Allianz SE (ETR:ALV)
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Earnings Call: Q3 2021

Nov 10, 2021

Holger Klotz
Head of Financial Communications, Allianz

Good morning and [Foreign language]. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the Allianz conference call on the Allianz Group financial results of the third quarter of 2021. I hope you're all doing well and you're all healthy. For your information, this conference call is being streamed live on allianz.com and YouTube. Recording will be made available shortly after the call. The phone conference is, as always, scheduled for 60 minutes. As usual, our Chief Financial Officer, Giulio Terzariol, will guide you through the quarterly results and then answer your questions. If for time reasons not all of your questions can be answered, then myself and my colleagues from Financial Communication will be available for you to answer them. With this, I turn the call over to Giulio Terzariol. Please go ahead, Giulio.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Thank you very much, Holger.

I'm glad, as always, to present the figures of Allianz for the third quarter, 2021. If we turn to page three, we can start with the result for the first nine months of the year. As you can see, the results are very strong across the board. All in all, we had EUR 110 billion revenues, and all the segments contributed to this. The operating profit was at EUR 9.8 or EUR 9.9 billion, so close to the EUR 10 billion threshold. We had a group growth rate of 27%. In the previous year, we had the burden, of course, from COVID. Even if we adjust the figures for these COVID effects, the growth rate of the operating profit would have been 9%.

All the segments contributed to this growth rate to this growth in operating profit. In Property/Casualty, we've seen an improvement of the combined ratio by two percentage points. All in all, we had a decrease of the burden, and due to the fact that COVID burdens were reduced. As you can see, natural catastrophe burden was much higher in 2021 compared to 2020. These effects balanced itself out. What we see is improved underlying performance, which led to this good combined ratio of 93.9%, in spite of the 3.7% burden from natural catastrophes. In Life/Health, we've continued the good development. We have an operating profit of EUR 3.7 billion and a new business margin of 3.2%.

In asset management, EUR 2.5 billion operating profit with a clear re-reduction of the cost-income ratio by close to 4 percentage points. The net inflows were also strong with EUR 90 billion, EUR 36 billion of this stemming from AGI. I would say all in all, the results for the first nine months were really strong. If we turn to page five, we can also see that the third quarter standalone posted good figures. All in all, we had a growth rate of revenues of 9%. We can also see that the growth rate in Property-Casualty was strong with 7%. If you look at the nine-month figures, the growth rate in Property-Casualty was 2.3%. We have a certain momentum in that we reached in the third quarter here.

In Life/Health and in asset management, we saw good results, just as in the previous quarters. The operating profit was at EUR 3.2 billion, a plus of eleven percent compared to the previous year. In property and casualty, the combined ratio deteriorated a bit, but you can also see here how the NatCat impact was significantly higher than in the previous year with a difference of 4.1%. I'll come back to the combined ratio later on in more detail. I can only say that 94.7 combined ratio with a NatCat impact of 4.9 percentage points is certainly a solid and good figure. In Life/Health, we had a new business margin of 3.4%, which we reached. In asset management, another quarter with strong results, with good net inflows of EUR 26 billion.

All in all, good nine months, and once again, also a very good third quarter. As you've already learned, due to the good figures, we also went in our guidance up to the upper end of our upper range. With this, we turn to page 7. Here you can see that the solvency ratio is stable at 207%. Stable compared to the level at the end of June and also at the beginning of the year. The key sensitivities have also remained unchanged. On page 9, as always, we show the development of our solvency ratio. All in all, we still have a very strong organic capital generation with a contribution of 7 percentage points before taxes and dividends. If we take out taxes and dividends, the contribution of our organic capital generation for the solvency capital development is 2.5%.

The market impact was slightly negative. In tax and other, we have the effects and the tax effects. Those were some percentage points. Then we had other smaller effects, which were not included in the other main drivers. All in all, a good and stable solvency ratio at 207%, and what's important is that organic capital generation remained very strong with 7% before taxes and dividends. Now, as usual, we come to the individual segments, and here I would like to start with property-casualty. Our internal growth, as I've already said, remained strong. Internal growth of 7%. We grew in most of the markets in Germany, for example, in Australia, Central and Eastern Europe, Italy, Latin America, Turkey, AGCS, Allianz Partners, Euler Hermes.

