Aviva Plc U/Adr

Okay, good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today for our full year results presentation. I'll start with a quick update on our 2025 performance and how Aviva will deliver today and for the future before Charlotte takes you through the results. Then we'll open for questions. So let me begin with the key messages. Aviva has delivered another outstanding set of results in 2025, extending our multi-year track record of delivery. We have achieved our 2026 targets of full year early and have now raised our ambitions. And we have enormous potential to go even further for the longer term. We are set up to make the most of the opportunities across the market, whether that's with artificial intelligence as technology changes the game, general insurance as the importance of scale and brand grows, wealth as the market expands with regulatory tailwinds, or in retirement for the next wave of pensioners as the UK ages. And I'll cover some of these in more detail later. So let's get into the numbers, which include the six-month contribution from DirectLine. As you can see, it's been a great year. Operating profit rose 25%. IFRS return on equity increased. And cash and capital generation are growing. We now have over 25 million customers and an opportunity to serve even more of their needs with over 7 million of those customers being multi-product holders. Operating EPS growth is well into the double digits and today we are announcing a final dividend of 26.2 pence per share up 10% year on year. and we are resuming the share buyback, now at a higher level of £350 million. Every business contributed to these results. In general insurance, premiums are up 18%. We are now approaching the sub-94 combined ratio ambition, and we are already achieving this in our UK business. In wealth, we are extending our number one position with over £230 billion of assets. And we are growing, with record net flows of almost £11 billion. In protection, we have improved margins and are nearing completion of the AIG protection integration programme. In health, we have grown in-force premiums by double digits, with a low 90s combined ratio. And in retirement, we have written £4.6 billion of bulk annuities at attractive returns, supported by real asset origination in Aviva Investors. Turning now to targets. As I've said, today's results mean that we have already delivered our 2026 targets. This is a fantastic achievement and I'm really proud of Aviva's performance. So I want to thank the whole Aviva team for their hard work. In November, we set new three-year targets across operating EPS, IFRS return on equity and cash remittances. These now include direct line and better reflect our trajectory as a diversified capital-light business. Charlotte will cover more details on the numbers shortly, but now I'd like to talk about Aviva's longer-term potential. This has been a journey where we have driven sustained growth served more customers and stepped up for shareholders year in and year out. And we continue to create longer term value with smart strategic M&A. Resulting in today where we are the UK's only diversified insurer with a clear strategy that is delivering results. Our focus is now on hitting the new targets, further accelerating beyond 75% capital light and realising the full benefit of direct line. But this is just the next step in our journey. There is more long-term potential beyond this three-year time horizon. Clearly, we are set up to capitalise on a range of opportunities across all our markets. But I'll prioritise three of these today. First, how we outperform right through the cycle in general insurance. Secondly, why we are uniquely positioned to lead in wealth. And thirdly, how we are using artificial intelligence to shape the future Aviva. And supporting all of this is one constant, our leading customer franchise and preeminent brand. So let's start with general insurance. This is, and always will be, a cyclical market. And after more than 325 years in the industry, We know how to navigate cycles. And we have been through disruption time and time again. DirectLine changed the industry by selling directly over the phone. Price comparison websites then reshaped the market. And now we have generative AI with autonomous vehicles to come. And through all of these changes, Aviva continues to deliver. bringing in fantastic people, launching innovative products like Aviva Zero, expanding distribution onto PCWs and through Lloyds, and so much more. And we have tripled profits over the last five years. The UK is the most competitive insurance market in the world, with high regulatory barriers to entry. And Aviva is the standout number one insurer here and the only player operating at scale across personal and commercial lines. We have always adapted and we will keep adapting. When we acquired DirectLine, we knew that market conditions would continue to evolve. And the same is true when we set our new group targets. But we also knew that Aviva has the scale, discipline, technical expertise, proprietary data, brand strength, and diversified group model to grow profitably. And there's plenty of room to grow. Unlocking value from direct line, expanding partnerships, scaling SME in Canada, building out our Lloyds presence, not to mention the opportunity with our 25 million customers. The market will keep changing. And that's exactly why we invest in innovation. We are ahead on EVs, telematics, automation and AI. And we'll stay ahead. So our portfolio is built to deliver performance for years and decades to come. Looking first at personal lines in the UK. Owen and the team have a track record of outperformance. delivering profitable growth through COVID, periods of high inflation and pricing practices, where many others struggled. And though the market is challenging today, we are still writing at target margins. It is not by chance that we have been able to do this. Our scale is unrivalled, with breadth of cost distribution and game-changing amounts of propriety data. We have the only wholly owned repair network in the UK, which saves us around £500 per repair. And we have huge potential with Berrett Line, not just with the cost synergies, but growth headroom with leading brands and new products such as PET, Green Flag Rescue and Micro SME. Turning now to commercial lines, where it's a similar story. We are successfully navigating tougher conditions. We have built up our pricing strengths and we are able to quote above the technical prices in our models. Putting margins first has always been our priority and that's why we have delivered consistent profits year after year. We have unique strengths to win in this market, so let me just highlight a few. We are a leader in SME and mid-market and these segments are more resilient. We have first class underwriting, with strength across motor fleet and liability, so we are very well positioned for any future shift with autonomous vehicles. And with access to Lloyds through Probitas, we can tap into a wide range of attractive lines, having launched eight since