[Foreign language] . Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Chris Hussong from Munich, and welcome to the Balance Sheet Media Conference from Munich. We're live from our Munich Schwabing Conference Center. Today, we present you with the result of fiscal 2022, and we'll give you an outlook on the current fiscal year. Please do accept our apologies for the delayed start. This was due to technical issues. For all the journalists joining us, there are two ways of asking your question. Please, on your phone, key press star one after the presentations are over, and then you will be over to, of course, ask questions during the presentations by the chat. We have Dr. Joachim Wenning, CEO, and CFO Dr. Christoph Jurecka with us today. Joachim, over to you.
Right. Thank you very much, Andreas, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, dear colleagues from the media. Welcome also from my side for today's conference call. I was wondering what I should start with today. Tomorrow, the Russian war on Ukraine has its first anniversary. Thousands of people dead. We are in mourning. Soldiers and civilians, tens of thousands of people injured. At least the pandemic is approaching its end around the globe. Roughly 7 million people were registered who passed due to COVID. That is about every thousandth person. At least, luckily, we saw the development of vaccines in record time. Otherwise, it would have been countless more who passed. About weeks ago, we had the earthquake in Türkiye, in Syria. 40,000-50,000 people died as of current estimate, and many, many more injured.
Behind such tragic human stories, of course, economic numbers that Mr. Christoph Jurecka and I will be reporting on today are not at all what's most important. We are feeling with and mourning with the families and friends affected. The insurance industry has to be able to withstand such disasters. Otherwise, its entire mission statement, providing financial security and stability in cases of emergency, would not be fulfilled.
We have withstood all these disasters, and we are proud of it. 2022 was an additional year with large challenges for the entire industry. I am happy about the fact that for Munich Re, it was still a very good economic year. In a world that has basically been thrown off its axis, we stayed on track and have generated EUR 3.4 billion in net income, and therefore exceeded our guidance. At the same time, we strengthened our reserves. Therefore, we are fully meeting inflationary risks.
We did this without threatening the annual targets, while at the same time increasing our revenue generation for the future. Now, of course, nobody knew which geopolitical and macroeconomic turbulences we would be facing in 2022. The Russian war of aggression, the economic upheaval, the rapidly increasing inflation, the serious upwards turnaround of interest rates, and of course, also the upheavals of the capital market. Of course, therefore, also our capital investment result was put under pressure. However, a very strong operational result and development of all business areas was able to make up for this. Diversification, therefore, does its job exactly how it was intended. We continue to let our shareholders share this success.
We are suggesting increasing our dividend to EUR 11.60, and have also decided to carry out share buybacks for EUR 1 billion until the AGM of next year, so 2024. The slide before this one, this slide, of course, once again, really underlines the benefits of diversification of Munich Re. With more than EUR 800 million, ERGO had a very strong performance. That this was slightly beneficial to compensating the slightly less impressive reinsurance business. Life, of course, also was more than double of our guidance and also technical revenue sources did the rest. The strategic perspective of Ambition 2025, therefore, is starting to pay off. The larger the contribution margin of our non-cyclical businesses, the more stable, the more foreseeable our earnings are.
The next slide shows that we are on track. Regarding our earnings, we are already on level of 2025. This is of course for ERGO. This is not just our return on equity, but as we have announced last year on our Investor Day, the return on equity goals, according to IFRS 16, we have actually increased 14%-16%. This is not an ambitious increase. This simply reflects the income generation and income realization according to IFRS 17, which are further upstream. With earnings per share of 11%, we are significantly above our promise with an increase of 5.5% in dividend growth. We also keep our dividend promise. When it comes to our capitalization, it's actually gotten even stronger. Our Solvency II ratio is at 260%, which is significantly above our ideal bandwidth.
Long story short, the financial flexibility is what we have. We can increase the dividend. We can also carry out a share buyback of EUR 1 billion. On the next slide, we can see that inflation throughout 2022 has increased to a level not seen in over half a century. Even if we've seen the green shoots of a certain relaxation, we don't expect in the foreseeable future that inflation will go back down to 2% or lower. The quite significant burdens of natural catastrophes, which you will see on the bottom part of this slide, were partially, of course, driven by these inflation trends.
Something to note on the positive side is that the in-consistently high losses and inflation, of course, support the hard market, but both for the new business as well as for our preexisting businesses, we need to make the respective reserves, and we have done so. The prudence level of our reserves is therefore practically unchanged. Mr. Jurecka, of course, is going to talk more about that going forward. In the January renewals on the next slide show that we are clearly the preferred reinsurer. Our risk appetite and our price expectations were communicated to the market very early on. We did not reduce capacities, quite the contrary, actually, and there was no rude awakening on our side. This reliability and this expectability was something that our clients truly appreciated. High nominal price increases, however, were already necessary to compensate inflation and loss trends.
In fact, however, we were able to increase prices beyond that. The increase of 2.3% for our entire portfolio is therefore fully risk adjusted and corresponds to a margin increase to the same amount. This includes, of course, material business mix effects of almost 1 percent point. This is, of course, especially for the non-proportional non-life business. We've also improved our quality. For example, the inclusion and exclusion of damages and claims, but this is also secondary risks and miscellaneous risks, which in the soft market are oftentimes covered as well. The following slide shows how the rates and volumes developed per unit. I would like to say, once again, that the rate changes here are risk adjusted, which means that this corresponds to a margin improvement.