We grew in many units, but there are always certain exceptions, and if we don't grow in some areas, it might be pressure in motor business, and that's the case in the U.K. and in Italy. We're also working on restructurings in commercial business, which is the case in France. All in all, the good results with the growth rate of 7%. If we look at the price changes, the price trends, you can see that's also positive, plus 3.8% and relatively stable compared to the previous quarter. All in all, a solid figure or a solid picture when it comes also to the price increases. Now on page 13, you can see the development of the operating profit. All in all, our operating profit declined a bit.

That was mainly due to a reduction of the capital result, the capital investment result. Other than that, the underwriting result remained more or less stable, and the combined ratio only deteriorated by 20 basis points, even though the net NatCat impact amounted to or worsened by 4.2 percentage points compared to the previous year. What helped us in this regard was that the run-off ratio was positive. Also in the last year, we still had 50 basis points of a burden from COVID-19. If you adjust for all these figures, we nevertheless have an improvement of the combined ratio by 1 percentage point that we posted compared to the previous year.

What seemed more important, if we normalize the figure for the net cat burden, so if I take the 4.9% out and use a normalized expectation of net cat of 2 percentage points, then the normalized combined ratio would have amounted to around 92%, which is another proof that we're well on the way with our goal of reaching a combined ratio of 93%. If we take this adjustment for the increased net cat burden. Now looking at page 15. Here, as always, we show the developments in the different units, and of course, the natural catastrophes led to certain burdens in specific OEs. First of all, if we look at Germany with a combined ratio of 98%, taking into account that the net cat burden, the net cat impact was very high with 14%.

In this case, I would really like to thank our employees who've done an excellent job in the situation after following the floodings there. Some weeks ago, I talked to the head of claims of Allianz Germany, and he told me some moving stories, truly moving stories. I can only say that in situations like these, the financial figures are definitely put into the background. I just wanted to convey my sympathy for all the people who were affected by this catastrophe. But coming back to the financial figures now, we had good figures in the U.K. and France, Australia, Eastern Europe. Italy also, it's a little higher. We had a certain burden there from storms and floodings as well.

AGCS now has a combined ratio of 102.5%, which is a good combined ratio. Looking at the figures, if we adjust this for the one-off effects due to natural catastrophes, we're quite confident that we can reach the combined ratio of 98% of AGCS for the overall year. If you look at the nine months, the combined ratio of AGCS is at around 99%, so we're on the way to reaching the 98%, I would say. Euler Hermes with a combined ratio of below 70%, so great performance there. The topic here is, there are not that many insolvencies, which is also reflected in the banking world. Currently, there are not that many insolvencies, and we benefit from this, of course, also in our credit insurance business.

Page seventeen shows the investment result, a decline of 6%, and that was due to volatilities in foreign exchange rates. If you look at the current yield, that's remained stable and also increased a bit compared to the previous years. All in all, if I look at the figures for property and casualty in total. We really reached excellent results for the quarter, given the natural catastrophe background and also for the nine months. That brings me to our segment Life/Health now. As always, we start with the new business. The management of new business is going strong. We have a growth rate in new production of over 50%, the value there.

We had a special effect here from a large reinsurance contract of EUR 3.7 billion, but also adjusted for this specific contract where we've actively accepted reinsurance. The growth rate would still have been at 23%. We can see growth basically in all of the countries in the quarter. Allianz Life/Health didn't grow, but over the nine months, Allianz Life was also 2% above the previous year's level. The mix continues to be very strong and developing into the direction we're aiming at. All in all, good news when it comes to the development of new business production. Now, page 21, here we look at the profitability of our portfolio. Also a good development with an increase of our operating profit by close to 12%. Here you can see that all sources of income have contributed to this.

Loadings and fees were high. The investment margin was 13%. The technical margin was also high at 17%. Expenses increased, but that's also got to do with the cost of acquisition. We have more production and therefore, also more acquisition costs. All in all, around EUR 1.3 billion of operating profit. As you know, our expectation per quarter was EUR 1.1 billion, so we're above that. It's therefore the third quarter in a row that we're above expectations. Therefore, all in all, for our Life/Health segment, we will increase our expectations because we are seeing a better performance than we had expected initially. Page 23, the value of new business. The development here was extremely good with a growth rate of 80%. Here we also benefited from this reinsurance contract that I talked about before.

