Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Hannover Re Conference Call on Q3 2025 results. I am Mathilde, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q & A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero . The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast at this time. It's my pleasure to hand over to Karl Steinle. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning everyone and welcome to our earnings call on our results for the first nine months of 2025. As usual, our CEO Clemens Jungsthöfel and CFO Christian Hermelingmeier will provide a program overview of the business development so far in 2025 and afterwards, Clemens will p resent the updated outlook for the current y ear and as usual will provide an i nitial guidance for the financial year 2026. For the Q & A we will be joined by Claude Chèvre and Sven Althoff, and with that I hand over to you, Clemens.
Thank you, Karl, and good morning from Hannover. On the first slide, the business performance in the first nine months was very satisfactory. The group net income of EUR 1.96 billion reflects a strong underlying profitability and additional positive tailwind from currency translation and from tax adding up to more than EUR 400 million. The low tax rate, particularly in the third quarter, is mainly connected to the newly enforced change in the German corporate tax resulting in a corresponding release in deferred tax liabilities. This not only left us in a comfortable position to increase the group net income guidance to around EUR 2.6 billion f or the full year.
In addition, we use the extra level of profits to further strengthen our company's balance sheet. We have added significant prudency to our P&C reserves. We've taken a more cautious view on certain pockets in our life and health portfolio and we have realized more than EUR 300 million losses in our fixed income portfolio. All of this improves our already strong balance sheet and our confidence in future earnings growth in P&C reinsurance. We have continued to grow our portfolio in an attractive rate environment. As in the first half, the refinement in the calculation for the non-distinct investment component does have a negative base effect on reported growth numbers as it does not impact earnings. This is no cause for concerns at all. Also not when comparing to our 7% growth target.
On an adjusted basis the growth is close to 10% and therefore clearly ahead of the 7% mark, the favorable underlying growth is also reflected, as you can see, in the increase in our new business CSM to now EUR 2.6 billion. The large loss experience in Q3 was r ather benign, particularly on the NATCAT side. Hence, the overall impact from large losses was well below our budget for the first nine months. As you know, as usual in this situation we have booked the full year to date budget. Therefore, the reported combined ratio does not reflect the benign large losses. On the contrary, we have actually used the overall positive results situation to add further prudency to our P&C reserves with a corresponding effect on the reported combined ratio. Nevertheless, the reported 86% is well in line with our target, pointing to an even better underlying number. In Life and Health Reinsurance, the revenue is growing moderately. The new business generation increased by 16% to EUR 575 million, including a favorable contribution in the third quarter.
The reinsurance service result of EUR 671 million reflects the overall positive business development and confirms that we are well on track to deliver on our target for 2025. The ordinary investment performance was very satisfactory. Against the backdrop of another strong quarter, including the positive tax effects, we have decided to accelerate the loss realization in our fixed income portfolio after around EUR 60 million in the second quarter. We have realized another EUR 260 million in the third quarter to improve future investment returns and to increase the flexibility in our investment portfolio. Hence, the return on investment of 2.8% is deliberately below our target for the full year. Finally, the capitalization remained strong with a solvency ratio of 259%. In the third quarter, the operating capital generation was slightly above EUR 1 billion.
We have also been successful in deploying capital, so the recognition of planned growth for 2026 had an impact of around 6 percentage points on the solvency ratio. Furthermore, the quarterly accrual of foreseeable dividends, including the update of our dividend strategy, impacted the solvency ratio by -4.5 percentage points. Model changes had a minor positive impact on the next slide. The shareholders' equity increased by 2%, driven by the strong nine month results. A mitigating factor is a negative impact from currency translation, which within the OCI, the CSM increased by 2.1%, mainly reflecting the new business generated by both business groups. Again, also here partly mitigated by negative currency effects. The risk adjustment decreased by 7.8%, mainly driven by some model refinements in P&C as well as a negative currency effect and a new retrocession in life and health.
Altogether, the performance of both business groups and our strong balance sheet, including the CSM and including the risk adjustment, gives me considerable confidence in current and future earnings growth. The return on equity of 22% is a further confirmation of our success. On that note, I'd hand over t o you, Christian.