Please do accept our apologies for being rather on the prudent side, but trust me, in the long run, this is always worth it. You can, of course, see that especially in the United States, in the liability business, the increases were barely covering the inflation increase. Our proportional property business was therefore reduced. In the non-proportional business, which is actually more risky, we have seen partially very significant rate increases, which has led to a volume increase in the portfolio. In the property business, when it comes to NatC ats as well as in other specific lines, we increased. We've actually met a very beneficial market environment. The price increase of 2.3% all in all over the entire portfolios underlines the attractiveness of the non-proportional property business, but doesn't cover it entirely.
The reason for this is that in the January renewals, this business is usually only weighted at around 10%. In the renewals that we are facing throughout the year for the 1st of April and the 1st of June and the 1st of July, this share of course increases. Meaning, this should definitely also translate into the ongoing rate increases going forward. Next slide. Due to the higher inflation, we also saw a strong raise in interest rates. This can also be seen during the much higher Solvency II rates. The higher interest rates are only translated into the P&L statement bit by bit, with the reinvestment of either disposed securities or other factors. Of course, it is a sustainable effect. We also have portfolio reshuffling measures, and we are reducing write-down losses, which in the long run improve the income going forward sustainably.
If on the next page, we are facing the additional challenges of the industry, the high volatility due to enormous damages and claims from natural catastrophes. We've actually used the January renewal to grow in this segment for good reason. The so-called NatCat business over time has actually become one of our most profitable lines of business. Larger than normal losses in the past few years don't change anything about this setup, of course. With the diversification of our healthy balance sheet as well as a healthy capitalization, we are able to conquer and manage this particular volatility. Due to these insured issues for NatCat, a lot of them are of course weather driven, we oftentimes critically double-check the model itself. We can only say our models have always been completely up-to-date and state-of-the-art for years and years.
They are based on a very long history of data, they of course, continue to project the latest insights from research, development, and science. If then, you can see the last five years, the actual major losses, despite industry losses of more than $90 billion per year on average, fully were in line with our expectations. 2022, despite massive damages from Hurricane Ian, we were actually slightly below the budget. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not just luck, but it is instead the result of a diligent risk selection, risk diversification, as well as a disciplined risk management approach. We do not expose ourselves to a single one risk, no matter how attractive it is, and we won't do so going forward. We're not only focused on the NatCat business.
With our Ambition 2025, we of course strive to focus more on stable, less cyclical businesses and expanding them going forward. With that, of course, stabilizing our overall earnings. Now, this means specifically growth at ERGO, growth at specialty insurance, and growth at life reinsurance. This also means diversification within the actual property reinsurance business. On the next page, I would like to say something on our primary insurance business, and I would like to start with risk insurance. Of course, here, several primary insurance businesses are part of the whole. From this year on, this will all be put together in a new executive board office that we call Global Specialty Insurance, headed by Michael Kerner.
Now, the goal of this particular office or board office position is to further support the expansion of these businesses and further specialize our Global Specialty Insurance business. We want to become a force to be reckoned with, a big global player. The new governance is going to allow us more easily to realize synergies in the underwriting areas, in the sales areas, and in the operations area, and by doing so, expanding our performance in the market even further. Until 2025, we expect that this particular business line will grow up to roughly EUR 10 billion in premium growth, and earnings of EUR 1 billion per year doesn't seem entirely unrealistic, even from today's perspective. ERGO, in the past few years, significantly increased their earnings year-over-year, and even in 2022, gave an excellent result of more than EUR 800 million.
More than EUR 600 million of this are sustainable, and roughly EUR 200 million of this are due to a one-off effect. The reason for this success was profitable growth in all segments and regions of roughly 5%. Discipline in the underwriting business, as well as continuous cost discipline. For the future, ERGO is striving for growth above market levels across all business areas and is going to continue to improve their earnings. When it comes to ERGO's performance, they have truly become tried and tested since 2016, and therefore, I do believe strongly that ERGO is going to contribute greatly onto our earnings diversification, and with that, our earnings stabilization here at Munich Re. 2022, outside of our financial performance, of course, we also focused on climate targets.
On another slide, you will actually see how decarbonization is working for us, both for insurance as well as for investments. For the investments, as of the end of 2022, we actually had a CO2 reduction of 46% in our assets compared to 2019. At the same time, our investment in renewable energies has increased to EUR 2.4 billion. Out of this, we can actually say was EUR 0.7 billion more than the prior year. Also the liabilities, of course, see a significant reduction for coal-fired power plants, thermal coal mining, as well as oil and gas businesses. Also, our own emissions, mainly from real estate and travel, have been reduced by 22% as a group. Of course, we are striving to hit net zero by 2030.
Until 2025, we also would like to achieve a share of women at management levels of 40% across the entire group. At the beginning of the year of 2020, we started at 35%, and at the end of 2022, we were already at 38.5%. The 40% are therefore almost in our grasp, but we still need to, of course, make sure that we stick with the scope because, of course, utilizing the female talent pool, as it's called, is more challenging if we don't retain these excellent female workers. Our so-called gender focus on the share of women, however, is just the start. Throughout this year, we are going to add additional diversity dimensions regionally and locally. Inclusion, however, is just as important as diversity. It depends on every single person, both personally as well as professionally. Every opinion counts.
We respect every sentiment and feeling. Again, we would like to be a trailblazer and a benchmark in this area as well. Let me summarize. Our strategy is paying off. A well-diversified business portfolio, of course, is catering to our earnings stability. A beneficial market environment is going to further our growth and our profitability when it comes to property casualty. Inflation is something that we master, just like any other challenge before. We do so carefully, of course. Should there not be a large political or macroeconomic shock that occurs, as of today, we are even more optimistic than 1 or even 2 years ago to achieve all of our goals of Ambition 2025 in full. Because of this, of course, we are quite happy that the capital markets have honored our profitable growth path.
