Alm Brand As Adr

Good morning, all. Good afternoon, all, and welcome to the Arm Brand Q3 2024 results call. My name is Adam, and I'll be your operator today. If you'd like to ask a question during the Q&A portion of today's call, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand the floor to CEO Rasmus Werner-Nielsen to begin. So, Rasmus, please go ahead when you're ready.

Yeah, good morning, and welcome to Arm Brand Group's third quarter of 24 conference call. As usual, today I have with me our CFO, Andreas Ruben Madsen, and our head of IR, Mads Tinker. This morning, we published our interim report for the third quarter. I will walk you through the operating highlights, and in the end, Andreas will comment on the financials. Overall, our view of results for Q3 are satisfactory, especially seen in the light of headwind. We see promoter changes in the Danish market in general. especially pleased with the strong growth in personal lines in Q3, while commercial lines growth has muted this quarter. Synergies are kicking in, and we do reach small undiscounted underlying improvements this quarter, despite the headwind on motor. Let's now look at the highlights. Please turn to slide two and some of the headlines for our business in this quarter. As mentioned before, I view our results at Q3 as satisfactory, especially given the headwind we have for motor claims in the Danish market in general. While motor frequency has been increasing for many quarters, we are now also seeing higher average repair costs related to motor claims, which leads to a significant rise in our expenses for motor claims. This calls for even more profitability initiatives, which we are now executing. Major claims in Q3 were significantly down from the high level in Q2 and below what we consider a normal level. Our growth in personal lines is standing out again in the quarter with a year-on-year growth of 7.7%. We do take quite a bit of market share in personal lines with our strong bank partnership as a driver. Commercial premiums were flat year-on-year from last year But this is acceptable to me, given the normal volatility-related profitability initiatives among our larger customers. Synergies are kicking in just as we planned. And while we have seen good momentum for claim synergies for a period, I note higher contributions for admin and IT this quarter. We had a smaller year-on-year reduction in our cost ratio this quarter compared to recent quarters, In order to secure a lower run rate for costs going into 2025, we executed a new FGE reduction last week, where 110 positions were eliminated. A satisfactory Q3 and a strong investment result led to an upgrade in our guidance for 2024 for the 2024 profit before taxing an extraordinary cost of 100 million to the range 1.58 to 1.68 billion. Now I turn to slide three with our financial highlights. Insurance revenue for our continuing business grew to $2.8 billion in the quarter, with a good growth in the quarter driven by personal lines, as mentioned before. Insurance service results for our continuing business was $400 million compared to $366 million in Q3 last year. Many elements were quite stable from last year, while lower weather-related claims drove the increasing insurance service results. premium growth helped as well investment income in q3 was a profit of 133 million which mostly mostly related to income no fee portfolio related to bonds this quarter we had a fairly strong result on discontinue activities after tax of 48 million as well now let's turn shortly to slide four Just to illustrate my point from the start of the presentation regarding moderate major claims in Q3. Looking at our continuing business back from Q1 23, it's clear to me that our last quarter with major claims of 8.8% was stochastically high and not a new normal. Our view is that a normal level for major claims for our continuing business is around 7%. In reality, the average the last seven quarters has been just 4.9%, so I'm quite comfortable with the current level. Slide five shows the same story. This is just to highlight we see normal major claims in our commercial lines of 12% with an average in the last seven quarters of just 8.9%. And now let's continue on slide seven. The group made a technical result of 400 million in the quarter. In assurance service result, was balanced between personal lines and commercial lines, contributing around 200 million each, a large improvement in personal lines and a moderate decrease for commercial lines. Both segments were helped by less weather-related claims than last year, although still above normal level. Personal lines were helped by strong growth, synergies, and a drop in the cost ratio of 0.7 percentage points year-on-year, and relatively strong underlying improvements linked to earlier profitability-enhancing initiatives. In commercial lines, we had a drop in the insurance service results to 197 million from 228 million last year, driven by underlying headwinds from motor claims and workers' compensation. Payments, as well as the cost ratio, was flat year-on-year, providing no improvement to the insurance service results, while the drop in the interest rate had negative discounting effects, especially so in the commercial lines. Please turn to slide eight. Insurance revenue grew by 3.9% year-on-year in the quarter compared to 5.3% last quarter. We are very pleased to see the strong growth in personal lines continue in Q3 while the muted growth in commercial lines is acceptable for now as the drop in growth is mostly linked to profitability initiatives targeted at larger customers. In personal lines, we are clearly taking market share on top of indexation and the price increases we do. We do consider 7.7% growth in personal lines a quite bright spot in our report, and the net winning of business volumes comes with a thanks to our many banking partners, and our strong corporations. And moving on to slide nine in the claims ratio. The Q3 claims ratio was down 50 basis points year-on-year in Q3, with 150 basis points lower with the related claims than in Q3 last year. The underlying claims ratio increased by 50 basis points year-on-year, driven by higher motor claims, while commercial lines were also negatively impacted by workers' comp. The latter partly related to lower discounting effect. Moving to an undiscounted basis, we see a 40% decrease in underlying claims year-on-year. Small improvements is driven by the profitability initiatives and synergies being larger than the additional headwind promoter in 24. But we still see a strong need for further profitability initiatives going into which we are executing on now. Now let's turn to slide 10. Combined ratio in the personal lines dropped to 86.0 in Q3 from 89.7 last year. The drop was due to a lower cost percentage, but also supported by lower weather-related cases, while underlying cases in personal lines was down 2.2 percentage points year-on-year as well. I view the underlying improvement as very satisfactory, given the headwind on motor again in Q3-24. Please turn to slide 11 and the commercial lines. Combined ratio of commercial line was in an adverse development in Q3 growing to 85.5, which was driven by an increase in underlying claims of 3.2%. This was partly caused by lower discounting effects. On top of this, headwinds from the underlying KMC motor continue in Q3, where premiums as well as the cost ratio were just flat year-on-year in the commercial segment. We now execute a new profitability initiative to support the underlying development into 2025, and last week we executed on the FTE reduction to bring down admin costs in general. And with these comments, I'll now hand over the word to Andreas, who will walk us through synergies investment and the guidance.

