Good morning, this is Bernd Sablowsky speaking. Good morning from Hannover. Ahead of our today's AGM, Jan, our CFO, would like to give you an update on our Q1 numbers. After the presentation, as Stuart just announced, we will be taking questions. You can raise them via the webcast or via the phone. Obviously, as always, all documents, you'll find on the section on our webpage. Jan, over to you.
Thank you, Bernd, and good morning, everybody. I hope you're all fine. Here in Hannover, we have together unusually good weather, so it's really a pity that we cannot meet in person. Let's start now with the summary of the first quarter. First of all, I believe we had a very strong start in the first quarter. Why do I believe that? We can show continued strong growth. The gross written premiums are up 16.5%, and this provides for future opportunities to grow earnings as well. If we adjust this fantastic growth to currencies, in local currency, it would be just 13% due to the weakening of the euro. All segments are contributing to that growth. We have growth across all business units.
Combined ratio stands at 98.3%, so it's below 100%. I think it's quite a solid result, keeping in mind that we had two headwinds there. One headwind is related to large losses, which I will explain in more detail. We were exceeding the large loss budget by EUR 71 million in the first quarter. Second, we have already booked for a bulk reserve related to the Ukraine situation of EUR 150 million, which accounts for, if you look at it, from a combined ratio point of view, two percentage points in the combined ratio.
Overall, we are able to show a net income of EUR 256 million, which equals to a return on equity of 10%, which is well in line with our ambitions for the current year and well above our strategic target, which is 800 basis points above risk-free. From a capital point of view, Talanx is very resilient. Solvency II ratio at the year-end was 208%. I expect the solvency ratio after the first quarter also to be around 200 or slightly above 200. Still very, very stable. We can deal with the current uncertainty. Second, we promised to you at the Capital Markets Day that we will be transparent on the resiliency, which is embedded in our best estimate reserving.
I will dig into that a little bit deeper later. What you can see already on the first or on the second slide is that we've increased our resiliency reserves to EUR 3 billion, which gives some color also to the results which we have shown in 2021. The outlook and our earnings guidance will remain stable. We expect a result in between EUR 1.05 billion and EUR 1.15 billion for 2022. That would equal to a return on equity of around 10%. I have to acknowledge that, yes, there is some higher uncertainty due to the Russian war in the Ukraine. I think everybody will tell you, because we do not know what the future development of this war will bring to us.
There's a higher uncertainty compared to previous years. If we now dig into more details with regard to the group financials, I first want to dig into the large loss development. What you can see on page 4 is the development of large losses during the first quarter for the past 10 years. What you can easily find out is that this first quarter, with a large loss amount of EUR 458 million, was the highest large loss amount which we've seen during the past 10 years, both in absolute as well as in relative terms. If you look more into the details, what has driven this development, then we have two events. One is the Australian floods and the other are the storms in Europe.
The Australian floods contributed EUR 235 million to this, EUR 458 million, and European winter storms, EUR 164 million, what we have to account for during the first quarter. Two events which impacted us and which led in the end to 71 million more large losses than budgeted. Over the full year, we expect to normalize it, but you never know that the nature of our business that we have to cope with this development. If we then go to the technical results in the various business units on the next page, there you can see, first of all, that Industrial Lines, despite being affected by the Australian floods, can show a 97.1%, which is well in line to improve the combined ratio every year by one percentage point.
Retail Germany is just 97.8%, was heavily affected by the winter storms. I will explain that later in more detail. There's a second effect, which I want to draw your attention to, which is that we have normalized claims frequency in the other business. Last year in the first quarter, we had a lockdown still in Germany and therefore quite low claims frequency, which were reflected in this fantastic combined ratio last year. Retail International, the CEO just told me I should highlight his figure as well, but it's quite boring. It's consistently very good, 94%. We are very happy with the development what we can see there.