the acquisition. This now includes high net worth, which is complementary to our already leading proposition here. So across both commercial lines and personal lines, we are well set up for success today and in the future. Moving to wealth, which is a huge opportunity for us. There are £2.7 trillion worth of assets today growing at double digits and the market is set to surpass £4 trillion by 2030. This strong growth is underpinned by clear structural trends and regulatory tailwinds. At Aviva, we have leading workplace and advisor platform businesses. And we are leveraging advice capabilities in succession wealth and scaling fast in direct wealth. We have built a competitive edge that no one else can match. We have a leading customer franchise with a significant affluent opportunity. Our holistic offering and trusted brand means that we can support customers throughout their lifetime. We have always invested in our platform, which is ranked by de facto as the number one in the market. Our modern technology platform brings scale benefits. And of course, we have leading investment solutions with Aviva Investors. And the performance of our wealth business is testament to all of this. Since 2022, we have grown assets faster than the market. And we have improved margins at the same time. In workplace, our profit margin is up by almost two points over the last two years, which makes this business a key driver of growth and a major contributor to our profits. So, we are on track for our £218 million wealth profit ambition in 2027. And the importance of wealth within our portfolio is growing. It is fast approaching 10% of our group earnings. further increasing our share of attractive fee-based income. But the longer opportunity here is even more exciting. Take workplace. It is a highly attractive market, which has grown fourfold over the past decade. And with the constant flow of employer and employee contributions, it is expected to triple over the next decade. This growth is not only strong, but it is also very resilient. Aviva has an incredible track record here, and we're accelerating. The business is a genuine growth engine, with 1,500 scheme wins over the last three years and a near 100% retention. And we are very pleased to now be the sole administration partner for the Mercer Master Trust, expected to bring around £8 billion worth of assets over the next 12 to 18 months. The strength of our proposition is powered by leading Aviva investors' default funds. And we recently launched our My Future Vision Fund, which gives customers access to private markets and reinforces our commitment to the Mansion House Compact. So when you bring together our workplace direct wealth and advice businesses, you get a truly unique wealth offering. We're able to retain and serve customers from their very first job all the way through to their retirement. And we are tapping into four and a half million affluent customers who hold more than one trillion pounds worth of assets. We're also leveraging technology and innovation to deliver advice and guidance at scale. Targeted support is a huge opportunity for us. This is a new service that fits between guidance and full financial advice. and it will allow us to offer easy-to-access support to so many more people. Our first journey this year will focus on how people save for their pensions, launching around the middle of this year. And there's still so much more to share on the wealth business, so we will do a deeper dive at the next In Focus session, which will be in Q4 this year. Finally, turning to artificial intelligence. So we know that this is going to be transformation. And here at Aviva, we have a greater opportunity than most. For any opportunity that you have seen in the media, and there's been quite a few recently, there are key enablers that you actually need to drive the value. It is not enough to just have the technology. You need access to millions of customers. The ability to deploy and reuse at scale. Capacity to invest. And most importantly, proprietary customer and claims data. Aviva has all of these in spades. And our diversified model is more resilient for any disruption. This technology isn't new to us either. We have been using traditional AI capabilities for over a decade now. In fact, over 98% of retail business in UK personal lines is priced with machine learning. And we have been training over 150 machine learning models in claims with our own data for years. Generative AI and agentic are just the next steps on this journey. And because of our targeted investments in technology and talent, we already have many of the AI-ready foundations in place, so we are well positioned for this shift. We have built an in-house platform to deliver use cases at speed, and we are already seeing tangible benefits. We have halved the time taken to review each case in medical underwriting. And we have also reduced call wrap times by 20% for customer service agents in direct wealth, which we are now rolling out more broadly in IW&R. All of our colleagues have access to AI tools, and we continue to enhance and streamline all of our data. We are proud of what we've achieved so far, but we are aiming much higher and always balancing ambition, with pragmatism. Our focus now is on prioritising progressively bigger end-to-end opportunities where AI can transform areas like customer engagement and distribution, underwriting and claims, right through to back office operations. This is the kind of change that will shape Aviva's future. And some of this is closer than you think. So let me give you an example in UK general insurance claims. We have already saved nearly £100 million through our claims transformation, and Agentic has the potential to unlock much more. Over the next few months, we will be testing an AI-enabled claims agent, built in-house and launching later this year. This will enable us to handle simple claims from start to finish without human support. And the best part is that this is voice-enabled. Most claims begin on the phone, so this will be transformative for customers, delivering faster, clearer and more consistent outcomes. And finally, I'm delighted to announce our partnership with OpenAI, which is a really important step for us. Combining OpenAI's cutting-edge capabilities with our expertise and data will help us to deliver powerful AI solutions for our customers and our colleagues. So there's a lot more to come, and we'll share more with you at our half-year results in August. Now, I'll finish with what brings all of this together, Aviva's powerful, unique model. We have diversification and growth advantage, with market-leading positions and a majority capital-light portfolio. We have a customer advantage with almost 22 million UK customers and a leading brand. We have a scale, technology, and data advantage, including the opportunity that AI brings. All of this gives us real confidence for the future, over the next three years, and well beyond. And with that, I'm going to hand over to Charlotte, who's going to take you through the results in more detail.

