Okay. It is 1:10 or soon to 2:10. I would like to start the formal presentation. Welcome everybody, to the Quarter Four presentation. The first announcement I have is to introduce our new Chief Executive. We have a nice picture of Henrik. That is probably page three then. He will take my place as the Chief Executive in September, when I, as planned and earlier communicated, will retire according to that kind of retirement plan we have, or I have in Protector. He started to work in Protector in 2007. He is at the age of 38, as you can see on the screen. He has been in charge of putting up Protector as the public sector responsible person for the last 10 years.
You know we are the market leader in the public sector in the Nordic, and we are big in the public sector in the U.K. as well. We have kind of always earned money in that area. He had qualified himself through public sector in the early days. He has been very close to me, setting up Sweden back in 2011. Very close to me and working a lot more than me in setting up Denmark in 2012. He has had positions in Norway, and when we established Protector in 2016, he has been a significant player, and he has had the responsibility for U.K. for a period of time. The board took that decision last evening, and I am happy to introduce Henrik. You will meet him when we invite you to a Capital Market Day in March. You will meet him.
As many of you know, you have seen him before giving presentations towards you investors here. The succession planning has gone for a long time, and we will work closely together up until September. Then Henrik will be in the lead position. If we go to the next slide, it's our DNA. This is who we are. I have a ring around this word called the challenges. You know very well that we met some challenges in 2018 and 2019, where we delivered rather poorly on profitability, both on the technical side, the combined ratio side, and on the investment side. What I have communicated towards the market is that when you are lagging behind on the insurance result, it normally takes a year or two, normally two, in order to be back in the good shape again.
That's the difficult story of an insurance company. The good story is that when you are on track, it normally continues to be on track for a period of time, again. I'm happy to go to slide number five, and let's have a look at the highlights of 2020. What you can see here is that this is an all-time high when it comes to earnings per share. It is NOK 12 earnings after tax per share. It's obviously driven by the strong investment results you have seen before. What you can see is that the combined ratio is slightly south of 95%, meaning 94.85% as the kind of formal figure. Slightly better if you include the change of ownership, the kind of run-off business. We are 94.6%. This is in line with the expectation when entering 2020.
Our solvency capital ratio is solid enough in order to start talking about dividends. It is 188%. We are a very solid company, and we are now capable of both growing and delivering dividends to the shareholders at the same time. A pretty important element on this slide is the price increase in the Nordic market. You can see, as earlier communicated, that it has been very strong price increases, 12%-14%, in the full Nordic market. As you understand, obviously, claims inflation is more like below four. Everything else equal, it means that the combined ratio improvement is very significant in the Nordic market. At the same time, we have the U.K., which is delivering healthy results then. We, as everybody else, have been challenged by the COVID-19 situation. Operationally, everything is okay in Protector, so it's not really a big issue to us.
There is a picture on the slide also, relative to the landslide in Gjerdrum, a very tragic story. I will come back and share a couple of words on that story a bit later in the presentation, then. Okay. Everything good. If you go to page number six, only a short comment on quarter four. Quarter four ended on a combined ratio of around 95%. When we met last time, I gave the feedback to you investors that quarter four will, not always, but at least sometimes be around the three first quarters accumulated. If you have a combined of around 95% after quarter three, your expectation should maybe be 95% for the full year. It could be surprises. We are an insurance company. Reserve estimates are not very easy to do all the time.
In the last quarter, despite the fact that we had the landslide in Gjerdrum and another pretty large claim in U.K. as well, that quarter also ended in an acceptable way or a good way when it comes to technical results. As earlier communicated to the market, the investment result in quarter four is great. If you go to page number seven, and please remember, put on your questions whenever you like. Pop them through our communication system, and then my IR responsible, he's in the office together with me, we will share those questions with you, everybody, at the end of the presentation, then. Volume update. You have heard the story before. At the end of January, we were out there in the market saying that we did grow a lot in quarter four, 30%, give or take. A very strong quarter four growth. Churn, losing clients.
Churn is back to normal in quarter four, and it's back to normal or even better on January 1st, 2021. The high churn we have seen in the Nordics in quarters one, two, and three, due to high price increases and some cleanup activities with the portfolio, is now history. The latest kind of cleanup situation was relative to workmen's comp in Denmark, January 1st, and workmen's comp in Norway for two different reasons. In Denmark, workmen's comp is extremely capital- consuming, and we have lost money, and it is a risk, so we are leaving that segment basically 100%, not in total, but all single- line clients in workmen's comp in Denmark have also been left as of January 1st here. Taking risk down, taking capital consumption down, but still Denmark are capable of keeping an acceptable volume still in that situation.
Volume update, an acceptable development in 2020, 8% growth in NOK, 2% in local currency. High churn, normal churn, low churn. Good speed entering 2021. All cleanup activities have been done now, going forward looks pretty good on the volume side. I'll be back on the guiding statement shortly. Claims update on the next page. I think I basically skip the page very quickly and come back and talk a little bit about the result per country when I do a later slide, which is saying something about the combined ratio per country. The only thing you can note on this page, number eight, is that run-off losses are around 2.2% in the full year, large losses are 8.8% against a normalized level 7. We have had a positive COVID-19 effect size 1%.
If you could maybe call these kinds of areas not normal, reserve losses should normally be around zero, large losses should normally be around expectation, and COVID-19 shouldn't be there. Two on the negative side, one on the positive side, meaning that the underlying reality is probably better than 94.8%, which is the figure of 2020. If we go to slide number nine and see on the large loss situation, you can see what I just mentioned, the kind of orange column on the right side there, that we have an 11.1% large loss ratio in quarter four. Two claims of significant size. One is the landslide in Gjerdrum in Norway, and the second one is a kind of motor liability claim in U.K., which is very significant.
Those two, together with a handful of more kind of smaller large claims, adds up to a pretty high large loss ratio in quarter four. As you can see on the graph here, to say that we have a normalized large loss ratio around 7%, it looks reasonable, and we will be back on track in the Capital Market Day and give an estimate on the expected large loss ratio in 2021. My guess today is that it will move upwards from 7% to 8%. Don't worry about it, because it is an integrated part of the pricing structure we have here, so it does not mean reduced profitability. I think that we may see the large loss ratio normalized go to eight when we meet in the Capital Market Day, a few weeks from now. That was the comments on large losses, run-off, and COVID-19.
As other companies have reported, COVID-19 has had some losses. Business interruption is one area, U.K., for instance. We are counter-cyclical as insurance companies, as many of you know. When the wheels are turning slower in the economy, that will normally lead to some kind of positive effects in an insurance company, and vice versa. When everything is moving fast, there are more claims. That's kind of a normal situation. If we go to page 10, we can see the combined ratio story. On the upper part of that line, you can see Norway, Sweden, Denmark, U.K., and Finland. We have marked a ring around the combined ratio. Norway 86.3%, Sweden 92.7%, Denmark, U.K., Finland, and Protector in total on the right-hand side. What you can see is that Norway has delivered very well after a couple of poor years in Norway.
There are some reserve gains in Norway, the underlying reality is not that good as 86.3%. You can see in Norway that we have 105% last year and 86%, the improvement is not really 20 percentage points. Multiplied with NOK 1.4 billion is NOK 280 million. It is not that strong an improvement. The underlying reality was slightly better last year, and it is slightly worse this year. Norway, strong comeback. Good to see the new Country Manager is on board, after I have had the position temporarily, in order to help in turning around the Norwegian results and organization, in order to be back on track again here. Sweden, coming back with a good quarter four, delivering an acceptably good combined ratio, and will enter 2021 with a good speed.
Also in Sweden, Hans Didring, his team in Sweden, a strong team, normally always delivering good results, are back on track. My expectation for Sweden is that you have had a bit of bad luck in 2020, Norway. Luck, Sweden, on the other side. Those two are kind of okay, as it should be, I guess. My expectation and the underlying reality in Sweden is slightly better than what you see here, so I would expect a combined ratio below 90% in 2021 in Sweden. The poor results here is arriving from Denmark, and my comment is that the underlying reality is a lot better because we can see here some reserve losses on the workmen's comp. That is decisions taken five, six, seven years ago in Denmark. It's a long tail product. Again, some reserve losses in Denmark on that one.
Also, a couple of claims on the liability side, which is linked to history. The underlying reality is a lot better. We still have some activities to do, and there are some uncertainties of how fast we can be back with a healthy combined ratio. I think it's possible to deliver below 100%, possibly around 95%. This will be volatile, obviously. It's not as bad as it looks, and the underlying reality is stronger, and the organization is fighting to get back on track to deliver profitable growth. They will do. We have a new Country Manager on board, Anders. Welcome on board. You have been there for a few weeks, together with your team in Denmark and with support from Hans and others in Sweden. You are working closely together with Sweden. I am absolutely sure that Denmark will be back on track.
U.K. is growing pretty much or even more than pretty much. You can see on the top line here that the volume development is close to NOK 500 million. That's supported somewhat by currency changes. In local currency, it is not that strong, but obviously it's a good growth in U.K. That is compared with a very strong 84.9% combined ratio. Again, like Norway, a bit on the lucky side. Don't expect that good figure going forward. My expectation on Norway is slightly higher, U.K. is slightly higher, Sweden better, and Denmark a lot better. Everything is moving well in U.K. The good story about Henrik being the new Chief Executive during the Autumn is that we have a strong management team in Manchester and London.
Obviously, when Henrik has to spend some time on the Chief Executive role, maybe a bit more than some time. We have a strong team in U.K. Henrik will obviously be there for them and together with them still. The people we have there are a good team, and we would love to invite you, investors, to meet in Manchester when COVID-19 is history though, to meet our strong team in Manchester and London. Since we have most of our people in Manchester, the location will be Manchester when we do invite you to such a meeting. It's pretty realistic to see that U.K. could double in volume in a pretty near future. It won't take too many years in order to do that. The market is, as you know, big. We are not in a hurry. It's not important.
The U.K. story here in 2020 is strong, and the expectation is profitable growth going forward. Finland is a smaller entity in Protector. Rather small. The broker society is not that strong in Finland. Our position in the public sector is smaller. We think that the property business in Finland in the public sector have too low rates. We are not really expecting any growth from that important product in these important areas. Rates are too low. We will lose money if we are fighting too hard in that segment, so stay away. It's good to see that Finland is back on track with some kind of healthy development and are doing fine in the Finnish market. That was my walkthrough on the different business units. The only comment before going to the next slide. You can just pop the next slide.
I do the comment, it doesn't really matter. Number 11 is that the change of ownership is still delivering some volume, because the legislation that is expected to arrive, the new legislation, which is linked to the product, is delayed. We will arrive at some volume during 2021, then we will be totally out of new business in that market. The claims handling department and change of ownership are taking very well care of the claims and the run-off, which is incredibly important. It's a hell of a lot of money in that area. The run-off is running well. People are doing a good job, and at the moment, we also earn money on the run-off situation.
Those of you who have followed insurance companies for some years, when an exit situation is decided and a decision taken, you normally see losses arrive, but you haven't seen them so far, and my expectation is that you won't see them in the future either. The run-off is moving very well on the change of ownership side. To Gjerdrum. Our focus is to deliver on good claims handling quality towards the municipality and the municipality management in Gjerdrum. It's a small municipality. They are in an incredibly difficult situation, obviously, and our job is to try to support as good as we can in that area.
As many of you know, when such a disaster hits Norway, there is a kind of natural perils kind of pool where all losses are distributed among everybody, equal to the market share in the property type of product market here. It doesn't really matter whether you have clients there or not. You will have your share of the premium and the losses in that type of situation. The COVID-19 effects on slide number 12. I've said it's 1%, kind of a positive effect in accounting in Protector. Our expectation going forward is neutral. It will be some losses on the business interruption side. It's not absolutely sure at all, obviously, what kind of size, but there will also be some kind of positive elements still. Some motor segments will still drive fewer kilometers, leading to fewer claims.
Our expectation is that COVID-19, going forward, will be on the neutral side. However, with some uncertainty, obviously. On the page number 13, that is a bit of a new story in Protector because now we are starting to talk about cost. As you have heard, following the Protector for a number of years, we are cost leader in the world. No one has a lower cost ratio than Protector in the world, in the same segments we are running. I have never, ever met an analyst challenging that. I've met many other people challenging that, but not an insurance analyst. If you know one company with a better cost ratio than Protector, name it, and I will have a look at the figures. I'm absolutely sure I'm not wrong on the statement. We are the leader on cost, but we are not good enough.
In the Nordic market, when client churn have been pretty significant, we are losing clients in 2020. Improving in quarter four, improving in January 1st, we are losing clients. Meaning that cost ratio development is going north because we have basically the same staffing, even in some areas, a bit higher staffing in those areas . That is a mismatch. That is not acceptable in the long run. When we use resources on cleanup activities, like we have done in the Nordics the last 18 months, you need more people. When that cleanup activity has been finished, it is today, then you have to address the kind of cost ratio you have here. We have an agenda in Denmark and Finland in order to reduce costs a lot.
We have an agenda in Sweden and Norway, which are pretty lean, but still, we have something to pick on the cost side in Norway and Sweden, and we will do in that area. Norway and Sweden are the cost leaders in the world, but it's not good enough. When we lose volume development, we have to take a breath, step back, do what is necessary in order to maintain competitive advantage or, my expectation the next three to five years, strengthen the competitive position of Protector. The logic is pretty easy, and it's a part of the DNA of the company. Cost and quality leadership should lead to profitable growth, which again, should put Protector in a top- three position in any market segment we enter.
The four targets of the company, the statement we gave to the market 15 years ago, we are a cost leader in the world, it's not good enough because we are challenged on cost in the Nordic market. We will be back on Capital Market Day a few weeks from now and explain more in detail about what we internally call CL8, which is Cost Leadership 8. We will come back and talk about this in eight. You have heard about CL7, haven't you? Or CR7, actually. We have stolen an idea from Cristiano Ronaldo, then. He is the Champions League guy, according to himself; he probably is the best Champions League player, as far as I understand. Messi, yes. We are stealing some ideas then from the Champions League. We would like to win the Champions League on cost every year in the world.
That's kind of the idea behind CL8. Come back, talk more about I'm smiling a little bit. We are trying to create some energy around cost improvements then. I do not think that we will go to Madrid to celebrate anything. Amund, I don't think so. Okay. Let's have a look at volume 2021 on page 14. Churn is back to normal or slightly better. We expect to grow premiums in local currency size 10%, and in Norwegian krona, possibly the same. That we don't really know. So far, the currency level is at least with the kind of volume we have seen in January is basically equal to what it was last year. 10% growth coming out from U.K. Not only because there will be some growth coming out from Scandinavia, is my expectation as well, that Sweden, possibly Norway. At least Sweden.
That's the kind of story, you heard the story a few weeks ago, so I won't spend more time on it. If you go to the next slide, that's a pretty important one. Slide number 15. This is the combined ratio. For those of you who are new, 100%- what you see here is the margin we are living on. If you have a 6%-8% margin, meaning a combined ratio of 92%-94%, you earn a lot of money. You have a return on equity size 20% in an insurance company on the technical side. Our guiding towards this year is 90%-92%. The long-term target has been 95%. It still is today. Whether we will revise these kinds of targets or not, we are discussing it at the moment.
We will come back at the Capital Market Day and talk about a bit more longer-term guidance on the volume and combined ratio side. The volume communication to the market 2021 is above long-term target, and the combined ratio kind of communication to the market today is better, meaning lower than the long-term target. We have started to discuss long-term targets internally in the company as we speak, and we will be back on the Capital Market Day and update you on a bit longer horizon in that area. What you see on this slide is starting on the last year's combined ratio size 94.8%. We had some run-off losses. Our expectation is that they will be zero next year. We had large losses sized 1.8% above the normalized expectation. We expect that to disappear. Doesn't really matter whether the expectation is seven or eight.
It's already inside the premium calculation and the renewal calculation of the season here. We will do the math before the Capital Market Day and update, but our expectation is that the figure will be zero. Obviously, with volatility. Large losses is a part of the volatility of what we are doing in that area. COVID-19 effects may disappear in 2021 and may be zero. We said neutral effect, some earnings, some losses accumulate to zero, so that the advantage from last year will disappear. There may be some negative surprises outside what we can understand today. They could be around 2-4 percentage points, a margin of safety. Remember that if you have an expected normalized large loss size of 8%, that should be multiplied with NOK 5.5 billion-NOK 6 billion.
First, we can have large losses sized NOK 400 million or NOK 500 million, and then we start to eat on the margin of safety. It's not like that NOK 100 million claim is eating a margin of safety. It's eating off the normalized large losses first in that area. Some negative surprises normally occur in an insurance company. You have to have a margin of safety before communicating anything towards the market. The quality of the customer portfolio may be slightly better, what about new clients? It's always an issue. We estimate now that the quality of the portfolio 2021 will be equal to 2020.
We did some cleanup on the workmen's comp on January 1st. But whether that would have been profitable or unprofitable before COVID-19 in Norway, in Denmark, it's a long tail, It's hard to say, but okay, our expectation is that the quality of the customer portfolio is basically equal in 2021, 2020. All insurance companies are fighting to improve portfolios. Everybody says they are good. The question is, where do the other ones go then? They are somewhere out there.
We have some clients that we don't fully understand or that are wrongly priced, and it's constantly, obviously, a job in order to try to find a balance between risk and price and terms and conditions. Our expectation now, after the significant cleanup we have communicated to you for 18 months, that's not the issue at the moment, which is good. Resources can be used at other activities then. The next thing here is a bit technical. The earned premium element. When increasing prices in 2020, we are getting in the bookkeeping a 12th of that earnings every month. When we increase prices on July 1st last year, or November 1st, then we will have a margin effect in 2021. It's kind of earned premium develops slower than written premium.
When we send an invoice for NOK 1 million something, we earn a 12th every month. That's the earned premium element. 1.2 percentage points of profitability improvement, that is not an estimate, that is a fact. That figure is hard. It will not disappear. It's history. Margin improvement relative to earned premium will be 1.2 percentage points as a fact. Another fact is the next one. We have had price increases in the Nordics on January 1st. That's history. There will be price increases also going forward. A lot of that 2.0 percentage points here, that is a fact. Some of it is the future. In Denmark, 80% of the volume is renewed already for a full year, and the price increase is a fact. It's not an estimate.
Figure 2 percentage points is a combination of fact and estimate, varying a little bit between the different countries, though. That figure is pretty close to fact, and it's two. Cost ratio improvement should be a surprise to some, but normally it's not. That will be around one, and that leads to a combined ratio guiding size 90%-92% in that area. The bit of teaching on how to build expectation in Protector and in an insurance company, and I think that this kind of slide you see here is more detailed than competitors are delivering to the market. That also makes sense that the bigger guys in the market, they have a more top-down view on it and are not that precise. That would be a pretty large job if you are in a large number of segments, though.
Many products, many segments, many countries. I'm not saying that competitors do not have good communication in these areas. They have. [Bothrig, Union, Cede] and If are very good at managing these kinds of things. It is a bit more of a detail for Protector, because it's possible, and it hopefully helps you to understand what kind of credibility. It could be a surprise. We had Grenfell Tower. We had a gray silver fish crisis. It costs money, resources, challenges in that area. That's the margin of safety. No promises given, but I can take a bet on that with a bottle of wine, obviously, though. If you go to the investment side and go to page number 17. Just a small reflection on this slide, because if you go back to 2010, you will see that we had NOK 2,022 million, sized investment portfolio.
The management team on Protector, we met up north in Norway that autumn. We saw that one, oh, wow, we are passing NOK 1 billion in annual premium. That's great. The first NOK 1 billion is the most difficult one. 2010, up north, Klokkergården. Some of you have even been there. Nice place. Beautiful mountains, fishing, eagles, whales. It's great. My father is from that place. It's a great place to go. We had NOK 1 billion in premium and NOK 2 billion in investment. Today, we are getting closer to NOK 6 billion in annual premium, and today we have NOK 14 billion in investment portfolio. The good thing about an insurance company growing and building also then an investment portfolio and building float, even with the interest rate level so very low as it is today, still it adds value to the company.
Those of you who have followed the company, you know that investment is core in Protector. Get used to it. We are doing insurance and investment. Investment, part of the profit in Protector historically to date, is above 75% of the tax. I think that the technical profitability of Protector will play a bit stronger significance in the next years to come, maybe right or wrong, depending on the investment side. Investment is very, very important for Protector. We are 7x the volume on investment during the last 10 years, and we are 6x the premium volume in 10 years. The question is to Henrik and to others: What will the next 10 years deliver? If you go to page 18, investment performance has been great. If we go to page 19, it has been a great year on the bonus side.
Have more look into it at a later stage. If you go to the equity side on page 20, we have delivered strongly after a couple of poor years, and we are back with good results. It will be volatility. It is unrealized gains, most of it. The discount intrinsic value has gone down to 26% from above 40% in the last quarter here. We are thankful for the kind of good result, meaning that we are eating on future expected returns from the investment side. Okay, that's the story. The page 21, this is only for the kind of history books. We have been through these kinds of presentations with you a couple of times before. COVID-19 crisis arrived. We were very prepared.
We had to act, and we acted, and we have taken out more profitability because we have been solid enough and prepared enough to take action. Like we did in the financial crisis in 2008, where we also kind of acted and got something extra out of it. On page 22, capital allocation. We will always put priority to insurance and profitable growth. The good thing is that if you are looking three years ahead now, if just for the sake of an example, if we grow 10% a year, which we are guided on, if we do that a couple more years, then the accumulated growth will be 33%. The good thing is that capital consumption is growing a lot less. In such a situation, capital consumption growth will possibly be not possible . It's a fact that it will be lower.
It will be around 8% or something like that. We can grow volume a lot, but capital requirement and capital consumption less, a lot less. The reason why is because we have gradually exited from workmen's comp in Denmark. That consumes a hell of a lot of capital. We have taken down workmen's comp volume in Norway relative to other products, and we are growing quickly motor business in all countries. First in Sweden, then in U.K., that is more short tail, and it consumes less capital. Even with pretty strong growth, we will not consume that much capital, leading to an opportunity to strengthen the balance sheet of Protector, invest more in riskier assets if we would like to, for instance, on the equity side.
We don't have any plan to do it, but that is an opportunity, and the other opportunity is to pay a dividend to shareholders. We are in a situation where we are going towards good growth without consuming too much capital. That's a shareholder story. That is interesting. We are happy to share more information about that on the Capital Market Day, a couple of weeks from now. We are on the next page. It's our DNA. This is who we are. If you go to the profit and loss statement on page 24, I have nothing more to say. Have a look at the figures. I've told the story. The balance sheet on 25, 188% solvency capital ratio, good protection on the downside still. If a new crisis arrives, and it will, when we don't know, then we are solid, and we have downside protection.
There are some scenarios on page 26. Have a look at it. On page 27, this is the dividend story of today. The board had decided to propose for the general meeting, you know, we have to go through the FSA, like all other financial institutions in Europe, in order to update on what our plans are, we give them feedback in that area. We are targeting to propose a NOK 3 per share dividend based on 2020. We are updating you today on the fact that we will consider going to paying a quarterly dividend in 2021. Decisions will be taken after each and every quarter, and will be decided by the board. Remember, you shouldn't really expect a stable dividend policy in Protector . That's not who we are. We are doing insurance and investment, and there will be volatility.
Obviously, to smoothen out dividends somewhat is positive. Don't expect us to be like the large consumer-based insurance companies that are growing less and are less potentially volatile than us. I think that our volatility is going down on the insurance side because we have a more diversified geography, and we have a more diversified product portfolio. We would like to have a flexible capital allocation setting. Profitable growth on the insurance first. Are there opportunities in the investment market? There could be volatility on our results, and it will certainly be on the investment side. What you should expect from our side is that we have decided to consider a quarterly dividend policy going forward, and we will say a bit more on that in the Capital Market Day a few weeks from now.
We have to see after quarter one whether we will take new decisions on a quarterly basis or not. At the meantime, for the previous year, NOK 3 per share on the dividend side. I'm looking at my IR responsible. Did I get it right, Amund? He's nodding and saying, "Yes, you got it right." The summary on page 28 we open up for questions. We have 10 to 15 minutes left. No, no. 10 again of the presentation. The summary is, we have had a historical high earnings per share of NOK 12 in 2020. We expect 10% growth and a combined ratio of 90%-92% in 2021. There is proposed a dividend of NOK 3. Quarterly assessment will be considered. Welcome to our Capital Market Day on March 10th. At what time, Amund? Is that decided?
No, it's not.
Okay. Exactly what time is not really been decided, so we will update you shortly on whether that will be at 10 o'clock or something else then. Hopefully, some of you will meet then. Then I am through the presentation, and my question is whether there are any questions, and we are nodding here.
Yes.
You start with the first one, Amund?
Yeah, I will.
I'll mute here. If you mute yours, we don't hear me double up. Hello. Good. 10% premium growth. What's your feeling here? Do you think it will be a positive or a negative surprise?
It was an echo here.
It was an echo here, so I had a bit of a problem in order to catch your question. Could we get rid of the echo, and I will mute and, okay, you're arriving here and taking the question in my microphone then, Amund, right?
Yes. You guide 10% premium growth. What's your feeling about positive and negative surprises on this?
Positive and negative surprises, if that is linked to the premium growth, the question is linked to premium growth, I think that there is not very much risk on the volume estimate. We had an underlying reality in January 1st, which was north of 10%, but we got rid of some workmen's comp business in Denmark and Norway. The cleanup has been finished. The underlying reality is stronger. On April 1st, U.K. will kick in. That's the big date in U.K. It is January 1st in the Nordics. I think that it's a very limited risk on the volume side in 2021, so we will be around 10%. It could be slightly lower, but not a lot.
It could be north, that depending on the large typical situation we may see in the market, but my expectation is that it will not be a long distance from 10%, neither south, or north, actually.
Yeah. Some more questions on profitability and underwriting. Since the Nordic insurance market in general is very cost- efficient, is there an opportunity for Protector to gain a competitive advantage by developing superior underwriting processes, for example, by investing in technology or IT?
Okay, that's a good one. I think that when it comes to underwriting superiority, we have that superiority in one segment, that is, in the public sector. If you compare Protector with other market players in the public sector in the Nordics, Gjensidige, KLP, If, Trygg-Hansa, Alm. Brand or others, it's a fact that we have delivered better than competitors in the public sector. I think we are very good at underwriting in the public sector. Outside that, it is difficult to see that we can get into such a situation in the Nordics. There are good underwriters on the competitor side as well, and I don't see that technology play an important part in this area, actually. I think we are good on technology. We innovate faster than anyone else in our segments, obviously, on technology, but we are not big data on consumer sector.
We think that the companies in the Nordic are rather good on IT development in the consumer sector, and are using big data in a good way, and can automate parts of the claims handling value chain, for instance, and they do. They are good in the consumer sector. It is a bit more complicated in the commercial sector, where we have more bigger claims that cannot be automated on the property side, for instance, or in other areas. The relative share of the big- sized claims in our segments are very different from the consumer sector. I think that we are good on IT. It is playing a more modest role in our segments compared with the consumer sector. Next question.
Yeah. Thank you. Could you please give some details on which cost that goes into the financial returns line in profit and loss in Q4, and if that's normal levels?
I'm not quite sure whether I understand the question.
We said something on the slide with investment return.
Yeah.
About some above normal costs.
Okay. What we see in 2020 on the cost side, both in the investment area and the insurance company of Protector, the bonus level, the long-term bonus level, in the insurance side, is linked to a long-term incentive plan linked to share price development. We have a very significant long-term bonus plan cost hit in 2020 on the insurance side. At the same time, we have a long-term incentive plan among key people in the investment department. That is even a longer horizon, which makes sense, I guess. After a poor investment year in 2018, a poor in 2019, very strong in 2020.
What you do is that you are not putting any expected bonuses in 2018 in your profit and loss statement because performance is poor, and the period as such is expected to be too poor. Same happens in 2019. When you kick in in 2020, you must set aside the costs on the investment for 2018, 2019, and 2020 at the same time. If you normalize that over three years, it's normalized. It's not the correct way to do accounting. It will, by definition, be volatile in that area. You could argue that we have a tripled bonus level on the investment side and a doubled bonus level on the insurance side in 2020. That's not normal. Hopefully, the share price development will still be good, but you should have a longer horizon on that kind of cost development in that area. That's the communication.
That's a good question, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to clear off that kind of situation.
Yeah.
Next question.
We have more questions on dividend versus buyback. I will combine them.
Yeah.
What is your solvency margin target? Will you pay out excess capital over that level? Why not go for buyback?
Okay, we will come back in the Capital Market Day to explain a bit more about capital allocation and what kind of targets we have, or if they will be slightly changed or more changed. We will come back on the Capital Market Day. No communication about that, can we see today? On the buyback situation, we think that the window of opportunity to buy shares very cheaply is not there. If we had gone on to the market today and said that we will do a buyback, that would probably push the share price even north of what you see here. It will have taken a few weeks. Our expectation then is that it will be on a higher level than yesterday, obviously, which I think we can see some indication on this morning.
I haven't really been there, but I understand that the share price is going up today, which we basically expected. The window of opportunity is possibly not brilliant; we will let the shareholders decide then. Now we pay a dividend. If we would like to buy shares, buy shares. There will certainly be situations in future where buyback opportunities will be given again, let's see whether we are acting swiftly enough in order to get in when we should get in. We may lose some window opportunity, sorry about that, in 2020. There will be opportunities in future, I guess. Hopefully, you can see a company moving in this kind of action.
Remember, only going one, two years back, some issues on the profitability side, on the technical side, some issues on poor investment results in year two, now we are steady going with a strong guiding. There will be volatility on the investment side, we feel that the technical side will deliver profits in the quarters and years to come, the financial flexibility of the company has increased then. If there is a crisis in the market and the share price drops with 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, or 50%, you should expect us to move in that area. Not at the moment, no.
Good. We have more congratulations to the appointment of Henrik. Could you comment on how that could change roles for the organization as a whole? For example, the role of Hans.
Okay, will there be role changes and implications relative to the new Chief Executive? Obviously, it will be. That kind of succession discussion has started internally in the management team of Protector three, four years ago. We have prepared for this situation for three to four years. We have prepared more lately, and we will continue to do that. Obviously, as you also have seen with the stock exchange information released January the 1st, the two of them, Hans and Henrik, they got the same long-term incentive plan with shares linked to a three-year horizon from the company in January the 1st. It's obvious that when Henrik is taking the Chief Executive position, Hans will expand his playground in the company, so will others in that area.
We have half a year to go, or a bit more, in order to continue to prepare for that kind of situation. Yesterday evening, Henrik, Hans, my management team, and myself, we had a meeting drinking champagne, celebrating Henrik, and talking about the succession of this full management team here. As Henrik then stated yesterday, Hans is number two in the company now and will obviously play a more important role going forward in future. Like Henrik has been my number two in the company for a number of years, that is about to change. I will still stay here for a few months and be there. I enjoy that and look forward to the next few months. We are on schedule to close down now. It's 11 o'clock.
Yep.
Do you have something you must ask, Amund, or are we closing now?
No, I believe you have covered mostly all of the questions, and if not, we will answer by email.
Okay. We come back, and if there are very intelligent questions, and all of them have been, we will pop the question and distribute to everybody. If there are more details, we only respond to those who have asked the question. Thanks a lot for joining. It has been a pleasure to be here together with you, and I hope I see many of you on the Capital Market Day, March the 10th. Thanks a lot, everybody.