With regard to the reinsurance, we have highlighted this 99.5%, and the colleagues from Hannover Re already have explained that to you. It's roughly 3 percentage points within this combined ratio are related to a bulk reserve, which was set up for the Ukraine. This bulk reserves affect also the Talanx's group combined ratio in total by 2 percentage points. If you exclude the extraordinary effects, we have 2 percentage points for the Ukraine, we have 1 percentage points for exceeding the large loss budget to give you or to draw your attention a little bit to the extraordinary effects.
On the next page, for the first time during the Q1 reporting, we show now the development of the net resiliency reserves, which are embedded in our best estimates. It's an indicator to show the strength of our balance sheets. As I have explained during the Capital Markets Day, what do we do? On the one hand, our actuaries set up the reserves for our IFRS accounting. Second, as part of our governance, internal governance systems, we take external actuaries to provide us with a second opinion. The difference between what our own actuaries have set up as claims reserves compared to what the external actuaries have calculated. This is what we call resiliency embedded in our best estimates. As you can see here, we have further strengthened our resiliency level.
Talanx in total now has more than EUR 3 billion more, net claims reserves compared to what Towers Watson would have calculated, would have set up. This provides me with a good feeling because this resiliency gives you some opportunities in both showing results at the year-end and paying dividends on the other hand. We are very stable, very resilient within Talanx. If you then go to the segments, I would like to start with Industrial Lines. As usual, in Industrial Lines, we see a fantastic gross written premium development, 11%, but even better is the earned premium development. The earned premiums are up 21%.
This is due to the fact that we fully consolidate the HDI Global Specialty business now, and that we have a higher retention in this business. We are very happy with this growth. The operating result is slightly down. This is on the one hand related to the Australian floods, given that not only is reinsurance but also Industrial Lines affected with EUR 50 million from that one. We have an overshooting of the large loss budget also in this segment. Second, we have a lower return on equity. As you can recall from previous calls, we have always mentioned that the private equity returns, which we have seen in 2021, were outstanding and unusually high.
Now we have a normalized result from private equity here. This also is then reflected in the net income. If you see the net income, please keep in mind that we also did some reserving here for the Ukraine. All in all, we are quite happy with the development of Industrial Lines. We then go to Retail Germany on the next page. First, to provide you with an overview. Overall, the segment is growing, 8% growth. If you look into more details, which we can see on the next page, we start with P&C. Go to page 10 directly, Dan, please. Then we see that in P&C, the growth is even 12%, and it's in particular driven by the growth in the small and medium-sized enterprise business, which is the strategic direction of the unit.
We are very proud of this growth because it outperforms our market peers by far. It's also a signal from the market that we have built up trust in the segment, and we are quite happy with it. Even in the motor business, we are growing, given that we had a strong renewal season, which is now starting to monetize. With regard to the net investment income in Retail P&C, we had a slight decrease to 2.3%, which is then also reflected in the net income. I think what is really worth mentioning here is that there are two effects in the P&C business in Retail Germany, which explains the development from past year's quarter to this year's quarter.
One is that we have a normalizing of the claims frequency due to the fact that in the first quarter in 2021, there was a lockdown still in Germany. Second, more than EUR 20 million, or to be expected, EUR 21.2 million, was the net cat effect from the winter storms, which also affected the P&C result. Let's go then to Retail Germany Life. In Retail Germany Life, we see growth with 6%. Given that the interest rates have increased, this is profitable growth. We are very happy with it. This is a positive one.
Second, with regards to net investment income, we see a decrease, a significant decrease, and this is due to the fact that we have provided for the Zusatzreserve, ZZR, it's in the past enough reserve so that we do not have to fill up so much in this year. In the last year, in the first quarter, we have more or less realized a lot of extraordinary investment income gains in order to provide for the funding of the ZZR. That's no longer needed given the increase in the interest rates. Therefore, the net investment income is significantly down. The operating results, given that, is relatively stable here.
