UNIQA Insurance Stock

Ladies and gentlemen, we warmly welcome you to the conference call for the first half year results for 2026 of the UNIQA Insurance Group AG. I am pleased to welcome the Chief Financial and Risk Officer, Kurt Svoboda, who will guide us through the presentation shortly. After the presentation, we will move on to a Q&A session where you will be allowed to ask questions via audio line today.

And having said this, I am handing over to you, Mr. Svoboda.

Thank you very much, and welcome, everybody, to UNIQA's results on half year 2026 based on a new set of slides, which should, on the one hand, give you as auditorium more transparency, more information and service about UNIQA Insurance Group AG. I start on the Page #4, which gives from our perspective, the situation, which is especially for us in the insurance industry at the moment, the most important one, it's about the interest rate environment. It is visible that all over Europe, we have a quite impressive increase about on the interest rates, which, on the one hand, gave us, in the result, a boost, especially in the ordinary income, but also on the other hand, as IFRS 17 is a very economic-driven accounting scheme also on the topic of special discountings and topics on the evaluation.

Inflation is a never-ending story, especially in our CEE region. Austria yesterday reported an inflation of about 2.8 percentage points. All in all, we see inflation as manageable and in our results and in our business at the moment, not at a risk. But still, according to energy prices, global development, this is an ongoing topic, especially for the next couple of months. Climate and NatCat, I think, is something that everybody can itself feel and see what's going on in terms of the heat about the dry situation, especially here in Eastern part of Austria and generally all Europe with fires and with the heat wave across Europe. The positive thing is for us that we can report that in the first half year, we had neglectable impact on NatCat and weather-related claims, about EUR 22 million, which is accordingly to the previous years neglectable.

And on the other hand, and this is a message upfront, we do not believe that this stays at this level. And therefore, we took actions in this balance sheet for the half year to be prepared for higher losses in the second half year. But I come to that later on. I move on to the group results on Page #6, pointing out the growth by 12 percentage points, including all business, primary business and reinsurance business, including UNIQA Re and reinsurance. Primary business itself is in line with that what was expected. I also will refer that later on.

Profitability with a nice ROE of 16%, return on risk by around 18%, more or less stable to the comparable period in 2025 and a solid solvency position that makes us ready for further improvement of our business and also our growth. If we come to Page #7 and look about earnings before taxes, I would like to draw your attention on two topics. On the one hand, we have a 10% increase on the EBT, which was at a first glance driven only by the financial result because of technical result and other results is going down. This is from a perspective on the balance sheet purely looking correct. But if you take into consideration that what I stated by talking about climate change, we took actions in the first half year that we are prepared for balancing out the higher losses maybe or also development negatively on the capital markets in the second half of 2026.

These measures that we took, they are, on the one hand, allocated to the technical result, P&C reserves, health reserves, but also on the other hand, on the other result. If you make it on a comparable basis, we have an improvement as well in the technical result as also in the other result. Therefore, please take the technical result not as an operative one, take this as an accounting one, which is impacted by measures that we took in the first half year. Good is the development of the admin cost ratio, stable by 14.8 percentage points.

Page 8, talking about the growth gave us, on the one hand, in the business lines. And now here, we are on the topic of the primary business, a 7.1% CAGR between '21 and '25. We can report out that we have, especially in the international business, a catch-up as Poland has developed in the second quarter quite impressively and tremendously. Maybe you remember that we have a very soft market in Poland in the first quarter 2026, which gave us the position that we grew below the market and could not improve our growth like it was the case in '25. But especially the month May and June have been very positive, especially also for us. We grew above the market. We could achieve so far a growth in Poland by 6.6%. We are above the market. The market growth at the moment was 3.3%. UNIQA was 5.4%. And therefore, we are very confident to achieve, in total in our international business, the 8% by the end of the year in 2026. The CSMs in Health and in Life are on track. This is on Page #9.

We show you here the distinction between operative and nonoperative topics. Especially when we talk about new business, we are quite positive with that what we achieved in the first half year 2026. Business line performance on Page #12. We have a combined ratio, which is 91.6%. And I can tell you that this is also, in that case, impacted by the measures that I talked about. If you take out, if you carve out those measures I'm talking about, the information I can give you is that combined ratio was net basis, below 90%.

Another thing that drove first half year very positively was the runoff. You see it here on Page 12, 3.9% impact coming from better settlement of major big claims from the past. We do, in that case, also not believe that this goes on in the second half. So also here, smoothing out by the end of the year is to be expected. When we talk about the international life business, we are now on Page #13. We can see here a very positive trend, especially what the earnings before tax is and the premium, the international business has at the moment, high importance in the life business than the Austrian business. This has to do with prolongations that are -- and also expiring contracts in Austria and therefore, focus on the international business with a very high new business margin and a satisfying CSM development, which is then visible on Page 14.

The Health business, I'm talking about, Page #15, has an improvement in earnings before tax of up to EUR 24 million. This has to do, on the one hand, with a better financial result. By the way, on the financial result, but I come to that in a minute, also on the CSM level, STRABAG and higher ordinary income is visible. But also on the other hand, the technical results, excluding actions and measurements that we took for the second half of the year is very positive for us. The new business margin, I'm talking about 7.8% is visible on Page #16 in the upper right-hand corner and gives us a confident new business CSM by EUR 73 million. Also here, the nonoperating economic variance by around EUR 280 million is quite high.

When we talk about market performance itself, looking on Austria, Page #19. On the one hand, we are quite happy that the balance between the Austrian and the international contribution by both earnings before taxes and the technical result is well balanced. This is for us also key because this gives us a solid basis for the dividend stream by the end of the year. Combined ratio in both segments are below plan and gave us also room for taking actions for the second half of the year.

And international country deep dive on Page 21, I would like to give on Poland. I explained to you that we have a growth of about 6.6% on premiums. I can also give you an information that we have a very solid and good P&C combined ratio in Poland, leading to a quite good technical result of EUR 47 million. And we expect that Poland, especially in the second half of the year will contribute much more than in the first half year. Especially when we talk about growth, again, I mentioned before that we grew by 5.4% in Poland. This is by more than 90% driven by the volume effect, so from the 5.4%, 4.6% is coming from volume effects and only 0.7% is coming from pricing effects. So this means the market is back, and we as in our USP in the pricing can also, in that case, take our advantage on volumes and on new business.

The investment performance, Chapter 3.2 on Page 22 is visible that on the one hand, we could improve because of the interest rate situation, our other comprehensive income by close to EUR 1 billion. Interest rates on a 10-year Austrian government bond have reached favorable 3.1 percentage points. And this leads next page, you can see this to new investment yield, which is more in line with that was about in the last quarters, 4.3% and the average investment yield by 3.3 percentage points. Yes, we took also actions to improve the business. We sold some bonds out of duration purposes. And with this, bought new bonds with higher duration and higher ordinary income for the future.

The bridge between the net investment income and the net financial result, you see on the left-hand side, why is that big at UNIQA? This has to do with the accounting treatment as variable fee approach and therefore, the high impact from the fair value over the underlying item in health and in the Life business. Cash and financial leverage is new information that we'll give especially at the half year. Two things I would like to report out on Page 26 is on the one hand that the cash remittance to the group is especially in line what was the target for '25 and also for the rest of UNIQA 3.0 and also the diversification of the cash remittance to the group is in line between Austria, UNIQA Re and international business. So dividend streams and also our commitment to a progressive dividend in the future is in line with the funding of it.

And this brings me on Page #28, the outlook and the guidance for the rest of the year. I can imagine that some of you are thinking about, okay, with a result of EUR 327 million and the guidance of EUR 540 million to EUR 570 million, what does this mean for the second half of the year? Is there anything to expect because of less performance than in the first half? What I can tell you is continuing that what I said in the beginning, we live in a situation that, especially here in Europe, we have high volatility. This comes from global impacts, especially coming from capital markets. And therefore, we are cautious believing that the impact -- the positive impact on interest rates and also on bond and equity market in the second half of the year '26 is the same as it was in the first half year. And for that, we want to be prepared.

The second thing is we have now more or less the end of August, but still not the end of the season while cat events can have big hits in especially countries like Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic. And also for that, we want to be prepared. In other words, if such major events happen in the second half of the year, UNIQA is prepared to balance that out and achieve that what we propose to you and to the capital markets. That means the target range of EUR 540 million to EUR 570 million. If this is not the case, and we -- and especially for the population of these countries can avoid things like I talked before, UNIQA will report, especially then in Q3, what this means for a new outlook and the guidance for the year 2026. But still at the moment, for us, it is too early in that case. The rest, I think, is known.

And for that, I would like to close here my explanation about the half years and now happy to take your questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Svoboda. And ladies and gentlemen, now it's your turn. We are opening the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] Mr. Antoine Bouchetoux. Mr. Bouchetoux, please.

I have three. Firstly, I'd like to come back to P&C because I'd like to better assess your underlying performance. So thank you for sharing that below 90% net combined ratio restated for the balance sheet strengthening. But there was also the runoff ratio, which had a favorable impact this first half. I think historically, you had a ratio which was closer to maybe minus 3%. And you did mention that it should come back most likely in H2. So I was wondering if you could maybe confirm that a good number for a medium-term perspective would be that minus 3% that I just mentioned.

And also in some of your slides, you mentioned increased basic claims in P&C. I was wondering if you could provide more details on these in what line of business? It seems to be mainly driven by Austria, but maybe I'm wrong on this. And I was wondering if you could maybe specify if it's more related to frequency or maybe severity or any additional information on this would be helpful. Then two other questions, that's on the Life & Health side this time. Firstly, the technical results declined in both Life and Health. Maybe -- well, I think I understood from your comments that this was also related to the measures -- technical measures that you implemented in the first half. Just wanted to confirm that, that the spread between the CSM release and the technical result in Life & Health was related to those measures.

