Welcome, and thank you for making the time to join us this morning. I'm Michael Stiassny, Chairman of Tower, and as it's past 10:00 A.M., I'm pleased to open our annual shareholders' meeting. On behalf of my fellow directors, welcome you all to Eden Park, the home of New Zealand rugby, as well as those who have joined us via the Computershare webcast. We appreciate you taking the time to join us today. With me in the room this morning are Marcus Nagel, Geraldine McBride, Mike Cutter, Graham Stewart, our CEO, or soon to be ex-CEO, Blair Turnbull, and Paul Johnston, our acting CEO soon. Also joining us is our soon-to-be interim CFO, Angus Shelton, over here, for those of you who don't know him. Our auditors, PwC, are also present and are available to answer shareholder questions.
Before we start the meeting proper, there are a few housekeeping matters to cover off, and we appreciate your patience while I go through the most boring part of the process. For those in the room, if you have a cell phone, please switch it off. If you need to evacuate this room for any reason, please follow instructions from the Eden Park staff or security staff. If you are feeling unwell, please advise one of our own staff who will assist you, and we have medical assistance at the back of the room. For those who are attending the meeting online, we ask that you follow the information provided in the notice of meeting regarding voting and asking questions. Should you require any assistance, you can type your query, and one of the Computershare team will assist.
Or alternatively, please call the Computershare using the numbers on this slide. So there you are. Please note that only shareholders and proxies can ask questions and submit votes. I encourage all of you attending online to submit questions via Computershare at any time during the meeting. If you have a question, please select the Q&A tab on the right half of your screen. Type your question into the field and press send. Your question will be submitted immediately. Specific questions on any of the resolutions to be considered will be answered as the relevant resolution is put forward, while general questions will be addressed later in the meeting. Questions may be moderated, or if we receive multiple questions on a topic, they may be amalgamated. However, please feel comfortable. Questions will not be censored unless they are unseemly or rude.
If we run out of time to answer all questions during the meeting, we will answer them directly via email and post the responses on our website. When asking a question in the room, please use the mic and introduce yourself by name. There are some media present, so welcome. Just a reminder, this is a meeting for shareholders, but Blair, Paul, and I will be happy to talk to you after the meeting. Voting will be by way of poll on all items of business. To provide you with enough time to vote, I will shortly open voting for all resolutions. At that time, if you are eligible to vote at this meeting, you will be able to cast your vote under the Vote tab. To vote, simply select your voting direction from the options shown on screen.
You can vote for all resolutions together at once or for individual resolutions. When the tick appears, your vote has been cast. To change your vote, which we would hope doesn't occur after that time, simply select Change Your Vote. You can do this until I declare voting closed. For those in the room, if you do not have a voting paper, please indicate now by raising your hand, and a member of Computershare's team will assist you. Voting papers will be collected at the end of the resolution and voting section of the meeting by the Computershare team, who will act as scrutineers, and the results will be posted to the NZX and ASX exchanges later today. I now declare voting open on all items of business. The resolutions will be open in the Vote tab.
You may submit your votes at any time, and I will let you know in advance that voting will be closing. That was the boring part. So the agenda. Here is today's meeting agenda. We will provide you with an update on last year's performance and our strategy, the progress we've made at Tower in recent months, and our focus looking forward. Following Blair's and Paul's presentations, we will move to the formal resolutions set out in the notice of meeting, and then there will be questions from the floor if any. So let's now move on to the formal part of the meeting. Are there any apologies? Thank you. The company's constitution requires a quorum of 10 shareholders for this meeting. This requirement has been met, and a quorum exists.
In addition to those attending in person today, 565 shareholders holding a total of 251,239,854 shares have appointed proxies, including proxies instructed to abstain. The appointed proxies represent 61.18% of valid securities voted. In my capacity as Chairman of the meeting and in my own name, I hold proxies for 439 shareholders representing 247,125,990 shares, or 65.12% of all shares on issue. I intend to vote all undirected proxies I have received in favor of resolutions one, two, and three. The annual report, together with Tower's inaugural climate statement, was made available on Tower's website on the 28th of November, 2024, and I propose that we take the annual report and notice of meeting as read. My update. It has been a great year for Tower shareholders. I'm very pleased to address you today as we have paid FY 2024 dividends of NZD 0.095 per share.
Tower has entered the NZX 50 portfolio index and midcap index, and we are about to seek your approval for a capital return of NZD 45 million. There is no question that our 2024 strong results were significantly aided by the absence of large events in the period. The weather was kind, but more importantly, Tower achieved year-on-year improvements in business-as-usual claims, premium growth, and operational and digital efficiencies. These are the measures that will ensure Tower remains well-positioned to deliver value to us all as shareholders, and it's pleasing to note that the first three months of 2025 continued in the same vein as Blair will outline shortly. Our strategy, which is now well embedded, is delivering both an improved customer experience and business performance. We have a solid platform, but there's more work to be done and further gains to be had.
In the wake of the recent tragic California wildfires, there are lessons for us all in New Zealand. These fires have wreaked havoc and have had a huge human cost in terms of both loss of life and property. Sadly, they've also laid bare a massive insurance gap that has been decades in the making. California is the largest insurance market in the U.S. and subject to wildfires, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. Climate change has made these events more frequent and severe, pushing up insurance and reinsurance costs at a time when California set regulatory limits on premiums. Unable to fully price in the increased likelihood and severity of risk, it is not unsurprising that many insurers decamped.