The good news also, which I really want to draw your attention to, that with regard to the Solvency II capital adequacy ratio for our firm, for German Life entities, they are standing at 291% at year-end. I've just seen the figures for the third quarter, they are even better. For the first quarter in this year, they are even better. We are now approaching on average 300%. With regard to the risk of strategy in German Life, we are fully satisfied with the development, as already mentioned. Let's then now go to Retail International. In Retail International, we have an increase in the gross written premium of 10%, and there are two extraordinary effects in it.
One extraordinary effect is that we bought in Italy, Amissima, which contributes EUR 60 million to the premium development. The other one, I think is really worth mentioning, is the sale of the Russian Life entity, which leads to EUR 20 million deduction in the premium. All in all, a slightly positive effect due to M&A, and we are so happy that we sold the Russian Life entity. We did that, we signed the contract in December last year, and we were able to close the deal and have the money on our German accounts by the sixteenth of February. Well in time. This is reflected here in the development. If you go more into the details here, then you see a fantastic growth in the P&C business of Retail International, 27.8% up, which is really great.
Currency adjusted, it's even close to 34%. We are very happy because it's direct. It matches 100% our strategy in that segment. The operating result is rather stable. The net income is slightly down. This is mainly driven by the effect that we had a deconsolidation loss for the sale of the Russian Life entity of EUR 23 million. If you adjust for that, obviously, there would be a positive development. All in all, in this segment, whereas in other segments, we are building up resiliencies. We have to release some resiliencies given that the resiliency is embedded in this segment. They are so strong that the auditor do not like to have so much.
It's close to excess reserving and for capital efficiency purposes. We have released a little bit of reserves here. Let's now come to reinsurance, but I just want to give you a brief overview, given that the colleagues of Hannover Re yesterday have explained it in all details. All in all, we are extremely happy with the growth in this entity, which will provide for future earnings. We are happy with the solid result. All in all, it's our most valuable subsidiary. Let's now come to three specific topics. One is investment, second is the capital base, and third, our way on enhancing sustainability within the group. Let me start with the investment income. First of all, the ordinary investment income is growing.
Within this growth, it's really worth mentioning that for risk management purposes, we have roughly EUR 5.5 billion bonds, inflation-linked bonds, within our portfolio. They have contributed EUR 95 million gains during the first quarter. It's quite substantial what we see here. I just want to highlight that, yes, we do have them for risk management purpose. We are not betting on higher or lower inflation rate. It's just to compensate a potential negative effects, which you would see in the technical result if inflation is increasing and exceeding our own inflation expectations, which we use for calculating the premiums, the risk premiums. Then this inflation linker can provide for certain hedging.
Maybe we have some views on the inflation in the future. Maybe they're even better than the ECB, but here, what is set up here in our portfolio is really for risk management purposes. Second, I want to draw your attention to the extraordinary investment income, which is significantly down compared to the previous first quarter. This is due to the already explained effect in German Life, where we didn't have to fund the ZZR. Therefore, we have significantly less realized gains. Finally, here marked with number three are the assets under own management at period end. We have an increase by 2%, and this is despite the significant increase in interest rates, which have a negative impact on the market value of our fixed income portfolio.
What you can see here is the strong cash flow and growth of our group, so that we are growing despite this effect, which is a positive and which also indicates the future potential for earnings. On the next page, you see the current structure of our investment portfolio. It's page number 16, Dan, if you could go to page 16. Yes. Thank you. We still are mainly a fixed income investor, and within the fixed income portfolio, 95% out of it is investment grade. Quite conservative approach here. We continue to be a low beta liability-driven investor who predominantly wants to earn its money in the insurance result and not on the capital markets.
This is also reflected on the next page in our solvency position, which stands at 208%. I also wanted to set out the expectation that after the first quarter, the solvency ratio should be also around 200%, slightly above would be my personal expectation. On the next page, you can see the sensitivities for our Solvency II ratios with some explanation. I think, the first view, which you might have on this one is pretty right. We are not really exposed to specific risks significantly. We have a very well-diversified risks within the group, and this is really reflected also in what you can see here.
