Aviva Plc U/Adr

Welcome to Aviva's 2024 Q1 Trading Update Call. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone to confirm that you are in the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing star 2 to cancel. I would now like to hand the conference over to Aviva Group's CEO, Amanda Block.

Good morning everyone and welcome to Aviva's first quarter update. As usual, I'll start with a brief overview and hand over to Charlotte to give you the details before we move to your questions. It's been another excellent start to the year for Aviva. Today's numbers are clear evidence that we are continuing to deliver on our promises as we have seen strong growth across the board. As you know, our strategy is to accelerate growth in the capital light businesses with balanced growth in retirement. And we have continued to do just that. We deliver double digit growth in general insurance premiums and in wealth net flows. And sales in our retirement business are also up by double digits. We have also made great progress on M&A activity. We completed the acquisitions of Optium in Canada and the AIG UK protection business that will solidify our number one position and deliver capital and expense synergies. We also announced the acquisition of Probitas, a high-quality, fully integrated platform in the Lloyds market. This will expand the market opportunity for Aviva's GCS business and is expected to complete in mid-2024. And we completed the sale of our remaining stake in Singapore for £937 million, further simplifying the group's footprint. So today's update shows further excellent progress and we remain extremely confident in the outlook. We have real growth momentum and we are delivering reliably and consistently. All of this is possible because you have the right strategy, a disciplined approach to capital allocation, a strong grip on performance management, and, of course, the right team here at Aviva that are continuously delivering for customers and shareholders. And with that, I'll hand over to Charlotte to talk you through the numbers.

Thanks, Amanda, and good morning, everyone. I'm delighted that we have another set of really strong results to talk to you about today. We've seen continued growth momentum right across the group with another quarter of consistent delivery. I'll cover the highlights from the businesses and then the group capital and liquidity positions, starting with general insurance. We delivered excellent top-line growth. Premiums grew by 16% as we achieved double-digit growth in the UK and in Canada. The undiscounted core for the group was 95.8% as we start to see the benefit of the strong race actions taken in 2023 earn through. Core, on a discounted basis, was 92. Going forward, we expect the underlying core to show further incremental improvement as we continue to earn through more of the rose rating actions. In the UK, our track record of growth continued, with premiums up 19%. Personal line premiums grew by 27%, split evenly between rate actions and volume growth. This strong volume growth reflects new business in our PCW and Aviva Zero propositions as we capitalise on current market dynamics. We are well positioned given our disciplined approach to rating in recent years. Commercial line premiums also grew by double digits, up 10%, driven by strong retention in mid-market and new business in global corporate and specialty lines. Similar to the personal line trends, about half the growth was from rate and the other half from portfolio growth. The UK undiscounted core of 97.3% improved from 98.4% last year, reflecting targeted growth in the high margin retail business and the benefit from strong rating actions taken in the last year. We continue to show discipline in costs and claims management. In Canada, it's a similar story of growth, with premiums up 11% overall. Personal lines premiums were up 16%, reflecting auto and property new business alongside rating actions in the inflationary environment. We have further high single-digit rate increases filed and in place in Ontario in Q2. Commercial line premiums were up 5%, reflecting new business in GCS and strong retention across the book. The undiscounted core of 93.7% reflects some large loss experience in commercial lines. And as others have observed, auto severity has increased, but has been in line with expectations and we are managing our rate accordingly. Turning to insurance wealth and retirement. In insurance, protection sales were up 9%, with particularly good performance in group protection, reflecting strong new scheme wins. Health sales were lower, as expected, given the prior year included the benefit from Cigna's exit from the corporate market. That said, total in-force premiums were up double digits on the prior year, with strong momentum in the consumer and SME channels. As outlined in our in-focus session last month, health is a core component of our strategy, and we have an ambition to reach £100 million of operating profit by 2020, underpinned by double-digit in-force premium growth. Wealth net flows were up 15% to £2.7 billion, representing a really good 6% of opening assets under management. And Wealth AUM is now over £180 billion. The business is performing really well as it drives towards its ambition of £280 million of operating profit by 2027. Of course, the biggest component of this target is workplace. This is an incredibly resilient and reliable business. and won an impressive 136 new schemes in Q1. Combined with the ongoing impact of salary inflation, this led to growth in net flows of £2 billion, up 13%. We are already the number one player, and the business is going from strength to strength. Platform net flows grew by an excellent 24%. We achieved record gross inflows for the quarter, evidence that advisors value our attractive proposition and that investment activity is starting to show signs of green shoes. However, outflows remain elevated across the market. And in retirement, sales were up 13%. BPA volumes were up 26% to £1.3 billion as we won 18 new deals. and announced the launch of a new streamlined service for schemes up to £100 billion last month. Today, volumes are at £2.2 billion. BNB was an impressive 74% up, reflecting BPA growth and an increased proportion of higher margin small schemes. I'll now move to cash and capital. The group's capital position remains very strong and robust at 206% compared to 207% at the full year. The movement in the quarter was primarily driven by the 2023 final dividend and share buyback, which together reduced solvency by 11 points. This was mostly offset by the beneficial impacts from the sale of Singapore and operating capital generation in the quarter. Market movements had a minimal impact in aggregate. Looking beyond the quarter, the impacts of the Tier 2 redemption announced last week and the completion of the AIG UK protection acquisition will be a call on solvency in Q2. We will of course generate operating capital that will partly offset this. Liquidity remains extremely healthy at £2.1 billion, up on the full year reflecting net proceeds from M&A activity. And finally, leverage was 28.7% after allowing for the Tier 2 redemption. And so to summarise, it's been another excellent quarter of delivery, with consistent strong growth momentum all across the group. We set out our new upgraded group targets at our full year results presentation, and we are confident in meeting them. And we have positive outlook for cash generation that supports our guidance of mid single digit growth in the cash cost of the dividend and our intentions for further regular and sustainable returns. With that, I'll hand over to the operator to start the Q&A.

