Tryg A/S Ord New

Good morning, everybody. My name is Gianandrea Roberti. I'm a Head of Investor Relations at TREC. We published our Q2 results earlier this morning, and I have here with me Johan Kisten-Brammer, Group CEO, Barbara Pluckner-Jensen, Group CFO, and Michael Carsten, Group CTO, to present the report. I would like to remind you that each participant should ask one question at a time to give time to all participants to the call. With these words, over to you, Johan.

Thank you so much and welcome everybody. I will go straight to page 3, where TRYK is today reporting a satisfactory insurance service result of 1.759 billion DKK with a single large corporate claim hitting us for approximately 225 million, while a continuously adverse SEC and NOC currency development is impacting our figures with approximately 100 million in Q2. We see a positive development in the top line driven primarily by the private and commercial segments and improved underlying performance including the RSA synergies and high interest rates which support the insurance service result positively. The underlying claims ratio for the group improved by 60 basis points broadly in line with recent experience, with profitability initiatives in the commercial and corporate segment supporting the performance, while the private segment reported a small deterioration in line with recent quarters. The result of the investment activities was a positive of 53 million, primarily driven by positive performance from equities and fixed income asset classes. Trygg is, and I'm happy to announce that, paying a quarterly dividend per share of 1.85 at the same level of Q1 and in line with our quarterly dividend policy and reports a healthy solvency ratio of 199, supportive of future capital repatriation outlooks. Turning to page four on customer highlights, focus on customers are in times like this paramount to us and therefore we continue to work with all parts of the customer journey. This includes both touch points and the more process and relationship driven elements. In this quarter, we can see that the focus on onboarding processes for new customers has resulted in strong improvements for the KPIs in the private businesses in both Denmark and Norway. Turning to page 5 on the insurance service results, we show in this slide the insurance service result of Truks three business units being private, commercial and corporate versus the corresponding quarters of 2022. Please note that runoff movements may impact the reported results for the three different business units and additionally a large claim in the corporate segment is impacting the figures for approximately 225 million in Q2. The insurance service result walk is showing the main moving parts versus Q2 last year. Positives are the higher interest rates, the improved underlying performance and the business growth. Negatives are the higher large and weather claims, significantly adverse currency developments as well as lower runoff. The private insurance service result is reduced by 150 million with 75 million stemming from lower run-offs, 20 million stemming from deterioration in the underlying, and the remaining part coming primarily from the Norwegian Nature Apparel Pools claim in Halden in Norway. The commercial insurance service result is up 50 million, primarily driven by underlying improvement, while lower expenses added another approximately 20 million. The corporate insurance service result is down 160 million, primarily due to the single arts claim of 225 million, which is partly offset by an improved underlying performance. Importantly, following the acquisition of Codanoa and Trocanza, please note that our earnings are significantly more diversified, both in terms of geographies and products. Turning to page 6 on the RSA synergies, Troik is reporting 77 million in Q2, bringing the accumulated total synergies to 547 out of the targeted 900 by the end of next year. Approximately 30% of the quarterly synergies came from expenses, almost 50% came from claims and procurement, and 20% came from commercial activities. The most important activities on extracting cost synergies were the termination of KoldeNorway IT contracts during May, including a number of IT employees. A significant focus on procurement in Sweden has resulted in improved terms with many of our suppliers, and in addition to that an increased use of recycled parts are yielding good savings. In Sweden we have also consolidated claims teams allowing for the insourcing of services that were previously outsourced. On the more commercial side, we continue to increase prices, primarily in the corporate segment, whereas the pregnancy product in Denmark is experiencing very good customer interest in its premium product version. With that, I'll turn to the next section on page 8. TRYG is reporting a revenue growth of 3.9% or around 5% adjusted for customer conversions in Norway and Sweden as part of the RSA transaction. Growth was primarily seen in private and commercial areas and primarily driven by price increases to match ongoing claims inflation. We continue to have a strong focus on profitability and pricing accordingly. The private segment continues to have a fairly high growth of 4.4%, primarily driven by price adjustments. We have, as you know, been converting and repricing portfolios in Sweden from our original Swedish business Moderna to Trygg Hansa and in Norway from Kolde Norway to Trygg Norway. The growth would have been approximately 6% adjusting for this, which is in line with our expectations. The commercial segment had a growth of 4.9%, which adjusted for the reclassification of portfolio from commercial to corporate in Norway was approximately 6%. We saw the highest growth in Denmark driven by both price adjustments and also a net inflow of customers, while growth was more modest in Norway and Sweden. Turning to the corporate segment, it reported a negative growth of 2.4%, which adjusted for the reclassification of portfolio between commercial and corporate in Norway was approximately negative minus 4. We are repricing as well as reducing exposure to certain parts of the corporate business, in particular the international property and liability program, which was the main reason for the drop in premiums. Turning to page 9 on pricing, we continue to monitor inflation developments very closely and work in a disciplined manner with procurement to mitigate this development as well as with continued repricing to protect our book of business. Leaving aside the general macroeconomic situation, currency developments in Sweden and Norway have an impact particularly on imported automobile spare parts. Price adjustments are in general at a high level for both house and motor, reflecting the need we see in the different markets. Price adjustments are roughly between 4 and 11% for the different lines of business across geographies. It is worth highlighting that these graphs show the impact on earned premiums. This means that the full impact of price adjustments in general will take 12 to 24 months to fully show in the P&L. Turning to page 10 on customer retention, in line with more recent quarters, we generally see a broadly stable yet slightly sliding impact on the retention rates in both private and commercial. This shows our focus on mitigating inflation through pricing, and the development is in line with experiences in the past from periods where there was a need for adjusting prices similar to now. We see the highest impact of repricing within the second of one product customers, which in general is the most price sensitive and hence shop around more frequently between different insurance providers. In that context, it is worth noting that customers with one product only, in general, are the least profitable customers. And with that, I will pass it over to you, Barbara.