On the next page, we see the development of the book value, and I think this is worth to be explained a little bit more in detail because we see quite a decrease in the shareholders' equity or in the book value per share, 9.11% if we are including the goodwill and 10% excluding the goodwill. Why is that? I think what we can see here is the accounting mismatch of IFRS 4, where we have to account for large parts of our assets mark-to-market. There we see the effect of the rising interest rate on our fixed income portfolio. This is what we see here, whereas on the liability side, we do not have a discounting effect, which is mark-to-market.
The good news is, we are going to introduce IFRS 17 for the next year, then, we do not have to explain such effects because then we have a consistent discounting on both on assets and on liabilities, and therefore a better reflection of the development of the equity from quarter to quarter. Having said that, let's go to the sustainability. With regard to sustainability, first of all, is worth mentioning that we have done things. We are not only announcing things, we have done things. We have reduced already the carbon intensity of our liquid asset portfolio by 15%. The overall target is a little bit higher, but we are well on track to achieve our targets here.
Second, with regard to sustainable investments, we had increased in the past our target from EUR 5 billion to EUR 8 billion sustainable investments. We are already at EUR 7.2 billion, so we have quite increased our investments in sustainability investments. With regard to the indirect effects of our business, which means on investment and underwriting, we have set out the target to be net zero by 2050. With regard to our own operations, we were able to reduce the carbon emissions by 18% during the course of the last year. We want to become net zero in the operations till 2030. Finally, we have issued, as you are all aware of, a green bond last year in December.
It was a very good timing that we did that, as we did pre-financing of the subordinated loan, which is expiring and we did, during the course of the summer, pre-funding here. The second thing, which is really worth mentioning, we have now a broader investor base that we can also reach green investors for financing the company. With regard to the EUR 7.2 billion sustainable investments, there you can see how they are invested. This is to provide you a little bit an overview and some more details on what we are doing there. Having said that, I would now like to summarize a little bit what we've seen during the first quarter, and where the outlook stands. Let's start with the outlook first.
I think that's what you are interested most. First of all, we expect to grow. We have not decided yet to change the growth outlook from mid-single digit, but maybe it's a little bit conservative. It could come as a high single digit as well. The net return on investment stands at 2.4%, which is lower than the 3.0%, which we've seen in the first quarter. I just want to mention that, and I think it's really realistic that we have a lower figure than in the first figure. The group net income is unchanged, EUR 1.05 billion-EUR 1.15 billion, which equals to 10% return on equity.
With regard to the dividend strategy, we already said that on the Capital Markets Day, we are reassessing our dividend policy, but you should expect it will be stable or upwards, and I just want to underline upwards. Having said that, let's summarize the first quarter. On my point of view, we have seen a very strong first quarter given the growth, which we could show 16.5%. Those are really strong numbers. We are very happy with it because this will provide for future earnings potential. Second, we have made some provisions. One, obviously, for the nat cat development in Australia and the winter storms in Europe. Second, but also for the Ukraine, where we have set up a bulk reserve of EUR 150 million.
We do not know exactly what will be the final outcome of the Ukraine, and I think nobody can tell you that. We have the feeling that it's right to make the first step here, so it's not related to specific claims, notifications or something like that. It's really the bulk reserve, what we have set up. All in all, I think it's a very solid result, and I'm now happy to answer your question.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with the question-and-answer session. If you have dialed in by telephone, please press star followed by one on your telephone to register for a question. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, please press star followed by two. Questions can also be raised by using the Ask a Question box on the webcast page at any point during the session. Kindly add your name, function, and email to be identified. The Q&A session will begin with the telephone questions. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one on your telephone or type a question in the Ask a Question box on the webcast page. The first question is from the line of Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you very much. Yeah, well done to these lovely results. But I'll ask it in a detailed way, if I may. The first one is on the motor pricing. I understand that the number of contracts in Retail Germany is up 60,000. That's thanks to November renewals. I just wondered if that was you buying market share by cutting rates or what is happening to pricing here. I'd be really interested. A similar question for Industrial Lines. What is the rate rise in Q1, and how does that compare with claims inflation? Maybe you can talk a bit about claims inflation, how you see it.