Thank you, Asmus. Please turn to slide 13 for an update on synergies. We had an increase in housing synergies in Q3 to 118 million from 68 million in Q3 23. This implies a 50 million uptick in synergies year-on-year, improving our underlying claims ratio of 1.4 percentage points and our cost ratio by 0.4 percentage points year-on-year. The synergy uptake is still somewhat concentrated on the claim side while administration and IT synergies are starting to pick up this quarter. We remain confident that the synergies for the full year will add to the 450 million that we have traded previously. And now I move to slide 14 and the investment results. We made a net investment result of 133 million stemming from our free portfolio while we had a small loss on the match portfolio. Our return in Q3 was driven by bond prices moving up due to the decrease in interest rates. We maintain a conservative stance regarding our investments, but we are changing our portfolio a bit in order to get a higher expected return while drop in interest rates put some pressure on our structural investment return after 2024. And now finally, please turn to slide 16 for the outlook for 2024. We upgrade our guidance for the insurance service result in 24, excluding runoffs for the remaining quarters, to 1.25 to 1.35 billion from previously 1.15 to 1.35 billion. We thus upgrade the midpoint by 50 million following a good Q3 and narrow the range with 100 million due to less than two months remaining of the year. The guidance includes expected synergies of a total of 450 million. The cost ratio is still expected to be in the range of 18 to 18 and a half, while the combined ratio excluding the runoff for the remainder of the year is expected to be 88 to 89, which is an improvement from 88 to 90 before. On the back of a strong investment result in Q3, we upgrade our guidance for the investment result in 24 by 50 million to around 450 million, and for other activities, we still guide a deficit of around 125 million. Group profit excluding special costs is thus expected to be 1.58 billion to 1.68 billion before tax from previously 1.43 to 1.63 billion. We now guide for special costs in 2024 around 250 million compared to previously 200 to 250 million, as this item now includes 50 million related to the FTE reductions in October, not recognized as integration costs related to CODA. We expect a depreciation on intangible assets of 350 in 24, while the results of discontinued business after tax in 24 is still guided to zero. And with this, I conclude my presentation and hand over the word to our moderator. Thank you.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question on today's call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. In preparing to ask a question, please ensure you are unmuted locally. And our first question comes from Asbjorn Morg from Dunst Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a couple of them. If I may start with your underwriting trends. And let's start with the commercial business. So you had a very strong Q1. You had a very weak Q2 and you sort of indicated back then that we should sort of take the average of the two quarters. Now, if you look at Q3, you're 320 basis points higher on the underlying claims ratio year over year, just for discounting. I guess it's more like 180 or something like that. So there is an improvement to the sort of second order derivative, but I guess it's still a deterioration. With the things we're seeing right now with the repricing that you're doing, considering that we just had motor claims out for October still up 8% year-over-year, and you're also mentioning the workers' compensation with the, I guess, the regulation eventually will have an impact on that underwriting business. What should we sort of expect for your year-over-year trend for Q4, and what is your expectation for 2025? What have you sort of boiled into your expectations 1850 insurance service result target for next year on the underlying in commercial.

