Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the first quarter presentation of Gjensidige. My name is Mitra Negård, and I'm Head of Investor Relations. We will start this session with our CEO, Geir Holmgren, giving you the highlights of the quarter, followed by our CFO, Jostein Amdal, going into the numbers in further detail. We have plenty of time for a Q&A afterwards. Geir, please.
Thank you, Mitra. Good morning, everyone. As you saw in the press release we published this morning, we are transforming our organizational structure to further enhance operational excellence and strengthen our position to become a leading general insurance company in the Nordics and Baltics. Let us have a look at the highlights of the changes on page two before discussing our first quarter results. Gjensidige has a very strong position today, thanks to our deeply customer-oriented culture and unique competencies, and also due to our solid operations and industry-leading cost position. We cannot rest on our laurels. Industry trends call for a strong focus on building customer relationships as well as the capability to respond to swift changes in customer needs. The changes we are implementing will further strengthen our fundamentals and enable us to deliver on our strong ambitions.
At the core, this transformation is about stepping up implementation of our best practice across the group and sharpening our focus on strategic initiatives and innovation, all based on our superior position in Norway. Our Danish operations have matured and grown to a size that calls for a closer integration with our home market operations. We see significant opportunities in further efficiency gains for claims handling. As you can see on the slide here, our operations in Norway and Denmark will, as the first of July, be organized into three business areas: private, commercial, and claims handling. This will release further benefits of scale and increase synergies across our two largest markets. We will also increase our focus on sustainability, people, strategy, M&A, and communication through three new staff areas. Over to page three. The changes you see on this slide will be effective from first of July.
Until then, we will have an interim structure in place as described in our release today. With me, I have a highly competent, experienced, and motivated management team. As you can see, there are also two new team members starting on the first of August. Siri Langangen, EVP People, coming from Statkraft, and Vibeke Hansen Lewin, EVP Communication, Brand, and Sustainability, coming from DNB. I look forward to working together with the new team, I'm very confident that they, together with the rest of the group, will ensure that we will step up implementation of our best practices across the group, realize group synergies and reach our financial goals. Let us take turn over to page four for comments on our first quarter results. This is the first quarter we are reporting according to the new IFRS accounting standards.
I am very pleased that despite the high complexity involved, we have had a very smooth transition thanks to our strong and competent team. We generated a profit before tax of NOK 1.491 billion. The general insurance service result was a solid NOK 1.115 billion, reflecting continued strong growth in insurance revenue, effective pricing measures, good risk selection, and cost control. Underlying profitability expressed through our underlying frequency loss ratio was impacted by the high motor claims due to difficult weather conditions in Norway this quarter. Large losses were lower than what we have expected for a quarterly average this year, and we reported run-off gains as opposed to run-off losses last year. Bear in mind that due to IFRS 17, we now compare with the 2022 run-offs, excluding the planned releases we made last year.
Our investment generated returns of NOK 794 million, reflecting improved market conditions. I'm very pleased that we generated an annualized return on equity of 20.1%. Jostein will revert with more detailed comments on the results for the quarter. Moving on to page five, a few words on our operations. We are continuing to price at least in line with expected claims inflation. We see that we are good at forecasting claims inflation and are able to pass on necessary price increases. We are confident that this will continue. We will prioritize profitability over growth also going forward. General inflation remains at elevated levels. In terms of claims inflation, the initial pressure on material price is gradually being replaced by wage inflation and depreciation of the Norwegian kroner against several currencies. Energy prices continue to be volatile.
We currently expect claim inflation for our private property in Norway to remain in the 4%-6% range. Further, we expect claims inflation for motor in Norway to remain in the 4%-7% range and at the higher end in the short term. For certain pockets in the large corporate portfolio and in certain commercial segments, there is still a need for price increases beyond inflation. We have put behind us a quarter with strong performance in Norway despite the challenging winter weather. I'm very pleased with the continued significant growth rates in insurance revenues in private despite tough competition. We managed to put through necessary price increases while maintaining our high customer retention, and profitability continues to be very good. The development of our mobility service is encouraging.
REDGO has recently won significant commercial tenders and has further strengthened our offering in the important car dealership channel. As explained earlier, we aim at generating considerable claims handling synergies by integrating road assistance in our value chain. We are making good progress, and I am confident that this will come through. We have also seen very encouraging results from cross-selling motor insurance to our toll tag customers, and I'm excited about our newly launched app, which will deepen our ties with customers. Our commercial segment also generated solid results this quarter despite the difficult weather. Insurance revenues continue to grow at a high rate, and retention is at a very good level. I will revert shortly with some further comments on our commercial portfolio.
The underlying performance in Denmark was somewhat weaker than we saw in the last quarter in the same quarter in 2022. We continue to grow insurance revenues in commercial portfolio, this quarter, we also saw a slight increase in the private portfolio. The acquisition of the commercial portfolio from Sønderjysk Forsikring in Denmark is yet an example of adding attractive bolt-ons with a good strategic fit, supporting our growth agenda. It is expected to close in third quarter. Progress in the new core system in Denmark, IT system in Denmark is good, we are getting closer to a complete migration of the private products. We expect to start migrating the commercial products next year. This will strengthen the operational performance considerably when fully implemented. I am very pleased with the growth in our Swedish business.
