Ladies and gentlemen, we warmly welcome you to the conference call for the first half year results for 2026 of the UNIQA Insurance Group AG. I am pleased to welcome the Chief Financial and Risk Officer, Kurt Svoboda, who will guide us through the presentation shortly. After the presentation, we will move on to a Q&A session, where you will be allowed to ask questions via audio line today. Having said this, I am handing over to you, Mr. Svoboda.
Thank you very much, and welcome everybody to UNIQA's results on half-year 2026, based on a new set of slides, which should, on the one hand, give you, as auditorium, more transparency, more information, and service about UNIQA Insurance Group AG. I start on page number four, which gives from our perspective, the situation, which is especially for us in the insurance industry at the moment, the most important one. It is about interest rate environment. It is visible that all over Europe, we have a quite impressive increase about on the interest rates. Which, on the one hand, gave us, in the result, a boost, especially in the ordinary income, but also on the other hand, as IFRS 17 is a very economic-driven accounting scheme, are also on the topic of special discountings and topics on the evaluation. Inflation is a never-ending story, especially in our CEE region.
Austria yesterday reported an inflation of about 2.8 percentage points. All in all, we see inflation as manageable and in our results and in our business at the moment, not there as a risk, but still according to energy prices, global development, this is an ongoing topic, especially for the next couple of months. Climate and nat cat, I think is something that everybody can itself feel and see what is going on in terms of the heat, about the dry situation, especially here in eastern part of Austria, in January, all over Europe with fires and with the heat wave across Europe. The positive thing is for us that we can report that in the first half year, we had neglectable impact on nat cat and weather-related claims, about EUR 22 million, which is accordingly to the previous year's neglectable.
On the other hand, and this as a message up front, we do not believe that this stays at this level, and therefore, we took actions in this balance sheet for the half year to be prepared for higher losses in the second half year. But I come to that later on. I move on to the group results, on page number six, pointing out the growth by 12 percentage points, including all business, primary business, and reinsurance business, including UNIQA Re and reinsurance. The primary business itself is in line with that what was expected. I also will refer that later on. Profitability with a nice ROE of 16%, return on risk by around 18%, more or less stable to the comparable period in 2025, and a solid solvency position that makes us ready for further improvement of our business and also our growth.
If we come to page number seven and look about earnings before taxes, I would like to draw your attention on two topics. On the one hand, we have a 10% increase on the EBT, which was at a first glance, driven only by the financial result because of technical results and other results is going down. This is from a perspective on the balance sheet, purely looking correct, but if you take into consideration that what I stated by talking about climate change, we took actions in the first half year that we are prepared for balancing out the higher losses maybe, or also development negatively on the capital markets in the second half of 2026. These measures that we took, they are on the one hand, allocated to the technical result, P&C reserves, health reserves, but also on the other hand, on the other result.
If you make it on a comparable basis, we have an improvement as well in the technical result as also in the other result. Therefore, please take the technical result, not as an operative one. Take this as an accounting one, which is impacted by measures that we took in the first half year. Good is the development of the admin cost ratio, stable by 14.8 percentage points. Page 8, talking about the growth, gave us, on the one hand, in the business lines, and now here we are on the topic of the primary business, a 7.1 CAGR between 2021 and 2025. We can report out that we have, especially in the international business, a catch-up, as Poland has developed in the second quarter quite impressively and tremendously.
Maybe you remember that we have a very soft market in Poland in the first quarter 2026, which gave us the position that we grew below the market and could not improve our growth like it was the case in 2025. But especially the month May and June have been very positive, especially also for us. We grew above the market. We could achieve so far a growth in Poland by 6.6%. We are above the market. The market growth at the moment was 3.3%, UNIQA was 5.4%, and therefore we are very confident to achieve in total in our international business the 8% by the end of the year in 2026. The CSMs in health and in life are on track. This is on page number 9. We show you here the distinction between operative and non-operative topics, especially when we talk about new business.
We are quite positive with that, what we achieved in the first half year 2026. Business lines performance on page number 12. We have a combined ratio, which is 91.6%, and I can tell you that this is also in that case impacted by the measures that I talked about. If you carve out those measures I'm talking about, the information I can give you is that combined ratio was net basis below 90%. Another thing that drove first half year very positively was the runoff. You see it here on page 12, 3.9% impact coming from better settlement of major big claims from the past. We do, in that case, also not believe that this goes on in the second half. So also here, smoothing out by the end of the year is to be expected.