Thanks, Amanda, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be here for another full year results presentation. 2025 was a strong year for Aviva, once again, as we continued our growth momentum. Operating profit was up 25% to £2.2 billion, which translated to an EPS of 56 pence and a return on equity of 17.5%. Cash remittances were up 4% to £2.1 billion, And this excludes the funding for direct line, which is supported separately. Solvency of 180% is at the top end of our working range, supported by £2.3 billion of Own Funds Generation, or OFG, the Solvency Measure of Operating Performance. In November, we said we were on track to meet our 2026 group targets a year early, and I'm pleased to confirm that we have achieved that. We exceeded our £2 billion operating profit target before the contribution from Direct Line. The group total of £2.2 billion is in line with November's guidance. And we comfortably achieved our OFG target a year early and are ahead of schedule on our cash remittance target. This demonstrates the grip we have on performance management. So given our excellent progress, we set new and ambitious three-year targets in November, reflecting the shape of our group today and our plans for the next three years. These targets allow better comparability with peers, align with our capital management framework and support our plans to grow in capital-like businesses. These targets are ambitious and achievable. They take into account the outlook for each business, including good visibility of where we are in the cycle. So we're targeting an 11% operating EPS CAGR from 2025 through to 2028. This reflects the operating earnings growth and share count reduction from regular and sustainable capital returns. So our 2025 EPS of 56 pence is ahead of the 55 pence baseline that we set in November, as the last few weeks of the year saw more benign weather than expected. Now we're not assuming this favourable weather repeats, so the 11% target is from the 55 pence baseline and builds to around 75 pence by 2028. really confident in our plans to drive progressive earnings across the group. And combined with shared buybacks, we're well placed to achieve this and our other group targets. So I'll now unpack the group results in a bit more detail, starting with general insurance, which was 56% of business unit operating profits. Top-line growth has been an impressive 14% over recent years, and margin has improved too, with the combined ratio better by 1.6 points. The investment return has grown in line with the portfolio, all of which together means operating profit has grown to almost £1.5 billion. In the UK and Ireland, premiums grew 27%. A large component of this was the addition of direct line, reported as part of UK personal lines where we saw 50% premium increase. Commercial lines premiums grew 7% as we build GCS, integrate Probitas and leverage the strength of our SME and mid-market propositions. The combined ratio in the UK for both commercial and personal lines is a strong 93.9%. This is a one-point improvement reflecting the earn-through of pricing and some favourable weather. In commercial lines, positive prior development was more than offset by elevated large losses in the current year. And including Ireland, core was 94.1%, reflecting the impact of Storm Owen back in Q1. Overall, operating profit for UK and Ireland grew 52% to over £1bn. In 2026, growth will benefit from a full year of premiums for a direct line. Now looking at the UK and Ireland business as a whole, we expect to deliver a 2026 combined ratio of better than 94%, subject of course to normal weather patterns. We come from a position of strength, with good rate adequacy and relative to the softer market, we have held rate. We leverage the strength of our brand, scale, pricing sophistication, proprietary data and diversification. And we have extensive experience in managing pricing cycles and disruption. So we're really well placed to navigate the current conditions. Premiums in Canada, up 2% in constant currency. The Canadian market is at a different stage in the pricing cycle compared to the UK. And so personal lines grew as we secured pricing increases across property and auto, maintaining strong retention. This was offset by some portfolio actions taking in commercial lines that I covered at the half year. And the undiscounted core was almost three points better. largely reflecting weather experience which was broadly in line with our budget compared with the elevated cat activity in 2024. There was improved large loss experience compared to 24 as well as pricing actions earning through. Investment income was marginally down but operating profit was up 49% to £408 million. And for 2026, we expect to deliver a combined ratio approaching 94% for Canada. The personal lines rating environment remains supportive, with further pricing increases expected. In commercial lines, though, the dynamics are similar to the UK, with softer conditions that vary line by line. So across the portfolio, we will navigate the cycle with discipline. Now moving to insurance, wealth and retirement and starting with the insurance businesses, health and protection. Demand for health has been affected by cost of living pressures for consumers and small businesses reprioritising spend to absorb the national insurance changes. Despite this, in-force premiums were up 12% and we maintained a low 90s core. Operating profit was up 9% as the business grows in line with our ambition. Now, as expected and in line with the first nine months, protection sales were lower following the consolidation of AIG and Aviva propositions back in August 2024. Margins have improved by 90 basis points as we repriced the business. And all of this is in line with our integration plans. Operating profit was up 97% as we had some adverse assumption changes back in 2024. And in 25, we recognised a one-time integration benefit following the legal transfer of business acquired from AIG. Now moving to wealth. Workplace net flows were up 6% as member contributions grew and we onboarded new schemes. The resilience of this business is demonstrated by the impressive £1 billion of regular monthly contributions. Our advisor platform performed strongly with flows up 11% despite elevated outflows around the time of the UK budget. And in our direct business, the customer base grew by almost a third to over 100,000. And we're continuing to invest in developing the proposition. Wealth operating profit was up 36%, with operating margin improving by 1.1 basis points as the business grows and leverages the cost base. Operating profit as a portion of revenue is 23%, up four points. And as Amanda mentioned, we are on track to meet our near-term ambitions. And beyond that, the opportunity is even more exciting for the group's long-term growth. We have a strong brand, proposition and scale from which to build. So we anticipate further improvements in operating margin and profit progression. In retirement, we wrote a more typical £4.6 billion of BPA following an elevated 2024. Importantly, Avriva Investors originated £3.5 billion of real assets to support the business. Now this is an increasingly competitive market and our team has continued to trade well and with discipline. We achieved a mid-teens IRR well above our low-teens guidance and the business has been written at relatively low strain. Individual annuity sales up 19% to £1.6 billion, our highest level since 2015 pension reforms, supported by a new product launch. Operating profit was 5% lower as higher releases from the contractual service margin were offset by a lower investment result. We expect to remain active this year in retirement and will be disciplined in the competitive environment. Now turning to cost and efficiency. The ratios are broadly stable despite the temporary uplift effects from acquisitions and new partnerships. Across the group, we continue to invest in exciting growth and productivity initiatives, including the use of AI and in automation. And we expect this investment to drive efficiencies in each of our businesses. It will improve operating leverage and unlock significant long-term value from our extensive customer base and proprietary data. Now, the application of our consistent capital allocation framework is a critical part of what we do to optimise our diversified group. And this slide summarises how we think about performance and financial strength and what that means for uses of capital. We continue to build sustainable growth in earnings and cash and work to maintain our balance sheet strength. We grow the regular dividends, we invest in the business for growth and efficiency, and we return capital to shareholders. Nothing here is new, but it's important that you see we do this really well. And as an example of the framework in action, I'll pause for a moment on solvency. One of the advantages of the model we have built is proactive balance sheet management. A year ago, our cover ratio was 203% as we prepared to complete the direct line transaction. This used 31 points of capital ahead of the realisation of the capital synergies. We've delivered elevated management actions of 11 points and accelerated 3 points of direct line synergies by temporarily moving the business to standard formula. This has supported building solvency back up to 180%. The underlying capital generation of 16 points includes a couple of points of favourable one-offs, including positive weather and reinsurance pricing impacts, which we can't assume will repeat. But we do expect to unlock the remainder of the direct line synergies. Specifically, we're on track to deliver at least £350 million or seven points of solvency around the end of this year. And looking forward, we expect a progressive build of operating capital generation of around 20 points in 2027. This assumes normal levels of management actions of around 200 points. And depending on whether these impact own funds or SCR or both, this translates to between two and four points of solvency. This level of capital generation will continue to grow and provides headroom in excess of the annual dividend and regular buyback. Now moving to a few words on DirectLine. The integration continues to progress well and at speed. We have successfully implemented our pricing models into DirectLine with an improvement in written cause in the fourth quarter. We've made excellent progress on the DirectLine branded PCW sales, doubling the number of policies in Q3 and almost doubling them again in Q4. We've transferred £2.9 billion of assets to Aviva Investors with more to come. And we've made good progress rationalising two office locations and three motor repair sites. We're progressing on removing duplicate roles and have an incredibly strong leadership team in place with a proven track record. All of this is enabling us to deliver material financial benefits. So in November, you'll remember, we uplifted our cost savings ambition to £225 million and confirmed Direct Line's own cost programme of £100 million had been achieved. We have delivered the first £50 million of cost savings in the second half of 2025. This will fully earn through in 26 and contributed around £10 million to operating profit in 2025. We expect to deliver the remaining £175 million of savings fairly evenly over the next three years. And we're also investing around £50 million to unlock claims cost benefits of at least £50 million each year. And all the work on the acquisition balance sheet has now been completed. Now I'll briefly cover the delivery of our commitments on dividends. Today we've announced the final dividend of 26.2 pence, giving a total dividend of 39.3 pence, a 10% increase on 2024. This includes the regular dividend growth plus the 5% uplift we promised following the acquisition of DirectLine. We've also resumed the buyback, launching a new £350 million programme, increased to reflect the higher share count. And as we go forward, our consistent dividend policy of mid-single-digit increases in the cash cost of the dividends builds from this higher point. And combined with the resumption of the regular buyback, this will deliver a higher progressive DPS development. So to summarise, 2025 was another great year for Aviva and the outlook for 26 and beyond is positive. Our diversified business model and the addition of DirectLine leaves us well placed to continue our track record of growth and earnings momentum. We will continue to invest in data, customer engagement and operating efficiency, ensuring we keep winning in an ever-changing world. And of course, we will maintain a firm grip on performance management across the group. All of this gives us great confidence in delivering the ambitious targets we have set and the future beyond that timeframe. And with that, I'll hand back to Amanda.