Thank you, Clemens, and good morning everyone, also from my side. On the next slide, our P&C business is growing nicely on a diversified basis, including a strong contribution from structured reinsurance. The top line growth in the first nine months is masked by the refinement in our accounting, resulting in a one-off effect when comparing the 2025 revenue to the previous year. Excluding this base effect, the FX-adjusted reinsurance revenue would have increased by 9.5%, clearly supporting the target achievement. Importantly, there is no impact on earnings due to corresponding effects in the service expenses. Furthermore, the accounting impact on reported growth should decline in the fourth quarter. In the third quarter, the NDIC refinement continued to have an impact. Additionally, the timing of bookings for some larger treaties had an impact on the reported Q3 revenue.
In this respect, we expect some catch up effects in the fourth quarter. The combined ratio of 86% is well within the target range below 88%. The impact from large losses was EUR 459 million below budget which has nevertheless been booked in full as usual. The unused budget should be sufficient to cover the expected losses from Hurricane Melissa, meaning that full Q4 budget is available for other losses in the fourth quarter. As Clemens explained, the underlying profitability was even stronger in light of the additional balance sheet strengthening with an increase in reserve prudency. However, we have added less to the reserve resiliency in Q3 compared to the previous quarters and have instead decided to use the better than planned result for active loss realization in our investment portfolio.
The reason is that we feel very comfortable with the current level of reserves and saw a good opportunity to lock in higher interest rates to improve the contribution from investments in the years to come. Finally, the combined ratio includes a discount effect of around 9.5%. As usual, the increase in prudency for our reserves is biased towards long tail lines with a higher level of discounting. Overall, the discount effect is still higher than the interest accretion in the reinsurance finance result, but we continue to be very prudent on the reserving side. As an offset, the investment result reflects an increased ordinary income and a loss realization for fixed income of around EUR 320 million. The currency result was significantly positive at EUR 219 million driven by the weakening of the US dollar over the course of the first half year.
The main contributor to the P&C service result is the CSM release reflecting the recent renewals in a very attractive market environment as in 2024, the CSM release includes smaller catch up effects due to a prudent release in previous periods. The experience variance includes our prudent reserving on the business earned from current underwriting years. The runoff result has been positive in most regions and lines of business, but as explained, we have used the strong underlying profitability and the overall strong result situation to add additional prudency to our reserves. This is the main reason why we are reporting a negative runoff result of EUR -465 million. Apart from this, the runoff result also includes our updated view on the Russia-Ukraine aviation loss and a moderate increase in the best estimate for some pockets of U.S. Liability business.
The loss component from new business is quite low, confirming the attractive rate environment in P&C reinsurance. The CSM growth of 7% reflects the favorable market environment and our success in the renewal period in 2025, resulting in a strong new business CSM of EUR 2.6 billion. On the next slide, in Life and Health Reinsurance, revenue increased by 2.2% djusted for FX, the revenue increased in financial solutions and longevity in traditional business. Revenue moderately decreased mainly in Greater China. The result for the nine months of 2025 is based on favorable underlying profitability. Furthermore, the experience variance was positive in all reporting categories. Assumption updates for onerous business and a more cautious position with regards to our morbidity business had a negative impact in the reporting period. Altogether, reinsurance service result of EUR 671 million is fully in line with our full year target.
The investment result reflects a good ordinary income from fixed income and the negative impact of an AD equity participation of around EUR 30 million in the third quarter. Altogether, the EBIT contribution from our life and health business group was EUR 645 million. On the next slide, looking at the IFRS components of the service result, the CSM release is the main profit driver and within the expected range. The same is true for release and risk adjustment. The experience variance is clearly positive based on a diversified contribution by line of business. The main drivers for the loss component are assumption changes for onerous business and morbidity. This is particularly driven by the critical illness business in Greater China or where we have updated our assumptions and took a more cautious positioning reflected in an increase in the risk adjustment.
