Assicurazioni Generali (Milan:G) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Generali Group Half Year twenty twenty six Results Presentation. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions.

0:23 At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Fabio Kliva, Head of Investor and Rating Agencies Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Hello, everyone and thank you for joining our first half twenty twenty six results call. Here with us today, we have the Group CEO, Philippe Donne the Deputy Group CEO, Giulio Terzarriol the Group General Manager, Marco Sisana and the Group CFO, Cristiano Borian. Before opening for Q and A, let me hand over to Philippe for some opening remarks.

0:53 Thank you, Fabio, and thanks to all of you for joining this call. Generali's excellent financial results for the first half of twenty twenty six demonstrate the strength, profitability and very solid capital position of our group once again. We have now reached the halfway mark in the execution of lifetime partner 27 driving excellence and these results reinforce our confidence in our ability to successfully deliver our fourth strategic plan in a row. I am going to focus on five key messages. First, we recorded a strong performance across all key metrics, thanks to the robust contribution of every business segment.

1:42 Gross written premium reached €53,400,000,000 up 5.8% from half year twenty twenty five, driven by both Life and Property Casualty. The operating result achieved excellent growth to €4,500,000,000 up 11.2%, again thanks to all business segments. This led to a 13.7% progress in the adjusted net result to €2,500,000,000 leading to an adjusted earnings per share growth of 14.3%. And thanks to our sound capital generation, we closed the second quarter with a very solid Solvency II ratio at 216%, notwithstanding the impact of the €500,000,000 buyback and the end of the subordinated bond grandfathering regime.

2:45 Second, our Life business maintained a very positive growth trajectory with the operating result increased to €2,200,000,000 up 8.8%. Net inflows were very strong, exceeding €8,300,000,000 This is a record first half figure achieved thanks to the positive contribution from all business lines. New business value grew significantly by 21.1%, reaching €1,900,000,000 benefiting from both higher volumes and improved overall profitability. Our new business margin expanded materially to 5.86, mainly thanks to the positive impact of a more favorable new business mix and enhanced product features.

3:42 Third, the Property and Casualty operating result rose by 4.7% to over €2,100,000,000 This was achieved despite an additional €425,000,000 in both natural catastrophe and man made claims compared with the first half of twenty twenty five. The combined ratio stood at 91.5% from 91% at half year twenty twenty five with a 3.6 percentage point impact from nat cat. The natural catastrophes we witnessed this year, including the recent severe wildfires in Spain and France, further highlight the importance of closing protection gaps and improving climate change preparedness across the world.

4:40 In July 2026 alone, our preliminary assessment is that nat cat impacted our business for around three hundred million euros with around 60,000,000 additional related to manmade events. Beyond large loss events, the current inflationary trend is another factor that we will reflect in our pricing, in particular, in non motor. Fourth, the operating result of asset and wealth management recorded healthy growth of 31.3 year on year. This was driven by the robust underlying performance of both Asset Management and Banca Generali.

5:29 The segment generated around 16% of the group operating result, underscoring the benefit of a diversified and integrated business model. Moving to my fifth and final point, As the execution and delivery of our plan remain our top priorities, we also continue to expand our capabilities in key strategy growth areas. In this context, I would like to say a few words about Radion, the new brand for our global care platform. Radion brings together leading capabilities across employee benefits, assistance, health and mobility, serving multinational companies, financial institutions and millions of customers around the world.

6:19 It generates annual business volumes of over €5,800,000,000 with more than 12,000 employees and operations in over 190 countries. Radeon is one of the very few truly global players in this field, being the leading employee benefits network and the second largest player in travel insurance and assistance. Our mission is to further leverage these leadership positions and become the world's premier care partner. Radian stands out for both its scale and technology. It's a data and AI driven Insurtech platform that combines Generali's reach and strength with the agility and innovation of leading digital players.

7:11 Building on this, we are now scaling embedded insurance, a new B2B2C growth engine that distributes seamless protection within our partners' digital journeys from travel and e commerce to financial services. This allows us to turn our global distribution relationship into a new and increasingly valuable source of profitable growth. Our business model benefits from long term structural growth drivers, rising demand for travel insurance and assistance, employee benefits and embedded and integrated service ecosystems. This is why we are truly confident and excited about the opportunities for Radeon, and we will, of course, provide regular updates on its progress.

8:02 In conclusion, the quality of our performance in the first six months of this year reflects the disciplined execution across our three key strategic priorities: excellence in our customer relationships, in our core capabilities and in our group operating model.