Thanks, Esbjorn. I'm happy to try to add some clarity to that. I agree with sort of the presented timeline and the effects we've been seeing through the year. And as you conclude, we did have a somewhat soft Q2. And what we're seeing now is a moderation, so to say, as you also say, in at least the undiscounted underlying loss ratio hike compared to year-on-year last year. But we still see this uptick. And as we also state, the explanations are more or less the same as in Q2. It is the motor, which is still problematic, both from frequency, but now also from average claims. And then also we still have the workers' comp in Q3 adding some pressure to commercial lines. We are very focused on this. We have been for some time. A lot of the commercial bulk is turning either by, you know, has just turned October 1st or will be turning around the end So we have clear plans to get back on track. In terms of Q4, there are a lot of moving parts, but I would expect to see some of the same trends as we've seen, at least for motor. And I probably also expect to see some uptick in workers' comp. So all else equal, I would expect to see more or less the same for Q4. Maybe hopefully seeing some benefit from the amount of business turning in October. But from the beginning of next year, for the full year, at least, we are at least, we're planning for commercial lines improvements in underlying in the vicinity of, you know, let's say around one to two percentage points over the full year.

So was that one to two percentage point improvement in the underlying credit ratio next year versus 24?

Yeah, for the full year.

Okay, so not versus the current trend, so not a flat trend, but more an actual improvement in the underlying claims ratio for year 25 versus for year 24. Okay. Okay, good. And then you can do the same.

Sorry, just to maybe just also, we've previously talked around sort of the improvements we need to do with next year. And I think that also more or less translates to the roughly 100 million we are aiming for Not exact numbers, but at least commercial will be participating in adding that profitability going into next year.

Okay, fair enough. Then on private, if you do sort of the same math here, private ops is doing very well. You talk about the growth above market with your partner distribution agreements. With the price initiatives you're also doing in private, what would be sort of the effect for the full year 25, given the starting point is significantly better in 24?

In very rough terms, we're also looking to get around, let's say, around 100 million marks in improvements going from 24 into 25. That more or less translates to the same on a full year effect. And these are rough numbers that are moving past, but we do see both in private and commercial the need for improvements in terms of underlying profitability going into next year.

Okay, fair enough. If I may turn to synergies, you're obviously doing well on target, but I guess it was also the low hanging fruits that you've been harvesting initially. What are sort of the biggest concerns from your side for next year and the sort of the delta and synergies that you need to deliver next year?