When it comes to the Total Shareholder Return, in the last four years, we have left all of our global competitors in global reinsurance and in European primary insurance in the dust. What's even more important for us is that in 2022, we don't know of any significant point where Munich Re didn't do better than the market, and that makes me very proud of our employees and our team. This brings me to the end of my presentation. The forecast is unchanged compared to our communication of last December. Outlook is confirmed. In 2023, we are striving for a net result of EUR 4 billion. Christoph Jurecka is now going to go into the numbers in more detail. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Good morning from me as well. I'm very happy to give you the details about our accounts. Like Mr. Wenning said, 2022 has been a very successful year for Munich Re. What impressed me most was the resilience of our operating fields. As a group, we were not only able to, say, stomach and digest the macroeconomic crisis, but also exceed our annual target. Here, I believe diversification really paid off. A catchword which was mentioned several times. Technical in life reinsurance, I should say our capital investment result is slightly lower, but we were also able to, you know, balance out the consequences of high inflation. I am really very happy that I'm able to explain all this to you in more detail. I think we should start on the first page.
This is the result of 2021-2022, EUR 3.4 IFRS result. EUR 3.3 was the target, so we exceeded the target. This of course is due to growth and an increased profitability, which is also forward-looking and will have an effect in the future. Taking into account the hard market conditions, which Mr. Wenning mentioned already. ERGO also contribute to the result, EUR 126 million, and this means they exceeded their target as well. Reinsurance, as I mentioned before, particularly life and health. Here, we've seen a very strong result. Property casualty insurance, reinsurance, that is also proved to be very resilient, you know, vis-a-vis the inflation, which has never been as high as this. Capitalization. I can say that we've concluded this year with a wonderful result.
The rate is going up to 260%, this means it is clearly above the upper margin. Capitalization is good. We feel well with this because it is the foundation for more profitable growth into the future, it is also the foundation for the capital measures which we announced yesterday, i.e., the share or stock repurchase or share buyback and the dividend payouts. Other figures. Some of the figures, some of them are below that of the previous year, we can say that this was influenced by the results which we generated yesterday. Of course, there's a burden on the result if there's volatility, you know, have an impact on the capital markets, this is what we had to take into account. HGB result, EUR 1.1 billion.
I can say that this is more than sufficient in order to keep the amounts of funds which can be distributed on a higher level. Like we communicated with our Ambition 2025, it all supports our approach. On the next page, I would like to give you a short overview of the fourth quarter, isolated that is, then I will give you a broader view. The fourth quarter, I can say, was very good, EUR 1.5 billion result in this single quarter, multiplied by four, then you see how strong it was. Of course, we cannot do it like this, simply like this. You know, we've got these analogies which we have to take into account. Of course, we also have to look at the development of the major losses in one quarter, fourth quarter, major losses.
I could say that this was a good quarter, actually. This means we benefited from the situation. If you look at property casualty reinsurance, here the situation was good. The combined ratio, 94.4%. We also benefited from the situation that the major losses were really, say, not prevalent or happened very rarely. Four percent resolution and the combined ratio, as I said, 94.4%. This is really very good. Other details about the inflation. I'm going to talk about it later because this is a central issue in our environment. On this page, I would like to talk about life and health. The technical result is EUR 366 million. This is what you see on this chart.
You know, the target was EUR 400 million, you see if there is a EUR 366 million quarter target, this means that one quarter was able to generate the result of, you know, which usually covers a whole year. ERGO 324. Their contribution to the product, very good, say, operational performance, particularly in Germany, 91.4%. Very good combined ratio, very good profitable level. On an international scale, I can say that we have seen that here, the combined ratio in the fourth quarter was 96.1%. The capital investment result, 4.3%. This means it was clearly higher than the annual amount. In reinsurance, you see 5.8% return on investment.
This is a number which is due to disposals of equity and securities. Then we had other losses due to disposals, which we had to, which we had to accept. We also produced it, so to speak, in order to strengthen our position in the future. At the end of the day, this is a positive result in reinsurance. ERGO, clearly slower. Here we used hedging instruments, which they use, and as you know, we hedge such investments in those portfolios where we have customers and clients. Here we hedge these portfolios against major losses, although the portfolios might develop very well and the, the share, the stock of this portfolio really increased its value in the fourth quarter of portfolio, then we've got the shared derivatives.
These are all the hedging instruments which we are using, meaning the ERGO yield was slightly below the annual average. Reinvestment, 3.9%. We've never had invested money at these high interest rates. Of course, this is very good because it strengthens our earning power. Next page. This is the, again, the investment, but for the entire year. Let me start here. You see the 2.1% yield. This is slightly below the original target of 2.5%. You know, if you look at the FX result and add it to the 2.1% plus 0.3. If you add it to the 2.1, then including currency, the investment result is 2.4%. According to IFRS, we have to show things separately. There is investment and FX or currencies.
Internally, I should say that this is a single earnings source, which we show here. When looking at currency, this is an important asset class for us. We control it, we manage it separately. We invested it consciously, taking into account risk or sometimes even avoiding risks. 0.3%, you just add it to the figure, generating a 2.4% yield. I think that this is very close to the 2.5% annual target. It means we have, say, undercut the result, but we are very close to this result. What are the individual components of the investment result? It starts on the left side. You know, we've got current capital income, 2.8%. They are clearly higher than last year, 2.4% last year.