Instead, residents have been forced to rely on the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements plans, a centralized pooling insurance program created in 1968 to provide coverage for those who can't obtain insurance from private insurance companies. These plans offer limited cover, comparatively expensive premiums, and low policy caps. Media coverage suggests that they have also earned the reputation for unreasonably low settlements, delayed payments, and disproportionately high litigation rates for policyholders. Many residents simply don't bother. In addition, there's been no comprehensive climate adaptation policy to incentivize risk reduction or support people to leave areas made unsafe by climate-change-related risks. The end result is the vast majority of people and properties affected in the most recent fires have had little or no insurance at all. Early estimates are predicting more than $200 billion in economic loss from the wildfires.
Less than 25% of those losses are likely to be insured, with only $20-$45 billion estimated in insurance payouts. The question has to be asked: who is going to pay the balance? So we need to avoid the situation in New Zealand at all costs. And while we currently have extraordinarily high rates of residential insurance, mounting climate impacts do put pressure on premiums as reinsurance becomes more expensive. To the best of our ability, Tower will continue to support communities at risk, and to evolve, sorry, Tower will continue to support communities as risks evolve by pricing accordingly. But we have always been clear that we are not here nor able to help everyone. As a nation with the second highest natural risk profile in the world, collectively, we need to do more.
Our primary focus must be on reducing risk in our most hazard-prone communities to keep insurance affordable and ensure the safety of both property and people. The insurance sector needs long-term certainty about climate change adaptation policy to ensure insurance remains available and affordable and the reinsurance environment remains stable. In late January, the government responded to the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee report on climate adaptation and to advice from the Climate Change Commission. Climate Change Minister Simon Watts acknowledged the reports had been useful and that the government was moving fast to ensure legislation dealt properly with the challenges posed by climate change. He went so far as to say legislation would be introduced this year. He agreed the political consensus for solutions was essential and that the status quo is unacceptable. So far, so good.
But the elephant in the room is the question of which parties pay for adaptation and how much each should pay, looms large and remains unresolved. And until there is clarity and consensus on this vital point, Tower does remain concerned. There is significant complex work still to be done, and we're out of runway. As you recall, the 2023 Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle are estimated to have cost the economy NZD 15 billion. We might not know when, but we do know that a similar event or worse will occur. So, as responsible insurers, we urge the government to complete a climate change adaptation framework that has cross-party support as quickly as possible. The framework is crucial for minimizing the insurance gap and preventing New Zealanders experiencing the anguish that many thousands of Californians are experiencing today.
We're very proud that we have been ahead of the pack in introducing risk-based pricing, and the risk data is continually being refined and additional risks assessed. But we are not resting on our laurels. Climate change is constantly presenting new challenges, and we have further work to do to improve both our processes and our risk identification. A consistently strong business performance is essential to ensure we can continue that vital work. Before I hand over to Blair to give his last public address as CEO, on behalf of the board and on behalf of all shareholders, I wish to thank him for the significant contribution he has made to Tower. We wish him [Foreign language] , which I'm reliably informed means safe travels, as he runs around Kilimanjaro before taking up his new role as CEO of Milford Asset Management.
I also would like to acknowledge and thank Graham Stewart, who is retiring from the board today. Graham joined the board in 2012, and he has been a considered voice at the board table and showed an unwavering commitment to Tower's transformation. It's been a privilege to work with both these gentlemen. They have both, I think, given of their best for all of us as shareholders. And so thank you to both of you. Blair is now going to take you through the 2024 results and three-month trading update. Paul will provide an overview of the longer-term outlook before we take questions. So thank you, Blair.
[Foreign language], and thank you very much, Michael, for the kind words. A warm welcome to everybody today. I'm pleased to recap our full year 2024 results as well as share a performance update for the first three months of 2025. Paul will also take the opportunity to give you an overview of Tower's plans to continue growing and innovating for the future. Our strategy. To start, a recap of our strategy, which is delivering results and provides an important platform for further improvements. We continue to focus on four key areas: delivering a leading customer experience, ensuring we are operationally efficient, fostering an effective and distinctive culture, and ultimately continuing to build a resilient business. And now to recap on our results for the financial year ending 30 September 2024, which demonstrate Tower's positive operational and business performance.
Gross written premium for the year to 30 September 2024 increased to NZD 595 million, up 15% on FY 2023, excluding divested portfolios. Customer numbers decreased by 2% to 305,000, partly due to our tightened risk appetite for high-theft motor vehicle models. Rating increases, enhanced processes, a reduction in motor theft claims, as well as calmer weather in comparison to prior years, led to an improvement in the BAU claims ratio to 48%. Pleasingly, our management expense ratio improved also to 31.4% thanks to GWP growth combined with disciplined cost control and improved efficiencies. Tower experienced no large events during the 2024 financial year. Large event costs for FY 2024 were NZD -2.3 million due to the absence of large events and a favorable revision of prior year large event costs. This was a reduction from NZD 55.6 million of large event costs in FY 2023.
