should the AGM decide this way. The solvency ratio, I've talked about this, very strong, 207%, and return on equity still great, still in the double digits. And without COVID losses, it would have been north of 13%, which is very strong if you look at the industry as a whole. Now, looking at the sources of this strength, there are two main points for that. Let me start on the right-hand side. As you can see, we also suffered during the COVID crisis, especially in the capital market disturbances in the first quarter and second quarter.
And then we had a 187% solvency ratio in the second quarter. And then we worked strongly on re-strengthening our capital strength. And that shows that we have the levers to regain this capital strength if we want to. So we're not just subject to what's going on there. And we've come up with almost the level that we had at the end of 2019. And even if we took out the month in the first quarter, Mr. Terzariol, we'll talk about this, would still be at 203%. And why can we do this? You can see on the left-hand side, there were significant hits, as you can see, especially in property and casualty, where we only reached 78% of our initial target. But there were other segments that were able to balance this: life health, which proved to be very resilient.
But above all, the asset management business, which has done a great, great job against the difficult backdrop in 2020, not just at PIMCO, where time and again we've received great results in net inflows, but also at Allianz Global Investors, who earned more than 10 billion net inflows in the last quarter alone. So if we take out the 30 billion outflows in the shockwave of the first quarter, we had more than 80 billion inflows in actively managed funds, which is an extremely strong performance by the asset management colleagues. And I really want to thank them for that. So in sum, we were able to come up with 90% in the overall results of our target in spite of the negative COVID-19 effects.
Now, let me move a little bit away from the financial figures and come to what's really important for us: to create a balance between three or four interest groups. At the top, we have our customers. So ever since we've announced our renewal agenda in November 2015, we set time. And again, we can only be successful if we're the best at the customer interface. And not from our point of view, but from the point of view of our customers, we need to be the best. And on this slide, you can find many different elements that we also have included into the agreements of our top management. And one element is that almost 80% of our Allianz businesses in life, health and P&C, and in part also the asset management business, have reached a Net Promoter Score above the market average.
So the willingness to recommend our brands. So when we started in 2015, based on the figures of 2014, this was at 45%, which was quite miserable because if we have only less than 50% of our businesses, where customers are willing to recommend more than our competitors, then you have to do a lot. And our colleagues have done a great, great job, as you can see from this result. But the topic we have is that you can then see next to this, these are the loyalty leaders. Loyalty leaders are those that, from the point of view of the customers, offer the best delivery promise and deliver on that. And we made sure that 60% of our Allianz businesses were loyalty leaders in 2020, be it in P&C or in Life and Health.
A great result because we come from values of around 32% in 2014, so in the low 30s, and that is an extremely important result. The claim of Allianz, or the goal of Allianz, has to be that the largest majority of our businesses—you can't reach this every year—but the large majority of our businesses will be loyalty leaders, and then we will be successful, and that's also reflected. We became the number one insurance brand in the Interbrand Best Global Brands ranking for the second time, and for the first time, we're amongst the top 40 best global brands at position 39 globally, so great customer experience, which you can only reach with great employees, and this is what you can see on the right-hand side.
Something that really makes us proud as the board of management is that not just the satisfaction of customers has grown to a record level, but also the satisfaction of our employees. We measure this based on an index which we've established from an international survey with around 70 questions, which we started 10 years ago. And this index, which is to measure the Inclusive Meritocracy Index, so these are 10 questions here. And we had a goal of 73%. And in 2021, we improved this figure five percentage points up to 78%. If you say this is only just a part, then look at the Employee Engagement Index, which you can compare very well internationally, which went also up six percentage points to 78%. And then the Work Well Index will look at health issues. Do we do enough for the health of our employees?
Against the backdrop of COVID, that also increased by four percentage points. So what we're trying to do is to support our colleagues strongly during these difficult times. And it seems that we've made this possible. And all of this wouldn't have been possible if we hadn't had massive improvements in our home market in Germany. So congratulations to the board of management here in Germany of Allianz Germany. And also in France, where there were always difficulties with motivation, we've made great progress. And also in areas such as Allianz Partners, which lost more or less all of their travel business, still motivation and commitment of employees went up massively in spite of the crisis, which shows that we're trying successfully to take care of our colleagues and employees. And only if both employees and customers believe in Allianz can we be successful.
That then enables us to remain an attractive investment for our shareholders, be it the dividend or the payout ratio that we can pay. So you can see here, 58% is the payout ratio. I think I said 56% before, but it's 58%. As you can see here, we have a dividend yield of 5%. And as I mentioned before, we had an increase of active shareholders of 22%, especially also due to our employee shareholder program, which was highly successful and which we want to continue in the future because we plan to reach productivity gains and to share these successes with our employees and executives. We're highly disciplined when it comes to capital allocation, and we want to remain disciplined in this. So we invested both in external growth last year, but also went through the first part of our share buy-back.
What I want to mention is that share buy-back currently, against this backdrop, also the regulatory backdrop will be difficult in 2021. If we have capital we can't invest, we have no interest to keep this within the company. The third-part total return was okay. It was better than the STOXX Insurance 600. I'm not fully satisfied with this. I think the total shareholder return should have been better if you look at the results, but there were two uncertainties. First, the question whether we could pay a dividend in 2021 for 2020. That's been solved now. Both on the cash and capital side, we showed how resilient, how incredibly resilient Allianz is. It's also important to note that we're working on further improvements of capital allocation and shareholder returns so that customers and shareholders know that they can rely on Allianz. Not enough with this.
We're really proud that the ESG topic is not a new buzzword for us and just some strange abbreviation on the menu in our cafeteria or anything, but it's core of our Allianz mission. You're familiar with the environmental topic. We've done a lot about this led by the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance and other topics. I won't go into detail on this, but we want to keep setting standards for our industry and possibly even beyond the borders of our industry, and we're glad that we have more than EUR 5 billion now under this topic, and we want to double this to make sure that financial markets and investors contribute to this net zero goal by 2050.