8:21 Furthermore, the insurance sector trends on which we build our plan are proving increasingly relevant with some of them even accelerating. This is particularly true when it comes to new needs deriving from major long term social and environmental trends, including an aging population and insufficient public health care,

8:48 the protection gap related to the increase in extreme weather events due to climate change as well as changing customer expectations driven by market and technological shifts. It is a constantly evolving environment that requires us to stay agile, innovative and forward thinking to lead and to deliver lasting value to our customers as their lifetime partner and to all our stakeholders as a stand alone group. The three foundation that underpin the plan are key to this, Our talented

9:27 people and the structured implementation of AI and data are allowing our business units to strengthen their core technical capabilities in underwriting, while further improving the quality of service to our customers and distribution partners. We also continue to demonstrate the quality and consistency of our approach to sustainability. The Financial Times recently recognized us as one of the Europe's climate leaders, while Time and Newsweek included us in their rankings of the world's most sustainable and greenest companies. We are proud of this important recognitions, which make us even more determined to keep driving profitable growth while supporting a green and just transition and strengthening societal resilience.

10:23 Finally, before we open our Q and A, I am pleased to inform you that we will be holding an Investor Day on November 18 in London. This will give us the chance to further update you on the execution of our plan as well as to showcase in detail some of our strategic initiatives. You will receive all the details in the upcoming weeks, and we look forward to welcoming you there. I thank you very much again for your continued interest in Generali. And with all my colleagues, are now happy to take your questions. Thank you. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session.

11:26 The first question is from Michael Huttner, Berenberg. Fantastic. Thank you so much. I have two questions, one a little bit cheeky. So the I think on the last call, Giulio said that he used the Metro quite often to go and visit UniqCredit to discuss business, sales and stuff. And of course, today, Allianz also reports, Allianz, sadly for them, they lost the UniqCredit franchise. Is that the one that you're going to pick up? Or are there plans here?

11:56 Anything you could say would be quite interesting. And then the other one is standard. You talked about inflation and pricing. Could give us a few numbers on what inflation we're seeing? The feeling I have is inflation has picked up. Pricing is still lagging. But I don't know how you're seeing it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Michael. The first question is for Philippe. The second is for Giulio and Marco.

12:25 Wait, sorry Philippe. I didn't say I go to UniCredit. I said there are five train stops between UniCredit and Allianz and Generali. That's a different story, okay? No. We are already doing significant business with Unique Credit, including Bancassurance and distribution in Central And Eastern Europe, including some asset management business as well. And definitely, we would be happy to expand the business we are doing with them as we would be happy to investigate any other kind of business opportunities in Italy and out of Italy.

13:14 Thank you. Okay. So on the pricing environment, I can tell you what we saw in the first six months. On the Motor side, we see basically pricing holding up pretty nicely against the risk premium. So we have a little bit of a positive spread. And when we look at the loss trends part, see basically that the inflation is more or less in line with what we saw last year. So we speak of inflation between 45%, but we see also frequency decreasing. I don't know if you remember in the first quarter we told you that frequency was going up a bit, but there was also related to the difference in the weather related events between the first quarter twenty twenty six and the first quarter twenty twenty five. And now with the six months we see this sort of normalization.

14:04 So I will say inflation wise very stable compared to what we saw last year from a frequency point of view, I will say also still a decrease in frequency. On the automotive side, I will say in general same story. Just a country where we see a little bit of a pickup of inflation in non motor, which is Germany. We spoke about that also if you remember in end of June and we are taking rate increases. But just to remind you the combined ratio in non motor in Germany is well below 90. So we are speaking anyway of a very strong performance. But as always, we try to keep the marginality as much as we can. So maybe adding few words.

14:50 So we have a close monitoring about all the drivers that can cause inflation. We have we are monitoring all the spare parts across Europe, brand, across Asia. So we look at different driver. We look at the medical rates if they're going up. So at the moment, we as Giulio was saying, we broadly see the market that it's constant in the way we see inflation, so around that 4% that Giulio was

15:23 mentioning. There might be inflation. We are monitoring. We don't see it yet. We are preparing. So we are we know that as soon as we see inflation, we know how to act. By the way, I just want to remind you also that in non motor, a large part of the portfolio is indexed to inflation. So there is also an automatic, I would say, recovery that we can make. So at the moment, we see that the market is expecting that, but we don't see yet

15:56 in our portfolio. But we monitor and look and we know how to act if we see the sign of inflation. Thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. Next question please. The next question is from Fahad Chungazi, Kepler Cheuvreux. Thank you for taking my question. Could I just follow-up on P and C and inflation? I mean, again, in Q1, you also said that you would look at to make a decision on volume growth in P and C in H2. It looks like it's Germany, sort of the odd one out. But in terms of other countries, where are you standing in terms of P and C volume growth?

