Gjensidige Forsikring ASA (OSL:GJF)
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May 13, 2026, 2:09 PM CET
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Pre-Close Call

Jun 27, 2024

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Okay. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Gjensidige's second quarter pre-close call. My name is Mitra Nergård, and I'm the head of investor relations. With me, I have Marius J. Fjellbu and Anne Landa from our team here. Please note that this call is being recorded, and the recording will be published on our IR website after the call. We will start with going through the Q2 reminder, which we published on our website yesterday.

This reminder highlights relevant public information. Afterwards, we will open up for a Q&A session, and as always, we only answer questions related to already disclosed and public information. Please note that if you want to ask questions, you must log on via the Teams app. Let us start with a few key dates. We will be releasing our second quarter results on the fifteenth of July.

The silent period starts on the first of July. As always, we kindly ask analysts to forward estimates using the template we sent you yesterday, and please fill in all open cells in the sheet. The deadline for sending us your estimates is the fifth of July. We will publish consensus on our website on the tenth of July. Now, over to the reminder. As usual, we start with comments on the weather.

For the sake of good order, we always remind you of the seasonality in our business with the summer quarters, Q2 and Q3, normally having lower claims ratios than the winter, winter quarters, Q1 and Q4. We have avoided floods in Norway so far this quarter, despite the significant amount of snow that we got in Norway this winter. May was very warm and dry in Norway this year, while June has been wet.

We have had cloudbursts and thunder and lightning in May and also in June. In the reminder on our website, we've added links to a few examples of media coverage on weather in Norway so far this quarter. And as usual, for statistics on weather, please refer to the links in the section General Information at the very end of this reminder.

Bear in mind the acquisitions we made in Denmark in 2023 in terms of effect on insurance revenue. PenSam Forsikring was included in the private portfolio in Denmark on the 31st of October last year. At the point of acquisition, it had annual insurance revenues of DKK 118 million, as we stated in the press release. The commercial portfolio from Sønderjysk Forsikring was included in the commercial portfolio for Denmark from the 1st of September last year.

At the point of acquisition, the portfolio had annual insurance revenues of approximately DKK 200 million, as stated in the press release. The next reminder is regarding the regular dividend for 2023 of NOK 8.75 per share. This dividend was resolved at the AGM earlier this year, as you remember, and paid out in the second quarter, or to be more precise, on the fifth of April this year.

Over to large losses, our general expectation for normalized large losses in 2024, defined as losses above NOK 10 million, is approximately NOK 476 million per quarter, or approximately NOK 1.9 billion for the full year of 2024. Please note that this estimate is undiscounted, and while large losses in our IFRS 17 accounts are recognized at discounted values.

In terms of excess reserves, there is no change in our communication. As you know, according to IFRS 17, it's not possible to retain identified excess reserves on the balance sheet. We continue to set reserves according to our best estimate. However, bearing history in mind, we expect run-off gains and losses also in the future.

On inflation, we will, as per routine, provide an update at our second quarter earnings call. Key points on this topic, which we made at our Q1 2024 presentation on the 25th of April, were that our latest estimate on claims inflation for private motor in Norway was 7%, gradually declining towards 4% over the next 12 to 18 months. We are putting through significant price increases, which, together with higher deductibles, will improve profitability.

Our estimate on claims inflation for private property in Norway was 5%-7% for the next 12-18 months. We have increased prices over several years to take account of not only claims inflation, but also more frequent weather events. We provided more details on claims inflation and pricing measures, which you can find on slides 4 and 5 in the Q1 2024 presentation package.

We also commented on the topic in our Q1 2024 report, stating that staying ahead of claims inflation is key to maintaining good profitability, and it has high priority in Gjensidige. Gjensidige vigilantly monitors developments in the relevant markets and will continue to put through necessary price increases. Despite a natural inherent volatility in claims, the recent increase in claims frequency for several product lines is being closely monitored.

Gjensidige will continue to strengthen pricing measures and adjust terms and conditions to ensure that the increase in claims frequency is mitigated over time. So moving on to solvency, our reminder includes a general explanation of the main drivers of changes in eligible own funds and capital requirement. These are the same explanations you have seen in our reminder over several quarters, so we won't go through them here now.