Here you see the positive effects of higher reinvestment or new investment than the 0.4%. Surely is also good because they will have a positive impact on our results in the future. The next three columns, they reflect volatilities which we've seen in the markets. In this environment, on the one hand, write-downs, but also gains or disposals. We also had other hedging instruments and derivatives. The combination of all these three pillars, you know, you know, on balance, it's not that high. Nevertheless, each and every pillar, you know, shows very good, say, developments. This has to do with the volatilities which we've seen over the year. Next year. Here, I would like to talk about the key performance figures of or key financials.
On this side, we can see that there was, you know, gratuitous growth, EUR 90.1 billion. These are the TWP after the EUR 80.2 billion last year. Here the net result was even better, EUR 826 million compared to the prior year, EUR 605 million. We may say that the previous year, as well as the target, was exceeded clearly at go. You know, also the return on equity was also very good, very gratifying. You know, this was actually a figure which ERGO planned to achieve or generate in 2025. The drivers, health, and life, EUR 185 million Germany. This means the operative development was very good.
Higher currency result was also one of our extraordinary effect of EUR 200 million in the fourth quarter. This, of course, had a positive impact on our operating result. Property and casualty for Germany. Here we have seen a growth, and we assume that this is a growth which is above the market level, so outperforming the market. The technical result of combined ratio, you can see it on the chart, 19.6%. I think that this is outstanding because the German market is a very competitive market. It's highly, as I said, competitive. You will see, looking at the German market, you will not find many competitors who are close to this combined ratio, you know, extrapolated over the entire year. International business, go. Also good results.
The previous year was influenced positively by a one-off effect. The combined ratio, 94.3%. This is an international one. I mentioned it when talking about the third quarter. It was influenced by inflation. It is slightly above the expectations and the target level. This was driven, you know, this was influenced by things like the Polish market, also major losses. Next page. This is about the reinsurance. Here again, I would like to talk about the growth first. As you can see, the GWP, EUR 48.1 billion after EUR 41.4 billion last year. Here you have to hold or stop for a moment. You see such a growth, EUR 7 billion approximately.
I think that this is remarkable, and I don't know how to evaluate this. This is clearly positive. Mr. Wenning mentioned this already in his presentation. You know, these are margins which are improving continuously over time. This means we can say that this is really a satisfying figure, and we are really happy looking at it. You see that the return on equity also risen, and it has reached the upper end of our corridor between 12% and 14%. Of course, looking at reinsurance, we can say that we've got some time until 2025. By then, we really wanted to have, you know, a figure within this band of 12%-14%. Surely the result is also above the prior year result. You see how it is made up, EUR 1.9 million. This is to PC, that is Property and casualty reinsurance. You've got life and health.
Here we've got 737. Here we can see that major losses over the year were slightly lower than expectations, I can say. This means we had a year, but major losses influenced the budget. We had several years with many more major losses. You know, Hurricane Ian, for instance, we had a major, you know, a major loss. It was one of the largest and most horrible hurricanes which we've seen in history, so to speak. These winter events in the United States clearly had an impact. Nevertheless, they influenced, if you like, the insurance market. I can say that the major loss result in our case is within, say, our expectations.
It also means when it comes to risk relation or underwriting, I can say that we really have, you know, bet on the right business, so to speak. We have a look at these figures here. Combined ratio normalized, 96.2%. This is slightly above the value last year, if you normalize it, sorry. You know, the reason is that the inflation effects, you know, we had to adjust the normalized combined ratio slightly higher, taking into account inflation, taking into account any provisions set aside for, say, major losses. This is the reason why we ended up with this normalized combined ratio. Life health, taking the result EUR 918 million. This is the picture on the right, on the bottom right.
The target was EUR 400 million for that year. You know, if you define a target and if you achieve it at 200%, which means you achieve twice the amount or the target, then this, of course, is extremely extraordinary and shows how successful the year was. What is the reason? Well, you know, something which rarely happens in the insurance industry, and, you know, we talk about expectations, but in life and health this year it was that all developments, all the developments which we looked at, were all moving in the right direction, all positive. This is the reason why we've got this extraordinary result at the end of the year. As I said, EUR 400 million, that was planned and the final result, EUR 918 million, really, really gratifying. Page 27.
It's about the results. This is the Risk Solutions business. Mr. Wenning mentioned it already. This is the primary insurance business. Here you see the growth, +35%. Also remarkable, EUR 9.7 billion premiums over 3 years. You know, the premiums or the amount of or the number of premiums doubled, or rather contracts increased 96.1%. This is the combined ratio. Surely this is plausible. Inflation effects also can be seen in the primary insurance business, and Hurricane Ian, of course, other major losses also have an impact on the results, you know, also in traditional primary business. Next page, a few details about our reserving strategy. We are very cautious or conservative in our approach, and this, of course, is reflected in our, say, business performance.
We maintained this strategy despite inflation effects and despite challenges affecting the entire industry, and I'm going to talk about them a bit later. This caution, this conservative approach is to be maintained. This is our plan. If you look on the right side, the graph shows you that we released provisions, and in this case it was 4%. 4% , well, actually is our target, our objective. As you can see, if you look at the past, then we've always ended up with 4%, you know, and of course, we will be able to continue this into the future. What is remarkable in this case is that we grow. You see 4%, and this is due to a larger volume of contracts. You know, in absolute euro terms, we see higher figures.