As Claude highlighted at our recent investors day, one should focus here on a more holistic and economic view on assumption changes and experience variance. Adding up the positive assumption changes in the CSM and the change in loss component as well as the experience variance. The total deviation from initial assumptions of our diversified portfolio is positive year to date. The CSM development on the right side is clearly impacted by currency effects. The CSM generation, which includes the new business CSM and extensions on existing contracts, amounted to a favorable EUR 585 million based on a diversified contribution from Financial Solutions and our traditional business. Changes in estimates are driven by updated assumptions for our longevity business. Altogether, the total CSM would have increased by 5.2% excluding the currency effects, nicely ahead of our 2% target. On the next slide, the development of our investments was very satisfactory.
The ordinary investment income reflects the continued rollover in a higher yield environment and a strong operating cash flow. Inflation linked bonds contributed EUR 110 million. Additionally, the contribution from alternatives was very solid and as explained, we have used the overall result situation to accelerate the realization of losses in our fixed income book in the third quarter. In total, we are looking at realized fixed income loss of EUR 324 million for the first nine months. The corresponding higher locked in interest rates will support a further increase in investment income in the coming years and the lower level of unrealized losses will increase the flexibility for asset managers, both helpful in the overall trading environment. The impact from the change in eclipse and the fair value of financial instruments remained moderate.
All in all, the return on investments of 2.8% is deliberately steered below the initial 3.2% target due to the realization of losses in our fixed income portfolio. No concern at all. As the main group target for 2025, the net income is not only maintained but has even been increased including an adjusted lower target for the ROI. At this point I would like to point out that depending on the business development in the fourth quarter, I would not rule out further opportunistic steps with an eye on the remaining level of unrealized fixed income losses of more than EUR 2 billion on our balance sheet shown at the bottom of the slide. Apart from the strong movement in fixed income, you can see that the unrealized gains within the OCI have changed materially in the category others.
This reflects the sale of our stake in Viridium, concluding a highly successful financial investment for Hannover Re. To conclude my remarks, the business performance in the first half of the year was very satisfactory. The positive impact from currency and tax has been used to further strengthen our balance sheet and improve future investment returns. We are well positioned to deliver on our increased target for 2025 and on that note I'll hand back to you, Clemens, for the comments on the outlook.
Thank you, Christian. Despite the significant increase in reserve prudency and the realization of fixed income losses, the reported group net income of close to EUR 2 billion after nine months is running nicely ahead of our plan. Consequently, we have increased the target to EUR 2.6 billion. The new target assumes a full realization or full utilization of our large loss budget at year end. As of today, we do have significant budget available to cover potential losses in the remainder of the year. In case not all of this is used by year end, this might provide the option to continue realizing some fixed income losses and additional flexibility for the assumption setting in our annual reserve review. These comments also need to be considered.
Looking at the updated target for the combined ratio which is expected to come in below 87% and the ROI target of course of around 2.9%, the expectation for the life and health service result remains unchanged and as explained, the FX adjusted growth in P&C revenue is influenced by the refinement in the NDIC calculation. Excluding this effect, the 7% target remains unchanged and again this effect does not have any impact on earnings, hence no reason for any concern here. Altogether we are confident that we will achieve a net income of EUR 2.6 billion, higher than initially anticipated for the year. Furthermore, I'd say there are probably more upside risks than downside risks for the delivery on our guidance, potentially also providing options to further improve the basis for future earnings growth. Future earnings growth brings us directly to the guidance for the financial year 2026.
The new group net income target for 2026 is at least EUR 2.7 billion. This is an increase of 12.5% compared to the initial guidance for 2020. You can see this as a strong commitment to continued earnings growth. Also, in a slightly more challenging market environment, looking at the underlying drivers, we expect further growth. Our P&C business excluding structured reinsurance is expected to grow in the mid single-digit percentage range. The reason why we have excluded structured reinsurance here in our guidance is the transactional character of the business.
Individual treaties can be a bit bulky and for 2026 we have an indication for some reductions in cession rates on the one hand, and we do continue to see a strong pipeline for new business on the other hand. The combined effect is not easy to predict and hence we have decided to exclude this part of our activities from our top line guidance. All in all, it is possible that the revenue development in structured reinsurance might be less dynamic in 2026 than the average of previous years. The combined ratio target for the total P&C business is below 87%. This is an improvement compared to the below 88% target for this year despite the expectation of some softening of rates in the underwriting year 2026. One reason for this is the discount effect which is expected to be around 9-10% in 2026.