Reflecting our positive operational and business performance, we reported an underlying profit after tax of NZD 83.5 million in FY 2024, up from NZD 7.1 million in FY 2023. And reported FY 2024 profit was NZD 74.3 million compared to a loss of NZD 1 million in FY 20 2023. And on the basis of these results, Tower declared a total FY24 dividend of NZD 9.50 per share. Looking to premium growth, gross written premium increased by 15% in FY 2024. And this was predominantly driven by the prior period rating increases designed to mitigate the impacts of inflation, crime, and increased reinsurance costs following the 2023 catastrophe events. In FY 2024, we were very pleased to see a proportion of house policies compared to total policies increase as we focused more on the home insurance market. Nearly a third of our house insurance GWP growth came from volume.
In FY 2024, the number of motor policies reduced as we tightened our risk appetite for high-theft vehicles, while GWP from our motor portfolio grew by 13%. Our risk-based pricing and underwriting continues to give us a competitive advantage by enabling more accurate risk selection and pricing and at the end of FY 2024, 91% of house policies rated low or very low for flood risk, a 1% further improvement from FY 2023. We began to moderate premium increases in the second half of FY 2024 as inflation began to settle, particularly for lower-risk motor vehicles, makes, and models that are shown to have lower risk of theft. Our retention rate for our New Zealand risk portfolio remained stable at 77%, and just over half of our customers held multiple policies with us.
To help our customers manage their insurance and affordability considerations, we prompted Ways to Save, a MyTower feature for our New Zealand customers that offers useful tips and options to reduce premiums. Continued improvement in our management expense ratio. We're pleased to achieve further reduction in MER to 31.4% in FY 2024, down from 32% in FY 2023. It's clear that the NZD 150 million Tower has invested in targeted growth, operational efficiency initiatives, and streamlining the business in the past five years is realizing benefits. The expansion of our Fiji Suva hub has delivered well in this respect. In the year, our Suva team answered 55% of all New Zealand sales and service calls to Tower, an increase from 16% in FY 2023. In FY 2024, we completed the sales of our Solomon Islands business and Vanuatu subsidiary. Tower also stopped offering commercial rural insurance in November 2023.
Our commission ratio continued to improve, reducing to 1.5% in the year from 2.1% in FY 2023, partly due to legacy portfolio purchases and transitioning to referral arrangements that reduced total commissions. In FY 2024, our BAU claims ratio improved significantly from 55% in FY 2023 to 48%, and thanks to effective pricing and underwriting, efficient claims management, calm weather, and other external factors, targeted rating across our house and motor portfolios reduced higher-risk policies and therefore claims, and general rating increases implemented in FY 2023 and early FY 2024 to offset inflation and increased reinsurance costs also continued to earn through. With an aim to more quickly and efficiently complete claims, we launched a new digital motor assessing tool and automatically allocated simple motor and home claims to repairers via MyTower Online. External factors have also played a part with calmer weather, reducing the frequency of claims in New Zealand and the Pacific region.
And these factors, along with the initiatives we've implemented, saw the number of open BAU claims in New Zealand halve, and claims turnaround times improved by a third. Delivering shareholder returns. Off the back of the 2024 financial year, Tower has proposed to return NZD 81 million to shareholders in the form of dividends and a capital return in the first half of 2025. We paid a full dividend; we paid a final dividend of NZD 6.50 in January 2025, bringing the full-year dividend to a total of NZD 9.50 per share. Tower's solvency ratio was 212% as at 30 September 2024, after the final dividend and before the capital return. So turning now to our trading performance for the first three months of our 2025 financial year, which features strong business-as-usual claims performance, operational efficiencies, and targeted growth. So here is a summary of our quarter one performance.
The financial information provided in this update is based on Tower's unaudited management accounts as at 31 of December 2024. Continued premium growth. GWP rose by 6%, excluding divested portfolios, to NZD 155 million compared to the same period last year, reflecting growth in lower-risk assets. While rating increases have now flattened on average following the higher rate increases implemented in early 2024, we are pleased to see strong volume growth increasing over the first three months of FY 2025. Customer numbers increased to around 310,000 over the quarter, as we welcomed around 5,000 net new customers to Tower. Similarly, Tower's risk account increased by around 8,000 risks in the quarter, predominantly in the house and contents markets, which saw 12% GWP growth, half of which was from volume. New Zealand retention remains consistent year on year at 78%.
Our risk-based pricing approach is continuing to improve our risk exposure, with 92% of new policies rated low or very low for flood risk. Our ongoing focus on customer experience, combined with our use of digital technology and data, has driven consistent improvements in the past year. Our overall Net Promoter Score further increased this quarter to + 41, up from + 38 at 30 September 2024. The benefits of our core platform, now live right across the Tower Group and our expanded Suva hub team, continue to be realized, contributing to a pleasing reduction in our sales and service contact centre abandonment rate, now at 7% compared to 9% in the prior year. Active MyTower users increased by 4% to 170,000 over the quarter, and MyTower logins have increased by 7% year on year, demonstrating that our online journeys continue to resonate with customers.
