Definitely a tragedy. Those developments are not, and I repeat, they are not a major threat for our potential financial performance or for our business itself. Why this is the case, despite the fact that we are a market ranked number two in Ukraine, Kurt, our CFO, will highlight in a few minutes. Let me start with a few words on the summary in full. Well, you see some indicators which you are aware about. They're all very positive. They all either beat our expectations or are in line with our expectations for the year 2021. All those positive factors starting with the cost ratio, the combined ratio, the growth up more than 40%, all those lead to earnings before tax of EUR [382] million and to net result of EUR [315] million.
We are very happy that we could achieve such a good result already in the very first year of UNIQA 3.0, which, as you know, started last year and which will terminate in 2025, especially when we take into account several negative effects, which we'll discuss now on the following pages. On slide five, if you have a look on the snapshot, we see that growth came down in Q4, but year over year we still report a growth of 14%, of course, mainly driven by the integration, by the successful and completed integration of the AXA companies in Czech Republic, in Slovakia, and in Poland.
On the other hand, we see also some very satisfying growth on the home market in Austria, more than 2%, which is in line with longer-term trends and our expectations. You will learn more about our net investment income in a couple of minutes, which was very strong in Q4 again. What we did, and you know it, is that we shifted part of our portfolio in order to align with our sustainability strategy, and thereby we managed to realize gains, mainly in equities. This came on top of an already strong result, which we had in the past. Another point important to mention is the cost topic as maybe the most important or one of the most prominent targets of UNIQA 3.0.
The progress which we made is already visible in a decreased cost ratio. It came down by 2 percentage points for the full year. I will talk about this more in detail in the next couple of minutes. Please have in mind that this is just a kind of intermediate goal that you reach because the target for 2025 is 25% and we can change it. We came down from 29.4%, down to 27.4%. It's fine, it's a first step, but nothing more. There's still a lot of potential in this.
Combined ratio 93.7% is one of the main drivers for our excellent results, especially when we take into account that this combined ratio includes a quite serious number of natural events, especially in Q2 and Q3, and an increased amount of large losses in the corporate business in both our core markets, Austria plus CE. I think it's quite a remarkable positive development. We are pleased with this and combined ratio, by the way, also today ultimately is better than we expected in our midterm plans at this point of time. Having said so and having given some highlights on those figures, I may hand over to Kurt to give you some further information regarding group results in detail.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to UNIQA's full year group results in detail. Also on page eight to the gross written premium development, which is with EUR 6.4 billion, roughly, the biggest amount that this group ever had. Integration of CEE AXA is in that case included. We have good growth in both segments, international and Austria, in the P&C and in the health segment, and we have a good growth in life in the international business. Even that we are a year of pandemic or more or less a year of pandemic situation, we have a significant growth in motor business. In Austria more than 3% and international around 4 percentage points.
We have a good balance between retail and corporate business growth, and this despite the situation of lockdowns and of different pandemic problematics, especially in Austria, the western part of the region, tourism and hotels. We see a trend that products for health are in more demand, especially in outpatient areas, and that this was also driving the growth in health in Austria. Life, a good growth in international coming especially from the CE region. It's around Czech Republic and Poland. Unit-linked and index-linked products are dominating the growth. In Austria, on a stable position, that means that what we lose on expiring contracts we can balance out with new business, especially also here a tendency towards more unit-linked and index-linked products.
Coming to page number nine, the cost ratio with a 27.4% is better than expected and in line with the UNIQA 3.0 targets. We had the first fruits of our cost-cutting program, where we are with EUR 14.4 million below our expectation. Of course, in comparison to the previous year, this doesn't turn out because in 2020, AXA was not included or just one quarter. Full year is including the full amount of AXA. On a like-for-like basis, we reduced our costs significantly. The P&C combined ratio, 93.7%, despite NatCat events, we had around EUR 270 million on NatCat events in 2021 on a gross basis. We had, furthermore, some significant amounts of major claims, especially in the area of fire and property insurance.
Yes, that's correct. We had a tailwind of COVID, less commuting, less mobility, and we can say of roughly 1% we see the impact on the combined ratio from COVID. On the other hand, more than 1% is the impact of the higher NatCat events than average of the last 10 years. Especially in Austria, we had, you maybe remember in June, the hailstorm, which EUR 117 million, which was the highest NatCat payment since the last 20 years. Therefore, page 11, the P&C business was, in that case, always impacted by these claims payments, but generally, with EUR 110 million, we have a strong contribution to the result of EUR 382 million.
The same for the health business, an outstanding EBT and good technical development. Yes, also here we see COVID aspects that with less payments and less hospital days that we have a positive impact on the especially cost-benefit ratio of UNIQA. In total, we can say that around EUR 70 million, the impact on the health business was. On the other hand, we also built some reserves that give us for the future the comfort of paying these these postponed hospital post-hospital and surgery costs. The life business stable, driven from AXA in CEE, especially with the pension fund, also included in that segment, a good performance on the pension fund, better than planned, with EUR 20 million was a big contributor to this good EBT in the life business.