When we talk about the international life business, we are now on page number 13. We can see here a very positive trend, especially what the earnings before tax is and the premium. The international business has, at the moment, higher importance in the life business than the Austrian business. This has to do with prolongations and also expiring contracts in Austria, and therefore focus on the international business with a very high new business margin and a satisfying CSM development, which is then visible on page 14. The health business I am talking about, page number 15, has an improvement in the earnings before tax of up to EUR 24 million. This has to do on the one hand with a better financial result. By the way, on the financial result, but I come to that in a minute.
On the CSM level, STRABAG and higher ordinary income is visible. But also on the other hand, the technical results, excluding actions and measurements that we took for the second half of the year, is very positive for us. The new business margin I am talking about, 7.8%, is visible on page number 16 in the upper right-hand corner, and gives us a confident new business CSM by EUR 73 million. Also here, the non-operating economic variance by around EUR 280 million is quite high. When we talk about market performance itself, looking on Austria, page number 19. On the one hand, we are quite happy that the balance between the Austrian and the international contribution by both earnings before taxes and the technical result is well-balanced. This is for us also key, because this gives us a solid basis for the dividend stream by the end of the year.
Combined ratio in both segments are below plan and gave us also room for taking actions for the second half of the year. An international country deep dive on page 21, I would like to give on Poland. I explained to you that we have a growth about 6.6% on premiums. I can also give you an information that we have a very solid and good P&C combined ratio in Poland, leading to a quite good technical result of EUR 47 million. And we expect that Poland, especially in the second half of the year, will contribute much more than the first half year. Especially when we talk about growth, again, I mentioned before that we grew by 5.4% in Poland. This is by more than 90% driven by the volume effect. So from the 5.4%, 4.6% is coming from volume effects and only 0.7% is coming from pricing effects.
This means the market is back and we, as in our USP in the pricing, can also in that case, take our advantage on volumes and on new business. The investment performance, chapter 3.2 on page 22, it is visible that on the one hand, we could improve because of the interest rate situation, our other comprehensive income by close to EUR 1 billion. Interest rates on a 10-years Austrian government bond have reached favorable 3.1 percentage points. And this leads, next page, you can see this, to a new investment yield, which is more in line with that was about in the last quarters, 4.3%, and the average investment yield by 3.3 percentage points. Yes, we took also actions to improve the business. We sold some bonds out of duration purposes and, with this, bought new bonds with high duration and higher ordinary income for the future.
The bridge between the net investment income and the net financial result, you see on the left-hand side. Why is that big at UNIQA? This has to do with the accounting treatment as variable fee approach, and therefore, the high impact from the fair value over the underlying item in health and in the life business. Cash and financial leverage is new information that we will give, especially at the half year. Two things I would like to report out on page 26. It is on the one hand, that the cash remittance to the group is especially in line. What was the target for 2025 and also for the rest of UNIQA 3.0. Also the diversification of the cash remittance to the group is in line between Austria, UNIQA Re, and international business.
Dividend streams and also our commitment to a progressive dividend in the future is in line with the funding of it. This brings me on page number 28, the outlook and the guidance for the rest of the year. I can imagine that some of you are thinking about, okay, with a result of EUR 327 million and the guidance of EUR 540 million- EUR 570 million, what does this mean for the second half of the year? Is there anything to expect because of less performance than in the first half? What I can tell you is, continuing that what I said in the beginning. We live in a situation that, especially here in Europe, we have high volatility. This comes from global impacts, especially coming from capital markets.
Therefore, we are cautious, believing that the positive impact on interest rates and also on bond and equity market in the second half of the year 2026 is the same as it was in the first half year. For that, we want to be prepared. The second thing is we have now more or less the end of August, but still not the end of the CAT season. Why CAT events can have big hits in especially countries like Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and also for that, we want to be prepared. In other words, if such major events happen in the second half of the year, UNIQA is prepared to balance that out and achieve that what we propose to you and to the capital markets. That means the target range of EUR 540 million to EUR 570 million.
If this is not the case, and we, and especially for the population of these countries, can avoid things like I talked before, UNIQA will report, especially then in Q3, what this means for a new outlook and the guidance for the year 2026. But still at the moment, for us, it is too early in that case. The rest I think is known, and for that, I would like to close here my explanation about the half year, and now happy to take your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Svoboda. Ladies and gentlemen, now it's your turn. We are opening the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please click on the Raise Your Hand button on the lower part of the screen. If you are dialed in by phone, please press star nine to raise your hand. We have participants raised their hand. Mr. Antoine Bouchetoux, you should be able to unmute yourself. Switch on the microphone, please, and ask your question. Mr. Bouchetoux, please.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three. First, I'd like to come back to P&C, because I'd like to better assess your underlying performance. So thank you for sharing that below 90% net combined ratio restated for the balance sheet strengthening. There was also the runoff ratio, which had a favorable impact this first half. I think historically, you had a ratio which was closer to maybe -3%, and you did mention that it should come back most likely in H2. So I was wondering if you could maybe confirm that a good number for a medium-term perspective would be that -3% that I just mentioned. Also in some of your slides, you mentioned increased basic claims in P&C. I was wondering if you could provide more details on these in what line of business?
