Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. My name is Lars Holm from Investor Relations in Alm. Brand, and I'm sitting here together with CEO Rasmus Werner Nielsen and Senior IR Officer Mikael Bo Larsen, and we are ready to present to you our Q4 results for 2020. As always, we are going to make a short presentation of the results, and then afterwards we will be ready to answer any questions you may have. With this short introduction, I will leave the floor to you, Rasmus. Thank you, Lars. Good afternoon, and thank you for taking the time to join us on this call on the Alm. Brand's results for the full year of 2020. Personally, I'm very satisfied with the result that we have delivered and the progress we have done in the past year. In a year heavily influenced by COVID-19, we are taking important steps in transforming our company. Now, Alm. Brand is in a much better position to cope with the challenges that we see ahead of us. In our update today, I will start with a recap of the full year, and then I will focus on what we have achieved in the past quarters. Please turn to slide two. For us in Alm. Brand, 2020 has been a year of execution. This is important because when COVID-19 changed the world, we had already made the first changes to Alm. Brand in January with the creation of a new organization to better meet our customers. With this, a reduction in headcounts which cut our cost by DKK 100 million on an annual basis. When entering into the lockdown period and the more challenging business climate, we had a good starting point that allowed us to navigate successfully and assist our customers whenever they needed it. As a result, our underlying business has performed well and on top of this, we have made a good investment result as financial markets have had a generally strong development after the last dip during March. It was also a top priority to find a good solution for our banking activities, and with the sale and subsequent formation of a partnership with Sydbank, I believe we have achieved a win-win solution. A solution that not only has freed up capital and management resources, but has also created a stronger distribution for our insurance products. Looking into the year to come, our focus will be to make sure that we are able to execute and create excellence in our core functions. We will revisit the full value chain and identify whatever we can do to be better on claims handling, procurement, and customer servicing. We will ensure that we will meet a lot more customers. 2021 will in some respect be a special year in terms of investing in the future. The new partnerships that we have entered into with both Volkswagen Semler and Sydbank will be backed by start-up costs to create a strong digital and meaningful value proposition to our customers. Please turn to slide three. While the impact of COVID-19 on our financial results has been significant, all our businesses have delivered improved underlying performance and execution on their strategic objectives. Our full year pre-tax earnings amounted to DKK 824 million, compared to our guidance of DKK 700 million-DKK 750 million, excluding run-off results for the last quarter. In all fairness, it should be noted that the general positive development has been supported by favorable weather conditions, few major claims, reduced activities, and therefore fewer claims in general, as well as a very positive investment result. Putting this aside, the changes that we made early in the year have generated the operational improvement that we expected. Bottom line, the strong result and our strong balance sheet allow us to pay out all earnings after tax, which translate into a dividend of four DKK per share. The board also proposes to pay out the postponed dividend from 2019. That is DKK 3 per share, which mean that the total dividend will amount to DKK 7 per share. We should not forget that we back in early January paid out an extraordinary dividend of DKK 8 per share following the sale of the bank. Please turn to slide five. The non-life business made a pre-tax profit of DKK 311 million in the fourth quarter of the year, driven by an extraordinary strong technical result of DKK 237 million and a positive investment result of DKK 74 million. The technical result benefited from a good development in underlying business as well as favorable development in both weather-related and major claims, but also from fewer claims because of lower activity during the lockdown due to COVID-19, which have added around DKK 45 million to our result. All in all, 2020 has shown a very positive development with a lot of tailwind, and we are pleased that this has been the case, but we also acknowledge that the nature of our business is that this will not necessarily be the case every year. Our investment strategy is a long-term strategy with respect to overall portfolio exposure, and consequently, we have profited from the continued positive development in both equity and bond markets. Into slide six. Premium income grew by 1.5% in the quarter, i.e., in line with what we have experienced in the previous quarters. On the full year, growth totaled 2%, which is somewhat lower than we forecasted. To some extent, this is the flip side of the general lower activity following the COVID-19 lockdowns. In general, we have seen customers being relatively more hesitant in signing up for new insurances and in doing more business. The claims