This is rather stable compared to this year but higher than initially expected for 2025, providing some uplift compared to the previous target. Furthermore, the pricing environment is expected to remain on an attractive level overall, which means that the quality and the profitability of our portfolio will remain strong. As explained earlier, our underlying combined ratio is running well ahead of our target in 2025. This means that also the new target of below 87% does leave room for some pricing pressure not only in 2026 but also going forward. With regards to our reserving, we feel very comfortable with the overall confidence level of our reserves. The option of adding less to reserve prudency compared to previous years adds further confidence in the ability to deliver on our target.
Based on the successful new business generation in 2025 and a healthy pipeline looking forward, we anticipate an increase in reinsurance service result to around EUR 925 million. In Life and Health Reinsurance, the assumed CSM and risk adjustment release remains unchanged compared to this year at around 11%-13% for the CSM and 6%-8% for the risk adjustment. Furthermore, our strategic midterm target for the CSM growth of around 2% remains valid. Return on investment is expected to reach around 3.5%. Altogether, the new guidance highlights Hannover Re's successful and lean business model, our ability to grow and our very strong balance sheet. This concludes my remarks and we would be happy to answer your questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on the telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question comes from the line of Shanti Kang from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.
Hi, morning. Thanks for taking my question. The first one was just on the Q3 model refinements that you made in P&C. Could you just give us some color on what was driving those for this quarter? My second question is just going into the renewal period in January, what you're sort of expecting from conditions there. My last question is just on the guide for 2026 at that less than 87% combined ratio and that's got the higher discount rate between 9-10% as you mentioned. What's really driving that assumption? Has the duration of the book changed or are you assuming continued long tail reserve releases? I'd expect that to come down with rates, so any color there would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, hi Shanti, and thanks for the question. I'll take the first one, the Q3 model refinement in the P&C book that relates to the risk adjustment. There have been some seldom combinations of contracts where the risk adjustment just by the methodology that is applied in the data was larger than the expected losses and the cash flow for the losses. We refined that in capping the risk adjustment to the maximum amount of the loss cash flow. To erase the outliers that we figured out, we have here and there in the book. That's basically everything n o reference to the underlying business itself.
When it comes to the renewals, Shanti, I mean as we said on previous occasions, we are expecting a broadly similar market momentum compared to what we have seen in 2025. We have not seen too many firm order terms from the renewals yet, so there are too few data points to give you an update on that expectations. From that point of view we are still expecting similar momentum as I said, which would be mostly on price and stable on retention levels and terms and conditions.
Shanti, good morning, it's Clemens here. On the last one on the underlying drivers for the 87% combined ratio guidance for 2026, couple of points here. One is discount rate as you mentioned, but there are a couple of other drivers that have led us to go for a slightly lower combined ratio. One is that we, and it's yeah, it's not that we expect portfolio composition so we do expect growth rather on a diversified basis. Also as we go into 2026, the reflection on that, we still believe that the quality and the profitability of our portfolio will remain strong even if there is more pricing pressure as we go into 2026. It's also not led to the fact that we have changed or will change our reserving approach. The prudent reserving approach is unchanged.
However, just adding a bit less to the overall confidence level will already have an impact on our combined ratio. Overall, this is basically a reflection also of the fact that we have seen that the underlying combined ratio was strong in 2025 and that has led us to that decision.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Andrew Baker from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you for taking my questions. First one, sorry, just to get back to the combined ratio target for 2026, I guess if I look at the 2025 original guidance, sort of the less than 88% you add back in the discounting of 6-7% you get to sort of less than 94-95% undiscounted. My understanding was, and correct me if I'm wrong here, this was sort of a through the cycle assumption. If I look at the updated guidance, so the less than 87 you add back in the 9-10 points for the discounting, you're sort of less than 96-97. I guess a couple points deterioration on the undiscounted. I hear what you're saying in terms of some of that pricing, but I guess I thought that was in the original target.