Okay, thanks, Charlotte. So before we move to Q&A, let me conclude with the key points. We have real momentum and we are building on it every single year. 2025 extends our track record of strong, profitable growth. We have already delivered another set of targets. And we are driving towards the raised ambitions that we have set for our next chapter. Aviva is in a stronger position than ever. And this isn't just a strong position for the next few years. Aviva is uniquely placed for longer-term success. Here is why. We are the UK's national champion and the only diversified insurer. We are accelerating capital life and unlocking higher returns. We have an outstanding customer franchise of more than 25 million customers globally. We are the UK's most trusted insurance brand. We have proprietary data at scale, driving better pricing, better risk selection, and better customer outcomes. And all of this fuels our superior returns for shareholders, with strong and sustainable earnings growth, an attractive dividend, and regular share buyback. So these strengths and many more give me deep confidence that we will unlock the full potential of Aviva in the years ahead. So thank you for listening. Let's move to your questions.

Thank you. And as usual, if you just raise a hand and give us a moment to get a microphone to you. We'll start at the front here with Andrew Baker.

Hi, I'm Sandra Baker, Goldman Sachs. Thank you for taking my questions. First one, I guess on your 26 combined ratio guidance, if I look UK and Ireland, I think the underlying is about 96.7 in 2025, which is quite a jump to get to less than 94. So can you just help us with the bridge there? And then similarly on Canada, how do you get from sort of the 96.5 underlying to approaching the 94 that you've highlighted? And then secondly, I can see you added a slide in the appendix giving a bit more detail on autonomous vehicles. Are you able just to give us sort of your view on maybe the timing here, opportunities, threats, and I guess ultimately how you think Aviva is positioned to win in this market? Thank you.

Shall I take the first one? Yes, I'll take the first one. Thanks, Andrew. So, look, I'll start by saying we were very pleased with the core of 94.6 for the group. And, you know, underlying core has increased across the group from 1.4 to 96.7. But I'm very comfortable with the position, so let me try and explain. So, in Canada... We've seen about 0.7% of improvement in the underlying as we've seen price increases earn through and we've seen auto theft trends improve. And we see having put around 10% through in personal lines and those trends continuing, we can see the continued trend towards the sort of approaching 94. We took those portfolio actions in the commercial book. So again, some of that profitability will improve as a result of that. Already coming through in the second half, but you'll get a full year effect of that. In the UK, yeah, the underlying core I've got is 96.3. But in there, you've got some elevated commercial lines, large loss experience, which was kind of in the second half. So just as I won't assume weather is better than long-term averages and I don't assume prior year development coming through, I also assume that large losses will be at a kind of regular loss-loaded level. And when you look at the nature of the large losses, they were idiosyncratic in nature, so they were good underwriting decisions, just a bit of bad luck. So, again, I wouldn't assume they repeat. Now, they were about 1.7 points higher than the long-term averages or the loadings that we set. So if I take that off the 96.3, you can see that's already quite a lot of an improvement. Then I've got direct line coming in in the second half. It's still not at the performance level we would want it to be. So it's got a negative impact in the second half. But as we see that earning through and we see more of the cost synergies come through, then again, that will drive a lot of the improvement. So we have the plans and we've got the good line of sight to the guidance we've given.

On autonomous vehicles, so yeah, we did put the slides in the deck because we sort of thought that there might be one or two questions on it. There's obviously been a lot of media activity on this in the last couple of weeks. But you've also, you've seen sort of two extremes of that, really. You know, this is going to, you know, everything's a doomsday scenario to the sort of major manufacturers coming out only last week and saying that they've abandoned their level three driving system plans. So I think that we've got to just manage some of the noise that sits around the topic. Now, on saying that, you know, we do recognise that this will bring a change in the market. And just the same as, you know, I think, you know, we've adapted to hybrid vehicles, to electric vehicles, price and sophistication, now generative AI. You know, I think we sort of feel very ready for this. Our view is we've looked at the WEF analysis and the BCG analysis, And, you know, we would concur that the widespread adoption is not expected until the 2040s. And even then, I think, you know, if you think about the upgrading of the car park globally is going to cost trillions of dollars. I mean, I don't think we should just underestimate even that, that an average car price today versus what it costs to have a fully autonomous vehicle. You know, you're talking about tens of thousands of costs difference. So I think you sort of have to balance that. But when it comes to it, who's going to win in this autonomous vehicle world? Well, I think, first of all, this is the most competitive market in the world, as I said in the presentation. So I would bank on the UK being able to deal with this. We've got a deep, as Aviva, we have deep understanding of vehicle technology. So we are the number one insurer for EVs today. We have our own repair network. So the feedback loop in terms of that repair is going to be important. We've got, you know, we're one of three telematics players in the market. We've got about 3 billion miles of telematics data since that product was first offered. By the 2040s, you can imagine we're going to have a lot more data. So, you know, all of that data will matter. But I think ultimately, you're never going to have this as being a... pure commercial lines product because at some point the vehicle may get stolen and I don't think that the vehicle manufacturer is going to take responsibility for that. There will be times when the vehicle is being driven in difficult driving conditions on country roads where it's not going to be fully autonomous and so what you're going to need is this balance between personal lines and commercial lines and I would put Aviva out there to be able to deal with that. It's probably the only player in the UK today that actually can. So, you know, I think we have to be We have to be circumspect about it, we have to recognise that the market will change, but I think genuinely we are thinking it's a good way off. But we thought we'd put the slide in because we thought you may be interested.

If we come to Farouk.

Hi, thank you very much. Just one numbers question and one non-numbers question. So on the numbers, I noticed your investment income in general insurance was up quite a lot, certainly compared to what I expected. Is that a sustainable level, and will the margin with the unwinding of the discount as well, can we expect that to sort of be a sustainable level that might grow from here? And then secondly, going back to AI, I mean, there's also been a lot of – kind of wild scenarios about how wealth will be affected by AI and how distribution will be killed and margins will disappear and lots of doomsday stuff on that too. So what are your thoughts on wealth, particularly around targeted advice and how you could use Gen-I to your advantage? Thank you.

Yeah, so I think nothing particularly to call out on the investment income. It is obviously affected by having the direct line portfolio, but the rates that we were earning is pretty consistent. So LTR is a percentage of average assets aligned to the prior at 4.2. So nothing on toward or nothing particularly to call out in the investment income. So no.