And last question, on the Life new business, you -- it increased quite substantially in Austria. And in the past, you mentioned product launches or product launch projects that could support sales in Austria. So I was wondering if that was what drove the new business during the first half.

Thank you, Antoine. So talking about the first -- talking about the first topic about P&C runoff basic claims and about the loss. So first of all, yes, it is the case that we had runoff of about 3.9%, as it's stated in the document. And I can tell you that normally, we calculate with a runoff of about on average between 1.5 and 2 percentage points. Why this was the reason in the first half year that it was more. There have been one-offs that much more one-offs that we have been in the past, about 1.5 percentage points. This has to do with lines of business like property. This has to do with countries, Poland, Czech Republic and not Austria. And this has to do with the fronting claim that we had in Austria in the first quarter. Fronting is treated in the accounting scheme, especially in IFRS as gross.

And you see then the net result like it is in the reinsurance. So therefore, it's also visible in the runoff treatment. It's more or less not the frequency, it's more the severity, as you stated. And on the other hand, but basic claims, Antoine, I can tell you that the basic claim ratio in UNIQA for the first half year is in line that was in the history, 53 to 54 percentage points defined as all claims, excluding weather-related, excluding NatCats and excluding major claims above EUR 500,000.

Second question was about the technical result in Life and in Health. Has it declined? Yes, you are correct. Especially in the health business, we took care especially on two aspects: a, maybe you know that in Austria, the health insurance companies are offering inpatient and outpatient tariffs or ambulant tariffs and especially those ambulant tariffs are seen as a voucher system. An ambulant tariff or a tariff like that works also, but not 100% in a way that you have a limit, which you can take as a benefit out of your premiums if you go to private doctors, if you go and get new I don't know, glasses or lenses or things like that. But you have a limitation on that. People know exactly how the limitation looks like and they are reaching in their invoices, especially for those things in the first half year. And that was another reason why you see here more business, more claims in that case, also more services for our customers. We expect this to be better in the second half of the year as those limits have already been achieved.

In the life business, we took more or less no actions. This is the real situation out of the CSM. What we had in the life business in the second half of the year, stand-alone basis was a recognition of an additional provision related to unit-linked legal cases in Poland. Third topic, you talked about the new business in Austria. Yes, you're right. We are quite happy with the new business margin in Austria. We are not happy with the premium volume. The new business comes from a better unit-linked product and from a better unit-linked profitability. And this is the reason why we have, in that case, a quite nice new business margin.

And we get to the next participant, Mr. Schnirch. Mr. Schnirch, we still can't hear you. You have to switch on your mic. So that does not seem to work. [Operator Instructions] Mr. Schnirch.

So, Mr. Huttner. Mr. Michael Huttner, you should be able to unmute yourself.

I maybe take the following question from Mr. Michael Huttner because he was.

Yes. Sorry, I'm panicking. I've got -- yes, seriously, the instruction is a little bit slow. So first of all, can you remind us what the confidence for your growth outlook? So you're maintaining 8% for the CEE and Non-life and half year was 7%. So we only have 6 months now to catch up, which means we need 9% second half. So a feeling for that. I'm sure you said this on the call, but I couldn't hear. How much was the prudency addition in reserves in Q2? It feels like it would have been a huge number. There were no NatCats and but it's hard to -- my guess is we're looking at around EUR 100 million, but I'm not sure.

The third one is on the deal outlook. I know it's -- you can't discuss individuals. But is there a feeling that now things have become a little bit more affordable. There's more likelihood of a deal coming up? And then last point, and I think you did highlight it, you said you decided not to raise guidance. Let me put the question in a more kind of positive or negative way. What would stop you raising the guidance in Q3?

Yes, Michael, the line was not that good, but I think I can anticipate what your questions have been. If I'm not correct, then please tell me. So about the first question was about how are we confident to achieve the 8% full year growth in the CEE Non-life as at the moment, we have 7%. Still, Michael, two elements. The first one is, I repeat again, Poland and the second one is about Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Coming back to Poland. We have in Poland at the moment, 6.6% growth, which is for us a good sign because we have been half of this in the first quarter of 2026. We see now that the market is not anymore softening. And we see here that our new business is increasing on a weekly basis. We have catched up also the market position because in Q1 and in April and May, we have been growing below the market. We have now since June, July and also, I guess, in August, we are now ahead of the market, which in total gives us a favorable situation half year 2026, Michael, UNIQA, 5.4% growth, market..

So by now we can -- we couldn't hear you in the past about 10 seconds.

Should do it again?

Yes.

Okay. So just repeat again, this is the reason why we in Poland to confident that this contributes to the 7% and to 8% by the end of the year. The second market is Czech Republic and Slovakia. We do a lot of portfolio restructuring in this market. We have now by the half year, a growth of 7.1 percentage points, and we see that this will also go up to 7.5%, close to 8%. And with EUR 0.5 billion premium volume in Czech Republic and Slovakia, that this will achieve more than the EUR 1 billion. This is the second driver, Michael, why we are confident to achieve the 8% by the end of the year. So this is the answer to your first question.

Your second question is about what do we see as a budget for the cat event for the second half of the year. You are not far away from that what you stated with the EUR 100 million. If you just remind Boris was of around EUR 85 million. So therefore, we see also a position in that way to be ready to compensate, especially in the second half of the year, if it comes. Your third question is about your impact on the measurements in the first half year. So I can tell you, we had topics of around EUR 80 million impacting the technical result of UNIQA in the first half year, distributed about health, distributed in P&C, distributed in the external reinsurance business.

And your last question, Michael, is what can hinder us in terms of increasing the outlook by the end of the year. The only thing that hindering us is if one of those elements I explained in the beginning of my explanation comes true. If there is a cat event in Europe in the next couple of weeks, then yes. If there is a negative impact on the capital market or on the equity market within the next weeks out of U.S., Iran, Europe, whatever you name, this can have impact on UNIQA. And again, this is why we want to have here security and safeguarding for the rest of the year. If this is not the case, Michael, we will certainly come up and give you a new guidance.

And we straight head back to Mr. Bouchetoux. He seems to have a follow-up question. So Mr. Bouchetoux.

I wanted to come back on the Solvency II ratio. You have lowered sensitivity to the interest rates quite significantly. This was already visible in Q1. But I was wondering if you could share some of the actions that you took to make this possible.

Yes, Antoine, about the following actions we took on the one hand. There is a microphone effect -- so we took an ALM approach that means longer assets on the one hand. Second thing is we restructured the model, especially when we look about fully the model of UNIQA. And the third thing was that especially also the profitability of our products and in the health business with higher increases of indexation was better reflected in our calculations than in the past. With this, we feel now comfortable. And yes, you're right, we have now minimized the volatility on the movements, 50 or 100 basis points, which gives us more comfort, especially in the personal lines movements on interest rates.

I'm waiting for maybe some participants raising their hand and questions. This seems to be not the case. In the meantime, we have not received further questions and would, therefore, come to the end of this conference call. Thank you very much to the participants and their interest in UNIQA Insurance Group. A big thank you to you, Mr. Svoboda, for the presentation and the time taking the questions. And before we close this call, I hand back to you, Mr. Svoboda, once again for some closing remarks. Thank you from my side. Have a lovely remaining week, and goodbye.

Thank you, and all thank you for participating in UNIQA's half year 2026 results. I wish you a nice remaining summer and all the rest. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, we warmly welcome you to the conference call of the first quarter results for 2026 of the UNIQA Insurance Group AG. I'm pleased to welcome CEO, Andreas Brandstetter; and CFO/CRO, Kurt Svoboda, who will guide us through the presentation shortly. [Operator Instructions] And having said that, I'm handing over to you, Mr. Brandstetter.

Hello from Vienna, and thank you very much for your time and interest in the Q1 figures of UNIQA Insurance Group, which show resilient numbers and which show again a full match with our 2028 targets, and which also are a very constant proof of our diversified business model.

Just reminding you of our targets for the year 2028: first, a 6% premium CAGR; second, a 7% EPS CAGR, a combined ratio, which is below 93% net; and last but not least, admin cost ratio, which is constantly below 15%. This is what we communicated to you. And if we start on Slide 4, on the left part of the slide, we see that all our figures of our KPIs in the first 3 months 2026 prove that we are everywhere on track.

Let me briefly start with the growth, which shows on Slide 5, an increase of 14.4%. As you might have seen, the growth in our home market, Austria, direct insure business is north of 4%, 4.2%. The growth in our international markets, which means in CEE is 6.2%. So basically, we are pretty much in line even if as we already felt a couple of months before, we see a little bit of headwind in the Eastern European markets as far as the market growth itself is concerned. But we are quite optimistic that within the next 3 quarters of this year, we will also be able to catch up and to reach our 8% growth in CEE, which, as you know, is our target line for the next years.

What is special to mention here is that we have a kind of seasonal contribution of growth from our reinsurance company in Zurich. This is our external business, which will be elaborated by Kurt a little bit later where we see a very strong increase, as I said, due to seasonality in Q1. But please don't expect us that in the next 3 quarters, we see a similar growth coming from the external reinsurance business. Most of the business, more than 90% is booked in Q1. So this will slow down and which basically normalize until the year-end. But as I mentioned again, Kurt will elaborate on this a little bit later.

So we are fine with the growth on the top line. If we then move to the technical result here on the Slide 5, we see an increase of 5%, up to EUR 210 million. What we see is a kind of a small decrease in the P&C profitability, even with a combined ratio of 91% and that still is very fine. It's good. Frankly spoken, we didn't have any kind of major loss coming from natural catastrophes in this Q1. And as far as the large claims is concerned, we see a sideward development if you compare Q1 2025 to 2026. What we see is a small, but moderate increase in the so-called basic claim in the basic portfolio. But again, no reason to worry. Still, we think 91% is a very good figure. And this, as I stated a couple of minutes before, also in line with our overall target because we said combined ratio net always should be below 93%.