Adjusted for that, the growth rate would have been at 45%. If you look at the picture per unit, you can say that almost all the OEs posted excellent and improved figures. The same also holds true for the development of our operating profit. Now, page 25, the investment margin in Life/Health it grew by 13%. Here we have two main effects that were reflected. First of all, the base has grown by 4%, and at the same time, our investment margin increased by around 8 percentage points. The combination, of course, of an increasing margin and an increasing base led to this growth rate of 13%.

What’s positive and what stands out in the slide is the development of the current yield, which grew by 7 basis points, and that was due to the increased dividend in 2021 compared to the low levels of 2021. At the same time, with this increase of the current yield, we reduced our guarantees. We have a development of a high current yield and lower guarantees, and that is something that, of course, adds stability to our investment margin. All in all, for our Life/Health segment, we posted good results. That holds true for the development of our new production in the sense of volume and productivity. It also holds true for the profitability of our existing portfolio. With this, I would like to come to page 27 now. Here we have the figures for asset management.

All in all, our assets under management exceeded EUR 2.5 trillion. As you can see, the increase compared to June was 2.4%. It might seem low, but that's just one quarter. If you look at the increase compared to the beginning of the year, we're at around 7%. If we compare it to the level of September 2020, we have an increase of 12%. A good increase in our assets under management over those 12 months. It doesn't just have to do with the market development. Market development was positive, but in these 12 months, also our asset managers had net inflows of EUR 120 billion, which was also an effort when it comes to these figures in net inflows.

Now look at page 29. As I've been talking about net inflows, we have the third party net inflows for the third quarter, and we can see a good performance once again with EUR 26 billion. EUR 19 billion of that from PIMCO and EUR 7 billion stemming from AGI. If we look at the distribution of the net flows based on regions and asset classes, you can see that they are quite well spread across the different regions and across the different asset classes. We had more net flows into mutual funds, and these are the net inflows that create more revenue. In this sense, this was also a positive development. In the quarter also, the foreign exchange rates had a positive effect for us, which also contributed to our growth in assets under management for third parties in the third quarter.

As always, if the asset base increases, then revenues follow. All in all, we had a growth rate adjusted for an exchange effect and small consolidations of 16% with double digit growth both for PIMCO and AGI. Fee margin also increased. That was driven above all by PIMCO, and that was due to the development of the mutual funds. In our mix, all in all, our mix has become more profitable and I think explains the increase in the fee margin. Now on page 33, of course, if revenues grow, then the operating profit will follow, and the operating profit grew over proportionally. In asset management, there's a certain operational lever. All in all, we had a growth rate of our operating profit of 30%.

PIMCO grew by 17% and AGI had a great performance with a growth rate of 71%. The expense rate of PIMCO has significantly increased compared to the previous period. If we look at the performance of AGI for the 9 months, we've seen a growth rate of 60% of operating result and also an improvement of the cost-income ratio of 10 percentage points. It's not just one good quarter, but all in all a very good year for Allianz GI. Of course, we can always rely on the good performance of PIMCO. Now page 35, not too much to say about this. This is our corporate segment. Figures have remained more or less stable, a little bit improved compared to the previous year, and they are in line with our expectations.

On page 37, we can then see the shareholders' net income, the development. As we've seen, the operating profit had a positive development compared to the previous year. If we take the non-operating items, we can see a deviation of around EUR 300 million, but that's all explained through the realized gains and losses. Last year, we simply had more realized gains than in the third quarter 2021. As you know, this position is always volatile, and this is the reason why this item is included under non-operating items in our presentation. All in all, a growth rate of shareholders' net income of 3%, even though we had less realized gains than in the previous year. Now if we come to the last slide.