16:39 And my second question is on capital. The SCR picked up in both Life and Non Life, presumably that is normal business growth. You will still end up very strong sum situation for year 2026 and we have the Solvency II review on January 30. Is it fair to say you will reassess your capital levels at full year results? And also, I suppose, will you still want to operate near the top end of the range? Thank you. Thank you very much, Fahad. The first question is for Giulio, while the second one is for Cristiano. Yes. So speaking about the volume growth, I can tell you first of all speaking for the motor, no motor in aggregate, I will say the 20% of our growth in motor is coming from

17:28 volume. So a little bit less than 20%. When we look at non motor including also accident, health and disability, we are speaking of almost one third of growth coming from volume. When I look at the geography, I can tell you that we see actually I'm speaking about motor right now a good development of volume across the board. There are just I will say three exception. One is Switzerland because we do a lot of pruning. And you can see the improvement in the combined ratio is remarkable. Another one is Spain where we're also doing pruning. We're getting to a different better level of combined ratio. Then in Italy if you compare this year this quarter this six months to last

18:07 year six months, you see a decrease. But in reality the situation is stabilizing. And here we go back that we are managing clearly volume and profitability and try to find the right balance. And we have a very good performance on our motor book in Italy. So I would say all the other countries you can see a nice or good growth in volume. When we look at non motor, I would say you see growth everywhere with exception of Switzerland where we are doing a lot of

18:34 pruning obviously. And also in this case, you can see the improvement. So overall, I will say from a volume point of view, there is definitely a momentum which is stronger compared to what we had a couple of years ago. Yes. Regarding capital, hi Fahad. So I think that you are seeing the push for business growth as we were saying already. Clearly, depending on the mix of also this growth when you have like we had in net inflow, especially this helps here even distribution between all the lines where tradition has usually have a slightly higher capital absorption. This also explained some part of the capital put at work for the new business, which is coherent

19:20 with the positive environment and the future deployment for growth that we are having foreseeing already the solvency to review. I reconfirm that in end of January twenty twenty seven that the Solvency II review will enter into practice, we will have 15 percentage points uplift. For sure, on the final year 2026 result, we will show a comparative starting point, which is a common practice, I think, among the whole industry. We discussed altogether, I think, well in the forum. And

19:55 regarding the level of the risk appetite framework, we confirm the level we had as we discussed in the Generali exploring event of March, our top ceiling element of €230,000,000 still is confirmed. Our idea is to put this capital at work in four forms. I repeat it. We are already

20:22 consuming a little bit of capital from SAA optimization, something in the order of two points per quarter. This quarter, we did slightly less because of the positive rate environment, which was not necessarily living to obtain the desired target or investment result to push for further risky asset. But in general, we are hinting for two points per quarter of SAE optimization. There was also a small event of Belgium downgrade,

20:52 which accounted for 0.5 percentage point negative effect on solvency. Overall, we will continue to deploy these extra points on four drivers. The first one is business growth as we are already starting. Second one is the investment. SAA, as you said, and we continue to invest in the business, in the infrastructure in Europe and overall. And the third one, for sure, will be also in allowing us to have a better mix between the subordinated debt and the senior debt, which is not necessary now as required as capital as in the past. And fourth is, for sure, capital deployment, be it for growth, for M and A or for sure returning capital to shareholders.

21:38 Thank you very much. Thank you, Fahad. Next question please. The next question is from William Hawkins, KBW. Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. Just one topic with a few questions, please. Could you just talk a bit more about your view of the outlook for the new business value?

21:56 You've printed this very strong, in my view, 1,890,000,000. So just very short term, can we annualize it? Or could there be some variance in the second half? And then what are you kind of thinking about the longer term drivers?

22:08 I always think a big company like you should be growing that number 5% to 10%, but I don't know if I'm kind of off base to the upside or downside. And if you could talk a bit about the drivers because I noticed in the detail Asia seems to have had a huge step up which is great. Germany is a bit weaker and Italy and France are in the middle. So yes, just help me on the outlook for new business value please.

