A wonderful good morning, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Hannover Re conference call on Q2 2024 results. My name is Francie, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode and that the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. You can register for question at any time by pressing star and one. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Karl Steinle. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome from sunny Hannover to our earnings call on our results for the first half year 2024. As usual, our CEO, Jean-Jacques Henchoz, and our CFO, Clemens Jungsthöfel, will give you a brief overview of the business development in 2024 so far. For the Q&A session, we will be joined by Claude Chèvre and Sven Althoff. With that, I hand over to you, Jean-Jacques.
Thank you very much, Karl, and good morning everyone, on my side. I'm very satisfied with the Hannover Re's performance in the first half of 2024. The group net income growth of 21% to EUR 1.16 billion, the return on equity at 22.3%, and the business development in general, strongly support our targets for the full year. With 10% Forex adjusted growth in reinsurance revenue, we have successfully expanded our P&C portfolio in a favorable market environment. Furthermore, the new business CSM and the loss component of EUR 1.8 billion confirm continued opportunities for growth at attractive margins in the first half of this year. Compared to the previous year, this is an increase of 6%, adjusted for currency effects and interest rates.
The combined ratio of 87.8% is well in line with our target of below 89%, reflecting the very good underlying profitability of our P&C portfolio. Compared to the benign first quarter, we have seen an increasing frequency of large losses in the second quarter. On a half-year basis, the impact from large losses was still below expectation. As usual, we've nevertheless booked the entire large loss budget for the first two quarters of this year. In life and health, reinsurance revenue decreased moderately. Apart from regular portfolio management, this development also includes a few non-recurring effects. Therefore, this top-line development does not concern me, and certainly not when I look at the successful new business generation of EUR 375 million in the first half of 2024.
The overall profitability of our life and health portfolio is very satisfactory. A positive experience variance mitigated the impact from reserve strengthening for pockets of our morbidity book, mainly in China. Other areas, like U.S. mortality, were well in line with our assumptions, and we're quite pleased that the reinsurance service results of EUR 448 million is slightly above our pro rata share of our full year target of more than EUR 850 million. The investment performance was very satisfying. The return on investment of 3.3% is clearly above target, reflecting the strong ordinary income. Furthermore, the impact from realized losses, impairments, and the valuation of assets at fair value through P&L was very limited.
Altogether, the return on equity of 22.3% highlights the company's strong earnings power and the solvency ratio of 276%, which does not take into account the expected dividend distributed in 2025, reflects our company's very strong capitalization. Shareholders' equity increased by 5.3%. Half-year earnings comfortably covered the dividend paid in Q2. Additionally, the impact from interest rates and the currency translation was positive overall. The CSM increased by 20.5%, mainly reflecting the new business value generated by our successful P&C renewals, as well as the new business generation in our life and health segments. The risk adjustment increased by 6.4%, mainly due to new business in P&C and assumption changes in life and health.
The total amount of EUR 13.2 billion, combining risk adjustment and CSM, is up by 16% and is strengthening our earnings outlook for the years to come. On that note, let me hand over to Clemens for the detailed figures.
Thank you, Jean-Jacques, and good morning, everyone. Starting with development in P&C reinsurance, the top line growth accelerated in the second quarter and is at 10%, adjusted for currency. The growth in Q2 has been stronger because the weight of business earned from the renewals since mid-2023 is increasing, whereas the portion of business from the January 2023 renewal, where we did some portfolio pruning, decreased. So it's really just the earn-through effect. This is particularly true for the APAC business, which is growing nicely on an underlying basis. Furthermore, the IFRS 17 earnings patterns for the first and second quarter is slightly different to the previous year. On a half-year basis, this has no effect on the reported growth figures. The main drivers for growth are structured reinsurance and ILS, as well as our regional markets in North America and EMEA.