Over to you, Micke, sorry. Thank you, Johan. And we turn to slide 12 and the underlying development. The group underlying claims ratio improved by 60 basis points broadly in line with recent experience and the trend of the last three years. Profitability actions including both pricing and portfolio initiatives in the commercial and corporate businesses are supporting the performance while the private segment deteriorated modestly by 30 basis points also in line with recent experience. In private, we can note a negative profitability impact from travel insurance, an area where we are driving price adjustments, as well as increased inflation from motor spare parts in Sweden and Norway, significantly above Danish experience following weak currencies. Turning to slide 13, we give a little bit more nuance to inflation, pricing and our currency movements impact. Needless to say, claims inflation has moved upwards since the start of 2022, driven by a turbulent geopolitical and macroeconomic environment. Recently, inflation numbers are starting to come down in Denmark but remain high in Norway and Sweden. Regardless, inflation and actions against inflation remain a top priority for us. We continue to work hard with pricing and procurement agreements to mitigate the impact of this development. And it's important to remember that wage inflation generally is a better impact indicator than just headline consumer price index development. On the left hand side of this slide we show an overview of the price adjustments for the two main product categories measured against expected claims inflation. And going to the right hand side, here we show an example of the interlink between inflation and currency development, where we notice a sharp increase in car repair costs in Sweden and Denmark, clearly driven by the weak currencies. This is an area where we spend around 1.7 billion Danish annually, and where prices are up 9% from a year ago. Naturally, portfolio actions are being taken to mitigate the development. Turning to slide 14, large and weather claims was unfavorable in Q2 2023 versus Q2 2022 and also versus normalized expectations. As previously announced, in this quarter we experienced a single large claim in the corporate business that hit our full retention of 150 million Danish and had a total expected cost of approximately 225 million Danish, including reinstatement premium. As previously communicated, we note here as well that we increased our retention level for single large claims exposure at start of 2022 from 100 to 150 million Danish, linked to now being a significantly larger entity post the acquisition of Trygghansa and Koda Norway. In Norway, a landslide hit the town of Halden, resulting in a large claim under the Norwegian Natural Perids Pool. The total cost for the pool is estimated at approximately 900 million Norwegian, and Trygg has a market share just below 11% of the pool. The discount rate in Q2 is significantly higher than Q2 2022, but close to the Q1 level as interest rates did not move much this quarter. Finally, our runoff was 3.2%, in line with previous runoff guidance. And turning to slide 15, the expense ratio was 13.3% and at a slightly lower level than the updated target of 13.5% under IFRS 17. As a reminder, the 13.5% target compared to 14% previously is driven by educational and development costs moved from insurance operating expenses to the line other income and costs. The positive development was supported by RSA synergies of approximately 25 million Danish related to admin and distribution and we continue to have a strong focus on the expense level as this is a competitive advantage for us supporting our market position. And by that I hand over to you Barbara.