Four point, this means EUR 3.1 provision release. Last year, only EUR 1 billion provision releases. This means that our reserves have also been formed, surely, or set aside in the past. The current, say premium volume is not the standard of the benchmark, but the figures come from the past or based on the past. We can say 4%, and although we were able to release some of the provisions, and as I said, EUR 1.3 billion was the final result. Industrial challenges or the challenges for the industry, what are they? You know, the US liability business, this affected the entire industry and, you know, the industry faced a lot of challenges in this respect.
This year we have seen a very good, say, loss or disaster development, but we really didn't believe it. We thought, "This doesn't merit any belief." We responded accordingly. Why did we respond like we did? We also have to take into account that there are some kind of aftershocks after this or that development, and we don't want to get ensnared in a trap that because this year was good, we start, you know, releasing any provisions which we might need the next year. Our major loss complex is, to put it like this-Well, you know, the war in Ukraine, the Russia-Ukraine war, we set up provisions, and this means EUR 450 million in provisions for this, say, war event, and EUR 140 million provisions for COVID.
The coronavirus pandemic was also released, and this is really gratifying because then it's really positive that despite the release of the EUR 140 million, we can still assume that we are, you know, still have a more cautious view of our reserves. Inflation. Talking about inflation, I think it is always important that we consistently take into account the entire value chain. This starts with pricing, underwriting, and how do we, say, organize our business. Of course, it ends up with reserving or reservations. Mr. Wenning mentioned the new business here, also mentioned that we have a margin improvement in this respect. Despite the different stations, we're beyond inflation, so this means that our new business, we are quite, say, sure that we were able to digest any negative effects. Reserving, checking, reserving.
We found out by doing so that EUR 1.3 billion were or are to be considered as an additional, say, effect, which we have to take into account when talking about inflation. If you look at 2022, then you see the figures here, the remaining 50% they refer to the previous year's business year. 2022, I touched on this already. The combined ratio is, you know, here the normalized combined ratio is 96% plus. This goes beyond the expectations which we had with a view to our plans. Comparing to previous years, we can say that we used our own reserves only to cover or finance these requirements. We didn't have any major, say, repercussions felt because of the inflation.
We've seen a better result compared to the 4% which we have released. This of course will compensate some of the inflation. There are other parts which we had to finance. These parts were financed by the reserve which we formed in the past for such inflationary scenarios. These reserves were reallocated to the current segments, that is, the segments which are heavily affected by inflation. We've got a reallocation from a strong part of our reserves to those affected by, say, negative developments. This means we were able to cover things or compensate things. I think the important conclusion is that we are very well reserved, that we were able to digest the inflation very much, and that our reserves are high.
Looking forward into the future, we can be upbeat, optimistic, and this means I would like now to move to chart transparency, because we want to know what is the combined ratio and the respective margins. You know, at present, we can assume that we've got a 95% combined ratio. This is before renewals, which I'm going to touch on later. 95%. Why? Because I said the target for 2022 was 94%, but because of the inflation, we ended up with 96%. This inflation effect has been reflected in our pricings. 94%, I should say that this is the point of departure, because we do not assume that we will have a one-off effect of plus 2% starting basis or point of departure. I believe we have to raise this figure ending up with 95%. Why?
You know, we underwrote business last year, it will kind of develop or have an effect into 2023. Maybe there aren't any losses happening yet. If there aren't any losses, if there aren't any, say, disasters, we don't, we need not use any reserves, or we need not set aside some reserves. This is something which we have to take into account when looking ahead into 2023. Combined ratio, as is shown here, then 2% genuine margin improvement from our renewals, 2.3%, which Mr. Wenning mentioned in his presentation. For us, it is very important. You know, looking at the metrics, I should say that we have to take into account the price development. Everything should be fully consistent.
Margin development, like it is also shown in our annual statements or the respective reports, you see 2.3% price changes, and this is certainly reflected in the amounts carried forward. If we've got IFRS 4 and IFRS 17, looking at all this, then you see we come from a 95% combined ratio down to 93% combined ratio. This means I could have given you a very rosy, say, outlook despite the harsh conditions in the marketplace. Nevertheless, we're able to improve matters. Now we have to take into account IFRS 4 and IFRS 17, and there are other reconciliation effects which we have to take into account. This means we will end up and expect a combined ratio of 86%. I know this is something which we communicated in December already.
At the time, we anticipated or we expected at the time, the renewals, i.e. a 2% improvement, and then the changes in our methods which we use. You know, the 1%-2%, this has to do with any commissions or with costs which have to be shown in the books differently when following IFRS 4, IFRS 17 rather. Of course, looking at P&C, so cash flows, so payments for any losses or claims. This is something which has to be deducted. This, of course, will give us a final result of about 9%. If you look at the lower figures, you know, if you add everything up and deduct it from 95, then you will end up with 86%. That's correct, by the way.
The 86% is the expected value. You know, we just wanted to allow some imagination when looking at these figures, so some leeway in the considerations or deliberations, so we could imagine that there will be 86% in 2023. Major loss expectations, 14%. In December, we mentioned 13%. 14% now, because Mr. Wenning also mentioned this in his presentation, the situation has changed. We've got more NatC at business. We have got the so-called more of the Excess business, as we call it, less Proportional business. The reason is that we've got a higher, say, major loss expectations, but fewer basic losses. As you can see, 14% out of those 10% NatCat expected. This brings me to our economic outlook, or Solvency II. 6% Solvency II en route. I mentioned this already.
Some of this is also a very gratifying change compared to the previous year, and despite this growth, you know, growth costs capital, usually because we use capital in order to cover any risks. If the rate is going up like this, then of course there are reasons going beyond growth. The main reason is the interest rate development and also the positive operations development and the very good annual result which we have manifested at the end of the year. On the right side, you see, if you look at the intensity, so to speak, they are relatively small actually, that even at the highest sensitivity which we have seen, we are still haven't reached, say, the optimum range or area in terms of our Solvency II rates or ratio rather.