What we shouldn't forget is that Allianz and also our employees, if we're successful, we also pay a high amount of taxes to deal with this topic that we have right now, which also needs to be financed. I mean, success also leads to the fact that we can pay taxes, which we then need to support our economy, to support those who can't earn taxes right now, to support those who suffer. I'm also especially glad that our colleagues at Euler Hermes made sure that last year an umbrella was set up for credit underwriting. Many people say that this was due to our benefit, but that had a net price of around EUR 100 million to form this umbrella to secure credit underwriting during the crisis.
So if you look at what we left, EUR 100 million on the table if we had remained and followed our traditional underwriting criteria, but that would have been the wrong step because then we would have had to shorten credit lines, which would have sped up the crisis. So it costs some money, but it was right to do that. And in addition to this, we're investing into different formats, not just into e-learning platforms for our employees, but also computers for our employees' children so that they can follow school from back home. Then we have a new ESG department on the supervisory board. We have a new department that reports to Dr. Thallinger, and we've just received an award from DSW as the most shareholder-friendly board of management remuneration system of the DAX 30 companies. And once again, we shared the productivity increases with our employees.
We offered free and discounted shares and more than 50% or something to all of our stakeholders. And the next page is just to show you that we don't introduce a new process every new year, but that we've worked continuously on these topics for five years now. It can't always go into the same direction. There will be ups and downs. So we have to, that is why we distinguish between what we call the health criteria, which show whether we're on the right path intrinsically, whether employees are engaged, and we measure this in the Employee Engagement Index, and whether customer satisfaction goes into the right direction, which we do with top-down NPS, which you can see on the top of this slide.
When we have a clear goal, a clear ambition, which we've defined for 2021, which we've already crossed in 2020, and that also holds true for employee engagement. Once again, this can't always go into the same direction. If you look at this, 2018 to 2019, we had a dip, and in employee engagement, we had a dip in 2018. But over the long term, we try to implement this strategy. Then on the performance side, let me start with productivity. So we said the enormous investments that we have now need to be translated into productivity gains step by step. And our products need to become less expensive and more performant because our industry is not that efficient. And we started with 28.4% in P&C. Then we invested quite a bit into technology until 2017. And then we started to reap the rewards of this.
And for last year, we were at 26.8%, a very strong value. Now, you have to know that this was influenced by positive special effects, but if we take those out, if we adjusted for that, we would at least have ended up at the level that we have as a goal for 2021, which is 27.5%. And we believe we can reach this goal, and we have to because interest rate income through the changes after COVID-19 and the ultra-low interest rate policy will continue. So ongoing is really important. The profitability side, we had a severe hit due to COVID-19. Without Corona, this value would have been close to or above 13%. So we are on track, and our aims are to come north of 13%.
We're aiming towards this, and we will continue to do our best to reach that so that we can reach a balance between the health parameters, as we call them, and the performance parameters here. Now, our ambition for 2021 is as follows. Therefore, in spite of the enormous burden from low interest rates, in spite of the burden from a much weaker U.S. dollar, Mr. Terzariol will talk about this, that had a huge effect, especially in asset management business. In spite of the ongoing difficulties regarding COVID-19, especially on the economic side, we still want to reach a midpoint value in our operating result of EUR 12 billion for the end of the year.
Our bandwidth for the operating result, due to the ongoing volatility and possible market corrections, we increased this bandwidth from EUR 500 million to EUR one billion because we don't think it would be solid or the right thing to give the signal that everything will remain easy. No, it will remain difficult, ladies and gentlemen. Now, let me talk about the strategy. At the end of this year, in December 2021, we'll present a new three-year plan to you and discuss it with you. But until then, our strategic priorities will remain unchanged. We can and will continue to improve our productivity, but what's much more important is that our products and processes will be much more simplified, that we continue down this process, that we use digital technology where it's useful and can offer higher quality where we have human people in our service.
We build all of this so that we can scale it across the group so that we don't reinvent everything anew in every country. Thirdly, we will make sure that the capital of our shareholders will be used in a balanced way in areas where we have the largest growth and profit opportunities. That's the job we have at the end of the day. At the end of the year, you will get an updated outlook and new details also on ESG. That brings me to the end of my introductory remarks. With this, I would like to hand over to Mr. Terzariol.
Thank you very much, Mr. Bäte, and hello. As usual, first of all, I'm going to start with a short update on the results for the fourth quarter.
Generally, with an operating profit of EUR 3 billion in the fourth quarter, we've rendered a good performance. Actually, the EUR 3 billion of operating profit corresponds to a forecast of EUR 12 billion divided by 4. That means we're back on a good track per year-end. If you look at the composition of the operating profit based on business lines in P&C, property and casualty, we are a bit lighter than normal, which is because of the COVID impact. And the combined ratio had an impact of 100 basis points. Plus, we had an additional reserve at AGCS that made it a bit lighter in P&C, but nevertheless, a combined ratio of 97%. Now, in Life and Health, we've showed a very good performance with EUR 1.4 billion operating profit. We also see one remarkable item. The COVID impact was not shown as an impact, but actually as a benefit.
And we simply wanted to show that in the course of the year, we kept up. That means all the impairments that we had in the first quarter were also turned down when the markets became more stable. That's a good result for the fourth quarter. And also, the new business margin with 2.7% is quite good and stable if you consider that currently we are having negative interest rates. The development in asset management was also very good with roughly EUR 900 million profit. And we do see a good production. If you look at the net inflows, we had roughly EUR 30 billion. And not only PIMCO, but also we had good net inflows at AGI, Allianz Global Investors, with almost EUR 9 billion in net inflows. So generally speaking, it's a very good and strong quarter, particularly in Life and Health and also in asset management.
On page five, now we're showing the overview for the entire year. As Mr. Bäte already said before, the operating profit was at EUR 10.8 billion if we adjust the figures by the COVID impact. So we are at the EUR 12 billion of our forecast, which is a sign that the underlying performance actually was really okay. And in P&C, we had an operating profit of EUR 4.4 billion. The combined ratio is 96.3%, which actually is a good combined ratio if you take the impact of 2.2% of COVID. So that's a good sign that we're doing fine. And we're quite confident that in the year 2021, our combined ratio ambition of 93% can be achieved. In Life and Health, EUR 4.4 billion operating profit was achieved, which corresponds to our forecast. That means in the course of the year, the impact of COVID were coped with well.