The underlying profitability in Sweden was somewhat weaker this quarter compared with the first quarter last year. We will continue our efforts to increase profitability going forward through implementing pricing measures, improving risk selection, and implementing cost efficiency measures. In the short term, we will have particular focus on strengthening our distribution and continue developing digital customer solution. This quarter, we have implemented several partner APIs as well as online self-serving solutions for our customers. I'm encouraged by the pace of our digitalization, which will support delivery on both our top line and profitability ambitions. We saw better performance in the Baltics this quarter, although the numbers are still in red. I'm pleased to see an improved underlying profitability as we have put through necessary price increases and improved risk selection. We need to deliver significantly better results, which calls for strong focus on ongoing measures.
For 2023, we still expect the combined ratio to move below 100% and then further improve the following years. Over to page six. A few words about how we have succeeded in establishing a healthy commercial portfolio. We have generated strong growth in our commercial portfolio over the past years, driven by both significant price increases and new business. We have achieved this without having to compromise on our strict profitability requirement. Thanks to our excellent underwriting and strong analytical capabilities, we have managed to further improve the quality in our portfolios, as you can see from the chart on the right-hand side here. The customers we have kept are more profitable than the ones we have shed. This is no coincidence, but rather a result of sophisticated analytical tools and resources as well as an extensive database built over many years.
We have a strong team of data engineers and data scientists who have established efficient processes to gather data and gain further insights. Our advanced modeling tools generated predictive output and support our decisions and priorities. We utilize refined customer scoring models, which helps us effectively differentiate on pricing. These models and our extensive knowledge base ensure that profitable customers are offered lower prices, price increases than less profitable customers. We make sure that we use our resources effectively and concentrate our efforts towards value-creating activities. We see significant potential in sharing the state-of-the-art processes and methods we have operations outside Norway. The new group structure and core IT system are important contribution to reach our goals. Over to page seven. We continue to make progress on sustainability.
We have several new initiatives this quarter, as you can see on the slide, supporting our efforts to deliver on our ambitious targets. As you can see on the right-hand side, we are well on the way to deliver on these. This quarter, I am particularly pleased we are having launched our second taxonomy aligned product, and there is more to come. We have got a strong recognition this quarter, too, with top ranking in the Sustainable Brand Index. With that, I will leave the word to Jostein to present the first quarter results in more detail.
Thank you, Geir, and good morning, everybody. I will start on page nine. We have been well prepared for the transition to IFRS 9 and 17, and we welcome these as they drive greater consistency and allow for increased comparability between insurers. As mentioned earlier, although our accounting, particularly for our pension business, is significantly different, the new accounting standards have no implications on the fundamentals of our business. The way we run our business, our underlying profitability, cash flows, solvency, and dividend capacity remain unchanged. As Geir mentioned, we delivered a profit before tax of NOK 1,491 million in the first quarter. The insurance service result reflects a continued strong momentum for top line growth and efficient operations. The results from our Norwegian operations were significantly impacted by higher motor claims.
This year we had a long winter with several days of difficult driving conditions caused by heavy snowfall and a fluctuation in temperatures. Our operations outside Norway generated higher insurance results compared with the first quarter for last year. Higher run-off gains and discounting effect were the main drivers of this in Denmark and Sweden. The depreciation of the Norwegian kroner also contributed to the higher results. The Baltics reported a loss. However, the underlying profitability improved considerably year-over-year. The financial result was good, reflecting a generally positive development in the capital markets in the quarter. Despite a good development in our pension business, we recorded a loss based on the new accounting standards. This is due to an asymmetric recognition of losses on onerous contracts and profits on new contracts. I will discuss this in further detail in a moment.
The decline in other items is primarily related to the gain on the sale of Oslo Areal recorded last year. Turning over to page 10. The good development in our insurance revenues continued in the first quarter, up 7.4% adjusted for currency effects. We saw a strong increase in revenues for the private segment, driven by price increases for motor, property, and accident and health insurance. Despite the price increases, we maintained our superior position and increased the number of customers. The sale of motor insurance was particularly good this quarter, proving our competitiveness and powerful distribution capacity. I'm very pleased that I generated significantly higher revenues in the commercial segment as well. All the main products showed good growth. We continue to succeed in implementing effective pricing measures and have solid renewals. This quarter, we had higher volumes for accident and health insurance.
Insurance revenues in Denmark increased by 7.7%, measured in local currency, primarily driven by volume growth and significant price increases for property and motor insurance in the commercial portfolio. We also generated a slight increase in our private portfolio. The dental health insurer we acquired last year, Dansk Tandforsikring, also contributed to premium growth. We are looking forward to adding Sønderjysk's commercial portfolio later this year. Our Swedish operations generated revenue growth of 9.5% measured in local currency. Both the commercial and private portfolios rose this quarter, driven by volume and price increases. Insurance revenues in the Baltics increased by 5.9%, measured in local currency, primarily driven by pricing measures. We saw growth in the main insurance lines, except for motor, where the significant price increases we are putting through led to a drop in volumes.