ratio, excluding run-off gains, was 67.7 against 73 in the fourth quarter of 2019. Including this is a one-off positive effect of fewer claims in the quarter of 3.3 percentage points due to the COVID-19 situation. The expense ratio was 16.8, slightly down from 17.0 in the fourth quarter last year due to the effects from the cost savings program, set off by start-up costs related to the partnerships. All in all, this leads to a combined ratio excluding run-off gains of 84.5, which is well ahead of our expectations. The run-off result amounted to a gain of DKK 24 million, which corresponds to 1.7 percentage points against a loss of 2.9 percentage points in the fourth quarter last year. On this, we have seen positive results from especially accident and motor insurance. The combined ratio, including run-off gains, amounted to 82.8. Now please turn to slide eight. Both from major and weather-related claims, we have seen a very favorable development in the fourth quarter. In total, these claims amounted to only DKK 89 million in the quarter against DKK 109 million in the fourth quarter last year. Compared to previous quarters, this is a relatively low level, and we would expect a return to a more normalized level going forward. Then on slide nine, the overall improvement in combined ratio filters down on both the private and commercial segment. For the private segment, the claims ratio was down 4.8 percentage points in the quarter against fourth quarter last year. In most of the quarter, we have seen restrictions and social distancing having a direct impact on general activity and the number of accidents. Similar to especially Q2, this can be seen in the numbers. Run-off gains amounted to 5.8%, which is satisfactory, and the expense ratio ticked up as we start allocating costs to fund the start-up of the new partnerships. Please turn to slide 10. For the commercial customers, the combined ratios improved to 89.7%, i.e., significantly lower than the fourth quarter last year. The key driver here was a reduction of 8.8 percentage point in the claims ratio, driven by lower weather-related and major claims, but also claims on contents and real estate. Also here, the latter effects are partly due to the situation around COVID-19. The expense ratio amounted to a satisfactory level of 14.7%. Now please turn to the life business on slide 12. Pre-tax profit for the fourth quarter of 2020 amounted to DKK 20 million, which led to a full-year result of DKK 112 million against DKK 96 million last year. The result reflects a continued satisfactory development in the expense and risk result, which amounted to DKK 11 million, as well as an improved interest result of DKK 12 million against seven in the fourth quarter last year. The technical result amounted to DKK 21 million. The return on the policyholder's investment assets was 2.6% in the quarter, and full-year returns totaled 5.8%. The bonus rate is at 15.2%, which in the current economic environment is still seen at a satisfactory level. On slide 13. Premiums totaled DKK 396 million in the quarter, is up by DKK 222 million in regular premiums and DKK 174 million in single premiums. The development in the last quarter of the year relative to fourth quarter last year was slightly down, and for the full year, growth was 2%, being below our medium-term target, but partly explainable by the specific situation around COVID-19 and to some extent also by customers having a preference for market return products. For 2021, we have announced a customer rate of 3% for new customers, and regardless of any regulatory changes imposed by the FSA, we will have a setup that also in the future will cater for customers that prefer our value proposition. Please turn to slide 15 for the outlook for 2021. We guide for a full-year pre-tax result in the range of DKK 600 million-DKK 650 million, which is the sum of an expected pre-tax profit in non-life of DKK 575 million, in pension of DKK 100 million. This year, nothing for the bank and net group cost of DKK 50 million. Our guidance is based on the fact that a number of positive factors, which we saw in the 2020 numbers, will not repeat themselves in 2021. First and foremost, the direct positive effect from COVID-19 on claims frequency is expected to be lower. We believe that we will have tailwind in the first quarter, but after that, we think and we also hope that things will be normalized. Secondly, for both major claims and weather-related claims, we budget for something close to normal. Thirdly, we anticipate only a modest investment result. Further, as you know, after the sale of the bank, we had a pool of costs that used to be allocated to the bank, and the remaining part of these will be allocated in the non-life in 2021. Sydbank will pay some of these in 2021 for services received. This is included in our numbers. Lastly, as usual, we never include run-off results in our guidance. I think there's two key numbers that you should notice in this guidance. Cost rate in non-life is expected to pick up a bit this year to be between 17% and 17.5%. Regardless of this, the combined ratio is expected to be around 90%. We are comfortable about this and see no changes in the financial targets for 2022, with cost rate around 16% and combined ratio in a normalized world with no COVID-19 around 90%. In total, our guidance reflects a business with all major parts moving as we would like it to. For us, 2021 is all about execution. With this, I conclude my presentation and hand over the word to our moderator. Thank you. Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. Our first question comes from the line of Asbjørn Mørk from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. I have a couple. One relating to your non-life guidance for 2021. Rasmus, just to be sure I understood it correctly. Basically, Sydbank will compensate you the full DKK 50 million-DKK 75 million for 2021, and then next year, that will be more or less neutral as well because you will be able to take out those costs. Sydbank will not compensate you, so the net is going to be around zero this year and I guess around zero for 2022. Was that correctly understood? Yes, that is correct. It's almost neutral this year, and of course, we have an effort to do throughout this year in order to have a zero effect next year. Yes. All right. Just to clarify on the COVID-19 effects. If I understand you correctly, you have included some estimated tailwind for Q1 and then headwinds from Q2 to Q4. Just, if you could add some numbers to that. What is the tailwind you expect to get in Q1, and what is the full year effect that you expect for 2021? Yes, we can do that. I would say the numbers we have seen in Q4, the DKK 45 million is more or less what we have included in Q1 for 2021. I would say after that it's normalized. Neither headwind or tailwind. Okay. You expect the same tailwinds in Q2 to Q4 as the tailwinds you had in 2020, basically? No. We do not expect any COVID-19 effects in Q2, Q3, and Q4. It's normalized level without Corona. Okay. in your guidance, if I take- You have the- No, it's just to confirm. I understand you have in your guidance, you have DKK 45 million in Q1, basically, I guess Q2, Q3, Q4 will have a headwind versus 2020 where you had the tailwind. Net, I guess in your guidance, you have a net headwind for 2021. Is that correct? Yeah. You're right about that. Okay. Thanks. Okay. All right. That was my first question. Based on the cost ratio. You're saying that the cost ratio should come down to 16% from the 17%, 17.5%, but then you still say that 90% is sort of the combined ratio level going forward. Does that mean you basically expect that the cost benefits to the next couple of years, you will lose that in competition on the claims side? I would say no. What we discussed here is 2022. Here we say that it's rather ambitious that we move from 17% - 17.5% to 16%. It will take an effort, of course. We think we can get there. We still have to see how everything will develop throughout 2021 with COVID-19 and all that. We still guide for 90% as the combined ratio. Yes. Okay. I guess lower cost, there's no reason why your claims ratio should be impacted in an upwards trend from your lower cost. No, you're right about that. There's also an element of competition here that we will have to take into account. Sure. Okay. On these new partnerships, what is the combined ratio on your new clients versus your current clients? Is there a big difference there? No. I would say in general, we provide the same products as we have on the shelves today with the same combined ratio. Nothing different. Of course, there is a start-up cost for the two strategic partnerships. If you exclude that, then it's pretty much the same business as we have today. Okay. Fair enough. On life, if you look at your growth this year, of course, there's good reasons why it wasn't as good as it could have been. You also mentioned the base rate adjustments from the FSA, the whole low rate environment that we're in, and I guess the fact that unit-linked is going to be more and more through Sydbank. I was just wondering, what should we really expect? Are you still so positive on the top line for the next couple of years? Should we maybe moderate our expectations a bit here, and is life really a part of the long-term Alm. Brand setup? That was a lot of questions, Asbjørn. Life is still a part of our business for sure. It's very profitable, and it's good business. For many of our customers, especially the smaller corporates, they really like this value proposition we have. That is for sure, we'll continue with that. As you see, for some years we have said that we aim for 7% as top-line growth for 2022, and that has been a little bit too positive. We have known that for a period, now we change it to 3%-4% in 2021 and 4%-5% in 2022. I really think that we should be able to achieve that going forward. Looking further than 2022, I cannot really say anything about now. All right, fair enough. The final question from my side on your dividend and capital. First, on the dividends, have you been in dialogue with the FSA about the DKK 4 and the DKK 3? If you have, what have sort of been their arguments and how they looked at that? Secondly, on the solvency, you mentioned the +300% solvency here in Q4. I guess it doesn't say that much given your setup and your own capital targets or at least your former capital targets. Just wondering, since you have sort of officially at least abandoned those financial targets, should we look more at the solvency ratio going forward, or should we look more at the old capital targets that you had or the way that you looked at capital back then? How should we really look at the 300% solvency? Yes, I can comment on that. First, to take the first question about our dividends. We have issued this about giving DKK 3 and DKK 4 for 2019 and 2020. I think