The new business margin of 2.8 is a good sign again for stability. Asset management with 2.9 operating profit were even EUR 200 million better than the forecast. That is really a good result. On the whole, for the entire year, more than EUR 30 million net inflows were received. Only looking at the nine months of the crisis, with the beginning on like in April, we even had EUR 80 million net inflows. The production in asset management was really strong with these EUR 80 million. The cost-income ratio was good with 61%. These are robust results for the year 2020, which is definitely a sign of solidity of the Allianz Group. This solidity is also reflected with regard to our solvency ratio on the whole per year. We had a solvency ratio of 207%.
Even if we adjust the figures by RT1 that we're going to announce in March, the solvency ratio was at 303%, which is a very good and strong solvency ratio, and we're quite proud of that. On page nine, we are showing the cascade here. Actually, the story is quite simple. The organic capital generation was positive, and as expected, we carried out a lot of measures in terms of de-risking, which also rendered a good contribution, so that this reflected in the so-called capital management action. Negative, of course, was the interest rate development. Interest per year, and we're at 60 basis points lower than at the beginning of the year, and even at the 20-year swap rates, we had negative interest, so that is something that we've never seen before. Nevertheless, solvency ratio of Allianz Group remains clearly above 200%.
Having said that, I would like to refer to our segments. As always, we will start with the P&C insurance and the overview of the internal growth. Our internal growth was -1.5%. Now, if we adjust these figures by Allianz Partners and Euler Hermes, which were particularly affected by the crisis, then the growth would have been 1.3%+. So nevertheless, despite COVID, we've seen a positive growth rate on the whole, and the picture is a mixed picture in Germany, actually. We do see a good growth rate under the conditions given, and in France and England, we're supporting that in 2021, and also in Italy, there is definitely some pressure coming from competitors.
I would say that makes our Combined Ratio below 90% and makes it even look better because we can achieve such a good Combined Ratio, although there's pressure in the market, which is quite considerable. Then further down, Allianz Partners clearly has suffered a lot because of the crisis, because Travel Insurance is definitely suffering. And like a more selling product in 2021, by the year-end, we're going to see a stabilization maybe. But clearly, we do see some difficulties in Travel Insurance. And also Euler Hermes because of - 70%. So that's a mixed picture on the whole. But still, when you look at Allianz Partners and Euler Hermes, if you take that out, we were able to increase our contribution for P&C. In general, EUR 700 million down, which is based on the technical result and also the investment result. So both underwriting and investment.
So when we focus on the underwriting result, then we can simply see the combined ratio. And on the whole, we see a combined ratio of 96.3%. If we look at the loss ratio for the current year, that is apart from NatCATs , it's actually stable on 68%. Although we had a COVID impact of 2 percentage points, which means actually operatively we have improved. The runoff result was lower than before. Actually, we were conservative in our reserving per year, and we simply wanted to consider there is a certain uncertainty out there. So that's why we were definitely conservative knowing that. And that's why the runoff ratio is smaller as to what we normally show. And then the expense ratio has developed quite nicely. On the whole, we've seen an improvement of 70 basis points versus the previous year.
There were some positive special effects for the expense ratio. But also when you take also the loss ratio and the expense ratio, then we have an improvement of our 50 basis points. And as we've seen over the last three years, and Mr. Bäte has shown that we have progressively improved. And basically, we have an expense ratio of 27%. Only for three to four years, we were at 29%. So that's a clear improvement. So on the whole, when we look back, when we step back a bit and look at the combined ratio of 96%, it's definitely not what we would wish to see. But basically, looking at that environment, that's a sign of strength. And also the future performance will be good. And also the performance looking back is good. And that's a good message. Although clearly, we will expect to get a better combined ratio.
On page 15, we show the figures per OEs. I would say the performance Germany, France, England, Italy, and Eastern Europe was quite strong, and even in Spain, we showed a good performance. In Australia, we've seen more impact from Nat Cats, some special effects as well, which reduced the results for 2020, but we do know that we need to work on Australia, and there's still the topic of P&C. The combined ratio in P&C was 115.5%, and of course, COVID hit quite strongly and gave 10% of the combined ratio plus the additional reserve at year-end.
If we adjust it, and if we take the figures of AGCS and adjust the results for the COVID and also for the runoff result, that we expect again the combined ratio with 98%, which is our claim for 2021, and which we showed on page 16 that in 2021, we're going to see a combined ratio of 98% for AGCS to be envisaged. Bottom line, I would say both all the OEs, the most OEs have showed good performance. And we have a few cases where we have to render some work. But generally speaking, most OEs have rendered a good performance in 2020 in this vastly difficult environment. On page 17, please have a look at our income and the operating investment result for P&C. Generally, the operating investment result is EUR 100 million down, which is because of the interest development.
And so the current yield went down by 30 basis points. And also we had less dividends from securities in 2020. So these two factors explain why the operating investment result is roughly EUR 300 million down. So we are going to see impact from the interest result. And also in underwriting and the productivity side, we have to do our homework in order to get away this pressure from the capital investment result to be able to compensate for. So in general, we've seen good results under the environment of P&C. Now I would like to draw your attention to Life and Health. Generally speaking, I'm really happy with the development on page 19 with the new business margin. Yes, the new business margin went down by 14 basis points. But we have to consider that interests have moved downward strongly.
Actually, if we hadn't done that, the new business margin would have been 100 basis points lower than in the previous year. But in the current year, we've taken measures and 60 basis points better. And the measures that we've taken, and you can also see in the change of the business mix. Unit-linked without guarantee and protection health. And if you see the guaranteed service annuities, then we're less than 15%. So that's a massive change or strong change towards products which better fit in this environment. The new production has dropped in minus 8%. But also when I need to say 2019 was a record year for Allianz. And 2018 was a record year, 2018 and 2019, and we're still higher in 2020. So with more than EUR 60 billion, the production is on a very good level.