We were very pleased to win the first-place Supreme Award for Customer Retention in the New Zealand CRM Contact Centre Awards in September 2024, and last year, Canstar also announced Tower as the winner of its Home and Contents Outstanding Value Insurer of the Year Awards. Continued improvement in the management expense ratio. The management expense ratio has continued to improve, reducing to 30% in the quarter from 32% in the prior comparable period. The improvement was driven by our increasing scale from targeted premium growth as well as operational efficiencies. Our operational hub in Fiji, Suva, is now answering 70% of all New Zealand sales and service calls, and our digital channels are increasingly picking up our service, sales, and claims tasks. The BAU claims ratio has decreased substantially to 39%, down from 57% for the same period last year.
And this improvement is due to a combination of prior period underwriting actions and targeted rating increases for higher-risk assets, alongside a combination of external factors, which include calmer weather and lower inflation. Our work to enhance efficiencies has included bringing motor vehicle assessments predominantly in-house, which has reduced claims assessment costs. New digital claims journeys have shifted more of the claims process online, with 53% of motor claims now automatically allocated to a repairer. Strong capital and solvency position. So Tower remains very well capitalized and strong solvency margin, well above both regulatory requirements and our internal targets. And we expect this to continue after various changes to the rules around calculating solvency are implemented. Tower's regulatory solvency position is calculated under the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's Interim Solvency Standard, ISS.
And in December 2024, the RBNZ released further amendments to the ISS, which corrects issues in the previous solvency standard and will be effective from 1 March 2025. These amendments have areas of complexity, and insurance industry interpretations of them are still being developed. Our assessment so far is that we have reported our solvency position under the amended version of the ISS. Our solvency margin at 30 September 2024 would have been NZD 139.6 million, rather than the NZD 171.4 million we reported under the prior version of the ISS. Tower uses an internal target for capital management, including determining dividends and capital returns. And our internal forecasts had allowed for changes to the ISS. Therefore, there is no direct impact from the RBNZ's amendments to the board's plans to distribute dividends or capital to shareholders.
Using the amended version of the standard, our pro forma solvency position as at 1 January 2025 shows we are holding NZD 167.5 million more solvency capital than the regulatory minimum capital requirement. In accordance with the ISS, the planned capital return of NZD 45 million has not yet been taken into account in the reported solvency position. However, if it were, Tower would still have a solvency margin of NZD 122.5 million as at 1 January 2025. Before I hand over to our current CFO and soon-to-be interim CEO, Paul Johnston, can I just say a couple of words to thank the board, particularly the chair, Graham, management, shareholders, and our wonderful people for the opportunity to lead Tower. It's been the job of a lifetime and an absolute privilege. And on that note, I'll very happily hand over to Paul.
Thank you, Blair.
Looking forward, we will continue our focus on strategic delivery and strong business performance. Tower's FY 2025 guidance and future targets were updated last week on the 5th of February, following the strong Q1 business performance Blair has just outlined and early indications from January's performance. In FY 2025, Tower expects GWP growth, excluding revenue from sales of subsidiary operations, of between 7% and 12%. We have set a prudent large events allowance of NZD 50 million, NZD 3 million of which has been used to date. We further expect improvements to our management expense ratio, which we anticipate will be less than 29%. And we are targeting a combined ratio of between 84% and 86%. Assuming full utilization of the NZD 50 million large events allowance, Tower anticipates underlying net profit after tax to be between NZD 60 million and NZD 70 million.
This year, Tower is continuing to invest in creating leading customer experiences while targeting the right risks at the right price. This includes applying landslide and sea surge risk ratings to policies at customers' next renewal date and adding these perils to our automated customer-facing quote-to-buy tool, where customers can already see their home's risk ratings for earthquake and flood hazards. We will continue our focus on increasing new business from home insurance policy sales by targeting high-quality risks. In line with expectations, we are already seeing growth in our motorbook as our pricing becomes more attractive for lower-risk vehicles. And we'll continue to grow through partnerships, including Kiwibank, Homes.co.nz, and HealthCarePlus, who joined us in FY 2024. We are also looking to further increase customer retention by improving our online policy renewal experience.
As we work to continually improve our customer experience, we remain focused on helping customers manage their insurance and affordability concerns. In FY 2025, we are continuing to focus on delivering efficiency and process improvements. We are aiming for 80% of all New Zealand service tasks to be completed via digital channels by the end of FY 2027. Following the launch of our new motor assessing system in FY 2024, we also plan to launch a new house assessing system. This is all about continuing to drive down assessment times and repair costs. We're also working to implement a new contact center platform in FY 2025, designed to deliver greater frontline efficiencies and improved customer service. As we examine and improve our systems and processes, we are working to address the root causes of and are applying lessons from the errors that led to customer remediations.
This is a strategically important program for our business, which focuses on investigating root causes of incidents with a view to developing strategies to address those root causes, enhancing delivery and project execution, and improving end-to-end customer data management at Tower. Our work to streamline the business continues, having completed the exit of our New Zealand Commercial Rural Portfolio in January, another step towards decommissioning our last legacy technology platform in New Zealand. Navigating the broader effects of climate change is essential to our business as a general insurer. We are continuing to invest in initiatives and products that foster sustainability and future climate change resilience. Innovation will be key to our ongoing success. Our cost-effective alternative to traditional insurance is parametric insurance, which we have now implemented in three Pacific nations.