Yeah, I can try to answer that. I don't think we see any, let's say, major concerns. We are very comfortable in the overall picture and we are maybe especially comfortable with the claim side. We have a very strong program running with also significant improvements coming in into next year. We'll start seeing, as we also enter 2025, more admin and more also IT coming into the numbers as we are progressing with the integration journey. It's a big IT project. We need to keep our strict focus on that, but we are fully where we want to be and also comfortable with that. I think that should give some flavor at least.

Okay, then final question from my side on your capital and capital distribution. So it seems like you have more visibility now on the energy sale. So could you then elaborate a little bit, given the 3.7 billion minimum capital return that you have shown earlier, and I guess given the numbers today, that number is maybe slightly higher, if anything, how should we sort of see you play out over the the full year report, how will you sort of initiate the capital distribution and have you made any sort of plans in terms of how we should expect all that money to come out to shareholders?

Yeah, I think we do have some moving parts there, but we still expect the 1.6 billion in extraordinary payout following the divestment. As we stated in this report, we expect that to close now in the beginning of March. So we previously communicated Q1, so we're well within there, and we now have a firm belief that will be in the beginning of March. We'll be coming out, as you know, early February with Q4 results, and we expect by then to add full clarity on these items. The 1.6 billion, which will be the first amount coming already in March, at least we need to communicate specifically about that in March after closing. We still see we have an ambition to do as much as we can in terms of share buybacks and we will see what we'll be able to do and then the rest you know, mechanically be in terms of an extraordinary dividend. But I think we will have to wait a bit to add further clarity on that.

Okay, now that you mentioned extraordinary items, what about the PIM model approval process with the FSA? Any news there?

Yeah, well, I think we have basically no news, which is good news. We still expect, as we previously said, communicated that we will be able to apply by the, you know, within this year. So just before Christmas, we should be able to apply and that would, in a very blue sky scenario where we don't have any, you know, major, let's say, dialogue with the FSA around substantial matters, then the earliest option would be mid next year. And I'm not at this point in time ready to communicate around specific numbers for that.

But sort of the solvency target for year-end 25, the 170, that still stands, including PIM model, right? So if you get a PIM model approval next year, that amount will come out to shareholders during 25 as well.

Yeah, that would be the base expectation, yes. And we'll have to see what the specific number becomes. But we stand firm on the same capital target of 170. Yeah.

All right. But that's very clear. Thanks a lot.

The next question comes from Matthias Nielsen from Nordea. Matthias, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much and also congratulations on the decent results this time. So my first question is on on the personal lines in your in your slide 9 you said like otherwise favorable experience from minor claims in personal lines. Could you maybe put a bit more flavor on what that means and how much that deviates from a normalized level?

Yeah, I can. I can try to do that. It is mainly our housing, our content and our personal accidents which contribute positively to the numbers. We don't have... I wouldn't be able to do... I don't think it would be meaningful for me to do basically a very detailed bridge for that. But it does add some, let's say, support for the... for the underlying improvements, but the main improvements are still related to the profitability initiatives we've had running through the books and the effects we're seeing there. So this is only a minor explanation in the underlying improvements.

That's very clear. And then also on repricing, now we talk about the repricing on 1st of October, and I look at the claims of the commercial lines, it looks like the top line growth is a bit weaker in Q3. Is there anything around the renewal on 1st of October? Is it the clients into the renewal that... Is that some part of the expectation for the weaker top-down development in Q3? Or is there any comments around how that has been received by customers in the start of Q4?

Yeah, well, I mean, mechanically, the turn we've had in, you know, 1st of October isn't in the numbers yet. So that will be a Q4 effect, basically, what developments we'll see there. But this is an effect we see, you know, as we've also seen in previous quarters, also for the, let's say, our continued business, we had maybe even more volatility while we had energy and marine in the numbers. But as you can also see on the quarterly earnings patterns in our business now, we've restated that there is some fluctuation to be had also in, yeah, throughout the year, basically. And it is, as we said, The main explanation will be that when we put pressure on prices to single customers, some of them from time to time don't wish to maintain business with us. And that's at least the big part of the effects we're seeing also for this quarter's numbers.