Thank you. Our first question is from Farouk Hanif from JP Morgan. Your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks very much. I wanted to ask firstly about, you know, you talk about the impressive growth of the advisor platform in retail and net flows. What's kind of the gross inflow picture and what are you seeing in 2Q to date there? Is there more positivity? Second question is on Provitas. So can you talk a little bit more now about whether you're willing to put significant capital behind this? You know, how quickly is that possible and what you think the growth opportunity is in the global corporate specialty area from Provitas itself? And I guess finally, you know, anticipating questions from others as well. I mean, can you just talk about your latest thoughts on pricing? in the UK and Canada versus lost cost inflation and just kind of the margin expansion that you now expect over this year. Thank you.

Okay, thanks, Farouk. Charlotte, do you want to pick up one and I can pick up two and three?

Yeah, so I think on wealth, Net flows, as we said, for the quarter, 2.7 billion, 15%, and that's 6% of AUM. I mean, I think on a gross flow basis, we're seeing strong inflows, and they're continuing. There is inevitably some outflows, and that continues. But I think we're seeing the momentum continue. The workplace net flows, 13% up. And platforms up 24%. And again, you know, what we've seen there is record inflow via the platform through the direct wealth. So I think that also reflects increased investor confidence and continuity.

Yeah, so on Probitas and your questions, I mean, obviously, we're not due to complete until the mid of the year. And I guess there's not a huge amount more to add to what we said at the full year, but, you know, we do obviously see that this gives us a real opportunity to increase our distribution footprint. And that's just being confirmed more and more as we've got closer to the team and we're thinking about what the plans are for that. In terms of the significant capital, I think we would just be driven by market conditions and opportunity in the same way as we are with any other investment across the business. But just to be clear, we bought this because we believed it was a growth opportunity. We still believe it's a growth opportunity. This sort of global corporate specialty opportunity is significant, and we believe that this investment gives us real opportunity to capitalize on that now. And all of the conversations that we've had with our distributors, which obviously when we spoke to you last, we were just three days in, I think, post the announcement, have confirmed that. So everybody's very excited, whether it's the UK teams or the Canadian teams, and the brokers that we've spoken to feel that this is a really great opportunity for us. On pricing in the UK-Canada margin, obviously what we've seen in the UK, and I guess let's be specific about motor, is that last year we saw, if you like, a crescendo of pricing throughout the year, responding to the trends that there were on, whether that was vehicle repairs, theft. the amount of time it was taking for vehicles to be repaired and therefore car higher costs. And those were all in the 30s and 40s. So we responded, we were responding to that. We'd already responded to prior inflation, I think, ahead of the game. So, you know, those rating increases by the end of the year were really significant. So you are going to see the feed through of that for the first sort of two thirds of this year. And then we believe that, you know, rates increase. flatten out to inflation, and by that we're talking 5% to 6%, and that's in motor and in home. And the numbers in home are not dissimilar in terms of some of those impacts of supply chain and everything last year. So we do believe that there is real opportunity. We know that the written call on the motor business particularly are very strong. And so what you see is us capitalizing on that in terms of volume and rate in the first quarter of this year. And we think that that obviously will continue. I think in Canada, the trends are not that different. You see inflation around 5% to 6% in auto and 4% to 5% in personalized, that is, in property. And we've put 10 points of rate through in Ontario, personal motor in 2023, 12 points planned for 2024. So, you know, we will continue to see strong pricing coming through there. Clearly, the auto theft is something that we are catching up on, as are all the other players. And so, you know, you would expect to see that rating strength come through. So not a lot more to say really about that, Charlton, unless you've got anything else to add.

