Unipol Grupo Spa

Good afternoon. This is the Coral School Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the presentation of First Half 2023 Consolidated Results of Unipol and Unipol SAI. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Matteo La Terza, CEO of Unipol SAI and General Manager of Unipol. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning to everyone and thank you very much for staying with us on 11 of August. Before opening the floor to the question, let me make some statements and remarks on our results. I will start as usually from non-life business, where in terms of top line we achieved a very good growth. I have to say that The numbers don't reflect in full our distribution potential due to the monthly installments, sale of products, above all in motor that we started at the beginning of the year. So the performance was very good both in motor and in non-motor. In particular... Very good the performance that we achieved in the health business where we started to distribute Unisalute product both through the agent distribution network and bank assurance. And in particular, bank assurance was the most important driver of growth in terms of top line. In terms of technical profitability, there were some negative impact, as you were able to see in the numbers. Both in motor, where we have been commenting about the trend in motor for several quarters. We have the increase of frequency and also the increase of the average cost of claim. At the same time, we are following and executing our strategy of repricing. We are on track in the execution of the strategy. We start to see some positive implications coming from the trend of the frequency, so some light at the end of the tunnel. But nevertheless, we will continue to pursue our strategy of repricing of our product. Concerning non-motor, we had some negative impact coming from NatCat, in particular the implication and losses coming from the flood in Emilia-Romagna that were priced at 110 million euros in the numbers of the first half of the year. In July we continue to have some negative impact coming from NatCat in particular in the area of again Emilia-Romagna, Veneto and Lombardia. In life, we had very positive results in terms of top line, first of all, where, again, we had some positive contribution coming from pension funds where we acquired three new jobs. mandates but also in the traditional business the trend was very good above all again in the bank assurance distribution network but also in our agents distribution network we have positive net inflows that were able to contribute to increase the yield of our asset in life and We decreased the minimum guarantee, the average minimum guarantee of our portfolio, and we were able to maintain a stable profitability for the equity shareholder in life. We had positive contribution coming from the CSM creation in life. And in terms of new business value, we maintained a profitability above 4%. One of the main drivers of this contribution, both in life and in non-life, comes from investments. This is a natural and normal implication coming from the increased profitability. of interest rate and the positive performance of financial market. And as a consequence of this trend, we were able to improve the contribution of investments to the numbers of the first half numbers in Unipol Gruppo and Unipol SAI. Positive implications come also in our capital position. The main driver is the contribution of the result, but also the positive contribution coming from the trend of financial market and also coming from the decision to decrease our investments in the equity component of the portfolio as a consequence of the prosecution of the upward trend in equity financial market. Finally, I have to stress that, as you were able to see in Ullivol Gruppo results, reflect the effect of banks' extra profit tax that was announced by the Italian government at the beginning of this week. Consequently, we decided to adjust the contribution of BIPER results as they were approved by the Board of the Bank last week before the announcement. by deducting the total number by 28 million euros. And so the contribution has changed from 141 million to 113 million in order, again, to reflect this very important news that came at the beginning of this week. Having said that, I'm here with Enrico San Pietro, and we are ready to answer to all your questions. Thank you very much.

This is the Coruscall conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and 2. We kindly ask you to use the handset when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question is from Michael Hattner from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Lesetre, and thank you, Mr. St-Petrin. Lovely results, as always, and well done for taking the $28 million up front. I had three – lots of questions, but I start with three. So the first one is on your dividend, and you might say it's a bit early, but I'm always interested in cash. The second is on motor pricing, and the third one is on the – So on the dividend, you had the strategy put in place of a three-year plan last year to uplift the dividend from Unipol Groupo and, if I may say, actually cut the dividend at Unipol SAI. As a result, or maybe as a result, I don't know, the discount to the sum of the parts is down. So it was 37% when we started covering the stock. It's now 30%. So the strategy is working and hopefully it continues to work. But I was hoping, given the very strong solvency and results that we're also seeing in New Palsai, that the dividend could be reinstated back to the old level, which is what is also in consensus. I just wondered if it's too early to talk about that. The second is on motor pricing. So I think, speaking to your wonderful IR team, the tariff since you started raising pricing in November for motors is up 15%. And I just wondered, net of rebates, what the figure would be? and when we will see that benefit fully played out in the numbers after the usual lag, which quarter could we look forward to. And then the third is on the life. Life was the area where I was positively surprised. I'm always positively surprised, but particularly in life. And I just wondered if you can add a little bit to your comment saying about investment results and things. Thank you.