On the other hand, staying with the technical result, we see an excellent performance in Life and in the Health performance. Kurt will show in a couple of minutes that the strong CSM release is coming from Austria Health and Life. On the other hand, the Austrian health continues to be a main CSM new business driver with a sustainability ratio, which is clear north of 100%, even north of 120%. So a very good development as far as the Austrian Health insurance business, the new business, the incoming business is concerned.

I talked already about the large claims. I talked about the combined ratio. I think this is relevant because it's referring to more than 60% of our old business. This then leads us to the profitability, the earnings before tax is an increase of almost 6% up to EUR 160 million. And as I stated before, following an effective tax rate of 21%, we had a little bit higher tax rate in the first 3 months of 2025, we have a consolidated profit, which has been rising by 8% up to EUR 128 million. So overall, having said this, I think we are completely super in line with our promise, and this is also the reason why we may confirm our target for the full year 2026, showing a profit before tax somewhere in the range between EUR 540 million and EUR 570 million, Kurt, and you are also kind to guide us through the details.

Thank you very much, Andreas, and welcome also from my side. I'm starting on Page #6, talking about key financial indicators. I would like to highlight 2 of them. The first one is, again, the dividend per share. So in the upcoming general assembly on the 9th of June, we will propose a dividend of EUR 0.72, which is quite a great increase in comparison to the full year '24. Still, we stick to our payout ratio between 50% and 60% also in the upcoming years.

Second key financial indicator I would like to highlight is the regulatory capital position, 272%, so nothing new on that. But on the one hand, I would like to stress that -- and you will see it in the details that we have managed to bring down the ALM gap, especially on the health side close to zero. So that means the sensitivity of UNIQA, especially to up and downward shocks on interest rates is at the moment more or less neglectable. So in other words, the 272% are for us a very constant level, of course, depending on the economic development, but this was also a discussion point even in the future.

And yes, we placed a bond that you have maybe noticed in the last couple of weeks around EUR 500 million, including refinancing of an existing bond. So that means we will have a little bit of a deterioration between Q2 and Q3 because of the buyback, but this is in a way of around 5% to 7%, nothing to worry about. And with this, we are also ready for further M&As and increasing the business models and strengthening our business model in the future.

The Group Life & Health CSM on the next page, on Page 7, I think what is for us very important that we are on track to the target of 90% CSM sustainability ratio 2028 with around 78.2% in the first quarter. I think nothing new on that. Health, outstanding, Life, in that case, stable. So in that case, we are confident to achieve the target.

The target of top line on the Page 8 was already mentioned. So on the one hand, you see the quarterly development. What jumps into the eyes, especially P&C business quarter-to-quarter, already mentioned by Andreas about the external reinsurance business. So just to add in that case, around 90% of the external reinsurance business has the renewal in Q1. We could manage that with new prices, and a little bit of expanding the business, we come to the gross written premium of around EUR 214 million, including a small portion of new business in that amount.

What to expect for the rest of the year, certainly not again on a quarterly basis, this EUR 400 million, but we are confident that the level of trend between EUR 440 million and EUR 450 million, EUR 470 million is something that is achievable in this year with the net margin of around 8%. And this has a very good diversification in our P&C business in the future.

When we talk about growth, we have also to take into consideration the Health business, the Health segment, and here, especially the split between volume and pricing components. So volume components in the first quarter have been around 2.5% and pricing components have been around 5.5%. So in total, 8% growth on the Health business.

Admin cost ratio, Page #9, we are on track. So nothing more to report on that. Cost management is an issue, and therefore, to have the target in line from Q1 onwards is, for us, very important.

P&C, strong fundamentals, on Page #10. I think what jumps into the eye is that the earnings before tax are lower than in 3 months '25 in comparison, the combined ratio is a little bit higher. So what's behind is, on the one hand, that we have a little bit more on major claims in 2026. This is the Polish portfolio. But in this case, we are in line with the plan. So no worries that we are overshooting our internal forecast. The second thing is that we used the first quarter like many other insurance companies to strengthen for the rest of the year because cat season is ahead of us. We have a very, very dry situation here in Austria and also in parts of the CE region. So we expect not only a hot summer, but also the one or other cat event. And with this, we have prepared, in the first quarter, a little bit of reserves for the rest of the year. In total, we can talk about 2% impact on the combined ratio on that level. So that is then comparable to the year 2025.

I talk about Life on Page #11. CSM really is stable. We have here a new business margin between 3%, especially in the unit-linked business and around 20% in the biometric business, so a wide range. classical business around 4%. Still, we are losing more volume that the new business is in, but this is not only the UNIQA trend, this is generally visible in the Austrian, but also in the other markets so far.

Health, I talked about very strong net result driven by the inpatient tariffs and group tariffs, which are very profitable and also the volumes in line with what we expect.

Talking about the core markets on Page 14. Very important for us is the well-balanced contribution of Austria and international business. So EUR 71 million in that case from both core markets, plus UNIQA reinsurance with EUR 36 million. There are a contribution from the external business of EUR 9 million. So we are very well balanced, good diversified and for that, for us, a clear achievement of the target.

OCI and ECL is, for us, very stable. So what is important to note that, of course, yield on a 10-year Austrian government bond raised between '25 and '26, therefore, we have also an impact on our OCI, especially on the fair valuation on OCI. And on the other hand, we can also say that the expected credit loss development was also quite neutral in respect to the last year.

And investment activities, nothing new to report on that. STRABAG that maybe have noted or seen that we sold down a portion of the non-syndicated shares, but be aware that this has an impact only from Q2 onwards and not in Q1.

And with this, I would then go directly to the outlook and to our guidance for the year of 2026. As Andreas mentioned, targeted EBT in the range of EUR 540 million to EUR 570 million despite the very well-driven Q1. Dividend in the policy management between 50% and 60% and the targets here shown unchanged to that what we have reported since the last Capital Market Update. That's the keyword. Save the date for the Capital Markets Update 2026 on the 25th in November in London. Invitation and more details then to come. But for all of you who are interested, please take -- save the date in your calendar.

With this, I end my presentation here. And now Andreas and I are happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And with that, we will start with Antoine.

I have 3. First one is on P&C and more specifically on the reinsurance business that you're expanding quite quickly. I was wondering if you could provide a little bit more details on the type of business that you're writing. You mentioned a net margin, I think, of 8%, but also if you could maybe expand a little bit on the profitability you expect from that business and maybe the risk that is associated with it.

Then I have a second question on your STRABAG stake. So you mentioned the sale in April. I was wondering if you could help us understand whether you still have the possibility to sell more shares in the future? Could you clarify how many shares, if any, you still hold outside the syndicate agreement? And maybe whether there is a possibility that the syndicate agreement could be amended?

And then finally, a question about tax, which is not specifically related to Q1. But you have a large stock of tax loss carryforwards. Only a fraction of those are recognized as DTAs. And so since they have no expiry date, I was wondering whether there is any reason why recognition would not be possible? And maybe could you help us understand -- better understand the expected time line of the recognition?

Thank you, Antoine. So first of all, question on reinsurance. Thank you for that. So I give you a snapshot of that what we are doing here. So we are doing here a niche business in the reinsurance side. So that's not comparable to that what the most known reinsurers like Munich Re, Swiss Re or others are doing in that case. So we are closely working here on MGA basis and on a business which is based on property and the whole account quota share. We have no intermediaries between, so that means we have direct access to the network and to the partners out of our expertise that we have built up in Zurich. The portfolio is spread between North America, which is the major part, more than 30%, Europe, those markets where UNIQA is not doing primary insurance and a little bit of Latin America and Asia. And as I said to you, we are in the third year. We have contracts which have duration between 2 and 3 years, so no long-term business. And correctly, our target is that we have a net margin between 8% and 10%, well diversified and also creating a dividend stream in the future from UNIQA Zurich to the UNIQA Insurance Group.

I think more to come then in later stage of the year, but that's for you a summary of that what we are doing here.

STRABAG, yes, we have still a little bit more than 1% on the non-syndicated shares. And the question is for us, not a urgent one, but of course, we have an eye on that. But for the time being, we are happy with the situation. The syndicate contract is something that is theoretically sellable, but for us, at the time being, not a topic because the company is operative-wise great performing, full books for the next, I would say, 8 to 10 years. And with the position that we are able to sell down a little bit more, for us, a very good participation, especially the return on the risk and the return on the investment is key. We get more than EUR 40 million on equity contribution in the P&L and between EUR 50 million and EUR 70 million as a cash dividend per year. So in that case, we're happy with the participation.

Tax, very good questions, calculation. So we have tax carried forward in total of around EUR 0.5 billion in the group, especially more than 95% coming from the Austrian business originated in the years '21 to '24, especially coming from shareholding in investment funds and other provisions. Now one can say, why don't you make this available for last year, this year or the next year? This has to do because we can always then -- we can only then take these loss carried forwards into action if we have enough deferred taxes that we can cover with this. So in that case, the good thing is that we have, for the next 5 years, those loss carried forwards for us to deduct from the real tax rate. So therefore, we are confident to achieve the 20%, 21% on a sustainable basis. The bad message is we are going do it at once.

And then we will move on with the person from the telephone, so Rok Stibric will be the next one.

Hope you can hear me. I would actually have 3 questions. First one is related to the Health segment. Could you provide more insights on the growth and what's the split there between volume and pricing components?

Second question is related to Poland, where you mentioned some one-off event. And I was just wondering if this is related to harsher winter conditions? Or is there something else in the equation?

And last question is related to your recent refinancing. Given your very strong solvency position, it's not exactly clear if you really needed this issue, but still, I was doing now some back-of-the-envelope calculations, and I see that you must be sitting on a cash pile of over EUR 1 billion. Can we interpret this as a signal that UNIQA is now ready for some large M&A project?