Okay, so on AI, well specifically, but I think more broadly, if we think about the investment that needs to go into AI and how you will reuse that across the business, I think if you think about Aviva, if you think just even on claim summarisation, we've taken things for motor, that we will apply to home, to travel, to health, to protection, to various other areas. So if you think about the investment spread across the business, we feel that we're in a good position to be able to get more maximum use and maybe keep more of the benefits of that and not pass all of that on in a competitive environment. On wealth specifically, if you think about this new term of the moat, which is obviously new to all of us, the AI moat, what is Aviva's AI moat? And I would say that one of the biggest moats that we have is our workplace pension business. Why is that the case? Because it is basically connected to employer, employee, and provider. And effectively, with 4.5 million workplace pension customers, With the data that we have on those customers, we know what they are saving. And the ability for us to be able to use AI and all the other data that we may have on them from things like motor, home, and everything else, to be able to provide a more personalized proposition via targeted support or simplified advice. or going right through to sort of the full fat advice, I think that we're in a really good position to be able to capitalize on that. So I think we've seen disintermediation in many places before. Take price comparison websites. I mean, that massively transformed the motor market and disintermediated to almost a whole extent where today 95% of quotes come that way. As a mass affluent player, we're in a perfect position to be able to manage that, any potential disintermediation. But I still believe that advice will be there. I just think that the advisors will be given better information, more support, and they'll spend more of their time with the customers, where the customers want that face-to-face advice. But I think for those many people, 91% of the population today that don't take advice, AI will facilitate the ability to be able to do that and mean that they will get better guidance. And, you know, you've got 12.5 million people in the UK today that do not save enough for their retirement. I think it gives a real opportunity to be able to do that. So I would say we're bordering on the sort of excited end of the scale in terms of the opportunity that that provides Aviva.

Marissa?

Thank you. Larissa van Deventer from Barclays. Three quick ones on my side. The first one, Justin, Canadian commercial. Is the culling now done, or should we expect some of that to linger into 2026? On the life value of new business, if you could please give us a little bit more colour on what drove the decline and how we should think about margin evolution going forward, basically was to separate the one source from any structural change that you may see. And the last one on workplace. You've been very positive on this for some time. What needs to happen for you to meet your targets? And specifically on that, how do you see margin or potential margin compression in that space? Thank you.

Okay, so I'll pick up one and three and then hand over to Charlotte on the margins bit of three. So on the Canadian portfolio remediation, yes, that is largely done. And I think if we think about Canada, we really see a big opportunity there to improve the performance of the Canadian business. I think there's... There's a number of areas, a push out in terms of SME, a move more from Ontario as well as into Quebec. We're not largely represented in Quebec today. We've got big partnerships with Loblaw and RBC, which we will be capitalizing on. And so I think the Canadian business has made some really strong improvements. that they will continue to build on over the coming period. And that's why Charlotte was able to give the guidance that she wanted to there. On the life BMP, Charlotte, and then hand back on workplace.

Yeah, so I suppose there's a couple of things. In general, there's an element coming down because of the retirement levels, the BPA volumes being less. Then we've got a slightly strange effect coming through in wealth in the fourth quarter and that's allowing for some assumption changes which are relevant for the whole year but they come through in the fourth quarter. So there's a little bit on retirement margin and a little bit on wealth. But I would encourage you on wealth to always look at the flows and the operating margin and how we're improving the operating leverage there and therefore the opportunities on the profitability. The VMB metric isn't that applicable, but we give it so that you can see the overall IWR level.

I mean, on workplace, so what gives me the confidence here? Well, I think the progress that has been made, even if you've got to look at the progress towards the 280 million ambition, and that is primarily driven by the contribution from the advisor platform and the workplace business. So workplace AUM is at 19% to 153 billion, so strong new business and growing member contributions. Net flows of 7 billion, so that's 6% of AUM. We're getting regular billion pounds member contributions every month. We talked about the new scheme wins, the win rate of 75%, which I think is pretty impressive. And so we've got a very positive outlook on workplace. And we announced the new deal this morning with the Mercer transfer, that's 8 billion being transferred in over the next 12 to 18 months. So I think the team are doing exceptionally well here. On the margins, Charlotte, do you just want to comment on workplace margins?

Sorry, yes. On workplace margins, we have shown the improvement in the operating margin. So if I look at it at the overall wealth level, it's gone from about 7 to 8.1. If I look at workplace, which is not then so much diluted by some of the investment that we're spending, it's improved from about 10.7 to 11.5. So all the pressure that you constantly always expect of the revenue margin level, which, you know, continues to be there, we're compensating by the scale that we have, the operating leverage that that drives, and that keeps going forward. And so we also gave you a stat on sort of the expense margin as well, which is sort of like the inverse of a cost-income ratio. And again, you know, that's showing an improvement to 25% now for the whole wealth business sector. So I think we've got to keep on it. We've got to make sure that we're protecting as much of the revenue margin as we can. And we do that through being competitive. We have to be competitive. But then there's a lot of incremental contributions into workplace that sometimes attract a slightly higher margin per item. So we have to keep mind on that. But the real driver is making sure that the operating leverage continues to build.

Andrew?

Hello, Andrew Queen, Autonomous. Could you talk a little bit about... direct lines premiums and your attentions there, is that working out the way you planned as you renew business? Secondly, I noticed the CSM, the net flow, value net flow is negative to the tune of about 2%. Is that something which you think will continue in the long term, i.e. that your releases will be more than your expected return and new business? And then can you talk about UK retail pricing, what's happening in the market in terms of rates and how you see rates going over this year?

Okay. Shall I pick out pricing first? Yeah. So we're not going to break down the individual brands, Andrew, in terms of policy count or retentions because... you know we don't do that for quote me happy for aviva zero and everything else but but what i would say is that i think we are incredibly pleased with with the the direct line deal it actually one of the real strengths in the direct line portfolio is that this is the retention and their ability to retain and you know we were with some of the teams um earlier this week where they their marketing team particularly was commenting on the strength of the talent within the team around retention. So we feel very good that the team is set up to do that. On the pricing of the portfolio, on motor, which I assume is sort of where you're heading, so what do we think about this? So we always give you the numbers, so bear with me just a second. So if we think about our performance in 2025 on personal life, I think the Pearson HAM data was showing rate down minus 11. On home, we were sort of broadly flat, I think, on new business, and we were up about 8 on home. on rate for home. So I think that shows really good discipline and I think what it shows is us using our different distribution channels effectively. Obviously we've got the nationwide deal which has come in for travel and home and that will build over the course of this year. In terms of what we see going forward, I think obviously we see inflation in the sort of mid single digits. Charlotte talked about us guiding to an overall 94, so that will give you confidence hopefully that we will be disciplined and we do see that the rates are starting to flatten out and I think the competitors are saying the same thing. You saw the ABI data come through just a few weeks before. So, you know, we believe that, you know, it is time to start increasing the rates and we will be very disciplined about how we do that in what is obviously still a competitive market.