Thank you, Miki. Please turn to slide 17 for more details on our investment portfolio. In this slide, we provide you an overview of Trygg's total invested assets of 61 billion Danish kroner. And as usual, you will find the split between a match portfolio of 44 billion and a free portfolio of 17 billion. The match portfolio primarily consists of Nordic covered bonds, reflecting our geographic split and characteristics of our insurance liabilities. The free portfolio has a diversified asset allocation in order to achieve the best risk adjusted return. We aim to have a low risk profile and are overall comfortable with the investment approach, which is basically unchanged compared to previously. On slide 18, you have more details on the current performance of our investments. In general, the financial markets were somewhat volatile. However, the overall investment result in the quarter was positive by 53 million, where both the free and match portfolio contributed positively. TOEIC's equity portfolio returned just below 5%, and the fixed income asset classes also produced positive returns. Real estate returns have been somewhat challenged by macroeconomic environment and delivered a negative return of 3.1% in the quarter. The difference in this quarter is on the other financial income and expenses line, which was down by 202 million. This line includes amongst other things the quarterly interest payable on our loans, which is approximately 50 million recurring each quarter. There are two items that drive the main negative impact in this quarter. Following the implementation of IFRS 17, the inflation swaps used for the workers' comp in Denmark and motor in Sweden need to be booked in the investment line. The value change of the inflation swaps amounted to negative 69 million in the quarter, Furthermore, a negative exchange rate adjustment to different balance sheet items, including the Tier 1 and Tier 2 loans, accounted for 38 million, heavily impacted by in particular the decrease in Swedish kronor this quarter. As mentioned, our approach to the investment activities remains unchanged. The vast majority of our investments are placed safely in Scandinavian covered bonds. If you turn to slide 19, we will make a deep dive on the solvency. In this quarter, TRK is reporting a solvency ratio of 1.99, which is virtually in line with the level delivered at the end of Q1. Please note that the current solvency level already deducts the Q2 dividend payment. Operating earnings and dividends are, as usual, the main drivers of the owned funds movement. Other is capturing the lower value of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 loans impacted by currencies. The SCR in the quarter is primarily impacted by currencies development and capital markets movements. As always, we're showing our Tier 1 and Tier 2 loan capacity, but just to be certain, we have no plans to issue new loans currently. Finally, I would like to repeat that we continue to expect a stable development in the Solency going forward, primarily driven by operating earnings and dividends. On slide 20, we are showing the historical and stable development of the solvency ratio. As explained on previous occasions, we are running a very stable business, having a relatively low risk approach to investments, and pay an ordinary quarterly dividend. Hence, we expect solvency ratio to be relatively stable in between quarters. This has also been the picture for the last four to five quarters following the consolidation of RSA Scandinavia and we expect little changes going forward. The solvency ratio for the quarter lands at 199 or approximately 196-97 when adjusting for the temporary positive impact of the refinancing. We believe the current level of solvency remains very supportive of the dividend outlook. On slide 21, you find our updated solvency ratio sensitivities, which is very similar to previous quarters. Our solvency ratio displays the highest sensitivities to spread risk as we have a large amount of our assets in Nordic covered bonds, which is a very safe asset class. In general, we believe that our solvency ratio is not particularly sensitive to capital markets movements. So not much news here. With this, I'll hand over to Johan to conclude our Q2 presentation.

Thanks a lot, Barbara. And I can say the same, not much news here. This slide, slide 22, is a rerun of a slide we showed at Q1 illustrating the insurance service results target for 2024, including the main moving parts since the capital market day. The overall 7.2 to 7.6 billion range includes some cost reallocation from insurance operating expenses to the other income and cost line. More importantly, since the end of 2021, we have experienced a sharp increase in interest rates, but also a sharp drop in SEC and NOC currencies, as well as higher reinsurance prices with a total cost of approximately 100 million, which is previously been disclosed. We have disclosed this information previously and therefore there's no change in this slide. Turning to page 23, I would just like to highlight a few things to remember in the second part of 2023. The most important point is that all integration costs from the RSA acquisition is now booked so the line other income and costs will include going forward only intangibles and mortgages from RSA and ALCA and other general costs. This line should therefore be negative with approximately 360 to 370 million per quarter going forward. We are pleased to see that our P&L is now finally becoming cleaner and the true earnings power of the new truck should be materializing now. On page 24, we repeat here our 2024 financial targets updated at Q1 for the introduction of IFRS 17. As a reminder, these are targets as per our most recent capital market day in November 2021, just and only updated for the new accounting regime. We have shown this slide previously and there is no change to the previous communication and targets. And with that, I go to page 24 and we close this presentation with our favorite quote from John D. Rockefeller, repeating and reiterating our very clear focus on dividends and capital repatriation in general. Make no mistake, this is absolutely unchanged. And with that, I'll pass it on to questions.

Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing five star again. There will be a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question will be from the line of Jacob Brink from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.

Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot and good morning. I think I would like to start where you ended Johan and also Barbara. You had a comment that solvency is very supportive of huge dividend potential and you like to do capital repatriation. You just finished your share buyback and you have a 200% roughly solvency ratio which is well above where you used to be. So what should we expect going forward in relation to specials and buybacks please? And the second question would be on the, maybe more of an overall question. So now we have had two years roughly with relatively high inflation. Micke, you had this comment about imported inflation due to FX in Norway and Sweden. So where would you say that we are sort of in the inflation? We also do see some headline numbers starting to trend down. Have we passed the peak of inflation in your views of claims inflation or are we still seeing it increasing? It could just be interesting to hear your thoughts, please.

Well, good morning to you, Jakob. I will start by answering your first question regarding expectations for future dividends. You're absolutely correct. In this quarter, we finalized the share buyback, which we ran from the proceeds of selling Kodan Denmark. We're quite happy with the 5 billion that we have returned to shareholders during this program. For this year, we are paying out ordinary dividends, which are adding up to 7.4 kroner for the full year, which is up by almost 20% compared to last year. and which is already above the levels prior to doing the acquisition, which was 7 kroner in 2020. So we are quite focused to accommodate and provide dividends to our shareholders. But regarding specials or another share buyback program, it is something that we will evaluate later in the year in order to come back with the potential for additional distribution to the shareholders.

Thanks. And going to your second question, Jakob, on inflation. I mean, I would say that we are, I mean, obviously we're happy to see that inflation is stabilizing in some of the countries, Sweden and Norway predominantly. and that we see some headline numbers of Danish inflation coming down. Having said that though, I think we are still in the middle of an inflation period and our focus is continuously profitability over growth and that's how we're treating inflation. I think it's too early to state anything of inflation being over. We are in the middle of that and we are continuously taking actions and pricing for it.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Thank you, Jacob. The next question will be from the line of Eshban Mark from Danske Bank. Please go ahead, your line will be unmuted.

Yes, hi, good morning from me as well, and thanks for the presentation. A couple of questions, but we'll start with the slide 22 and your wallet chart for clear guidance for next year. It seems like since the Q1 report that you've sort of lowered the green bars a bit, or green bar, and you see higher headwinds now from currencies, that obviously makes a lot of sense. and then reinsurance as well. So maybe just a question of what is it you're seeing in reinsurance that you did not see in the Q1 numbers? And if you look at the currencies impact, could you just help me a bit here? You're saying that you have 1.7 billion of motor spare parts and windshields in second knock. What is sort of the total number of claims that you would see you have in all your business areas that would sort of import inflation on the back of the weaker currencies? That would be the first question. Thanks.

Thanks for that, Asbjorn. And maybe I'll just kick it off and then I'll pass it on to my colleagues here. I think first of all, I think on chart 22, slide 22, we are deliberately shading the boxes here. So it's not exact science. What we are trying to illustrate on page 22 is more the fact that we have restated our targets due to the changes in RFRS and we will deliver within the range that we have communicated. And then you're right. There is, of course, impacts that will continuously move. There will be headwinds and tailwinds. We'll continue to update that for illustrative purposes. But the main point here is that we have come out with a target and we will deliver within that target range for sure. And I'm not sure, Barbara, do you want to say a few words on the reinsurance part?

Before I go to the reinsurance part, I think it's important to say that we are continuously focusing on the strategic initiatives that will deliver the targets. And as Johan also mentioned, you will see positives and negatives. I think these two quarters exactly underpin the fact that things do move and they do actually move quite fast. So therefore, we stick to what is sort of the contribution from the strategic initiatives and then taking into account some of these more exogene factors. When it comes to the reinsurance, I think what we highlighted when we had the Q1 call was that the prices for the renewals of the reinsurance program was significantly up this year. And for the January renewals, it was a little bit late, you can say, to have the full impact of the increase of reinsurance hikes. But what we are of course working with in the commercial and the corporate space is to make sure that the prices that we are now quoting to our customers are reflecting the increases in the reinsurance cost. So I think that's how you should think about it, that from this quarter and onwards we will be reflecting the full impact of the reinsurance cost.

Okay, but is it fair to assume that, I mean, at least I know your comment that it was not rocket science or exact science, but it seems like you're expecting to meet sort of the mid-range of the guidance range now versus sort of the upper end in Q1. Is that a fair interpretation of the slide?

I think the best way to interpret the slide is that we have come out with a range and we will deliver within that range.