Yes. So I tried to answer especially the first question in my speech, but happy to do it again. So the volume-driven effect was 2.5% and the pricing-driven effect was 5.5%. The claim, correct, that was mentioned somewhere that we have in Poland. No, that has nothing to do with harsh winters and condition. Here, we have a situation which is quite uncommon on the insurance market, especially to me. So we have 1 claim in 2 countries, which has the same basics. So the thing is that we have, on the one hand, a property claim in Poland between UNIQA Poland and an insurance customer on the corporate side, which was a property claim. And on the other hand, the other party who is embedded in that case made with us a liability against us in Czech Republic. So in that case, we have, in Poland, an impact that you are here assuming that has to do with harsh winters, that is not the case. And we have, for the same event, a liability claim, which is visible in Czech Republic. And therefore, you can now say it's a double counting. It's not a double counting in the way of accounting, but it will sort out. Either the one or the other pols are at court, and we talk about a number -- low-digit million number in that case.

Third question, Rok, I think, yes, you're right, and you know our answers. We are always preparing for to be ready for M&A activities. I think all of you -- most of you know not only in the insurance business, also in the health business, but in the vertical business and to prepare for that, the Tier 2 notes and this transaction was done. That's correct. EUR 1 billion cash, Rok, is a little too much, but I can, in other way state, we would be ready also to finance the transaction in that way.

So ladies and gentlemen, before we move on with the last person in the queue, so it's Michael Huttner, [Operator Instructions].

I had 4 questions, only one because I couldn't understand, and I'm really sorry, my hearing is going, so it's not good. But you mentioned a figure for the benefit of unwinding the double counting as it were this Poland/Czech claim. And I didn't hear the figure, the benefit if it settled one way or the other.

My second question is, you mentioned at the beginning, Mr. Brandstetter, the benefit -- the optimism on the 8% growth. I just wondered if you could give us a little bit more granularity on that.

Then I saw yesterday that Vienna had made lots of little acquisitions, I think Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, and I think you've recovered some write-downs on some Russian bonds. So clearly, there seems to be a wind of optimism regarding Russia and Ukraine. I just wondered if or when the war does stop, what's the potential upside for you?

And then the final question is on the external reinsurance profit. So EUR 9 million is a figure I heard. For the full year, do we multiply by 4 or is it higher?

All right. And I can start it. Michael, thank you for your questions, Andreas here. Maybe about the Ukraine and Russian question, so we have a strategic position there as we entered the Ukrainian market something like 20 years ago. As far as market ranking is concerned, somewhere between #2 and #4 with a very composite book in the retail business, having more than 1 million clients in Ukraine, predominantly also before the war in the western part of the country. I think we constantly report out that we show a constant growth as far as GWP is concerned. We are able to keep the number of risks, meaning we keep our clients there. So the renewal rate is quite high.

The customer satisfaction is quite high. And even if all of us in this call, frankly spoken, will not be able now to give a clear message and estimation when and how this incredible [ IT ] war will be stopped, but one thing is clear that for all of us who kept on staying in Ukraine, this will be really a relevant catch-up potential and potential general providing us relevant growth, I would say, both on the retail segment and on the corporate segment because we expect, of course, as all of us, a lot of investments coming from various parts of this world flowing into Ukraine. And this is why we are so strongly committed there, and this is why we are standing really close to Ukraine.

And frankly spoken, we are also very happy that within a quite short period of time, we managed to distress and to sell our Russian assets. I think this also gave us some kind of relief and additional potential to focus really on the most relevant topics, and this is the growth and the increase of our profitability in the group. This is the one topic.

And also on your second question, Michael, as far as the growth, the 8%, which I stressed out at the beginning is concerned, so yes, you could look at our figures, you can say now, okay, 6.2% growth in the first 3 months. And now we always proposed and said that 8% CAGR international-wise is our target. It's true. But what we see then, and we can state this, we see a clear speed up of the growth in April. We see it further in the first 2 months (sic) [ weeks ] of May, and that's coming from our 2 largest market in CEE that's coming from Poland. Michael, we have more than 7 million clients in Poland, and it's coming also from Czech and Slovakia. And this gives us confidence that by the year-end, it's absolutely realistic to be at the 8% GWP growth in the international business. I hope that's fine for you, Michael.

Good. Then remaining 2 questions, Michael, was about the value of the Poland/Czech Republic claim. I always said, for the compliance reasons, I cannot tell you the exact number, but I can tell you it's between EUR 10 million and EUR 20 million, which is impacting us in that respect.

And your last question was about the margin on the reinsurance business, if you can take this multiply by 4. I think, no, that's not the case. So what you can do is to say, okay, I said 8% net margin on the volume by the end of the year, which I expect around EUR 420 million to EUR 450 million, yes, correct.

8%, so that would be about EUR 40 million. Is that right?

8% from EUR 450 million is a little bit around EUR 32 million to EUR 35 million.

And the Poland claim, just to check claims, just to understand, you booked it twice and it might be resolved to become just one. Is that right?

That's right.

Okay. Brilliant. Sorry, sorry. And the figure you gave is the current amount of the claim?

Correct, 2x between EUR 10 million and EUR 20 million and...

And in the meantime, we have received no further questions or virtual hands. But I can see, Michael, you want to have a follow-up, so you can go on.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Fantastic. Sorry about that. Yes, so really, really silly questions. I think you gave a number. But on the deal front, is it -- the feeling I have is you're closer to identifying some kind of potential deal. Is that fair? The figures sounded more precise than before. That's why I ask.

And then the second question is on the Health profit, so you explained that they jumped. I didn't quite understand. This is -- it's a special kind of contract where you suddenly -- is it a volume effect and so the bigger contribution than your normal contract where the profit is kind of spread over 20 years or something?

Thank you, Michael. About the M&A, so I think what we -- what's not the case that we have identified some concrete targets in our region, which are basically up to sale. So we don't see this. Of course, as you know, we keep to have our eyes open and try to be actively monitoring what's going on. But for the moment, we can exclude -- following up our discussion which we had last year on Capital Markets Day, what we exclude is that we're entering new markets, other markets outside of Eastern Europe and Austria. We think that's here our USP. And we think that still those markets are providing enough growth for the next years.

What we are evaluating all the time are, as we call them, not only horizontal acquisitions, meaning that we aim to buy other insurance companies in the region, but what we do also, as you know, is that we're also looking for so-called vertical acquisitions, meaning looking for broker, looking for comparison platforms, so extending our value chain. This is what we are monitoring, evaluating all the time. But to be very open, there is nothing which is relevant [indiscernible] on the table that we could give you further information on this. But as also the excess capital was mentioned a couple of times in this call directly or indirectly and following Kurt's explanation, we are ready to invest because we understand that not only organic growth, but also unorganic growth, and this means acquisition, will be relevant and important for us in the upcoming years. If there is any news up on the horizon, we will give you further information on this.

The second question, Michael, was about the strengthening or the increase on the technical result in the Health business. So there are 3 elements. The first one is we have to take into consideration the development of the interest rates and the impact on the CSM. You know about that. And the second thing is, the good thing is that we have less benefits in Q1 2026 in comparison to '25. So that is another driver. And the last thing is that we have done in 2025 some reserve strengthening, especially on the outpatient tariff. So in that case, this is also done and we are now improving the business in that case.

I just mentioned in my speech that the most profit comes from the inpatient tariff and also from group tariffs because we are dividing retail tariffs in retail contracts and group contracts and the group contracts have a very high profitability, also speaking, the highest profitability within the Health business.

So by now, there are no further questions, and we, therefore, come to the end of today's conference call. Thank you, everyone, for your shown interest. And also a big thank you to you, Mr. Brandstetter and Mr. Svoboda, for your presentation and your time. But before we close the call, I hand back to you, Mr. Brandstetter, once again for your closing remarks.

Which are very short. May thank to all of you on this call. Thank you for your further interest in UNIQA, for your time. Wish you a great weekend. All the best. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, we warmly welcome you to the Conference Call for the Full Year 2025 Preliminary Results of the UNIQA Insurance Group AG. Please note that this call is being recorded. I am pleased to welcome UNIQA's CEO, Andreas Brandstetter; and CFRO, Kurt Svoboda, who will guide us through the presentation shortly. After the presentation, we will move on to a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]

And with that, I'm handing over to you, Mr. Brandstetter.

Thank you very much, and good afternoon from sunny Vienna. Very happy that you are so bold to spend the afternoon of Friday the 13th voluntarily with us. I appreciate this. This is just a brief confirmation of what we promised to you at Capital Markets Day in London in November of last year, as far as, first, the outlook for the year 2025 was concerned, and second, as far as our general guidance for the rest of UNIQA 3.0 growing impact, meaning for the years 2026 till 2028, is concerned.

Starting with an overview on Slide 4, very briefly, I want to remind you what we told to you and what we showed in London, meaning the broad diversification of our group. On the right part of the slide, you see basically how distribution between our 2 regional markets look like. So still like 56% of our portfolio of our premium are coming from Austria, whereas international business, meaning CEE business, is gaining even more momentum, currently being responsible for 40% of the overall gross written premium. If, then, we shift to the right of the slide, you see how our 3 product groups are distributed. More than 60%, as you know, coming from the P&C business, currently having a very strong combined ratio of 91.7%, and then followed both by life and health insurance, both of them accounting for roughly 20%.

Why I have to stress this? Because in the meantime, if you have a deep dive, a deeper look, you see that distribution on the portfolio in life and P&C business, the distribution between international business and Austrian business is almost 50-50. And if you have in mind that the profitability in those 2 product groups, both in life and in P&C business, is very strong in the CEE area. This means that you can expect a very strong profit level and profit contribution especially coming from CEE in the next years. This was my first comment as far as this is concerned.

