Swiss Re AG (SREN) Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning or good afternoon. Welcome to Swiss Re's Half Year Results Publication Conference Call and Live Webcast. Please note that today's conference call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Andreas Berger, Group CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, and good morning and also good afternoon for everybody who's dialing in. I appreciate you taking the time to join us today. Before Anders Malmstrom, our Group CFO, walks you through the details of our H1 results, I'd like to start with some brief remarks. Today, we're pleased to report a strong net income of USD 2.8 billion for the first half of 2026. This represents more than 60% of our full year net income target of USD 4.5 billion, which positions us well for the remainder of the year. We're proud to operate 3 core businesses. They are our passion. Each one is a leading value creator in its respective market. Together, Life & Health Re, P&C Re and Corporate Solutions provide significant diversification, both from a capital efficiency and an earnings perspective. The strength of this diversified business model is reflected in our first half year results with excellent underwriting results driving the group's 23% return on equity. Life & Health Re delivered a strong result in the first half of the year, marking 2 consecutive quarters of clean earnings. The result was driven by strong in-force margins and favorable experience, particularly in U.S. mortality. This reinforces our confidence in the actions taken last year and in achieving our USD 1.7 billion net income target for 2026. Our P&C businesses continued to deliver strong underwriting results, supported by a low level of large natural catastrophe losses and the high quality of the portfolios we have built over the years. This allowed us to post strong results while also strengthening the balance sheet. You hear us talking about cycle management. Let me expand on that and what this really means for us, namely preserving the quality of our underwriting portfolio, maintaining prudence on loss picks, expanding cycle de-correlated business lines, improving cost efficiency and elevating capital management. All of these we are delivering. The midyear renewals were broadly consistent with what we had already seen at the January and April renewals. Competition remains most pronounced in nonproportional property, where nominal pricing is down by high single digits year-to-date with similar trends observed at the midyear renewals. Casualty and Specialty continued to present a more balanced pricing environment. Within casualty, liability experienced notable rate increases, while motor also saw positive rate developments. Overall, we achieved a mid-single-digit nominal price increase across our casualty portfolio year-to-date. In Specialty, competition has picked up. However, nominal rates rose across the majority of sublines in specialty. Our approach in this environment remains unchanged, maintaining underwriting discipline while defending our portfolio quality and margins. Being in a constant active dialogue with our clients and brokers is absolutely key in this market. This proximity and relevance to clients means that even if we reduce exposures in some cases, where expected returns no longer meet our requirements, we can often expand our role in other areas. This has helped us not only defend our market position and share of wallet, but also to selectively grow through tailored solutions based on our leading risk knowledge while remaining disciplined where returns are inadequate. Overall to date, we have maintained our market position. We achieved volume growth of 11% at the midyear renewals compared to our business up for renewal, driven by new business wins in proportional property and selected specialty lines while maintaining broadly stable terms and conditions. Combined with the January and April renewals, year-to-date premium volume increased by 0.5% compared with the business up for renewal. Overall, the nominal pricing across our diversified portfolio remained broadly flat year-to-date. And we consider all of this a good outcome, reflective of successful cycle management so far. The second important element of cycle management is to maintain prudence on loss picks. Year-to-date, we increased our loss assumptions by 4.4%, almost entirely explaining the risk-adjusted price decline of 4.6%. In addition, new business continues to include our uncertainty load. If experience develops more favorably than assumed at inception, both the prudent loss assumptions and the uncertainty load would emerge as positive experience variance. This is exactly the resilience we aim to build into the portfolio and what we are now seeing come through. Corporate Solutions is navigating a similar market environment. Risk-adjusted commercial rates were down by around 6% across the portfolio during the first half of the year. Despite this, the business unit continues to grow in its strategic focus areas, namely in cycle de-correlated lines and differentiated propositions such as international programs. Over the years, we have built a market-leading AI-enabled technology platform that allows us to seamlessly manage the insurance needs of our multinational clients across more than 150 jurisdictions. This makes us a trusted global partner with a truly differentiated value proposition. The exclusive strategic partnerships announced to-date in Mexico and India are a good example of how we continue to strengthen this proposition while selectively expanding our presence in attractive growth markets by leveraging our underwriting expertise and global capabilities. This, too, is an important element of how we manage the cycle. Alongside our underwriting actions, improving efficiency remains a key priority. To-date, we announced an increase in our operating cost reduction target to USD 500 million by 2028. The increase reflects strong progress towards our initial reduction target of USD 300 million by 2027 as well as further opportunities to simplify how the group operates, focusing on non-client-facing teams. We continue to measure this cost reduction on a run rate basis. That means the lower cost run rate of USD 500 million by year-end 2028 will be fully reflected in the full year 2029. I also mentioned capital management as a key component of our cycle management strategy. Anders will update you where we stand on this. Looking ahead, our priorities remain unchanged. We remain focused on delivering our financial targets and the group's overall resilience. Although the market environment remains competitive, and we are entering the peak of the hurricane season, we are -- sorry, I just got a mix up here. We are confident in the quality of our portfolios, our disciplined underwriting approach and our diversified earnings profile. Now with that, now I can hand over to Anders and not before, and he will provide you a bit more details on the first half year results.