Gross written premium was up 17.2%. Turning over to page 11. The group's loss ratio decreased by 1.3%. The underlying frequency loss ratio increased by 3.1 percentage points, with the primary driver in Norway being weather-related increases in motor claims, in addition to normal volatility. The increase in the underlying frequency loss ratio in Denmark is due to lower profitability for health insurance, normal volatility, and somewhat lower price increases than claims inflation. For Sweden, the main explanation for the increase in the underlying frequency loss ratio is volatility in medium-sized claims within property. The Baltics showed an improved underlying frequency loss ratio, mainly as a result of the significant repricing measures taken there. Large losses for the group were significantly lower than the same quarter in 2022 and lower than expected.
Both run-off gains and the discounting effect were higher, the latter due to the rise in interest rates last year. Let's turn to page 12. Our cost ratio remained stable at 13.4% thanks to revenue growth and strong cost discipline across the group. Our cost ratio when excluding the Baltics was 12.7%. The cost ratio in Norway increased slightly to 10.5% due to strengthening of the sales capacity in private and higher IT expenses. Denmark and Sweden showed an improved cost ratio due to the increase in revenues and higher cost efficiency in Sweden. The Baltics cost ratio increased somewhat due to higher commission following the high sales activities in the quarter. Over to slide 13 for comments on our pension operations. Our pension business continued to perform well due to cost efficient operations and a good growth momentum.
However, with the new accounting standard, the reported results give a different impression. We reported a volume driven insurance revenue growth of 9%. The insurance claims expenses increased by 76% reflecting the accounting rules on losses on onerous contracts. Based on IFRS 17, life insurance contracts are separated into profitable and onerous contracts. Best estimate future profits on the profitable contracts, also called contractual service margin, are set aside as a liability. These are gradually released over time as the contracts expire. While the loss component arising from onerous contracts are taken into the P&L directly at recognition of the contracts. The asymmetry in recognition of profits and losses has a negative impact on the reported results, particularly for companies with significant growth such as our pension business.
We are working to refine the models that measure whether contracts are profitable or loss-making for accounting purposes, which may lead to some volatility in the IFRS 17 results these first quarters of reporting. On this slide we have shown both the result according to IFRS 17 and an adjusted version where we have included the change in contractual service margin, moving the result in the first quarter from a negative NOK 8.5 million to a positive NOK 44.4 million. I'm very pleased to see how we succeed in growing our business and generate strong results. assets under management rose to almost 61 billion, reflecting the good growth in pension members.
The net income from the unit link business continued at a high level due to growth in occupational pension members and assets under management, somewhat contracted by an increase in costs due to the high activity level. We have an agile and highly cost-efficient pension business set for further growth going forward. The new course system, which is currently being implemented in pension, will provide further opportunities for digitization and automation of processes. Moving on to the investment portfolio on page 14. Our investment portfolio generated a return of 1.3% in the first quarter, with positive returns on all asset classes. The result for the quarter was driven by the rise in global equity markets, depreciation of the Norwegian kroner, and lower credit spreads and interest rates, especially outside Norway. A high running yield contributed to good returns. The match portfolio returned 1%.
Net of unwinding and the impact of changes in financial assumptions, the return was 0.3%. The free portfolio returned 1.8% this quarter. Compared to the end of the previous quarter, the risk in our portfolio was somewhat reduced, with derivative positions taking down the exposure in listed equities by approximately NOK 500 million compared to the NOK 1.7 billion recorded as carrying amount at the end of this quarter. We have a balanced portfolio and solid fixed income investments, with a large majority having an investment-grade rating. Over to page 15. We report a solvency ratio of 181% at the end of the first quarter, up 2 percentage points from Q4. Eligible own funds increased, with the solvency to operating earnings, including the seasonal increase in premium provisions.
Returns on the free portfolio also contributed to the increase in eligible funds. The from like dividend decreased the funds by approximately NOK 900 million. The capital requirement increased primarily due to growth, currency rate changes, and higher market risk for life insurance. If we take into account the portfolio acquisition from Sønderjysk Forsikring and smooth out the seasonality in premium provisions, the solvency ratio would have been 174% this quarter. A few words on the latest development of operational targets on slide 16. Our high customer satisfaction score confirms our strong customer offering, particularly in Norway. We will continue to seek further improvement in all our markets. Retention is in Norway remains high. We have room for improvement outside Norway, which we will achieve through a broad range of measures aimed at strengthening customer relations.
Digitalization and automation are key measures to maintain high cost efficiency, with effect on both the cost and claims ratio. Our Digitalisation index measuring progress in digital sales, digital service interaction, and digital customers rose further this quarter. Digital sales and service interaction showed a particularly strong development this quarter. Digital claims reporting declined slightly due to road assistance now being included as of this quarter. Our operational KPIs are important to support delivery on our strategic priorities and financial targets. We will continue to improve delivery on all these metrics going forward. I now hand the word back to Geir.
To sum up on page 17, we are very, very pleased with the solid result this quarter, despite the challenges posed by the difficult weather conditions. I'm very excited about the transformation we are about to carry out, which over time will lay the ground for an acceleration of implementing best practices across the group. The outlook for our business is good. I am confident that we are on the best possible trajectory to continue our solid performance and deliver strong insurance results. With that, we will now open the Q&A session for this presentation.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question on today's call, please press star one. The first question comes from the line of Alexander Evans from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, just on the underlying frequency loss ratio, so extra discounting impact, that's a 440 basis point deterioration year-over-year. Previously when there's been occasions of a degree of underlying weather, you've broken it out. Why not this time? Is it possible to give some clarity on actually how much of this is weather and how much you're seeing on sort of just higher claims inflation and stuff like that. Secondly, on the organizational change. I mean, it looks like you don't really have a head of Sweden and the Baltics anymore, and they're moving into head of claims. Are you kind of done with the journey in Sweden and is that sort of up for sale essentially?