Okay, okay, fair enough.

It's just that... Fair enough. A little bit back to one of the previous questions on dividends versus buybacks. Now, if you're meeting your target for next year, which you say you will, you're trading at a dividend adjusted PE of something like 13 times. So I guess you are actually making a higher return by buying your own shares than investing in foreign equities. So should we expect you to lower your free portfolio equity exposure and do buybacks instead? Is that something you're considering now versus... six months ago, where your share price was at another point?

I think it's a very interesting point you make in terms of looking at swapping, you can say, the investments in equities to dividends. I think we are, with our free portfolio, continuously looking to generate, you can say, a low risk yield, where asset allocation is a very high priority. I think when it comes to the capital distribution to our shareholders, obviously we always assess what is the excess capacity, coming back to, like you point out, the solvency ratio, coming back to what do we see of possibilities to distribute more on top of what we already pay in the ordinary dividends.

All right. Thanks for that. I guess the most low-risk, high-visibility investment you can make is in your own stock, so that's good to hear. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, Asbjorn. The next question will be from the line of Alexander from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, just on the underlying claims ratio. So, I mean, it looks like there's 40 bits from claims and procurement synergies in the quarter. So, that sort of remaining 20 bits, is that how we should think about the underlying of the business there? I don't know if it's possible to give any colour on sort of what magnitude you think travel is in this quarter relative to where it was last quarter and some of the other moving parts there. And then secondly, as well, I just wanted to clarify, go back on the earlier questions on that reinsurance costs. So are you saying that basically in the first quarter, the sort of full picture wasn't captured within that sort of slide? And now, you know, this sort of bigger impact is now being reflected? I think that's great. Thanks.

Right, if I start with the question on underlying, I think the way to think about it generally is that we drive a number of different actions, pricing, different synergies through RSA portfolio actions and that sort of in combination gives the 60 basis points improvement. Having said that, obviously we have a much larger share of that in the corporate space and to some extent also the commercial space where we can drive more of those pricing actions. And the question specifically on travel, we have, if we compare this year relative to last year and the individual quarter, that is roughly a 30 million Danish impact So you can sort of backwards calculate the sort of impact for that.

And I think if I may just add to that, some data points around the travel activity. I think we have on previous calls spoken about the fact that in 2022, you saw an increase of travel by 20% compared to pre-COVID times. in 2019. But what we have seen in the recent year is now in Q2 2023, we are up by 8% compared to 22. So there is still a reasonably high focus on traveling despite whatever talks about the macro, etc. I think your assumptions on the reinsurance cost is pretty much in line with what has happened. So as I said, we did increase prices to reflect higher reinsurance costs for the full year, but maybe not to the full magnitude of where we saw the market end. Because if you remember, there was a smaller supply of capacity in the reinsurance market at the same time of higher interest rates. So you did see money flow elsewhere and that put an additional cost on the reinsurance programs for the renewals. So that is the part that we are going back now.

Thanks. And is it possible just to follow up on reserve releases? I noticed that reserve releases in private lines is 40 bits this quarter, a bit of a step down from last year. It also looks like you've got some negative runoff in commercial property. I was just wondering what sort of the big drivers of reserve releases at the moment and where do you see that going?

Yeah, I think in general, you could say that we have communicated a level between three and five percent for, you can say, the runoffs in general. Obviously, you will find a larger proportion of the reserving related to the longer tailed business. And therefore, you can say you will see some of it in those areas. So commercial and corporate with the more long tailed business in general. Or if looking at the private Swedish, you would also see something there. But in general, I wouldn't read any further into, you can say, the levels there.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Alexander. The next question will be from the line of Tiffany Spiro from Burenberg. Please go ahead, your line will be unmuted. Hi, good morning.

I have two questions, please. The first one is on SXCIP. I mean, is there a risk here when it comes to the cash being upstream coming from Sweden and Norway versus the dividend paid in Danish krona? I was wondering how you're thinking about this and have you considered hedging some of the exposure here And the second one is on the last claims volatility. Appreciate all you have done in the last two years to reduce exposure to the corporate line. However, it doesn't seem at least now that this has had a commensurate impact on the volatility of last losses. I appreciate now the surpassing nature of these claims, but how should we think about this dynamic? I appreciate the questions that were cleared, but I guess I just want to get some reassurance of whether the action is taken will lead to less volatile results going forward. Thank you.