No, only in Canada that, you know, a lot of the rape filings are already approved. Yes, that's a good point.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next caller is Thomas Bateman from Berenberg. Your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks very much for taking my questions. Just on the GIA combined ratio guidance, I think you always say this is an ambition of 94%. So your consensus doesn't quite have you getting there, but it seems like the pricing is very strong in almost all of your divisions at the moment. So I guess I'm just trying to understand what are the risks that you see, which mean that this pricing wouldn't flow into better margins and would prevent you achieving 94%. And then the second question is just on the platform flows again. I think you alluded to these being record flows, but I just wanted to double check. There was no seasonality effect or anything in here, but this is genuine underlying improvement coming from more confidence from advisors and the consumers. Thank you.

Yeah, sorry, you do the ambition, I'll do the platform.

Yeah, so let me just unpick the core development for you and then kind of talk through the sort of extension. So in Q1, it was 95.8, which is 0.4 points higher than this time last year. If I look at the UK core, 97.3, that's down over a point. And that is starting to show really strong underlying performance. It is showing the rate earning through. Weather and PYD pretty neutral, but weather was better a year ago. So there's a little bit more weather in it than there was this time last year, but it's pretty neutral. So again, when I look at the UK core, I expect that rating to continue to earn through through the course of the rest of the year and therefore improve further. On the Canada core, 93.7, that's up just over a point. We had seen some large claims, as I referred to before, a little bit more frequency. And again, you know, just that severity sort of having an impact. Again, when I look at the outlook there, we continue to work on claims indemnity and sourcing. You know, large losses are non-systemic, so not necessarily likely to recur. And again, weather was relatively neutral. So, you know, again, when I think of how I'm looking at the rest of the year, obviously always still with the caveat of we don't know what will happen to the weather. But I'm sort of thinking towards 95 percent kind of for the whole year from a group perspective. So then the question of sub 94 and to some degree, I'm going to repeat what I said at the year end result. It remains our goal. aiming point in the medium term. You know, the current market conditions, high interest rates, you know, mean that we're very conscious of how we balance between underwriting margin, underwriting profit, and operating profit maximization, which is important. So I think, you know, we're aiming for that operating profit maximization with disciplined cause. So we still think 94 is the right aiming point, but it's really not a 24 or a 25 danger.

On the platform flows, obviously there's a bit of seasonality for tax year end, but we are seeing that our performance is a bit stronger than last year. So a little bit of seasonality, but we really feel that there is a strong demand. And if you think that if you combine that with the investment that we are making into that business, then I think we feel very, very confident about that. The combination of workplace and platform, you know, I think puts us in a really, really strong position. Thanks, Thomas.

Brilliant. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question is from Ria Shah from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. Hi, Amanda. Hello. Just two questions from me. Hi. So on... the GI business again um what was the investment income development in the first quarter because I think for peers especially in Europe um they've been reporting pretty good investment income um so what has been the development in your reinvestment yield and then second um just going back again to GI in terms of commercial lines um Have you started to see any softening in the pricing so far, both in Canada and in the UK, any colour that you could provide?