I was speaking to one of your French peers, and they said the peak is yet to come. In other words, whatever we see today will be exceeded in the next few quarters. On COVID, I think Hannover said that some of these reserves could be released. I just wondered, separately from Hannover within Talanx, what is the IBNR ratio and, or the IBNRs relating to COVID, just to have a sense of flexibility there. Then I'm really sorry, too many questions. On Solvency, I noticed the sensitivity to interest rates is negative, whether interest rates go up or down. I just wondered if you can comment on that. Thank you.
Well, thank you, Michael. There's quite a number of questions. I'll try to answer them, and if I forget one, just ask again. I try to answer all of them.
Okay.
Michael, with regard to the 60,000 new contracts in the motor business, which is a very positive result, the business unit has set up a certain behavior-oriented pricing. It's not the cheapest price, but they are targeting a specific customer group which wants to have value for money. But it's due to other criteria, should be more a stable customer base, not those who are hopping from one insurance provider to another from year to year. This is driving the very positive development at Retail Germany. Second, with regard to the pricing in Industrial Lines, whether it met claims inflation. Yes, we are positive that the renewal in Industrial Lines will meet the needs of the inflation, which we calculated at that point in time.
Currently, what we see, therefore, I can understand the point, French colleagues, you mentioned, is a significant extraordinary cost push due to the Ukraine-Russia war. Yeah. We will have to make up our minds at the end of the year whether everything is included or also this extraordinary development. All in all, we are quite positive that the price increase, what we have seen at the beginning of the year, can cope with the inflation, which we have seen so far. We are positive here.
Mm-hmm.
Third question was with regard to the COVID reserve, where the colleagues of Hannover Re have mentioned the high IBNR in certain lines like credit and so, and so on, which we may now use in the future also for the Ukraine. In the primary group, we have significantly less IBNR left, given that we are paying out the claims faster than the reinsurer, because we are closer to the customer. I do not expect too big effects out of the release of COVID IBNR in as a primary issue. Finally, you had the question with regards to the interest rate sensitivity under Solvency II, and you mentioned so there are two effects.
If we have an increase in the interest rate, then we have one effect, a positive effect on the German Life books, which you can see, and a negative effect on the Hannover Re book, due to this effect. Given that the positive effect to a certain extent has to be calculated with policyholder participation, this positive effect is more from the life entity. If you now turn it around and say you have a reduction in interest, in interest rates, then you have a negative impact in life, which to a certain extent cannot be shared with the policyholder. Therefore then there's certain kind of convexity coming into play via the German Life book. I hope this explanation helps you a little bit.
If not, I will give it another try.
It's pretty, it's very clear. Thank you.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Michael.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a telephone question, please press star followed by one on your touch tone telephone. For web questions, please submit your question in writing in the ask question box on the webcast page. Next question is from the line of Thomas Fossard from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. I've got a couple of questions. The first one will be related to just a follow-up to Michael's question on your Solvency II sensitivities regarding to interest rates. Can you speak a bit about the sensitivity to inflation? I mean, is your disclosed sensitivity to interest rates net of inflation? Or how inflation of CPI parameters will play a role in the Solvency II work? The second question would be related to your slide. Hold on. Were you showing the Solvency II work? I think it's on slide-
Eighteen.
Sorry. Yeah. 30. If you could comment on the EUR 1.3 billion increase in SCR in 2021. Just wanted to better understand where this is coming from. I know this is probably a combination of Hannover Re and Talanx, but if you could maybe disclose a bit more what took place last year in terms of additional capital required for the primary lines. One additional question related to industrial lines. If you could provide a bit more color on the reserving you've made for Ukraine in the industrial lines. Also it could be helpful if you could quantify the impact on the combined ratio.