On the other hand, don't forget that UNIQA placed in 2021, in December, the new bond with EUR 335 million, which impacted the result by EUR 66 million. Which is part of the investment activities, which you can see on page 14. Seventh is described on the right-hand side as a top result of EUR 71 million. And also what we can report is the first time that we had a significant contribution from our venture capital, with around close to EUR 30 million on IFRS gained by Bitpanda in the end of 2021. Now, some words on Ukraine and on our Russian exposure.
Besides the human and demographical problems that we have here, from an economic point of view, we have in Ukraine a situation where UNIQA has run the company, which is life and non-life, around EUR 110 million premiums, with an EBT contribution in 2021 of EUR 11 million. We have no business in that case. We have no big internal financing debts and instruments, and with this, we have a low exposure in the eastern part of Ukraine, and with this, on the one hand on the safe side. Economic-wise, we can also report that our assets that we have in Ukraine, they amount to the level of EUR 150 million, roughly, being dominated by current bonds at around EUR 100 million. The rest is cash and property.
What to report on that? If it comes to that we have here the valuation differently than in the previous days, the first impact of asset depreciation goes to our own funds, to the OCI, and not directly in the P&L. Impairments only then arrive in the P&L when they are sustainable and when they are done, which at the moment is for us not foreseeable. Therefore, that means the impact can cause, in a worst-case situation, EUR 100 million on our own funds, which has an effect on the solvency position. That's correct. The EUR 100 million does not kick out on our solvency position that much. Even if you have in mind that interest rates, especially in the first two months, 2022, have increased rapidly.
The Russian portfolio with our company, together with Raiffeisen, the joint ventures, 75% UNIQA, 25% Raiffeisen, is of around EUR 74 million on gross written premium and a profit contribution of around EUR 16 million. The portfolio that we have here is around EUR 380 million on assets under management, EUR 300 million belongs to government debt. It's a position that is in Russia and also a part of it in some other companies of the UNIQA world. Also, in that case, same amount and same procedure. That means first valuation impacts go directly to the OCI and only on a sustainable basis and over the P&L. For us at the moment, it is more important to safeguard our colleagues, our employees, and if possible, also the customers that we are caring for.
We are in direct contact. We are also safeguarding IT sites, cyber security, and telecommunications. So far we can report that we have no damages in that respect. All around the yesterday's communicated sanctions that have been decided from European Union, they do not apply to UNIQA, meaning we have no critical issues on these sanctions, neither on the compliance side nor on the financial impact. I was talking about financial impact. Even if the SWIFT code is canceled between the European Union and Russia, of course, this is not easy for us, but we can overcome this by different areas. So far my explanations to the situation of Ukraine and Russia in our portfolio and some few details on the financial results 2021.
Before the outlook, I give back to Andreas.
Outlook normally is quite short. As you know, in our presentations this time, we kindly ask you for a bit more patience because we understood that some of you think we are too conservative about the year 2022. Let me give some feedback why we maybe are a little bit cautious this time. Well, what we're sure about, and you find details on slide 16, is that we also expect a very resilient top line in both our core markets. Second, we think that the combined ratio and the cost ratio approximately will remain on the same very positive level as we saw in the last year. There are some risks involved. Yes, we do not expect any kind of positive contribution from COVID. That we see that through.
On the other hand, the portfolio, which we currently have in our book, proves to be really resilient and really strong. We have some reduced financing costs in our P&L in this year compared to the past, which gives us of course back then. On the other hand, this is one I can comment on in a couple of seconds, we expect very high uncertainty on capital markets around inflation, interest rates, and geopolitics. Where does this come from? Please give me some minutes on this topic. We think that of course, primarily right now, the current situation in Kyiv leads to high uncertainty, not just in the region itself, but to all capital markets across Europe. This is one thing.
With few central banks which started to react to a possible period of prolonged inflation, could mention it briefly before. After many years of very, let's say, accommodative monetary policy, many central banks around the globe started to tighten their stance or communicate their intention to do so in 2021. Contrary to some central banks in CEE, the ECB itself still seems to be rather late compared to the Fed and others, but finally also at least started to somehow acknowledge inflation. Another point we should think about, we hope, but we really hope, we do not know. There is no certainty around it, but the pandemic is mostly behind us. Let's hope this time this is the right calculation.
One thing which I could already comment on our investment results, 2021, which was really a very strong one. I would say an extraordinarily strong one. We would not expect the same contribution from the investment side each year, and therefore we need to be careful when we think about expectations on this side, on the side of investment results. To sum it up, we can give you today no really, I would say, solid, clear, exact guidance on our investment results. This is the tricky thing. On the other hand, what we're sure about is the resilience of our core business. I think this is something where we proved in the last couple of years that we show a constant improvement. This got much more backed now by this very positive and profitable portfolio from AXA.