The growth in net revenue is slightly more pronounced due to the reduced volume of our retrocession program. The impact of large losses from natural catastrophes was below our budget for the first half year, and as Jean-Jacques already mentioned, the loss activity picked up in Q2 with a number of mid-sized losses as, flooding events in particular added up. On the man-made side, the riots in New Caledonia resulted in a net loss of around EUR 80 million. With regards to the Baltimore Bridge loss, the situation has not really changed, compared to our Q1 reporting. There are still a number of unknown factors which might have an impact on the final insured loss. Against this backdrop, we are sticking to our approach from Q1.
We have reserved the full half-year budget, even though actual large losses were more than EUR 200 million lower, and we are confident that the final impact from the Baltimore Bridge will fit within our reserve budget. The run-off result was an overall positive EUR 364 million. It includes positive prior year development in most lines of business, but also negative developments. For example, the Italy hail events last year, which deteriorated by around EUR 120 million. And as you know, this development was largely covered by additional reserves set up at the end of 2023. The combined ratio includes a discount effect of around 7%. This is still higher than the interest accretion in the reinsurance finance result, but our prudent initial reserving should offset the difference.
Altogether, the combined ratio of 87.8 is well in line with our target and reflects the very healthy underlying profitability of our P&C book of business. The strong investment result primarily stems from the increased ordinary income from fixed-income securities. The increase is mainly driven by higher interest rates, supported by strong operating cash flow. Last but not least, the amortization of our inflation-linked bonds added EUR 81 million, slightly more than expected. Within the other result, currency translation had a negative impact of EUR 74 million. Altogether, the EBIT increased by 40% to EUR 1.16 billion. The main contributor to the P&C service result is the CSM release, reflecting the recent renewals in a very attractive market environment. The service result includes the fully booked large loss budget and therefore does not show the underlying result in the quarter.
Booking the budget also means that we do not assume any recovery from our retrocession on this part of the reserve budget. In addition, the recovery from retrocession and some of the actual large losses was also rather low. This effect is visible in the experience variances shown on this slide. Furthermore, our generally prudent reserving approach resulted in a negative experience variance in the second quarter. Loss component from new business is quite low, confirming the attractive rate environment in P&C reinsurance. I already commented on the run-off result. Just for the sake of completeness, the release of the risk adjustment, within the LIC, so the liability for incurred claims, added EUR 186 million to the overall EUR 364 million run-off result from P&C reserves.
The CSM growth is mainly determined by our successful renewals, reflected in a strong new business CSM of EUR 1.86 billion. Let's move on to life and health. Reinsurance revenue decreased slightly as expected. Besides normal portfolio management, part of this development is attributable to non-recurring effects in US mortality. For example, the risk adjustment release normalized compared to an extraordinary high level in the previous year, while a recapture also has a negative effect on volumes. In addition, one-off in Financial Solutions mitigated the underlying growth. The reinsurance service result is fully in line with our expectation, with favorable contributions from mortality, longevity, and Financial Solutions . Just as a reminder, we had reported an extraordinarily strong result in mortality in the previous year.
In morbidity, the result has mainly been impacted by further strengthening of the reserves for critical illness business in China. The investment result mainly reflects good ordinary income and EUR 33 million from the change in fair value of financial instruments, mostly driven by insurance-related derivatives. On top of this, we recorded a positive currency result of EUR 17 million in the other result. With an EBIT of EUR 501 million, the performance of our life and health business group clearly supports our expectation for the full year. Looking at the drivers for the reinsurance service result on the next slide, both the CSM release and the risk adjustment release are within the expected range. The experience variance is driven by a favorable claims experience across different lines of business, adding up to EUR 164 million.