All in all, a very good development with growing revenues, with an increased operating profit, with an increased shareholders' net income. If you look at the nine months, we can see a strong performance here. Our solvency ratio has remained strong and stable. In addition to this, in 2021, we also paid out EUR 4.7 billion to our shareholders in the form of the dividend and the share buyback. That is certainly a strong basis also for the fourth quarter. That is also the reason why we've revised our guidance and have announced that we will come to the upper end of the given bandwidth. As always, want to thank our all of our employees for their great efforts and this great performance. With this, I would like to hand over to your questions.

Operator

Thank you, Giulio, for your. The first question comes from Stefan Weyer from DPA. Mr. Weyer, can you hear us? Mr. Weyer? That doesn't seem to work, so please try again. I would move to Mr. Hübner's question. Mr. Hübner.

All right. We take Mr. Karl from Bloomberg. The other two, please try again.

Stephan Kahl
Reporter, Bloomberg

Can you hear me now?

Operator

Yes, we can hear you, Mr. Karl.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Oh, great. Welcome.

Stephan Kahl
Reporter, Bloomberg

Yes, good morning. One question on the flows, third-party asset flows. Allianz GI has done quite well with EUR 7 billion of inflows. In your presentation, you also say this comes from all regions. Does that basically mean that the headlines that we saw there have not shown any effect on the business and no impact? That means customers were not scared off and they're still coming. Or do you see a certain slump in the inflows in the U.S.?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Thank you very much for that question. No, I'd say so far this has not been reflected. The figures for October were also good. AGI with more than EUR 2 billion flows.

Actually, we do not see any impact when it comes to Structured Alpha. This is an insulated, isolated strategy. That's why it doesn't have any implications for the rest of the business. You can't exclude that some institution holds over time might come to a different decision, but you need to say, we do not see that reflected in the figures. We haven't seen this in the third quarter. We do not see that in October. Also, again, that strategy was a specific AGI strategy.

Stephan Kahl
Reporter, Bloomberg

Thank you very much for giving me that response.

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Karl. The next question. Let's try it again from Mr. Weyer from DPA. Mr. Weyer, can you hear us now? We still seem to have a problem hearing him. Mr. Hübner from Reuters, please.

Alexander Hübner
Journalist, Reuters

Can you hear me now?

Operator

Yes, Mr.

Now we can hear you well.

Alexander Hübner
Journalist, Reuters

Oh, great. Wonderful. Two questions. The first one, the obligatory one, when you look at your solvency ratio, can you make a statement on the perspective or tendency for the dividend for the year ending? As precisely as possible. My second question, because I have to ask that again. The topic of hedge funds in the U.S. that was mentioned already. When do you believe that you have a clear picture to specify how much you need to provide for that as reserve? And maybe you can tell us about the current status of the internal discussions or the discussions with the authorities.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Yes. Let me start with Structured Alpha. Clearly, we're working closely with the DOJ and the SEC, the regulators, and clearly, we do evaluate our various options regarding the action and the procedure.

Clearly, it lies within our interest to find a solution as soon as possible. We also need to ensure that we do find an economical solution that is reasonable. I can't tell you how much or how long it's gonna take, but it's definitely on the high priority list. Allianz, of course, want to clarify the uncertainty and want to leave that behind. When it comes to booking, we cannot really make a booking at the moment because we cannot reliably assess the impact. If we have further elements and we make progress in the procedure, then clearly, we are going to make every booking. Currently, we are not able to do that. I could definitely imagine that by year-end, we will be able to make a booking, but I can't say now. I can't promise now.

On the topic of dividend, you know our dividend policy. Basically 50% of the annual surplus solvency ratio is more than sufficient. Liquidity is very good as well. Clearly, we do have the financial strength, more than it is needed for paying the dividend. The topic is, how are we going to use our excess capital? There are always two options. Either buyback or acquisitions. As always, we definitely will make sure that we find the right allocations between those two, always with the aim to find the best value and generate the best value for our shareholders.

Alexander Hübner
Journalist, Reuters

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Hübner. Our next one in line is Mr. Storbeck from Financial Times. Mr. Storbeck.

Olaf Storbeck
Frankfurt Bureau Chief and Banking Correspondent, Financial Times

Can you hear me?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Yes.