I think that if we are doing some calculation on the adjusted combined ratio for our industrial lines for higher net cat and reserve related to Ukraine, it looks like the normalized combined ratio for industrial lines is currently running at 97%. So could you confirm this number? How should we think about the normalized combined ratio for the segment for the rest of the year? I will stop there and queue for the question. Thank you.
Okay. I try to answer your questions as well, Thomas, and if I forget one, once again, then ask, please, again. First, to start with the inflation effects. The inflation effects are not so the ceteris paribus calculations, the solvency sensitivity, so they are in the interest rate change. There's no inflation change embedded. This is the first thing which is to be mentioned. What would happen if inflation exceeds our own estimates? We would see an effect in the claims reserving. What we have also shown in the resiliencies which are embedded in our best estimate calculations, they would decrease. What you can see. This would also have a negative impact on the own funds.
Inflation is really something which could have a higher than expected inflation. I only have to mention which could have a slightly negative impact on the solvency ratio. Inflation is a topic where we draw a lot of attention to. Maybe I should just mention what we are doing because we are quite positive that we can manage this in a very good way for the company. First of all, obviously, the most important thing is to adapt pricing to inflation and to get the prices where they have to be due to inflation.
Second, with regard to our reserving, you can really see that we have built up resiliency, which will help us to cope with that second aspect. Thirdly, with regards to the unexpected effects due to the course of the year, we will continue to have a hedge portfolio of inflation linkers in place, so that we can also deal with extreme inflation scenarios in a better way than our peers. This is it with regard to inflation. Second, with regards to the development of the Solvency capital requirements. What you can see here is, I think Bernd and his colleagues will provide you later in this some more information. I do not have everything right here at the table, but what you can see is that we are growing.
Talanx is a fast-growing group, and therefore, the solvency capital requirements are increasing. All in all, it's more a sign of a very positive development rather than a sign of that we are exposing ourselves to specific new or unusual risks. We are just growing. Third, you had the question with regard to the bulk reserving for the Ukraine. What I really want to mention here, and it's important. At this point in time, nobody can tell you in detail what will be the final ultimates which have to be booked for the Ukraine, and nor can we. We can't do that. We just have set up a bulk reserve, which is not related to a specific claims picture or something like that.
On a group level, it's accounting for 2 percentage points of the combined ratio. For reinsurance, it's 3%. For Industrial Lines, it's roughly 1.2% to 1.3%, something like that, in that area, to give you some number in order to normalize the development. Please keep in mind that we have also built up resiliency reserves in Industrial Lines during the first quarter. All in all, the normalized combined ratio is even better than the 97 that you currently see. We want to show this year 97. This is a promise of the business unit, and this what we are going to do, but the current development in the frequency is even better. I hope this answers your question.
Thank you. We queue up for additional questions. Thank you.
Okay. I would like to now turn it over to Bernd for a question from the webcast. Please go ahead.
Yep. Vikram Gandhi from Société Générale is chatting with us this morning. Hi, Vikram. He has two questions. He wants to know what the quantum of loss booked for Russia-Ukraine in industrials is. I guess you elaborated a bit on that, but maybe just refresh that. For retail international, also the retail international segment saw a positive run-off result. The strong inflation impact is notable in the combined ratio for Brazil and Turkey. Is it fair to say that the group is pushing for strong price increases as well as taking very conservative initial loss picks for reserving? Those are the two questions from Vikram. A very good question. Vikram, you are absolutely right. We are pushing for strong price increases in both entities, like the whole market in those markets is doing. Yeah.
We are very confident that we can achieve that we will bring that back to better profitability. With regard to the first question, I think I already answered it when I answered Thomas Fossard's question with regard to Industrial Lines and the bulk reserving for Ukraine.
We now have another question from the telephone line, from Dominic O'Mahony from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Morning, thank you for taking questions. Can I just follow up on Michael's earlier question on German motor? Really very helpful comment on your sort of targeting of customers. Can you just give us a sense of how you see the pricing environment in German personal lines? Has the flooding, for instance, last year pushed up pricing in property? Has there been more take-up of flood cover? And how is motor pricing?