This feels very good actually against the backdrop of planning good growth into the future despite the market conditions. It feels good because any uncertainties are still very large, actually. You see our risk capital at the bottom of the chart, EUR 17.7 billion, so it was reduced by quite an amount, and this means that this also has to do with, say, interest rates. On the next page, you see that the absolute amount of our risk capital has changed, but also the distribution between the risk and the insurance risk, investment risk and insurance risks, moving towards the insurance risk, 62% now insurance risks.
Of course, it makes sense because, you know, the margins in the insurance business are so good these days that of course, we focus on this, you know, our risk capital in this very hard market. We really have invested in growth, so to speak. Now, the diversification benefit of 30% is not lost. This is very important. Surely this also included in this, say, ratio 62 to 38, you know, which of course like in the past, was also included in the 50/50 distribution. Now this advantage is important, and actually it brings me to the end of my presentation. You know, the wheel comes full circle, if you like. At the beginning, I said that we also that we benefited from diversification.
At the end of my presentation, I would like to show you that this diversification situation or approach will remain stable. We've got a very balanced portfolio like we had a year before. This despite higher profitability, because the hard market also helped us to improve our margins. To sum up, you know, we've got stable, balanced, diversified portfolio with better profitability. I think the outlook could not be better. Having said that, I'd like to conclude and hand back to you. Thank you. Björn?
Thank you very much to our colleagues for the presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, we're now moving on to your questions. On your telephone keyboard, please press star one or write your question in the chat. Unfortunately, the video conference turned into a conference call. Apparently, there seems to be an issue with the video transmission, so only on mobile phones will you be able to receive a video transmission. Actually, the first question is from Mr. Ritchie. Mr. Ritchie is joining us now live.
Thank you very much, Mr. Ritchie, Autonomous Research . Good morning. I have a few questions. Looking forward, Mr. Jurecka, you just outlined your growth plans. There are more and more captives forming that would like to capture insurance business. When will you notice that? Is the pie large enough for everybody at the moment? Number one. Number two, on diversification, you did talk about it.
Can you elaborate a bit further on your digital initiatives? How much have you invested so far? I'm thinking about Relayr, et cetera. How much is the earnings contribution here? Just to be able to gauge how successful this business is. As the last question, if I may, where is the Solvency II ratio going to end up if the capital measures will be completed, the dividend and the share buyback? Thank you.
Hello, this is Joachim Wenning. Good morning. The captives and t heir capacity offering going forward or their potential capacity offering going forward. Well, I would assume that if the insurance and reinsurance market continue to remain attractive, it will only be a matter of time until fresh capital will come into the market. Fresh capital has already been taken out by primary insurance risk carriers in order to keep higher deductibles.
Just think of London market representatives. I think it just depends on when or as long as the rates remain attractive. Analog to that, I would say for the captives, I would make a case for the captives and the alternative capital. How quick this added capital will take place, I don't know. I can't read the tea leaves, we do have to expect that in the mid to long term. The second question, how have our digital investments paid off?
Every year we invest a lot, EUR 50 million, EUR 100 million, EUR 350 million. We invest across the group in the digital processes as a whole. Many of these investments are, of course, connected to a business plan. Some of them are simply costs you take because a digital offering needs to be available. Outside of that, we also have minority investments for different companies or in different companies. We've also taken over several other companies. If we summarize all of this, we have the long-term expectation that these investments will be worth it, so that there will be a technical insurance business that is generated out of this and that generates technical margins which are attractive enough to have taken these investments. Until 2025, the numbers in the bigger picture won't be quite as large.
With the top line, I would expect that we end up somewhere at around EUR 1 billion or, well, maybe definitely in the very low single digit billion range. Of course, you can add the typical margin percentages, 5%, 10%, something similar. You will be able to see that the bottom line, 2025, will still be at around low triple digit million amounts. This is, of course, plus minus some other considerable numbers, because of course, the uncertainty of these digital investments is simply higher. We'd really have to look for a time horizon of until 2030 to make sure that that's been worth it. Before that, we can't really say whether it's been worth it or not. Solvency II, Christoph.
Good morning also from my side. The Solvency II rate that we actually gave in the presentation with 260%, that's already with the dividend taken out. The Share buyback is always booked in the first quarter in Solvency II. In Solvency II, this is already deducted from the Solvency II ratio, and that is going to reduce the Solvency II ratio by 6%. The fully adjusted ratio would be at 254%, including the Share buyback. Thank you.
The next question is Alexander Hübner from Reuters. Mr. Hübner, you have, of course, written a message on the chat and on the phone, so feel free to ask the question live. That's always nicer.
All right. Thank you very much. Can everybody hear me? Yes, we can hear you loud and clear. Fantastic. I didn't want to be pushy. I just wanted to make sure that the questions were asked. Ahead of time, live is nicer. Yes, of course. I think I speak on behalf of a lot of colleagues. It's a shame that also this year we can only meet virtually. I think at least the colleagues here in Munich, you know, it would have been nice for us to be there in person, to be live at a press conference.
On the facts and figures, let me just ask a question about understanding, Mr. Wenning, for your presentation. You were speaking of that EUR 1 billion in earnings wouldn't be unrealistic in a line of business. I wasn't sure whether that related to ERGO, whether the reinsurance business in life and health. Maybe you can help me out with that. I'm not sure I understood that correctly.