Olaf Storbeck
Frankfurt Bureau Chief and Banking Correspondent, Financial Times

I also have one question on Structured Alpha.

I would like to know, did you have any internal sanctions against the parties or the fund managers? As Mr. Tournant, who is the fund manager responsible, is still shown as the fund manager on your web page since October or August 2010. Does this continue as normal? While the investigations are running, how is this being done?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

No, I can't comment on that, but you can imagine that at the right point of time, we are going to take the right consequences. But I can't make any statements or comments anymore at the moment regarding the details regarding structural or consequences for staff. But you don't need to worry.

Olaf Storbeck
Frankfurt Bureau Chief and Banking Correspondent, Financial Times

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Storbeck. Our next question, which is the last question in the German line, comes from Thomas List, Börsen-Zeitung. Mr.

List, it's open now for you.

Thomas List
Journalist and Editor, Börsen-Zeitung

Yes. Can you hear me?

Operator

Wonderful. Yeah.

Thomas List
Journalist and Editor, Börsen-Zeitung

I would like to ask on life insurance, because in the past, there were a few capital measures, in Switzerland and Italy. Could that be perceivable in Germany, like reinsurance solutions? Because you always disclose that you don't want to sell anything. Is anything planned for Germany? The second thing, life insurance, pandemic reinsurers have reported that there's an increased mortality because of the pandemic, specifically in the U.S. Do you feel anything of this increased mortality? My third question, the buyback program. You're writing that 3.8 million shares have been bought back. How does that translate into the amount in euros? So how many shares did you buy back? That was the question.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Yes, 3.8 million shares.

EUR 750 million was the amount. 3.8 million shares were bought back. When you go to investor relations and share buyback, you can check all the figures of the buyback. If I got your figure, your questions right, then mortality. All right. We've seen that in Indonesia. When you look at our figures, you can see that the results in Asia Pacific were declining slightly, which came from an impact in Indonesia, where mortality also has increased. Otherwise, we do not have any exposure on that situation in the U.S. We did see that, but for us it's not that relevant. Then the back book, whether we also perform reinsurance transactions in Germany, I would not exclude that. I would be wrong if I'd say this, we would never do that.

It's not, I can tell you that. That is nothing we would do actively today. Per today, actually, we don't plan to make a reinsurance transaction within Allianz Life. Again, this cannot necessarily be excluded.

Thomas List
Journalist and Editor, Börsen-Zeitung

Thank you very much.

Operator

Oh, yeah. We have two more German questions. Mr. Schnell from Handelsblatt.

Christian Schnell
Journalist, Handelsblatt

Yes. Good morning. I have two questions. First, on AGCS, you have outlined the status of refurbishment. Now the refurbishment case of AGCS, is that done or finished, or is there still work to be done? What is the current status? The other topic is on Allianz Direct. You're exchanging the management. The impression is that it does not really run smoothly. How do you assess the current situation at Allianz Direct?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

In AGCS, we are quite confident that we can reach the 98%.

As regards the restructuring, we're doing fine. Of course, there's a lot to be done, be it restructuring or whether you have to look for opportunities. The phase of restructuring, I would call it, has been accomplished. Now we are going towards growth. You always need to be careful and clearly enough. In some areas, we need to further stabilize our business. On the whole, I would say we're moving into a new phase of P&C. On the Capital Markets Day, we are going to highlight targets for P&C for 2024. These targets should render proof that we are done with the restructuring measures. That was the topic on P&C. The question on Direct.

You know, the first phase was the platform. The IT platform was to be set up to create a common platform for four countries and the current brands. That platform was done, and that was according to plan. As you know, some projects not always run within plan, scope, or budget. I can say that setting up the IT platform was in scope, in budget, and according to a timely manner, and that's why we are highly satisfied. One thing that worked a bit less satisfying was the development of the revenues. Now we'd like to focus on that area. I believe we have set the basis for that in the new phase. We thought we can work with a new CEO, but also the previous CEO wanted to find a new orientation.

We set new strengths now. I must say, if he said, we are fully happy with the development of Allianz Direct, that would not be the case. Our first phase has been completed nicely, and then we will see in the next phase whether the revenues will also grow.