Just on the sort of expense ratio, we can see a 90 basis points deterioration in private lines there. You talk about strengthening the sales force. What's the rationale behind this sort of change? Are you feeling you're a little bit underweight in private relative to your Norwegian market share, or are there some sort of areas that you are specifically trying to target there? Thanks.
Start with Underlying Frequency Loss question. I mean, we did that a couple of times earlier, make the calculation. It is a calculation fraught with some uncertainty and it's definitely a clear connection with the weather. We see kind of the days when there are weather events or rough weather, and we'll see a significant increase in the number of reported claims. We decided this time not to give the exact number because of this uncertainty and having to report, you know, adjusted for weather impact, impacts last year and so on, in next year. It is definitely, and especially for motor, a significant impact from weather, and we haven't provided the specific number, no. I think the important question is.
if I ask that another.
Well.
If I ask that another way, are you confident that you're pricing for claims inflation then?
Yeah, that's what I was going to say, Alex. That's the main message really, that we are very confident that we are pricing, at least in line with the expected and realized claims inflation for this motor business, although the results in the first quarter is worse than expected when going into the quarter.
Okay. Regarding Sweden and Baltics, as you can see, operations Sweden and Baltics will be followed up by the Group Strategy and Group Development division. The changes have no implication on our views on these segments. I'm very confident that we will be able to deliver satisfactory returns going forward. Both the operations in the Baltics and operations in Sweden are part of our core operations. Although Sweden, for some geographical reasons, you can actually argue that it's more should be more integrated within the group. Going forward, we are focused on all the measures we are having in these markets.
Having said that, we will also always look at opportunities and also see how we can create the best shareholder value going forward.
Thanks, guy. Can I, sorry, just follow up on that one. I mean, you talked about sort of the synergies that integrating Norway and Denmark will have. Is it possible just to put some numbers around what you think this is gonna improve for [inaudible]?
Yes. I'm very confident that when integrating operations we are in Denmark and Norway, that will actually improve our operational excellence and strengthen our position in these markets. A key goal for [inaudible] is to have high operational efficiency throughout all our business. I think this is a very good step forward to improve that. Saying that, we will do necessary assessment and see what kind of impact it will have on our targets. If we do any changes, we will announce that if and when relevant.
The last question about the costs in the private segment. I mean, we have a fairly analytical approach to the value of increasing and decreasing sales force, and we see that there is value in increasing sales capacity somewhat in private where we so we staff up some of the call customer centers. Given the kind of where we see that we are actually competitive now and can get positive net return in a way from these employments. Also as we mentioned, there are also some increases on the IT side that also contribute to the increase there.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Tryfonas Spyrou from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi there. Thanks for taking my question. Just firstly, on the underlying frequency loss ratio in Sweden and in Denmark, we had a pretty big swings here year-on-year. I was wondering you could share some more thoughts on what are the key drivers here. I guess more particular in Denmark, whether you can comment on which lines of business claims inflation is higher than pricing. I think you made a comment there. And if you can share some numbers. The second question is on the solvency. You mentioned that when adjusting for the portfolio you acquired, and the seasonality premiums, solvency is down sort of 7 points. I guess can you help us unpack the difference between the two? Again, the impact is not new material.
If you can help us identify what's what and how should we expect the seasonality, in the provisions to affect the solvency going forward, is my question. Thank you.
I can start with the last one, first, the solvency. The two factors that we mentioned that will affect the solvency going forward, I mean, the correct reported number is 181%, so it's kind of guiding you a bit there on the development forward. Sønderjysk Forsikring, which is a portfolio of DKK 200 million in premium volume that we acquired for a price of DKK 200 million, is not formally approved. We expect that to take place in the third quarter, maybe at the end, towards the end of the third quarter. That should have an approximate effect of around 3 percentage points on the solvency ratio. That formally, it won't have an effect until we actually are approved as buyer of that portfolio.
The other part, which is on approximately 4 percentage points, is that there is a seasonality in the premium provision, where we have a high positive effect in the first quarter, and then that will gradually taper off towards the end of the year. This happens every year, and it's due to that so much of the commercial premium is renewed at January 1. Which is kind of the driver behind that. Of course, going forward, it will be the typical pattern will be that, you know, we have a positive profit and subtract as usual the 80% from like dividend every quarter going forward. Then towards the fourth quarter at the end of the year, then we subtract the actually proposed dividend. This is the typical pattern.
Underlying frequency loss ratio in Sweden and the Baltics. If you start with Sweden, where we have the largest swing in the underlying frequency loss ratio, that is driven by, actually more than half is driven by some volatility in medium-sized claims, which means claims that are, you know, below NOK 10 million, but for a fairly small segment such as Sweden, does have an impact on a short period as a quarter, within the property, both for the private property and commercial property side. There is some underlying, I would call deterioration within health insurance in Sweden. You have some various effects that kind of have a negative effect on the Swedish part there.