Also in the fourth quarter, we've seen a good growth rate, which was + 10% growth rate in production. So on the whole, it's a good level. And also we kept up with the year-end, which should support us for 2021, looking at that catch-up. In 2021, the operating profit in Life and Health went down by 7.4%. But there are a few factors that should be mentioned. First of all, the deconsolidation of Banco Popular, which made EUR 100 million in 2019 and rendered a contribution to the result in 2019 was particularly good where volatility was really low. This year, the story was a bit different. So with 7.4 or with 14.4, we are within our line. And forecasts, you may remember that in the midpoint for Life and Health with that EUR 4.4 billion.
It is slightly less than in the previous year, but still the operating profit are actually fine versus to what we have expected. And that reflects what we have expected. And then page 23, the new business margin is good across all OEs, 2%. There are only a few exceptions. But generally speaking, it's a strong picture. And if I look at the operating profit by units, I can see the development in Asia is very good. We've got a growth rate of the operating profit of 11%. But it's even better when you look at the comparison to 2018. On the whole, in Asia, we grew 50%. So we've shown a very good dynamic in Asia during the past few years. In the case of the US, we see a negative development versus the previous year.
As announced in 2019, the volatility was really low in the capital market. In 2020, the capital market's volatility was really strong in the first quarter, which explains the drop of the operating profit. In Italy, we're also on a good track and we're pushing unit-linked life insurance in Italy. The development is really good. One comment on Spain, which is down, but that is due to the deconsolidation of Banco Popular. EUR 4.4 billion operating profit in life insurance. That's a good result for a year that was really difficult. That started really difficult at the beginning. Page 25 shows the investment margin. In general, with 86 basis points, the margin stayed stable. Our expectation was between 75 and 80 basis points.
Actually, it's slightly higher, but one needs to consider there were a few special effects because of a change of another balance sheet item. And this effect made six basis points [audio distortion] KPI, which means by adjustment by this special effect, the investment margin would be 80 basis points within our expectations. Now let's talk about asset management on page 27. Actually, it's quite simple. We've reached record level both for the total assets under management and also for the third-party assets under management. So we've had a record level. And it's not only a statistical figure, it's definitely quite promising for 2021, clearly. So if you start with a higher asset base, then you can also rely on higher income and higher profits. On page 29, here we're showing the development of the third-party assets under management development.
Generally, more than EUR 30 billion net inflow, EUR 7 billion come from AGI, and more than EUR 25 billion come from PIMCO. Out of these EUR 30 billion, we know of PIMCO. That is the usual suspects, but also AGI has developed nicely in the fourth quarter, and this good development was also seen in January 2021, so that's why we're quite positive when it comes to the production at AGI and PIMCO. Looking at the market changes, we've seen a positive contribution. Actually, after the crisis in March, markets have stabilized. Equity markets, specifically in the U.S., went fine, and also the credit spreads actually became lower, and that's why it has supported the asset base, but for us in the euro conversion, EUR 100 billion were lost because of the devaluation of the U.S. dollar being lower. Nevertheless, we were able to increase the assets under management.
And as I said before, we've reached a record level. On page 31, we're showing the revenue growth rate calculated for FX exchange rate of 2.6%. PIMCO added 5.7% in AGI. We had a decline, which comes from lower performance fees. If you look at the underlying fee without the performance fee, actually we've seen a growth rate of 3%. So the fee margin has developed well in AGI. And you can see it has increased considerably versus the previous year. There is one technical effect, but also AGI has sold more mutual funds. That means the mix is positive with regard to the fee margin. PIMCO was the other way around, actually. So they sold more institutional products, which brings less fee margin. But generally, PIMCO still was able to increase the revenues. And the results of PIMCO are still truly really, really good.
As always, when you look at revenues and you increase revenues, that of course is reflected in the operating profit, overproportional. There's leverage in asset management. Profits went up by 7%. As you can see, the cost income ratio went 1 percentage point better. In PIMCO, we've seen an increase of the operating profit of 7% adjusted by FX exchange rates, which Mr. Bäte said already we saw EUR 50 million impact only in Asset Management because of FX exchange rates. Then the growth rate of profit would have been 9% in PIMCO. In AGI, we see a flat operating profit curve. But we do see improvement of the cost income ratio of roughly 2 percentage points. I would say that the starting position for 2021 is quite promising for AGI.
Of course, we can't look into the crystal ball, but per today, I'd say we're in a good position as regards 2021, so on the whole, it's a good performance in Asset Management, EUR 2.9 billion operating profit. The forecast was EUR 2.7 billion, so clearly, we are quite happy with that. Page 35, corporate, and we see a big change versus the previous year, but the previous year was actually really good, so actually, the EUR 800 million losses are more or less within our expectations. It is a bit lighter than our expectations, but we had less interest and less dividends plus, and also we saw an impact from a solidarity contribution for COVID in France, which is not even included in the EUR 1.3 billion. As Mr. Bäte said, we were rather conservative in our calculation of the impact, but in corporate, there was EUR 25 million impact.
On page 37, we can see the non-operating items. Generally, the non-operating items went down EUR 370 million than the previous year, which is actually driven by our reorganization measures, the EUR 370 million. That's why they were higher than in the previous year. The costs of decommissioning in 2020, more than EUR 200 million costs because of decommissioning. More than 300 applications were switched off. Also the cost of the integration of acquisitions like the acquisition of LV= and also the acquisition of SulAmérica. Basically, these are investments which were made for the future. That's why we have a bigger figure. There's not for the future that we also expect benefits from these measures. The annual net income is EUR 6.8 billion, corresponds to our expectation. Although the operating profit is clearly lower, then we also would expect that the net income is lower.