In terms of the investment portfolio, you will find the same general explanations as you have seen for quite some time. As always, we believe a good starting point for estimating returns is using the same asset allocation as the previous quarter, applying returns on the indices we have listed in the reminder, which is also included in the appendix section in the quarterly presentation.

We have also added a top-down approach, which is useful to combine with the bottom-up calculations you make. The net financial result for the match portfolio consists of the return on the match portfolio, minus unwinding and change in financial assumptions. The interest income from the match portfolio is intended to equal interest expenses on liabilities over time.

Hence, the net result on the match portfolio, given a perfect match, should over time be zero, except for returns on credited exposure held in the match portfolio. The investments in the match portfolio have an average credit spread of approximately 60 basis points, which we explained at our CMD last year. So far in Q2, talking about mid-June, credit spreads in the Nordics are slightly tighter compared with the average spreads in the first quarter of 2024.

We have also added the information on running yields and duration for our investment portfolios as of the end of Q1 in the reminder. This can also be found in our Q1 2024 financial report. Finally, on unwinding and change in financial assumptions, we remind you of the rules of thumb and the example calculation, which we have published on our website. We have also included relevant swap rates for the different currencies in our reminder. With that, we will now open up for questions. Please raise your hand, and we will open your line. We have a question from Tryfonas, I believe.

Operator

Yes, got it. So please go ahead, Tryfonas, and you can unmute.

Speaker 3

Yeah, thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for hosting this call. I guess just a question on weather in general. You mentioned, you know, wet sort of May and June, and a bit of a dry one, weather in between. Can you maybe comment on just more broadly whether the quarter has been more sort of affected by weather as you normally expect versus a normal, I guess, Q2 seasonally quarter? And I guess on just the warm and dry weather, have there been any sort of fires or large fires being reported across Norway or more Nordics more broadly? So that will be my question. Thank you.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Thanks, Trifinus. As always, we don't comment on any impacts on claims in terms of weather. And just to put it to be clear about that, this hasn't been any particular quarter in terms of weather. I mean, it's... There haven't been any adverse weather this quarter. Now, we say that we have had some cloudburst in Norway and some thunder and lightning. This is typically what one can get in the second quarter. So no, nothing particular in terms of any adverse weather situation and no comments on claims. You will get an update on our results on the fifteenth of July.

Speaker 3

Great. Thank you.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Jan Erik has the next question.

Operator

Yeah. I think you can, perhaps unmute now, Jan Erik, please.

Speaker 4

I can. Yes, I can unmute. Thank you for taking my question. When it comes to the first quarter event on weather, it was quite eventful in that sense. How much of that frequency, weather was sort of more winter events, which sort of is not going to be repeated again in the second quarter? Did you mention how many percentage points out of the combined ratio or the weather claims that you sort of thought was weather? Could you just remind us of that?

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3

So that would not sort of be repeated again?

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Yeah. We have given you a very detailed overview of all the effects per segment and per large loss and frequency in the material for Q1. So I suggest that you just have a look at that in the appendix section. You will see a table with all the details you need. Also in the report from Q1, you will see the underlying frequency loss numbers adjusted for the weather effects.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Freya, you have a question?

Speaker 4

Yes. Hi. Could you remind us in Q2 if there were any frequency impacts from weather as well last year, just to get a sense?

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

We did not break out any weather numbers in the second quarter last year.

Speaker 4

Okay.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

There was no adverse effect, but I suggest that you have a look at the second quarter report for last year for comments around the results in the different segments. You will see some comments regarding torrential rain for private and commercial, but we did not break out the numbers. This is typically something we do when there is adverse weather situations, when there is a significant weather effect, and we did not do that in the second quarter last year.

Speaker 4

Okay, so no reason to assume there would be any one-off impacts in that from last year?

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

I would suggest you just look at the text and the descriptions per segment, where we comment on the profitability per segment. There, as I said, you will find some comments on torrential rain regarding property. But no numbers were broken out, which is something we typically do when there are significant weather effects.