It seems to be mainly driven by Austria, but maybe I'm wrong on this, and I was wondering if you could maybe specify if it's more related to frequency or maybe severity, or any additional information on this would be helpful. Two other questions, but on the life and health side this time. Firstly, the technical results declined in both life and health. I think I understood from your comments that this was also related to the technical measures that you implemented in the first half. Just wanted to confirm that the spread between the CSM release and the technical result in life and health was related to those measures. Last question, on the life new business, it increased quite substantially in Austria, and in the past you mentioned product launches or product launch projects that could support sales in Austria.
I was wondering if that was what drove the new business during the first half. Thank you.
Thank you, Antoine Bouchetoux. Talking about the first topic about P&C runoff basic claims and about the loss. First of all, yes, it is the case that we had runoff of about 3.9%, as it is stated in the document. I can tell you that normally we calculate with a runoff of about, on average, between 1.5 and 2 percentage points. Why this was the reason, in the first half year, that it was more? There have been much more one-offs that we have been in the past, about 1.5 percentage points. This has to do with lines of business like property. This has to do with countries Poland, Czech Republic, and not Austria. This has to do with a fronting claim that we had in Austria in the first quarter. Fronting is treated in the accounting scheme, especially in IFRS, as gross.
You see then the net result, like it is in the reinsurance, and therefore it is also visible in the runoff treatment. It is more or less not a frequency, it is more the severity, as you stated. On the other hand, but basic claims, Antoine, I can tell you that the basic claim ratio in UNIQA for the first half year is in line. It was in the history, 53- 54 percentage points, defined as all claims excluding weather-related, excluding nat cats, and excluding major claims above EUR 500,000. Second question was of about the technical result in life and in health, has it declined? Yes, you are correct. Especially in the health business, we took care especially on two aspects.
A, maybe you know that in Austria, the health insurance companies offering inpatient and outpatient tariffs or ambulant tariffs, and especially those ambulant tariffs are seen as a voucher system. An ambulant tariff or a tariff like that works also, but not 100% in a way that you have a limit, which you can take as a benefit out of your premiums. If you go to private doctors, if you go and get new glasses or lenses or things like that. But you have a limitation on that. People know exactly how the limitation looks like, and they are reaching in their invoices, especially for those things in the first half year. That was another reason why you see here more business, more claims, in that case, also more services for our customers.
We expect this to be better in the second half of the year, as those limits have already been achieved. In the life business, we took more or less no actions. This is the real situation out of the CSM. What we had in the life business in the second half of the year, standalone basis, was a recognition of an additional provision related to unit-linked legal cases in Poland. Third topic, you talked about the new business in Austria. Yes, you are right. We are quite happy with the new business margin in Austria. We are not happy with the premium volume. The new business comes from a better unit-linked product and from a better unit-linked profitability, and this is the reason why we have, in that case, a quite nice new business margin.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Bouchetoux for your question. We get to the next participant, Mr. Schnirch. Ulrich Schnirch, you should be able to unmute yourself now. Please switch on the microphone and ask your question. Mr. Schnirch, please go ahead. Mr. Schnirch, we still can't hear you. You have to switch on your microphone. That does not seem to work. For those being on the telephone, please raise your hand by dialing star and nine on your telephone keypad. Mr. Huttner, Mr. Michael Huttner, you should be able to unmute yourself.
I may take the following.
Yes
Question from Mr. Huttner because he was.
Yeah, no, this is. Hey, sorry. I am panicking.
Oh, here we are.
Right. I thought, yeah, no, seriously, the instruction is a little bit slow. First of all, can you remind us, was the confidence for your growth outlook, so you are maintaining 8% for the CEE non-life, and half year was seven. We only have six months now to catch up, which means we need 9% second half. A feeling for that. I am sure you said this on the call, but I could not hear. How much was the prudency addition in reserves in Q2? It feels like it would have been a huge number, there were no nat cats. It is hard to, my guess is we are looking at around EUR 100 million, but I am not sure. The third one is on the deal outlook.