Thank you to you, Peter. I will start from the life profit. Then I will comment on the dividend and I will leave to Enrico to discuss and to answer on pricing strategy in motor. Concerning life, we had a quite positive result in the first half of the year. The balance between first quarter and second quarter is, in a certain sense, good. unbiased versus the second quarter compared to the first. It is mainly due to the contribution coming from investments between the first and the second quarter. There are some technicals in order to justify this difference, above all concerning how we assess and we proceed with to calculate the mirroring in the real estate funds in particular, but I don't want to be complicated in the answer. What I can tell you is that what you saw in the first half of the year is the normal evolution overall of the profit in life. And so In order to have an idea of what will be the result in life, you just can multiply by two the number of the first half. Of course, it will be in a normal environment in financial market as it has been the environment of the first half of the year. Thank you. Concerning the dividend of Uniposai, the dividend of Uniposai, I said also concerning the last quarter, is quite early to discuss about our dividend policy. We are still in the first half of... So I don't have any further comments to add something on what you asked. I can tell you only that we disclosed in the announcement of the industrial plan that some financial KPIs that we want to achieve at the end of the industrial plan, both concerning Unipol Gruppo and concerning Unipol SAI. And today we are fully in the condition to deliver all these KPI, hopefully for Unipol SAI dividend to over deliver the KPI. But again, it is too early to assess and to add something more on that. Having said that, I leave the floor to Enrico for motor pricing questions.

Good morning, Michael. Good morning. So what we had to face in the second part of 2022 was an increase in the average cost of acclaim, so caused by inflation, and also a rebound of loss frequency going back to almost to the normal level of pre-pandemic period. So we had to increase our tariff rate On average, what happened in November was 10%, 15%, adding another 5% in February. And in the last month, we had further increases that put the renewal average price around 20% higher than the year before. Of course, the average doesn't represent what happens to the single customer, so there is a very well-differentiated pricing strategy, so the higher risk are receiving higher renewal increases. And this produces a change in the portfolio composition that is giving us the first benefit on loss frequency. So what's happening now basically is in the last month that the average premium is increasing around 11%. And on loss frequency, we are beginning to see some slight impact of those pricing strategies. So, it will take time to see the full effect. It will be very significant, but I think that we will begin to see an improvement in the motor profitability in the second part of 2023 of course we need to cover not only the loss frequency but also the average cost of the claim That is, of course, increasing, but on this we have some good news related to the percentage of the claims in which bodily injuries are involved. So this very important KPI is improving. So in the end, we are, as Matteo said, looking at the execution of our strategy and we are confident to be able to to reach our targets.

Wonderful. Thank you.

The next question is from Elena Perini from Intesa San Paolo. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you, Matteo, for this presentation. And then I would like to ask you two questions. The first one is about life profitability. So it seems that your indication provided with the former accounting principles of around 280 to 300 million euros It is reasonable if we consider that you had recorded 145 million in terms of pre-tax profit, and you said that we can multiply by two. I would like just to have a confirmation in this respect. And then another question, probably involving also Enrico. It is about the new impacts of bad weather in Italy, especially in July. So have you already had some indications of the potential impacts? Could they be higher than the ones that you had for the floods in Emilia-Romagna? So if you can add something more on this, it could be useful. Thank you very much.

Thank you to you, Elena. As you can remember, we always said that the application of the new accounting principle would have not changed a lot to our business model. And applying this statement to life, it is a clear confirmation on what we said before. What matters is... finance, how much money we get in net of claims and cost and we always said that the business model in life can support our profitability in the whereabout of a range between 250-300 million euros and this is what is happening at the end the financial markets are performing quite well The quality of the new business production is very good, both in Unipol Sai and in Arca Vita, which is the JV that we have with Banca Popolare Milla Romagna and Banca Popolare Di Sondrio. We are creating value in terms of new business value and also in terms of stock of goods. And so, as I said before, I'm quite confident that the number that you saw in the first half of the year can be a good proxy of the final number at the end of the year, of course, by multiplying it by two. This is the main point. Having said that, I leave the floor to Enrico on the most difficult question on NatCat.

Hi Elena, and so, as you know, the third quarter is usually the quarter in which are more concentrated weather-related events. Every year it happens. This year, the third quarter began in a very bad way because the hailstorms on several regions in Italy, in the northern part of Italy, are now estimated in an amount that exceeds 200 million for us, counting both property business and motor other damages business. So in the end, we will be able at the end of the quarter to understand how much this will affect our overall results. Oh yeah, of course, this is a figure that is gross reinsurance. Their insurance schemes are quite complicated to explain in this moment, but we are calculating some recoveries of around 50 million euros, roughly speaking.

So, if I understand correctly, the net impact of July events could be around 150 million?

Yes. Roughly speaking, yes. And of course, we will have to wait for the end of the summer season to understand how much will affect the overall results.

Okay, thank you very much. If I may, I would add another quick question about your good data on net inflows in the first half as regards life, because also the traditional policies were positive, slightly positive. So, I don't know if you can add some comments on these figures. Thank you.