Let's move to growth. On the left part of this slide, you see that we're growing by more than 8% in the year 2025 to EUR 8.3 billion. This growth is -- and that's a trend which we saw already in the last years, coming with something like 5% from the Austrian business, a very secure, stable market. And then much more because by our CEE business where we have been growing by 10%, predominantly by Poland of 13%, with more than 6 million of our clients already coming and living in Poland, followed by Hungary 12%. And then once again, Ukraine, unbelievable, about 14%. So this means Austria 5%, CEE 10%, and these are -- this is a kind of pattern which we saw in the last couple of years and which we expect also to be relevant for the next years as the catch-up potential in Eastern Europe, as you know, still is very strong.

If you then move further down on this slide, you see a combined ratio which I mentioned, 91.7% after reinsurance. Yes, it's true. All of us know that this year 2025 basically had no, or I'd say much less negative impact on claims side coming from NatCat as in the last years. That's one thing, but not forgetting that our underwriting discipline, our pricing capabilities, which we demonstrated to you in London in November, really improved a lot, and this means that we expect also in upcoming years constant combined ratios net, which are below 93%. Admin cost ratio also decreased due to this very strong growth down to 15.3%, which shows that we have our costs, the admin costs, clearly under control. Admin costs as well as the commission which we pay.

Well, all those facts together lead, and this you see on the right bottom of the slide, lead to a profit before tax, which are clearly above for 2024, EUR 516 million, is even above the upper part of the range, which we indicated to last year. Our indication was a range of EUR 490 million to EUR 510 million, and that is EUR 516 million. We are slightly above the upper end of this range. The consolidated profit, and Kurt will come back to it in a second, was climbing up to EUR 425 million, which is an increase of 22% and based on a very positive tax rate of 18%. All this, and Kurt will elaborate, leads to a very strong increase of dividend. At least it's our proposal to the AGM taking place in June of more than 20%. 20% up to EUR 0.72 per share.

If you move to Slide #5, just adding to what I did not mention yet. So also you can expect from us, and Kurt will take this maybe later also, an increased participation of the external reinsurance business if it's about growth and profitability. Technical result, it's mentioned here, increased by almost 27% to north of EUR 700 million, which is super positive. Financial result basically remained nearly unchanged compared to the year 2024, supported strongly by a higher ordinary income. And if you then look more further down, you see a new investment yield which improved up to 4.5%, and also the average investment yield improved to 3.2%. The total amount which we invested newly was a little bit less than EUR 2 billion in the year 2025.

Let me end by a last comment as far as the diversification of our portfolio is concerned. Talked before about diversification as far as the premium, as far as the growth is concerned, as far as our 3 product groups are concerned. And I think this should give you the impression that this is a very well-balanced group. And I would like to add also, as far as profitability is concerned, that we are not based basically on 1 or 2 pillars, but in the interim nearly on 3 pillars. If you look on the profit before tax, you will see that, in Austria we are earning, and this is an operative figure, meaning excluding dividends coming from the international business that we earned last year, something like EUR 236 million. In Eastern Europe, EUR 246 million, so basically the same amount of profit before tax, and then followed by UNIQA Re, or by reinsurance in general. It's a very strong contribution of EUR 142 million profit-wise.

I want to stop here and hand over to Kurt to provide you much more details on our P&L and balance sheet.

Thank you, Andreas, and welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the topics of the preliminary 2025 results deep dive. Start on Page #6 on the key financial indicators. I think I would like to focus on 2 topics. The first one is that we had a return on equity increase of 14.3%, reflecting the good development on technical results and on the earnings. Andreas already mentioned the proposal to the AGM of EUR 0.72 per share. We are quite satisfied with the composition of the dividend streams, meaning that half of the dividend comes from Austria, half of the dividend streams comes from international, accompanied by a good portion from the UNIQA Re business internally and externally in Switzerland. So a quite well-balanced funding of a dividend of EUR 0.72 per share.

The regulatory capital position is increasing from 265% to 275% by the end of the year. Knowing that some of you are questioning why this is lower than the -- after the third quarter 2025, 2 effects that I can report out here. The first one is we use the end of the year always of looking to assumptions and on economic assumptions. In that case, we saw that especially in the health business with inflation and with further spendings, we see an increase of the best estimates of EUR 260 million. So this is one thing of assumption changes being very cautious on that level.

And the second effect was that our participation of STRABAG was super performing in the fourth quarter. And with the market risk in that respect on the SCR level, we have here also an increase in that. But this is for us still a strong position. And besides that, what you don't see in the slide here is that we also had an economic position and operating capital generation of EUR 590 million achieved in 2025, meaning that half of the dividend with this is covered. The rest is for internal funding. So in other words, also the economic growth 2025 was quite in line with that what we expected.

Moving on to Page #7. It's about the development of the group's life and health contractual service margin. What is new in our disclosure is that we show a so-called operative contractual service margin, meaning without any assumption changes economic-wise and also on topic of model changes. This gives us a better reflection and also for you on the development of the core business. And with this, we see 2 elements. The first one is that the new business generation was with EUR 260 million, well above 2024. I will come in a minute on the split of life and health. Health is 80.9%, we are good on track with the target 2028, which lies at 90% CSM sustainability ratio.

Top line on the next page was already mentioned by Andreas in detail, the 8.2%. Additionally to that, what you heard already on markets, on the growth, you can say that especially on the life business, we have a huge growth in the international business by 7.5% and -- sorry, 9.5%. And in Austria, around 1.3%. So a very dominant position in the international business. On the other hand, the health market in Austria and UNIQA in that case is a leading position with 6.2% is in line with that what we saw also during the year and this is also a sustainable growth for 2026 to be expected.

On the admin cost ratio on Page #9, we see a stable trend and also a good path to achieve the target 2028 by lower than 15%. Despite that, with investments in the IT, our transformation and the UNIQA insurance platform, still some first investments in artificial intelligence, and with this keep the level of the admin cost ratio by 15.3% in both segments, Austria and international, on a good path and track record.

If you look on Page 10 on the P&C result, I think we have to mention 2 things. The first one is that we had, on the one hand, a quite good development on the basic claim. So the gross attritional claims by 62.9% is quite good. If you go one step deeper, we can see the basic claims and everything around below 500,000 new claims. So UNIQA is reporting below 60%, which is also the driver of the high profitability in that respect. We had, as already mentioned, negligible NatCat impact by 0.2%. And the reinsurance result of UNIQA to also state this is, on the one hand, driven by the internal business, correct. But also in the second year, we achieved EUR 250 million external business in Zurich, leading to a profit of EUR 20 million, which is also part of the P&C earnings before tax.

Life, Page #11, as I mentioned before, driven by the international growth and also profitability, also here technical result with 29% better than 2024. Health, additionally to that what I said before, we can say that especially in Q4 of the year in Austria there was a quite high sales activity. So the trend on demand on health insurance and on health services is ongoing. With this, we have also the new business margin in line with that what is expected, and health is a big contributor to the UNIQA results 2025, but also for the upcoming years.

This is visible, especially on Page #13 (sic) [ Page #12 ], where we have to split between the business margins on the different product lines and the present value. So if you look again on the health business on the right-hand side, so EUR 133 million on new business value in relation to EUR 106 million in the year 2025 (sic) [ 2024 ]. This is what I was talking about, that in combination with the good development on the sales side driving the profitability of this business, knowing that not everything goes directly to the P&L because of the contractual service margin principle.

The 2 core markets, Austria and international on Page #14. I think just to stress that in both markets we had good technical result on the P&C side, combined ratios gross-wise. It's also good to see that especially in Austria we have good development on the cost ratio. So that means not everything on the improvement is driven by the claims ratio. And we have also the situation that the basic claims in both segments are improving.

Investment portfolio on Page #15 and 16. Page 15 is important that our expected credit loss model works quite confident, stable position over the year 2025, despite the interest rate on this government bond, 10 years, have increased by more than 30 basis points. So insofar, we achieved and this is then visible on the next slide, higher net investment income. But anyhow, according to the IFRS standards, only, or a part of it, EUR 209 million is reflected in the P&L as a net financial result. So far, some details on the results 2025.

Before we come to Q&A, outlook for the year 2026. We see that UNIQA is ahead of plan and UNIQA 3.0 growing impact is also working in a way that we announced in the Capital Markets Day in London in November last year. So with this, we say, with the disclaimer of, of course, capital markets and natural catastrophes in a wider sense, that the target EBT range is between EUR 540 million and EUR 570 million for the year 2026, with a dividend policy unchanged between 50% and 60% as a payout ratio with a progressive increase of the dividends per share. And the proposal to the AGM was already stated by Andreas.

With this, I say so far thank you for your attention. And now we open for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We come to Mr. Unger.

Firstly, I'd like to ask you on the outlook for 2026. You have growth in the range of 5% to 10% on EBT level for 2026. Is that mainly -- is the key driver here revenue growth for '26? Or what are the other key drivers that you see? And where do you see the -- expect the combined ratio to go? Technical result overall, financial result, the key components would be very helpful. And then secondly, on the combined ratio in Q4 alone, from Q3 to Q4, the combined ratio went up a bit. If you could break down what were the factors that played a role here in Q4. And then lastly, if you could talk about if you see any impact from the conflict in the Middle East on UNIQA Group direct or indirect.

Thanks for the question. So starting with question number one, the outlook, we see as a combination of a stable ongoing good growth, that's correct. Still we see that especially in the CEE markets, we don't expect any more of this huge growth in Poland for the time being. So this market is on the one hand with huge potential, but that huge growth that we saw especially in Q1 and Q2 2025, we don't expect anymore. But we have other markets like Hungary, like Czech Republic, we saw also Ukraine and Austria still ongoing, where we see a basis for our -- and this is now the second driver. With the existing profitability and high growth, we are quite confident to achieve this level between EUR 540 million and EUR 570 million in all business lines.