I think it's important for me to emphasize that more than half of this negative development from quarter one last year to this year in Sweden is due to some, I would call it medium-sized claims and volatility, which should not be in expectation, not be repeated. Denmark, related also there, somewhat deterioration due to health insurance. There, increased frequency, claims frequency with the health insurance in across the Scandinavian countries. There is also probably some weather-related effects on motor side, but much less pronunciate than in, than Norway. You have, as you said, some effect due to price increases, not quite kept in line with the inflation estimates, which has kind of affected more.
It's a very kind of a small discrepancy, but hitting, both commercial, both property and the motor, across the board really.
That's very helpful. Just a quick follow-up to that. Would you say that this is sort of underlying base effect from frequency normalizing post COVID-19 last year that obviously, and also are there any sort of comments you can make on the currency effect and that whether that is impacting your the import of spare parts in Norway as well? Any comment there that would be helpful.
I think the weakened Norwegian, more a focus, currency is more focus when you look at the Norwegian numbers where, of course, the Norwegian kroner has depreciated across most other or other major currencies at least. It's a topic that we kind of keep a very high focus on given the especially in motor, a large share of imported parts. So that's important for our estimates for claims inflation going forward for motor in Norway, particularly. The Danish currency, of course, been much stronger, so it's much less of an issue in Denmark than in Norway. Yeah, of course, our approach when you see an underlying deterioration is gonna focus on things that we could do in pricing or in terms and conditions that will mitigate this going forward.
Important message, I think, is that we continue to price at least in line with expected claims inflation. Then there, if you look at short periods like a quarter, there will be some volatility.
Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Håkon Astrup. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Two questions from me. The first one on motor in Norway. I wonder if you can give some more flavor on the claims inflation there. The 4%-7% that you provided seems a bit low given what you see in terms of wage growth and also the recent depreciation of the Norwegian currency. How has this development? Has the inflation here picked up compared to last year? That was the first question. The second question on your outstock statement on the growth side. Through the past quarters, you have had an expectation that short-term growth should be above growth in nominal GDP, I didn't find that statement this quarter. Should we read anything into that you have, say, onto that sentence? Thank you.
On the motor inflation side, we say that in the short term, we are at the higher end of that interval, and then long term, we expect it to be more in the middle, or maybe towards the end. The important driver of motor is approximately 50/50 claims and labor costs. We typically secure the labor part for some period or the cost per type of, repair for some period. Our experience claims inflation is a mixture of, our agreements and the general inflation in society and of course, or wage inflation and the development parts prices.
We do, of course, fear that there is a risk that there's a lag between currency movements and our spare parts, but we keep a very keen eye on that, close contact with the suppliers to try anticipate their price changes, and that is baked into this estimate. I think macroeconomic uncertainty is higher than it has been over the last one year or two, have been higher than for long. It's less visible maybe than it was typically, but or it has typically been. Yeah, we have, if you look back, we've been fairly good at hitting these estimates that we provided to you. I hope that will continue. Growth,
Just if I may just follow up on that one. Do you see that the claims inflation on the motor side is now picking up in Norway, just following what has happened with the currency and also the recent wage negotiation?
Actual claims inflation hasn't so far picked up. We are looking 12-18 months ahead.
Okay.
We see that, you know, we are on the higher end of that 4%-7% interval in the first part of that estimate.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Thank you.
The growth statement, it's just we've taken away the short-term focus there and said long term, it's nominal GDP around that.
Oh.
Yeah.
You do not expect short term that that that growth should be above nominal GDP anymore, or is it?
If you read that, you have no change in outlook, but we removed that short-term statement.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Blair Stewart of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I've got a couple of questions. On the pensions business, I understand the differentiation between onerous and profitable contracts and the way that the accounting works. I just wondered if you can maybe explain a bit more about what constitutes an onerous contract. You talked about maybe looking to change the modeling of what, how you define an onerous contract under the accounting. If you could talk a little bit about what is an onerous contract and how that's coming through. Related to that, why is there such amount of volatility on a quarter-on-quarter basis? It's quite something. You can explain why the numbers are bouncing around as much as they are.
The second question is just, I guess, viewing this on, from an outsider's perspective, integrating Norway and Denmark, but not Sweden seems odd. Are there operational factors behind that? Is the Swedish business just too difficult or too different to integrate it into the others? Then just a couple of comments, really, rather than questions. On the underlying loss ratio that you adjust for, I just wonder, would it not be more accurate to add in an allowance for a normal expected level of large losses rather than stripping them out completely? Then perhaps just a final request.
I find slide 11 to be very helpful, and I know you give the information in the tables in the report, but I think a version of slide 11 for each one of the, of the main lines of business would be very useful in future. Thank you.
Okay. I'm not sure I'm happy to answer questions about the pension numbers. It's difficult. What this constitutes onerous contracts is that when occupational pension contract is sold for the typical small contracts, it's more like a tariff based, like in insurance. If you have untypical or large contracts, it's typically more underwritten, more manually underwritten, based on that the tariffs aren't that good in setting the correct price for these contracts. When you put that into accounts, what we have done is use the tariff to determine from accounting purpose whether that was onerous or not. We see that clearly that there is a mismatch here between what we feel is the real profitability and how that accounting-wise turns out.