22:28 Thank you very much, William. The first question is for Giulio. The second is for both Giulio and Marco. Thank you, William. So on the new business value, I wouldn't say you can take the number two times two, because actually especially in China we have a stronger much stronger production in the first part of the year. Part of it is always happening because it's linked to the Chinese New Year. So there is a lot of production basically happening in the first quarter. And then also in this situation, there was some fire sale effect because of a change in the illustration rates in the second quarter. So from that point of view, you need to normalize China from a growth point of view. Otherwise, the rest of the portfolio is evolving actually pretty normally. There is also one other element to consider.

23:18 It's true this is not the highest new business margin

23:22 business that we have, but also the protection business of France which is delivering new business value is particularly skewed to the first part of the year. So from that point of view, wouldn't take the number and do times two, but I can assure to you that we are going to have a much stronger growth in VNB than last year. And definitely we're going to meet this year your objective of 5% to 10% value of the business growth is going to be most likely much more for this year. Moving forward, I will say clearly one driver of growth in our value of new business is going to be Asia. By the way Asia is not only China. We're also growing our franchise in India.

24:02 I don't know if you remember, but basically last year we found a new joint venture partner. This joint venture partner is a bank. So even if in India there is not exclusive bank assurance, clearly we get access to the branches of this bank. And I can tell you that in India we had also a nice increase in present value of business profit and also in value of new business. The marginality in India is about 7% right now. And we are doing like for the quarter for the six months about €250,000,000 present value of new business premium. So that's also something to consider because the expect is to grow moving forward. And then we go back to

24:41 Europe. Definitely we see a good dynamic in France. I cannot tell you this is going to go forever, but I would expect to see strong results coming from France also in the coming months or next year. Italy is doing very nicely from a V and B point of view. If you look at Italy, even if the present value new business premium is down, the value of new business growth is 5%, which is definitely a good

25:10 starting point. And then eventually clearly the situation in Germany is going to normalize. So from that point of view, I will say Asia clearly leading in terms of growth, but also in Europe, I think we have a strong franchise and we're going to push to have quality value in the business growth. Yes. A couple of points that I think it's worth mentioning. So the first is,

25:36 clearly, we see the development of Asia, but also coming back to Europe, the dynamics of demographic in pension and the need of people in this segment are going to be an important driver for us in the future, both, I would say, Germany, Italy, but also the CE is going to be important. And the second point that I want to mention is that the type of articulation of product that we have developed over the year, we always mention

26:09 our hybrid products, so multiline product. And the ability and sustained growth of protection inside

26:19 this product is going to be a driver of sustaining margin and therefore of new business value. So we as Giulio already point out, we always have done choices. And when we have a trade off, we have done choices on value. And so for example, you see how good was the development of value in Italy, notwithstanding the decrease of volume. So there is always this choice that we make. And so

26:48 to recap demographic pension and also the type of product we put on the market will be core driver of sustained growth of value for the future. Interesting. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, William. Next question please. The next question is from Andrew Baker, Goldman Sachs.

27:07 Hi, thank you for taking my questions. First one, I guess just given the strong investment performance in the second quarter, is there any change to either your operating investment guidance on the Life side or the investment result guidance you previously given on the P and C side?

27:23 And then secondly, I guess just taking a step back, adjusted EPS grew 16% last year, it's up 14% in the first half this year. There's obviously no change to your targets at this point. But is it fair to assume that you'll come in materially above the top end of the target range for both 26% and I guess the three year target as well just based on where we're sat today? Thank you.

27:47 Thank you, Andrew. Both questions are for Christian. Yes. Hi, Andrew. So I would say speaking about first the P and C effect in the second quarter, you have observed very positive recurring growth of the investment result where there was a reduction of

28:10 dividend from our private equity side, while the but we confirm the guidance given of 1,100,000,000 so far, but this is a proof point of the very good reinvestment activity done there together with the growth of the business. The Life side, I think especially in the second quarter in isolation, there were €25,000,000 more, while in the P and C, were €24,000,000 less. Here, are €25,000,000 more on

28:38 Lion River dividends and kind of €20,000,000 more of dividends from the funds in China, which are more a kind of timing shift. That's why we still stick to the €900,000,000 operating investment result for Life as well. Going back going to the second question related to adjusted EPS, we are not changing target, but we are hinting that we are confident that given this momentum, will overachieve our target. And I think that this is the most important thing out of it and it is not the first time we are saying it.

29:17 All right. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Next question please. The next question is from Andrea Lizzi, Equita. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on the rumors. We have read in newspapers about a possible merger between the Generali Italian Network and Allianza. If you can provide any thoughts on this? And if this you think that this can accelerate the synergies

29:50 and development of the business as well as potentially extend the perimeter of collaboration with Banca Generali?