Another question on solvency, yeah, meaning the share buyback, to be specific. You have a very generous solvency ratio in the meantime. On the flip side, you're also paying out a lot via share buybacks. In this context, can we assume that acquisitions and M&A, despite the current market development, are not a big topic even in this year? The third question is, you know, you mentioned the Ukraine in the beginning. The entire topic of war, stranded airplanes, and Russia lease airplanes all the way to the explosion of Nord Stream. Do you have any sort of number that you could give us where you can say, "The war affects us with claims of XYZ?" Because certainly you must have formed certain reserves because of the war. I'd be curious about that. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Hübner. Happy to hear your remarks and questions. Thank you very much for also doing this personally and live. On your first question, my remark was the Specialty Insurance business, which of course has now been bundled in this new board of management office, which has basically been derived from the segment that we used to call Risk Solutions. This business until 2025, only until 2025, could amount up to EUR 1 billion bottom line. This is the annual result. Please bear this in mind. I didn't want to, you know, spur your fantasy. I'm not gonna give a commitment, we could grow up to EUR 1 billion. Of course, on top of the ERGO result of EUR 600 million plus until 2025, plus the life reinsurance business of around about EUR 1 billion.
You know, all of this, of course, would be another contribution to our earnings stability, which would allow us in a more volatile property casualty reinsurance to expose us even more if the numbers add up. That was the first question. The second question, whether despite this very positive capitalization, whether we plan on any more M&A activities. Our M&A appetite, Mr. Hübner, is unchanged compared to three months ago, six months ago, nine months ago, 12 months ago, two years ago. Within reinsurance, whether it's life, whether it's property casualty, due to losses of synergy, it is absolutely improbable, so we can pretty much check that off the list. For primary insurance, whether it's in the retail area, analog ERGO, or in the specialty insurance area, the appetite is definitely present.
If there are any good opportunities that present themselves, we do have enough capitalization. The dividend payment and the share buybacks are absolutely not standing in the way of an attractive M&A opportunity. Now on the Ukraine war, the claims complex, as we have already talked about when the war broke out, this is a very long-term item. That's not because of us. That is simply due to the fact that the topic, quite luckily, doesn't really present itself so often, and there are many technical questions to be determined.
What is covered, when it's covered, from when it's covered, how much of it is covered? That professionals in such situations know that this is going to take many, many, many quarters or even years until all of those situations have worked themselves out. There are no concrete specific claims situations for us. What is new, however, is that in Q4, the claims reserves regarding the Ukraine have increased up to EUR 475 million at this point. Across all the quarters, this has accumulated EUR 475 million in reserves.
Ian Smith. He asks, the 1.3% risk adjustment price rise at January renewal seems lower than the numbers others are saying, and may be behind the share price weakness today as investors have expected significant price rises. Any color on why you weren't able to push through more rate?
Thank you very much for your question, Ian . I am very, very confident and sure. I'm absolutely certain it's impossible that our peers put through higher rate increases than we did. It's simply unrealistic. The only reason why we show 1.3%, which may look a smaller number than those show by peers, is that the way that we get to the 1.3% is so totally different from the way that our peers are highlighting their rate increases.
We could have shown you nominal rate increases, way higher. What we want to highlight is that everything that is way higher, but absolutely necessary technically to fund the loss trends and to fund the inflation trend, that for us is not a good price increase. It's an absolutely necessary price increase. What we care for is how much after all those trends is left as a price increase that benefits our result. That is the 2.3%. In total, including the 1% business mix. I'm pretty sure that this is not higher for the peers.
Thank you. Now we have additional questions on the chat. This is Markenheim. He wants to know what the EUR 45 million for 2022 through the Ukraine war can be allocated to. What are the significant risks for 2023? What are the dimensions in a worst-case scenario? Currently, what will we have to pay for the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria?
Hello, this is Mr. Jurecka. Mr. Markenheim. Let me say the following. For the war, we have an IBNR. This is basically a late claims reserve that doesn't actually refer to any specific claims or damages. It's actually quite open, what we're going to be using this for.
We also have to say that in the most cases, war risks are anyways excluded in the regular insurance policies, quote-unquote, normal, or reinsurance policies. Even there are no claims because there's no coverage. However, there are some specialty lines where we have coverage, so there could be some claims materializing. There are specific war coverages in, you know, certain property contracts. In airspace, for example, there are certain war inclusions. Also for transport contracts and agreements, there are war inclusions. It's always very special and specific agreement and contract constellations where claims could materialize. Of course, you can see that this is accumulated over the different quarters. Now due to the fact that this event unfortunately continues to go on, it's not a given that this is going to stop. However, we can only add up claims that have already occurred.
We can't reserve future potential claims, so it could still develop. It's always at a magnitude and a scope that we can absolutely digest, so we have no headaches because of this. The earthquake in Türkiye and Syria, that's another question. You did point out the human suffering, and of course, it is heartbreaking to see what's happening there. The insurance event itself, an extremely early estimate that can, of course, deviate widely up or down, is that we are talking about the mid triple-digit million range in terms of potential claims.
Thank you very much. Next up is Carl from Bloomberg.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes, loud and clear.
Brilliant. One question my colleague was already asking, I would still like to ask it again. The stock price, of course, reacted relatively poorly, -6% based on what you presented. In fact, most analysts are pointing out the January renewals that they are relatively weak compared to the competition. If I understand correctly, you are purely basing this on the fact that you are representing this differently price-wise than the competition. Is that correct?
