Hello, welcome to the UNIQA Group results of the first quarter, 2023. My name is George, I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this conference is being recorded. For the duration of the call, your lines will be in listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero, you will be connected to an operator. I'd like to call over to your host today, Mr. Kurt Svoboda. Please go ahead, sir.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to UNIQA's first quarter, 2023, which is the first time done on the new accounting standard on IFRS 9 and 17. Therefore, there is no comparability to numbers to prior years, to prior quarters. We give you the guidance the first time with this quarter and also then, in the next quarter, stepwise. Please be aware that some of the new KPIs are also in a different, we calculated them in previous years, so, combined ratio, cost ratios, or even ROE are not that comparable to the standard on IFRS 4, which was valid up to the end of the year, 2020. Also, looking on the indicative numbers of the year 2022, which we did in a restatement.
Here, the driver was the interest rate, and in that case, also the new accounting scheme, but we will come to that later on. I'm now referring to the page number four on the slide deck, which is available on the UNIQA website. First of all, we have an effect on equity. We told this in previous conference call and in our teaching, anyhow, in first messages, as we're also looking around what others in Europe are doing.
We are reporting the pure equity. We do not take the CSM into consideration for any equity purpose. Second thing is limited impact on the property and casualty segment, which is applying the PAA method, the premium allocation approach. Anyhow, please be aware that UNIQA reports all its KPIs and numbers on a cross view.
We do not split up so far the reinsurance result as we did in the previous year, as the standard is in that case for us on a cross basis, clear. Measurement and accounting is depending on the type of contract. Just make the reminder that UNIQA has a big volume on personal lines, especially in Austria, with the health business and also including the international business on the life side.
For all this business, which has a profit participation, we use the VFA approach. That means also in relation to the investment result, we have to a different view than in previous years. Increased transparency, we see this also, of course, it's the first time that we report on those numbers.
Stepwise, we will also then include more details to our reporting, starting with Q2 and the half year. Again, the stress that all these have no impact on UNIQA's strategy, UNIQA 3.0, and our focus on the technical profitability. Plus, we see also no impact on our retail policy that we proposed. Page five, the opening balance on the 1st January 2022, as a comparison, I would like to highlight here three things.
A, there is a trend, not only UNIQA, but also on other European level, but in that case, UNIQA, that the equity in comparison to IFRS 4, so the old accounting scheme, is less. This comes, on the one hand, from no different acquisition cost anymore in UNIQA's position.
I just make the reminder that UNIQA was in the first role implementing IFRS 4. We used US GAAP standard, then the US GAAP standard, we had to defer acquisition costs over the lifespan of the period, of the policy period. This is the reason why we have this impact, this has to do with the first application of the IFRS standard anyhow in the year 2000. Second thing is that we have a fair value of investment property. This has to do with the VFA approach that we applied. We have property or real estate in this portfolio, in that case, we have to increase the value to the market value, this is the reason why EUR 1 billion on capital was in that case created.
Anyhow, we end up with the opening balance by a capital by EUR 2.576 million. This was lower than by the end of 2022 and came up by the end of the first quarter 2023, again, on this level of around EUR 2.6 billion. The key message in that case is UNIQA has on IFRS 9 13, lower capital than in the history. This is one reason why return on equities go up at UNIQA.
The last message on this page, before I hand over to Andreas Brandstetter, is the CSM, visible on the liability column on the right-hand side, LRCSM, starting position EUR 4.4 billion predominantly the personal line business at UNIQA, and the value by the end of first quarter was EUR 5.7 billion. I will elaborate this in some minutes. For chapter 2.1, I would like to hand over to Andreas to guide you through the most important things on operative level for the first quarter 2022, 2023, sorry.
Thank you so much, Kurt. You know that one opening statement from my side will be that we feel very comfortable with the new IFRS regime, which this is what we're sure about over time, for sure, will increase transparency among insurers, and which has this more, as Kurt stated, explicitly forward-looking character, especially in the business around personal lines.
We feel so comfortable because we, under the new regime, see our strong development of the two prior years, 2021 and 2022 continued, if we take a look on the main KPIs on slide eight. If you go to this, if you have a look on this, on this PNL, you find gross writer, which of course, doesn't exist anymore under the new regime, is the first one.