it's very much in line with what we have communicated and promised before. We have this issue about giving at least 70% of our profit after tax. I think our shareholders, they should know what to expect. We have not been in any contact with the FSA. We did not even do that after our announcement in January. I think we are very well inside the proposition that we should do this carefully, and we should be very well capitalized afterwards. I think your second question is actually that we are very well capitalized, so we see no reason for having this discussion with the FSA. We come to the next question that maybe are we not only well but also overcapitalized. We have our own capital targets, and the dividends we provide today, it's simply meeting these targets and nothing more. Having this 313% as a solvency rate is of course high. We know that, but it is within our targets, and that's how it is. We know it's conservative. It's been that for years, and not knowing what will happen out in society, we keep that, at least for the moment being. Yeah, I fully agree that you're very well capitalized. I think there's a lot of financial companies that are very well capitalized but still having to hold back a bit on the dividends. My question on that was more that if I look at least what the FSA has said, and I'm aware that you're not a bank, right? At least they've said that the payout should be below the normal range. I guess yours would be 70%-100%. Paying out 100% is not really doing what the FSA is saying. I was just wondering whether you would be afraid of basically crossing the line here or whether you're super confident that they would not have any issues at all. I don't know what they're thinking. Of course, I cannot be super confident. I think if you take in total, I think we pay out 100%. Looking into our capital situation, also compared to others, I think we are very well capitalized, also meeting all kinds of hard risk scenarios. I would be surprised if we receive any comments from the FSA. All right. Thanks a lot. That was all from my side. Thanks. Thank you, Asbjørn. The next question comes from the line of Per Grønborg from SEB, please go ahead. Yes, thank you. I think there might be one or two questions left from my side. First of all, the risk allowance in life 2021, any changes to where it was in 2020? No, there's no changes, Grønborg. Why not? You leave me that question. It will come as the next one. Well, we think this is the right level for us to still be competitive. I know we are not seeing that many competitors having the same product, as I guess you would reply to that. We think this is the right level for us to compete. You can say we have actually increased it both in 2019 and 2020 a bit. I think we should be also a little bit concerned about the customers. What about the cost for managing your assets now? I assume it's moved to a third party after you did it in-house beforehand. Is that cheaper or more expensive? For non-life insurance, it's slightly cheaper. We save some money, including our investment expense for non-life, by this new contract that we have made in terms of asset management. What about for life? For life, it's to the benefit of the customers. Even though you don't think you can justify taking out a higher management fee? Not at the moment. Not for the moment. Okay, let's see what happens. Yeah. My second and final question is on the extraordinary or the cost overrun that will be booked in P&C but will be paid by Sydbank. Is this a one-off payment Sydbank is doing only for 2021? What are they paying for? Why shouldn't they continue to make that payment also 2022, 2023? It's good you're asking this question. Actually, we have our own cost after selling the bank of between DKK 50 million and DKK 75 million. Those we have in our books. We have services through Sydbank. We have to make sure systems are running and stuff like that until time of conversion, which is due in September. There we have made a contract with Sydbank that we will do business on their behalf. These two amounts more or less add up in 2021. Of course, when we reach end of September, they will not have to pay anything more, maybe a little bit for rent here and there where they use our premises. Moving into 2022, I would not guess there will be any big arrangement with Sydbank paying for our services. Hopefully we will be able to take down these DKK 50 million-DKK 75 million, the last part of the big cost from the banking activities. There should basically be a net positive impact on this in the first half, and then that's leveling out or that will then turn into a net negative towards the end of the year. Is that fair to say? Yeah, because the payment for Sydbank will only be three quarters of the year, and then what our cost will be predominantly. That would be a slight positive impact in the first half and then a slight negative in the second half. It's minor. Okay. That's the timing. That would be right. That was what I have left on my side. Thank you. Thank you, Per. We have one more question from the line of Martin Gregers Birk from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Thank you. A couple of questions from my side. The first one on premium growth. You say above 3% premium growth this year. I guess the number should have been 4%. What is making you confident in maintaining the 5% 2022 target given that you are already behind the curve? That was a very direct