Generally, still, there were no particular movement in the non-operating items apart from the increase of our reorganization costs. On page 39, we can look at the forecast. The outlook looks like this. I can also show you the outlook per segment and P&C. We're envisaging a midpoint of EUR 5.6 billion. What are the assumptions behind? In the premiums, we expect rather a flat tendency or slight growth rate for 2021. Combined ratio is 93%, as assumed. We expect a lower capital investment result versus 2020. Now, these were the assumptions included, but it's important to see the combined ratio of 93% that we want to achieve in Life and Health. We stay with our expectation of EUR 1.1 billion operating profit per quarter. In Asset Management, this might look conservative, EUR 2.8 billion, because in 2020, we had EUR 2.9 billion.
But one needs to consider that the FX exchange rate played against us. That means we need to normalize that picture based on the FX. And if it remains like that, then we're going to stay above 2.8%. But nowadays, because of uncertainties anyway, and also because of the exchange rates, 2.8%, we found is an appropriate forecast for Asset Management. In total, we are at EUR 12 billion, as Mr. Bäte said before. The range is a bit higher than what we actually used in the past. It is to consider and reflect the uncertainties out there. We're definitely on a good track. We've only seen this in the development across the quarters. In the first quarter, we had EUR 2.3 billion operating profit. In the second quarter, we had EUR 2.6 billion. And in the third quarter, EUR 2.9 billion. And in the fourth quarter, EUR 3 billion.
So clearly, the tendency goes up towards normalization. But we do know that the COVID challenges are not over. And there is still some uncertainties for the things to come. That's why we can't really forget about it. But I would say it's quite a good performance in 2020, robust. We are well-positioned also for 2021. And as always, I would like to say thank you to our employees for the great performance. And thank you very much.
With this, we'll come to the question- and- answer session. We'll start first with the German questions, and that will then be followed by the English questions later on. So if you're connected by phone, please press star five to be entered into the speakers list. And you can also go through the video channel.
Then please push the talk request button so that we can connect you live, and then we can also see you. That brings us directly to the first question by Mr. Flämig of Börsen-Zeitung. Mr. Flämig, the floor is yours.
Hello, Ms. Schwarzer, Mr. Bäte, Mr. Terzariol. I'll ask three questions. First of all, COVID, then on the structures of Allianz, and the midterm goals for 2021. Regarding COVID, Mr. Bäte, you said we haven't come out of this topic, but from the third quarter on, it didn't have any impact on your result. So what does it mean for this year? What kind of impacts do you expect? Then the structures. You talked about the resilience and financial strength and the resilience in your organization. Past financial press conferences, you had mentioned the structure of Allianz and also Germany.
That doesn't seem to be that much of a change. So what can we expect in this regard? Now the third question on the midterm goals for 2021. If I understood you correctly, you stick to your guidance, but the environment has changed quite a bit, not just the interest rate environment. Also, the share buy-back has been paused, so you have to do more. You mentioned productivity, but what specifically will be changed compared to the initial plans?
Good morning, Mr. Flämig Thank you very much for your questions. Let me start first, and then I'll hand over to Mr. Terzariol for details about the key figures, how we can count the trends.
To start with the last question, it's true we have less interest rate income in P&C alone, EUR 250 million or so less on a like-for-like basis compared to what we thought we would get three years ago. So we need to push all the levers. We need to look at profitable growth in Germany. In the past year, for example, we were highly successful in private protection. For the first time in many, many years, we were able to profitably buy our German colleagues. And just one example for that. So we have to deliver further profitability improvements, and that holds true for all elements of the business model, more and more also for our sales force. And we're doing a great job in this regard. And when it comes to the investment result, we have to look at new possibilities for investment.
You're familiar with infrastructure and real estate, and we're doing quite good in these alternative areas. What we don't want to do is enter into short-term restructuring programs, which lead to insecurity and lead to an internal focus so that we can focus on our customers and our competitors. What we don't want to do is weaken our balance sheets. So just take money out and hope for the best. That won't happen. We need to be resilient and robust. That won't be easy. And we need to continue our transformation in life insurance. So we announced that we will change the structure of our guarantees and will continue down this path. But there are also growth opportunities in occupational health insurance, for example. So this whole topic of health prevention, protection, and old-age provisions will become much more important.
And we need to focus on these opportunities and seize them. Now, when it comes to structures, it's good if you haven't seen anything, any major structural changes. Because, as I said, we don't want to stand out through major restructuring programs. With focus on simplicity, we try to focus on easier and easier products, products that are easier to understand, which will only work with simpler processes internally, which use technology where it's useful and will support our people so that we can use them where they can make a difference. And we need to flatten our hierarchies. And we've done this time and again. Just one example. The overall costs of the SE of our holding have remained unchanged since 2015, even though we've had 25 or 30 billion more in revenue. So we try to balance our investments through the productivity gains.
In many areas, we've been successful in this regard. But still, there's a lot to do, a lot more to do. We could certainly talk about business interruption insurance. It angers me a bit if customers believe they have coverage that doesn't exist. We have to work on this. Our products have to be easier to understand. Our customers need to know what's covered and what's not. We mustn't have any insecurities and uncertainties in this regard. So we have to be clearer. I'm not satisfied with this so far, but I'm certain that we can improve this. Then the effects of COVID-19 for the year, just one or two sentences before I pass on to Mr. Terzariol. What I'm talking about is, for example, event insurance. If something like the Olympics shouldn't happen, then this might lead to double-digit million losses.
If there should be additional lockdowns, you see countries facing the third wave of COVID, Spain, for example, but also Sweden. We're not present in Sweden, so you don't need to be concerned, but just as an example, but only if we see that we come out of these lockdowns, these continued lockdowns systematically, then we can somewhat state that we are on the safe side, and on the other hand, we have a financial market situation, especially in the stock markets, that is similar to the situation we had before the crash 2008, 2009, and before the crash in the year 2000, so some celebrity buys bitcoins, and then prices for these assets start to explode, so that's a crazy development that we have to take care of, and the ultra-liquid, to be cautious, policy of the central banks hasn't helped in this regard.
We need to make sure that we get a balance between monetary supply and acting against deflation on the one hand side and financial market stability on the other side. We're concerned about this for today and also for our children. With this, I would like to hand over to Mr. Terzariol.
The facts of 2021, COVID, what I want to say is that for Euler Hermes and Allianz Partners, we assume a result that's EUR 250 million lower than what we would usually expect. This is a result that won't be gone forever. That will come back in 2022. For 2021, we have to assume that we will have EUR 250 million less in operating result from these two OEs compared to what we would usually get. This is one of the effects we've included. Mr. Bäte referred to the entertainment topic.
AGCS, we assume a burden of EUR 50-EUR 100 million in the entertainment area. That is basically what we've included in our forecast when it comes to the COVID-19 impact. Then there is a certain uncertainty about business interruption that should be balanced through improved loss frequency in motor insurance. We assume that the other effects will be balanced or will weigh each other out. But we cannot foresee everything. That's why we've increased the bandwidth for uncertainties a bit. That is what we did in our forecast. That is how we included possible effects of COVID-19. Next,
Mr. Flämig, have your questions been answered with this? If not, then please come back later on. Okay. With this, we'll go to Mr. Hübner next up. Alexander Hübner for Reuters. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you.
One question has already been answered. It's just a detailed question regarding restructuring. You said that there won't be major programs. What I'm missing a bit is how the employee figures have developed over the past year. Also adjusted for acquisitions so that we can get a feeling for the development here. And what I've realized in German life insurance, the new business value in the last year went down significantly. Maybe you could say something about this. Was that due to the lockdown situation that it didn't work that well with the closing of contracts via video, or was this due to the changed product mix?
Thank you very much, Mr. Hübner. Let me start with the second question because I think I can remember this well. And the colleagues in Stuttgart Allianz, I hope that I'll do this right. But let me start with life insurance.
That was mainly due to the fact that the sales activities through the video channel are much more difficult for the products that need more support and more advice compared to P&C. And what comes in addition to this is that many companies didn't do any programs for corporate insurances, which is understandable during COVID times. So our life experts didn't have the opportunity to get into contact with many of the customers for occupational old-age provision products. That improved somewhat in the fourth quarter, but we haven't reached what we want to reach. But that's also good. I mean, many products where you have specific questions, provision topics, tax questions are best done by video. And I think this will remain the same, at least in our generation, Mr. Hübner. My children are different in this. I don't have the employee figures right now, but Ms.
Schwarzer will be able to supply you with those figures, but in some, we assume that over the coming years, through the topic of digitalization, we will have a certain automation of jobs, which are being performed manually these days, and of course, we discuss this with our social partners, and we find long-term solutions together with them by offering training opportunities for new OEs, for new areas which are growing, for example, in customer service. We have early retirement regulations and so on and so forth, so what we want to avoid are redundancies and restructurings with forced redundancies. So what we do is strategic workforce planning. That is to say, we take all the OEs, and together with them, we plan the changes we assume for the next five years, and we try to set ourselves up through this with the colleagues. Now, I've received the figure.
The net figure, the net employee figure went up by 3,000 employees from 147,000 to around 150,000. It's a net increase of 3,000 due to the integration mainly of two companies, SulAmérica in Brazil and Legal & General in the U.K. I hope that this will answer your questions. Mr. Hübner, do you have a follow-up, or are you satisfied with the answer?
Regarding the employee figure, it'd be nice if you could adjust this for the acquisitions so that we get a like-for-like basis.
If I may say, we had larger restructuring measures in 2020 at AGI. We have 200 employees less than at AGCS. The number of AGCS employees is at 4,000. So that's around 100 less than in the previous year. But overall, there were no massive restructuring programs in 2020. So what we're seeing is that in some units, we had to reduce a little bit.
But in general, we've seen stability or mild changes or mild reductions over the years. I mean, if you're looking for larger restructuring programs over the years, you won't see any of them. And that's something we want to avoid, these massive restructuring programs. But of course, you cannot always avoid this. If something happens like COVID in other industries, you might be forced to do something like that. But I mean, five years ago, we decided to have a forward perspective to this. And if you have flatter hierarchies, if you have negotiations with our social partners and think through all of this, there will certainly be developments. And we want to grow on the customer interface through great products. And we talked about NPS so that we won't shrink over time, but that the number of employees can grow together with the company.
We won't be able to reach this everywhere and always, but this is certainly our goal. Thank you.
Next up, we have Ms. Steiwer of Les Echos.
Good morning. Natalie Steiwer of Les Echos. You said that the French market was difficult. Could you explain to us whether there will still be investment opportunities for Allianz in France and whether Aviva would be an interesting partner for Allianz?
Good morning, Ms. Steiwer. Well, we can't comment on the second question because I'm not allowed. Even if I wanted to, I can't talk about specific companies. But in general, Allianz loves France. And I'm serious about this. I'm part of the Evian Group. And Allianz is one of the founding members of that. And we would certainly like to invest in France if any opportunities came up. But we have to have a good opportunity, which is economically fitting.
But we would certainly love to grow in France. Thank you.
Ms. Steiwer, do you have a follow-up?
No? Thanks.
Then we have Mr. Frommer of Süddeutsche Zeitung next up.
Good morning. Three question areas. First of all, NPS on page A9. You said this at 79%. And I understood this correctly. That's the amount of that's the value of the companies that are better than the market. But what's the true NPS? Is it negative? For Allianz Germany, for example, can you mention this? Then the second question. And AGCS, you want to reduce the combined ratio from 150.15% down to 98%. Now we're in a recession. And there's a likelihood that losses might go up and premiums go down. So how is that supposed to work? It's difficult to understand for me regarding AGCS and premium volume.
I know that prices are going up, but 17 percentage points is a lot. So do you think about dissolving AGCS and integrating it into the country OEs and then consolidation in general? You mentioned France. Are there other consolidation plans which might be fitting now during the time of crisis?
Thank you very much, Mr. Frommer. We're just working on the NPS data. Let me see. It is quite a differentiated picture depending on the different areas. It's true that the market in P&C is at minus 14, and we're at minus 10.4 or something. And previously, it was minus 10.5, and the market was at minus 10.3. So the market worsened, and we significantly went up compared to the market. And in life insurance, it's also negative in Germany, minus 37, and we're at minus 32, an improvement of 5 percentage points.
So from a negative into a less negative value. And in health insurance, it's minus 2.5, so significantly better, which means that customers have a critical view on our industry. And we see some areas, but the loyalty leaders are positive in all markets. And that is what we need to reach. And that is why I want us to become loyalty leader because that's the only way how we can gain through our customers. And you can see in the markets where we are loyalty leaders, the NPS values are also positive. You're right in this. The second topic, we don't think about dissolving AGCS at all. And I think they'll do a great job from 2021 onwards. We've tried under the great direction of Mr. Müller and in cooperation also with Ms. Lepoutre, who is the CFO there.
We tried to clean up the balance sheet as much as possible. And now we have to be done with this. And that's why we said we expect the Combined Ratio of 98, which, and you're right in this, does have to do with less revenues. We've cleaned up some business areas. And Mr. Terzariol said between EUR 600 million and EUR 700 million of revenues we've forgotten, especially some loss drivers, which were in the reds for quite some time. And we've now closed them and dissolved them. And the price increases also help us, but that's not the only thing. Also on the productivity side, we've made improvements. And we'll also do this slowly and step by step. But also, we need to improve on the Expense Ratio. And then the third question, consolidation. Yes, it's true. We have quite a full pipeline. But we also talked about this.
The stock markets are euphoric. So also sales of company parts are very demanding in the values that they ask for in selling their company parts. And we will remain disciplined in acquiring shares. So we don't want to buy revenue, but profit. And from time to time, you have to take a leap. But so far, this hasn't been the case. And we're not planning a EUR 100 million acquisition at this point in time. Do you want to add something, Mr. Terzariol?
That was absolutely perfect. But I also would say that the comment, when you adjust the combined ratio for COVID and then follow-up reservation is 98%, you could say that we get an impact of 1-2 percentage points of COVID and AGCS . So we're starting from 100%.
And we simply have to consider all the increases of contributions that we made in 2020 will be continued to see an effect in 2021 because of the net contribution calculation. In January, we've received another 20% rate increases. And despite that, we've seen rate increases in that year. And like Mr. Bäte said, from EUR 700 million contributions, we're separated from those. And there was a block of business in Germany, which was EUR 100 million contributions. And the loss was EUR 18 million. So the EUR 18 million on EUR 100 million will not be done again in 2021. So that's why we are quite confident in that 98 is a good calculation. You never know with NatCATs . But based on the underlying performance, we feel well positioned with AGCS with 98% combined ratio. Yeah, that needs to come in additionally, definitely. And you personally gave us a tip last year. Mr.
Frommer said, "Hey, now you have to take the opportunity in order to clear up the whole company," which we've done.
Mr. Frommer, do you have any additional questions?
Yes, I would like to know where the 4,600 is? You said EUR 700 million. Can you give us examples? EUR 110 million, the German book, and the EUR 18 million loss. What was that? And both Mr. Terzariol and Mr. Bäte mentioned the 98 with a slight threat. And so what do you do then? Would you do exchange management?
No. Let me answer spontaneously. No, we don't want to take out individual customers or segments because then they would think like, "Oh, do they look at particular industrial sectors?" So I would like to avoid that post and to only look at products and sectors. Sometimes you write about that. There were areas where the industry have been stronger can accept.
It's not unfair, but we would have to clear that up much earlier. 98 is not a threat because of the additional reserve needs over the past two years. Now, the management is doing a very good job. We had a very serious talk with them and said it is quite important for us and our management and for the investors and everyone out there that we do get certainty. Are we running in the direction where we want to get in 2021? We've done a lot of effort, Mr. Terzariol, and we've tested everything. We wrote that into management report, and they really committed themselves to clearly stand up with a certain target. There's no threat, but that means that a team stands up for a certain target, which we like.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Reipka from Platow Brief.
Good morning, Ms. Schwarzer. Good morning, gentlemen.
I have three questions if I like. Hope you can hear me. First of all, I would like to know, Mr. Bäte, you described the situation at the equity markets twice. Do you, does the Allianz expect a crash? And what are the consequences that you draw for yourself for the solvency ratio and the investment? And the second point, Allianz share reflects not the good result, actually. So you mentioned the regulator and that prohibits repurchase. That's why dividend increase. Wouldn't that have been the right choice to increase the dividend? And one more question on Euler Hermes. You reckon to receive better figures as of next year already. So when you hear around in the industry and banks, many players and companies and observers expect that the bankruptcy wave is now coming. Is your perspective different?
Thank you very much. Great questions.
No, I can't predict a crash, and I would have a different job, but we're really conservative in order to be concrete. Our solvency ratio was driven down to ensure that the volatilities would not impact us strongly, and we've went through various stress scenarios to make sure that our solvency ratio and cash flow generation power is not impacted negatively across the normal measure. Mr. Terzariol is going to say more. Yeah, the topic of shares. I see that in the same way. This has a lot to do with the fact that our investors did not know because of the confusion, specifically in the regulations in Europe. One country does it like that. The other one country does it like that. How are we able to pay the dividend, so after a very intensive auditing process by BaFin, which was not simple, we had stress scenarios.
Do we have enough financial reserve cash flow and the reserve? And do we have enough solvency after the stress? And BaFin confirmed that we're able to pay the dividend. But to be open, if we would have come with a dividend increase and a proposal of the share buy-back, this would not have hit the approval of BaFin. But dividend increase per today was not an issue. We have to wait on how the situation develops. Now, in my target, clearly is mentioned. If we have additional capital that we can't invest based on risk assessments, we will give it back to our shareholders, which we will do as soon as that is possible. And you should approach from the assumption that dividends on Allianz will not only be paid but also increase. And Mr. Terzariol, please, could you respond to the other points?
Yeah, the topic of Euler Hermes. First of all, our combined ratio in 2021 was slightly below 100%, which is actually conservatively booked. And we haven't seen such a big claim activity. That's why we are conservative by year-end, which is definitely a buffer that will help us for 2021. I would not necessarily expect bigger bankruptcies in 2021. If the bankruptcies will come, they will probably come later. What is important? Euler Hermes is not a bank. We are performing trade insurances. So we don't have fixed financing. And then we decide to whom we give a credit insurance or not, which makes a difference so we can reduce the limits. And nowadays, we're not doing that too much because we have the agreements with the governments. But we can be highly flexible in our activities.
And we know the investors who are rather endangered and those who are not endangered. So the challenges in April and March was no one has understood the crisis. So it was more difficult to understand. So who will be the industries that will suffer more? So meanwhile, we have clearer pictures. And there are winners and losers of the crisis, clearly. If we have a picture now, we have a better picture now. And now we can decide whom would we give more capacity and whom would you give less capacity or no capacity. So in that respect, of course, we were always careful, naturally. But of course, we gave it a new thought how we look at the situation of Euler Hermes. Yeah, Mr. Reipka, did we answer your questions?
Yeah.
May I also ask for the share ratio, how it was before and how much is that at the moment? The share ratio by the end of 2019, we had,
I'd say, EUR 65 billion of equities. I only calculate the available-for-sale shares. At the year-end 2020, we were at EUR 58 billion. Our capital investments are EUR 700 billion, more than EUR 700 billion. The share ratio, 10% of the EUR 65 billion, was reduced. We don't think of share quota, really. We think of sensitivities of Solvency II, assuming we would have a crash of 30% on the market. The solvency ratio, if you look at page 7 of our presentation, would go down by 14%. This would assume that even the listed shares go by 30% and also the private shares, which normally is not the case.
So if you only look at the sensitivities on the listed shares, then our solvency ratio would go down by 6% because normally the non-listed shares do not suffer as much as these listed shares. So if we get a crash of 30%, so if all the rest remains unchanged, then the impact for Allianz Group would be rather limited. What normally happens in a crisis, interests go down, credit spreads open up, and that's what you have to consider. But a crash only of the equities markets would be quite easy for us to take and to cope with. Mr. Reipka, any further questions? Or are you happy with the answers?
No, thank you very much.
Mr. Kahl is on the line from Bloomberg. Mr. Kahl, please.
Just one short question. Are you aware of the harassment or reproaches against PIMCO in the U.S.?
What is the role of Allianz in clearing that up? Are you going to leave it up to PIMCO to do whatever they feel should be done, or how do you handle these reproaches?
Maybe I can answer the questions. Of course, we share common principles, and intolerance and harassment of any type will never be tolerated. PIMCO is taking that topic very seriously and is on a good track. Do you have another question? Any other question?
No, that was the question I had. Thank you very much.
If I see this right, now we're going to switch over to the English line, which will take a few seconds.
[Foreign language] sorry, I'm going to switch to English. We're going to the English line now. We have Ben Dyson waiting from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Ben, you're on the line.
Great.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. I just had a couple of quick questions. One was really a follow-up on an earlier question about the residual impacts on the non-life business from coronavirus in 2021. I think you mentioned there was EUR 250 million less from Allianz Partners and Euler Hermes and a hit of up to EUR 100 million for AGCS. But I just wanted to make sure that I understand that properly, and if you could clarify what you're expecting in 2021 from coronavirus, and specifically if the Olympic Games are canceled, because I think you mentioned that. And then the second question really was just about Mr. Bäte mentioned the expressed some dissatisfaction with the lack of clarity around business interruption wordings and that customers could be confused about whether they were covered or not.
I'd just be interested in what plans you have there to clarify wordings and how you'll avoid sacrificing product flexibility in the aim of achieving more simplicity?
No, for the COVID, you got it right. So we have EUR 250 million of impacts between Euler Hermes and Allianz Partners. Then in the case of AGCS, we say that could be about EUR 50-EUR 100 million. So in total, we'll say about EUR 300 million. And that's reflected in our forecast. And then for the rest, we think it's going to be a wash, right? We might have always some negative development. We don't anticipate that, but it might happen that we're going to see some negative development in business interruption. On the other side, we would also expect to benefit from lower frequency. So when we look at the situation in 2021, we think there could be a wash.
Anyway, 2021 is going to be definitely way, way better compared to what we experienced in 2020. That's definitely something safe to say. And then we're going to watch how the situation develops. But as of now, besides those items that I mentioned, I would expect the COVID impact to be relatively neutral. Does that answer your question?
Yeah. So then I will go over to the interruption wording. It's really interesting that you say. Often we hide complexity and customer confusion behind the word flexibility or innovation. When we look to the digital world, most of the innovation gives better value to consumers, makes products more intuitive, and we don't need to think about Netflix and Spotify. Why is it so difficult in our industry to get something that when you are a business owner, you can only understand with a legal advisor?
So the idea has to be, and as we have a long way ahead of us, we've started in retail and we have to bring it to commercial, to get to something that you can interpret without a lawyer and you don't need to go to court to get clarification. It sounds a bit naive, but I can tell you for the United Kingdom, for example, almost all of the problems the industry has come from very specific wordings that some brokers have invented and we were stupid enough to underwrite where it was not clear who was covered. So we need to make sure as an industry we have very clear standards and at least for Allianz, make sure, and we do a test with our clients. Do you actually understand what is covered and, by the way, what is not covered? Let me repeat that.
We cannot cover losses from pandemic closures of businesses. When governments decide to shut down the economy, the insurance industry doesn't have neither the know-how nor the capacity to do so. And that should not surprise anybody. Now, but we shouldn't be so stupid to give the image that we could play a role in doing that. Now, that's my personal opinion. Other people may want to roll the dice and say, "I have something for you." And then when the puts come to shove, then we'll see each other in court. I don't think that will help the image of our industry. And I think that's what we should learn from the corona crisis, at least. That's my personal opinion. Thank you.
Ben, does that answer your question? Did you have any further questions? No, that was it. Thank you very much. So thank you.
If that was not the case, this was the last question. We'll switch back to the German lines. It will take a few seconds.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of our annual results media conference. And all that remains to me is to wish you all the best. Stay healthy, and we hope to see you back in person live here in Munich next year. Goodbye, and thank you very much.