Second question: I wonder if you could just remind me, forgive me for not knowing this inside out, but the resiliency reserve, which is very substantial and of course a big increase in 2021, does that impact the German GAAP result for the entities as well as the IFRS, or is this just an IFRS item? Thank you.
Okay. Well, Dominic, first of all, with regard to the pricing in motor, what we see obviously is that the whole market will have to cope with the inflation, what we see. Yeah, we have currently an inflation in Germany close to 7%. What we also see in prices here, and therefore, I would expect the next pricing round that there will be price increases simply to match the inflation. Yeah, this is what I would expect. Second, you asked also for what we've learned with the floods and so on. With regard to the floods, last year with Bernd, we learned that we had certain...
Well, if you have a cumulative scenarios, you have also taken into account when you do your reserving, that you will have specific inflation. If, if for instance, there is a flood, then obviously, people who can fix the problems will charge you higher prices. This is already included in the way how we set up our reserves, yeah. This was included. We have really observed quite some huge inflationary impacts due to the floods. We see the same currently in Australia. It's quite a factor which we are used to. This obviously needs to be included in the pricing going forward in personal lines, also as well as in motor. This is with regard to the first question.
With regard to the second one, the reserve, the resiliency reserve is a concept which fits only to IFRS. The local statutory accounting in Germany is even more conservative than that one. The only restriction which you have there is the tax authorities, which do not like us to have so much resiliency in the buffers, and therefore, that you have some additional tax calculations to perform, if you are quite conservative in reserves. I hope, Dominic, that answers your question.
Very helpful. Yes. Thank you.
Next telephone question is from the line of Roland Pfänder from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Two questions from my side. Could you explain the run-off impact in Retail International, how much it moved the combined ratio on the quarter? Then secondly, maybe you could remind us of the retention moving in Industrial Lines, regarding the specialty business. This is already up to 100%, the move or will there be more to come in the next quarters? Just to understand the structure going forward. Maybe a last question, what is the current reinvestment yield in the primary insurance business? Thank you.
Mm-hmm. Thank you, Roland, for your questions. First, with regard to the run off impact at Retail International, it compensates for the deconsolidation. But please keep in mind that in this segment, we always had a very high resiliency embedded into our best estimate accounts. Due to the adoption of IFRS 17/9, we will have to realize on a planned basis some more runoffs in order to bring it into the IFRS 17 framework of best estimate accounting. Just keep that in mind. The extraordinary effect, what we've seen compensated for, the deconsolidation effect.
Second, with regard to the retention development, at Industrial Lines due to the full consolidation of HDI, we currently have now new in place, starting from the first of January, that Hannover Re takes a quota share of 25%. For the past business or the business which was renewed during the course of the last year, obviously the old quota share of 45% was in place. Over the time of the year, there will be another increase of the retention rate, due to the new structure, here. Finally, with regard to the reinvestment yields, I have to ask my colleagues, which are supporting me. Maybe I pick first some other questions, and then I will explain that.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Sorry, Roland. I just want to see the numbers here. I do not have them directly. Okay, next question, please.
Next question is a follow-up question from the line of Michael Huttner from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yes, Michael, before you do so, I can answer Roland's questions. It's 1.85% was the reinvestment yield during the first quarter.
Thank you. Thanks for the certainty. I had three questions. The cash at holding was 1.45 times the dividend at the event. Just wondered if you can give a feel for where we might land at the end of 2022. Retail Germany, I just wondered if you can say something about the frequency now versus 2019, which is a kind of pre-pandemic benchmark here. Are we still down? Is there a change in the behavior, which means we stay down? My third question is a little bit ahead from what you might say in December, so it's a bit cheeky.
If inflation goes up, unfortunately it means you need more capital, which is sad, but I just wondered how that might impact any changes you make to your dividend policy. Thank you.