Maybe just help me think through or should I be thinking about that undiscounted combined ratio or not? I guess as you're looking at the 9-10% discounting for next year, is this still in excess of the IFE? If so, should we expect sort of further prudent building within the less than 87% for next year? Thank you.
Andrew. Just briefly I'll start and then probably Christian can also complement and that is in fact the discount and the, let's say, the management of the volatility of the discount which we have done in the past also have a compensating effect. That had an impact on our underlying combined ratio last year. As you know, it was a tailwind when you compare the discount impact versus the unwind of that discount. We have always taken the approach to not take advantage of that tailwind but increase our loss assumptions and roughly in the sort of size of that delta. That has also fed into our 2026 combined ratio assumptions. There is, and I'm just looking at this, and there's still expected to be a slight tailwind. Therefore, that will also have an impact on the combined ratio in our assumption. There is a smoothing overall if we look at the combined ratio.
Yes, Andrew, and I can absolutely confirm this view going forward. As Clemens also briefly mentioned, we think with our combined ratio guidance more over the cycle and mid term. This is not changed here. There is no short term impact from changing interest rates. This is really just the overall balance of profitability and the positive impact that we currently still see. We are in 2025 around 2% of this Tailwind. This is well covered by our very prudent and conservative reserving.
Great, thank you.
We now have a question from the line of Kamran Hossain from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Two questions. The first one is just on the decision making process around like some of the financial statement in the quarter. I hear what you're saying on, you know, taking, you know, adding a little bit less prudence into the reserves and doing more on kind of realizing losses and therefore allowing the fixed income to, I guess, returns to pick up going forward. What's the decision making behind that? Was there really, you know, is it an either or could you do kind of more? Could you have done more reserving less realized losses or is this a sign that you're reaching the top of what might be like an acceptable level of prudence in your reserves to auditors? You can't really add that much more so you're choosing to do other things. The second question is just on the guidance on the 88.
You know, this is not a complaint at all. You know, I can't remember in all my years when you've guided above consensus. Clearly very positive. Why now? You talked about over the course of the last couple of years you talked about keeping the combined ratio stable. I think earlier in the year we heard it might have been 88 for the medium term and now it's moving to 87. Just trying to understand kind of why now and is the 87 now the medium term guidance or it's not going to get worse than that for the medium term. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. Kamran, Christian here. I'll take the first one. You ask for the decision making process and there is no fixed rule, there is no automatism and there's also no either or. We have to assess the business, look at the development and we can pronounce one measure over the other. We could balance both and I would explicitly not rule that out for the future. Here as we are already at a quite comfortable reserving level for our P&C business, we decided to focus more and act a bit opportunistically to lock in the higher interest rates. This is, and I want to emphasize this, there's no sign at all that we reach the maximum level of reserves or something like this.
There's still room to continue with our very prudent reserving approach also in the future, and we will see how this is used also for the rest of the year.
Kamran, just on the overall guidance for 2026 and add a bit of color here. You should still see this guidance. The way we come up with overall guidance has not changed at all compared to previous years. You should still see this guidance in light of having some resilience, some level of prudency into that overall guidance. Also for 2026. I think this is a reflection of a strong underlying result both coming in life and health. It has allowed us, particularly in the third quarter, as you would have noticed, Kamran, to realize some losses on the fixed income side as you that will of course come through over the next one, two, three years. Given the duration of the portfolio, we will see some of that increased run rates in our fixed income portfolio already into next year.
That has driven a bit our overall guidance for 2026 on the combined ratio in particular. This is also a reflection of that we've seen a strong underlying combined ratio this year. We have the discount impact again which is smoothened to some extent by way of not taking full advantage. Overall we wanted to bring it in fact to a more realistic combined ratio. Still no change in prudency when it comes to our reserving approach. We do this consider as a more stable combined ratio, a consistent combined ratio also over the midterm. Through the cycle that's how you can read it.
That's great. Thanks very much.