Okay, should I pick up the second one and then Charlotte pick up the first one? Is that right, Charlotte? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, in terms of investment income, you know, it remains strong. The rate environment continues to be strong. We don't give that specifics in the trading update. But again, you would see the continuation of strong investment income when we report the half-year, I'd expect.

I think in terms of the commercial lines, obviously, you have to segment that across the GCF, the SME, and then look at it on a total basis. I think SME rate growth is still in line with where we were last year. It's strong. You know, 8% versus the volume growth of about 4, so we think that's good. On GCS, rate is 3, volume is 5, so 8% growth overall. These are UK numbers. not massively dissimilar in Canada. So I think in terms of softening, what we would say is that, you know, some lines of business, particularly some of the maybe specialty lines, but nothing significant as we look at it today. But it's still early on in the year. So I think we would just have to look and respond to that. We have a very strong portfolio here, both in Canada and in the UK. I think the commercial lines performance is very strong. a strong franchise and obviously when you're going into um if you go if you go into a slightly softening market it's all about your distribution relationships and your your your the the relationship that you have with the brokers which you know i think aviva um is second to none in that space right thank you thank you our next question is from lavissa van de venter from barclays

Your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Two quick questions from me, please. The first one, just to go down Farouk's question on pricing trends, do you have a sense of when we would see the end of the benefit of the rate increases coming through, or can we reasonably assume that they will continue throughout 2024? And then the second question is on your automated bulk annuity platform. which you recently implemented. Could you please give us a sense of the volumes that you're seeing coming through and how those margins may compare to the bigger deals that you've written in the past?

Okay, Charlotte, are you okay with both of those?

Yeah, so I think when we think of the rating, ultimately, if I look in motor in the UK for the first quarter, new business pricing has been roughly flat. But, you know, we are still facing inflationary trends. So, you know, I think we'll be nimble and careful in responding. We will definitely see the rating that we put through last year really continue to improve core. I think in home, it's been a less profitable market for a while. There's still some good rate going through there. but obviously a lot of rate went through last year. So I think you'll still see pricing increases ahead of inflationary impacts there, and that rating continues to impact the core. And it really is the same in Canada. Rating is still needed. It's still going through. As I said, we've got the regulatory approvals to push that through in motor, and that is going to continue to positively affect core. The second question on the streamlined BPA offering, we called it Aviva Clarity. It gives small schemes a route to market effectively with us as a big name. It's typically for schemes with assets under $100 million. and basically they can go – the scheme gets a guaranteed price in a matter of weeks. So they send the template in to the ECB, and they fill out the data, and we can give them the pricing very quickly. Then locks underneath our longevity reinsurance flow treaty, so the reinsurance is locked in. So that's kind of how it works. In terms of volumes, I mean, we've really just started – But, you know, as I said, you know, 18 new schemes this year and we're pleased with that. And the take up on this offering is positive so far. So all good. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question is from William Hawkins from KVW. Your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, Amanda and Charlotte. Thanks for this helpful check-in at the quarter. Two questions, please. On the solvency outlook, I know we haven't talked about this for a long time, but... Allianz surprised us last week by disclosing that BaFin will be consulting on a possible recalculation of German solvency transitional measures for technical provisions this year. Is there any kind of discussion that you're hearing about whether the UK could be reassessing transitionals in solvency? Or is that completely off the agenda as far as you're aware? Please. And then secondly, in IWR, you know, since you last updated us, are there any experience variances or assumption reviews that we need to be aware of when we think about the outlook? Or is it all business as usual for those volatile items? Thank you.

Yes. And look, I think insolvency reform in the UK, obviously, been incredibly engaged with the regulator as the industry has been. We saw the changes to the risk margin come through at the year end, and we're seeing the changes to the matching adjustment that we expect to have the consultation process come through. We expect that to finalise in early July and be effective, actually, from the end of June. And so we're incredibly engaged. They've looked at transitional measures as part of all of that. So I don't think there's any surprises coming through. As I say, it's been an incredibly close working relationship with the PRA on that. So, again, no surprises. And I think everything is as anticipated. Obviously, we still need to see the final words on the matching adjustment. But, you know, they put a statement out there. in May or April earlier to really give a clear line of sight of the intentions and the direction that they're travelling. So I don't think we're going to see any crisis there. And then the second question was IWR experience. I mean, we track experience, and that's something that we'll go through and unpack for you in detail at the half year. In general, assumption changes are more the second half rather than the first half. We had a couple of assumption changes that we made in the first half last year, but ultimately it's more of a half year update than that.

