Swiss Re AG

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first quarter 2022 and 2024 Key Financial Data Conference Call. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call Operator. I would like to remind you that all participants have been listened only mode and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Elena Logutenkova, Head Media Relations and Corporate Reporting. Please go ahead, madam.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our media conference call for the first quarter results of 2024. I'm joined today by our Group CFO, John Dacey, and he will give you a brief overview of our results, and then we'll be happy to take your questions.

John, over to you. Thank you, Elena, and good morning to everyone. Swiss Re had a strong start to the year, achieving a net income of $1.1 billion. All our main businesses contributed to this result, reflecting our continued underwriting discipline, a strong return on investments, and effective management of operating expenses. This is the first quarter when Swiss Re is reporting results under IFRS after transitioning from U.S. GAAP as of the 1st of January of this year. So prior period results for the first quarter of 2023 are not directly comparable. Insurance revenues for the group reached $11.7 billion in the quarter, while the insurance service result, which reflects the profitability of our underwriting activities, amounted to $1.4 billion. In asset management, Swiss re-achieved a return on investments of 4% in the first quarter, driven by continued increases in recurring income. Now let's turn to the results for the individual businesses. Property and casualty reinsurance reported a net income of $552 million for the first quarter, driven by the discipline underwriting and low natural catastrophe experience in the current period. PNC achieved an insurance revenue of $5 billion, an insurance service result of $704 million, and a combined ratio of 84.7 in the first quarter. As a reminder, the business targets a combined ratio below 87% for the full year. PNCRE also achieved good results in the April 2024 renewals. The business renewed contracts with $2.5 billion in treaty premium volume, which represents a 6% volume increase compared with the business that was up for renewal. Overall, PMC re-achieved a price increase of 12% in this renewal round. Based on the continued prudent view of inflation and updated loss models, loss assumptions also increased by 12%. Turning to life and health reinsurance, the business unit reported a net income of $412 million for the quarter. This reflects U.S. mortality experience in line with expectations and a strong investment result driven by increased yields. Life and Health re-achieved an insurance revenue of $4.8 billion, an insurance service result of $434 million. The business continues to target a net income of approximately $1.5 billion for the full year 2024. Now looking at corporate solutions, the business unit reported a net income of $194 million for the quarter. The result was driven by continued discipline underwriting lower than expected man-made losses, and a strong investment result also here. Insurance revenues for the first three months of 2024 was $1.8 billion, benefiting from good rate environments in most segments and new business growth. Corporate Solutions achieved an insurance service result of $213 million and a combined ratio of 89.9 for the first quarter, while targeting a combined ratio below 93 for the all of 2024. Finally, let me touch on IPTQ. We announced this morning that following the strategic review of IPTQ, we plan to withdraw from this business in a manner in the timeframe that maximizes value for the group, subject to applicable regulatory approvals and notifications. The reason for this decision is that the market environment now is vastly different from the one when IPTQ was created. Given these changed conditions, and the group's strategic priorities, we therefore concluded that we are not the best owners going forward of this business. In this regard, we are considering options for the different IPTQ entities. To sum up, Swiss Re had a positive start to the year, and we continue to focus on the 2024 financial targets, including a group net income of more than $3.6 billion. And with that, I'd hand it back to Elena.