So maybe if I could just start on your second question on large claims. I understand your question as to the fact that we've been trying to reduce our exposure to large claims. And here we are with a quarter with a large claim. I think this is sort of the stochastic variance that we will encounter as an insurance company. And I must say in a quarter like this where we have more than 410 million in large claims, We normally would expect around 200. Now we have more than 400. I think this is just down to the stochastic variability as an insurance company. We don't see any patterns here. And I think, to be honest, the comfort that we see is that we're actually able to deliver a fairly strong technical result, even despite the fact that we have more than double what we normally expect in large claims. If anything, you should read into the fact that we are comfortable with our position. We don't see any exposure in our book that we shouldn't have. So this is more a positive in the sense that we're delivering a strong result with a lot of large claims in this particular quarter. And as for your first question on FX, Barbara,

Yeah, I think if you look at the hedging we do, we do the hedging of our balance sheet items. So that is a strategy that we have implemented and are happy about. In the results, obviously, you will see two impacts. One is when you convert the results in the Swedish and Norwegian business into Danish kroner. There you will see an impact of the week kroner. And then, as we have talked about, also when it comes to the spare parts, for instance in motor, where you do see some impact of imported inflation, which is exactly what we are mitigating with the supplier agreements that we have, as well as the pricing initiatives that we drive through. So I would say when it comes to the P&L, we should be very much focused on working with that on an ongoing basis. But the hedges we have apply to the balance sheet.

Maybe adding one comment to your question on the large losses. I mean, obviously, continuously, we obviously look at the large losses, see if we can take any learnings from them, etc., etc. I mean, what is supporting that we see this as stochastic elements is that these are customers that we have had for a long time. It's not new customers. It's very stable books that we have in the corporate business. And then additionally to that, as you mentioned, we are moving out and down exposuring on some specific elements. So I think that sort of adds to our comfort that it's stochastic.

Okay, that's really helpful. I guess just to come back on what you mentioned, the balance sheet, Barbara, just to confirm, you hedge the cash being emitted in foreign currency from those securities coming into Denmark, you hedge that exposure there when it comes to the cash coming in?

The line is really bad, Taifun, so we hedge which part?

The cash being paid in Norwegian krona and Swedish currency, is that being hedged? Obviously, you pay out the dividend and you manage your cash in Danish krona, but you see the cash in foreign currency, I guess. Is that what you mean when you say you hedge the balanced items?

The sheet items that we hedge, it's, for instance, the Tier 1 and 2 loans. Those are denominated in Norwegian and Swedish kronor and is part of our capital structure. So those are the kinds of items that we hedge.

Thank you, Tiffany. The next question will be from the line of Judith Chicory from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead. Your line will be unmuted.

Good morning, everyone. I've got two questions, please. The first one is on military inflation of around 9% you're seeing in Norway and Sweden, which I guess is probably more than twice the level of inflation in Denmark. The first question is really, how confident are you you can raise prices by that level? without impacting your customer retention level in these markets? That was my first question. The second one is on wage inflation assumptions and workers' comp reserves. I know when you transitioned to F-117, you changed the index you use for your wage inflation assumptions. Could you remind us of that change and whether there is a risk that those inflations assumptions have to be revised to reflect the current market implied inflation expectations.

Right, so if I start with your first question on the motor spare parts inflation in Sweden and Norway, I think that the way to look at this is, I mean, obviously this is not an inflation that is only affecting us, it's affecting the entire market. And I think our pricing power is quite good, which is also demonstrated by the retention numbers that we're showing. So I think overall we're confident that we can assume these inflationary numbers and drive actions for it.

And just to be just on that, I totally agree. But just to make it very clear, we don't have any confusion as to our list of priorities at the moment. The list on top of that list is to keep inflation out of the premises of Troik and we will price our way through that. Is there a risk that it will have an impact on customer retention? Possibly, but we'll take that risk. We need to make sure that we keep inflation off the premises. We will not shy away from that.

Just to follow up. Just to follow up on that, does that mean you're seeing, let's say, a step up in the level of price increases across the market such that you're not seeing suffering any loss of volumes at the moment?

We see our retention levels at very high levels and fairly stable, even though we're going through these price regimes as we are. We are seeing a little bit of impact on retention levels. but it's predominantly on the customer segments that only have one product, which are the most price sensitive parts of the portfolio and also the part of the portfolio where we make the least profits. So we do see a little bit of an impact, but it's an impact where we want it to be. So we feel confident that we can continue to price through it.