Really helpful. Thank you both.

Thanks, William.

Thank you. Our next question is from Andrew Crean, from Autonomous. The line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.

Good morning, all. I had a couple of questions. I think what you're implying is that there's about 13% underlying growth in the UK motor portfolio. If you say that premiums are up 27% of which half was from growth. Can you talk a little bit about that as to who you're winning the business from and what you're having to do in order to win that business? Why are you winning that business? And then secondly, I want to look at your cash position, which I think you said at the end of April was 2.1 billion. I'm just looking at it. If you took in debt redemptions for Probitas, I'm assuming about half the buyback was yet to be completed, and then the dividend, which you just paid out, your liquidity would be down to about half a billion at the end of that. Is that roughly where you are now, post-Probitas? And are there any dividends coming up from the subsidiaries in the next quarter?

Okay, so I'll pick up the first one and Charlotte maybe can pick up the second one. So on the underlying growth, yeah, I think your numbers are broadly right, Andrew. And it's really a continuation of the trend that we have seen up until now, which is growth in some of the newer propositions or particularly Aviva Zero which has been incredibly successful which is a more digital low cost offering via the PCW route and the pricing comparison websites where clearly there is a higher margin than if you go via an intermediary so what you're seeing is rebalancing distribution over the last couple of years and I think that's You know, that's proved to be very successful for us. In terms of who we're winning business from, I think it's a bit too, you know, you don't necessarily know that, obviously. We can see where we are, that we have taken a little bit of share. But I do think that our underlying written causes, I stressed in my earlier answer, are very strong. And, you know, you saw Owen and the team present at the Infocus session last year. The pricing models are sophisticated. There's confidence. We got to inflation, you know, somewhat before others. And we are therefore able to take advantage of that in a sensible way. And I think that's basically what you're seeing here today.

So then just on liquidity, so the central liquidity of 2.1 is the end of 8%. So by the end of April, we had done about two-thirds of the buyback. Maybe just some of that, but we've done two-thirds by now. So that's a little bit more of the buyback behind us. Generally, in the first half, if you look at last year's half-year numbers, we had remitted about $800 million from the business units by the half-year. So the businesses, so if I think about the outlook that I'd be planning for this half year, it'd be a bit more because the businesses are generating a bit more. And, you know, we've got other, you know, optionality for pulling cash up from the businesses. So we will take a sizable set of remittances up by the half year. And then, yeah, we've got the redemption of the tier two notes, as you say, and we've got the purchase of probitas to come and the full year dividends obviously going out today. But I think you're forgetting that we have those remittances and we're further ahead on the buyback than your calculations.

Great, thanks.

Thanks, Andrew.

Thank you. Our next question is from Mandy Jagpal from RBC. The line is now muted. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. My first question is just on the retirement margin again. It looked like the Q1 VNB margin improved year-on-year to 2.9%, but it was down from 4% over the whole of FY23. So could you just help us understand the factors that supported that year-on-year improvement for decline versus the full year? I think you mentioned more small schemes were the positive factor. And then also on retirement, could you provide any detail on the actual and target DPA asset mix for the quarter? And then finally on Aviva Investors, the release called out that there was expected or anticipated client redemptions in one queue. And it also mentions that you expect an improvement in external net flows over the remainder of the year. So firstly, what were the redemptions in Q1 in relation to and what gives you confidence of an improvement over the remainder of the year? Thank you.