First, I mentioned we expect premiums to be flat or up this year. There is no, according to our opinion, no major threat that we might shrink on the top line. Second, we see the combined ratio to be around the same level as last year, as we mentioned, with positives and negative effects nearly balancing out in last year and disciplined underwriting, including our ability, our proven ability to adjust prices when necessary. We go into 2021 with a lot of confidence regarding this combination. Our clear target is to beat or to reach again the 93.7%, which we showed for 2021. I already mentioned it, but let's underline it once again to be crystal clear on this.
We will continue to maintain a very strict cost control in order to keep the cost ratio at around the current level or to dig even deeper, having the 25% as a target line for 2025 now. Summary of the second message is.
Maybe the more cautious we are on the side of investment results, the more clear and the more confident we are on that what we manage to manage. This is the underwriting result. Therefore, if you take those two factors together, let's say the question mark around investment results, but on the other hand, a very positive outlook on our core business. Therefore, we ask for your kind understanding that we cannot give you clear guidance today for the EBT for 2022.
What we can give you as a guarantee that the payout ratio, and this is the promise which we made to you at the end of 2019, start of 2020, when we introduced UNIQA 3.0, that the payout ratio will be somewhere between 50% and 60% also for the year 2022. Having the EUR 0.55 per share in mind, which we will propose to the AGM in May. Having in mind that this means a payout ratio of 53 something%. I think you see that we keep our promise. Thank you for listening to Kurt and to me, and we are now very happy to answer your questions. Thank you.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally, as you will be advised when to ask your question. Once again, that's star one if you would like to ask a question. The first question comes from the line of Oliver Simkovic from RBI. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. Also thank you very much for the detailed explanation on Russia and Ukraine and potential impact. One follow-up here. I know the details on sanctions are not yet clear, but any other sanctions except the exclusion from SWIFT that could hurt your operations in the country? Also, have you taken any precautions to prepare for potential escalation of sanctions?
Hi, Oliver. So far, we cannot imagine that any sanctions give us harm on the business in Ukraine and in Russia. That's for the time being what we can say. We are not of the opinion that there is the business impossible to make, and therefore, all other things we can manage. We have tools in place where we can immediately react on a sanction risk that is placed from the European Union. We are immediately in the position also to react on different types of asset management. We are also in the position to react on portfolio management with the insurance company. This is so far what we can state.
Out of that, Oliver, I would say from that level, we are at the moment we have learned that this world changes dramatically within days and to things we have never been aware of. At the moment, and from a worst case scenario planning, we do not see any sanctions that can harm the business.
Mm-hmm. Thank you very much. My second question is on your premium growth guidance. I mean, given the current inflationary environment, a flat to increase versus 2021 seems, as you already mentioned, quite conservative outlook. Could you maybe give some color on what assumptions are underlying this in terms of segments which continues declining? Where do you see faster growth and are also any potential spillover or economic effects from the current geopolitical environment included in this guidance?
I think we have three elements, Oliver. The first element is that for us, profitability is first, growth is second. Good. Second is, yes, it can happen that our profit, that our growth is better than planned, but this has to do with indexation coming out from the inflation adaptation. So you know, or maybe you know that we have a mechanism that we can in Austria, for example, and in most of the international regions, we can adapt the premium according to an index. So in Austria, for example, the so-called bulk cost index, with this, we can increase the premium according to this index. This index was in the last years around 1.5-2.5 percentage points at the moment.
Everybody who is doing home working and house building can know this. At the moment, this index is at about 13%. 1 3. This is just an increase to cover, on the other hand, the higher payment on the claims side. It's not a real growth that we have. Therefore, we keep this out of the real growth development. Thirdly, Oliver, yes, it can come that out of these global crisis from coming from the war in Russia and in Ukraine, there is an impact also on the European inflation, which by the way, we do not see so far at the moment. Coming back, growth is okay for us when it is profitable.
Mm-hmm. That's clear, but do I understand it correctly that with the inflation that the guidance refers more to the real growth and inflation could come on top of that or?
That's correct. In our growth, there is inflation embedded in between 2% and 2.5%.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you. Lastly, on the cost ratio, in 4, it has increased again to more than 30%. I understand this is partially driven by one-off effects. Full year is 27.4%, guiding for a flat development. I was wondering whether you don't expect more of the cost saving measures that were announced at the Capital Markets Day to become effective in 2022, or is this just a cautious step in light of the impact of the translation on the cost base? Or could you maybe provide some more information on this, why the expected?