What we are doing and are in process of is improving the accounting calculation of the profits or which contracts are onerous, that will lead to some volatility going forward. As I said, IFRS 17 will lead to higher volatility because everything is marked to market and so on. There is inherently some more volatility, but I think that is in a way good because it gives a clear picture of what's really going in, taking into account the changes in interest rates and so on. The part that is the volatility that is that we in a way are in our own fault because we do this model changes, is something that will disappear after the first couple of quarters, I hope.
That's why I'm kind of warning a bit that there is some volatility around the numbers this quarter and maybe next quarter. We hope that for the year and for the third and fourth probably quarters, there will be then the volatility will be market induced and based on real volatility and not our model changes. I apologize for that there will be more difficult to pre-predict numbers or this quarter and the next quarter. On the rest of.
Just, was that the main reason, you know, just your, the evolution of your modeling?
Mm
that led to such big profit numbers in Q1 2022 and Q4 2022, or is that something else going on in those particular quarters?
In Q1 2022, we had a very high interest rate increase, which kind of drove it a bit. I think the main reason in Q1 2022 was the increase in the interest rates, which is kind of because you have a long tail liability series that was reduced in value, and we have a shorter duration on the asset side than the liability side.
Okay
one this year, during the quarter, interest rates fell somewhat, which was a negative impact on the result of the pension business. Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. That'd be something that'd be useful to strip out in future.
Well, I mean, interest rates will move, and that changes the value of these insurance contracts, but that's just.
Yeah
the economic reality. Our model changes is not the economic reality, and we will try to get rid of those during the first two quarters. Then you asked about,
Yeah, I'll take that one. This group structure and what about Sweden? As you know, and as you can see, in Denmark, we have seen a good growth. We have a solid position. We are number four in the Danish market. The organization both and our operations both in private and commercial area are matured, and that leads to more obvious benefits when integrated with the Norwegian business, I would say. I am very happy to look, going forward, to look at what you can achieve within distribution, within how to monitoring and following up and doing repricing within the custom portfolios, and how you can strengthen the operations. When it comes to Sweden, our operations are smaller.
We have a weaker position, dividing the Swedish business into private and commercial will probably be less cost-efficient and less smart to do due to the size we have with Swedish business today. That said, we will continue following up our measures to improve the performance in the Swedish business.
Including the normalized large losses in the underlying frequency loss ratio, I mean, I totally see the point of that. We do provide the normalized large losses in a separate slide. It's just a question if we call it underlying frequency loss ratios or more normalized loss ratio in a way which added the normal expected large losses. I think it's two ways of showing much the same. But we give you the constituents of such a normalized loss ratio, if you want it to, I don't quite remember the slide number in the appendix, but there is a slide there with normalized large losses there.
Yeah, I know it's there. I know it's there. I just think intuitively it makes more sense to have some allowance for normal large losses when you look at the underlying.
Yeah.
It doesn't affect the quarter-on-quarter progression, but just the absolute number.
Yeah.
It's just a personal preference. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Thomas Svendsen. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Question to the solvency on your solvency ratio target. You point to that sort of the pro forma solvency is now 174%. I guess the question is, should we assume that the midpoint of the range is the most likely? Would you be comfortable to go much below the mid-range, let's say 160%, would you be as comfortable to do that as you will need to go down 90%? Because in practice it seems like you're not very keen to lower the solvency ratio towards the low end. What should we think about that?
We have a solvency range of 150%-200%, and we're comfortable within that range. If I could choose, I'd rather have a high solvency than a lower solvency because then I have more financial flexibility and the potential for specials. I mean, we are comfortable within that range. We could go to 160%, we could go to 190%. I think, maybe if we call it pro forma, it's probably a bit misleading for us. We are just guiding and telling you that in the third quarter there will be the formal conclusion of a transaction that will have a negative impact on the solvency, the Sønderjysk Forsikring acquisition. It's just telling you that in advance, I would say.
The reason I'm asking is simply if you are at 174%, would it then be on the agenda at all to lower it to, let's say, 160% via a special dividend? Would it be so that you would skip the extraordinary dividend because you don't want to move too much towards the end of the range?
I think the solvency situation will be assessed, all the time, and the board will look at this and the forward-looking perspective on the solvency ratio when they're deciding on the actual dividends proposed.
Okay. Just the final question there on the weather. I think last quarter you said something about that, the weather was what you could expect in a fourth quarter, the fourth winter quarter. How will you describe the weather in Q1? Is it more harsh than one could expect for the future, or is it still within, sort of a normal, around a normal level?
I'm not in the business of predicting future weather, but I would say this has been a slightly, in terms from an insurance perspective with slightly more challenging than I would say is normal, at least from our statistics. It's been more days with the changing between snow and not snow, freeze, not freeze. We've seen that in our claims number. As I answered in the previous question, we can see it kind of in day-to-day volatility or week to week volatility in reported numbers, especially in the motor side, which has been quite large swings in number of claims reported. This correlates very well with where we've seen these weather events.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Ulrik Zürcher. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Most question been answered, but I was wondering, are you now currently experience 4% or 7% motor claims inflation on claims paid, or where are you? Just because you had that guidance for a while and, or estimate for a while and, said you expect 7% in the short term.
I think we are experiencing claims inflation on motor, which is towards the higher end of the interval that we gave you, which is also in line with our pricing at the moment.