Okay. And then if any on how that has been received, like when you did the 1st of October, then do you have any comments on that?

Well, I think more or less, I think I would still expect somewhat muted growth for Q4. I wouldn't expect earnings to explode, to put it that way. But I also think, just to restate what we've said many times before, we do not guide on growth. And what we're doing is driven by the ambition to maintain sound bottom line profits. So that's what we are mostly aiming for. And as we just talked into before, we are very focused on also delivering underlying loss ratio improvements. So that is our main focus and ambition also going into next year.

Great. And when we look into 2025, should we expect the premium growth in 2025 to be higher than the premium growth in 2024, given that you do so many price hikes?

This is regarding the commercial business? For the whole group. You can split it up if you want. It would be even better. Again, just again, restating, we do not guide specifically for growth, also from the argument I just came from. But I think we will be getting at least some sound support from indexation and also from the effect on repricing from customers which stay on board. And therefore, I would expect also a sound growth next year. Hopefully with a somewhat stronger at least year-on-year growth when we get to Q3 and Q4 for commercial.

Yeah, Matthias, I can add a little there. I mean, of course, we are going to have an indexation again. It's not completely settled, but it could be around 3%. And you know, we have been communicating about the price increases and And there we could see an effect of up to 2%. And then you have probably noted that we are winning quite a bit of business in our personal lines with our banking partners. And that seems to have moved into a quite good momentum. So that would come as an add-on on top of the two other components. So in that way, you have some building blocks that are looking quite positive But then again, we are continuing to reprice our larger corporate clients, and their reactions to those price increases are a bit difficult to predict. So there you could have a bit of volatility around that, as we are seeing in this quarter. Just to hear about some of the blocks.

That's very clear. Thanks a lot for the help.

The next question comes from Jan Erik Gjelland from ABG.

Thank you for taking my questions as well. The first one is to continue on the growth path here. You said that you have won a lot of new banking clients or volume in the banking channel. How would you say the profitability is on that book the first year, the second year and the third year if you could shed some light into your profitability improvement during such a trend? Is it so that you should expect that first year to be a little bit less profitable than your back book? Or should we think it's equal profitability as your back book? That's my first question.

Yeah, I can try to answer that. I think we, the overall answer is that we, as you know, banking, we've been here with the banking partnerships we're having, and they're adding very significantly to our growth, and it is at profitable levels. The partnerships, as all partnerships, come with some costs, and these are no exceptions. So there's some costs to the distribution channel, also to the banks. But in terms of the underlying claims ratios for the personalized work, The banking partnerships are still, in a relative sense, the most profitable customers we have in the group within Personal Alliance. So that needs to balance out, and it also does. We are also working, as we are with the rest of the Personal Alliance business, to get the right level, and some price initiatives will also be needed for that part of the group. but we are confident we'll get there. In terms of an earnings pattern over year one, two, three, you can say that there isn't any specific factor there compared to other types of business we bring in. There's a higher average cost load in general on the banking board, but all insurance, personal line customers, Mechanically, there is a cost in year one where you need to pay some costs also to the people. We have our outside agents, which is a big part of that distribution also. So there will be some higher costs the first year when you get the customers in. And then as you progress over time, the combined will be improved. But that's nothing special about the banking channel.

Okay, very good. The second one is, I think it was Mats mentioning a little bit of indexation around 3% as a best guess so far. But then you also talk about price increases on top of it. Is it so that it's two percentage points which we should think about as a potential price hike in the commercial or in private or in a combination, so it's 2% on top, which means that it should be potentially higher in in commercial and lower in private. If you can shed some more light to that comment. Thank you.

Thanks, Elias. You're correct that I was mentioning those numbers. I mean, taking it mechanically, then 100 million in each line is around 2%. So I think that is what we are looking into.

Okay.

