UNIQA’s capitalisation continues to be sound

• Capital requirement ratio still high despite coronavirus crisis
• Profitability of new business in life and health insurance remains at excellent level with new business margin of 4.3 per cent, despite sharp decline in interest rates
• 2019 annual report published

Capital requirement ratio remains excellent
UNIQA’s provisional Solvency II capital requirement ratio, which gauges capitalisation, was 216 per cent on 31 December 2019 and thus continues to be at a very high level. Kurt Svoboda, UNIQA Group CFO/CRO: “UNIQA’s capital position for 2019 is exceptionally strong. This has not changed over the past few months during the ongoing coronavirus crisis either. Our solid financial base gives us the certainty to overcome the challenges in the coming months under our own steam, just as we have been doing.”

The verified regulatory capital requirement ratio will be published in mid-May in the report on solvency and financial position. As part of Solvency II, besides the regulatory defined standard formula, there is an option for insurance companies to use an internal model to calculate the risk capital requirement. UNIQA has been using such a model for the actuarial risk of property and casualty insurance since 2017. The Austrian Financial Market Supervisory Authority approved the extension of the model to include market risks in 2019, so the extended model was used for the first time to calculate the capital requirement ratio for the 2019 financial year.

The regulatory capital requirement ratio, for which UNIQA utilises no transitional provisions, is the ratio of own funds of € 4,754 million (2018: € 5,319 million) to the own funds requirement of € 2,203 million (2018: € 2,142 million). The high share of particularly secure Tier 1 capital (core capital), which currently accounts for 80 per cent of capital at UNIQA, should be emphasised.

Unconditionally sound
The events surrounding the coronavirus crisis are also having an impact on capital requirement ratios. As published on 14 April, capital market developments triggered by the coronavirus crisis are impacting the solvency ratio. At the end of the first quarter of 2020, it will be at the upper end of the target range of between 155 per cent and 190 per cent.

The first few months of 2020 brought even more far-reaching changes for UNIQA. On 7 February 2020, UNIQA signed an agreement to acquire the AXA companies in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. For UNIQA, this will mean one million extra customers and 800 million extra premiums, and will boost it to number 5 in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The purchase price is one billion euro. „Our solid capitalisation gives us sufficient manoeuvrability to finalise the AXA purchase as planned“, said Svoboda. 

Embedded value: UNIQA achieves high profitability even in low interest rate environment
The sharp decline in interest rates caused the market consistent embedded value after minority interests of the UNIQA Group’s life and health business to decline by 14.4 per cent (not including dividend payment and exchange rate effects) in the past year to € 2,836 million. The market consistent embedded value compiled according to international guidelines measures the value of the portfolio of insurance policies and comprises the net assets plus the present value of future income from the existing life and health insurance portfolio.
The value of in-force business (VIF) in life and health insurance decreased to € 1,862 million (2018: € 2,333 million).

The new business margin – a ratio for profitability of the new business in life and health insurance – fell to 4.3 per cent (2018: 5.9 per cent); for CEE, it remained at an excellently high level of 8.1 per cent in 2019 as before (2018: 10.4 per cent). The well-diversified composition of new business is particularly gratifying, and leaves earnings expectations in absolute terms at a strategically satisfactory level despite the sharp deterioration in interest rates.

The market consistent embedded value of the UNIQA Group’s life and health business is derived from the Solvency II models.

2019 annual report published
The 2019 annual report for the financial year just ended was also published today at http://berichte.uniqagroup.com/2019/ar.