Then on the CSM, if I look at excluding heritage, it's pretty stable at just under six and a half billion. Obviously, with a lower volume of BPAs, you've got a smaller amount of that new business CSM going in. Then my interest accretion, you know, that's a little bit higher because we had the higher opening CSM and, you know, cause of the business written back in 2024. And that was written at higher rates than the portfolio average. So that's kind of driving that. Then, you know, experience variances were broadly neutral, whereas the previous year they'd been a bit positive. And assumption changes are relatively minimal across the both. So when I look at the release, it's a bit higher because my starting point is higher. Now, if I put Heritage back in there, because that's got no new business and is only coming out, then there's a bit, the reduction is down to 7.7 from the 7.768, so it's pretty marginal. When I look at the percentage, the release is 10.3%. Again, that's slightly higher than the previous year, which was 10.1%. But that sort of level is expected to repeat. But again, it will depend a little bit on mix and volumes of new business written. But I think, you know, it's always important to remember this is the capital intense part of the portfolio and it's throwing off cash that we're investing in wealth and health and, you know, obviously protection is within the CSM. But it's stable to level and obviously will be impacted by how much annuity business we write in every year. But again, you know, it's only part of the picture for IWR.

Good to Dom.

Dom O'Mahony, BNP Paribas. Three questions, if that's all right. Just one clarification on the Mercer flow piece. If I've understood that correctly, is that just straight $8 billion to the flows, sort of over and above what you would get normally? Maybe if you could just expand on that, that sounds very helpful. Second question, just to come back on the investment income issue, I think opening yields presumably are lower than 12 months ago. Could you just speak to whether that's actually right for your portfolio, but also whether that's a headwind to investment income across different business lines and or discounting and or whether there's anything you could do to offset that? And then the third question, just on the capital generation, so OCG underlying, much stronger than I was expecting. In particular, the SCR growth is interesting because I think it was ever so slightly negative in the second half as in a release. Is that the reinsurance change that you referred to, Charlotte? I wonder if you might just expand on why the SCR dynamic within the OCG is so benign.

So I'll answer the first one, which is a very straightforward yes. And then I leave Charlotte to answer the two difficult ones.

So just repeat your OCG question again. It's obviously strong, strong underlying and strong management actions.

The SCR, which underlying 36 million headwind in the full year, I think it's about 20 million better than it was in the half year, which implies an underlying release of SCR, but a small one. I did this maths on the tube, so I might have got it wrong. But I assume that the reinsurance piece that you spoke to earlier is an SCR release in the underlying. That's correct. Just wondering how big that is, whether there's anything else explaining the very good print there.

So within the underlying – so management actions tend to apply only to really the IWR world, and then we have a little bit in international. So anything that's sort of not run-of-the-mill in the GI businesses still sits in underlying. So, yes, there's some approaching a point coming through in the OCG from – the reinsurance. There's a little bit of an additional benefit coming through from weather. Then we... What else have we got? Yeah, that's the main thing. Then obviously we've got the three points coming through from direct line, moving that to standard formula in the short term. We talk about in the IWR side, we talk about moving the credit model, getting an improvement on the way we model credit risk. That's predominantly a benefit in IWR, but there actually is a little bit of a benefit coming across the other areas as well. So that's also impacting the SCR as well.

Just a second. Sorry, just to clarify, the direct line model change, that's going through the underlying, not through the other?

Yeah, that's right. Okay, understood. Thank you.

That's very clear.

And then what was your question? Your other question was on investment income again. I mean, there's really not a particular headwind. It's a very consistent portfolio. We've got the bigger size and scale because the book is bigger. Then we've added a direct line, the mix of assets. is similar we've moved the assets across to direct line that's a helpful thing from an investment income perspective as well as fees for Aviva investors and then again nothing nothing much there's a bit of a mixed point I suppose and overall it's a little bit helpful for discounting but nothing really major to call out

Good morning, Manip Jagpal, RBC Capital Markets. Two questions for me please, both on life. Firstly, given the fixed income market conditions, how have you invested your annuity premiums you received in 2025 versus your target allocation and does the current allocation create an opportunity for more management actions or margin enhancement in the future? And then on the retirement IFRS earnings in the appendix on slide 56, it looks like experience variances, the line there was quite negative for both operating profit and CSM. Could you provide some colour of what drove that negative line? Is there anything to call out here in terms of changing trends in longevity and mortality in the UK post the COVID period?

Right. So the first question was on the mix of assets supporting the retirement business. I mean, in general, we've continued to keep a low reliance on corporate bonds in the low spread environment. So that's meant that we've largely written at a relatively low capital spray. And when I look at the mix between liquids and illiquids, it's still kind of around the target mix that we have, which is a little over 50% in the illiquids. So we've kind of achieved that. The three and a half billion of real assets gathered by AI have contributed to that. Obviously, that would be more than 50%. So some of that is then actually in a warehouse ready for deals that we do this year. And a portion of that has been an element of back book activity as well. So that's roughly the mix there. And we constantly look at what rebalancing we can do for the back book as part of the overall ALM. And the spreads, as I say, in corporate bonds has meant that we haven't allocated as much there. So we've still got a higher allocation of gilts. On your second question, which was retirement IFRS 17, let me... I might. Yeah. So, look, I think what we've got in retirement is historically we've ended up with a little bit of new business, which is slightly unintuitive for the retirement business, because normally when you write retirement business, it all goes into the CSM. But in the last few years, We've ended up with a bit of benefit, and that's because the way it's allocated to the CSM is based on the target asset mix at the time and the pricing thereof. If by the time you actually transact, it's slightly different, then that will drive a new business line. So this year, we haven't got that repeating. which is more likely what you would expect from IFRS 17, but in the past we've ended up with a little bit of new business coming through. In terms of assumption changes, I mean, they were honestly relatively benign, and then you've kind of got experience variance effects. We had more coming out of the CSM because we started with a bigger position, And then the investment return was a little bit lower, and that is because we used a one-year rate to derive the expected return, and we saw a slightly bigger discount unwind than that from the higher opening CSM. So, you know, I mean, there's a few mixed pieces going up and down, but overall, you know, that is a function of AFRA 17.

Tom?