question. No, we are quite confident with the 3%. Of course, we need to be a little bit aware of what is happening with the COVID-19. That is, of course, an impact that can cater for a lower amount. For the moment being, we have a very good start with Sydbank. Lots of customers coming in from that point of view with a quick start, much quicker than we anticipated actually in our budget. Then, of course, on the flip side is the current corona situation. We need to struggle, I think, to reach the 3% this year, but I'm still confident that we will do it. Then you ask for the 5%, and I have really big expectations for also Sydbank, but especially also for the Semler Gruppen coming in. Then, of course, we should be able to do even better in our core business throughout 2021, so that will have an impact in 2022. As you all know, we are working towards core our business and improving all our core activities. From these improvements, I also expect things on the top line. Okay. If we look at the numbers that your peers have provided, it doesn't really seem like their premium growth is so affected by Corona. You guys have addressed the situation, I guess, for well over three quarters now. Why do you think in particular that you are so affected on your premium growth development from this COVID-19 situation? What are you doing different from peers, basically? I don't know if we are so affected. We aimed for 3% and we ended up at 2%. It's not a disaster or anything. It is a fact that the way we are doing business with the salespeople driving out to customers is maybe a little bit different from what the others are doing. Maybe you can even say more old-fashioned, still is the best source of sale we have at the moment. There are things to look into which is maybe not totally comparable to others. Okay. Very clear. If we move on to run-off gains, two questions on that. Q4 in your commercial lines, you've booked run-off losses for three Q4s in a row. Any particular reason? Yeah. It's due to workers' compensation and- Okay. Yeah. That's the main reason for that. Just to say, it is a thing that's a bit variable. I would say some quarters it's a little bit up and some it's a little bit down. What we intend to show here is the, you can say the reality, and not just keeping it flat. Okay. Going forward, now you don't guide for run-off gains. If you were in my chair, what number should we pencil in? I would look very much into the 20 number. Okay. All right. Very clear. Then maybe before we leave the non-life, then maybe back to Asbjørn's question, given that you deliver 90 combined ratio this year, you also expect to deliver 90 combined ratio next year. Expense ratio is said to be one to a 1.5 percentage point lower. Doesn't it seem, you guys are not in a normalized world, you're not going to give up 100-150 basis points in competition on your claim side. Could you maybe put a bit more color on that? Yeah, as we also said, this year is going to be positive affected by COVID-19 of around one percentage point, the same level as in Q4, so DKK 45 million-DKK 50 million. At least that's not our expectation for 2022. That's the main part of your calculation there. There's normalized interest rate level as well, which is maybe another one. Yeah. You guys don't factor in any improvements in underlying combined ratio for. Well, of course, we aim for that, and that's why we also said that our 2022 targets are below 90, and that's the case. Okay. That's it. Okay. No further than that. All right. Final question on also back to solvency ratio, 317 after the deduction of your total DPS of DKK 15, as far as I understand it. Clearly, that's to the very high side. Sort of going forward, what solvency ratio would be your targeted solvency ratio? Are we looking at 225 or? I would say it will be an outcome of what we pay out in dividend. At for the moment being, our dividend policy is 70% of annual profit after tax. I do not expect any major changes right now. We have to see what is happening throughout the 2021, and then we can discuss it end of year. Okay. I guess this is the sort of the lowest that you're going to be in 2021, and from here on, you're probably going to build on excess capital from here on, and your solvency ratio will increase. When we think about excess capital, there must be sort of you must have a targeted or management floor that we should look at. I'm interested on that part. Where we are at the moment is very close to our management floor, and that is because we are providing for these 200 years accidents, both in the non-life and in life. As we have this very, you can say, very stressed scenario, then it takes off capital. That is why we are at where we are. In order to get lower, we would need to decrease the 200 years scenario. This has been the case for many years in Alm. Brand, and it is what the board at the moment wish. We will, of course, take up this discussion, but I also think that we need to remember that things can change out there. We are an insurance company, and we need to be sure that we can also cater for tomorrow. That being said, then we know we are conservative. Okay. All right. Thank you. As there are no further questions, I'll hand it back to the speakers for closing remarks. Thank you. Thank you, Martin. Thank you for all the good questions. Thank you for listening in, and I hope you will have a good day. Bye.
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