Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today's press conference for Allianz SE on the occasion of the publication of the financial results for the third quarter 2020. For your information, this conference will be taped. At this point, I'll hand over to the press.
Good morning and welcome from my side. Welcome to the telephone conference on the third quarter figures. I hope you're all doing all right. As usual, our CFO, Giulio Terzariol, will guide you through the quarterly results, and following that, he will answer your questions. With this, I would give the floor to Giulio Terzariol.
Thank you very much, Holger. Good morning, and I hope that you're all healthy and well. I'm glad to be able to present to you today the results of Allianz for the third quarter. We'll start on page three, where you have an overview for the first nine months of the year. Total revenues declined by 3% compared to the previous year's period, which is, of course, understandable in view of the situation around COVID-19. The operating profit was at EUR 7.8 billion, EUR 1.3 billion below the previous year's level. As you can see, this has been driven by the COVID-19 impact. If we were to adjust the figures for the COVID-19 impact, we would have an operating profit of EUR 9.1 billion on par with the previous year.
That would also be in line with our forecast, our pro rata forecast for the year. That is to say that the underlying performance actually was quite well and has been quite well. In property casualty, we had an operating profit of around EUR 3.5 billion, 16.6% or EUR 0.9 billion below the previous year's level.
And here you can see the effects of COVID-19. The COVID-19 effect was EUR 900 million. So adjusted for the effect, we would even have had a better result than in the previous year. And if we look at the combined ratio, you can see that we have a combined ratio of 96.0, 1.9 percentage points worse than in the previous year, but the COVID-19 impact was more than 2 percentage points. So adjusted for COVID-19 effects, the combined ratio would have improved compared to the previous year. And that's also what's precisely if we consider the underlying performance. And we want to position ourselves for the coming year. In life and health, we have EUR 3 billion of operating profit. It increased compared to the previous year. And the explanation once again here, the COVID-19 impact. As you can see, in the third quarter, the capital markets remained stable.
The result in our life health segment was on plan, which is quite good in the life insurance segment. The new business margin is at 2.9, which against this backdrop is real good. And in asset management, we've even seen an improvement compared to the previous year. EUR 2 billion operating profit and net inflows positive by EUR 5 billion. So I'd say for the first nine months of the year, we've shown a very robust and resilient performance. Now, if we switch to page five, you can see a confirmation of that. Here you can see the figures for the third quarter. Now, if we look at the third quarter figures, we can see immediately that once the situation stabilizes, the operating profit returns to normal levels.
In the third quarter, we had an operating profit of EUR 2.9 billion, just a little below the planned value of EUR 3 billion, which would have been our expectation for a normal quarter, if you wish. And if you look at the COVID-19 impact in the year, that's EUR 0.1 billion. And adjusted for that, we would have reached these EUR 3 billion exactly. In property casualty, our combined ratio remained more or less flat on par with the previous year's level. But if we adjusted the figures for COVID, our combined ratio would have improved, and that would have been below 94%. In life health, our operating profit at EUR 1.1 billion was quite good and in line with our forecast divided by four, so even better than the forecast divided by four, which is a clear sign of stability.
Our new business margin also in the quarter was at 0.29. And I think that's quite a good performance, actually. In asset management, you can see that we had a slightly declining operating profit, but that was also due to foreign exchange effects. Adjusted for foreign exchange effects, our operating profit would have been on par with the previous year's level. And so with this, we're highly satisfied with the operating profit, and we're also very positive about the development of net inflows of EUR 25.6 billion. So we had an increase of the shareholders' net income of almost 6% to EUR 2.0 billion. And against the backdrop, that's an excellent performance. So overall, a very strong third quarter.
With this, I would like to switch to page seven, where we can see that we've also had an improvement of the solvency ratio from 187% at the end of June to 192% at the end of September, an improvement of 5 percentage points. Our solvency ratio remains at a very good level. Key sensitivities are reflected on the right-hand side. They've improved slightly compared to the previous quarter. Also the sensitivities on the equity markets, we've seen a little improvement there. Overall, there were no major changes compared to the sensitivities which we showed at the end of June. Slide nine shows the development of our solvency ratio, the drivers behind it. One driver for the positive development of our solvency ratio was the good capital generation with plus six, an important figure. This is our business evolution.