This largely mitigates the negative impact from the loss component of EUR 205 million. The new business loss component was a minor EUR 10 million, so the main driver being the reserve strengthening in morbidity. Altogether, the reinsurance service result is slightly better than the pro rata expectation for the year. The new business CSM and extensions on existing contracts together amounted to EUR 386 million, based on a diversified contribution from Financial Solutions , mortality, and morbidity. Changes in estimates had a positive impact of EUR 237 million. Again, the contribution to this number is coming from different pockets of business, including longevity, Financial Solutions , and also parts of our morbidity book. Adding positive currency effects and the interest accretion, the total, the CSM increased by 7.4%, also considering the regular release of the CSM.
As a general comment, this IFRS 17 presentation of P&L and balance sheet development is a normal reflection of the characteristics of the life and health reinsurance. It is mostly long-term business for which we regularly review our assumptions and record an experience variance in the current period. Most areas are developing favorably, others aren't. And one could even say this is intended due to the diversification within our portfolio, for example, between mortality and longevity. Looking at the full picture on this slide, I would like to emphasize that both the experience variance in the current quarter and the overall assumption changes were positive for our life and health portfolio. You can see this by looking at the combined value of assumption changes within the CSM and outside of the CSM for Hannover's business.
Also, with regards to US mortality, we feel comfortable with our assumptions, in particularly against the backdrop of the assumption updates connected to our in-force management actions, which we started in 2018 and the current performance in 2024. We do not expect material updates for this portfolio. In connection with our in-force management actions in 2018, we have already made material adjustments to the assumptions for this portfolio. The development of our investments was again very satisfactory. The ordinary investment income is strong. As mentioned earlier, several factors play a role here. The asset volume increased based on a strong operating cash flow.
In addition, the reinvestment yields are still nicely above our average portfolio yield, with a continued positive impact on our returns from fixed income securities, contributions from inflation-linked bonds in line with expectations at EUR 81 million, and finally, the contribution from alternative investments increased as well. Other than that, the investment income, really pleasantly unremarkable, I would say, in particular the ECL, expected credit loss, and any valuation impact at fair value through P&L or in the form of impairments, really had only a minor impact. All in all, the ROI of 3.3% is above our 2.8% target, which still includes some allowance for negative valuation volatility for the remainder of the year.
To conclude my remarks, the results for the first six months of 2024 reflect a very healthy underlying profitability, and as things stand today, the overall performance is quite supportive to reach or exceed our group net income target of EUR 2.1 billion. But as we are just approaching the peak hurricane season, it's clearly too early to get overly excited, as the CFO of a reinsurance company. On that note, Jean-Jacques, I hand back to you for the comments on the outlook.
Well, thank you very much, Clemens. The sentiment on the P&C reinsurance markets did not really change in the mid-year renewals. Reinsurance capacity was generally available to meet increased demand, and cedents retentions were stable. Technical price adequacy remained very much in focus for reinsurance companies, with pricing reflecting the underlying risks and reacting to the individual performance of the business up for renewal. In this prevailing positive market environment, the outcome for Hannover Re's renewals is highly satisfying. We acted on opportunities to grow our portfolio by 11.5%, with risk-adjusted pricing improving by 1.3%. The overall growth is highly diversified, leading to a broad-based expansion of our portfolio, renewing in June and July.
In absolute numbers, the highest contribution came from the Americas. As the business development in the first six months clearly supports our expectations for the full year 2024, we have kept our guidance unchanged. We continue to expect growth in revenue of at least 5%, mainly driven by our P&C business. The combined ratio is expected to come in below 89% and the life and health service results above EUR 850 million. We're targeting a return on investment of at least 2.5%-2.8%. Altogether, we continue to be quite confident that we will achieve our net income guidance of at least EUR 2.1 billion. But as mentioned by Clemens, it is not the time to already revise our guidance as we're still in the middle of the hurricane season.