Your second question is very valid, the combined ratio Q3 and Q4. Generally, if you look on the results Q2, Q3 and Q4, so this has to do with several effects. The first one is the insurance industry, and especially we as UNIQA, we have always a peak on cost loadings in the fourth quarter. The second thing is that we saw in Q4 that the result and the development is quite stable. And also looking ahead around what's going on in the world, I think from a balance sheet management, we also took some actions to keep the company stable in the upcoming years for balance sheet measurements. And the third thing is that in Q4, we have always the least increase in premiums because of the regionality and the seasonality, especially in the international business. So these 3 factors are driving the Q4 development.

Impact, Middle East, thank you. We can report out that we have no primary impact. So neither we have bonds or any other assets in the region of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran and in the wider area. We have also low risks that we actively are covering on the reinsurance side, also in our external part, so that we can say primary effects we do not have. Secondary effects we cannot exclude. That means a longer ongoing war will have impact on inflation, will have impact on energy prices and then maybe also on the potential growth in the one or other country in Europe, also on capital markets, we see at the moment also the stock markets in Europe, interesting-wise, not in the U.S., going down. So this is nothing in our hand. So secondary effects we cannot exclude, but with this, we have so far, also Q1, no visible effects to report.

And we move on to the next participant, Mr. Marcan.

I have one on the combined ratio and 2 on solvency. On the combined ratio, if I look at just the 2H number for your prior year development reserve release, it seems that you had some reserve strengthening. Could you just talk a bit about, was it any particular lines of business? Was it overall? And just a bit more detail on that. Second one on solvency, a very quick one. Can you just give the breakdown of the own funds and SCR that comprise the 275%? And then finally, again on solvency, just what happened in 4Q? It seems to be down 8 points. Can you just talk about the moving parts in the last quarter of the year?

August, so starting with your first question, combined ratio releases and runoffs, that's correct. We had 2024 higher runoffs than we had in 2025. This has to do with Boris on the one hand and closing some Boris claims is still in 2024, which was not the case for 2025. Second is that we had in 2025 some line of businesses, especially in Austria, and where we did the last step on restructuring. You remember maybe that we explained on the Capital Markets Day the restructuring phase on transport, on accident and on liability in Austria, and this was done in 2025 in the last quarter. Impact-wise, in total, we talk here about EUR 20 million to EUR 25 million for all of the business lines. And with this, we have then the normal run-off portfolio and also run-off impact that led us to the situation that was 91%, roughly, the combined ratio net basis is in line with this what we expected.

On the of Solvency II, I heard just your first questions, but I try to again to give you an update on that. What we did in Q4 was on the one hand we updated our noneconomic assumptions on the own funds, and this brought us to a higher best estimate on EUR 260 million and with this less own funds. Secondly is that STRABAG was performing extremely good in 2025. And as our STRABAG shares valued on the Solvency II equity position, we had to have more market risk for that. So those 2 elements brought us to a situation where the increase in relation to 2024 was a little bit less than we expected. And if you compare it to the third quarter 2025, we had, in that case, lost 8 percentage points out of these 2 elements.

So that was the answer to your question, Mr. Marcan, do you have any follow-up questions?

Yes. Just on the solvency one, I ask quickly, do you have the numbers on what the full year own funds and full year SCR are?

Yes, of course, August, you can write, own funds UNIQA by the end of the year, EUR 7,308 million and the SCR EUR 2,657 million.

We move on to the next participant, Mr. Rok Stibric. So then we move to the next participant, and this is Mr. Antoine Bouchetoux.

A first question on the life new business because you delivered quite a strong NBV number in Q4 in health, but also in life, which is quite a significant upturn from previous quarters. And I think actually the life NBV increased by almost 30% in Q4, mainly from savings and protection. And I was wondering if you could give us some indication on what were the drivers behind this performance. And maybe could you provide also an update on the planned product launches that you referred to previously. So that's the first question on the life new business.

Then, coming back on P&C, you flagged a tough comparison base looking into 2026. You mentioned Poland. I think also maybe reinsurance was quite strong in the first quarter last year. So I was wondering if you could give us an indication on the outcome of the January renewals in both primary insurance and reinsurance and the implications in terms of premiums and profitability, specifically in the first half of the year because, yes, the growth slowed down a little bit in Q4 in P&C.

And then finally, a quick question on the tax rate, which was particularly low in Q4. So I was wondering if -- that's probably a one-off, I guess, but maybe there was an element that you would flag that could change the long-term outlook for the tax rate.

Thank you, Antoine. Starting with the first question, the driver for the good growth in the health business especially and also life in Q4. So we started by starting Q3, especially in Austria, on the health business, a growth initiative where we -- and I think this is also then part of your second question. So we launched new products, especially on the outpatient tariff, meaning that we have now 4 products in place and not only one. We have here different customer approaches from the light one or from a cheaper one up to a very expensive product. And with this, we get more customers and more the broader way of selling the products. And this was reflecting also growth in Q4. So this was one driver of the health business in Q4.

The second driver was, of course, initiatives in the sales side, especially in the topic of advertisement. So this helped us also to boost the new business margin in relation with the volumes. The life business is something that we have a product in place where we will come out, I think, in Q2 this year. It will be a new product for the Austrian market, especially with a higher flexibility. And this gives us also the security that in both channels, retail and also on the bank side, we have higher productivity and portfolios in the life business. Not to forget that in the international business, we have the markets of Czech Republic and Slovakia where life business was booming and especially of short-term life business. This is also valid for Poland. And here, we have also for '26 huge potential that is a part of our plans. So these are your first 2 questions in terms of life, health and new products.

P&C, you ask about the situation in Poland and the impact of 2026 and also the renewals on the reinsurance side internally and externally, I understood. So starting with Poland, yes, we did huge growth in Poland, especially in the first quarter, more than 20%, especially on the motor business. When you look in Poland in total, P&C, we achieved 13.4% growth. And which is much more important, Antoine, that we have also here a very positive insurance technical result achieved. So that means it's not only volume, it's also that this volume is profitable. This has to do with our flexible pricing. This has to do with our multichannel approach all different ways.

We see Poland still as a growth market because the country itself has a huge potential and is also booming economic-wise. Do we see the same growth rates like last year? No, that's not the case, but profitability-wise, yes. Renewals, we came out with a new renewal by end of the year, which was a like-to-like basis around 6% premium increase for the internal insurance. And this was a little bit reflecting the good profitability on the P&C side, especially on the cat. We have been quite 7% increase and also quite fast [ in coverage ].

External-wise, we are not impacted by that because the business started quite young. And what we also have is that we have here different renewal phases. So the next renewal phases we are participating is the July one. And in that case also see new prices where we can benefit because of higher prices. But generally, reinsurance market is softening still and we see no big impact so far. Coming back to the question number one today, maybe secondary effects then over the year depending on the global situation.

Tax rate, last question, 18%, that's correct. This has to do with loss carried forward that we could use by active deferred taxes covered. Is this sustainable over the last -- next years? I would say, not in that way, but a tax rate on an average of 20% is something that you can count and calculate.

[Operator Instructions] Mr. Stibric by phone.

So some things that I wanted to ask were just answered, but I would just like to go back to the life book in Austria. Perhaps you mentioned this, but I was having some issues with the connection. So was this increase in insurance revenues in Q4 solely driven by the release in CSM? Or was there any other factor? If that's something that you could elaborate on, please.

No, it was not a release factor, Rok, in Q4 that we had. It was a volume-driven topic coming from the international business. As said before, it was a mix between Czech Republic, Poland and also to forget Croatia.

Mr. Bouchetoux, you are able to speak now.

I've got a few. So first of all, maybe the -- on solvency, I was wondering if you could give us a quick update on the planned adoption of the full internal model. I think it was planned for 2026, but maybe an update on this question. Then a question on the health variances because there was a negative economic variance of circa EUR 200 million in Q4 and a positive noneconomic variance of about EUR 100 million in the quarter. So I was wondering if you could give us some precisions on those 2 points.

Good. So on the full internal model, I can report that 2026 was -- would be great, Antoine, but we are going for 2028 for the approval of the full internal model. We are at the moment with Austrian regulator discussing and in a good line of testing the model, talking about best estimates and also how to embed the operational risk. So far, we see no big topics and also no topics in terms of that it is postponed. And with this we see also that we are in line with this. Impact on the full model, so far, I cannot state the model is not stable enough. So update will follow.

On the health side, you ask about the variations. The noneconomic variations have been the premium adjustments on the health side. This has to do with the product itself. It's about indexation, and indexation in the health business is an important part because of medicine inflation, and this has been the noneconomic variance that we talk about.

In the meantime, we have received no further questions. And therefore, we come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you for your interest in the UNIQA Insurance Group AG, and a big thank you to Mr. Brandstetter and Mr. Svoboda for your presentation and the time to answer the questions. I wish you a successful day. And handing over to you, Mr. Brandstetter and Mr. Svoboda, for some final remarks.

Just adding, all of us wish you a great weekend. Stay safe and healthy. Bye-bye.

Hello, and welcome to the UNIQA Group results for the first to the third quarter 2025. My name is George. I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this conference will be recorded. [Operator Instructions] I now hand the call over to your host today, Mr. Kurt Svoboda, CFO, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and welcome to UNIQA's Group results after 9 months and the year '25. Yes. First of all, we have a very successful 9 months that we can report out. And with this, I would also like to make an introduction to the first analytics for the 9 months. On Page #4, we talk about a gross volume of around 9%, leading to EUR 6.4 billion after 9 months. You can read out later that in Austria, we grew by 5%. In the international business we grew by 10%. When we talk about growth, and let's do this here, I would like to inform that we have outstanding growth results, especially in the non-life business in Poland by 15%. We have Hungary by 12%.