Christian Schnell
Journalist, Handelsblatt

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Schnell. Let's try again, Mr. Weyer from DPA.

Alexander Weyer
Journalist, DPA-AFX

Good morning. Hey, now it works. My microphone did not like me this morning. All right. I have one question on the flood claims. You mentioned EUR 400 million in the presentation as the net impact. In the meantime, in the reinsurance media, there was one statement that with the gross claims in AGCS, this will be EUR 200 million. Before, the gross claim was EUR 900 million. What is the gross claim?

How many claims did you have to pay, in which amount, where at the end, the net claim was, 400 after reinsurance?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Yeah. For the floodings, we had a gross claim impact of EUR 1 billion, slightly above EUR 1 billion. Basically, the payment for us, was roughly EUR 400 million, which also includes the reinstatement premium that we have to pay to the reinsurance. The net claim without reinstatement would be EUR 330 million, plus this so-called reinstatement premium. EUR 1 billion gross and net, roughly EUR 400 million.

Alexander Weyer
Journalist, DPA-AFX

Okay, thank you very much. How much goes to Germany? Can you tell that?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

A major share, but I don't have the breakdown, but a majority falls onto Germany.

Alexander Weyer
Journalist, DPA-AFX

Yes, obviously. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Weyer. Now we go to the English line.

We're going to hear Patricia Kowsmann as first speaker and from Wall Street Journal.

Patricia Kowsmann
Senior Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Hi, good morning. I hope everybody can hear me. My question is just a clarification. You mentioned then that you expect by the end of the year, so the next month and a half, that there will be enough visibility on the DOJ and SEC investigation that you're able to set aside to make a booking for the potential hit.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

I don't expect anything.

Patricia Kowsmann
Senior Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

On that.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

You know, it's very hard to have expectations. What I can say is that we are working very actively with the DOJ, the SEC, and then clearly we are evaluating our option regarding the litigation. That's for us very high priority. I would say that we are going to do all what we can in order to be able to come out with an estimate, but we need to see how the situation is evolving. It's a little bit hard to talk about expectation in the sense of you know, a commitment. I can tell you, we are committed anyway to do all what we can to get to a resolution or to put the uncertainty behind us as soon as possible.

You know, you need also to appreciate that we need also to make sure that we come to a conclusion which is economically reasonable for Allianz. We need to strike the right balance between being fast and quick and get to the best outcome.

Patricia Kowsmann
Senior Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Thank you.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Welcome.

Operator

Thank you, Patricia. The next question comes from Sam Casey from Insurance Insider. Sam, the line must be opened. Seems we struggle to hear you.

Holger Klotz
Head of Financial Communications, Allianz

Okay, if it doesn't work, then we switch back to the German line. I'm sorry for that.

Operator

The next question from the German line is a follow-up by Stefan Karl from Bloomberg.

Stefan Karl
Analyst, Bloomberg

Yeah, exactly. I wanted to come back to one remark you've made, whether I've understood that correctly. You said, you might be in a position by the end of the year to

Recognize impairments forecast direction down. Did I understand you correctly?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

I cannot commit and promise this is going to be the case. There is a nuance there. One thing is to say we will do what we can, but we need to see also how the process is developing. It's not a commitment or a promise, but that's definitely something we are working towards.

Stefan Karl
Analyst, Bloomberg

Okay.

It's fully gone as well, a bit of thought.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Sorry, I should have answered in German, but I hope you understood that, right?

Stefan Karl
Analyst, Bloomberg

Yeah. I'm sorry.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

No problem.

Operator

Thank you very much, Mr. Karl. The next question and the final question we have currently is, again, by Mr. Storbeck of Financial Times. Mr. Storbeck, please.

Olaf Storbeck
Frankfurt Bureau Chief and Banking Correspondent, Financial Times

Yeah. Thank you. I've one question regarding the natural catastrophes. Do you have any efforts to reduce your exposure regarding natural catastrophes by using more reinsurance or other measures? Or is that something that's not that important to you right now?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Well, I would say diversification is one thing, but we've broadly diversified, I would say. I mean, in property casualty, we're the most diversified company in the insurance field. Of course, we always consider how to make best use of reinsurance programs, and we've also actively discussed reinsurance programs over the past weeks. We've come to the conclusion that our approach is fitting.