OK, I think those are probably mine. In terms of the BPAs, so it was a good quarter in terms of volumes, as I say, 1.3, which is up 26% in BPAs, 2.2 billion by now. It really was, you know, they weren't written at strong margin. Part of that is the nature of them. When I compare them with last year, where we had at the beginning of last year, we had a number of bigger ones that were lower margin. This time, you know, a couple of big deals have contributed about 0.9 of that, but actually it's 16 smaller ones higher. And, you know, again, that's part of it attaches to that flow agreement. It's a very effective reinsurance mechanism. So, you know, we've just seen better margin. We've also traded well. And that kind of comes to your asset question in a second. But, you know, I think it's been very good quarter in terms of the capital strain. And so when I think about the margin compared to last year, you know, it's a strong improvement. When I think about the outlook for it, I expect it to remain robust and sort of tracking about 3% throughout 2024. benefiting from the way we've been trading those smaller schemes, that Aviva Clarity that we went through a little bit before. There's a little bit of benefit, as we saw last year, with the UK reforms to risk margin, but whether that will get traded away over the course of this year. So, again, when we look at this margin versus this time of year, strong outlook, consistent, I think. And if you remember my comments at the fall year where we were, you know, really, it was quite a strong margin for 23. You know, I think we're anticipating being a little bit under that. So I think take the three and consider that to be a decent run rate. In terms of the target mix, we are under the 55 sort of normal kind of target mix. Partly that is the nature of the funds we've written. It's also partly a function of looking at the rate environment and actually having a lower proportion of the liquids because actually when you look at the higher spreads on public credit, actually we've kind of been – Looking at that, we've got a higher mix of gilts. I think that gives us, you know, further opportunity to risk optimization as we go forward. It's also very good from a capital strain perspective on the volume that we've written. In terms of the AI flows, it was a couple of anticipated client redemptions that we knew about at the end of last year, essentially in real estate funds. So that's kind of what you've seen going through in a big lump in Q1. We're not anticipating that repeating for sure. And we have had a very good 700 million or so clients. inflow in April coming from an insurance player. So I think we're seeing some interesting momentum and not anticipating a repeat of those lumpy outflows. So that gives us confidence in the outlook.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from James Shuck from Citi. Your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks, and good morning, everyone. Just on the bulks to begin with, can I just clarify? So the margin that you're talking about kind of coming down from 4. something down to around 3%, you've explained that the mix was small. I've also alluded to kind of more built in that. How's the return on capital in that line? It's essentially trying to allocate less capital to it and the margins we looked at on the present value kind of new business basis, but fully take into account the capital allocated. So just keen to know whether, like for like, the margins are kind of holding up given that asset mix. That's the first question. Secondly, just to clarify, Charlotte said, I think you mentioned that the combined ratio undiscounted is trending kind of towards the 95% level for 24%. Can I just make sure that that is, are you thinking that the full year number will get to 94 or is it more about it's an exit level as we approach 2024 and therefore on a kind of monthly run rate, you'll be at that level, but the full year number might be slightly above that? And then finally, just keen to get some insight into the direct wealth business, which you kind of replatformed and relaunched in this period. What's the level of investment that you're looking at in this business? And if you're able to think about the kind of payback on the investment and the level of investment that's there and whether you're definitely committed to an organic route when it comes to direct wealth. Thank you very much.

Okay, thanks. I'll pick up direct, well, Charlotte, pick up the BULX and COR, Charlotte?

Yeah, so on BULX, I mean, the sort of IRR that we look at is mid-teens sort of IRR and that's kind of what we plan as we look at it at this point and as I look at the sort of pipeline through to the first half kind of in the same place so low mid-teen percentage IRR is kind of how I would look at it that was all he asked on that does that answer your first question James? Just IRR. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. And then on core, I talked about 95, not 94 for this year. So I do see that, you know, Yeah, so as I look through sort of progression, half year, full year, I'm sort of trending towards kind of that 90, so that by the full year view will be a 95. You know, I know we have this conversation about discrete versus full year kind of or cumulative. I'm thinking that by the full year kind of that the way it will progress will take me towards 95 for the full year.

On direct wealth, so we launched our first TV advert last week. We're very excited about the opportunity to grow that. So the way that we look at this is the Aviva brand in the UK is one of the strongest brands. Even if you compare to some of the retail brands, all our research tells us that the Aviva brand really resonates. And therefore, we will be able to capitalize on that. Combining that direct wealth proposition, we've built a very nice customer journey. It will be integrated into the My Aviva app. We believe that there's a real opportunity not just to sell to new customers, but also to our existing customers. So we've got 5 million pension customers in the UK, a lot of those in workplace. And so the opportunity to sell the direct wealth proposition when those customers are to either enhance their current savings or when they come to decumulation, we think is really significant. And then you also overlay that on the other innovative propositions that we have, like our find and combine pension pot and consolidation on pensions. We think all of that combined means that we do have a very strong opportunity to grow this business organically. That's our plan. I'm not going to break down the actual investment, but, I mean, you know that we have set aside investment in the wealth opportunity. Wealth itself, obviously, is just a significant market opportunity, $2.3 trillion by 2030, and we just believe that investing in that will pay medium to long-term dividends for Viva.