Yes, Elena. It is an issue that we have been addressing since the end of last year, where we noticed the starting of the increase of lapses both in bank assurance and in credit. in agent distribution network. Of course, starting from that point, we pushed our commercial distribution network by launching new products, also by making some investments in terms of a lower management fee on the products just to justify and to support the achievement of net inflows in our distribution, in our segregated account. I have to add also a point on the quality of the product that we sell in the sense that we have a very strict policy in terms of dimension of each contract that we subscribe. We avoid totally to subscribe jumbo products or capitalization products issued with banks or financial institutions. But our clients are 100% retail families And these support the stability of our lapses compared to the market, the general market, where we still are, if I remember by heart, a couple percentage point under the average of the market in terms of lapses. So by combining these two, we were able to achieve net inflows of 100 million. That is not so much in terms of total amount, but considering also the security going to maturity, the asset going to maturity, we were able to work on the increase of the yield of the asset that we have in our accounts covering the traditional products. Today we are Above 3% gross, we are still working on the increase of this number in order to support our distribution network, also taking in consideration the increase of yield. Having said that, of course, the... The selling of this kind of product has not to be based on the comparative yield compared to other products because today, of course, if you compare the yield of a traditional product to the yield of an Italian government bonds, there are no comparisons. You have to support your selling proposition on the other products. characteristics and components of the life insurance products that can support the selling of this kind of product compared to financial or asset management opportunities.

Okay. Thank you very much. Very clear answers.

The next question is from Peter Elliott from Kepler Chevro. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. The first one was a quick follow-up on the weather and the reinsurance. Thank you for clarifying the numbers and the 50 million recovery for the July events. Could you just remind us where we are on your reinsurance cover overall? So how much protection you will have if there are any further events, further large events over the rest of the year? That would be the first question. And then a couple on the combined ratio. Firstly, I know you said at Q1 that the reserve releases were not very relevant, but are you able to give us an update for the half year on what the reserve releases were? And secondly, would you also be able to give us the discount impact on the combined ratio? So maybe what the combined ratio would have been on an undiscounted basis. Maybe you could also say what you expect that benefit to be for the full year, because I think the full year benefit will probably be rather less than the half year benefit. And maybe how you think about those two ratios as well internally. You know, do you think of the combined ratio that you report or do you think about sort of targeting an undiscounted combined ratio?

Thank you very much.

Okay, concerning the discounting and reserve release, the impact of discount on the combined ratio is 3.5%. And in terms of reserve release, in the first half is 5%. The total, considering Uniposai, and also at consolidated levels. Then on reinsurance, it is a too difficult question for me. I leave the floor to Enrico.

Thank you. So it's quite complicated also for me. Basically, I guess that could be interesting if you are interested in the issues to organize some further explanation of what our insurance schema are. Basically, what I can say is that we have several treaties, some very simple. For instance, the CAPNAT agreement. Treaty has a retention for us of 150 million. So if it happens an event that exceed 150, we recover everything until we get on 1 billion 700 million. So a lot. In addition, we also have what in reinsurance is called an aggregate program that put together several business lines on smaller layers of risk. This is quite complicated. I tried to explain it. We have the nut-cut part that has a first layer in which there is 25 million of retention and 25 million of capacity and another layer on which there is 50 million exceeding the first layer that starts from 50 million. We have some aggregate deductibles both on the single business line and the overall aggregate program. So when it comes to several medium-sized events, like it's happening in July, this program starts to work. So the overall capacity of this scheme is 85 million. So when we have several medium-sized events The treaty that is working more is what we call multiple, the aggregate. When we have events, single events, that are exceeding 150 million, the cut-nut traditional treaty starts to work. I hope it could be quite understandable, but I promise I can discuss it in a more detailed way in the next hours if you need.

No, that's great. Thank you very much for your answers. I mean, this may be something I can follow up with IR offline and very happy to do so. But I don't know if you also have a feel for you know, what the discounting benefit might be at the full year and whether you wanted to add anything on sort of how you think about it. But I can follow up with IR afterwards, no problem.

I have not, of course, the expected number at full year, but I can tell you that it will be a lower contribution of the discount effect at the end of the year. Because it usually is more impacting at the beginning of the year compared to the second half. But I can tell you what will be at the end of the year the number.

Thank you.

The next question is from Andrea Lisi from Equita. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. for taking my questions. The first one is again on the combined ratio for the full year, in particular considering the events. Other to reinsurance, do you have other room to mitigate the impact of recent NatCat events? This is the first question. The second one is related to the life business. In particular, thank you for providing the details on CSM, on the release, and so on. So just to – you said that the results can be multiplied by two of the first half, so to try to end up the result. Just to understand, so – Is it reasonable to assume a release ratio of the CSM over time, kind of 10% beginning of the year CSM? And if you can provide us more color, can you elaborate on the impact of the economic and operating variances on the CSM during the first half? Thank you.