We have the region of Southeastern Europe, which is around 6% and even Ukraine runs in the non-life business to growth of around 18%. So quite tremendous results on the P&C side, which is on the one hand, one driver of profitability after 9 months. Austria is 5% is also worth mentioning because normally, Austria is on average between 3 and 3.5 percentage points, very mature market. So especially in the health side and also in the P&C side, we are outperforming the market. This is also a second pillar of the growth in profitability after 9 months.

Generally, we are very satisfied with the diversification between Austria and international that is shown on the right-hand side of this page also around 56% is coming from Austria, roughly 40% from the international business and 5% from the reinsurance, which is also growing with the external reinsurance part in that respect. So that was a good diversification, well balanced and P&C with 61% on share of our revenues leads then with the good profitability with consolidated profit that has increased by 26 percentage points up to EUR 333 million.

That means as an earning before tax, EUR 423 million. So that's as an introduction. I will come later onwards to the net combined ratio with a 91% and also the return on risk-adjusted capital of roughly 18% within the explanations in a minute. On Page #5, the growth we talked about, what I would like to draw the attention is about the technical result, which is an increase of 47.6% coming from a very good development on the base claims. That means we have around 52% base claims designed as claims lower than EUR 500,000. We have neglectable or more or less no NatCats in the portfolio this year. So that means you talk about an impact of 0.5% in relation to 8% last year, which Boris, I think everybody knows about the story.

And finally, we have also a quite good development on our portfolio. And within this, we come to these technical results and to the combined ratio of 91 percentage points. Also I would like to highlight to take the attention towards is the new money yield and the average investment yield which is 4.7%, 3.1% higher than last year and also one part of the profitability increase after 9 months. When we go 1 slide further, it's about the return on equity, which is on a level which is much more higher than expected over the target range. I think this will be a topic for the next week's capital markets, but the 14.5% also reflecting the good profitability and also the stable development on the equity base.

On Page 7, we talk about the CSM in Life & Health. I think we have to mention here 2 things. The first is in the development of the CSM, we have operative topics and nonoperative topics. Operative topics are that the portfolio is growing. Operative topics are that we have a profitability coming from good new business values in Life and in Health. In Health, we talk about new business values, margins about 9% or more. Life is about 3% to 4%, depending on the market. Nonoperative topics is, on the one hand, the movement of interest rate, is one thing and on the other hand, also the STRABAG sale that we had as an impact on the CSM as we have this allocated to the health business and therefore, the game goes first through the CSM and then over a release of 31 years to the P&L.

So this has to be taken into consideration when we talk about release and sustainability ratio. Still, yes, this may be a weak point. The volumes in the Life business, especially in Austria, are not that big that they are compensating the high outflows from maturity levels from the last 10 to 15 years. And therefore, the lower sustainability ratio on a stand-alone basis for the Life business. I think growth, we take out in the beginning here, it just gives you a flavor on how this has developed over the recent years on the left-hand side, but also on a quarterly basis, and this is for us also key. We expect from a similar perspective and also how the portfolio of UNIQA is structured that the fourth quarter is the lowest one in the growth and that's also the reason why the profitability is in the fourth quarter of UNIQA generally lower than in the first 3 ones in total.

Admin cost ratios on Page #8 -- Page #9, sorry, they are on a significant decrease level, which is in line with our targets and also in line with our internal benchmarks. So that means efficiency and also the first fruits from the IT transformation are visible. P&C delivers not only a very strong technical performance, but also a record EBITDA on Page 10 to be seen, pieces coming from the growth. This is coming from the good growth on the claims side and also from a favorable investment result of the net financial results seen. Same for Life business on Page #11, increase up to 33.8% to 143% on a technical basis. And the same for the Health business on Page #12. So 13% increase also on this level. I talked about the new business value in the group on Page #13. These are the numbers for that. So on the one hand, you can see on the left-hand side, the different contractual service new business margins divided into the different product lines and leading to a new business value on the right-hand side.

And in comparison to the 9 months in 2024, we increased also the profitability value significantly within 2025. Core markets, Page #14, well balanced between Austria and international wise. Of course, one can say what is the balance when Austria delivers EUR 343 million and international EUR 184 million. Please asking to take into consideration that Austria from a governance topic is also financially and from the current topic, the owner of the International business unit. That means from an accounting perspective, each dividend that is paid from internationally to the holding company firstly, goes into Austria. And if you deduct the dividend streams from the Austrian result then you end up on a level of around EUR 200 million. And this is what I see as a well-balanced result between Austria and International. And this is also for us a key topic for the future. Investment activities on Page #16, just to give you some -- a little bit of flavor. So first of all, with the net financial result, we are in line with plan.

We achieved with the 3.1% average yield and the 4.7% new money yield, a result, which is above market level. We have a favorable ordinary income. We have also a development where we see no impairments in the first 9 months. STRABAG contributes to the net investment income, but accordingly to the accounting scheme is then eliminated for the net financial result. With this, I come then to the outlook for 2025 and also for the announcement for next week's Capital Market event in Austria and in the U.K. in London.

So first of all, we stick to our target range of EUR 490 million to EUR 510 million. Yes, we see the range and the achievements for the rest of the year in the upper level of this range and I feel quite comfortable also to keep the level of profitability, keep the level of the core business and with this also the level of progressive dividend payment. With this, about the outlook then for the years '26 and '28 and what this means for UNIQA 3.0, again, the announcement for the capital market events. And with this, I end my presentation, and I'm happy to take your questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our very first question today is coming from Michael Huttner of Berenberg.

Fantastic. Congratulations. This is lovely results. I've got lots of questions. I hope that's okay. First one is on the P&C. So 91%. I think your target is below 94%. So well ahead. What could be a kind of normalized figure? The reason I ask is in the combined ratio, I can see 2 different, I can see man-made claims or large claims higher, but also, as you said, natural catastrophe or weather claims are very low. And then on the -- my second question is these wonderful growth figures. So Poland 15%, Southeast Europe 6%, Austria continuing growing across the board around 5%. And how sustainable is this? And presumably, if you address it next week, that's fine. On Poland, and here's the opposite. You can say this guy is completely nuts, the PZU reported virtually no growth, but they reported amazing combined ratio. So this is across PZU so not just Poland, but Poland is their main business. The combined ratio improved from 94% to 85%.

And I think yours kind of stayed roughly stable around 90% or 91%. I just wondered what kind of different trends you're seeing? Or if you can talk about that. And then my final question, and I'm sorry for so many. In Life and Health, what I can see is that the CSM release rate so what I'm really asking is about profitability, but it's a funny way of asking about it. The CSM release rate is kind of nudging up. If I do the average, it was like 5.7% and 5.8% and now we're at 6-point something if I annualize it. And I just wondered, is this structural or is there some mix shift or...

Michael, thank you for your questions. I think we can take up the most here, the rest and final next week and happy to have you. So first of all, the normalized combined ratio is a fair point because we -- eventually, we see a very strong movement from NatCat. So we see a normalized combined ratio at the moment is if you add 1.5 percentage points on average. So that means we end up here at 92.5%, which is still below the target that we set. And this is roughly how we see at the moment a normalized combined ratio at UNIQA at the portfolio. Second question is about growth and sustainability of the growth. I would say, look, we have at the moment in -- we have in Europe a situation, which is for the financial sector quite positive. Despite I see personally, the economic in Europe, quite dangerous in the development rather skeptical. But for the financial sector, why is that favorable. First of all, interest rates help us.

Secondly, it's about that wealth and that what people are having safeguards. And this is what we see generally as a tendency to get no risk on this level. Thirdly, when we talk about health business, we see quite -- even in Austria, a quite good growth to move from the social to the private Health business. And in Life business, it's an international game because here, we have biometric products and the need and also here with our partners, brokers, the bank generally and not to forget gives us also a situation that is much more better than we expected last year.

And therefore, I would say the growth is to a certain level, highly sustainable. When you talk about Poland and when you talk about the combined ratio, we have reported out in the slides, the gross combined ratio of Poland. So not to forget about gross of net. We have here 92.7% in Poland, take into consideration that our Polish portfolio is quite big. And with the one or other major claim, we are up to 93%. But on a net basis, also including our internal and external reinsurance program even Poland is on a quite good level, which is also sustainable in the level between 90 and 92 percentage points.

CSM, Michael, I think we can talk next week in much more detail because we have some information about this and what we're doing in that respect. Also our colleague from the personal lines with me so I would like to give the answer on that next week if this is fine for you.

We'll now move to August Marcan of UBS.

First, I have a couple on growth and then some on the full year outlook. On growth, could you split out the 5% in Austria and 10% international? How much was volume, how much was pricing? And what's the current environment? How do you see across your markets and across major divisions, motor versus general P&C? How is claims inflation versus pricing looking on your written business currently? And then my second question is on your full year guidance. You posted a very strong 9-month profit number, but you left the full year guidance unchanged. If I just assume that we have 4Q normalized cat level, does that imply a lower profitability for 4Q compared to what we saw, let's say, last 2 years?

Or is there something that I'm missing here? And finally, on your solvency again, a very healthy strong number above 280%. Keeping in mind what one of your local peers has recently done? Does this change your M&A appetite, would you be willing to look at other geographies or maybe accelerate your inorganic growth? Or alternatively, if you don't see that as an option, would you return capital to shareholders?

Yes. Coming to your first question about growth volume, pricing inflation. Look, we have in -- let's start with inflation. Inflation at the moment plays for us, as UNIQA not the big role. Because in Austria, we have the automatic indexation in 99% of our portfolio, retail and corporate. And internationally wise, we are dealing with high pricing knowledge and with this also, we saw that in the history and even on the COVID, the tendency was more or less that we did not lose that much because of higher prices out of inflation adoption. So I would say here, tick-the-box inflation is under control, at least at this in the level as it is at the moment.