This is what we can expect each and every quarter. I mean, there can be fluctuations, but fundamentally, it's important that we have a good organic capital generation because that is what drives the underlying performance and then is to contribute to the solvency ratio. The market impact in the third quarter was positive. Here we benefited from the decrease from the declining credit spreads and also the equity markets. Overall, we're at least not negative, but rather positive, especially the development in the U.S. definitely helped us in this regard. Then on the capital management and management actions, we have the dividends included and also the consolidation of our position in Brazil was included here. So that means we've increased our solvency ratio in spite of putting investing money at the same time.
So all in all, that brings us to the solvency ratio that's already been mentioned of 192%. And that also includes the buyback, but we've decided that we won't continue to buyback. So if we were to do a performance calculation as of the end of September, our solvency ratio would even amount to 194%. So once again, a very resilient and stable basis. With this, I would like to switch to page 11, coming to our insurance segment, starting with P&C. And as always, we'll start with the development of revenues. What you can see is that our internal growth amounted to - 4.1% in the quarter, but that was driven above all by the development at Allianz Partners and Euler Hermes. So if you look down the table, you can see the figures for Allianz Partners and Euler Hermes.
Adjusted for that, growth rate would have remained flat more or less. And then there are some OEs where, thanks to a portfolio consolidation, where we go through portfolio consolidation that affects AGCS, for example, and also our U.K. business where we have portfolio adjustments. So that, of course, also has an influence on the growth rate. But as you can imagine, this is, on the other hand, very positive for our future profitability, for the future profitability of these units. And therefore, I'd say it's positive. If you look at what's also positive is the development in Germany, plus 3.3%. Germany is our largest OE. So if you have a good growth rate in Germany, of course, that is positive for the group as a whole. What's also important is the price momentum overall was positive or stable.
There was only negative development in Italy, but all the other countries were rather positive. And that was true especially for AGCS, which is highly important for the future profitability of AGCS. Coming to page 13, where you see the operating profit and the combined ratio and P&C, they remained more or less flat compared to the previous period. If you look at the combined ratio, you can see that the loss ratio deteriorated slightly by 15 basis points, 50 basis points. But that was mainly driven, as I said before, by the COVID-19 impact. COVID-19 impact amounted to approximately 50 basis points. So which also means that we've compensated that. That would compensate that in part. You can see that the run-off ratio this quarter was 200 basis points lower than in the previous year. And on the other hand, we had a lower burden from natural catastrophes.
And also the expense ratio, and that's even more important, went down 150 basis points, which is certainly a positive development. And in addition to this, there are other positive developments. And we can also see this on page 15, which reflects combined ratios for selected OEs. And if you take a closer look at that, you can see that there are several OEs which have posted excellent combined ratios. If you take Germany, for example, with 89%, or Italy, 86%, Central and Eastern Europe, 88%, Australia, 91%, Spain, 90%, Turkey, 92%. And I would even include Allianz Partners here with 97%. Against the current environment, that's an excellent performance. So we have many units which gave us good performance. Now, coming to AGCS, the combined ratio here was at 103%. There were more weather-related losses in the quarter.
If we normalize the figures a bit, we would have come up with a combined ratio of 100%. That's also the normalized figure, which we had for the first six months. I would estimate that the normalized performance of AGCS these days is at around 100% combined ratio. Maybe it had above that, but certainly not much above 100%. That's a good picture when it comes to the internal side. With this, I would like to switch to page 17 to the technical side. With this, I would like to switch to our investment result in P&C, which remained broadly stable. You can also see that the current yields went down by EUR 65 million. This quarter, this was offset by an improvement of the other positions, but we can't always assume that this will be the case.
We'll certainly try to focus our efforts there. There will be some pressure on the operating investment result in the future, and that's why it's important that we post good figures when it comes to the combined ratio. Let me now come to page 19 and our life health business. Here we talk about the production and the new business margin in this segment. First of all, when it comes to the production side, it's decreased, which is not a surprise in itself in view of the environment that we're in. With the Corona crisis, that also put a burden onto our production in life health. But we also have to say that production in the third quarter of 2019 was especially high.
If we look at the figures of the third quarter of 2020 and compare it to 2018, on the other hand, we would see that production this year is almost on par, on the same level as that we had in 2018. So declining production, but compared to by 20% almost, but compared to a 100% especially high basis and also understandable against the current environment. What's positive is the development of the new business margin. This statement might sound strange because the new business margin dropped by 20%. But if you compare this to the one that being at minus 50 or 60 basis points, I think a new business margin of, as we've posted, is an excellent performance. So I can read the figures and I'll tell you that the 2.9% new business margin are the results of an excellent performance.