In FY 2024, we partnered with the United Nations Capital Development Fund, Global Insurtech, and CelsiusPro to offer this product on a digital platform, and we are now working to achieve scale by delivering parametric insurance through our new strategic partnerships that are in development. FY 2024 Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions were 20% below our FY 2020 baseline year. Detailed information was included in our inaugural climate statement released on 28th of November 2024. The statement covers in detail the climate change risks and opportunities we've identified, along with our strategic responses aimed at supporting a low emissions and resilient future. We continue to support education by awarding five university scholarships in New Zealand and Fiji in FY 2024. An important part of our business strategy is to build an effective and distinctive staff culture across our New Zealand and Pacific locations.
This slide shows some of our FY 2024 people-related metrics, including our staff engagement and gender pay equity scores and our various employee representation groups. Last year, we were pleased to win the Excellence in Workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Awards at the 2024 ANZIF New Zealand Insurance Industry Awards, as well as the Fiji Prime Minister's Employer of the Year Award. We're committed to making Tower an even better place to work, enabling us to attract and retain talented people and empower our teams to show us the best way possible for our customers. Sharp focus remains on delivering our strategy and strong business performance. We will continue investing in our customer experience to achieve targeted customer and premium growth. We'll continue to work through customer remediations and engage with the FMA in relation to our multi-policy discount remediation and associated proceedings, while implementing the lessons learned from those experiences.
We will continue to improve efficiencies via digitization and enhanced processes, and we are committed to maintaining our strong capital and solvency position while investing for the future. Ultimately, we are focused on delivering long-term shareholder value and sustainable returns. Thank you for your time this morning. I'll now hand back to our chair.
Thanks, Paul and Blair. And we now move on to the next item of business, which is the shareholder resolutions before the meeting. Resolutions one and two are ordinary resolutions, each passed by a simple majority of votes of those shareholders entitled to vote in voting on the relevant resolution. Resolution three is a special resolution, and in order for a special resolution to be passed, it must be approved by a majority of 75% of the votes of those shareholders entitled to vote in voting on the resolution.
As noted earlier, voting has already opened online and will close shortly after discussion on the resolutions are completed, so that everyone has their opportunity to cast their votes. So, resolution one. The Companies Act provides that a company's auditor is automatically reappointed unless there is a resolution or other reason for the auditor not to be appointed. The company wishes PwC to continue as the company's auditor, and PwC has indicated its willingness to do so. Companies Act provides that the fees and expenses of the auditors are to be fixed by the company or in the manner that the company determines at the annual meeting. The board proposes that, consistent with past practice, the auditor's fees will be fixed by the board.
Therefore, I record that the auditors, PwC, are automatically reappointed as auditors of the company and move that the board be authorised to determine the auditor's fees and expenses for the 2025 financial year. I'd also like to note the New Zealand Shareholders Association policy and international best practice is that the audit firm should not serve for more than 10 years and that the lead partner should be rotated at five years to ensure the appropriate degree of independence is maintained. We agree with this view, and the board has adopted a policy of requiring a rotation of the lead partner at least every five years and a tender for the audit firm, if not necessarily a change in the firm, at least every 10 years. Our lead audit partner rotated last year.
Lisa C rooke is now our auditor, and we have included audit firm tenure and lead audit partner rotation information in our corporate governance statement, which is on our website. So, are there any questions about that? If not, we can move on to the second resolution, which is the re-election of Marcus Nagel as director. Marcus retires by rotation, being eligible, offers himself for re-election, and I'm more than happy to ask Marcus to address the meeting on his proposed re-election if people would like me to do so. I thought you would, Alan. Please, Marcus, you can stay there.
Thank you, Chairman, and good morning, everyone. My name is Marcus Nagel. I have been on the Tower Board since 14 January 2019, and today I'm seeking for your support for my re-election.
In addition to my six years on the Tower Board, I have significant international insurance industry experience, having performed senior leadership roles at Zurich in Europe within life and general insurance businesses. Furthermore, I'm supporting currently a couple of insurtechs with a focus on claims and artificial intelligence process optimization for insurance companies, as well as chairing a company in Europe that's focusing on commercial insurance brokerage. I do hold a master's degree in banking finance from the University of Frankfurt, as well as a master's of international management from Thunderbird School of Global Management in the U.S. Currently, I'm based in Switzerland, and I'm pleased to support Tower's management board with my expertise from different geographies. As an advisor to Bain Capital, I represent Bain Capital's stake in Tower, and my position as non-independent director is supported by the Tower Board.
It's important to note that the Tower Board and Bain Capital have agreed and implemented necessary governance and confidentiality protocols to protect the interests of all shareholders here. Over the last six years, I've been pleased to contribute as a member of three committees: the Audit, the Risk, and the Remuneration Committee. We have achieved a lot over the last six years, and Tower is now in a much better shape. Our capital position is strong. We have overcome periods like COVID, Auckland Flood, and Cyclone Gabriel, and our returns to shareholders have improved significantly. I want to thank Blair for growing the business in the last years and also Graham for your significant contribution to Tower, as well as my colleagues on the board. Last but not least, our Chairman for managing the board well.
I'm very pleased to be involved with Tower going forward as we further develop our digital data strategy to deliver innovative products and services for our New Zealand and Pacific customers. Thank you for your support.
Thank you, Marcus. I'll now move that Marcus Nagel, who retires on rotation in accordance with the NZX listing rule 2.7.1, be re-elected as a director of Tower. Are there any questions? There being none, I'll now move on to resolution three, approval of capital return via a scheme of arrangement. As outlined in our notice of meeting in 2024, the board concluded a strategic review which determined we will continue executing Tower's current business strategy under the existing ownership structure and pursue organic growth opportunities that deliver accretive value.