All of us know gross written premium doesn't exist anymore. We talk about insurance revenue, but we can't compare the terms because they have a different content. We have the 6.5% growth on the top line, which is a very, very good development. We managed basically to, this is a good message, to keep our clients, so we didn't lose clients, we didn't lose portfolio.
At least not this, which we want to keep. Second, we could increase our prices there where it was necessary in both our core markets, meaning, Austria plus Eastern Europe. Last but not least, also, we have been able to gain new customers. The right, satisfying new amounts of new business. If you have a look on the three business lines, we see a growth of almost 10%, right?
To be precise, 9.8% in the PNC business on a group level. We see an increase of 6.2% in the health business, and a small drop, given the macroeconomic circumstances in life business of around, 1.8%. This overall leads us to the 6.5% mentioned here. If you would ask about the insurance revenue in a restated comparison towards the Q1 2022, we would have an increase of 13%, just to give you also this number. We really can be satisfied and happy with the top line. Very good, to talk about insurance technical results. You see this net insurance service result, or the new term, which we have to get used to. Excellent profitability, driven by various parameters first.
We had a first quarter, which not severe weather claims, so we have been lucky in this first quarter, but we also, due to a restructured quality of the portfolio in the corporate business, have been experiencing less claims in the corporate business on the PNC side. You also see, and Kurt will come back to it in a second, about the CSM, the contractual service margin.
You see that in health, the release is the CSM is higher than the release of the period. In life, the CSM release is higher than expected due to higher interest rates. The key message is that the technical performance of this group, in addition to the growth perspective, has been very satisfying.
If you look on the two numbers, you see EUR 73 million on CSM release in the prior quarter, now we have EUR 79 million. I think this is a quite stable and good development, which makes us also happy and confident for the upcoming quarters. The net financial result was already mentioned. You see a clear positive development as far as the net investment income is concerned, significantly higher than in the first three months of 2022.
Here, as mentioned here, through stable interest rates, there's a very nice recurring, ongoing normalized income and stabilized exposures to Russian and Ukrainian bonds, which, as you know, have been hitting us in the last year quite substantially. As a consequence to all of this, our original taxes has been increasing significantly up to EUR 124 million.
Once again, that we pretty big exposed to by, on the one hand, the technical development, which is really satisfying, and second, by increased investment income. The cost to do it under control, you see the absolute terms over here. There's a continued high discipline on the cost side, and overall, this makes us quite satisfied as far as the first three months of this year in the region has been concerned. Kurt now is guiding us through all the details, and we may start on page nine, where it's about the key financial indicators.
The key financial indicators, I would like to highlight, two. The first one is a very solid regulatory capital position with 263%. Of course, this has to do with the favorable interest rate development. On the other hand, also the profitable technical business is driving this increase to above 250 percentage points. Return equity, I mentioned, 17%.
Of course, not comparable on a calculated basis to the numbers you see on the left-hand side. Talking about the profit, additionally to that, what you heard from Andreas, we can inform that inflation in 2023 is already covered by all in our products and prices. The pricing took place starting in 2023 with all possible index and indexations, international and Austria, plus reinsurance.
We see no significant changes in web trade or in losing customers. This is an additional information. On the claims side, besides that, what you heard on a very favorable development on the claims, we see also no impact from the indexation, as this was already embedded in our, claims setting and reservings, by the end of the year 2022.
In that case, we see by the ongoing inflation level, no impact for 2023. Page 10, the new business in the group, 4.4% new business margin for the personal lines, by a present value of new business premiums of around close to EUR 800 million. We expect an overachievement of the year 2022, leading to a volume of EUR 35 million for the whole group.
Just information, why is this not comparable with the CSM level? We include on the CSM level, as the standard says, only the direct attributable costs, on the new business or NBM, we have the full loaded costs in that respect. Generally, a very favorable good development on this side. The split between life and health is 3.9% on the health.
To the life business, 5.5% new business margin on the health side. Page number 11, the first time we show the contractual service margin of UNIQA, by a level of EUR 3.6 billion on the health side and EUR 2.1 billion on the life side. The driver on the assumption changes is on the one hand, the interest rate.