Yeah. To cut a long story short, it's two effects. First of all, the business in UNIQA is that in the fourth quarter we have always the highest invoices, and with this also the highest contribution to the cost ratio. This goes also in line with the big projects that we run, especially on the IT side, on the digital side, and we spent more than EUR 80 million in that case in 2021, and this was invoiced more or less in the fourth quarter. The guidance of the cost ratio on a sustainable basis on IFRS four, I have to say, is to keep that level at least for 2022.
Okay. Thank you very much. That's it from my side.
Thank you, Oliver.
There are currently no questions in the queue, so one final reminder, please press star one if you would like to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Thomas Unger from Erste Group. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you very much for taking my question, two questions today. Thank you for the details on your exposure in Russia and Ukraine. Is it too early to take any mid- to long-term strategic decisions in for those two countries? Is an exit possible or is that just not a topic right now in the current situation? Relating to the 2021 or the Q4 figures and results, if you could tell us something about the loss ratio in Q4. It is really low compared to the previous quarters. That's one point.
Also if you could walk through the investment income and the realized and unrealized gains and break that down for us again, I would appreciate that. Lastly, in life insurance, the claims and benefits in Q4 were quite high. Is there any specific explanation for that also? Thank you.
Andreas here. Thank you for your questions. I would like to take the first one. Yes, as you indicated, it's quite early to draw any concrete conclusions as for our exposure in Russia and in Ukraine. We have a presence in Ukraine for more than 16 years, so this means we are used to the market. As we try to figure out and state, we are there number two as a premium of around EUR 100 million, which doesn't seem to be that much, but we are serving more than 1 million clients, and it took us quite a bunch of work to build out our market position there.
Frankly spoken, the current day also is a very sad one for us because we have 800 really motivated people there on the spot to really fight for this company and a quite significant level as far as this situation is concerned of the solution currently also among the management team here. On the other hand, you know, we experienced already a number of crises in Ukraine around Maidan, and we had the serious flu a couple of years ago there. We had in 2014 some experience with the Russian invasion in Crimea and also in the Donbas around Luhansk and Donetsk. I know it came to all the solution, right?
I mean, I would say, if you allow me this comment, if we decided all our Austrian companies to go to CEE 30 years ago already, we knew that it will take some time for this part of the world to make the progress which we all expect, not only economically, but also politically. Having said so, we still hope that there will be a solution around Ukraine. This is one part of my answer to your question. Second, of course, the Russian question is deeply connected to it. Also here, I may ask for your patience, and the explanation that we cannot give you the concrete, I would say, guidance today. But of course, we monitor and watch very carefully how the next steps in those two countries will be.
The major information is the one which Kurt provided to you a couple of minutes before. Yes, it's absolutely an American and democratic strategy, but the economic consequences for UNIQA, they are not of a major relevance. I think this is a little bit too difficult to say, but we will carefully watch what's going on there in the next couple of weeks and months.
Kurt Svoboda, I invite you to take the other question.
Yeah. The second question, Thomas, was around your combined ratio development, especially in Q4. That's right. We had in Q4 two extremes. On the one hand, the cost ratio on the P&C side was very high according to the development of the costs that we had.
On the other hand, we had in the fourth quarter really no big events, especially on the NatCat side. On the other hand, also, according to the pandemic situation, also the next shutdown and therefore a very solid base claims development. It was not the case in Q2 and in Q3. If you just remember June, July, August, the big hailstorms and thunderstorms in Austria that had around EUR 260 million on gross impact on this side. This led to a situation that the loss ratio was in the fourth quarter extremely good and led to a combined ratio stand-alone on Q4 92.5%. Just to give you a guidance, Q3 stand-alone combined ratio was 97.3%, Q2 94.2%, and Q1 lockdowns 90.9%. So far the explanation to that.
The third question, sorry to answer, is I missed it, but preparing the second one.
It was about the investment income and.
Correct. Realized and unrealized gains in Q4 alone. It was extraordinarily strong in this quarter. If you could break that down for us. Thank you.
First, yeah, you're correct. There was one write-up on the investment in UNIQA Ventures. I mentioned this in my speech of around EUR 29 million. It was in Bitpanda and some other minor startups. This was done in Q4. There was also a real estate sale in Q4 with EUR 36 million. This led to this impact in Q4.
Okay. Thank you.
There are no further questions in the queue, so I'll hand the call back to your host to close today's call.
Sorry, Thomas, is there one question open regarding life business or it? This is covered?
Just that I've no further questions in the queue.
Okay. There was a question from our site operator. If there's one question open from Thomas at the end. I'm not sure if you answered all the question of Thomas. If it's answered, please come in once again. Okay. It's obviously done. Okay. Operator, are there no questions left? Is it true?
Yes. There are no further questions in the queue.
Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you for your interest in our preliminary results 2021. Have a good week. Stay healthy and hope to see you soon in a physical way. Bye-bye.
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