Yeah, that's all very helpful. Thank you very much.

Thanks, James. Thanks, James.

Thank you. Our next question is from Nasib Ahmad from UBS. Your line is now muted. Please go ahead.

Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First one, Charlotte, just to clarify, I think, did you mention 55% illiquid proportion on the new business? Just to clarify whether that's correct and whether on the back book, you're kind of what the proportion is and whether you're trending towards the 55%. And if you do so, would that result in any upside to the 200 million management actions, or is that already embedded within that? So that's the first question. Second question on Andrew's point on the 13% motor volume growth. Can you talk a little bit about how much of that was done last year, because that's year-on-year, and how much of the volume growth came through in one Q24 discrete year? And then finally on capital management, any update on what the uses of your capital would be? Are you still focused on bolt-on M&A and returning any access to shareholders? Any update on that would be helpful. Thank you.

Okay, thanks. Sharjah, do you want to start? And I'll do the second too.

Yeah. So the broad target on the new business is around 55%. So that's kind of what we generally target for illiquids. And as I say, this quarter, it's been below that. And so there's an opportunity for re-risking later. But, you know, it depends on the right moment to do that. We've taken advantage of the spreads this quarter, and therefore we've done a little less. On the back book, I mean, it's sort of a range, 50, 65 kind of range. And that's, you know, kind of how we look at it overall.

Okay. On your second question, it will be across the last 12 months, but probably slightly weighted towards Q1 this year and more of an acceleration in Q1. But, you know, just to stress on that. We are very mindful of the environment and we do continue to price appropriately for inflation. And we are ensuring that growth is profitable. And therefore, we are constantly looking at the written cause and flexing according to that. And that's what you'll continue to see. And I think that's what you definitely see the more sophisticated players doing. And so, you know, there could be some movement in that as the year progresses, depending on profitability. On your third question around capital management and whether we're focused more on both on M&A, so I think we've always said there's three uses for the capital. Investment in the business, and I think what you've seen is the investment in the business is actually paying off. The M&A, we're disciplined about that, and I think we have been very disciplined about that. If you look, you know, I was counting it up earlier this week in terms of the deals that we've done and what they've delivered for Aviva. You know, we've delivered a number one position in high net worths. a number one position now in protection. We've entered into the lives market where we see the opportunity. We've exited those areas that are not core to the business. Succession well fills the strategic gap. That is how we will continue to look at M&A and we will continue to be disciplined, always having a high bar for M&A.

Perfect. Thank you. Sorry, can I just follow up one quick question on China and India? Any update on that? Are they still giving you optionality or any intention of disposing of that?

Really nothing to add on those businesses.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question is from Stephen Hayward from HSBC. Your line is now muted. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you. Three questions, please. The acquisition of the AIG UK protection business, can you give us an indication of how much CSM this really adds and any indications about the yearly earnings contribution going forwards? Secondly, on Ireland, the sales were extremely strong. Again, I think following on from the fourth quarter, into the first quarter. But why is the value of new business declining here, quarter on quarter? And then third question on the heritage book. Do you feel like there's any adjustments that will be required in the heritage book for the upcoming consumer duty? Are you investigating and looking into this book further for the rest of this quarter?

Okay, I'll answer the third one in short. Do you want to pick up on one or two?

Yeah, so look, on AIG, you know, really we'll kind of unpack that for you more at the half year because ultimately that's the first time we're bringing AIG into our numbers. So we'll cover CSM at that time. I mean, I think to give you an idea, our nonprofit is, um once we get to kind of a full annual run rate and obviously this year it'll be a partial year I think we're sort of in the sort of 20 million per annum um type type ballpark um but look um more more on that to come um I think then on Ireland um you know yes we saw um VNB was very much in line with prior year. I think we just saw a little bit of lower margin reflecting a competitive environment, particularly in individual protection. But there was outperformance in wealth. So it was a steady quarter, just a slightly different mix and a bit more competition around VNB.