Okay, we'll start from life, Andrea. The evolution of the CSM, as you saw it in the first half of the year, we expect not to have a lot of volatility compared to this number. I can tell you that, yes, you can expect a CSM release and the creation quite stable over time, even if I can tell you a fixed number to use. But, again... I don't expect a lot of volatility in terms of CSM created and released. Concerning the economic and operating variances, we had two positive effects to comment in the sense that we had almost 100% 50 million positive coming from financial result, 145 coming from financial component, and a negative 39 million coming from the operating component due to the evolution of the portfolio that we had in 2020. In the first half, there is also a contribution coming from the pension products, both individual and collective. And on PNC, I leave the floor to Enrico.

Okay, so about our insurance, we have room to recover more. Okay, basically what we have said in the answer to the question of Peter is we have plenty of room for big events that are exceeding 150 million people. Of course, we hope they will not happen, but we have plenty of room. When it comes to medium-sized events such as the hailstorms of July, basically medium-sized events have a 25 million of our attention. Then they begin to contribute to the recover of the multiple, the aggregate, Now we estimate around 50 million already recovered and the total capacity of this treaty is 85. So we have 35 million more to recover in case of further worsening of this kind of events. Many thanks.

The next question is from Michael Hutner from Berenberg.

Please go ahead. When John Hawking came to see us in January, he said October.

So October is the time to become much more willing.

Sorry, but it was not absolutely clear, the question. I don't know if it was a question or not, but if it was a question, if you can repeat it.

Mr. Hartner is not in the questions anymore.

Sorry, I take the opportunity to say more on how we adjusted the number of Unipol Gruppo profit because I saw some press release that could be misleading in the sense that what I said is that we adjusted the BIPER result that on our component was 140 million before the announcement of the bank extra profit tax And after the announcement of the bank extra profit tax, we cut the B per profit on our, of course, component by 28 million. So it was 140 million, 20% of 700 million that was the B per result, 140 million, cutting by 28 million. And so our component of profit of B per cut for the extra profit bank is 113. Just to be clear on what I said before.

The next question is a follow-up from Peter Elliott from Kepler Shiver. Please go ahead.

Thank you for the opportunity to come back. Just a couple of small clarification points, please. The first one was just on the motor premiums. I take on board everything you said, and hopefully we'll get a bit of an acceleration coming through. But I was just a little bit surprised that the 1.6% increase was lower than at Q1 because I sort of would have expected that to increase with the premiums. I mean, is that basically just because more people were leaving or the portfolio was changing a little bit more in Q2 than Q1? Or, yeah, I just wonder if you can help me understand that dynamic there. And then the second question was you point out the very nice rise in real estate yield. I mean, your income has gone up by about 13 percent. So I was wondering if you could just just explain what's driven that. It seems more than sort of simply, you know, inflation linked or anything. So, yeah, if you could explain that. Great. Thank you.

First of all, as we discussed in the first quarter, you have to take into account the significant impact of our monthly instalment scheme. Starting from the beginning of this year, our customers have the chance to pay monthly their contract. And this is really a success. Hundreds of thousands of customers are choosing this kind of scheme. And this affects our customers. Premium return, of course, because a single customer is paying one month and not one year premium. Considering this, for motor, the overall figures increase around 4 percentage points. So it is around 5.5% motor premium growth if you do not consider this kind of effect. The second phenomenon is that in the first quarter we were still growing in number of customers. In the second quarter we started to slightly decrease the number of customers. So this is reducing a little bit our motor growth.

Great.

Thank you very much. Okay. On real estate, there are a lot of things to support the increase of yield in the asset portfolio. So the first thing is that all people of the real estate department are doing a very good job in order to increase the profitability of the asset under management. On one hand, all our contracts are correlated and related to the inflation rate, and so there is a restatement of the rent to the evolution of the inflation. Second, we are a very large group, and so I don't have time to comment on all the business in which we are involved, but one of them in which we are having a very good profitability is in the Hotel business where Una reported 10 million euros of net profit. Of course, Una is the management company, is the operating company. We have also the PropCo where we own 700 million of hotels. Well, to which Una pay rent, a part is fixed and the part is variable depending on the profitability of the company. And considering that the company is doing 10 million euros of net profit, consequently, there is also a positive implication on the profitability of the real estate asset. And so overall, this can explain the improvement of the profitability of the asset class.

Great. Thank you very much.

Mr. La Terza, gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time.

Thank you very much to all of you. And we will meet again in November. Have a good holiday for everyone who will do it. Otherwise, a good weekend.