I know you cannot discuss individuals, but is there a feeling that now things have become a little bit more sellable, there is more likelihood of a deal coming up? Then last point, and I think you did highlight it, you said you have decided not to raise guidance. Let me put the question in a more kind of positive or negative way. What would stop you raising the guidance in Q3? Thank you.
Yes, Michael. The line was not that good, but I think I can anticipate what your questions have been. If I'm not correct, then please tell me. The first question was about how are we confident to achieve the 8% full-year growth in the CEE non-life, as at the moment we have 7%. Still, Michael, two elements. The first one was, I repeat again, Poland, and the second one is about Czech Republic and Slovakia. Coming back to Poland. We have at Poland at the moment 6.6% growth, which is for us a good sign because we have been half of this in the first quarter of 2026. We see now that the market is not any more softening, and we see here that our new business is increasing on a weekly basis.
We have catched up also the market position because in Q1 and in April and May, we have been growing below the market. We have now, since June, July, and also, I guess in August, we are now ahead of the market. Which in total gives us a favorable situation. Half year 2026, Michael, UNIQA, 5.4% growth, market-
By now we can-
Hope you can hear me.
Yeah. We couldn't hear you in the past about 10 seconds.
Should do it again?
Yeah.
Okay. Just read again. This is the reason why we in Poland got confident that this contributes to the 7% and to the 8% by the end of the year. The second market is Czech Republic and Slovakia. We do a lot of portfolio restructuring in this market. We have now at a half year a growth of 7.1 percentage points, and we see that this will also go up to 7.5, close to 8%. With a half of a billion of premium volume in Czech Republic and Slovakia, that this will achieve more than the EUR 1 billion. This is the second driver, Michael, why we are confident to achieve the 8% by the end of the year. This is the answer to your first question.
Okay.
Your second question is about what do we see as a budget for the CAT event for the second half of the year. You're not far away from that what you stated, with the EUR 100 million. If you just remind, Boris was of around EUR 85 million. Therefore, we see also a position in that way to be ready to compensate, especially in the second half of the year if it comes. Your third question is about your impact on the measurements in the first half year. I can tell you, we had topics of around EUR 80 million impacting the technical result of UNIQA in the first half year. Distributed about health, distributed in P&C, distributed in the external reinsurance business. Your last question, Michael, is what can hinder us in terms of increasing the outlook by the end of the year?
The only thing that hindering us is if one of those elements I explained in the beginning of my explanation comes true. If there is a CAT event in Europe in the next couple of weeks, then yes. If there is a negative impact on the capital market or on the equity market within the next weeks out of U.S., Iran, Europe, whatever you name, this can have impact on UNIQA. Again, this is why we want to have here security and safeguarding for the rest of the year. If this is not the case, Michael, we will certainly come up and give you new guidance.
Lovely. Thank you.
Yes, thank you very much. We straight ahead back to Mr. Bouchetoux. He seems to have a follow-up question. Mr. Bouchetoux, you can unmute yourself and ask your question, please.
Yes, indeed. Thank you for taking my follow-up question. I wanted to come back on the Solvency II ratio. You have lowered sensitivity to the interest rates quite significantly. This was already visible in Q1. I was wondering if you could share some of the actions that you took to make this possible. Thank you.
Yeah, Antoine. About the following actions we took, on the one hand, we took a little bit of view of an ALM. There is a microphone effect. We took an ALM approach. That means longer assets on the one hand. Second thing is, we restructured the model, especially when we look about full retail model of UNIQA. The third thing was that especially also the profitability of our products and in the health business, with higher increases of indexation, was better reflected in our calculations than in the past. With this, we feel now comfortable. Yes, you are right, we have now minimized the volatility on the movements 50 or 100 basis points, which gives us more comfort, especially in the personal lines, movements on interest rates.
Okay. Thank you.
Well, thank you very much again, Mr. Bouchetoux, and I am waiting for maybe some participants raising their hand and questions. This seems to be not the case. In the meantime, we have not received further questions and would therefore come to the end of this conference call. Thank you very much to the participants and their interest in UNIQA Insurance Group. A big thank you to you, Mr. Svoboda, for the presentation and the time taking the questions. Before we close this call, I hand back to you, Mr. Svoboda, once again, for some closing remarks. Thank you from my side. Have a lovely remaining week and goodbye.
Thank you, and also thank you for participating in UNIQA's half year 2026 results. I wish you a nice remaining summer and all the best. Thank you.