Oh, longevity. What was your question on longevity? Any changes? Any trends? So on longevity, what I would say there is we have moved to the latest tables. We have reflected, essentially, CMI 24. Moving from CMI 23 to 24 hasn't led to a big release or anything. We continue to apply a zero weighting to 22 and 23. And that's instead of that, we apply a sort of temporary uplift for the mortality rates in the post pandemic drivers. So things like the COVID and the NHS pressures. As we kind of look forward, we retain, and we assume that will run off over a 10-year period, but we keep that under review. We then retain our long-term improvement rates, so we assume that that continues to improve, so longevity still continues to improve. but that tapers sort of once people are in the 85 plus age bracket. We generally have greater mortality improvements than we see in the general population. That's a function of our portfolio. And so we are assuming greater mortality improvements than the population more generally. And that will include, but not exclusively, factors such as weight loss, drugs, and other sort of improvements in medical experience. So we are still having an assumption that longevity is improving.

Tom.

Hi, good morning. Thomas Bateman from Media Banker. Just a question on wealth. It's a bit of a fluffy question, but obviously the 280 million guidance for I think it's 2027 is really good in wealth. Quite a big jump from where we are. Could you just break us down? I think it's investment spend, but there's quite a big jump there. Is it just that? And more generally, when you talk about wealth, it always seems so fantastic. The win rate is really good. So how are you tracking versus that longer term 500 million guidance? I think it was 2030 or something. The second question, again on AI. I hear everything else you're saying on the group impact, but you haven't talked much about cost impact on AI. Is that something that we could expect to hear more from you in the long term in terms of cost savings? And third question, just very quickly on the new lines of business at Probitas. What's the contribution from that?

Okay. I can pick up one and three and Charlotte will pick up two. So on wealth, on the 280 million. So I think if we sort of go back to the in-focus session that Doug did two years ago now, we talked then about the fact that getting to the 280 million would be primarily driven by the two big lines of business, which is the workplace business. and the advisor platform, and that we would be investing in the direct wealth over the course. The biggest investment was in 2024. Then there was more investment in 2025, and then that will drop out or become more normalized. I wouldn't say drop out because you're always going to be investing in the business as we move forward. So that's why we have... So there is an investment drag, yes, and obviously we've had some success in direct wealth. We've now got 100,000 customers. We've built a platform. We've put proposition onto that platform. And so we see some real traction in that business. But I think we've always said that the benefit from direct wealth comes after this 280 million ambition. Are we confident about the continued growth of wealth post the 280 million? Absolutely. Because we can see that the workplace engine continues to grow. I mean, I feel like I'm sort of boring you to death on this, but it is quite important. Workplace contributions are today, that market is 760 billion. It will be 1.3 trillion by 2030. And I'm going to make a number of it's like 2 trillion by 2035 or something like that. And I'm looking to the team to not to say that that is the right number. So as we have a close on 25 percent market share there, you know, and we're retaining a high level. And, you know, you've seen the benefits of the operating margin improvements we've invested in. the technology platform doug talked about that when he presented so we're on modern technology we were sort of built for this business to just keep growing and growing efficiently and then you've got some of the tailwinds coming from the regulatory environment so yeah i'm super positive because it's a growing market we are really good at it we've got the the sort of ai opportunity and four and a half million um current members and we've just and we're winning schemes like the mercer scheme so you know i feel i feel very good about that um In terms of, what was the second question?

The second question was the AI and cost benefits, etc. I mean, I think it's very hard to put a specific cost benefit on this yet. Obviously, when we are thinking about it and what's already embedded in our numbers... So I think on one of my slides I talked about as an annual BAU spending on growth efficiency and customer change initiatives, we have about 450 million. That's embedded in the business plans for the markets and the functions, and it's separate to the INR spend that we have and regulatory-driven stuff. But it's a wide range of investment in our business. And that's a recurring amount that's been going on for a number of years. And as part of the planning cycle, we work through how we're going to spend that money. And some of the projects are multi-year. But you've heard us talk about things like the development of the app, the single source of the customer data, the work on direct wealth. That is all... Some of it is automation, some of it is AI. You've heard us talk about claim summarization, which takes a whole time down by 50%. You've heard us talk about the large language models that we're developing that enables protection underwriting to be done with automated reading of many doctor's notes. So all of that is driving productivity. And each time we spend money on those initiatives, there's a business case that's put forward that has benefits. And that's how we allocate all of the change money across the group. So this is no different. And so to the extent that we've got those activities in flight and they're driving benefits to the business, they are part of the improvements that will drive us to those EPS targets. That's real and that's built into all our numbers. As we start talking about some of the more advanced things that are still at an early stage, such as the Gen AI agents or the Gentic agents, and where they will drive benefit. They're probably benefits beyond the planned time horizon, so they're not so incorporated in the targets that we have. But they are partly funded, and as the business cases build, we will start to think through how much of that annual budget is allocated in that direction. So I think it's very dynamic. But what I'm trying to say is, yes, where it's real and tangible and we can put our arms around it, it's both funded and it's included in the benefits that are in the numbers that you can see. Where it's more early stage and it's likely to leave benefits longer term, then it's outside of the target range. But people have talked around, you know, 15% to 20% of savings. And you can sort of begin to imagine how that might come. Now, some of that will be in the work we do with outsources and because a lot of the work that we have with outsources is the real mechanical stuff that we would look to automate and drive savings there. So some of it will come in the way we deal with those third parties as well. So it's a multiple range of things. What I'm trying to do is give you assurance that it's normal course for us to be investing, have business cases, reflect those in the numbers and deliver.

And on Probitas, so obviously we are benefiting from the greater access to markets with the eight lines of business. So, you know, illustratively for 2025, we wrote about £73 million worth of new business that neither Probitas on their own or Aviva as GCS would have written previously. So I think we are showing progress. But here I would say, again, it's about discipline in the current market environment. We've got those lines of business. We're not just going to write for the sake of top line. We will write profitable business.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, thank you. Naseeb Ahmed from UBS. So firstly on capital management, I think pro forma you're at 187 plus on the solvency. You're above the holding company cash of a billion. And Charlotte, you were saying you're generating solvency above the dividend and the share buyback. And similarly on the cash remittances, if I roll that forward, you're generating more cash than you need. What is the binding constraint on distributable cash? Is it leverage where you're kind of around 30%? Secondly, on bulk annuities, it seems like the second half last year was very competitive. and probably getting more competitive with the transactions that are probably going to close this year. Why are you still in this market, given your focus on capital light? And then thirdly, on PYD, first half versus second half, it seems like you've done some reserves strengthening in the second half, both in Canada and UK. If you can talk a little bit about that.

Okay, I'll let Charlotte do one, I'll do two, and she can do three.

Yeah, so look, I think... Just trying to think how best to answer your question. I mean, look, we are talking around, we're at 180, now I'm struggling with your number, 187, what are you?

With direct line coming through at seven points.