In each line in total.

Okay, then finally on the profitability measures, is it so that the 100 each is sort of what you still expect for the 25 outcome and the current year improvement in especially private lines then is not part of this 100, so we still should expect the 100 to come on top of the current sort of improvement? Is that fair, or is that still that you've taken some of the 100 already in 2024?

Yeah, just keep in mind, when we're talking about the 100, these are sort of rough numbers. But that being said, the 100 comes on top of the realized profitability we are expecting to see implicitly in the 24 full-year guidance for both personal lines and for commercial lines. So roughly, we have seen the need to bridge on top of the planned synergies and other effects, but the major part being we need to do around 100 more in costs. A big part of that was the adjustments we made last week. And then we still need roughly, and these are rough, but just to give sort of illustration, 100 in both commercial lines and 100 in personal lines, and that will bridge where we are from our current year guidance to the 1.85, including run-offs for 2025.

Okay, very clear. The fundamental financial, you said, I think, on the return for the running book is the interest rate has come off quite dramatically during the quarter. So how should they think about your sort of running yield in the books? How should they think about your match portfolio versus your free portfolio? If you can shed some more light into those discussions.

I can try to do that, Janniek. Most of the investment assets are in the matchbook. We have, is it around 24, I think, Mads, 24 billion, something like that in total assets this quarter. Let's say around seven of those are in the free portfolio, just rough numbers. um not all of that is tied into products which are uh you know in the it's not all bonds or uh bond-like structures um some there will be some that's 500 million equity and then we have some real estate but which would also be to some extent over time at least depending on interest rate but in a rough sort of figure you could say maybe 100 basis points deterioration uh you know lower interest rates would lead to, let's say, 50 to 70 million lower structural returns for the full year. And that's just rough estimates. So we will see some pressure, but now we'll have to see how it ends up. On the other hand, we are continuously moving to harvest more illiquidity premiums in the total investment book, not only being the free portfolio, but within the total book. And that should at least provide some effect in the other direction, even if we are pressured on lower interest rates.

Very clear. That was all from my side. Looking forward to see you tomorrow. Thank you.

As a reminder, that's star followed by one. And the next question comes from Martin Burke from SEB. Martin, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much. Just a couple of questions from my side, perhaps starting with the expense ratio. I guess when we talked to Max, he has sort of a saying of that your expense ratio should decline by roughly one percentage point year over year every single quarter. And what is exactly happening here in Q3 in terms of your expense ratio development?

Yeah, I think... You know, the 1% is probably a rough sort of illustration, mostly on a, let's say, a year, full year basis. But that being said, for this quarter specifically, you can see we do see some sound improvements in personal lines, 0.7%, as I recall, improvement there. And then we have a flat ratio in commercial lines. If you look at the synergies we're communicating, I think it's 0.4 percentage points, which is what we would expect in terms of actual cost ratio improvements, all else equal. So we are in effect a bit behind that curve. Commercial lines is impacted by the flat premium growth this quarter, which does put some pressure on that ratio. And that being said, we also have some, let's say, fluctuations in the quarter, which puts a bit of uptick in commercial compared to what we would normally on average expect. And then to round it all off, I think the important message here is that we are very focused on delivering on the cost improvements we need. And we have full comfort that what we did with the reorganization, you know, taking out some FTEs, Last week, that adjustment will put us into the right run rate also into next year. Okay.

And then perhaps on the FC reduction that you guys communicated in late October, how will that translate into benefits to the expense ratio already in Q4?

That's a good question. Well, it's basically two months support for the quarter. So, yeah.

What's the monthly support?

The full year support would be 85, in effect, from what we have in the books. 85, roughly, 85 persons, 85 million, roughly, is the amount of people we actually, you know, set to buy to. And then you can divide by.

Okay. Yeah, I can do the math myself. And then perhaps a CEO question here. I guess three that makes a trend at Dozner Erasmus, and this is, as far as I know, the third time that you have made around 100 people FTE reduction. Why is that? And is this something that we should expect to be a recurring event every single year?