The next question comes from the line of Chris Hartwell from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning. A couple of quick questions. First one is on the life side, the new business appeared quite strong in the quarter, so I was wondering if you could give a little bit more color on that. Second is, and probably a little bit of an extension to the previous question from Kamran. You commented that the target for 2025 is not a reflection of the lost benefits so far. I guess I was a bit intrigued by your comment around more upside risk than downside for forward earnings guidance, particularly given, I guess, the historical nature of finding either realized losses or prudence or so on. I was just again wondering on your sort of thought if Q4 does or does not throw up anything particularly exciting on the loss fund and if I can have a sort of a part B on that second one.
You also sort of commented about Melissa being sort of contained within budget, but given how much budget you have still available from the first nine months. That seems to put a number in the range of zero to almost EUR 500 million. I was wondering if you can give a little bit more color on your Melissa exposure. Thank you.
Yes, maybe. Let me. It's Claude here. Let me start with the life and h ealth question on the new business. This is really as Christian already alluded to, it's the result of one, mainly t he result of one bigger transaction, that w e have written in Q3. As you know, the new business CSM life and test is transactional and t his really depending on some bigger transaction. This is the case here in Q3.
Chris, on the guidance for 2025. If we were observing another benign fourth quarter mentioned, there's still quite some budget left for the fourth quarter. If that would be the case, as Christian said, I think there are only two things that we will consider at year end. One is of course further realization acceleration of fixed income unrealized losses which will support future earnings growth. Second, we do feel comfortable with our reserve level now. I think we significantly built reserve resiliency over the last couple of years, but there's still some room to increase those further. At the same time, I wouldn't fully rule out that some of that potential tailwind that we might see, touch wood, on Q4 could also have an impact on the P&L. Again, that's something to consider. Late and B. Yeah.
On Melissa. Chris, it's Sven, I don't have a number for you yet. It's still early days so we are still gathering all the information. To narrow the range a little bit for you, if you look at the EUR 450 million unutilized budget for Q3, we are not expecting Melissa to use all of this EUR 450 million. On the other hand, we expect this to be a three-digit loss for our share. Jamaica from a territory point of view is where we have a slightly above average market share. Hope that gives you a little b it of color but we do not expect that the EUR 450 million unutilized budget is fully used for Melissa.
Great, thank you very much.
We now have a question from the line of Darius Satkauskas from KBW. Please go ahead.
Oh hi there. Thank you for taking my questions. Can you tell us what was the market's impact in the course and your solvency ratio? And then the second question is I know you sort of carry the reserves in life and health of best estimate but obviously you're quite conservative in your assumptions. I'm just wondering how much of the new business loss component impact in life and health would you attribute to building prudence in regards to China morbidity and what was needed due to the underlying trends? Thank you.
Hi Darius,it's Christian. I'll take the first one on solvency. If I got you right, you asked for the impact of the market impact on the solvency ratio and there I can say that the impact of risk free rate and spreads together were rather neutral.
This brings us to your question on t he life and health loss component. I mean the new business loss component. As we said, is very small. It's just about EUR 10 million. The rest of the loss component that you were referring to the Chinese m orbidity business, Greater China morbidity business is a pproximately 50% of this is coming from t he Chinese morbidity business.
My question is more should we see it as sort of reserve strengthening or is there an element of prudence in that number and how much?
Sorry, sorry, I got you. No, it's really an element of prudence. We did it via the risk adjustment. It is pure prudency.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Iain Pearce from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one was just on the insurance revenue in P&C. Obviously that was quite a big miss. If you could just give us a walk so we can understand. Sort o f different contributing factors because how much was NDIC, how much FX and how much was due to some large contract impacts I think you flagged. Can you give us some guidance for how much NDIC impact you would expect in Q4 and if there's any expected to roll into Q1, Q2 next year as well. The second one was just on the discounting benefit, obviously finding higher discounting benefits for next year. Just explain why you're expecting that given where interest rates are. There is another one just on the tax rate in the quarter that was obviously very low. Could you just give us a bit of an explanation as to what drove. That and if there's anything to go f orward to think about with tax rates. Thank you.