29:58 The second question is on new business margin. We have seen a really nice development. And if you think that we can go ahead of the guidance that you have provided so far? And the other is if you if there is any possibility if you can provide us an indication over your expectation of on net other operating expenses that have declined quite materially year on year. And so any thoughts on this can be is appreciated. Thank you. Thank you very much, Andrea. On your first question, as always, we never comment on article or rumors or speculations. So the second question on the new business margin will be taken by Giulio, while the third one on the non operating items is going to be taken by Christian.

30:54 Sorry guys. Yes, on the new business margin, clearly it's a nice development. By the way, I want to point out is driven also by a nice increase on new business margin in Italy and also the new business margin development in Asia is really favorable. For this year, would say definitely we're going to be at the guidance that we gave you. But we said also many times in

31:17 the last calls that we are not really focused necessarily on the 6% new business margin. For us it's more important also coming back to what William was saying before to look at the value of new business growth. So if we need to in some cases have a little bit of less new business margin to add growth new business value growth we are going to do that. I want to give you an example. If you have a target of 6% new business margin everything which is below 6% new business margin can be dilutive from that point of view. So in theory,

31:50 we should be in a situation where had to forgive maybe business at 4%, 5% of business margin just to keep at least 6%. So from that point of view, this is not necessarily the best course of action. So yes, we are basically at the 6% level. We might maintain it. But if we see there are possibilities to grow the value of the business stronger then we are going to be happy also to drift away a bit from the 6% level.

32:17 Yes. Andrea, regarding the net other non operating expenses, as probably you may recall, we had the Exploring Generali event on financing in March. We were giving some, let's say, range guidance of 200,000,000 to €300,000,000 on the specific other non operating net expenses. Clearly, be please mindful that this kind of item is pretty erratic in nature,

32:45 usually also with a seasonality skewed towards the fourth quarter as well as don't forget that we are also working and that is the reason why are you are seeing this reducing for allocation. We did already in the past moved from that item more than €80,000,000 of cost, which are now being split evenly between

33:11 Life and Non Life operating. And we are continuing this journey of extreme rigor around that to really keep a higher, let's say, much lower capability to use that item in order to concentrate all the operating result impact of all the loading and charges apart from very, very specific topic. There are also other parts which are parallel to that, like the amortization of intangibles. And you know that the more you do activity of growing the business like we did last year purchasing asset management company, MGG, we have amortization of intangible for the client value part, which is part also of the non operating overall results.

34:02 Thank you. Thanks to you, Andrea. Next question please. The next question is from Gianluca Ferrari, Mediobanca. Yes. Hi, good afternoon everyone. Sorry to go back to Andrea's question on the net other non operating expenses. If I recall probably fourth quarter last year, you had a lot of early retirement plans that affected this line.

34:27 Expecting another kind of round of early retirement in Q4 this year? The second is on cat losses. If you can give a bit more detail on the $300,000,000 you mentioned and if you can have some kind of guidance for the cat budget for full year 2026? Thank you. Thank you, Gianluca. The first question is for Cristiano, while the second one is for Marc. Yes. So Gianluca, first of all, I recall what I was mentioning before was the subcategory other net non operating expenses adjusted to 200,000,000 to €300,000,000 In the same event of Generali, Exponent Generali, we were hinting between 100,000,000 to 150,000,000 of restructuring charges throughout the year. So far, we are trying to find any possible opportunity, but I think we will have more detail eventually in the nine month result.

35:25 If we can accelerate further, I mean, for example, the pension reform in Germany is allowing us to work on further accelerating efficiencies, and we are seeing whether this is something that can happen in 2026 or in 2027. In any case, there is an opportunity that this reform is bringing to streamline further. And so we will be more precise by nine months. Thank you. So on the nat cat, I think the €300,000,000 that you referred to are the one in July that we have recorded in July. So those are mainly two type of event. One is severe convective storm, I think, in the first part of July, that is more around $530,000,000 million euros and the other one is the hailstorm in Europe in the second part of July in Italy, France and Germany.

36:22 So clearly, this is going to be on top of what you see in the half year. And overall, what I can tell you regarding the budget is that we are very close to the budget. So more likely, we are going to end up there or slightly more, but it's always difficult to forecast any nat cat. Now if I can add, also I want to remind you how we are covered on the nat cat because I think there is a good work that we have done on the reinsurance treaty this year. So there is not only the prevent treaty, which is above the €300,000,000 but also the cat aggregate that is working in excess of €1,200,000,000 for €550,000,000 of capacity.