Okay. You are implicitly then in the medium. You expect this to decline or stay at 7% in the short term and then decline?
As you said, in the short term and towards the higher end of that range, given the range, it will be expected to go somewhat down. This is. The most important for us is to have visibility 12 to 18 months forward. After that, you know, there's plenty of time to reprice if we change our expectations to on the future inflation since, I mean, policies are 12 months, give some lag there. 12 to 18 months, and if we hit the numbers in that perspective, we are fine.
Got it. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Hans Rettedal. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Just a specific question on the other items in your P&L and specifically on the Gjensidige Mobility Group. You're stating that there's sort of integration costs and startup costs related to this. I was wondering how large are these.
Share of sort of the total other items, and how long do you expect them to stay elevated before, perhaps you start to generate revenue in this business area?
If you look at the other items, there it is, as typical for other items, it's a mixture of a lot of things, including depreciation of intangibles, interest cost on some subordinated, and just various other costs. The mobility part is kind of is part of this as well. You see the mobility group, the profits from the group as such. The benefits from the synergies in the way that we should create from Flyt and REDGO will hit the underwriting or not the underwriting result, the insurance service result in the non-life business.
During 2023, we will still have integration costs to get IT systems aligned across the REDGO group, integration of the companies, so we build up a new and more efficient organization within the road assistance business, especially across the countries that we are operating in, to be more cost efficient and lean and generate results in the REDGO and Flyt area coming years. That will mean that in 2023, we'll still be from the result from the companies that we call the Gjensidige Mobility Group will still be negative, and from 2024, we expect it to be positive.
Okay. Thank you. Then just another question on the organizational changes that you're making. I was wondering how? Has this sort of been on the table for a long time regarding the new or the integration of the new IT system in Denmark, and that sort of the plan all along has been to combine Norway and Denmark on private and commercial after the system finished?
Well, as we have said, the IT platform in Denmark is almost finished on the private side. We are planning for spending this year and next year with planning and the implementing and migrating the commercial side. This will absolutely be positive for the Norwegian commercial business as well, coming closer to that platform. We will assess how that will, what kind of implication that will have on the Norwegian business going forward. We have not taken any decision on when we are implementing the new system in Norway.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Vegard Toverud. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. I have a couple of follow-up questions, I would say. First on the other items, that's the negative NOK 148 million in the quarter. When I read the report, it seemed like there were some integration and startup costs, but your answer indicated that there are not anything there that will go down in the next quarters, if I understood you correctly. To be very specific, are there anything in those NOK 148 million, sorry, that you consider one-offs in the quarter? Then on pension, could you repeat the impact of these loss-making contracts in the quarter and provide some details into which kind of product groups these are?
Also to help us since there are some movements there, what we should expect as contribution from pensions over the next quarter. Finally, if the pension area also should deliver on the 20% ROE target. Thank you.
First on the kind of the premise, there are integration and startup costs, and they are higher now than they will be going forward. I wouldn't call it a one-off, but I mean, as in the nature of integration costs, I mean, that's typically highest first, and then it will taper off. We'll when we finish the necessary work to get this, these operations that we took over, especially on the REDGO side, which needed quite a lot of streamlining. And we have a very highly competent team in the Gjensidige Mobility Group that works on that and makes it a leading roadside assistance group, I would say. We have three clear signs that that will happen.
That wouldn't be a one-off, but it is, at least not for a quarter, but it's higher now than it will be. There is also some small items within other, which is you can consider a one-off. There are mixture there. Of course, depreciation of intangibles and the interest rates on subordinate loans, that is recurring, but changing depending on interest rates movements for the sub loans. The depreciation is particularly vulnerable to changes in currency movements, which made it a bit higher this quarter and the first quarter of 2022, since these are depreciation of things that are typically outside Norway. That was not a very specific question, Vegard, there is give you some flavor on that other item.
Just before we continue on the pension.
Mm-hmm.
Is it possible since these are quite specific items that you have grouped together, is it possible to see the Mobility Group as separate lines in the reporting going forward?
Well, yeah, just note your question, Vegard, and then we'll see what we do for the, for the coming quarters.
Thank you.
Pension. This is mainly the discussions of the volatility I've talked about has been mainly related to occupational pension, that product. It is, I think your question was kind of if we could give more flavor on, it is on how what makes a loss onerous contract. I think I tried to explain that to Blair earlier. It's related to the fact that we have kind of tariffs on these contracts that are not good when good enough when they come to larger or more special accounts, and that gives a negative impact, which is kind of not real. They are not really onerous. They're not loss-making as such, but when you use these simplified models in accounts, it becomes onerous.
We're looking at refining these models that we get a more correct assessment of onerous contracts for the accounting purposes. Expectations going forward. If you just look away from movements within interest rates and so on, the pension business will be profitable. It will be less profitable under IFRS 17 and IFRS 4, due to the asymmetry between recognizing onerous contracts immediately but postponing the P&L effect of profitable contracts to this contractual service margin. That's why we say that you're looking at the profit plus the change in the contractual service margin gives a better perspective on the profitability within that business. Of course, it's sensitive to interest rates movements, especially on top of that.