I think what we have done is that we really try to establish this new, big, huge, 100% Danish insurance company. And from time to time, it is necessary to do what we did. We would really have appreciated if you could have done it without any layoffs, but it was necessary this time. We will continue working with the efficiencies and new products, new systems and all that. And by the end of the day, that caters for less FTEs. But we will do our utmost to avoid having a layoff, but from time to time, it's just needed.

But Rasmus, what are you seeing? Are you seeing less natural nutrition? Is that because you need these rounds every year, or has this been part of the plan all along, or how should we view it?

I'd say it's a mix, but we see less natural nutrition that we actually expected. That is maybe the main reason why we have to do it.

So after this, do you still sit back with the feeling that you have more to do in FTE, so this is it?

I think, come on, there's a lot of years coming in front of us. I think what we all are working on with efficiency, AI coming in and all these things, It would be difficult to say that it will be fixed at the same number of AFDs as we are today. There will also be differences in who has to work with the new processes and procedures, customers and all that. So there will be a change in the workforce, and we will do our utmost to avoid having these layoffs, but from time to time, it could be needed.

Okay. All right. Thanks. And then, then just perhaps a couple of small questions from my side. Andreas, on the, on the previous question in regards to your investment results, did you come up with the running yield in your free portfolio?

I think interest rates are moving a lot in recent days. So I think, but I, we are probably around, let's say the 250 million mark. And hopefully we can, we can, we'll see how interest rates go from here, but,

Okay, and okay. And what's the a couple of well, very harsh ending to us hurricane season? What is the latest chat on return prices?

Well, in an overall sense, I think we are at least in a more, let's say, orderly we renewal the time that I'm catching more Well, I'll get into that in a minute, but in an overall sense, the renewal seems to be progressing in a more orderly fashion than we've had. Obviously, especially going from 2022 into 2023, but also last year, the dialogue has been going on for a good time and for some time also. I think CAD is somewhat pressurized. But at least what I hear is that the events we've seen, at least after now, we have some clarity to what we've seen also with the hurricanes in the US. These events are not of a size that they are structurally sort of changing our expectations to cap from what we had before that. I think you also see that some insurers are actually making quite a lot of money. Reinsurers are making quite a lot of money in cap, at least if you look over a number of quotas in total. So we'll see how it goes. I think CAT, I would be at least hopeful that we can at least maintain the pricing we have, and maybe even we can, we'll be working with the arguments we've had all along for improving our data and adding clarity to re-insure, see how far that can get us. And I think property per risk or property Excel in the Nordics is a very pressurized, it's a more pressurized segment also compared to CAT. So the market is not with us here. We've seen some sizable events both in Denmark and also in the other Nordics. And that is also hitting us to some extent. But the good thing for us being that we have had no claims for our property programs either last year or this year. So we stand with a very strong book relative to peers. And we are hoping that can get us to a relatively at least better place than some of our peers. But we'll see how it goes.

So what does your gut feeling tell you about the percentage increase year-over-year in reinsurance costs for L Brand Group?

My best expectation right now is that we would be able to do it more or less flat.

Okay. All right. Okay, thanks. And then maybe final question. When you announced your 150 million share buyback program, you mentioned a front-loading of capital distributions. If you look over the course of October, I know your weekly reporting has been volatile in terms of what has actually been bought back, but you're just shy of 10 million per week. And at that pace, you're looking at completing your share buyback programs within the first weeks of December. Why wasn't Q3, and also given where your solvency position is, why wasn't Q3 a good to top that up.

Yeah, hi, Martin. The thing is that, I mean, for the last many years, we have had an employee program for shares where our employees, they get shares instead of rates. So it's kind of an ordinary program without incentives. And today in the report, we announced that we are buying shares for that under our Safe Harbor program. So that is increased by 70 million. And that, on your own math, that brings us well into 2025, before we have executed all the shares we want to buy back. I mean, as a combination of shares bought for cancellation and for distributing to our employees. So I think when the program is executed, there won't be that much time to the closing we expect related to the divestment of energy and marine. And as such, we don't have much more capacity to distribute in that way. OK. All right. Thanks a lot.