Thank you, Andreas, and good morning or good afternoon to everyone on the call. Andreas has taken you through the highlights of our strong first half year performance. Let me add a few further details before we move to the Q&A. P&C Re insurance reported an insurance service result of USD 1.8 billion in the first half of 2026, well above the prior year level. The increase was mainly attributable to favorable experience variance related to both current and past services. The positive experience related to current services of around USD 350 million primarily reflects large nat cat losses. Coming in USD 676 million below expectations, of which USD 391 million in Q2. Positive experience related to past services of around USD 350 million in the first half of 2026 reflects reserve releases across short-tail lines of more than USD 1 billion. Given the benign large nat cat experience in the first half, we retained a significant portion of these releases by adding around USD 500 million to IBNR reserves for long-tail lines in the second quarter. This is in addition to the IBNR reserves established earlier in the year for potential inflationary impacts of the ongoing Middle East conflict. Together, these actions further strengthen the resilience of our balance sheet. On the back of these elements, P&C Re reported an excellent combined ratio of 76.7% for the first half, comfortably within its full year target of below 85%. Let me also briefly touch on new business CSM before moving to Corporate Solutions. P&C Re generated new business CSM of USD 1.6 billion compared with USD 2.2 billion in the prior year period. The year-on-year reduction in new business CSM and increase in new business loss component is consistent with the approximately 4 percentage point increase in the nominal combined ratio on the between 6 billion and 7 billion of treaty business renewed through the end of June. In addition, there is also a modest impact from our facultative book. It was important to point out that the new business CSM reduction is driven by our higher loss picks, not by an overall decline in nominal pricing. That is a good sign. Turning to Corporate Solutions. The business continued its strong performance, delivering a combined ratio of 86.1%. The insurance service result amounted to USD 578 million, supported by a CSM release of around USD 400 million. Experience earned and other was positive at USD 193 million, primarily driven by a favorable experience related to past service across lines of business. In addition, Corporate Solutions benefited from lower-than-expected large nat cat losses, more than offset by the usual allowance for potential claim seasonality due to late reporting. New business CSM amounted to USD 201 million compared with USD 262 million in the prior year period, reflecting the more challenging market environment in some lines, partially offset by the inclusion of P&C Re's credit and surety business. Turning to Life & Health Re, where we continue to see the benefit of the actions taken in 2025 coming through. Net income for the first half amounted to just over USD 1 billion. The insurance service result increased to USD 1.2 billion and includes a CSM release of USD 758 million, corresponding to an annualized release rate of around 9%, in line with our full year guidance. The result was again supported by positive experience variance, particularly from U.S. mortality. New business CSM amounted to USD 338 million compared with USD 569 million in the prior year period, primarily reflecting lower transaction activity. On our investment portfolio, again, it delivered a robust contribution in the first 6 months with an ROI of 4.0% and a recurring income of USD 2 billion. Let me also add a few words on group items. The result includes a reserve increase taken in the second quarter related to business in runoff that was formerly part of our dissolved Life Capital unit, which included ReAssure, iptiQ and elipsLife activities. Over the past years, we have successfully exited almost all of the former Life Capital businesses. In this particular case, to facilitate the exit, we provided a supporting reinsurance arrangement as part of the transaction. Following the decision to place this reinsurance contract into runoff and manage it separately from our core reinsurance business, we reallocated it from Life & Health Re to group items where we manage our other runoff activities. The comparative information has been updated accordingly. Finally, on capital, Swiss Re continues to maintain a very strong capital position with an estimated group SST ratio of 264%, comfortably above our target range. The increase of 14 percentage points since 1st of January 2026 primarily reflects underwriting and investment contributions as well as a temporary benefit of around 5 percentage points from the issuance of subordinated debt to partially refinance debt maturing in 2027. We're also making good progress on the USD 1.5 billion share buyback we commenced in March, having executed approximately 60% by the end of July. With that, I will leave it here and hand over to Thomas to open the Q&A.

Thank you, Andreas. Thank you, Anders, and hello to you from my side as well. As usual, queue. Operator, with that, can we please have the first question?

The first question comes from Andrew Baker from Goldman Sachs.

First one, could you just help me on the reserving side, please? I think you said that you released $1 billion in short tail reserves in the first half. I appreciate you recycled a lot of that into long tails. But billion over 20% of your earnings target for this year at least. So how structural should we see these short-tail reserve releases as we think about sort of earnings 2027 and beyond? And then I guess on the long-tail additions, is this just prudence? Or have you seen any deterioration in underlying trends in any of these lines? And then secondly, I appreciate these are relatively small numbers. But if I look at your midyear renewals, your higher loss assumptions is plus 4.2% within your pricing. This is down from plus 4.4% in April year-to-date and plus 4.6% in January. So just curious what has sort of led to this sequential decline? Has anything changed in your view here? Is it mix? Or am I just sort of missing something?