As an aside, we reported the pension company as such, the pension accounts of the pension business is still reported under IFRS 4. We're not allowed to use IFRS 17 in the company accounts. They reported that profit at NOK 59 million for the first quarter, which is comparable to what we've reported earlier for our pension business in the group accounts. Confusing, it gives another perspective on the results in the pension business. 20% ROE, more than 20% ROE is the group target. We haven't communicated specific targets per segment.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question comes from the line of Faizan Lakhani. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. I'm sorry, I'm gonna come back to the life business and the onerous contracts. When I look at your slide 45, I know this is sort of illustrative, but it shows that the BEL is actually larger than the premium even before you sort of add in the risk adjustment. That would, to me, would suggest that these are actually just unprofitable contracts, and I'm missing something on that front. I guess in connection with that, if I look at your report on the pension piece, would it be fair to say if I look at the CSM in there, it's grown by about sort of 4%-5%, is that the right way of thinking about the underlying sort of growth in that life business?
Is that how I should be thinking about your development there? The second question is coming back to some claims inflation. I understand that, you know, you have levers that you can pull in terms of spare parts and procurement contracts. Just, you know, aspects have moved quite unfavorably over the quarter. Is it a case as we go on across the year that actually there can be some upward pressure in that 4%-7% claims inflation, especially if procurement contracts do come up for renewal on spare parts to, you know, start to bite? If you could help me on that one. The final question is on your solvency ratio, on the SCR in particular. Again, it's sort of grown about 4%-5%. Q4 was pretty strong as well on that.
Can you break out how much is down to growth versus FX versus the market risk? Thank you.
Your line is very poor, we'll try to answer according to what we think your questions were. In terms of slide 45, this is just an example of how the workings are around the profitable and the onerous contracts and the effect on CSM. These are not the numbers included in the reporting. It's just an example illustrating how they work.
Would it be fair to say that the onerous contracts that you have currently are factoring in to the risk adjustment, and that's driving it to become onerous?
Yes.
Is that the right way to think about it?
That is the correct way of thinking about it. The numbers on slide 45 is just a stylized example. You would think the principle is correct that you've described. I think as Mitra said, it was a bit hard to hear your question, but if you asked about if there's a risk that the 4%-7% will be increased later this year at some point in the future, obviously, there is always a risk that we do change our assumptions based on kind of new estimates of the future. Yeah, we'll tell you. We are very transparent on what we think about claims inflation going forward. The last question was about if we understood you correctly, what's driving the increase in the solvency capital requirement, if I heard you correctly?
Yes, that's correct.
Yeah.
If you can split out the components in there.
I think I'll just pause on that one at the moment. We haven't provided it here. I mean, the factors are partly just the strong insurance revenue growth that we talked about, then partly currency effects that moving, I mean, the growth is 7.4% in the currency adjusted, the premium growth. Then if you take into currency effects, we are up at 10%, and this is driving capital requirements. Then in the life business, there is assets under management growth, so you get an increased market risk charge share, which is again met by in the own funds, there is a similar positive effect. It's not a negative on the capital surplus, but it's driving the capital requirement as such. Yeah.
I'm sorry for not providing you the exact numbers.
I'm sorry. I had two parts. The first one, I think it was missed out. In terms of thinking about profitability going forward for the life business
Mm-hmm.
Really thinking about the growth in the CSM that you provide, in your report as the best way to monitor that.
As it's the best way, I think, to monitor the profitability of the pension business, take into account the change in CSM. The insurance revenue as the number that we look for top line growth will over time reflect the release of the contractual service margin. We'll be as kind of contracts mature that then you gradually take into account the CSM into the top line number, the insurance revenue, insurance service revenue.
Thank you very much.
Next question comes from the line of Vinit.
Vinit what?
Could you speak up, please?
Yes. Good morning. I hope you can hear me. This is Vinit from Mediobanca.
Louder.
Thank you very much. I'll keep it to one question in interest of time. Just the, you know, Jostein, we talked about commercial frequency even last quarter, and the idea was that it's one quarter could be volatile. Now we have references to mid-size claim volatility even now. My question is a solution you're thinking? Is it a problem yet? Is it, a reinsurance solution that you would like to explore or more pricing? You know, when I see one of the comments on, I think slide four, it suggests that pricing will improve or increase even to match inflation. I'm just curious if, and if you have any more thoughts on the commercial insurance underlying claims. Thank you.
Yeah. Well, as commercial Norway kind of wasn't a main driver for this increase in underlying frequency, wasn't volatility in mid-sized or medium-sized claims. That was expectation for Sweden especially. There is some volatility around mid-sized claims all over the board, but I think it could easily happen a couple of quarters without that being a trend. There is kind of these are claims at a size where reinsurance is not meaningful at all. Our perspective is to monitor whether there is some kind of trend within this claims picture, and if we believe there is a trend, we'll take that into account in pricing.
If you look at the slide we provided today with the effects on our pricing strategies and pricing tactics within the commercial Norway business, you see that we are, I would say extremely good at pricing the correct customers highest, so that we, the remaining customers are much more profitable than the ones that leave. Have very strong analytical capabilities within that area and which is the reason why we have such high profitability within commercial insurance business in Norway.
Okay. Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
I know there are further questions. We need to conclude. Please, you can participate in the analyst call that we will be having at 11:00 A.M. You can send your questions to IR. We'll answer you promptly. Thank you very much. Operator? We are ready to close the call.