Zurich Insurance Group Ltd

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Zurich Insurance Group Annual Results 2020 conference call. I'm Aria, the chorus call operator. I would like to remind that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Richard Burden, Head of Investor Relations and Rating Agency Management. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Zurich Insurance Group's full year 2020 results Q&A call. On the call today is our Group CEO, Mario Greco, and our Group CFO, George Quinn. Before I hand over to Mario and George for some introductory remarks, just a reminder for the Q&A, We kindly ask you to keep to a maximum of two questions, and if we have time, we'll circle back around again. So with that, I'd like to pass it over to Mario.

Thank you, Richard, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much for joining us today. I'd like to give you a few remarks before handing over to George. 2020 has been an unprecedented year with unforeseeable events ranging from global pandemic and recession to civil unrest in the United States and a high level of natural catastrophes. Throughout these challenges, we have supported our customers and local communities while ensuring the safety and the well-being of our colleagues. The performance over 2020 confirms the strength of the business, the agility of our people and the effectiveness of our digital strategy with our business remaining fully operational throughout. On the back of this, we have increased customer satisfaction and employee engagement. This is already leading to growth in our customer base and will be supportive of further growth in the next months and years. Our results demonstrate a strong underlying performance with the decline in business operating profit for the full year explained entirely by COVID-19 and by the above normal levels of the natural catastrophes. Even with these effects, our combined ratio remain at the level that when we started this journey would have been considered as a challenge to achieve. The underlying performance of our property and casualty business was particularly pleasing. Not only did we experience a strong growth in gross return premiums, but we also saw strong improvement in the underlying combined ratio of 2.6 points. Claims related to COVID-19 net of reinsurance and associated frequency benefits have remained in line with the US dollars, $450 million we reported at half-year, a level which stands favorably against peers of similar size in the industry. This performance reflects the work done in recent years to improve the portfolio as well as the benefit of the recent price increases. Combined with the current price trends, which are expected to continue through this year, I am really confident that our property and casualty business is well positioned to deliver further strong profitable growth. Our life business also showed a strong performance over the year, with the growth of 7%, excluding the effect of COVID, and despite falls in investment yields and in Latin American currencies. The group has focused on life protection business and capital light savings products for over a decade, a decision that serves as well as global investment yields remain at historical lows. Farmers Management Services saw an improved second half performance, and together with the acquisition of the MetLife property and casualty business, I am confident in the future prospects for the former's business. During the year, we paid our 2019 dividend on time and in full. Our confidence in our plans and continued strong balance sheet means that we are proposing a stable dividend in Swiss francs in regards to 2020. As a look at the business today, we have adapted our plans to the changed reality And I'm confident that the strong delivery in 2020 and the work done in recent years to improve the business position as well to deliver on the commitments we made in 2019 for the end of 2022. I will now hand over to George to make some additional remarks. Thank you.