With that, I conclude my remark, and we would be happy to answer your questions. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Please limit yourself to two questions only. If we still have time, you may join the queue again. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. Our first question today comes from Kamran Hossain from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi, good morning. Two questions from... First one is just around, regulatory capital and kind of how that interacts with dividends. Earlier in the quarter, S&P confirmed your, credit rating. In this- in their kind of summary, they suggested you have more capital, now than you, you did kind of in the past. And I, you know, now I know that you're, you know, in the middle of hurricane season or, you know, about to get to the peak of it. But maybe theoretically, could you discuss, you know, if you get to the end of the year, you hit the EUR 2.1 billion+ net income target, whether there might be a little bit more- there might be a little bit more freedom on the dividend, for this year?
Second question, just on the life and health result. Obviously, a great result overall. Could you maybe give some context on the China critical illness piece? It sounded like at Q1 you took the opportunity because your result was good to take action. Is that the same case this quarter, or is there something else going on in the Chinese CI book? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Kamran . I'll take the first question and the life and health question will go to Claude. On capitalization, indeed, Cameron, we're very satisfied with the outcome when it comes to rating capital. We see some alignment of the different views on capital models, and we feel we're very well positioned to capture growth opportunities in the coming year. The dividend strategy is not changing for that reason. I think what we see is that we're much more confident about reaching our targets for 2024.
For that reason, I'd say that the confidence level on not only implementing our strategy of increasing the base dividend from year to year, the likelihood of a one-off extraordinary dividend is increasing. But as you said yourself, this is still the hurricane season. We need to come up with a decision on that later in the year. But it's true to say that at this stage, at midyear, the confidence level has increased when it comes to paying an attractive dividend for 2024.
Thank you.
Yes, and maybe to your question on critical illness in China. I mean, as you know, we review our reserves regularly for critical illness in China, and this is our current best estimate, which is based on the trends that we observed. Maybe an important thing is that within our full year guidance for the service results, which is more than EUR 850 million, the overall level of profitability in life and health and the expected level of CSM release and risk adjustment release would allow for some additional negative impact if we saw any developments in the rest of the year.
That's good.
The next question comes from Tryfonas Spyrou from Berenberg. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi, good morning. I have two questions. One is in P&C. It looks like at the half year, you know, the combined ratio is running a bit well below 89% level you guided to. I guess when stripping out the benefits from IFRS and discounting, which you haven't actually earned, and essentially the retro drag is actually much lower. Appreciate it's still early in the year, but given, you know, the buffer building you have done last year, is that, you know, run rate, it is coming lower at the full year. I guess my question is: what would you do with that? Would you let this flow through to P&L, or would you look to retain the buffers a little bit more? So that was my first question.
Second one is on life and health. We, I guess extension new contracts, it looks like quite strong again. And when I look at the cumulative number, over the last few years, you know, the stock of CSM going from that extension on contracts, is actually bigger than the new business, CSM. So I guess my question is, how really, how sustainable, is this going forward? Are there still contracts with the potential to extend or haven't had the chance to do so, but the runway there is still strong? Thank you.
So probably on the combined ratio in P&C, the—yes, I think it's the number that you see there, and I think if you strip out the one-off effects that you've seen. I think it's the runway will be slightly below. I mean, if we come in better at year-end, we will always have a look, of course, at it at Q4, but we have not planned for an extraordinary reserve buffer building as we did last year. So it's really just increasing the resiliency in our reserves with the growth of the portfolio. However, we should not forget that the combined ratio also includes roughly EUR 100 million of risk adjustment built up in the first half year.
So that, of course, is also, in that sense, a resiliency build on the risk adjustment side.
On your second question, I'm not sure. I think it was related to life and health. Could you confirm that, maybe?
Yes, life and health.
Yeah.
The growth that has come from extension on new contract. Yeah.
I get it. I get it. And what you were saying is that you're surprised that the extensions on new contracts is bigger in the CSM than the new business. That isn't a surprise for us at all. What you need to see under IFRS 17 is that there is some flexibility in what you name new business and what you name extensions on new contracts. So you really need to take the two of them together in order to see our the force of new business that we're having in the life and health side. So just sum them up.
Brilliant. Thank you.