What we also see is that the business mix develops into the right direction, which is also positive and which has also contributed to the profitability which we posted. So a good picture overall from my point of view. If we now switch to page 21, here we can see the operating profits. What we can see here is that we have an improvement of our operating profit by 3.4%. So adjusted for Banco Popular and the joint venture with Banco Popular last year, which we still had included last year in our consolidation. This year, this is no longer included. On a like-for-like basis, we would have posted an increase of 5.5% even. Good performance, which once again proves the resilience and the sustainability of our life and health business, even in a time of extremely low interest rates.
Page 23 shows, as usual, the development in the different units and OEs. Here I would like to focus more on the overall picture. Of course, the new business, the value of new business decreased, and that's got to do. That's in line with the lower production. But overall, the new business margin remained stable. And this is then also reflected across all the units, basically. We've seen good or at least reasonable new business margins across the board. When it comes to operating profit, you can see many plus signs. So overall, a good quarter for us. And as I said before, in Spain, a decline of close to 70% was driven by the final consolidation of our joint venture with Banco Popular.
So overall, a good picture, not just when it comes to the new business margin, but also regarding the profitability of our life health business as a whole. Page 25 shows the investment result in life health that went up by more than 4%. This can be traced back to the more stable base. And also the current yields and also the increasing investment base that we have. So overall, we've even been able to increase our capital investment margin, 19 basis points investment margin annualized. That brings us to 76 as the margin for the year. And this is in line with our expectations. That brings me to asset management now, page 27. Overall, we have EUR 2.3 billion assets under management and one of the largest asset managers on the planet.
We can see a slightly positive development here, both when it comes to assets under management for third parties, but also when it comes to the Allianz Group assets. So all assets contributed to the increase here. We now look at page 29. Here we focus on the development of third-party assets under management. You can see that we have EUR 12 billion more in our asset base. And as you can see, we had net inflows of EUR 26 billion, which can be traced back to PIMCO. And then we had a good market development. The market conditions were favorable in the third quarter in general. Against this, we unfortunately had negative foreign exchange effects, the devaluation of the U.S. dollar. That is what these effects can be traced back to. But overall, also in the third quarter, our asset base increased slightly.
Now, page 31, the revenues adjusted for foreign effects increased by 1% internally. That's due to PIMCO with an increase of 5.3% in AGI. We had a decline of 8% in internal growth. But you have to say that the performance fees show a certain volatility, but clearly lower than in the previous year. If we look at the bases adjusted for foreign exchange effects, this would have been more or less stable. So more stability in the underlying performance than the 8.4% might show. Now, the operating result, the operating profit on page 33 in asset management goes to EUR 700 million, EUR 25 million below the previous year's result. But as you can see, foreign exchange effects amounted to EUR 27 million. So overall, a flat development compared to the previous year's period, and we're especially talking about an excellent level.
We're highly satisfied with the operating profit in asset management. PIMCO even showed an improvement in operating profit. And that even due to the fact that foreign exchange effects went against PIMCO in the year of calculation and in AGI. So if you adopted the figures for performance fees, if adjusted that, the decrease of operating profit would have been only a few percentage points. So overall, a good performance in asset management and once again, a good quarter. Page 35, corporate. Here we had a decrease of EUR 15 million, but EUR 30 million actually. And there were some effects that in the previous year, which drove up results then. And we didn't have these one-off effects this year. And we had less investment income this year. And that to a certain degree explains the volatility compared to the previous year.
Page 37, here we show the non-operating profit, non-operating items, so overall, we had an improvement of EUR 200 million, and realized gains and losses were higher than in the previous year due to the de-risking we did in July, so we sold some equities and reduced our exposure there and realized some gains there. Impairments were less than in the previous year.
Last year, we had impairments for Argentine bonds, and then you can also see that restructuring costs were higher compared to the previous year, which reflects our strategy to increase productivity in the future, so all in all, goes to EUR 3 billion. Income clearly above the previous year's level, so page 39, the summary, good quarter, I would say, and I would say robust performance for the first nine months of the year. We're satisfied with the results. As always, I would like to thank our employees for these excellent results. With this, I would like to come to your questions.
Thank you very much. If you want to ask a question, please press star and the number one, the key, the number one key on your phone. Please make sure that you've deactivated the mute button so that the signal can reach our system. If you realize that your question's already been answered, please press asterisk two. We'll now come to the first question of Michael Fleming of Börsen-Zeitung.