If I may comment on your workers' comp question regarding the inflation assumptions. You're absolutely right. Before we used to have both the underlying liability as well as the hedge booked as a net result in the technical result. But following the change to IFRS 17, you will have the gross effect where you have the liability in the insurance result as well as the impact of the inflation swap on the investment result. That is what you can also see the impact of in this particular quarter in the investment line. That is something we have implemented when we implemented IFRS 17, so we do not anticipate to change anything there. And also, if I may get your attention to page 5 in the IFRS 17 note that we sent out at the end of March, there we also describe the inflation assumption that we use for the reserving, where this is based off the Danish National Bank wage expectations. So that is already into the approach that we have taken when implementing IFRS 17.

But how often is that updated? Because previously you were using like a market based measure, which was basically more volatile.

Yeah, we used to use a more mark-to-market because they were, you can say, both, as mentioned, the liabilities and the assets were booked in the same line. So you had more or less the same volatility in those two. But as I said, we actually believe that this is a better proxy for taking into account the wage expectations in our reserving. So that is what we have been using for this year. And it is something that is, you can say, updated, as I believe, once a year.

All right. Okay, got it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Yiddish. The next question will be from the line of John-Erik Jalland from ABG. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.

the wage inflation. I just want to check the wage inflation which you just talked about. You said you just update this once a year. Is this a new figure which referred to top yesterday into your new figure, or is this going to happen throughout the year? How should we read the updated wage inflation when it comes to your reserving policy on the writing here? If you could clear some around that, thank you.

Yeah, I think I will hesitate from commenting on top. I will focus on what we are applying and what we have been doing since the implementation of IFRS 17. And therefore, you can say the split that you now have between the inflation swap in the investment line and the underlying workers' comp liabilities in the insurance service result is actually the new component for us by the introduction of IFRS 17. We are not changing anything to the way that we are accounting for this. We did that as part of the implementation 1st of Jan.

Okay, so what kind of wage inflation did you then have 1st of January? Was that the previous inflation thing which then the central bank and the Council had, or is this data which they have now published new data, which then you have to implement for first of January next year? How should you read that?

I think you should read it that way. We always have a look at the Danish National Bank wage expectations, and that is what we built into our models around the reserving on the way of workers' comp.

Okay, thank you. Then just on the reinsurance, did you say that earlier on the call that the reinsurance cost you transferred to your corporate customers was not the full cost at the end of the day from the 1st of January renewal, so you will have further price hikes 1st of January next year? driven by this reinsurance cost that is high. So we have sort of some headwind on the reinsurance cost this year. If I could think about that.

I think we continuously look at what is the reinsurance cost. So again, there will be a renewal for 1st of Jan 23 that we will have to reflect in the price increases there. But bear in mind that we have a significant part of the book, which is not renewed at the January renewals, but which are renewed throughout the course of the year. And that is where we have the last bit. And I think it's important to say that when we did the price increases for 1st of Jan, we already had a significant uplift in the reinsurance program costs. It was just the fact that it ended out being slightly higher than what we had anticipated in the ordinary price increases. So it's that delta that you can say we need to carry through, and where all the renewals following the January renewals already are taking into account, of course, the higher reinsurance cost.

So essentially, there are no news today. We're essentially just reiterating what we came out with at Q1, stating that we are passing on the reinsurance hikes onto customers ongoingly.

Thanks a lot for that clarification.

Thank you, John. As a reminder, please press five stars to ask a question. The next question will be from Delana Faisan-Lakhani from HSBC. Please go ahead, Yolan. I'll be unmuted.

Hi there. Good morning. I wanted to come back to the underlying development. Just trying to use the calculation of 1700 current that you provide. I calculate the potential sort of impact this quarter is about 40 bits for the headwind to the underlying and then I know Alex from Citi sort of tried to work out what the synergies were, but when I look at the synergies year-to-date, it's 577. Last year, it was 142. So overall, sort of 435 million movement over the year. That would probably suggest maybe one point improvement of which some will come to be underlying. I'm trying to strip those two elements out to work out what is the underlying from the work you've done on rates plus the shift in business mix to corporate. So that's my first question. The second, I should be a bit more aware of this, but I haven't fully understood around the inflation swap and the wage inflation changes. I would assume that they would have been offsetting factors. So therefore, if the inflation swap is negative this quarter, then we should have seen the opposite impact come through in PYD this year. So is that the case? And how much of that was there in the insurance result? And a third and very final quick question is, How much more reinsurance retention do you need before you start tapping into sort of the weather retention? Thank you.