We just need to do some tweaking here and there, but we've looked at several options, and in the end, we stick to our program with some little fine-tunings here and there. We also assume that reinsurance costs will go up. Allianz is a good account for the reinsurers. So this year, of course, we get a payment from our reinsurance, from our reinsurers. But I can tell you that for several years, we paid quite a few premiums without claiming anything from the reinsurers. In this sense, we're a good account for the reinsurers and the premiums we should see from the reinsurance companies.

The increases should be moderate, but we know they will come, and we'll plan them into our figures for the next year, and then the measures we'll take so that we can continue to improve our combined ratio.

Olaf Storbeck
Frankfurt Bureau Chief and Banking Correspondent, Financial Times

One follow-up. You said the insurance increase will be moderate, right?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Yes. I said moderate.

Olaf Storbeck
Frankfurt Bureau Chief and Banking Correspondent, Financial Times

Another follow-up. You've assessed the question whether you have to handle reinsurance differently when it comes to natural catastrophes, but you feel that you're well set up. Is this the core message, right?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Yeah. We think we have a good setup, but of course, we keep fine-tuning and tweaking the models. I mean, when it comes to floodings, we have good models also for Germany. There's always room for improvement, of course.

I would say that we're quite well set up in this regard, so we don't have to do that much reworking. It's just normal improvements that you have to always aim for.

Olaf Storbeck
Frankfurt Bureau Chief and Banking Correspondent, Financial Times

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Storbeck. Now we have two more questions. The next question is by Thomas List of Börsen-Zeitung. Mr. List, the floor is yours.

Thomas List
Journalist and Editor, Börsen-Zeitung

Yeah, a question regarding cyber insurance and D&O. In the recent past, there have been some major cyberattacks. Do you realize this in your figures? Do you have a higher burden from that?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

No, no. We're very cautious also when it comes to cyber. That's a topic where we don't offer that much capacity. We also have a reinsurance program here around cyber. All in all, I would say we're very concerned about accumulated risks, and we want to restrict that. Therefore, we don't see a major burden from this. I mean, so far, we basically haven't had any burden, but could be that there will be one or the other claim in this area, but not in the sense that they could affect our performance, at least from my point of view.

Thomas List
Journalist and Editor, Börsen-Zeitung

Okay. When it comes to D&O, do you see any burdens there?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Well, no specific burdens. Last year we had the Wirecard case, of course. We've already created provisions for that. Other than that, I haven't seen any specific burden in the year 2021 in this area. No major cases, and certainly not in the third quarter.

Thomas List
Journalist and Editor, Börsen-Zeitung

Thank you.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Thank you very much, Mr. List.

Operator

Patricia Kowsmann from The Wall Street Journal. Patricia, the line is open.

Holger Klotz
Head of Financial Communications, Allianz

Last question from Patricia from Wall Street Journal. The line is open.

Patricia Kowsmann
Senior Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Thank you. Sorry, just a very quick basic question. When you talk about booking regarding the Alpha, you're talking about the booking over the litigation, or you're talking about the booking also over the DOJ/SEC, you know, potential financial effects of that investigation?

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

When I talk about booking, there is the booking for the litigation, there is the booking for any possible fines coming from the DOJ or the SEC. At the end of the day, when I talk about booking, I'm referring in general to the ability to booking for one or the other instances. I cannot tell you right now whether we are going to be in a situation to do a booking for maybe the litigation case, but not for any implication coming from a regulatory activity, or if we can do a booking for everything. Right now, all kind of conversation that we have on the topic are a little bit speculative. I can just reiterate the message that it's a high priority for Allianz to get to a resolution, but a reasonable resolution of this situation.

Patricia Kowsmann
Senior Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Thank you very much.

Giulio Terzariol
CFO, Allianz

Welcome.

Operator

Thank you, Patricia.

Skip keine weitere.

Holger Klotz
Head of Financial Communications, Allianz

There are no further questions at this point, and therefore, we'll come to the conclusion, to the end of our phone conference. We would like to thank you for your interest and your participation. Thank you very much, and have a great day.

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