On the health side, close to EUR 80 million, on the life side, more than EUR 40 million. The rest comes from indexation on the health side and on the life side, less profit participation, because of lower hidden reserves in the portfolio. This is the key net portfolio number 12, investment portfolio. On the one hand, we gained favorable EUR 229 million on the other comprehensive income. In that case, we are catching up that what we lost in the year 2022. By the way, the OCI recovery period of UNIQA by sustainable interest rates is of around 5 years. Expected credit loss is very stable, is likely profit by EUR 3 million by this year.
Please note that UNIQA, due to the change from the IAS 39 to IFRS 9, has changed the fair value, which goes through the PNL. In previous years, it was around 5%-6%. Now we have 14% of EUR 25 billion, which are going through the PNL, and therefore, more volatility. This is, by the way, also the reason why the period 2022, which we post indicative, was in that case, negative.
Page number 13, the investment income, part of the investment result, EUR 124 million, predominantly ordinary income, a little bit of FX gains, around EUR 12 million. The rest is costs and some realized losses. With this, information on Ukraine and Russia, unchanged to previous year. With this, I would like to pause here and give you also the possibility to raise now questions to Andreas and to myself.
Thank you very much.
Just-
Please go ahead .
Just one last slide that did come in. The outlook is missing on slide 16. Andreas speaking, if you have been listening to Kurt, you will be not surprised that this find us positive as far as the outlook for the full year is concerned, as far as the insurance business itself is concerned. We expect an ongoing satisfying trend on the top line, as far as the growth is concerned. You might have seen and heard, we have been growing in our big markets in the first quarter in Austria by more than 5%, Slovakia by 14%, Czech Republic by 11%, and we expect this trend to continue.
We expect the trend to continue, that we have a good quality in our insurance portfolio, also the retail business and in the corporate business, of course, subject to any kind of weather-related claims, which we cannot predict. This is a not clear comment that the good development of UNIQA 3.0, which we experienced in 2021, and 2022, we expect also to go on in this year. We are not so clear about the capital markets, and we expect, of course, some ongoing uncertainty. Having said so, we cannot give you a clear guidance for the full year 2023.
What we can confirm, and you heard about this, that as far as the dividend is concerned, for the year 2022, the EUR 0.65 per share, which you heard about all of us, we will propose to the AGM on June sixth. Let me close here, give a thank you for Scott and me for listening to us, and I'm very happy to take on all your questions.
Thank you, sir. Sorry for interrupting you there a bit earlier. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please also ensure mute function is activated, in order to allow you to save future equipment. Our first question is coming from Michael Huttner, calling from Berenberg. Please go ahead, sir.
Fantastic. Thank you. I'm sorry, I don't cover UNIQA, but I'm really curious and thank you. The results were stunning, and I just wondered if you can explain, is there a single driver to this? I had in mind that it's underwriting, so I think it's now called the insurance service result in mainly in the C, in Poland, but I may be mistaken. Any simple explanation to this, the big trend for your lovely rise in profits would be very appreciated. That's my only question. Thank you.
Michael, may I give you the answer in a twofold way. You said what are the single drivers? I would say there are two drivers. High profits, sorry, high growth in relation with a very favorable profit. Meaning we have a very good technical result coming from a more or less a no Nat Cat claim, as we anticipated. The major claims are around EUR 25 million, which is according to UNIQA, very little.
The basic claims, plus the frequency of the claims is reduced. Basic claim in Austria is about 45 percentage points and defined as all claims below EUR 500,000. International-wise, we are dropping from 52-48 percentage points. These are the two drivers of this, as you call it, stunning result.
That's really brilliant. Thank you so much. Very clear.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you have any questions, do press star one at this time. We'll now go to Rok Stibric, calling from RBI. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone. It's Philip speaking. I would have a couple of questions, and if you will, I propose to go through them by business line. Starting with the PNC segment, there was a remarkable growth of almost 10%. Could you please share what were the respective premium growth rates in motor and non-motor insurance? Where did you observe better claims development?
I can give you the answer in a way of motor business, out of these 10% is, around a more than 11%, and the non-motor business, I'm, on a group level, is of around 7%. These are the numbers I can give you in that respect of the PNC business growth.
Okay, thank you. Moving to health insurance, last year, the cost of health services quite increased in Austria, for example. Are you seeing these pressures now easing? Is the benefits growth slowing down?