If I start with your first question on underlying, I think first of all obviously there's a number of different factors affecting the underlying and all the actions that we're driving. But to shed a little bit more nuance to I think the two factors you alluded to specifically in private. As I said before, if we look on the travel side, we observed that we have a result impact of 30 million Danish, sort of quarter this year relative to a quarter a year ago. And if we then look at the specific things on motor spare parts, I think first of all, it's not fair to state that the full 9% is something that we should take out of the underlying. I think what we are trying to... sort of convey here is that we have seen additional inflation in motor Norway and motor Sweden so and I think that was stated in a previous question here a fair assumption would be roughly half of that I think we see as more sort of excess inflation due to the weak currencies the rest we've obviously sort of anticipated inflation sort of before that. So I would, as a ballpark number, take half of that.

And you were asking about the inflation swap that has a negative value in the investment result and then the potential positive impact on the technical result. There is a link, but again, bear in mind that as you have in the investment result a mark-to-market on the swap curve and the reserving and the impact there is based on the national bank expectations or the central bank expectations, you will potentially see a timing difference in the impact in these two items.

I'll take it as a one-to-one. Just to follow up on that though, so are you saying you've reflected the Danish wage expectation council's estimates at the start of the year. But from what your peers suggested, that exercise happens twice a year. So I don't see why we've not seen that iteration come through in H1, I guess, as well, or Q2 on the liability side.

No, I think you will have a minor impact, but it's not a one to one as with the moves on the value of the inflation swap.

Okay.

Thank you, Faisal. The next question will be from the line of Inevin Ultra from Mediobanker. Please go ahead. Your line will be unmuted.

Yes, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. Just one question is on the usual three topics, I would say inflation, reinsurance, actually mainly two topics. So on inflation, I'm just curious, you know, when I look at slide nine, the table on the right-hand side, the bottom table, shows that as much as Norway is seeing a very big increase in car insurance prices, the average print price is still maybe below the Danish level. I'm just wondering if that is something... to read into and, you know, how far up can the Norwegian market take these prices? You're already doing 11% increases. And, you know, from where we are sitting, I mean, inflation is becoming, at least in the UK, it's becoming a bigger topic, not a smaller topic. So I'm just curious about this Norwegian motor situation that the average price is below even Danish. And any comment on that would be very helpful. Second thing is just to clarify on this inflation. So just so I can summarize in my own head, sorry to waste your time, but is there any scenario where something could change and then you would be also likely to take a charge for this inflation definitions or mark-to-market or any other effect? in the rest of the year? And last question is on reinsurance. I think from the analyst's day, I remember the communication was that about 100 million hit to the originally thought CMD, November 21 targets from reinsurance. And are you indicating that it's still unchanged or are you suggesting that the path forward to the corporate customers should reduce that in some way. So just to clarify these three topics, please. Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, if I should start, then we can move from the back. As already mentioned, we have been passing on the increase on the reinsurance program to the corporate and the commercial clients with a full effect from the second quarter of this year and with an almost full effect since 1st of January. So you should anticipate that we are working to, you can say, mitigate the increased prices that we saw around the January renewal as part of the ordinary course of business. Regarding the wage inflation, again, I cannot comment what other peers are doing in the market. We chose an approach in terms of how to apply it in implementing the IFRS 17 by 1st of January. We have the methodology defined, and as I said, I can only refer to the IFRS 17 note that we have out there, and if you have further questions following a read-through of that, then do not hesitate to reach out, because we have quite a detailed explanation, both in terms of the impact on the technical result as well as the investment result there. For the inflation and the differences between the countries,

Yes, so turning to slide 9, which I think you referred to, I think first of all it's important to state here that what we are showing on this slide, that's average prices, so it's not an equal sign to rates, just to make sure that that's coming through. and I mean actually I would sort of simplify my answer saying that no you shouldn't read anything into that because the fact that there is a difference in average prices between Norway and Sweden and Denmark for instance on motor is very much reflected in sort of what risk mix that we're having in the different portfolios and also the fact that the same market trends or the same effects that we are seeing in our book is also reflected on the market in general. So no, I wouldn't read any sort of challenges into that the way you ask the question.

We just want to reiterate our confidence that whatever inflation we are seeing across geographies, we are able to pass through the appropriate and needed price increases and that will be carried out. And I think on page 10, we're also showing that the customer retention is broadly stable despite the need to go through price increases. So we are confident that we are where we want to be on pricing for inflation. We're not ahead of it. We're not behind it. We are where we want to be on inflation, and we'll continue to push through the price increases needed to push inflation out.

Okay, very clear. Thank you.

Thank you, Vinnie. If there are no more questions, I'll hand it back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much to all of you for the very good question. As always, Investor Relations is around for any follow-up. And I guess we will also meet you during the summer and after the summer. Thanks a lot for now.