Oh, I see. Okay, so the way I think you need to think about it is we gave guidance for 27 of 20 points. I am going to get to your question, but let me just set the scene how I see it. So for 2027, I'm giving guidance of 20 points. And that comes from the sort of 12 that we've had in the past, which is kind of like the one a month of regular underlying OCG, plus about three points coming from direct lines. So we had about a point and a half. This is just the regular performance of direct lines. We had about a point and a half in the latter part of the second half of the year. So if I take the 12 plus the 3 that's coming from direct line, then I think of the business improvements. I'm getting to an underlying of about 17 points. And management actions on a recurring basis will be about 3. That gets me to the 20. So that's kind of 27. That's looking beyond when the direct line synergy benefits come through. So at that point, dividends will probably be about 14 points and buybacks is about four. So 20 versus 18 just kind of gives me the couple of points of headroom. 26 is a complicated year because you've kind of got, you know, a higher SCR going into the year. I would definitely expect that the underlying dividend generation will continue to improve but we will be focusing hugely on getting the seven points of synergy coming out of direct line and then that will then drive the SCR down. But obviously all the time there's new business growth which is driving the SCR up so each year the same number of points is leading. The near term, you know, we've got dividends and buybacks to come out. So my 180 will go down. I've also got a bit of solvency, a few debt instruments that... previously grandfathered instruments that stop it. So I've got some drags on capital coming from that. So I'm not sure I would give the pro forma, and I really don't want to give guidance to 26 because it's quite a complicated year. But the 20 points looking through that to 27 is, I think, important for modelling. And it is a step up from 25 when you think of, you know, obviously we had extremely high levels of management actions, but that aside, it is a step up on that.

Well, on both. So first of all, I think your question was, well, why do we do it? Well, we're actually quite good at it. So, you know, we've been doing it for a very long time. We are delivering results that are sort of mid-teens IRRs. So I think that's a pretty good return. is a significant contributor to the cash and the dividend payment of the group and what we've always said is that the role of Belks is to sort of stay like this whilst the capital light businesses go like this but we've never said that Belks don't play an important role so we've got you know we're confident in the business we've written 4.6 billion of business across 86 deals Yes, it's competitive, but our IRRs are attractive. We've got a really strong proposition called clarity, which is the smaller deals, which we've launched over the last couple of years. We've got a very experienced team, and yes, there are new competitors in the market, but what you have to do when that happens is you have to sit back, you have to make sure that you are disciplined, and you allow them to do what they will do. It's not easy in this market, from a regulatory perspective, making sure that you are disciplined, to do this well. So we will watch how that plays out. But we would still say that our 15 to 20 billion sort of guidance for 2025 to 2027 is there. The other thing I would say is that on individual annuities, which is part of this business, you know, the sales are up 19%. In our guided retirement proposition, which has got, you know, how do people draw down, how do they retire, that individual annuity plays a really important role as there's equity release. So I think you have to look at the combination effect of bulks of individual annuities of equity release. And I think that, yes, it will be competitive, and we will maintain discipline. I've said that about every line of business, and I think that's going to be the way that we will play this. We've got a scale position today, and we will make sure that we manage this business for profit. And that's mine and Charlotte's role, and the team are all completely aligned with that.

So PYD, first half, second half, reserving, I mean, we definitely had a positive impact on core from PYD, that's in the disclosures, and it was kind of actually across all the markets. I'm not going to go into the detail of reserving, but we had some larger losses, as I've talked about before. We will reserve adequately for those. As we've looked through, again, best estimate reserving across the place, but there have been some areas that we've strengthened reserves here and there, but nothing major to call out.

I'm aware others are reporting this morning, so we'll take one last question from William Hawkins at the back, and then we'll take the other questions offline afterwards.

Thank you. William from KBW. Hopefully I'll be quick for the others. First of all, thank you for providing more financial information in Excel format. I know it's a really small point, but it is really helpful. Thank you. Two questions. It feels like ancient history, but can you just go back to the life insurance stress test and just tell us, did you learn anything that you thought was commercially helpful for your business or your understanding of the market? And then secondly, a lot of talk today about the 94% combined ratio for 2026. What's your feeling about the long term sustainability of underwriting margins? Is this a ratio that can keep improving because of the great stuff of AI and how you can keep growing the business because you've got amazing diversification? Or is this still a cyclical business? And so at some point, combined ratios have to be poorer. I'm not clear about the long term view on that. Thank you.

Should I say the life stress test? So look, I think the life stress test was, as you say, somewhat ancient history at this stage, but it was back in November, December when it was reported. I think it provided some helpful reassurance that the sector is well capitalised and can deal with reasonably severe stresses. And, you know, but it was done entity level, so it wasn't kind of group level. But nonetheless, the individual and the collective disclosure and the confirmation from the PRA that the framework is working well and they see the sector as resilient, I think was a net positive to come out of. what was a lot of hard work. But I don't think anything specific. And partly because, more specific than that, partly because we do a lot of stress and scenario tests anyway. We work through that. And for us, it is important how the group behaves overall. So neutral to helpful, I suppose.

And on the 94 core, so I think we have to congratulate the UK team for getting to 93.9 in a very sort of competitive and dynamic environment. You asked, is insurance going to be still cyclical? My bet on this, having done 35 years, is I think it probably is going to continue to be cyclical. I think the winners that come out of that cyclicality, if that's the right word, are those that are constantly looking at the cost and looking at the innovation within the business, making sure that you have pricing discipline, that you're able to sort of flex according to the market. You know, the investment in AI and machine learning, you know, that we know that that makes a massive difference to our ability to be able to price in a sophisticated way. But in a competitive environment, you're always going to be giving some of that back because you're competitive. It's a bit like an arms race. You know, you will invest in something, you will have a fraud tool, or you're not getting rid of that fraudster, what you're doing is pushing that fraudster somewhere else. You know, they'll keep trying, you have to keep going. So I would say in the UK market particularly, I think the most competitive market, I would say that, you know, we will be aiming for that 94, which we've said, I think, for the last four, five years. You know, weather aside, that's where we're aiming. Obviously, we will constantly be looking to improve all of the time. But you also have to recognize cyclicality and the competitive nature of the market. But I think... We are set up to win because of our scale, because of our supply chain, and because of all of the data that we have and the sophistication that we have within the business. And on that, I'm conscious that you have other places that you might need to get to. So I just want to thank you very much for your questions. Obviously, we're around. If there are any follow-up questions, apologies that we couldn't get to absolutely everybody. And we have the brunch now. We have the brunch next Friday with Charlotte, which I'm sure you will deeply enjoy, and you'll be able to ask her all the very detailed questions on appendices and everything else. So thank you very much.