Okay, Iain, I'll take the three questions here. First on the insurance revenue in P&C, just to give you the walk again. We had an FX impact of roughly 2% and the NDIC impact was year to date around 7.5%. I mean you can do the math yourself, I know, but it's roughly EUR 1 billion of impact and I would expect that we see not the same amount for the fourth quarter. It will go down substantially. For Q1 and Q2 next year, I would virtually expect that it's just not substantial or relevant anymore. The last impact that I mentioned was the timing of booking of some larger contracts. This is an amount of a bit more than EUR 100 million, so 0.5% impact on the growth rate in P&C.
The next question was regarding the discount rate, and here yes, you referred to t he c apital markets and where rates currently are. You have to see that we are talking about the earned through of the interest rate. We look not just at the very current renewals, but we look at more or less two to three underwriting years that we see here in the earnings pattern. We still see some catch up for the interest rate environment. The last question referred to the high or the low tax rate. A high one off impact here. This is the coming reform of the German corporate income tax. To remind you all, starting in 2028, the corporate income tax in Germany will be lowered by one percentage point each year for consecutive five years. This is the reason why we could release a substantial amount from our deferred tax liability that we carry under IFRS. This is a bit more than 8 percentage point positive one off impact. Yeah, I said it's a one off.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Vinit Malhotra from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you. One, so some hopefully three quick ones. Sorry. In the combined ratio, you know, I'm just curious, the slightly lower prudence in 3Q where obviously 3Q was also as, let's say, good a quarter as 2Q and maybe it's a little bit of follow up here. You said obviously you had no compulsions, no restrictions on reserving and prudence. I'm just curious, was there any reason that you kept the prudence a b it lower in Q3? That's first question. Second question is on the top line for next year. I mean from your comments about structured, which I understand is hard to predict. If you could just comment what's c hanging in that area? Why, why is it that, why do you think that this is becoming a little bit of a, maybe a headwind even to the growth?
If my understanding of the comment is correct. Lastly, this kind of step up in realizing bond losses. You know, I think in the CMD Investor day of last month we talked about maybe 10 basis points of pickup in yield with these measures, could we expect that to kind of go up a little bit? Because that's hopefully the motivation behind that. Thank you very much.
Yeah, thank you Vinit for your questions and I comment on the first one. You ask for the lower prudency standalone and I can. There are no restrictions that drove our decision here, but I would look more for the full nine months of the year. As you know, it already increased our resiliency in the reserves substantially. From the overall view it was a good opportunity to now shift a bit more to focusing on the investment side and use opportunistically the realization of hidden losses to increase the resiliency here and fuel a bit the future earnings by that measure. Maybe I directly jump to the third one and take that also.
As you said, and I elaborated on that on the investors day, we expect just from the roll over from our investment book roughly 10 basis points increased running yield each year going forward. You are completely right with your assumption. By the over EUR 300 million of realizations we did in the three months, this will give another upside of around 7-8 basis points would be my rough guess. This is already also reflected in the new guidance on the ROIs. We started in 2025 with a guidance of 3.2 and now we face 3.5 for 2026. One of the drivers here is exactly the realization of losses.
Vinit. On the structured side, please keep in mind the guidance we have given is for 2020 only. It is not an over-the-cycle statement we are making on the structured side. I mean, some of the buying when it comes to risk remote reinsurance can be transitional. When we looked at the guidance for next year, we had a few clients telling us that they will reduce their sessions. That does not necessarily mean that our market share will reduce more. The opposite. Very often in a situation where a client is reducing the session, our signed line is protected better compared to the average. Nonetheless, given reduced sessions, we have a little bit of a headwind. On the other hand, we can say that the demand for structured products is still strong. We have a very good pipeline.
We have already closed a few transactions, but as part of the pipeline there are still quite a number of deals where the negotiations are not such that we can say with 100% confidence that we will close the transaction. Therefore, given the bulkiness of the business, to be on the cautious side, we have decided to let you know that the guidance is for the traditional business only and that we have to wait and see the outcome on the s tructured side of things.
Okay, thank you very much.
The next question comes from a line of Will Hardcastle from UBS, please go ahead.