The next question comes from Dhaval Gada from RBC. Please, go ahead.
Good morning. Just, just a couple of quick ones, please. Can you figure out how much of the life and health service results came from Financial Solutions for both the quarter and half? And my second question, could you tell us what your reinvestment yield is? Maybe as at the end of July instead of end of June. Thank you.
So the service result on Financial Solutions in the first six months, I don't have the second quarter number, but I think it was around EUR 250 million-EUR 260 million out of the EUR 448 million that you see here. And second question was on reinvestment yield, right?
Yep.
Yeah. So running yield in our portfolio is now overall across all currencies roughly at 3.4, and we have a reinvestment yield at the moment of 4.6%.
Just checking that 4.6, is that as of the end of June or is it as at the end of July?
At the end of June.
Okay, got it. Thank you.
The next question comes from Vinit Malhotra from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you very much. So, just for me, a bit more on the life re side, please. You know, there's... So I understand that China CI was kind of in expectations and in your guidance, but there's also a significant offsets coming from a variety of experience variances in so many lines, longevity, mortality. I'm just curious if you could just comment a bit about these, because these can't be projected out. So, and these, I mean, these have helped the numbers this quarter, but also, just to confirm, there's no assumptions on positive experiences in the outlook, right? Because that cannot be properly assumed. I'm just curious about if you could comment a bit more about these positive experiences as well.
And just second thing is, on the P&C, the secondary perils have been noted, as you wrote in your press release commentary, and also you said that the sentiment on market hasn't really changed. I'm just curious, is there any change you think that will be happening in the marketplace? Because these secondary perils just keep, you know, very stubbornly presenting themselves, year after year, year after year. I'm just curious whether you think there is something going on there that should be interesting to the market. Thank you.
Yeah, Vinit, thanks for your question on life and health. So you refer to the positive experience variances of EUR 164 that we're showing over the first six months, I guess, right?
Yes, that, and that's coming from a variety of places as well.
Yes. Yes. Yes, and you're totally right. And as we have written, it comes really from a variety of regions, from pretty much all the regions, by the way, including China, and from all the segments. So Financial Solutions , longevity and mortality, these positive experience variances. You need always to take on the life and health side, you need to look into the positive experience variances, which are happening over the first six months. That's one, that's one thing. And then you add, of course, also the change in estimates in the CSM to see the positive variances that we have within life and health. And then you have on the other side, you have then the development of the loss component. So you need to take really the two or the three elements into account when you look in the profitability of the life and health business.
So, Vinit, to your second question, Vinit, on if, you know, if we sort of project this out, this is something what Claude said. I think it really, and you can see it in the past, it balances nicely out. It can be a bit volatile quarter on quarter, but overall, we would say, no, we do not expect a positive or a negative assumption update. Rather, in summary, due to our bit more conservative approach, probably here and there a positive, but overall, we do not project anything.
I think the volatility that you see here is also due to the impairment principle under IFRS 17, that the loss component, of course, is going straight to the P&L, where any impacts on the CSM, of course, are only being seen in future releases.
So thank you. Just a quick follow-up, please, Claude. In Financial Solutions , the experience variance probably is coming only from lapses. Is that something you confirm?
Well, it comes from various bits and pieces. It depends on what type of Financial Solutions we're looking at. That's... As you know, Vinit, we have Financial Solutions , solutions which are structured Financial Solutions business, and we have also Financial Solutions , which is coming from the standard traditional financing business. And it depends on what type of Financial Solutions that we're looking at. But the reasons for the positive experience variances depend on what type of Financial Solutions business that you have. Sorry.
Sure. Okay. Thank you so much.
Then when it comes to your P&C question, we are not expecting a change in the sentiment when it comes to technical price adequacy. When you look at the main macro drivers, we are still in a challenging geopolitical environment. Inflation, social inflation, are still very meaningful topics, and you mentioned climate change in particular. So when we reflect on the mid-year renewals and you could see that in the various broker reports, yes, there was enough supply to also cater for the increased demand. In certain places, we have also seen a slight softening of terms and conditions, but this very much was at the upper end, the severity end of programs.