So to not talk about an inflation increase of, I don't know, 100 basis points, I think then the game is different, but this is generally a different game. Talking about our pricing and volume. You can, on a roughly basis on the thumb rule count that 1/3 is coming from indexation, 1/3 is coming from pricing and 1/3 is coming from new volumes and new business. That's a rule of thumb overall when you talk about retail business. In Corporate business, there is no rule because corporate business is different. It's about ownership, it's about pricing and all the stuff to keep that thing out.

But in retail business, I would say, the thumb of rule is 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3. Second question about the Q4 stand-alone basis. This means, of course, we priced in a little bit of, on the one hand, not that favorable claims management or claims development. Secondly, we stated this in my opening speech that Q4 is at UNIQA always the quarter where we have the less -- the premium income because of seasonality. And the third thing is to take into consideration a little bit the financial markets, and this led us to a situation to come up with the EUR 510 million on the upper level to achieve the target. This is so far, my explanation to this.

But I understand your point and what I can state so far also the rest we can talk next week. We are very confident to end up on the higher level of this guidance. And Solvency II, yes, I think I state the same, as I said last year in London and in Austria, I think we have no change in the M&A appetite of UNIQA. We have defined our geographical footprint. They are not considering the Western part of Europe.

In the Eastern part of Europe, we are open for everything. And M&A activities do not take place only in the traditional M&A part, meaning insurance, we also are investing and in touch with vertical integrations. We have the health care ecosystem so it's around many opportunities that we see there and a good Solvency II gives us here also a good backbone to come to the level that we expected. You're correct. But the point of share buyback I can also state also with next week, but no change to that what we said last year that means no plan for these times.

We'll now move to Antoine Bouchetoux of AlphaValue.

I've got 2, please. The first one is on large losses in P&C. I was wondering if you could confirm that large losses are included in the attritional that you published. And maybe give us some color on the EUR 233 million large losses in 9 months, and I think that was EUR 130 million in the third quarter alone and maybe provide some nice outlook for the fourth quarter.

And then the second question may be a bit early to discuss this, maybe it's going to be a subject next week, I guess so. But to mention that UNIQA Re, the external business is expanding. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more detail on that. The segments that you're targeting and maybe whether you expect to continue growing, softening reinsurance market at the moment, thank you.

Okay. So talk about large losses. Yes, they are part of the attritional claims. That's correct. Large losses defined as losses about EUR 0.5 million have generally an impact on our P&C loss ratio at the moment of 6% and this was last year, 4%. So we have higher loss, large losses in that case. We've also taken into consideration that fronting business is something that UNIQA is also considered not at UNIQA generally on the attritional claims. We have here 1.7% on a gross basis, but you have to carve this out on a net basis because this is a 100% reinsured.

And yes, you're right. We had 1 big claim last year. But this year, we have a large loss situation more on a frequent level. That means between EUR 10 million, EUR 15 million so not the big losses between EUR 30 million, EUR 40 million, EUR 50 million. The frequency is getting higher in that respect. Second question is about UNIQA Re, yes, export business is something that we started in 2023. I will elaborate on that next week in more detail. But I can tell you that at the moment with a level of around EUR 270 million to EUR 300 million after 2 years, we are quite happy. Rest happy to inform next week.

[Operator Instructions] We'll now move to Rok Stibric of ODDO BHF.

Hope you can hear me. Congrats on the good results here. Really, really nice to see how you're progressing on the strategy. And you already talked quite a lot about some topics that I wanted to ask about, but I would still like to come back to the Solvency II ratio. I mean, right now, you are quite high with this number. And I was just wondering if there is no suitable M&A opportunities if investors could expect maybe a special dividend or something like that? I mean I understand that buyback is out of the equation here. But still, when I compare your return on equity and cost of capital, I think there is some more potential on UNIQA side. And I just wanted to hear what's your view on that.

Yes, Rok. Also here, give you a flavor on some guidelines and the rest we see next week in London do talk about this. But look, we have -- the solvency ratio is 283%. First of all, where does it come from? We have, on the one hand, an impact of more than 10% coming from the STRABAG development and around 11% in total over the years coming from the interest movements. So do I see this as a sustainable development. So STRABAG, I hope this because the company is great. And what they're doing is in Europe, a great construction company. But the point is if the stock value and the market value of STRABAG is stable on that level as is, I would say this is not only dependent from the operational development of the company.

So I see this as a little bit of a risk. The same is for interest rates because interest rates are going up. Yes, UNIQA is very interest sensitive. We know this. We explained this so I just wanted to point this out because I have personally, I always say between 15% and 20% out of this 283% is market movement and not in our hand. So with this, we are down at 260% in my calculation, maybe others see it differently, but let's discuss this next week. And for the 260%, we want to be prepared for M&A activities. We have seen here lot of opportunities. And of course, we are looking on that. Again, the markets are defined at UNIQA so we have to take care that to have a placeholder between 15 and 20 percentage points for this. We want to bring down our leverage ratio. So this is also something that has an impact in the future to us. And then, Rok, we are down at the 230 and maybe even below. So this is how I see this.

So meaning a very simple question from your side is a long answer. As a special dividend is for us, then we're thinking when we have a special situation because what I do not want to suggest to my shareholders is to say, let's just pay out some dividends because to come down with the solvency ratio. This is maybe it's easily done, but it's not sustainable. But if we have a special situation measurement, activity, sale, whatever realization, then we can talk about this.

We'll now move to Thomas Unger of Erste Group.

Yes. I'd like to stay with the topic of capital ratios. And I just wanted to know how you got to these 283% now in Q3. That's a stable development versus the first half of 2025. And at the same point -- at the same time, you bought back these subordinated notes. So I expected a weaker development actually in Q3. Maybe you could explain how the capital ratio and what developed in Q3 and what are the driving factors. Then for the financial results, it's been weak throughout 2025. Do you see -- are there any improvements foreseeable for 2026, is there anything from your side, not external factors? Any reasons to be optimistic about the development in the coming quarters or next year.

I'd like to hear your opinion on that. And then thirdly, on the nontechnical results, this has been weak, especially in Q3 and Q2 with high or higher other expenses than in prior quarters. What has led to this development? And is there any improvement in sight.

Okay. Thomas, let's start with the first one. So I explained this when Rok was asking. So it's 10% STRABAG. It's 11% interest rate movement, and it's about minus 8 percentage points from the Tier 2 call so this is what was the drivers for the solvency ratio. Yes. And I think the rest is what I explained to the answer of Rok and the capital base. So...

And that was Q3 alone, the...

Yes, that's year-to-date growth in that case. STRABAG was continuing, yes, that's okay. Net financial result, yes, you're right. On the first line, it looks weak because it's lower than 2024. The thing is that we did through 2 things. The first one is we had the situation that we see that our technical performance generally is quite okay. It's not quite great. It's quite over plan. And with this, we made economic-wise changes in the strategic asset allocation, that means we sold on purpose bonds where we made our realized losses in the amount of EUR 46 million, directly for the nonfinancial results. We did this on purpose because with this, we could, a, a little bit improve our cash position.

Secondly is keyword M&A. Secondly is with this, we improved massively our ordinary income position in the future because we changed from bonds with lower interest rates into bonds with high interest rates at the moment. Thirdly is, we could manage because of the good situation with the interest rates and also our anticipation that they keep on that level for a longer time that we have high overvalues on the Life and Health business, and we could also change between Life and P&C, the bonds and from the external results.

So out of these 3 elements, we said, okay, with this, it's fine for us when the net financial result is a little bit lower than last year or than expected, but we have higher economic positions for the future, plus cash liquidity buffers saved, and I think this is something which is worth in times like this. When we talk about nontechnical items. So it's on one hand, a little bit of project costs coming from that level. And the other thing, Thomas, to be honest, I'm not aware and also I will reach out to you next week if that's okay.

So for the -- your answer on the financial results, that means that for 2026, we can expect an improvement in the financial results, is that right?

Yes, out of this, we have higher ordinary income to expect it, yes.

[Operator Instructions] We have a follow-up question coming in from Michael Huttner of Berenberg.

Just one is on the frequency. And I just wondered if you can -- I think you said the base claims are better, but the large claims are worse or the more of them. And I just wondered if you can maybe talk about how you see those 2 different developments. And then the other one is on the cost of the ecosystems. I know it's part of your -- you look at it as part of your M&A, but I always get the figure wrong. How should I think about the -- I call it a drag on earnings, it's not just like an investment, but you book it as a negative. In Health business, is there a figure which I should say, well, Health normally earn this much and then I deduct this much for the cost of the ecosystems annually, I don't know, EUR 20 million or EUR 30 million or whatever million.

Okay, Michael. So when we talk about the large claims again, yes, that's correct. The frequency is getting higher. And with the frequency getting higher, also the numbers are getting higher so let me -- with regards we have, at the moment, on the level of major claims a level of -- on a gross basis, yes, that's gross without reinsurance, EUR 210 million and the comparable basis like last year was EUR 140 million. The average, I expect is normally EUR 190 million to EUR 200 million. So we are between EUR 10 million and EUR 15 million above the average.

And this is what I want to say, and this is the frequency I see this year. Is it problematic? No, it's not problematic. It's a situation that happens. As said again, the highest claims are between EUR 10 million and EUR 15 million, and therefore, the frequency is higher. But also our portfolio is getting higher. I think it's a normal development. But it's an outlier for you or for your calculation between EUR 200 million and EUR 210 million -- EUR 200 million is for me the average at which be normal. And the second question is about the health ecosystem, and you can take on a 9-month basis as a run rate around EUR 10 million loss.

As we have no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Mr. Svoboda for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.

Yes. So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation and listening to UNIQA's 9 months 2025 results and happy to see you all around next week. And wish you a remaining successful day. Thank you, and goodbye.

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's conference. Thank you for your attendance. You may now disconnect. Have a good day, and goodbye.