Okay. So maybe just on the reserve releases, I mean, what we have seen now, and I think I highlighted it now also in the prepared remarks is, obviously, in the current period, you see it's mostly coming from the nat cat side, so the low nat cat clearly. But then in the previous period, it's really coming from the prudent reserving and the prudent loss picks in a way that we've done mostly on the short-term lines. And so that's, in a way, now a testament that the reserving philosophy that we changed is really coming through now, and we see positive reserve developments. And this altogether, I think, allowed us then to just strengthen resilience and also put some of that into IBNRs into long-tail lines, which is not a trend, and this basically answers your second question here. This is not about seeing a trend. This is in a way, just having the opportunity to do that in a very strong environment to strengthen the resilience of these lines, but not because we see any worsening here at all. And then your question about the intermediate renewals here about the loss picks. This is not a change in loss picks. This is the business mix that we have now seen in basically the January and April and now also in the June, July renewals. Overall, very consistent. And I always say this is a continuation. This is not a change here. It's all the differences you see is because of the different business mixes we have. But individually by business line, it's pretty much the same now since the beginning of the year.

The next question comes from Santi Kang, Bank of America.

I just had 2. So first one is on P&C and thinking about the direction of the earnings into '27. Could you just help us think about that? So given the decline in new business CSM today, how should we think about the direction of the P&C earnings into 2027? Sort of at what point does lower new business profitability start to sort of outweigh any benefits from a very profitable in-force trying to gauge that balance. And then the second thing is just on casualty. I was listening to the U.S. earnings calls over the last few weeks, and one of the larger peers is super cautious on general liability in the U.S. And I know you guys have cut back your book in the last year or so, but it would just be good to get your thoughts on conditions there given you're saying rates are increasing, but it seems like loss cost trends are still pretty buoyant there. So just getting your thoughts on that would be helpful.

Okay. Excellent. Look, I think, I mean, I'm not giving -- in a position to give the guidance now going forward for 2027. But what you clearly see, I think the reduction in new business CSM gives you some idea here. But at the same time, also what we now see coming through is really the reserving benefit from being at the upper end of the best estimate range. And just to give you a bit kind of details for what we see now just for 2026 because you see in the slides that the renewal impact is roughly 4 percentage points in nominal combined ratio, which is for the renewed business. So this has not fully come through in 2026. And we are very comfortable to stay with below the 85 combined ratio points. that kind of gives you the indication that we can expect a mid-triple digit and reserve release that's baked into this expectation. And we're not really guiding here to anything in 2027. But I think if you just take that trend going forward, I think it gives you an estimate and then in the fall, we give you the full outlook for next year.

Maybe on casualty very briefly. We are very happy with the position we're in with the market share and also the subsegments, sublines that we're operating in. The nominal price changes that came through are actually reflected also in the growth that you can see in the casualty line, particularly in the U.S. But also, you have to see that the loss assumptions that we have put up is actually bigger than the nominal price changes that we see. So we still have a prudent approach to casualty and we're consistent with what we have seen before and done before. And that's sort of the way you should interpret our statements. I don't know what the markets then say, but that's definitely our approach here.

The next question comes from Kamran Ostein from...

Two questions from me. The first one is just intrigued about the motivation behind the increased cost cut. Definitely kind of a welcome thing, increased efficiency. Clearly, you're well on the way to kind of hitting your number that you set out previously. Is it market conditions, revenue may be a little bit softer? Just understanding kind of why today, it feels like it's a kind of full year issue to kind of talk about. The second question is just back on the long-tail reserving additions. Anders, I think your explanation around kind of the amount you've -- where it's come from, where you've recycled it makes sense, kind of adding more into prudence, et cetera, the kind of Lemon Tree. What -- I think when you did the -- took the actions in Q3 '24, you talked about being at 90th percentile kind of reserving confidence across the entire book. And I think talking to a predecessor, he suggested that in the kind of county book, it would be higher than that. Could you maybe give kind of some qualitative comments around kind of whether those numbers are a little bit higher these days or whether actually just everything is running to plan?

Very good. Okay. Maybe just starting with costs. Look, I think cost is something that every company has to maintain and manage constantly. And that's not different for us. And we announced this program now 2 years ago, it's a CHF 300 million. We're very well on track with it. Remember, I always said it's important that it's not just a hockey stick. It's a constant every year. Basically, we make progress towards that. That's going according to plan. And so with that in mind, we basically say, look now, let's extend that because it is going to plan, extend it by a year, but also to increase it. The benefits should then really come through that there's a better support ultimately for the clients and for the businesses. That's why we focus on the nonclient areas within the group, focusing on processes, focusing on simplifying the group, which then frees up resources that will help to grow the business. Timing just because we're well underway here, we're in the middle of it now 2 years after it. So we thought it's a good time now to update that and give you that guidance here. On the long-term reserve additions percentile, I mean, we -- when we announced it, we said clearly, we want to be -- we are at the 90% going forward. We will not give an exact number, but we are at the upper end of the best estimate range. And we continue to be at this upper end of the best estimate range. And you also see that now coming through the positive reserve development that we now see now basically quarter after quarter, which shows you that we are above the midpoint. So without giving you a number, I mean, I think it's really going according to plan.

The next question comes from Yan Pierce from BNP Paribas.