The result of the market was very strong, when it comes to retention levels and also pricing in the lower part of CAT programs, which of course is where most of the losses related to climate change have materialized over the last 3-4 years.
Sure. Terms and conditions are still holding, right? So.
Yes, they are indeed.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.
The next question comes from Freya Kong from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I'm sorry to come across a little greedy, but the exit run rate for your P&C combined ratio normalized last year, I think you said was around 87.5%, but we're running at 87.8% year to date. Wouldn't it be fair for us to be expecting some kind of improvement this year, given the earn through of 2023 renewals? Or is there any reason why this isn't developing more favorably? And then secondly, just at a group level, your other expenses line was a little lower than I expected. Any comment on this, or is this just normal quarterly volatility? Thanks.
Well, on the combined ratio, Freya, I mean, we're only through six months. You've seen the various levels of prudence built into our reserving approach, both when it comes to booking the major loss budget in full, and also only booking retro recoveries as they incur. So, from that point of view, as Jean-Jacques said, after six months, the level of confidence reaching our goals has certainly increased from prior to before the year. But let's come back to that question in Q4 when we have the full picture on major losses.
The next question-
Yeah, so sorry, Freya. The question on expenses, I think is really just, you know, I think I've mentioned the currency volatility in the results, but other than that, it's really quarterly volatility. So no particular reasons for that.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Will Hardcastle from UBS. Please go ahead.
Oh, morning. Thanks for taking the questions. But first of all, just coming back to the renewal, a little bit of extra color would be helpful on lines of business regions. You mentioned a couple of things, and I guess the key is just making sure that that's written at, you know, same margin as the core book. There weren't any lower margin quota shares, for example, within that. So it looks very favorable. Secondly, just coming back to one of the questions, one of the first questions related to the S&P capital outcome. Clearly, that's come in, that's coming well, and that was the binding constraint.
I just wanna get into your thinking in terms of, I think you mentioned a potential or high probability of a potential 1x benefit, release, or whether you think about that in terms of flow and greater confidence in a regular payout, just how you'd frame that outcome for yourselves. Thank you.
Jean, the renewals will, I mean, 1.7, 1.6 is just a very diversified renewals. But unlike 1.1, which is heavily dominated by North America and by particularly Europe, where we have a concentration around 1.1. So from a capital hurdle point of view, no, we've used the same capital hurdle assumptions for the mid-year renewals as we did for the 1.1 renewals. So definitely no softening in the approach. And the positive development we have seen was really across the board and the slide in the appendix is giving you an idea what region, what class of business had an important mid-year renewal. From an absolute point of view, Jean-Jacques mentioned the Americas.
That has to do that, of course, our ceding companies also still continue to grow in an attractive primary pricing environment, so we could also benefit from their growth trajectory, particularly on the proportionate business. And then I would also mention Australia, where the renewal overall was very satisfying from a net loss point of view. So we could keep and gain positions in certain programs. And then there was some growth also on the Australian proportional side, as one ceding company decided to buy a little more, and we were in a position to take up an extra share.
Well, on the assets, just to reiterate what I said earlier, I think the first thing is that the confidence level based on the performance to date and normalized view of the second half of the year has been increasing. So the first conclusion that we have is an increasing confidence on implementing our strategy, which is to increase our base dividend. And the second point is that we will continue to use the special dividend as our main tool for capital buyback. So when we have a definite view on large losses affecting this year growth aspirations, we'll be able to put numbers behind. There is a growing confidence as well of paying out a special dividend.