37:08 And also this year, it's the structure is very interesting because we have a €10,000,000 franchise. So it's a very favorable setup. And so what you see here and what we have reported, you need always to remind that the net is going to be different because of this. So overall, yes, we're going to be close to the budget. But on the other side, we will be covered also by the cost aggregate. Thank you very much. Thank you, Gianluca. Next question please. The next question is from Iain Pearce, BNP Paribas. Sorry, it was just a follow-up on the nat cat question actually because the convective storm and hail losses, I mean, the industry reports I've seen on those seems to be sat around €1,000,000,000 slightly above €1,000,000,000 industry loss.

37:58 So I was just the market share seems very high, and we haven't really heard your peers talk about this as yet. So just wondering if there's anything specific about that loss, why you might be picking up a slightly higher market share? And then just a follow-up on the savings new business margin, which improved a lot half on half. Could you just give us a bit more color around what's driving that improvement, please? Of course, Ian. The first question is for Marco, while the second one is for Giulio. Yes. So we have on these on the loss that you mentioned, we have probably estimated that are higher compared to what you mentioned. So we are almost between billion and €6,000,000,000 So I would say our losses are in line with our market share.

38:48 So we don't see so at the moment, we don't see any different pickup of losses compared to our market share. This is going to be very much in line with what with the business. And the source that we are getting these are market source or from broker reports. And so I would say we are in line with the market with our market share. On the same as new business margin, there are basically two drivers. One is Asia, because we see an increase in new business margin both in China and also India. In the case of India, it's because of volume. In the case of China, it's also volume, because clearly when you grow faster your expense overrun and the run gets better.

39:36 And also the quality of the production in China is better than last year. We are basically selling part business which is matched with a guarantee level which is going down. So from that point of view there is a quality of business which is better compared to last year. So these two elements volume and quality of business are improving the new business margin. And the other country is Italy. As I was saying before, yes, production has gone down in Italy, but actually the value of new business is going up. This is driven by the marginality. And I can tell you that we have increased by the marginality in traditional savings by about 100 basis points. So from that point this is coming from product mix. Also last year we still had some products which were on commercial discount. And this year we are just running without any kind of commercial discounts. So from that point of view there is a quality production also on the savings part.

40:35 Got it. Thank you. Thank you, Jung. Next question please. The next question is from James Schoch, Citi. Thank you. Good afternoon. I just had a question on the strategic asset allocation investment. So can you just remind me what the expected yield pickup is, please? I know you're investing two points per quarter of SCR. So what's the expected yield pickup? I guess, I'm most interested in what the marginal return on that SCR is generating for you. And then secondly, a bit more of a big picture question, but we've seen State Farm take a completely different approach to paying its agents, essentially focusing much more on new business at the expense of kind of harvesting the back book.

41:22 Are there any plans? Can you update a little bit on how the tight agents that you have in your networks are remunerated? And maybe you have any plans to change that? Apologies, James. The line was not very good on your second question. Could you please repeat it for us? Certainly. Hopefully, you can hear me now. Is it better? It is a bit better. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Yes. No, it's just a question given what State Farm is doing in The U. S. I'm just intrigued about potentially paying your agents in a different way. So are there any plans to focus more on new business generation rather than just harvesting the back book? Thank you. Thank you very much, James. So the first question is for Marco and the second question is for Giulio.

42:09 I can give you an highlight and then also Cristiano can add on the topic. So as we said, we were working on our SAA, particularly on the P and C side because we wanted to re risk the SAA. And so the uplift that you see on our operating income is coming both from the increase in asset under management and also from an increased rate that we have done, that we have developed, thanks to the re risking of the SAA. So what you are seeing now in term of operating income, especially on the P and C, is something that you should expect going forward, probably even slightly higher, if I can give you this guideline.

43:03 Yes. So giving you a few numbers. If we concentrate on the core countries where we develop the strategic asset allocation, which is the core part of the group, we are seeing a reinvestment yield, including all the asset classes, including private assets of 4.24%, which is allowing us to keep a spread of almost 1% more than the redemption component of what is happening, which is allowing us to get better commercial offer and then clearly embedded investment margin. I'm referring this about Life portfolio. Clearly, this number goes to 4.01% if we just look at the P and C portfolio, clearly talking about the core, which means excluding hyperinflationary countries or countries where we have a minor clearly weight versus the core European operations.