Michael Fleming from Börsen-Zeitung. Yes, hello, Mr. Terzariol, Mr. Klotz. I've got three questions on the whole. You referred to the results and the business calls in the third quarter have become stabilized. What does that mean for the outlook for the overall year? Where you're going to land? Will you have canceled the share buyback? Why that? Once the situation has stabilized, and are there any recommendations coming from the regulator? And also my third question to business interruptions. In the third quarter, EUR 0.1 billion were set for that. For what was that? And so do you expect further burdens because there's a lot of headwind in Germany with this respect?
Yes. Yes, thank you, Mr. Fleming. I'll start with the last question, EUR 0.1 billion, in the third quarter. They come from France and also from England otherwise. And so what has happened so far, I believe we are well reserved from my perspective. So when it comes to the second wave of lockdowns and what happens with that second wave, we have to wait what's happening.
But we would expect an additional burden and business interruption insurance, but not as high as when it came with a lockdown in April and May because there were a lot of small businesses affected. And that's why the exposure is smaller versus the exposure that we had before. So the wave that we see now will not hit us as it was in the first quarter. And then we will have to check what the situation will develop like because lockdowns can be changed. So lockdowns that we had in March or April and May, they are now a bit smaller now. And when it comes to share buyback, the situation has stabilized in the U.S., but also you need to be careful and see what's happening in November and December. And when it comes to those lockdowns and what are the implications for the capital markets.
And now we have the elections in the U.S. at the moment where we know this might become a little difficult and complicated. And we also know that the regulators have not a big sympathy for buybacks anymore at the moment. So that's my answer to the environment. But it's right what you're saying. So when it comes to our capital, definitely we could allow ourselves a buyback, but we want to have a certain sensitivity on this topic. And then when it comes to the outlook, we haven't given an outlook. And basically, we are in November. And yes, of course, we could say what our expectations could be like, but the range might become a bit bigger than normal.
But I can tell you this situation where you have a bit more uncertainty. We could have a fourth quarter, which is not that much different than the third quarter. And we could also have a quarter, and that is a bit more similar like the first quarter specifically when the capital markets are increasing. So if you remember, for example, in life and health insurance in the first quarter, so there was 100 million less profit than our expectation. And I'm telling you, this 100 million less profit that came all in March in these two weeks because until February, everything was very okay and we were on plan. So we can't exclude that we get the volatility in December. So the volatility could come between 10 and 20 December. And then if we have this type in the U.S., we have this type of burden.
So there will be nothing special. So we are confident. We've seen that the figures for the third quarter and the underlying performance is good. But also we are in an environment where the volatility might go up quickly. And that's why we are a bit more tentative to give an outlook where the range could be a little bigger as to what you would normally expect.
Great. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Now we come to the next question, Alexander Wagner from Reuters.
Yes, thank you very much. I would like to go further to the question of forecast. The analyst forecasts for the total business are relatively bullish, roughly above EUR 10 billion. And now you've been positively surprised by the third quarter. And maybe asking you like this, are you fine? Are you happy with the analysts' expectations, or would you send the investor relations there in order to talk to them again? And the second question, because you mentioned the dividend, and can you expect that the dividend, no matter how it will be, that it stays stable? I'm referring to the accruals of the dividend.
Yes, so you can expect that the dividend stays stable, and we have a policy set in our capital management, and so 15% of our annual surplus would be dispersed, but we cannot reduce the dividend, so if the underlying surplus is lower than in the previous year, lower than 15%, the dividend would be lower, but there will also be a mechanism that means the dividend would not be lowered. Our expectation is that we have EUR 9.6 dividend per share.
When it comes to forecasts and investor relations, well, we are investing a lot of time with investors and analysts, and I'm quite sure that we have said and sent the right indications to the analysts, and therefore, I believe at the end of the day, that's always the decision of the analysts. What is the forecast they would like to make? I can say that the results in the third quarter were no surprise for us, so you could always expect when you have a normal development, we would have a performance like that, but these are no normal times, and therefore, we always have to expect that volatility might go up, so in such an environment, I would always become a bit more careful, so that would be my message, but the underlying performance is okay.
That's the more important topic anyway because volatility comes and goes away again. It's all about the underlying performance. That is going to show. I would say, from my perspective, that doesn't make sense to speculate whether operating profit goes up to EUR 300 million up and down in the third quarter. What is more important is that we have a normal environment and that we can achieve EUR 3 billion. Again, we're not in a normal environment.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question, Mr. Bartholomäus from Börsen-Zeitung.