Three questions. First one was with regard to the cash buffer. Could somebody just provide me the number? It's around 1.5%, which we have achieved during 2021. You could see that in the last full year presentation. I think we have included that in that presentation. But all in all, I think the more important question is, as we have said and announced at the Capital Markets Day, we are to reassess our dividend policy. You should keep in mind it's stable or upwards, and we are really underlining upward here. And we will come out on the sixth of December with the new dividend policy. Currently, now I have the figure, the cash pool stands at 1.54.
It's above the lower threshold of the target range when we wanted to reassess it. We always said it's in between 1.5 and 2, then we would reassess the dividend policy, and this is what we are going to do, and we will deliver on the sixth of December. Already keep in mind it's stable upwards. Second, you asked for the pre-pandemic behavior of the pre-pandemic claims frequency in Retail Germany. What we take internally as a benchmark here is the 2019 level. There we are well in line with 2019, slightly below even, with the 2019 claims frequency. This is what we currently observe. Does that answer your question, Michael? Yes.
That's very helpful. I suppose the more general question, and it was about the SCR, and I'm sorry. It's like a nexus, sorry. If inflation means that, pricing goes up and nominal premiums go up and you need more capital, that's a negative, right? Inflation does have a real cost here. I mean, how do I think about that? Let me first answer that on a broader base. Our business model is that we collect the premiums in advance and pay out the claims later. Therefore, we need to include inflation expectations in our pricing. If the inflation expectation is exceeded by reality, obviously, this is a negative one. Yeah. Because it harms our result, and this is also then reflected in solvency.
First of all, inflation is not a positive one for the insurance business model. In particular, if it goes along with negative real interest rates. With regards to our group, I think we are very resilient also due to the inflation-linked bonds, which we have in the portfolio due to our conservative reserving and due to our outstanding solvency position, which is even above our internally set target range from 150% to 200%. We feel very comfortable, and we do not see any need to change our capital positioning due to inflation so far. The overall effect, if inflation is in place, you have premium increases, you have then more nominal SCR needs. This is true.
On the other hand, if you are able to achieve prices above the inflation, then you have additional business opportunities. Currently, I would rather see this as a business opportunity. That's really helpful. Thank you so much. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you have any further questions, please press star followed by one for telephone questions, and you can submit your questions in writing in the ask a question box on the webcast page. Now, I'd like to refer you over to Bernd Sablowsky for a reading of a web question. Please go ahead.
Yep. Vikram, again, has a question in regard to our resiliency reserve and wants to know whether the resiliency reserves are part of our best estimate reserves or best estimate losses under the S2 calculations. He wants to know whether there's a difference in the approach adopted by Talanx and Hannover Re in terms of handling the resiliency reserves. Let me start with the latter one. No, I think this is pretty similar, the way how we treat resiliency reserves, which are embedded in our best estimate. What we do here, and we have phrased this as resiliency reserves, is this is simply the difference between what we have booked compared to what the external actuary has given us as a second opinion. This is a difference.
We were able to find external comfort for also having a lower claims reserving. This is the overall concept. This provides us also internally with comfort that through all entities we are well and adequately reserved. This gives us also certain strengths to balance volatility and to provide you as analysts also with some comfort that we are able to deliver on our guidance and as well to deliver on the dividend expectations. This is more to summarize the concept a little bit more. Does that help, Vikram? If not, just give us a follow-up question on that one, please.
There are no further questions at this time, and I would like to hand back to Bernd Sablowsky for any closing comments. Please go ahead.
All right. Obviously, if you have follow-up questions once you've studied in more detail our presentation as well as, remember the financial data supplement is also being made available. Do not hesitate to reach out to Bernt Gade or myself. Other than that, I guess it's for Jan to conclude.
Yes. Thank you, Bernd. Thank you for your questions. To summarize it once again, we believe we had quite a strong first quarter, given the growth which we could see. The results are solid, taking into account the development of the life business and also that we have set up a bulk reserve for the Ukraine. For the year-end, we confirm our guidance. We have to admit, obviously, there is some higher uncertainty due to the Ukraine. Given the resiliency of Talanx, we are able to say that we can cope.