Speaker 4

Okay, thank you.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Jan-Erik?

Speaker 4

Yeah, can I have one more, please?

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Yeah.

Speaker 4

On the unit link business or the old pension business-

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Mm.

Speaker 4

You use IFRS 17 to run it, and there you take all the losses in the first quarter from, from all the unprofitable contracts. And then you sort of unwind them during the, the year. If that's the case, so we should expect a much better last three quarters, so to speak, than, than the first quarter, or if did something happen during the first quarter in 2024 that was different from first quarter last year? Just so we understand the sort of sequence.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

I'm not-

Speaker 4

From that.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Yeah. I'm not sure how to understand your question. We have a look at the explanation in the report in the first quarter, where we described some effects which were significant in the first quarter. You can't necessarily call it a one-off, but there are some effects there, which typically were very significant and not necessarily related to the underlying development of the business.

Other than that, the accounting principles are the same. IFRS 17, in terms of calculating onerous contract and CSM, so there is no change in the methodology naturally, but there have been some sort of one-off effects or significant effects, which you won't necessarily see every quarter. These have been broken out and described in the text for the previous quarters.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

I think we have one question from Vinit.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Vinit, please.

Speaker 4

Yes, can you hear me now?

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Yes.

Speaker 4

Thank you. So thank you, Mitra,Gryder , and Marius. All the best for your new ventures. Just one, so I have one on motor, one on property, please. Just looking for public information from the industry, mainly, not from your data yet. But just from... if you could help to guide us a bit, that, what was the industry stats for motor frequency in Norway in this quarter?

Because that would probably be somewhat more visible to you. And from Denmark, I'm hearing that there was some flattish trends, if we adjust for the Easter effect, which apparently there was fewer working days or something. So I'm just curious if, what is the industry stats that you could point us to telling you for motor frequency?

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Mm.

Speaker 4

And then one more on property.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Well-

First comes, yeah.

The industry stats in Norway are very publicly available, the Finance Norway statistics, and they are published for the first quarter. So I suggest that you have a look at the statistics there.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you. And just from what you have seen in the media on fires, I think you addressed Triff's question on large fires, but has there been more media news, you know, from you guys living in Norway? Has there been more news about more fires in private households, or has there been just generally any commentary in the media that you could say you have observed?

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Nothing particular in terms of articles that we-

Speaker 4

That you observed. Okay, nothing is okay.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

I think of right now-

Speaker 4

And just-

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

But, you just generally need to follow the media, and, we haven't been... It hasn't been commented in terms of Gjensidige specifically, so I don't have any special comment on that.

Speaker 4

Okay. No, I appreciate that. Thank you very much, Mitra. Thank you very much.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

You're welcome. Freya, you have a second question?

Speaker 4

Hi. Yes. I was wondering if you guys had any comments regarding the press article about the fraudulent claims for the law firms. I think it was NOK 550 million that was mentioned.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Mm-hmm. Yes,

Speaker 4

I mean, yes.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Yes. Our involvement in this case is unclear. As a general principle, and also in line with regulatory requirements, we don't comment on individual customers. So, but generally speaking, our exposure on general terms is limited by the terms in the policies, and we also have reinsurance programs, as you know, which cover large losses.

Speaker 4

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Trifanus?

Speaker 3

Yes. So just to follow up on the question on this claim, potential claim, would you still have to take a charge, even though you may dispute the claim? Or I guess I'm thinking back on what you did last quarter on the provision with regards to the ombudsman dispute in Denmark. Clearly, you don't really have a tangible, you know, bet on sort of the outcome, but you took a charge anyway, sort of almost like preemptive. So is that the same view to have for these potential losses to come? Particularly, you may not be able to comment, but any comment would be appreciated. Thank you.

Mitra Negård
Head of Investor Relations, Gjensidige

Yeah, and that you're very right, Trifanus. It would be very difficult to comment on anything that we do in the future. As I said, our involvement in this case is unclear, so and we do not comment on specific cases.

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