As part of that review, the board considered our capital structure in light of the current strategy, which aims to deliver sustainable growth and efficiencies. Given this strategy and the lack of large-scale events, the board concluded that we had excess capital relative to the requirements of the business and its prudential capital-preserving requirements. Share buyback is a standard method of returning capital to shareholders for listed companies, and we chose this method as it ensures the return of capital in a timely manner. It treats all shareholders on the same basis and that the return of capital does not alter anyone's proportionate voting or distribution rights, and the payment made to shareholders is appropriately treated as return of capital for New Zealand tax purposes with IRD approval that we have obtained, and we announced that to you on 21 October last year.
Assuming we receive shareholder approval of the scheme of arrangement today and the grant of final court orders and providing the board remains satisfied in its sole discretion that Tower is complying with all its solvency and regulatory capital requirements, including under its capital management process requirements, and that it remains prudent to undertake the scheme up until the scheme is given effect, we expect the return of capital to be in the shareholders' hands in early April. So, are there any questions on the scheme or return?
Sorry. Oh, gosh. I think you've answered my question, but I wanted to clarify it. Does that distribution of capital to shareholders apply to all shareholders, including shareholders resident abroad?
Yes. The issue is about the tax for those abroad, but New Zealanders are tax-free. I'm sorry, capital return.
Thank you.
Gentlemen behind you, Carolyn.
Thank you, Carolyn.
Just for clarification, this is the cancellation of shares. There's no sale of shares involved.
No, it's a cancellation. One for 10. Any other?
Oh, yes, sorry. John Hume, shareholder. I'm pleased to see you're canceling the shares as a pro rata to what you own, rather than having a share buyback on the market, which I think inflates the price, and then you end up paying too much for them, and then when you stop buying them, they sink.
I think you appreciate, you know me and you know some of our other directors quite well. We're not here to give any shareholder an advantage. This is the fairest way to deal with all shareholders equally. The capital return does deal with your point, and we think that in our, well, current performance, we would hope that our shares do not drop out when the reduction occurs.
So, for us, this is equality in its true form, and it's fair for everyone.
Thank you. John, shareholder. I'm talking to a colleague here. What are the opportunities for the NZD 45 million? Are there any other positions you can take with financial services or growing the business in other ways?
The board doesn't give away capital that we've taken from you easily. In our current position, the board decided that the best and most efficient way, sorry, that's not fair. We look at our money, your money, and my money, and say, are we going to be able to generate a worthwhile return from that money doing something else, or is it better to give it back to you and let you play with it, so to speak?
At the moment, our focus and strategy is about focusing on the business, ensuring that it's in a good condition, getting some GWP growth, which we've got, but we are not seeing anything that we could invest in that will give us that return. So, hence, we've made this call.
My name's Ron Robertson. In addition, clarification in regard to the strategic review. One of the things that is not mentioned in the information provided to shareholders, all the options that were canvassed by the company and its advisors prior to this recommendation for the capital return, was the company actually put up for sale?
No, the company was not put up for sale, but you should be comfortable that in that strategic review, we took advice and made sure that there was no one that was going to be interested in buying our company or your company at a price that was sufficient enough for us to recommend to you. So, if we had thought we could sell the business at a price that was fair, we would have come back to you with that because it would have been a viable option.
Okay. So, following up on that, as a non-insurance person, what is an appropriate price? What is a fair price? How does an insurance company like Tower get valued?
You should look at the Australian insurance companies and their price multiples, and you will see that they are trading at a significantly better multiple than we are.
Sorry, we're very proud of what has been achieved in the last year, and our share price has moved from, was it, 60-odd cents to NZD 1.38. So, it's moved up dramatically. The multiples are still, if you follow some of the analysts, would say significantly lower than our competitors. So, that in itself should give you some idea. We've got a long way to go before we'd be recommending a sale.
Okay. Thank you. I'll come back to you on the question and answer session start. Yep, sure. Any other questions on the scheme? If not, I will now move that the scheme of arrangement relating to the return of capital to shareholders as set out in the arrangement document annexed to the notice of meeting dated 10th of January 2025 be approved. That concludes our discussion on the items of business.
So, if you haven't already done so, please cast your votes now. Voting will close in approximately two minutes. The votes will then be counted under the scrutiny of Computershare, who will now begin collecting the voting papers from within the room. So, we'll just pause for a couple of seconds or minutes for you to vote. Okay. So, we can now move on to the final item on the agenda, which is questions and general business. I know there is one question over there from Mr. Robertson, I think. So, please, sir, why aren't you first up?
A comment, but also a question. Given the fantastic turnaround in the business in the last year, year and a half, it just begs the question to me, did you offer Mr. Turnbull more money to stay? Nothing against Mr.
Johnston whatsoever intended, but this is the kind of guy that we want running the company.
I think the answer is that Blair and the board, Blair is leaving. He's going to something which I think we all hope is exceedingly successful for him, and we are moving on.
Is that it?
Yeah, I think so.
Okay.
I don't intend to discuss our private discussions.