The next question comes from from HSBC. No line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi there. Thank you for taking my questions. The first question that I had was just trying to untangle the pricing and volume effect on the premium growth, both for personalized as well as for the commercial lines. You know, the 7.7% premium growth we have seen in the personalized. I appreciate if you can see what proportion of that was probably driven by price increases and how much of that was driven by volume increases. And likewise within the commercial line, the flat-ish development we have seen Appreciate if you can see how much of that was driven by higher price increases and what was the volume losses on those premiums.

Yeah. Hi. I can try to add some clarity to that. If we start with personal lines, we have just below 8% overall premium growth, 7.7%. And in rough numbers, I would say around 3% of that is from indexation. So that explains 3%. Then we already, in this year, have significant price initiatives, mostly related to the motor profitability issues. That would add around 2 percentage points out of the 7.7. And then the rest, 2.7 roughly, it would be, you know, that is due to actual volume growth. Most of it coming from our banking partnerships out of the private cycling channel. So that's personal lines. And I don't think in actuality, you know, if you look at commercial lines, we get to a flat standpoint, mostly being from this premium volatility where we see some larger clients exit going into this quarter. But more or less, you would see below there, you'd probably have indexation on more or less the same level, but then a lower contribution from pricing. So I hope that gives you some flavor for the premium growth.

But that's very helpful. Anyway, related to that, you've been growing quite strongly within the personal life because of this banking partnership and going ahead of the market. Can you give some colors on the sustainability of the growth going into 2025 in the context of competitive landscape in Denmark?

Yeah, we can put a bit of flavor on that. You're right, the growth is quite significant actually in 2024, and we're very happy for that, quarter after quarter. And very much of that is linked to the cooperation we have with the local banks and some of the larger banks as well. And to cut it short, we expect that to continue into 2025. It is really good, this cooperation we have. These banks are covering more or less 30% of the Danish and there's still a lot of market share to catch for us to reach that level of 30%. So the growth in personalized will definitely come from that corporation, but also in general, we will grow in the other lines of the personal bank.

All right. And just one related to the higher claim inflation, high frequency within the motor segment. Can you talk about what's your expectation for the claims inflation going into 2025? Do you see inflation to remain at similar levels or do you see some sort of improvement going into next year with respect to frequency as well as with respect to inflation?

Yeah, I think What we're seeing in recent quarters is a year-on-year uptick in the market of around 6 to 8 percentage points in frequency. And I think that is at least what we're planning for as, let's say, the new normal. But we do not, on the other hand, have any expectations that that should increase further from the levels we're seeing right now. You might also, in a blue sky scenario, we might argue that there could be some effects, at least, This year, we've had quite a lot of rain through consecutive quarters, so quite wet roads, but that would be more speculative. What we are planning for is the new normal we're seeing right now, and that's also what we're doing the price initiatives regarding. So that frequency uptick has translated now also into some uptick in the average claims, mostly coming from higher prices on spare parts, But we do see spare price on average coming up something like 40% compared to last year. But keep in mind that around two-thirds of our costs are related to wages, which are more or less flat because we have strong procurement agreements with our partners keeping that in check for now. But in an overall sense, we do see that uptick also now on top of the overall frequency And that's what has basically added into this headwind that we need to, and that's a lot of why we need to do these. We've talked about many times today, but that's why we need to do these further price increases in both commercial and private lines. It's a big part of that answer.

Right. That's very helpful. Thank you so much.

I'm going to call for questions. Star one on your telephone keypad. As we have no further questions, I'll hand the call back to Rasmus for closing comments.

Yeah, thank you all for participating and thank you for the questions. Hope to see you soon.

This concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your lines.