I think we have two things here, Rok. The first one is we have in Austria, according to the high general inflation, which is around, depending on which month you look, I would say between 8% and 10%. We have also indexation on the premiums and on the services that we charge. This is one thing. On the other hand, with this, the benefits go hand in hand.
The medical inflation is more or less the same level. But what you see, that the level of patients is stable, and with this, we have also a favorable development on the benefit side for us. This is for the first quarter visible, plus increased demand on services around health and generally the extra, the ecosystem on health.
Okay. Last but not least, moving to the life segment, I've seen that there was quite a nice sales volume growth in Slovakia and Czech Republic. What was the development in Austria and Romania, for example?
Austria, we have five life side, a drop of 3.8%, so close to 4. In Romania, we have in the growth, a plus of 15%, but on a very, very little level. I would say negligible. The drive in Austria, Rok, is that we have a very high volume of contracts that are expiring. With this, we have high payouts, and our sales is at the moment, and also according to the market, not able to catch up the high volume of expiring levels and then also make new business. The new business in general is okay. The business is also very profitable. I mentioned 3.9% new business margin with full cost loaded. With this, the 3.8% to us are okay.
Just remember, this is the year 10 years , 15 years ago, when we have high single premiums, especially on the index and unit link products, and they are expiring. At the moment, people take the money, make alternative investments, and that's the reason why we have, in that case, a minus of 3.8%, which, by the way, is also the tendency of the market in Austria.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I wish you a nice week ahead.
Thanks.
Bye-bye.
Thank you, mister. Ladies and gentlemen, as a final reminder, if you wish to ask any questions, please do press star one at this time. We do have another question that just came in. It is from Thomas Unger, calling from Erste Group. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, hello, good afternoon. Hi, this is Thomas Unger from Erste Group. I was just wondering, I know you don't give any financial targets for this year, but you recorded an ROE of what was it?
17%.
I'm sorry. Thank you, 17%. Do you have a figure in mind what you'll be targeting for the midterm? Not only this year, but midterm. Is it? Will you be trying to be above 15%? Also, if you factor in a higher effect of Nat Cat event in the future, what would be a normalized ROE that you could be targeting under the new reporting standards? That would be the first question. The second question is on the future of Russia. You touched upon Russia and Ukraine briefly in your presentation. What is the strategy going ahead going forward?
Do you still expect to exit the Russian operation? I would like to have some an update and some insights on that. I'd appreciate that. Thank you.
Okay, Thomas, thank you. Targeting on ROE. Look, we are in the first phase of the first year of the full IFRS loading. Of course, we have a little bit of experience by having the restatement of the year 2022. We see very high volatility, especially in the year 2022, which was then impacting on the negative results of UNIQA.
Let me try to give you the answer in the following way. In a very stable position of the capital market like now, therefore, we also show these 10 years interest rate of Austria on the side of the investment results, plus normalized the normal development on the claim side.
I would say, as UNIQA, with this accounting scheme, is able to make an ROE of higher than 14%, 15% on average. I think this is something that we are good at. This for a normalized and for a targeting situation, excluding one-offs, like Nat Cat, like capital markets or other things like a pandemic or like a war in Russia. Regarding Russia, CEO Andreas gives you more insight on that.
Yeah. Thomas, thanks for this question. Basically, we have two options. The one option is, which you find on slide 14 of the presentation, and this is no use case. We basically stopped writing any new business already by February 2022. It means that this new business, basically, largely discontinued. This is the one option, which we keep on going anyhow for the last, is now 15 months.
Option two is that we, of course, are talking with potentially interested parties in acquiring our company, so this option is around. What we can tell you, there is some interest from relevant and serious parties there, but please also accept that at the current point of time, we can't give you any kind of further information and do not go for further disclosure.
As soon as we can be more precise in this, we will let you anyhow know, but please, let's repeat it once again, this is not the future market of UNIQA, right? This is just what we mentioned in the previous calls also before.
Right. Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, for any questions, please press star one at this time. We do not appear to have any further questions. I turn the call back over to your hosts today for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.
Thank you for your time. I appreciate that you are interested in our first Q, quarterly results on the IFRS 9 17. Wish you a great weekend, and, all the best to you. Bye-bye.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude today's presentation. We thank you for your attendance. You may now disconnect.