Okay. The larger question is this: you alluded quite a lot to the California wildfires, the intervention of the California government in regard to an insurance scheme, supposedly more affordable for people trying to insure their properties. I think it's widely regarded that that scheme was a failure.
And then you segued into the New Zealand context and your ongoing dialogue with the New Zealand politicians and the New Zealand bureaucracy in regard to hoping that we don't find ourselves into that situation in the future in New Zealand. So, I would like you to expand on that. It occurs to me that there's a lot more expertise within Tower than there is within the New Zealand politicians and the New Zealand bureaucracy, and it occurs to me that you should be leading these discussions rather than responding to them.
Let's leave it like this. We should all know that having an entity controlled by government, mandated, regulated by government to cover these type of risks outside normal insurance companies cannot be in the interests of Tower shareholders, number one.
Number two, I think, is perhaps if I can be a little bit, yeah, outspoken. I presume as shareholders, we're all either sitting to the centre or to the right. There is always intrinsic danger in having government entities taking space, and there is no doubt that Grant Robertson, as a local MP for Miramar, which was—I think it's Miramar—which was always going to be in the dangerous-prone areas of earthquake, had a view that was going to take a position with EQC, which is now called something else? NHC. NHC, which used to be like NAC because I'm so old. But anyway, we can't have that.
So, it's in all our interests that if we are going to have some form of mechanism to deal with this type of thing, it has to be run either by the insurance companies or through the insurance companies, and that is the position that we are pursuing. On the other hand, there are people, I mean, from my understanding, California, a lot of very wealthy people didn't carry insurance. They made a decision to go and live in a place with lovely forests around them and water running down in the back of their property. That is a decision that we as individuals are allowed to make. What we're not allowed to make is to make it our fault that they can't get insurance.
And in a funny way, California, to a lot of people, has taught us that idea of, "This is my decision, my risk, and I'm happy to take it." And we need to get back into that discussion. Insurance is not, as a right, it is something you can buy if you wish, but for some people, it will be very expensive because you take a position that is outside the norm. And those are the messages we have to start selling as a group of people. Any. Oh, sure.
Thank you. Malcolm Wade, shareholder. Just a suggestion or comment regarding the annual report. You have the 25-snapshot, but I wonder if you'd consider putting a five-year summary of results, things, whatever you choose, but GWP, obviously, net profit after tax, EPS, things like that.
So, it's just a nice snapshot for people to look at and see how the company's progressed over those years.
Oh, sorry. So, you mean in the past?
Well, yeah, showing the last five years, yeah, just so you can look at it and say, "Oh, you look where it was five years ago, look where it is now. The EPS is up, the EPS is down.
" We're a bit cautious because we can't—we're very happy that we've done really well, but we're always worried about the year that we might not do well. So, there's a risk in doing this. And you've got to remember, we're all here, it's an insurance company, and whilst we've done really well, we are very focused on taking the volatility out of the business by having such a large claims event, large event provision.
This is a business that does go up and down because of some male or female somewhere else in the world, called God.
Good morning. Garry Romano. Two questions. First one, more general. You did announce late 2023 a strategic review, then middle of September 2024. I think paraphrasing, the response to the market was, "We've had the review, we kicked a few tires, people have kicked a few of our tires, but there's been no change in direction." Just a little bit more context about what was actually gained through those discussions would be useful, I think, to shareholders to the extent that you can possibly share them.
Sorry, second question,
and the second question is, as part of that review, and you made your through your own comments, you also indicated you had no need for capital for investments, and hence, quite a large capital return.
The question is around the unimputed dividend, which for taxpayers in New Zealand, it's pretty seriously unattractive to get an unimputed dividend. And why the haste in doing that when your alternatives might be just to wait a year or two, to wait till imputation credits actually come and become available, or increasing a capital return, or doing a share buyback? Why the haste in giving an unimputed return back to shareholders?
Let's deal with your second question first. Whilst there is no doubt some of us would have preferred that, there are the majority of our shareholders, from what we understand, who are more interested in having a dividend imputed or unimputed. That probably tells you about the top end of town, but it was about we were driven. Share price, I think, is really important to all of us.
There is no doubt the pressure was that a dividend now was better than one later. Appreciate your point. Strategic reviews. An opportunity to look under the skirt or under the bonnet, as we've got a hybrid that I hopefully, two cheap cars sold. But never mind. We should have a photo next time that has dirty wheels. I've noticed it's a little bit clean. Strategic review is about looking at everything, and it's a blank canvas saying, "What can we do from sale, going into certain areas, selling bits off?" You can feel rest assured that the board, management, and our advisors looked at the whole suite, and our best position was to do a capital return and keep going. Doesn't mean that next week, a year, two years, three years out, we don't do this again, but that's just the way it is. Alan.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Alan Best.
I'm still holding the proxies for the Shareholders Association members. Now that Tower's in the top 50, could the board consider now appointing a future director? I know that you are one of the primary movers in this very valuable activity.
Yes. So, for those of you who don't know, many, many years ago, Future Directors was about bringing in, younger is an inappropriate word, an inexperienced person, allowing them to take part in the board at the board table, to be paid, and to behave as though they were a director, albeit their vote doesn't count.