44:04 And to your question about changing the remuneration to the agents, we're not changing remuneration to the agents. I can tell you anyway that's clearly growth is a component which is important in the remuneration of agents. I would also say that generally because I need to generalize obviously we have different tight agency forces in different countries. But on the Life side, a lot of the remuneration with agents, incentive to the agents are dependent on growth. And also growth is defined as net growth, clearly net of potentially what there could be lapses loss in portfolio. So from that point of view is basically remuneration which is geared to grow the portfolio, grow the assets under management. On the P and C side is a combination clearly of growth on new production.

44:52 There is also an incentive on retention then we add generally also an incentive on quality of the business. So fundamentally, I will say that clearly our incentive system which is not just a compensation, but also you have other forms of energy the agents to push production is definitely geared in terms of increasing the productivity of the agents. That's the ultimate goal basically of any remuneration system. Hey, James, to complete, because I think I didn't answer the return on the CR balance sheet, we are adding 1.5 percentage point of return on a CR from this investment compared to the previous asset allocation. So it is as we called it ROAR accretive, return on risk capital accretive.

45:43 Thank you. Thank you, James. Next question please. The next question is from Elena Perini, Intesa Sanpaolo. Yes. Afternoon and thank you for taking my questions. The first one is a follow-up on the most recent Nat Cat. Do you have any impacts from the wildfires in France and Spain because you didn't mention before? And then the second question is on the pension reform in Germany. What are the steps that are still now ahead for its adoption.

46:34 So will it come into force on the January 1 as you were mentioning the event in June? And when would this start to contribute to your Life and Asset Management business? Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Elena. The first question is for Marco, while the second one is for Giulio. So like correctly, you're pointing out correct point, so I didn't mention the wildfire that there are at the moment in France, but also Spain, I would say. These are typically booked under the man made, not the nat cat. So are these are very recent. We are looking at that. So we are doing our first estimation.

47:34 We believe they are going to be under the €100,000,000 So both combining the French side and the Spanish side, we believe they can be less than €100,000,000 I would say, considerably less. And therefore, but please remember these are booked under the man made. So on the pension reform in Germany, maybe I also because I don't know if everybody is familiar with the pension reform in Germany. So I just described how the pension reform is working. It's basically a substitute for the Arista products. The state has decided to introduce a standard product. The standard product is a very low cost product, but this also means a little bit low value in the sense there is not much choice in funds and also there is not an option with a guarantee.

48:30 So anyway you need to be offering the standard product in order to offer other solutions where you can put guarantees or you can put a wider broader fund allocation. Also a change is that for the products without guarantees also non insurance players can offer this product. So technically speaking banks as a manager, neo broker. Another point which is a positive is that the subsidies are larger compared to the subsidies that were given before. And so this clearly is going to increase the number of people that are going to go into this solution. Also the amount of people which are eligible for this kind of products have been increased.

49:15 The immediate effect because we see an effect has been that actually production slowed down. When we look at what is happening right now is people clearly are staying on the sideline because they are waiting for the reform to come. And we are positioning us for January 1. As you know, we are very strong in life in Germany. We have the strongest distribution footprint of any compared to any competitor, which is a DVAG. And also DVAG is very strong on this kind of solution. So from that point of view, we think that sure it's going to be a little bit of losing some customer and getting some customers. But we are very well positioned. We are also starting soon a marketing campaign in order to be prepared for January 1. So all in all, I would say this could be an opportunity for us if we play this well.

50:10 Thank you, Elena. Next question please. The next question is from Farquhar Murray, Autonomous. Good morning all. Just two questions, if I may. Firstly, with regards to Radeon. I just wondered if you could walk us through industrial reasoning for the new setup there and maybe what the key changes will be on the ground and how you expect that to carry through into kind of target deliverables. I suppose it's mainly a revenue discussion built around wallet share, I just want to check whether there's a cost or capital management angle to this too. And then secondly, can you just explain what's driving the higher yields in the non life investment portfolio? In particular, is that just like a passive reinvestment outcome into the current curves or a more active consequence of portfolio management? Thanks. Thank you very much, Farquhar. The first question is for Giulio, while the second one is for Cristiano.

51:01 So I would say the Radioni business consists of two pillars and then we're also adding some other capabilities into this business. One pillar is the pillar basically of the travel and mobility assistance. This business is overall doing about €4,500,000,000 of turnover. Just to give you an idea, 60% of this turnover is in travel, 30% is mobility and then the rest is in other form of assistance. And it's a business also that has a lot of travel business in The U. S. It's about 40% of our exposure and then the rest is 50% around of the business is in Europe and 10% of the business is fundamentally in Asia. So that's one part of the business.