That's great. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, for any further questions, please press star and one. The next question comes from Darius Satkauskas from KBW. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi, two questions, please. The first one is, are you doing anything in relation to your inflation-linked position as interest rates are coming down? And the second is a broad question, please. Is there anything that you and the industry can do to improve the disclosure around life and health reserving? So it's less of an information vacuum. Perhaps disclosing the present value of claims payments rather than just giving us the present value of cash flows, which is a positive figure because of premiums or more color on sort of lapses to run the assumptions. As my understanding is, small changes here can have a huge impact on the CSM due to long duration of cash flows. So anything that can help us be much appreciated. Thank you.
That is on the first one, the inflation linkers, we are now at EUR 5.7 billion. We just build up the inflation linkers, you know, with the growth of our business. And just as a reminder, the inflation linkers are not part of our investment strategy. They're really, they're really there to protect our P&C reserves against inflation. So therefore, we do revisit our positioning there, but not again, as part of the overall investment strategy, but rather when we look at our P reserves, P&C reserves, development, duration, et cetera, we do that on a regular basis, and no change in strategy on that note. On disclosure, Darius, I think, yes, we will always sort of try to revisit, of course, the granularity of disclosures.
I think first of all, I do believe it's fair to say that the overall presentation, but also the accounting of life and health business under IFRS 17 has improved significantly, given, I think, the unlocking of assumptions, that we didn't have in the US GAAP world, as you know. So therefore, I think there's a lot of transparency and having the CSM and the risk adjustment on the face of the balance sheet as audited numbers, as you know. And then we try to be very transparent, as you can see here, by also presenting this runoff of CSM, the updates that we do here and there in the quarter. So therefore, we really try to be transparent, always, of course, on the agenda to further improve that, revisit that.
There's a lot of disclosure also in the year-end accounts, of course. So, again, it's a bit of a learning curve, but in terms of transparency, I do believe that this is already a healthy level of transparency on the life enhancements.
The next question comes from Faizan Lakhani from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got two questions. One is on the insurance revenue, sort of pathway, I guess, for H2, given the fact that more of the January renewals sort of run off and you get the stronger renewals coming through. So should we expect double-digit growth in the revenue? And what does that mean for 2025, given the strong renewals at mid-year this year as well? Second question is on your reinsurance recovery. I can see that, you've had relatively limited recoveries. Of course, the majority of your nat cat events, in particular, the storm in Germany, and that's considerably lower than what you achieved from Storm Bernd, in 2021. Could you maybe sort of elaborate in terms of how the reinsurance program panned out in H1, please? Thank you.
Let me start with the second question. I mean, Bernd, of course, was considerably higher on a vertical basis compared to the flood events we experienced in Germany this year. So, therefore, we had less of an excess of loss recovery on this year's. To be pre-precise, we are not really expecting any recovery from an excess loss point of view, and that was different on the Bernd. So the higher the losses are coming into Hannover Re from a gross point of view, the more likelihood it is that also our non-proportionate protections come into play, which was not the case for the events this year yet. And your first question, could you repeat that, please?
Yeah.
Yeah, what's the question? If we expect a double-digit P&C revenue, and I think so and so, so... Well, when you look at our renewal reporting this year, we were strong single digits, now mid-year renewal double digit for the first time. So obviously, currencies adjusted after half year, we were double digits, but only slightly above the 10%. So therefore, for the second half of the year, I guess it's fair to say that you should expect a more higher single digit than necessarily double-digit growth for the second half, given what we reported when we spoke about 1.1 and 1.4 . And of course, the mid-year renewals will take some time to show through in our earned premium figures.
Fantastic. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was our last question for today, and I would like to hand back to Mr. Henchoz for closing comments.
Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much for that. I won't be lengthy on the conclusion. I think we took a lot of great questions summarizing where we stand. I think the outlook is very good. P&C and Life and Health, investment performance as well. So we're quite confident for the full year 2024, and the numbers at Q2 demonstrate that we're able to achieve our guidance and meet all our targets for the full year 2024. With that, thank you very much for joining this call, and see you soon.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone.