Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Helvetia's Virtual Investor Conference. Topics of today's event include the presentation of the full year results 2020, a summary of the conclusion of the Helvetia 20 20 strategy and an overview on the new strategy Helvetia 2025. I would also like to welcome our hosts, Philipp Muehrer, Group CEO of Helvetia and Annalise Lischer Hemmerly, Group CFO of Helvetia. During the following presentation, all participant lines are muted. After the presentation, you will have the possibility to ask questions.
In order to do so, you just need to raise your virtual hand and then accept the unmuting of your line when it's your turn. For your information, I want to mention that this event will be recorded. I would now like to hand over to Filip Knoer. Filip, please.
Thank you, Susan. Within the next 45 minutes, we would like to give you detailed information on our business development and the key financials of the reporting period. Please let me start on Slide number 2. As Susan just mentioned before, we go through this agenda as follows. And I would like to go further to Slide number 3.
Let me start with some highlights of the 2020 financial year. In doing so, I would like to start with 3 key messages. 1st, Gasyr is a pearl and is paying off. 2nd, we profitably grew our business. And 3rd, we successfully completed our strategy period Helvetia 2020.
Gasior, I am very pleased to be able to tell you today we delivered what we promised a year ago when we announced the acquisition of Gasior by the end of January 2020. A look at Gasior's business development and its figures shows that the acquisition is paying off. Annalise Luche will give you more information on this in a moment, but this much upfront. Together with Casa, we improved our market position in Spain, and we are now ranking number 8 in non life. Despite the challenging market environment, which was strongly influenced by the COVID-nineteen crisis, Gasser was able to grow its non life and life risk premiums well above market.
In the non life business, Gasior made a positive contribution to the net combined ratio of our group. This results from a good quality of the Non Life portfolio with almost no exposure to COVID-nineteen. Finally, thanks to the good technical performance, Gasior made a substantial and very pleasing pro rata contribution of €54,000,000 to group IFRS profit and also to the group dividend by strengthening operating cash production. Overall, we are very pleased that our confidence in Gasar has come true. Gasar has, of course, driven our growth in 2020.
But nevertheless, in spite of a difficult environment in 2020, we were able to also organically increase our non life business by more than 8% as well in Switzerland, in Europe and in specialty markets. Finally, the IFRS profit after tax of CHF282 1,000,000 shows that after some one off effects in the first half of twenty twenty, the second half of the year was running according to plan. Our core business is and remains in good shape and is very robust. With the year 2020, our Helvetia 2020 strategy has also come to an end. We can look back on the past strategy period with pride.
We achieved our goals. In financial terms, we succeeded in growing profitably, while maintaining our solid capitalization and distributing a sustainable dividend. For 2020, the Board of Directors will therefore propose to the Annual General Meeting to distribute an unchanged dividend of CHF5 per share to our shareholders. This corresponds to an attractive dividend yield of 5 point 4%. Before I hand over to Annalise for a detailed view on the financial performance, I would like to say some words on COVID-nineteen.
The pandemic was and remains not only a concern for us, but also for our clients. It was therefore important to support them whenever possible. We therefore pragmatically implemented various measures. To give you some examples, last spring, we were waiving payment reminders and dunning letters in Switzerland and reducing the rent for small businesses and self employed persons. In order to ensure the provision of customer support at all times, we quickly adapted our structures to the new situation and switched to remote work for most employees throughout the whole group.
Finally, to counteract the emerging shortage of apprenticeships in Switzerland, Helvetia also created additional apprenticeships this summer. On the business side, the COVID-nineteen pandemic led to regular claims, mostly in travel and assistance insurance. To those customers in the gastronomy industry, we had concluded an epidemic insurance with pandemic exclusion. We quickly offered a settlement solution, which was accepted by more than 95% of the affected customers in Switzerland and by more than 55% in Germany. We have thus created security for all parties involved.
In total, the impact of COVID-nineteen claims on the net combined ratio was moderate as we also benefited from positive lockdown effects. Annalise will provide you with more details later on. Despite the pressure on new business volume in some lines of business due to the pandemic, we were able to demonstrate the strong growth in Non Life in most countries, as mentioned before. Finally, the COVID-nineteen crisis also changed customer behavior and gave a massive boost to digitalization in particular. We are seeing this very clearly with our digital insurer, Smile, in our home market.
Smile is the leading online insurer in Switzerland and recorded very pleasing growth in the past financial year. The premium volume now amounts to approximately CHF 100,000,000, and I will come back to SMILE later on in the second part of my presentation. With that, I would like to hand over to our Chief Financial Officer, Annalise Lusher, who is for the first time participating in this kind of analyst conference. She will provide you with the most important information about the financial figures. Annalise, please go ahead.
Thank you, Filip. A warm welcome also from my side. Within the next 25 minutes, I will give you more information on our financial performance in the 2020 financial year. Let's start on slide 6. Refetia Group can look back on a good business development in the second half of the twenty twenty financial year.
The 1st 6 months of 2020 were strongly characterized by the corona pandemic. Overall, Hervega has been able to continue to grow profitably in a difficult environment. The capitalization, including Kacer, remains strong, and Hefeitje is distributing an attractive dividend to its shareholders, unchanged since last year despite the corona crisis. A quick look on the key performance indicators shows that Telferzia's core business is in a good shape. I will give you a detailed information on the numbers later on.
The business volume increased by 4.5 percent to CHF 9,700,000,000. In line with its strategy, Helvetia expanded the non Life business in all the country markets and in the area of specialty markets. In the life business, investment linked solutions increased significantly in Europe. A big growth driver in general was, of course, Kacer. But regardless of Kacer, Helvetia was able to achieve significant organic growth in nonlife compared to the previous year, sorry, Thanks to the good business development in the second half of the year with solid technical results in the Non Life and Life business, Helvetia generated an IFRS net profit after tax of CHF 282,000,000 Casair also made a substantial profit contribution here.
The group net combined ratio of 94% underpins the resilience and the high quality of the portfolio and was also additionally supported by Caser. Worth mentioning is also the solid capitalization. As of January 1, 2021, Helvetia estimates the SSD to be around 190%. The definite asset ratio will be published on April 30, 2021, together with the Beric Liberty Finance Lager, the Swiss FCR. Finally, the Board of Directors will propose to the Annual General Meeting to distribute a dividend of CHF5 to the shareholders.
I will go into details later on. On the next slide, I would like to provide you with additional information on the business development of Kacer. At the end of June 2020, Helvetia completed the acquisition of the Spanish insurance company, Caser, and its financing. Helvetia has reached a strategic milestone and, as Filip mentioned, advanced to market position 8 in the Spanish Non Life business. In the past business year, Casa contributed CHF 715,000,000 pro rata.
That means for the 6 months, Casa has been consolidated in our P and L to the group business volume in life and non life as well as €93,000,000 fee and commission income. Although Spain was severely affected by the pandemic, Casa developed very successfully in the past financial year and achieved growth in the Non Life business and in risk premiums in the Life business that was significantly above the market. Please note that this growth statement is based on local GAAP and relates to the full year 2020. With 91%, the net combined ratio was also at a very good level. In the Non Life business, Casper recorded no material impact from COVID-nineteen, which was heavily overcompensated by positive lockdown effects in Motor and Health.
Let's turn to Carsten's profit contribution on Slide 8. Thanks to a solid technical development, KAUSTR made a substantial profit contribution of CHF 54,000,000 to the group's IFRS result on a half year pro rata basis. However, as you can see on this slide, Casa's profit contribution was affected by non sustainable effects. On the one hand, positive lockdown effects occurred in individual business lines such as motor business. On the other hand, there were negative effects in the non insurance business due to the COVID-nineteen related lower occupancy rates in hospitals.
Therefore, a normalized profit contribution from Casair would have been approximately CHF 35,000,000 for the second half year, resulting in a normalized profit contribution on an annual basis of approximately CHF70 1,000,000. In a nutshell, we are confident that Casa will make a substantial profit contribution to the group's financial statement in the future. Slide 9 gives you an overview of the IFRS result after tax on the individual business units. The IFRS result after tax in 2020 was CHF 282,000,000 versus CHF538,000,000 a year ago. The pandemic caused major distortions on the capital markets in the first half of the year, which weakened the investment result in the life and non life business.
In the second half year, Helvetia was able to participate in the upswing, partially compensating the weak investment result of the first half year. The underwriting result in Non Life was influenced by COVID-nineteen claims and higher costs due to projects. However, thanks to the good quality and diversification of the portfolio, the result also benefited from a favorable claims environment in general and lower claims frequencies due to lock down measures in individual lines of business. In addition, CALCIM made a notable contribution to the non life business areas result. In Life Insurance, the decline in the investment result was largely compensated by lower expenses for interest related reserve strengthening and policyholder participation.
In addition, net income in life insurance resulting from the Swiss tax reform in the previous year that did not apply this year. Overall, the technical results of the Non Life and Life Business divisions remained at a solid level in the 2020 financial year. Finally, I want to mention that the new business in Life also proved to be robust. The new business margin stood at 2.6 and thus remains well above the Helvetia 2020 strategic target. The interest margin in the Life business was at 0.85% compared to 0.9% a year ago.
The main driver for this slight decline was Switzerland, where the direct yield showed a stronger decline compared to the decline of the average technical rate. In Europe, by contrast, the interest margin was above the previous year due to a positive effect from the acquisition of the Spanish insurance company, Casa. The resilience of Helvetia's underlying business shows that the group is very well positioned for the future also in a difficult environment. The result in other activities decreased compared to the previous 3 year, mainly due to the impact of COVID-nineteen claims, together with weather related events in Italy on the group reinsurance result. In addition, financing and integration costs related to the acquisition of Kacer also had an impact.
With regard to reporting segments, Helvetia recorded a lower result in Switzerland compared to the previous year in both the non life and life business. This is mainly due to lower investment results in both business areas and COVID-nineteen claims as well as project costs in the Non Life business. In addition, an onetime positive tax effect resulting from the Swiss tax reform in the previous year did not apply this year. Regardless of these developments, the Swiss home made a reliable and substantial contribution to the group's result. The result of the Europe segment increased primarily due to the pleasing profit contribution from the acquisition of Kocer.
The non life technical result, in particular, developed positively in Europe. Helvetia benefited from the good portfolio quality with low exposure to COVID-nineteen claims in the country markets of Spain and Italy and positive lockdown effects in certain lines of business. The volatile capital markets had a noticeable impact on the Life business. On the other hand, this was reflected in lower expenses for policyholder participation. The Specialty Markets segment also reported lower investment income due to the stock market collapse in the first half of the year.
The technical result fell slightly short of the previous year, mainly due to COVID-nineteen claims and individual large claims in active reinsurance with positive developments in specialty lines and France. The result of the corporate segment decreased compared to the previous year primarily due to the impact of COVID-nineteen claims and an accumulation of weather related events in Italy on group reinsurance as well as transaction, financing and integration costs in connection with the acquisition of Kacer. I will continue with our growth in business volume on Slide 11. In 2020, Helvetia Group generated a group business volume of CHF9.7 billion. On a currency adjusted basis, this represents an increase of 4.5%.
Casel made a significant contribution to this growth. In addition, Herveglia's non life business was a pleasingly strong growth driver with an increase of 18.6% in local currency. In addition to the positive impact of the acquisitions of Kacer, Helvetia was able to grow significantly, particularly in the specialty market segment, which is due to positive price and volume effects. The Non Life business in Switzerland and in Europe also showed impressive growth rates despite the crisis, mainly in the property insurance business. In Life, the business volume with investment linked products in Individual Life in Europe developed very well.
The Kasler acquisition on the one hand and significant growth in periodic premiums on the other hand contributed to this increase. Helvetia made a strategic decision to introduce a new tariff in the Swiss Group Life business as of 1st January 2020 to strengthen the future profitability of Swiss Group Life. This led to an expected significant premium decline in this line of business in Switzerland in the 2020 financial year. And as a result, life insurance in total recorded a currency adjusted volume decline of 9.4% in 2020. Let's move on to Slide 12.
On Slide 12, you see that Helvetia now also reports the income from fee and commission business. This amounts to €226,000,000 whereof a significant amount stems from Casa's non insurance business. I would now like to move to the net combined ratio on Slide 13. In the 2020 financial year, the net combined ratio was at 94% and thus increased compared to the previous year. Thanks to the good quality of the portfolio and the positive impact from the acquisition of Cassell, the ratio was very robust despite losses from COVID-nineteen.
The net claims burden from COVID-nineteen due to regular claims from policyholders and from settlement solutions offered by HealthVecia, particularly in Swiss epidemic insurance, affected the combined ratio by 2.3 percentage points. The relatively low impact is proving the resilience of the portfolio. Helvetia additionally benefited from a lower burden of major losses from natural catastrophes and lower loss frequency in individual lines of business as a result of the lockdown to combat the pandemic. The cost ratio increased to 31.4%. The reasons were a higher administrative cost ratio, mainly driven by higher project costs as well as a slightly higher acquisition cost ratio due to shifts in the business mix.
At 31.4%, Helvetia's cost ratio is too high. Helvetia needs to become more efficient in order to secure its competitive position. Elsevier is achieving this by simplifying processes and eliminating duplications. In this way, we can also reduce costs. For this reason, as part of our new strategy, we are also addressing a cost efficiency program to leverage CHF 100,000,000 of cost efficiencies while at the same time continuing to grow.
Filip will come back to this as part of the strategy HealthAsia 2025 later on. On a segment level, in Switzerland, the net combined ratio was higher than in the previous year. The reasons were a higher loss ratio due to COVID-nineteen related losses and lower runoff gains from reserves for claims from previous years. The latter are mainly attributable to interest related reserve strengthening in the Accident Health business and to reserves running off from claims from whiplash injuries and for the portfolios of Alba and Pfenex acquired in 2010. The positive development of the current year loss ratio, excluding COVID-nineteen claims, had a partially compensating effect.
The positive development was due to the good portfolio quality in a favorable claims environment and low burden from major losses from natural events. In the Europe segment, the net combined ratio improved in the 2020 financial year to 92.7%. The development is due to a positive influence of the acquisition of Cassell, a lower exposure to the country market Spain and Italy to COVID-nineteen claims and lower claim frequencies in individual lines during the lockdown periods. All European market units achieved combined ratios below 100%. In the Specialty Markets segment, the net combined ratio increased slightly to 97.5%.
The claims ratio increased predominantly due to COVID-nineteen losses and individual large claims in active reinsurance. The cost ratio improved primarily due to growth related economies of scale. Slide 14 shows the development of our investment result. At CHF889,000,000, current income from financial investments and investment properties was below last year's level, mainly due to lower yields on reinvestments in the persistently low interest rate environment. Current income continued to prove a stable backbone of the overall result.
The direct yield declined slightly compared to the previous year from 1.9% to 1.7%. Realized and book gains and losses amounted to minus CHF 48,000,000 and were below the previous year, which was characterized by a strong performance on the equity markets. In 2020, by contrast, COVID-nineteen caused a collapse in the equity markets, resulting in losses on equities and derivatives in the first half of the year. However, rising equity markets in second half of the year supported a sizable recovery of the investment result. The investment performance, which in addition to the current income and the changes in value of the portfolio recognized in the income statement, also includes the change in unrealized gains and losses in equity, closed clearly in positive territory at 2.7%.
The main driver for the investment performance were higher valuations for fixed income securities due to lower interest rates. As a result of the positive development of the capital markets in the second half of twenty twenty, income on investments with market risk for the policyholder was at CHF186 1,000,000. I would like to finish my presentation with a slide regarding the dividend proposal to the Annual General Meeting. ESETIA pursues a dividend strategy that aims to pay sustainable dividends to its shareholders. Sustainable in this context means that Helvetia wants to increase the dividend from year to year, if possible, but at least keep it stable and not to reduce it.
In light of the challenging financial year 2020, the Board of Directors will therefore propose to the annual general meeting to keep the dividend stable. This allows us to yet again confirm our sustainable dividend strategy even in a difficult year. The dividend yield stands at 5.4%. Finally, I want to point out that Castel made substantial contribution to the group's dividend. On that note, I will hand over back to Filip.
Thank you, Annalies, for all those details regarding the financial year 2020. Let me just add with regard to our dividends proposal. It shows that we believe in our business, and we believe in a huge potential going forward. And I think that's well reflected in this dividend proposal by the Board of Directors for the Annual General Meeting. Now in the last part of the presentation, I would like to give an overview on the successful completion of the strategy 2020 and then present the highlights of the new strategy, Helvetia 2025.
Let's start on Slide 17. I would like to begin with our starting position. Today, we are Switzerland's leading insurer. In the segment Europe, comprising Germany, Italy, Austria and Spain, Helvetia has firmly rooted market positions for generating above average growth. Europe is the group's 2nd strong pillar.
Helvetia stands for successful mergers and acquisitions in our home market, Switzerland as well as in Europe. Via the specialty market segment, we have global market access in selected niches. In this segment, Helvetia offers tailor made specialty insurance and reinsurance cover. The market unit France acts as a focused transport insurance specialist and holds a strong market position as the number 2 in this sector. Let's go to Slide 18.
Following the successful conclusion of the past strategy period, we are well positioned for the future. We can look back at Helvetia 2020 with pride. With our Swiss reliability, we achieved all the goals we have been setting. I would like to mention a few highlights. Firstly, we successfully strengthened our core business.
Milestones include the integration of National Swiss and Basler Austria as well as, of course, the acquisition of Gasar in Spain. We further developed our customer access and offering in line with our customers' needs. For example, we expanded the bank distribution in Europe and grew our B2B2C business and put our brand promise simple, clear Helvetia into practice. We organically and profitably grew our business. Secondly, we developed new business models in the mobile sector with Smile, the leading Swiss online insurer.
I will come back to this later. With the home ecosystem built around Money Park, we provide our Swiss customers with a continuous and complete customer journey related to housing. The launch of the Helvetia Swiss Property Fund by Helvetia Asset Management is also paying off for our strategy. All these initiatives are strengthening our fee business, which makes us less dependent on the interest rate environment. And thirdly, we use targeted innovations, on the one hand, in the form of in house developments such as the chatbot services and on the other hand via the investments of our Helvetia venture fund.
The venture fund has invested in numerous Fintech and Robtech companies. Furthermore, in Europe, for example, we provided innovative solutions for best technical integration of distribution partners as well as dedicated solutions for digital banking. On Slide 19, I would like to say a few words about Smile. The InsurTech Smile can look back on a record year in 2020. Smile now has over 150,000 customers and a premium volume of around CHF 100,000,000, all with a good profit.
1 of Smile's success factors is certainly its online strategy that it adopted early on, which was additionally strengthened with the focus on mobile first and on a rigorous customer centricity last year. Smile customers can thus conveniently manage their insurance policy online and via app without an advisor and benefit from a 20 fourseven digital service. An additional catalyst of the SMAEL success story is, of course, COVID-nineteen, a crisis which is permanently changing consumer behavior and also accelerates the digitalization of the insurance industry. On the next slide, I would like to summarize the most important highlights of the acquisition of Gasser once again. I am really very pleased, together with the whole management, that we are able to dispel all doubts around the acquisition of Gasar and that by now our confidence comes true.
As we earlier heard from Annalies, the acquisition is definitely paying off and everything goes according to plan. Helvetia will benefit from Gasse's know how in bank distribution across the group. We expect Gasse to continue to make a significant contribution to profit and sustainability. And excuse me, please, we'll make Gasser is will we expect Gasser to continue to make a significant contribution to profit and to the dividend paid out to our shareholders. With Gasar, we also achieved our goal of significantly improving our position in Spain in the Spanish market and there positioning Helvetia as a European financial services provider.
Together, Helvetia and Casa are now ranking number 8 in the non life. And overall, we are now in the top 10 of the Spanish market. Let me move on to Slide number 21. In the Helvetia 2020 strategy period, we were able to develop our segment Europe into the group's strong second pillar. A significant milestone was, of course, the aforementioned acquisition of Gasse.
But even without Gas, the European segment has been showing significant growth since 2020 2015 with growth rates above market in all our European units. One growth driver was, for example, the good progress we made in our digitalization efforts. In Italy, for instance, our sales activities are characterized by a fast partner integration capability and a high level of user friendliness. According to Gartner, this makes Helvetia a reference case for successful bank distribution. In Spain, we also rely on successful sales partnerships, such as with the Pont Group in the area of motorbikes.
In Austria, our online insurer, Smart, is enjoying increasing popularity. At the same time, we enhanced our technical excellence via the unified pricing methodology and product controlling approach, leading to an improved portfolio management. Our efforts are reflected in a significantly improved combined ratio. Let's now take a look on the achievement of our financial targets on Slide 22. In addition to our strategic priorities, we also achieved our goal of generating profitable growth while at the same time maintaining our solid capitalization and distributing a sustainable dividend.
Even though the year 2020 was marked by the COVID-nineteen crisis, we successfully fulfilled all financial targets over the entire strategy period. We are thus building on a healthy foundation and are well equipped for the future. To summarize, thanks to the successful implementation of Helvetia 2020, we hold a top position in Switzerland as an online insurer with Smile as the leading online insurance company. Europe is our 2nd strong pillar. And in specialty markets, we are successfully playing in niches worldwide.
With our broad distribution network, we enable our customers to get access to our products through various distribution channels, and we were therefore able to generate strong growth in all market units. The growing fee business makes us less dependent on the interest rate environment and thus supports our strong earnings quality characterized by a fourfold diversification. We want to continue on this successful path also in the future, developing Helvetia from a Swiss insurance company with a couple of operations abroad to a Swiss based European insurance player. Let's move on to Slide 24. With a history spanning more than 160 years, Helvetia has come a long way.
But our purpose remains the same and will continue to do so in the future. Life is full of risks and opportunities, and we are there when it matters. In order to continue to fulfill our purpose in the future, we want to be the best partner for financial security, setting standards in convenience and in customer accessibility. As the best partner for our customers, we closely listen to what they want and what they need. We put the customer at the center.
And in our Helvetica 2025 strategy, we are therefore setting 4 strategic priorities. The first one, we want to be present wherever insurance and pension needs arise and provide our services in the simplest way possible for our customers. Hence, we are relying, for instance, on personalized customer targeting by using analytical tools and customer segmentation. Furthermore, we are simplifying our processes, reducing complexity and increasing efficiency. This contributes to a high level of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty as well as to the successful implementation of the brand's promise, simple, clear Helvetia.
We are sure that we have a long way in front of us, but we want to go this way. The second strategic priority, we offer comprehensive products and services in the area of insurance as well as integral pension and investment solutions. This way, we are optimizing risk adjusted investment returns and generating additional fee income in asset management. In addition, we enable successful cross selling and give our customers the opportunity to get their insurance and pension needs from a single source. The 3rd priority, in Switzerland, we aim to expand our existing customer relationships.
We will therefore continue our omnichannel approach and further expand and strengthen new distribution channels, such as B2B or B2B2C. We further developed the European business as a strong second pillar of the group by strengthening customer access and service via our best partner approach and enhancing our offering for small and medium sized enterprises. This will again result in above market growth. In the international specialty business, we generate targeted growth through further development of our existing business and the underwriting of new risks in attractive niches. And finally, the 4th strategic period, we make use of new opportunities.
We build new business models and ecosystems in and around our core business as well as in the area of asset management. Examples are our home ecosystem in Switzerland or the health and care ecosystem in Spain. In the asset management division, we are expanding the 3rd party business. We also want to continue on the successful path of Smile. The aim of all those initiatives is to offer our customers innovative products and services.
At the same time, increasing the fee business shall make you shall make us less dependent on the interest rate environment. On Slide 26, you can see what we would like to achieve with those strategic priorities. We are contributing to profitable growth, sustainable profitability and improved operational efficiency. Furthermore, we ensure the ability to pay dividends also in the future. We are therefore going to Slide 27 we are therefore setting forth the following financial targets until 2025.
With regard to the quality of earnings and growth, we aim for a net combined ratio of between 92% 94% in the non life business. In the life business, the target for the new business margin is between 2% 3%. Our aim is to generate a volume of more than €350,000,000 of fees, including our new business models and ecosystems. And the share of fee business of our ISRS profit should make up more than 5% by the end of 2025. An important component of our strategic priority, increasing customer convenience, is to simplify our processes, reduce complexity and to improve our operational efficiency.
In this way, we secure for future for our future competitive position. We want to use the wide ranging competencies of our company even more effectively. Therefore, we strive for a balanced relationship between cost consciousness and quality demands. In order to achieve this, we will realize cost efficiencies of CHF 100,000,000 by 2025. Our solid capitalization should be reflected in a stable S and P A rating, And we want to continue our sustainable dividend strategy.
Our aim is to distribute more than SEK 1 500,000,000 to our shareholders within the next 5 years. Finally, we strive for a return on equity of between 8% to 11%. Adjustments are made to equity by excluding unrealized gains and losses from equity. On Slide 28, I would like to briefly explain which prerequisites must be said in order to successfully implement our strategy. It's all about people, partner and performance.
What does this mean in detail? Regarding people, we focus on talent management and leadership. This means that we further develop our employees in a targeted manner and gear our talent and succession management as well as our entrepreneurial understanding of leadership towards the achievement of our strategic goals. 2nd, with regard to our partners, we especially make use of the opportunities presented by digitization. We modernize our technology and use data analytics in a targeted manner to best connect with our customers and partners.
And finally, performance means that we want to always perform at the top level. We therefore consequently measure ourselves by our results and demand technical excellence in the areas of underwriting and the pricing of our products. What does all that mean regarding our 3 segments? In Switzerland, we consolidate our position as Switzerland's leading all lines insurer. We further developed Europe as a second strong pillar in order to become a European financial services provider.
And in specialty markets, we aim to achieve further profitable growth in the international specialty business, for example, in the aviation and space business and the area of Agtive Reinsurance. At our Capital Markets Day on June 22, 2020 1, that means like in 3 months from now, we will provide you with more detailed information regarding our strategy Helvetia 2025, including a deep dive of cancer and specific initiatives around new business opportunities. This brings us to the end of my presentation. Annalise Lusher and I would now be pleased to answer your questions. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you,
We will now start the Q and A session. Just to remind you, if you want to ask a question, please raise your virtual hand The first question comes from Peter Eliot. Peter, please go ahead.
You can hear me now?
Yes.
Yes. Sorry for the delay.
Thank you very much. I have 3 questions, please. So the first one was on the 3.9 percent of adverse runoff development. I mean, a lot of that is due to the active reinsurance effect, the growth of that. I just want can you say how much of that is due to the reinsurance effect and how much further we might expect that to go in the future?
The second question was on Prussia. Just to check on my maths, the £70,000,000 is before minorities and financing costs, I think, so £40,000,000 after those, which I guess is a sort of 7% of the 2019 earnings for a 7% increase in shares, which kind of looks EPS neutral to me before integration costs. I'm sure I've missed something there and something else, but I'm just wondering if you could sort of comment on my maths there. And then the third one is on COVID-nineteen losses. So at the half year, I think you said €89,000,000 in the non life segment.
Now I think you're saying €97,000,000 for the whole group for the full year. So I was wondering if you could just sort of clarify where the losses sit. It sounds like only £8,000,000 from active reinsurance, which just leaves me struggling a little bit to understand that the active reinsurance results in light of that. And it would maybe be it would be great to understand the remaining risk given that 45% of German claims haven't settled yet and where you are on reinsurance recoveries?
Thank you, Peter, for those three questions. I would suggest that I start with the answering of question number 3 and hand then over to Annalise for number 12. Regarding COVID-nineteen losses, it is as follows. The number we communicated with the half year results of almost CHF 90,000,000 on a net basis, slightly increased by those CHF 8,000,000, CHF 9,000,000 you just mentioned before. That means that in the second half of the year, we did not have new claims.
And this is a number on a net basis, which is true for the whole group, so to say, but we have in our books. And now I would like to hand over to Annalise for the questions number 12.
Yes. Thank you. So the lower runoff gains from reserves, this is mainly due to interest rate related reserve strengthening the accident and health business and to reserves running off for claims from whiplash injuries and for the portfolios of Alba and Phoenix acquired in 2010. So that was to the first question. The second question on IPAs accretive, the acquisition of Kocel.
So yes, the acquisition of Kocel is EPS accretive. And I would suggest that for the details to this calculation, you approach our Investor Relations team later on.
That's great. Thank you very much. Could I maybe just quickly follow-up on the sort of second part to the last question? I'm sorry, slipping in order, but the German claims, I mean, you said you had 55% settlement. What's the sort of position with the other 45%?
Yes, are you able to shed any light on that process at all or what we expect there.
Okay. Thank you for this question. In Switzerland, we have a ratio of more than 95% of our clients who accepted our proposal, whereas in Germany, it's only 55%. Now what happens with the 55%, they accepted our proposal, getting a certain sum and at the same time excluding the pandemic risk for the future, whereas the remaining 45% did not accept our proposal. They go either to court and or want to have a contract, which is enforced for a longer period.
Now what does that mean? We have up to now a couple of leading proceedings going on. There were if I recall it the right way, we there were 4 or 5 legal proceedings, which have been dealt with before a court up to now. We were winning 3 out of 4. There were a couple of legal proceedings, which ended up with an agreement between the parties.
And those legal proceedings, which were either in favor of Helvetia or one of them was against Helvetia, they will go to a second court in Germany. But that's only a couple of legal proceedings up to now, and there might come more. However, that means that the contracts are still in force, but you have a coverage period of like 1 month, 2 months, 3 months. So we exactly know what our risk exposure is, And we made provisions in our 2020 results. So there is no bad surprise coming out of there.
The second question is coming from Rene Loja.
Okay. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. Wonderful. Good morning all. So I would like to start with this cumulative dividend distribution. In the last 5 years, you achieved SEK1.19 billion.
And now you are targeting an at least 26% higher cumulative dividend distribute to above 1,500,000,000. My question is, which business units or which countries do contribute to the 26% increase? That's the first question. And then quickly on the combined ratio, I know analysts are always a little bit ambitious. When I take the 94% reported combined ratio and I deduct 2.3 percentage point COVID-nineteen, then I end up at 91.7 for 2020.
Your target for the next strategy period stands at 92% to 94%. So, when I compare the adjusted 2020 combined ratio with the new target, it doesn't look so ambitious to me. And the third question, if I may, just on the Swiss business. I mean, Swiss business is always very, very strong. And now when I take a look at the Swiss combined ratio, Austria is up by 300 basis points year over year.
And also the claims ratio is up by 360 basis points. And you explained to us there are a lot of one offs India like projects. But I'm just wondering, quickly elaborate a little bit on the Swiss Non Life business. And then when I'm looking at the Swiss Life business, here the gross margin also decreased by, I guess, a few bps. And Arnaud is explained that that's due to the lower reinvestment yields.
But here again, just a little bit of feel where the Swiss where the domestic life business is going. And yes, perhaps quickly on the cost of the efficiency. Very interesting to see that Annalise highlighted the €100,000,000 when she was talking about the non life business. So I'm wondering a bit, are you taking out this CHF100 1,000,000 more or less in the non life business?
Okay. Ronny, if I count it the right way, you have like 5 different questions. The first is about the dividends, the second about the combined ratio ambition, the third one about our Swiss combined ratio specifically the 4th, about the gross margin in Life and the 5th question deals with our efficiency program. We go ahead as follows. I am answering question number 2, and I then hand over to Annalise for the answering of the other questions and might maybe add some or one or more comments.
Let's go to question number 2. Is it ambitious enough to set forth a combined ratio target of between 92% 94%? As you well know, we are sticking to our targets and sticking to our promise. And we want to set forth targets we can achieve, of course. And if we are looking at our business mix in the different country markets, if we are looking at our business mix in the different business lines, if we are looking at what's going on around us with regard to pricing, etcetera, we think that it is ambitious enough to set forth this target range.
Of course, we happily take 91, and we are working of an even better combined ratio. But historically, we think that this target range is still ambitious enough. And if we could underwrite it today for the next 5 years, we would like to take it. Now I hand over to Annalise for the answering of the other questions.
Yes. Thank you, Filip. I can maybe add, Ronnen, to your calculation of the 94% minus the 2.3%. What is why should we maybe enhance this calculation? So the 2.3% was the net claims ratio out of COVID-nineteen claims.
However, importantly, we also had positive lockdown effects, especially in also in Southern Europe. So they are on the positive side of this net of combined ratio of 94. And they are also a special case for this COVID year. So yes, so the calculation has to be enhanced a little bit. On your first question on the cumulative dividend distribution, which we plan to increase from currently €1,190,000,000 for the last 5 years to EUR 1,500,000,000 for the next 5 years.
This stems from growth in all our markets. So what do I mean by this is that my job especially is to have a very close eye on profitability of the business and on growth, so on profitable growth. And by taking advantage also, like we already report in the specialty markets business of scale effects, we are able to pay out more dividend in the next 5 years due to the planned growth, profitable growth. I would now go to the 3rd point on the Swiss business and the cost ratio. There, the cost ratio was influenced by various effects but also by a large part also by project costs, which make a big part there of the increase in costs.
And on the cost efficiency, so this was your 5th point, if I record it correctly. The this is not only a topic of non life. This is a topic of for general, for HealthAsia. So it will impact, of course, the cost ratio in Non Life, but it will also increase the cost efficiency in the Life business. The 4th question, I'm afraid I did not write it down correctly, and I don't remember.
Could you please repeat that?
It's about the gross the development of the gross margin in Life, isn't it, Rene?
But I don't see you, Rene, any longer. I think we have a technical problem. Okay.
I can maybe add until Roni comes back with regard to the dividend policy. If you have a look at Kasser only, it contributed to the cash production of Helvetia within the 1st 6 months, roughly SEK 25,000,000, SEK 26,000,000. So there is a lot more dividend coming out from Spain already and, of course, as Anurice mentioned, from the other segments as well. Susan, so we can go back to question number 4, which Rene Lacher, I think, was asking. It's about our gross margin in Life.
And Annalise, please go ahead.
Yes. So we showed our gross margin in Life was influenced also by the low reinvestment yield, especially due to lower rates. Regarding the Life, the Swiss Life business, we have introduced a new tariff as of 1st January 2020, which will majorly improve the profitability of this business.
Roni Laucher. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Now we're fine. I guess I miss or honest, could you please repeat the combined ratio in Switzerland? Because I guess I missed that one.
Yes.
Sure. So yes, the question was about the cost ratio in the Swiss business, right, on the Non Life part, of course. And there, this is influenced beside other effects by project costs this year.
Okay. And on this €100,000,000 cost efficiencies, is this mainly non life?
Yes. Okay. No, sure. I can comment on that as well. No, this is not only non Life.
This affects the whole HealthFairja Group, so also Life, but will, of course, have an impact on the cost ratio as well through the non life part of the savings program.
Thank you.
As you see, Ronny, we have some one off effects in the cost ratio in Switzerland, which, of course, will not be seen in the financial year of 2021. But apart from that, we also want to reduce our running cost basis, also in our Swiss business, of course, which brings us back to an even more competitive number. Yes.
That's fine.
Okay. More questions.
If there are no more questions.
Yes.
There is another question from Peter Eliot. I'll unmute your line. Peter, you should now
Thank you. Yes, I hope you can hear me now.
Yes.
Perfect. Thanks, Rosh, for letting me to come back. I guess, three questions again, if I may. The first one on the dividend. Your target of your forward looking target under 2020 implies a little bit more than just the sort of the normal sort of step up of 0.2 each year, I guess.
So my reading of that is that maybe 2020 is lowered a little bit, but you're trying not to sort of change the overall trajectory. I don't know if I'm reading too much into that, but I'm going to do if you can comment on that. The second question was on the other segment. I guess it's always quite a confusing one for us to forecast and there's lots of moving parts. I was wondering if you could just run us through what you think is a sort of normal run rate by source sort of going forward.
Yes, sorry, that would be helpful. And then finally, maybe just coming back on those efficiency targets. Can you just clarify whether that is going to be sort of so are you actually looking to reduce the expenses? Or will some of that be sort of offsetting natural inflation and growth of the business? And presuming, you can't do an awful lot in the acquisition expenses line.
So when you're looking at non life, am I right in thinking this is going to sort of come from the administration, but there's a little bit more color or detail on how that will work. It would be very helpful.
Thank you, Peter. I suggest that I am answering question number 3 and will then hand over to Annalise for question number 12. Talking about our efficiency targets, apart from inflation effect, of course, which might help us and the whole growth of the group, which might help us to have a better cost ratio. We want to effectively reduce our cost basis by CHF 100,000,000. It's not inflationary or whatsoever.
And that means that we are carefully looking at our staff and at our other costs, of course. And by the end of 2025, we want to stick to this target, EUR 100,000,000. Now Annalise, questions number 12?
Yes. So on the dividend and the trajectory. So we will continue to pursue a dividend strategy that aims to pay a sustainable dividend to shareholders. And with that, we will we want to stick to our promise as this year to either slightly increase the dividend year on year or to at least, in a not so positive year, to at least keep it stable. And this philosophy, let's call it, is we continue with that.
We still have it in our plan, and it's the backbone for the dividend part of the 2025 strategy. Some comments on your question number 2 on the other segment. Yes, there are a lot of moving parts in there. On one hand, the group reinsurance is in there and then the results out of this part. And then this year, of course, also the financing and the integration costs of Kacer and also some aspects of the funds, of the Hevetia funds are in there.
What we do not provide is, let's say, an assumption of a normalized year in this other segment.
Coming back maybe and adding to Annalie's comments on dividend. The dividend is, of course, also driven by our net economic dividend capacity we were talking about with you a couple of times, I think. And as you may recall, this economic dividend capacity was roughly SEK 700,000,000 by the end of 2019, and we are publishing the new number by the end of April when we will come up with the so called Bufel, the reporting about the financial situation of Helvetia Group.
Okay. Thanks very much.
More questions?
Are there any further questions? If so, please raise your virtual hand. Yes, there is a follow-up question from Rene Lohr. Rene, please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you very much. So quickly, on the Swiss domestic license again, which is I'm wondering a little bit what happened to the return on equity. I mean, on one side, you have this collaboration with Swisscanto. Now you have reduced the exposure to the Group Life business.
Let me just relate to the feeling. Have you had a release in required capital for the Swiss, the Domestic Life business? This is the first question. The second one, I mean, it's again, it's this number crunching stuff, but that's what the analysts like to do. If I take your targets, 2025, when I'm right, you're now running the shareholders' equity of €6,400,000,000 And I'm right in that there are roughly €1,400,000,000 of unrealized gains, losses.
So that means the starting base is like €5,000,000,000 Now if I take your €0.08 to EUR0.11 to our target, this would calculate a profit of €4,000,000 to €5,000,000
We can hardly understand you, Rene. Please stick to the microphone.
Yes, yes. It's better now? Yes. Okay. Sorry.
So again, my starting point for the ROE calculation is €5,000,000,000 if I'm right. Now if I take the midpoint, €9,000,000 of your target, I would end up at €475,000,000 net profit and €75,000,000 €1,000,000 net profit. €70,000,000 So that's the total contribution from Gazelle. You can consolidate 70%. So you get roughly 50,000,000 from Qatar.
I'm not disappointed, but I do believe that the entire sales of business ex Corsair has a higher net profit capacity than just CHF 425 1,000,000. Perhaps you can also elaborate a little bit on big picture wise.
Let's start with question number 1 maybe, and I then hand over to Annalise. Talking about Group Life business, of course, as we reported, we had quite some clients leaving the so called full coverage PVG model and either leaving the Helvetia universe or to a great extent joining the SwisscomTO or the BVG Helvetia Invest solution. And by reducing our balance sheet and by reducing our exposure to the Group Life business in the course of adjusting our tariff structures, there was also a reserve free fall, so to say. So that of course, there were some effects in the books. So and all in all, we, of course, strengthened the by doing so, strengthened the profitability of the Group Life business and reduced the exposure to the interest rate and demographic risks going with this 2nd pillar business.
Now talking about the target and the target range. And as you put it, playing with all those numbers and calculations, I hand over to the CFO.
Yes. Thank you, Filip. Yes, I would here like to take the time with to look at the numbers with Suezon. I wrote down some numbers that you mentioned, but I think it makes sense that we give you a more precise answer on this. The calculation is, of course, not as simple as that.
But I propose that we take it up with the Investor Relations team later on.
Yes. That's fine. Thank you.
If there are no more questions for the time being, as you well know, we are ready and happy to answer your questions whenever they might arise. Please do not hesitate to our investor to contact our Investor Relations team, and we are glad to see or hear you, be it in a virtual or maybe in a physical manner as soon as possible. And thank you for your attention, and goodbye.