That's number one. Number two is regarding, again, the Ukraine. In Q1, you had EUR 700 million on the fixed interest Russia-Ukraine business. That was a write-down. Now you were talking about EUR 850 million in the annual numbers. Was that it when it comes to the write-downs, or are we expecting more?
Hello, Mr. Carl. This is Mr. Jurecka again. I'm gonna be starting with the write-downs or write-offs. That's very quick. Well, we're not expecting a lot more. This was materially it. You know, even the increase from EUR 700-EU R 850 in the context of our capital investment portfolio overall is not a huge number, but that's pretty much it, I would say.
The next question, Mr. Wenning has said a lot about it already. I'm gonna rephrase it. For us, it's very important that the price change represent a true margin change. If we're saying +2.3%, we're assuming 2.3% on the new volume is a real added result. You can actually see a sustainable impact on the P&L statement, and you're gonna be seeing an added result. However, to interpret this number, we already had to deduct inflation from this, which of course, very high. We had to change the new modeling for NatCat, climate change risks, et cetera.
All of this is already deducted from that. If you do that, we still have a 2.3% margin improvement for us. If you multiply that with our premium volume, you see this is a fantastic result. The improvement basically worked themselves out by themselves. It was also important for me, you know, we were talking about the combined ratio changes from 2020 and up to 2023. I think this change in this waterfall chart, we needed to see this change because you can actually see this historically speaking. If you look at the price changes and then also the correlation and how all of this has changed in real-time, you will see an excellent correlation. You can truly do the math here, and I will only tell you, please try to do the same math for the competition.
That's all I have to say. We are absolutely convinced of the fact that this was one of the, if not the best renewal for many, many years. By the way, also all the conditions have improved, the margins have improved, the volume has improved, and of course, with the volume, truly a fantastic result, and certainly not worse than the peers.
Thank you very much. Dear colleagues, you can continue to ask questions in the chat or press star one, you will be joining us live. Mr. Frommer welcome.
Thank you very much. The change at ERGO to the new life system is complete, what about the old contract. How many did you migrate? There was EUR 4.5, I think you made EUR 0.5 million over there, EUR 0.5 million over here. How are you doing in general with cyber and I would be curious about the current market situation and whether you want to sneak out of the market or if you would like to stay in this risk, of course it's considerable, as we see with the latest attack.
Over 4,000 cloud cloud servers and so on and so forth. What's your take on that? And the question on fresh capital, unfortunately, I had some technical issues. I would be curious, your industry has this cycle of that if you have results the way you presented them that if your private equity and other large investors maybe you could tell me more about that. [inaudible]
Thank you very much Mr. Frommer. Good morning. As I said, I do truly apologize for the fact that you can't see us, like Mr. Lobbe was saying. Unfortunately, we are experiencing technical difficulties. Unfortunately, we couldn't do anything but a conference call this morning. We truly do apologize.
On your question, Mr. Frommer, I'm talking about the cyber question and also the fresh capital, and on the switch to from old to new system and also the migrated number of contract, Mr. Jurecka is going to talk about that in a moment. I'm gonna be starting with the fresh capital. What I wanted to say is the longer the insurance and reinsurance rates are so attractive the way they are right now, in the particular segment that that is the case, of course, the sooner fresh capital will come into the market. Whether it's going to flow into the primary risk insurance carriers, into the reinsurance risk carriers, is up for discussion, or to those who are truly offering alternative capital. It doesn't matter at the end of the day because everybody's going to get it to different magnitudes.
The question was, when do we expect this to materialize? I don't know, Mr. Frommer. In this renewal, we didn't see it yet. Depending on the claims progression in 2023, we also can't exclude the fact that this process might materialize slowly but surely, but it's also not going to happen overnight. It is going to take place bit by bit and step by step. I would think one to two years is realistic. On cyber, we are not leaving the market. There is no reason for us to do so. The fact that, in fact, since the Ukraine war broke out, the cyberattacks have actually increased also in their intensity, shouldn't be something that deters us.
With these sorts of events, we shouldn't run away if we believe in the fact that our risk appetite is so defined and so disciplined that the very dangerous systemic risks won't catch up with us. I don't think that they will. We don't think that they will, and that's why we have additional growth in cyber business of up to or actually more than EUR 2 billion at the end of 2022. I think specifically speaking, we're at EUR 2.1 billion at the moment. ERGO, Christoph.
Mr. Frommer, I actually checked my documents, but unfortunately, I cannot give you the exact numbers of the insured contracts because I don't know it by heart, and I also don't have it right here in the document. I can, however, confirm that we are making progress. Of course, this is, however, a complex process. It takes many, many years until we have transferred and migrated the entire portfolio. Unfortunately, I don't have the exact number.
All right. Thank you very much. We have an additional question from the chat. Mr. Frommer, Handelsblatt wants to know something regarding the specialty insurance, that the business there, especially with HSB, was specifically coming from the United States. Also, the new management board member, Mike Kerner, is supposed to be working there. Does the fantasy or the creativity in this segment come specifically from the United States?
Well, Mr. Schnell, good morning. Yes, that is the case. At the moment, round about 90% of the specialty business are in the United States, and the remaining 10% are from the London market. This is the way the market shakes out. In the European and Asian market, this sort of segment doesn't exist per se, the way that it exists in the United States, and that is why your assumption is correct, that it is predominantly in the United States.
Thank you very much. I see no further questions, no further comments. Dear colleagues, thank you very much for your interest in this conference call and the very interesting discussions. Again, please do accept our apologies for the technical issues. We're of course, going to do an in-depth check what this was about. However, the recording as a video will be available on our website throughout this day for download. Have a great day, and speak soon.