51:48 The other part of the business is the employee benefits. And this is a business that right now has $1,500,000,000 of revenue. But with the acquisition of Swiss Life, are going to double basically those revenue. I will look at these two businesses as two different pillars. Also we are using Radeon for potentially expanded embedded insurance especially when we have embedded insurance on an international kind of platform, because Radeon is clearly capable to work with a different business unit. They do that in the assistance business and they had the capabilities clearly to do this also in other lines of business. If you remember, when we presented a strategic plan in January of last year, we talked about the health service factory. This is also something that Radeon is basically put in place. So from that point of view, a global platform.

52:42 It's also a global platform which is digitally enabled. And so this allow us to be very nimble in pushing lines of business where you want to have basically a direct connection to the consumer. So look at this business somehow also a little bit like B2C business with a good level of digitalization. Now the numbers that we saw in the last years have been very positive. Also if you look at the six months numbers, you can see in the Radeon what we call assistance and insurance business, a double digit growth both of revenue and also of profit. We continue to invest in this business to make sure that we can see continued growth also in the future.

53:31 So hello, Farquhar. Regarding the higher end loan portfolio, just to set the delta especially between what is invested at 4.01 in the core portfolio and what is maturing at 2.37, which makes 1.64% positive spread pulling up is something driven by liquid asset classes investment. Maybe you noted that the amount of private debt is basically substituting simply which was there. So there is a higher weight of liquid fixed income, I mean, particularly on the credit side. And this is consistent with the statement and explanation we were giving before of putting the capital at work because clearly the benefit is purely shareholder driven and we have enough risk bearing capacity in this environment to profit from that clearly within our risk appetite framework.

54:28 But this in any case is showing already his fruit because clearly on a half year overall fear basis, you see on this kind of components a kind of €87,000,000 improvement of recurring income. Very Thank much, Farquhar. Next question please. The next question is from Michael Hartner, Berenberg. Thank you very much for this opportunity. I hope I'll have something clever. The first one is really general question, but so your operating capital generation, I think, 2,400,000,000 net of SCR.

55:15 That's a lovely number. It is, however, just 9% of the total cost, if you like. And some of your peers have higher numbers. Now they're not hugely higher, but they seem to be consistently higher. And I know you don't obviously want to talk about your peers, but I just wondered, is your accounting more cautious? Or is there something I'm missing? And then my traditional question, Cristiano, can you talk about cash? I love cash. I'd like to think you're going to bathe in it during your holidays, but any indication will be lovely. For sure. So I start with the most boring and then I will end with the happy part, jokes aside. So the first topic on the operating capital generation, it is something that we are looking at. And for sure, there is a difference if we compare ourselves towards other, let's say, standard of industry because the component, as explained in Exploring Generali of the especially the best estimate change of the prior year development is not part of the capital generation. So clearly, are under running some a couple of one to two percentage point of operating capital generation, if you want really to compare like for like on the peers. Then there is another element related to potential asymmetries.

56:39 There are countries and peers which operate under equivalent regime and countries like us where we do not have equivalent regime. So when we evaluate the capital generation, we use Solvency II rules even in countries where Solvency II is not applied and it is much more punitive compared to capital part. So if you take also wiping out these, let's call, regulatory asymmetries without any form of real underlying limitation for the local development of the business, we were, in our opinion, in line. Another difference, which I think I noticed is that we account for the full deduction of the cash spent for the full amount of any LTI plan used and not for the actual cost that we pay for it. So in some cases, we buy more shares than the one which were actually needed with the debt from the capital and we don't have a kind of positive recovery out of that.

57:44 Going to cash, first, I want to have a good news for both you and I, which we do care. In July, we received the first remittance from Switzerland. So I think this is a very positive news, which we were hinting from years and we were explaining even in the plan. And it is here, I mean, on capital, job finished, on business job not finished, but clearly, there is a very good momentum in the expense ratio and all the change that they are doing. Having said that, we are almost, but not at 95% of the total remittance of the year collected so far. And it is €4,600,000,000 And I hope this brings a very nice number to put in your projections.

58:33 Brilliant. Thank you so much. Thank you, Michael. Next question please. There are no more questions registered at this time. I turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks. Thank you very much for listening to our call. Of course, should you have any follow-up questions, the Investor Relations team is at your full disposal. And we all look forward to see you in London on November 18. Have a great weekend and goodbye. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over and you may disconnect your telephone.