On the heritage business and new continuing duty, we've got nothing specific to call out. We've obviously got a strong framework in place to assess value for money, and that's not new to us. I think I said that at the full year. We've been doing these assessments as a matter of course for some time. There are many products in the heritage business, as you can imagine. So as part of the reviews, we're considering if a product offers fair value as elements that are not value. But just to be clear about this heritage portfolio, it has many, many products and some small cohorts of those products. So there's nothing, you know, they're not significant numbers in many of the product lines. The timeframes are very challenging, but we are confident that we've got the plans in place. And obviously, as we're heading towards that regulatory deadline, but no issues to call out at this stage. A lot of the work has already been done.

Can I just follow up on the last point there? Thank you. Thank you, Amanda. You say there's a lot of obviously smallish cohorts of products. Have you made any changes within any of these cohorts of products? Anything notable to call out?

nothing notable to call out, nothing that's over and above the run-of-the-mill changes that we would have been making as we've done the product reviews over a number of years. So we may have looked at communications or we may have looked at, you know, the frameworks. There is just nothing significant to call out.

Okay, nothing recently. Okay, that's good. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our final question is from Abid Hussain from Panmure. Your line is now muted. Please go ahead.

Hi, morning all. I've got one question remaining. It's on UK GI margins versus the regulatory backdrop. I'm just wondering if you could just talk to the regulatory environment across the UK GI business, given that we've seen 30-plus percent year-on-year price increases across the industry, in motor and fuel specifically. Is there a risk that the FCA moves on from the premium finance that's been touted and then sort of starts looking at ancillary income or something else? I guess I'm wondering if you think there's a perception issue for the industry with such price hikes coming through. And I'm trying to put this into the context of we've got a potential government change coming in six weeks as well. Thanks.

Yeah, okay. So, I mean, just to give a bit of context here, if we were to go back to 2017 in the final quarter of 2017, average motor premiums today are only £8 in real terms more than they were in that final quarter of 2017. So, what you have seen on pricing over the last period is, you know, COVID rates coming down because of frequency reduction and And then obviously the dramatic response to inflation, supply chain and the other issues that I've already referred to on the call, seeing pricing hikes. So you've got to look at this. You've got to just get a little bit of context around the increases in the last 12 months. And and obviously that we believe that's a pretty that's a pretty strong argument on premium finance and the and the other areas. I mean, you know, I think Aviva responded very strongly on this. Our average premium finance rate is. And so, you know, just again, to put that into context, that's on average three pounds, 50 per month per policy, way less than the insurance premium tax. charge on a motor policy. So you've just got to, you know, I think you have to look at these things in the round. We believe, we're always looking at this with customer interest at heart. 60% of our customers pay annually. 40% will use use premium finance. We do think that that is a very, very useful mechanism for customers that cannot afford the upfront premium to pay. We would expect the regulator to see that in the same way. And I don't know if there are other areas that you're... But, you know, from our perspective, the importance is making underwriting profit, delivering good customer outcomes and making sure that we look after our customers. For us, you have to remember that we don't just have motor customers. We also have to look after our customers in retirement, in health, in home. And so the reputation that we have with our customers is very much grounded. We always are thinking about it from that perspective. So if we, you know, there's no – we would not be looking to capitalize or take advantage of our customers in this situation. What we're just trying to do is to make a good margin on each of our product lines. And that's the way that we look at it.

And so – I was just going to say that I can see you're not making super normal margins. I can see that in the industries, but there just seems to be this sort of perennial perception and focus on ancillary income and other sort of areas that sit outside of the core business market.

Yeah, of course. But I mean, I think if you look at our profile, we are not making huge amounts from those ancillary lines. And I think the regulator needs to be proportionate in terms of the way that it's dealing with individual firms on those areas, which, by the way, I think it has done if you look at the way that it has responded on things like total loss and premium finance. So, you know, I think that that's the way to look at that. So thank you very much for all of the questions this morning. Hopefully that's been really helpful for everyone. Really appreciate your time. And obviously the IR team are around if you want to follow up on any specific questions. But have a good day. Thank you very much.