Personally, the idea I thought, and I believe very strongly, is that it allows boards and management to get input from someone they don't normally get input from, because it's all very easy to go and talk to second, third-tier management and say, "Do you think we're doing the right thing?" And nine times out of ten, they'll probably say what they think their boss wants to hear. Sorry, that's unfair. Sometimes they will do that, but this way, we actually got to engage and open people's minds, and by definition, we opened their mind as well to a different environment. Unfortunately, we have been a bit up and down through a few things, and in those times, I think it's inappropriate, whilst it would have been good for them to understand it, it's a hell of a lot of responsibility for someone who has a completely different job.
I think as we're now in a more stable environment, it's something that we should revisit, and personally, I'll support it 100%.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. You did, I think, tell us last year that you would probably retire at the end of the current term. Are you still on track for that?
Yep.
There's a new CEO appointed, and this is more bookkeeping than anything. I guess there were no onboarding payments or special termination agreements made without publication?
I should take umbrage by the fact that you should even ask that. As you know, we run a pretty clean ship. Blair's remuneration was only what was in his contract. I think it's fair to say we have paid Blair, sorry, our CEO is rewarded on performance, and we like to tie our CEO's performance into our own performance as shareholders.
So, Blair has done, I think, relatively well, and that's great because we've all done relatively well, and you will see that at the next annual report.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. The last question's one in which I have an interest, special interest. We hear of a lot of risks as we move into an AI era. Can you see in your scenarios that AI might present you with claim problems and risks because of the AI move?
Some of us are getting really old. AI is the biggest thing since sliced bread. It's coming, and someone said to me this morning at a breakfast, he started work when we brought in the internet, and he wishes he was starting work when they brought in AI because he thinks it's so much bigger. AI's amazing. It's bloody scary on one hand, amazing on the other.
I think it's fair to say that we spend, and Geraldine, in particular, has a lot of knowledge and interest in the area. Struggling in a positive way is how I'd describe our position because you want to be ahead of the game, but that has danger. You don't want to definitely be behind the game because that's stupid. And so, we're spending a lot of time trying to navigate that. We had a discussion yesterday about getting, how do you get AI input from experts around the world and work out where to go? Because I don't think anyone has the right answer, but there is an answer out there that's going to be really good for the way we do business.
I think there are a hell of a lot of issues we need to deal with as a society as a result, but this isn't a political statement, but you do have to be thinking about consequences well. But for the business itself, AI is going to change claims. Everything is just going to be turned on its head, and we need to be there. So, we're on it. Is that it, Alan?
That's my life. Oh, geez.
If you read the NZSA report on us, you'll see that there was a comment on how good it is that we're reporting on climate change and all these other things. But yeah, we do need to find a way of pushing regulation back and allowing us to do what we're meant to do, which is look after people with insurance in an appropriate manner and make money for shareholders.
Any other questions?
Some online, Chair.
Sorry?
I have five questions online.
Oh.
The first from Peter Hill. I'm a shareholder and live on the North Shore. Tower's the only company that will not offer me home insurance. I wonder how much value is being lost by your strict modeling and rejecting certain areas entirely rather than specific underwriting within areas.
We won't get into detail, Peter. It's. Oh, you probably live next to my daughter, actually, if you can't get insurance. We have to remember what we're trying to do. We are using risk-based pricing to allow us to charge the appropriate rate and to make a return for our shareholders. We are not a charity.
There will be some people, unfortunately, that live in a house or an area - the beauty of our systems, I think, Ron, is that we can go into granular individual houses and say, "It just doesn't work for us." We are looking at coming up with answers so that we can give you insurance, but it will be, unfortunately, expensive, and it may not be as comprehensive as it is for the person next door who is not as high in the risk-based position as you are. It is an unfortunate way of the world.
From Graham Wakefield, John Boyle, and Raewyn Clark. What proportion of the customer discount remediation work remains outstanding currently, and what cost remains to be accounted?
I might let you answer that, Paul. Absolutely. Yeah. So, we are, as we've talked about before, very focused on finishing the remediations and putting it right for our customers.
So, we are a long way through our remediations. We did announce in our annual report that we've provisioned NZD 9 million on the balance sheet to pay for those remaining remediations and regulatory actions. So, we are continuing to progress through those as fast as possible, and that's what's already provisioned in the accounts.
From the same shareholder, would anyone like to comment on the likely impact of AI on Tower's existing and future operations?
I think we've probably answered that. And to say, Graham, we miss that you're not here, so we hope you're okay. Graham comes every year.
Also, from Graham, John, and Raywen, does the board expect that any future dividends, both interim and final, to be declared in relation to FY 2025 to be fully imputed to New Zealand shareholders?
Yes.
At this stage, given our profit guidance, we expect to be able to impute dividends towards the end of this year.
And from Trevor James, what is the company's current dividend policy?
To pay 60%-80% of adjusted earnings, where we adjust for unusual or large one-off events. And so, yeah, to pay 60%-80% of adjusted earnings as long as it is also prudent to do so from a capital position.
No further questions online.
Thanks, Emily. Any other questions from here? If not, I'm going to close the voting, and this is your final chance to ensure you've cast your vote on all resolutions. I think I can now declare that voting is closed. The results will be released to the stock exchanges, as I've said later today. That concludes the formal part of our business.
Once again, good luck and thank you to both Blair and Graham, and to declare the meeting closed and say, please join us for some morning tea. Thank you.