Morning everyone. The first one's coming back I'm afraid on the uplift in the discount rate. Three percentage points year on year. It's a really large uplift. I appreciate you said to Ian's question it's a three year rolling on locked in rates. Is there anything else underneath that? Cause that it seems like a huge jump. The second one is it's really tough to unpick the combined ratio guide year on year. I guess you're saying it's more of a cross cycle guide almost, is that right? Are you willing to say essentially that you'd be operating better than that cross cycle underneath the bonnet at the moment and for 2026? I'm just trying to work it out because you've improved at one point there's three points more discounting benefit. You're suggesting that reserving prudency won't need to be as much additions either.
You know you might have something like five percentage points of improvement year on year just from those things. I am trying to back out essentially what is the year on year deterioration that you are assuming in it from an underlying level. Are you able to help us out on that? Thanks.
Yeah, thanks Will. Let me start looking at the discount again. That's absolutely true. That's a substantial move if we just compare the numbers. As said, there are different elements here driving this and one is to earn through. We see here, I already mentioned from the different up to three underwriting years, and of course we also see the reserve increases and the reserve actions here. As we added and not just expect this for 2025, the numbers on reserve and prudency build up also for 2020. This is predominantly done in the long tail and very long tail lines as there is also the most substantial portion of the reserves. Of course, this also drives the duration of the overall portfolio a bit and gives another increase, a bit like self-feeding on the discount increase.
It is not the one driver, it is really a composition of that. Last, I would also mention that as we now have quite some experience on IFRS 17 and IFRS 9, I think we are also a bit more confident in doing forecasts and trying to utilize our models and our predictions with the methodology here.
Will. On the Combined Ratio? Yes, as you mentioned, it is a mix of certain factors that are all meant together when we looked at it to bring us in fact to a running Combined Ratio, a guided Combined Ratio that is to be viewed over the cycle really midterm to bring us to a more stable number. Again, one of the driving factors is the discount rate. Yes. But also potential pricing and rate movements as we go into 2026. It is also a reflection on the quality diversification of the book, of course. Hence, the underlying combined ratio has been very strong in 2025. You should also see this combined ratio being again a bit more realistic. However, it gives also room for pricing dynamics as we go into 2026 or even beyond that.
Thanks. I guess just to verify on that, do you think 2026 is likely a better than cross cycle all else equal?
On the combined ratio you mean or?
Yes, on that versus 87%?
Yeah, I mean the underlying combined ratio is expected to be below the 87% of course, but again it allows for some, for some prudency depending on how the renewal goes, how the pricing environment changes.
That's great, thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press N1 on your telephone. We now have a question from the line of Roland Pfänder from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Two questions on the life side please. You had quite solid results on the life new business in this quarter. Could you talk a little bit about the composition? Was it more mortality, longevity or financial solutions in the end? Then secondly, reinsurance service result, you added EUR 50 million towards 2026 in your guidance. Is this entirely fueled by a better loss component? Maybe you could elaborate a little b it about your expectations regarding loss component. Going into next year. Thank you.
Yes, thank you very much. It's close talking. You talk about the new business CSM and in particular about Q3. I guess again I said it before already. It's driven by one larger transaction and this transaction is coming from the financial solutions business. That's the question to your first. The answer to the first question then offers the increased reinsurance services of EUR 15 million is mainly I would drive it. Driven by the increase of our business in general. As I told you probably in the Investors Day. I don't know whether we're there yet. The size of our portfolio. You always have to expect some loss component, additional loss components the same as y ou can expect some experience variances, changes in estimates. We have obviously included some prudency in this figure that we have shown there. It is coming really out of the growth of the life and health business.
Okay, thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen. That was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Clemens Jungsthöfel for any closing remarks.
Yes, thank you very much for your interest this morning. Just to reiterate, I guess, overall, the new guidance highlights Hannover Re's successful and lean business model. That lean business model will support further efficient growth in the future. Together with our strong, very strong balance sheet, I'd say that will allow us to grow our earnings throughout the cycle. Together with these capital returns, this will sustainably create value for our shareholders. With that, thank you again and speak soon.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.