Yeah. I would like to know, Mr. Terzariol, when the premium in P&C in the third quarter go down by 1.8%, and at the same time the prices go up by 5%, then the underlying business went down by 7% or even stronger. What is the true decline when you consider the price increase? And my second question, AGCS. I mean, -11% in volume in the third quarter and 25% price increase. That means you have given up one-third of the business in the third quarter. How long do you want to give up business and continue with that? And when would you like to start to use the current hard market phase for your investments?
Yes. Thank you for the question. Maybe we can start with AGCS. That's right. We have a plus and an increase in the prices of 5%. We've defined that. We see a growth rate of minus 6%. But first of all, you need to say the minus 6% is also driven by the exit that we perform. If we calculated the exit, we would be right at 0% development. But it's more important for your question.
When we say 25% price increase, not necessarily we are bringing up the prices. This could also be that the terms and conditions are being changed. So actually, the price may remain stable, but the risk exposure goes down. And that's why I'd say a large part of the price increases as we define them are coming from the reduction of the risk exposure. So on the whole, the business of AGCS is not shrinking as you might think when you simply look at the 25%. It's a true price increase. No, you could say that there is we look at the cancellation rate, and the initial cancellation rate is at 80%, which is not bad, which is also a sign for a hard market. It's important that you understand 25 does not mean that there's a risk-based price increase, which is completely different than a pure price increase.
So, further to your question, when do you want to use the hard market in order to grow, even?
I would say we definitely will wait another year to see that the combined ratio is below 100% and that we have more clarity on the inflation in the U.S. And then we will see that the situation goes below 100%. And once it has stabilized, then we would be confident when we assume inflation, then we are going to deal with the topic of growth of AGCS. But at the moment, we are still within the optimization or increase or focused on the increase of product optimization. Do you have any further questions on that?
Only the question how this will have an impact on the entire P&C segment.
Yeah. But AGCS drives the plus five. I mean, when you take the 25 of AGCS, which is the main driver for the development that we see on the group level.
Would you like to say something on the renewal in the motor insurance?
It is too early to say something on the new development, but we would expect that we would have a price increase to at least balance out maybe the inflation, but also that would be too early in order to make a statement at the moment.
Thank you very much.
Now the next question, Carsten Höfer, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, German Press Agency.
Good morning, Mr. Terzariol, Mr. Klotz. I only have one short question on the revenue decline because that's what you see in all divisions. So your customers are withdrawing in all areas, and they're saving their money in life insurance, but not with Allianz, but they simply don't spend money anymore. So they're more careful. Is that right?
No, that's right. Yeah. In life insurance in the third quarter, not only in the third quarter, we had lower production. But you also need to say, like I explained already, when you look at the third quarter compared with third quarter 2019, this looks like a material reduction. If we take 2018, then the comparison would be much more stable. You have to consider 2019 was particularly good. And the U.S., where we have a drop of 37% in the previous year, for example, we calculated in the third quarter 2019, we had a so-called promotion. The premiums were quite high. This year, the promotion will come in the fourth quarter. And if we take the figures and compare the figures of the U.S. versus planning and expectations, reduction would be probably only 5%.
So that means you need to put that into perspective. It's definitely a good sign in Asia-Pacific where the COVID situation has normalized, they say. And so that has an effect on the growth rate. So I would say 2020, generally, the production is lower, but you also need to consider versus a higher level. And I'm quite confident as well that in the future, we're going to render good figures again. But still, what is even more important because the topic, if you assume production stays unchanged on that level, what would that mean for us?
Actually, it wouldn't be too bad because with this volume, we can work nicely. So that means we're not on a volume level that is too low. And like I said, in 2018, basically, we had the same premium. And the new production that we have in this quarter on the whole, I would say, let's assume the production stays like that, that would be no problem for the profitability of the new business.
Okay. Thank you.
We come to the next question by Steffen Weyer.
Good morning. Also a question about the profit or the income outlook. Of course, it's uncertain what will come with the second outlook, but EUR 7.8 billion operating profit was what you announced months ago. And if you just look at the figures we have right now, that would lead up to more than EUR 10 billion. So if you were to say now, "Well, we'll come up with 10," that might be cautious, but it would be a clear statement. So are the volatilities that you assume so large that you're not able to think safely that you'll come up with EUR 10 billion?
That's the first question. Then the second one, the second lockdown will also affect restaurants and hotels. You had an agreement with the restaurant on Nockherberg here in Munich, and we don't know what you've agreed with them and what you paid to them. But now the contracts will be switched. Allianz wants to get out of these contracts and offer new contracts to the customers and has been doing so ever since October. Have you come forward in this regard? Could it be that you're out of the danger to being liable in the second lockdown? Could you say something about this? Or would you say that you will be less affected than in the first lockdown? Or what's the situation like?
First of all, the answer regarding the lockdown. We assume that we will see lower effects than the first lockdown. It's not only the case in Germany, but across the board, and not just for Allianz, but also for our competitors. So policies, the biggest part of policies has already been switched, or they are in the process of being switched. In some cases, in other countries, we've already reached capacity, not the capacity of policies, but overall. So yes, the lockdowns we're currently seeing or those which will be seen in the future will have less of an effect or will be less of a burden for us and the insurance industry as a whole compared to the lockdowns we had in spring through summer.
Now, when it comes to the profit forecast, I would say it's not that we expect huge volatility, but we can't be certain about this. So each and everyone can speculate what we might come up with, but I'll certainly not come with a range here in the press conference. I mean, we don't have any special concerns if that's your question. It's just we need some more safety and security here, but we're not especially concerned.
Okay. Thank you. I had to try it.
That's true. Next question, please.
We come to question by Hanna Krolle of WirtschaftsWoche.
Good morning. Also from my side, I have some smaller questions regarding capital investments. So I would like to know whether you could tell me which part or which ratio alternative you have in alternative investments, so infrastructure and things like that. And then I would also like to talk about two announcements, which you made over the past few weeks regarding capital investments. One that you bought shares in a Portuguese gas company and the cooperation with Telefónica in the rollout of optical fiber network. So could you tell us about these two investments? What kind of a return you expect from those investments? And the question linking up to that. Whether you also invest into Portuguese energy . Really?
Yes, but it says that Jörg had a bad voice. On the topic. As to alternative assets, we have around more than EUR 150 billion. And if you split up here, Jörg is a founder. Real estate, which is part of our alternative assets. Jörg is one of those so typical, who is so inclined for infrastructure. I'm coming too late, no one kills me. I read myself, it will be accepted. And it's allocated to an alternative investment. And here we are below. There is still the work team. Investment in infrastructure.
25- 35, you said?
Yeah, 25- 30. That would be an alternative investment . We have investments into renewables. Around five billion. Now, when it comes to return of the capital investments that you talked about, so I don't specifically know about the return of those two capital investments, but all in all, when it comes to equity investment, infrastructure investments, then we expect usually a return of above 5% in general. And what was your last question again?
Well, there are those two major investments, last in infrastructure in Portugal, and then you invested in Finland a couple of years ago. And my question is whether there are any companies that would be interesting in Germany for you. We'd certainly also be ready to invest in Germany if there were opportunities. I mean, I can't, well, in general, in Germany and Europe, and when we see something that's interesting, when we see the right opportunity, then we are ready to invest into that. And what kind of an opportunity would that be?
But let's wait and see. I mean, if something comes up, I would have to talk to my chief investment officer.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question, please. The next question by Angela Maier of Manager Magazin.
Good morning. Yeah. Angela Maier. Court cases in the U.S. due to Alpha. Since then, business closure. I would like to know how many court cases have been brought by restaurants and hotels, and could you give us a figure for Germany and maybe also across the world? And then the last question also on business closures or interruptions. Which amount has Allianz so far had to pay for losses from business interruption? Could you give us these figures globally and for Germany? And then another question. On the Capital Markets Day in 2018, you announced goals for and objectives for the year 2021, including EPS growth of 5% annually. Will you stick to these goals in general for the year 2021?
Okay. The first question was about whether we've made any provisions in the U.S. for these court cases. No, we haven't. The reason being at least deemed these suits completely unfounded, so we haven't made any provisions for that. Then the court cases in Germany. So far in Germany, there are around 130. I don't know the exact figures, but I don't think around the world there are not too many others. It's not the case that there are being actions that are being filed around the world. And we've made reserves for that. How much have you paid?
Well, I can tell you that in Germany, large part of our business interruption losses have occurred in Germany. So I won't tell you how much we've paid for Germany, how much for Australia, and how much for France, because I can tell you that the largest part in business interruption insurance, the largest burden for the group, stems from Germany. And here was the question regarding EPS growth. Next year, we've started planning for this, and only when we've come to the end of the plannings, we can give you we will know exactly what we can foresee for 2021.
I mean, it's obvious that the situation has become a little bit more difficult compared to what we thought about two years ago. But we will go through our analysis process. We'll enter into the discussion with our OEs, and then we can see what the expectations will be for 2021.
We'll now come to the next question. Thomas Bergmann of Der Aktionär.
Good morning. I've wanted to talk about the asset management. You said that you reduced the equity ratio in the second quarter. So where does this stand now? And what is your plan for the next quarter? Do you want to increase the expense ratio again?
Well, when it comes to expense ratio, I can talk about property and casualty. Here at the beginning of the year, we had EUR 6 billion of listed shares, and at the end of September 2020, this was down to less than EUR 2 billion. So our exposure was reduced by 30%. Also in life health, we went down. So overall, we're talking about an amount which is close to EUR 10 billion reduction in equity exposure. And what was the other question again?
What your plans are and what you want to do in this regard. And we'll be a bit cautious in that and be that there comes a moment when we revise our share exposure, but I think we will remain cautious in that and have a cautious approach. Okay. Do you also think that the development in the equity markets will remain highly volatile?
Yeah. We assume that there will be volatility in the markets. Also, if you look at what happened in October, equities went down. Then suddenly, there were two or three days that were excellent. So I think we're in a phase in which volatility plays a major role. We have the elections in the U.S., and still, markets remain quite cool. I would have expected capital markets to become nervous a bit by the delays there, but it could be that next week volatility will increase again. And if we look at different indicators, VIX, for example, is still very high. You could discuss whether this is a lagging or a leading indicator, but as long as it remains at the level that we currently have, it's still an indication that markets are extremely nervous.
Oh, one follow-up question maybe. Do you purchase Allianz shares yourself at this moment?
Yeah. I'm always long in Allianz, of course.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Bergmann. Next question, please.
Yes, good morning, Mr. Terzariol. I hope I pronounced your first name correctly. I have three questions. On NatCat, you said EUR 100 million of burden in the last quarter and more than one year ago. So it's relatively low despite there were many catastrophes and hurricanes and bushfires in the U.S. and Australia. So we had a lower exposure in these cases. And actually, what will this mean for the last quarter? Maybe you can help me. What was the burden in Q4 one year ago and what you might expect to the extent that is possible anyway?
When it comes to the complaints against the U.S. Allianz GI and I saw that the people are complaining against Allianz GI, maybe you can give us an AGI, maybe you can give us a statement on the current case. And also on life insurance, if the Corona pandemic shows many more death cases in the next few months, so if the fatalities go up, to what extent will this impact on your life insurance industry? That were my questions.
Yeah. Maybe we can start with the last question. No, we do not expect because of Corona to see an impact in mortality. So that's why you need to say the mortality in Corona actually is not that high. And mostly that hits category where you would no longer have a risk in insurance and life insurance. So we haven't analyzed that.
We also saw what happened in the practice out there. So that's why I would not say that this is a big worry. When it comes to this type of pandemic, maybe another pandemic might show a different type of mortality. That would be different. But in the corona virus, we are not concerned. I think the question, the other one was about Structured Alpha?
Yeah, AllianzGI.
Right. So we believe that the action is unfounded. So that's why we have not created any reserves. And that will remain our opinion and position. And this type of procedure will always take a long time. But the statement I can make per today that we do believe that the lawsuit and the action is unfounded and we're going to defend against it. And you talked about NatCat. You stated right that the NatCat impact was relatively low.
That was not the case in all other companies. Probably we were lucky a bit, but we've also reduced our exposure in the U.S. Well, AGCS has rendered a very good job. So that's why that helped us. I can also give you an example. One fire in the U.S. that concerned one company. And also this concerned us in the past. So far, they haven't been a big problem, which would not have been the case a few years ago. That means we've carried out certain de-risking, and that definitely helped us. Then we're still under the burden in the fourth quarter 2019. That was 107-110. So that's actually last quarter was a good quarter. But we cannot expect that we would not get further impact this year. And I can only say so far, October was good regarding NatCat.
We did not have any material burden, but I can say between Christmas and New Year, I'm always interested in the weather in Australia, and we did have cases that we had a hailstorm in Sydney, and all of a sudden, then EUR 70 million would be gone, so the world is big, and so sometimes things happen at the same time. We have winter here in Australia, there's summer. There's always something that might happen even on the 30th of December, so that you don't expect any short-term NatCat spread, of course, you can't say.
All right. Thank you very much.
Next question, please.
Next question. Alexander Hübner from Reuters.
I have just one additional question that was left out of Autostrade, so something is happening now with the sale, so Atlantia is departing from that. They've decided already what they will do and whether they'll also use their preemptive right. Or theoretically, they could also imagine that they probably increase their share.
Yeah, we haven't taken a decision yet. We are watching the situation, but no decision has been made. You can't say any tendency? Do we have any further questions?
We have an additional question from Mr. Cromer.
Yeah. I would like to know. You mentioned that COVID in the third quarter, within the nine months, made a 1.2 negative impact on the operating profit. What is the real loss of Allianz in the first nine months coming by COVID? And please tell me. And you also said that was balanced out by the sale of real estate used by your own company. Maybe there's an example like a Unterföhring. How much proceeds did you obtain from the sale of the real estate? So yeah, the sale was EUR 150 million of real estate. That was done in the first quarter. How many losses we paid? I mean, how many disbursements we made? Is that what you mean, how much we paid? So the reserve?
Yeah. Yes, you can also calculate the reserve. But the EUR 1.3 billion, you said that also includes investment results. I would like to know the real amount of insurance damage caused by COVID. So EUR 900 million was quantified. When you see in P&C that the impact on the technical result in life insurance, which was the effect of the volatility, in particular Allianz Life, and which was rather an impact on the capital investment result, as you like. But otherwise, if we look at the figures for P&C, then we state also the burden in the technical result, which is EUR 900 million for the first nine months of the year.
And the sale of own-use real estate, was there anything included in Germany, Unterföhring?
Yeah, there was something in Germany included.
Unterföhring, for example?
It wasn't Unterföhring. It was in Schwabing. But definitely in Germany, maybe also somewhere else.
Thank you.
You're welcome. Ladies and gentlemen, now we come to the questions from the English conference.
Thank you. We will take our first question from the line of Stephan Kahl from Bloomberg.
Yes, hi. Good morning. You said earlier in the call that regulators don't have much sympathy for buybacks, if I got that correctly. How about sympathy for dividends, especially from the regulators here in Germany? That's one of my questions.
And then the other one would be if it's fair to say that COVID losses should be minimal in 2021. But most losses seem to be in property-casualty insurance. And if I understand correctly, you are adjusting your wording in those contracts as they come up for renewal and so on. So there shouldn't be anything then that is covered next year in terms of the pandemic. Is it fair to say that, at least when it comes to property-casualty insurance?
Okay. Thank you for your question. I would say when we look into 2021, I wouldn't say the COVID losses, they will be zero because even if the exposure goes down, we still will have some exposure, but it's not going to be comparable to what we had in 2020.
Also in line of business, where we might see losses if we have lockdowns in the course of 2021, that will be on the entertainment. Also in this case, not as large as we had this year, but we could see losses there. So fundamentally, yeah, we might see something there, but that will not be at the level that we saw this year. And then, as usual, the question mark would be what happens to frequency in Motor because to a certain degree, there is also a benefit on frequency in Motor, sometimes in other lines of business. So there's a statement that we should be relatively neutral next year. That's correct. But still, I will not say that we can say it's going to be zero. But not as concerning and definitely not as relevant as 2020.
One point to consider anyway is the longer we are in this situation with Corona lockdowns and so on, the more stress there is in the economy, the more you might have volatility on the equity market. Also, the revenue basis can come down. So fundamentally, I will say that the longer we are in a situation like the one we are now, the more difficult anyway the entire environment is going to be. But to your specific question about underwriting, I will say definitely a lower exposure, much lower, but not necessarily a zero number.
On your question about sympathy for dividend and sympathy for buyback, I will say that it's easier to have a conversation about dividend payment on buybacks. I will say that rightly or wrongly, the conversation is definitely more challenging. So I will not put dividend buybacks in the same bucket. Based on our speed, it's a little bit definitely easier to have a conversation on dividend payment. Challenging to have a conversation on buybacks.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Welcome. Next question, please.
We have no further questions. We have no further questions. Please go ahead for any additional closing remarks. Thank you.
Okay. So thank you. Thank you also for your questions. So our business model. And we got a lot of questions from you about the outlook, but I would more focus on the underlying performance. And then we will see what the next two months are going to bring. But I wish you anyway a very good week and also a very good rest of the year. And we are going to connect again in 2021. Thank you.