Good morning, and thank you for taking the time to join us for this investor call and presentation of our full year results. With me in Auckland is our Chief Executive Officer, Blair Turnbull, and our Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Wright, who will take you through the results and answer your questions. The insurance industry has faced a very challenging year. It has been characterized by a marked increase in large events and large house claims, pandemic-induced inflationary pressures swiftly leading to a general increase in business as usual claims costs and lower investment income. Tower has not been immune. These challenges, which were emerging at the half year, have continued to put pressure on profits over the second half, as you will be aware from our three guidance announcements. It's been a tough year, and the board acknowledges and shares your frustration. However, what I can say is that action is well underway to address these issues and their impact on profitability. Most significantly, we have already implemented rating and underwriting changes, including the introduction of a full house fire replacement cap and risked based pricing for inland flooding. These actions are substantial and will continue to have an impact throughout FY 2022. Blair and Jeff will take you through these comprehensive measures shortly. It's also important to note that despite these challenges, our unique technology and distribution footprint have positioned Tower well to continue delivering GWP growth. We have reached the milestone this year with Tower writing over NZD 400 million in premiums, which is great. Above all, Tower remains a resilient, strong, and well-capitalized business. Accordingly, I am very pleased to announce that based on Tower's ordinary dividend policy of paying 60%-80% of cash earnings where it is prudent to do so, the board has declared a final dividend of NZD 0.025 per share to be paid on the 2nd of February 2022, bringing total dividends for FY 2021 to NZD 0.05 per share. In March, the Reserve Bank lowered Tower's solvency condition from NZD 50 million to NZD 25 million. As at September 30, Tower's New Zealand parent solvency ratio was 271%, and the company was holding NZD 56.6 million above its target solvency margin. Considering current opportunities and our capital position, the board has proposed the return of NZD 30.4 million excess capital to shareholders. Tower is delivering on a strategy of innovation and growth. Its flagship Tower Direct business and unique partnership distribution capability continue to go from strength to strength. The Pacific business has proven remarkably resilient through COVID-19, and digitization will lead to further improvements in efficiency and competitiveness. Our leading technology partnerships are enabling the business to be increasingly nimble in responding to challenges and capitalizing on opportunities. I'd like to acknowledge the Tower team, as we all recognize it's been a difficult year on many fronts. However, despite this, we are paying a dividend, we remain strong and well-capitalized, and we have achieved sustained premium growth. These are hard-won victories and are a credit to Tower's solid strategy and the dedication of the people that implement it. In short, even with the obstacles of 2021, Tower continues to be well-positioned for long-term growth. I'll now hand over to Blair and Jeff, who will take you through the results and outlook before we take questions. Before I do, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that this is Jeff's last annual results announcement and to thank him on behalf of all shareholders and the board for his involvement and commitment to Tower, and we wish him well in the future. Thank you. Kia ora. Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be here sharing our full year results for 2021, which see Tower in a very solid capital and solvency position. Our technology and distribution advantage continues to set us apart from our competitors and has seen us achieve good growth in FY 2021 despite the challenges we faced. Tower's journey of focus and innovating our business is accelerating at pace. In the past 12 months, we announced a NZD 42.1 million settlement with EQC. The Reserve Bank reduced our license condition from NZD 50 million to NZD 25 million, and we simplified our structure. This now positions Tower to deliver long-term earnings, dividends, and premium growth. As I said at the half year, strengthening the business remains our priority, particularly as we address the claims inflation and wider environmental pressures we experienced in FY 2021. The key to our long-term success is continuing to scale our leading cloud-based digital and data platform, which is the enabler of our flagship Tower Direct business, a unique partnership business and our distinctive Pacific business. Our focus remains on deepening our customer relationships, achieved by offering a rich product suite which supports higher customer satisfaction and engagement, improved longevity, and ultimately a more sustainable and profitable Tower business. We will continue to prioritize and invest in our people to ensure we have a diverse, inclusive culture where everyone can contribute and feel valued as they are at the heart of delivering an exceptional customer experience. Tower's FY 2021 results have been achieved while navigating a challenging external environment which has impacted profit. However, reported profit, including large events, was NZD 19.3 million for the year, up 72% from NZD 11.2 million in the prior year. Underlying net profit after tax, including large events, was NZD 20.8 million vs NZD 28.4 million in FY 2020. Tower's combined operating ratio increased 2.7% over the year to 91.4%, reflecting claims inflationary pressure and higher large events. Offering customers a simple and rewarding customer experience through our leading technology platform has helped grow Tower's gross written premium to a milestone NZD 404 million, up 5% on the same period last year. In insurance, there will always be volatility in claims. It's the nature of our business. However, it was the unusual combination of four external factors that weighed on our profits in FY 2021. Net investment income before tax dropped NZD 5.1 million to NZD 0.2 million. Seven large events contributed NZD 13.9 million in costs vs NZD 9.7 million in the prior year. Large house claims rose significantly from 57 in FY 2020 to 92 in FY 2021, and inflation contributed an additional NZD 7.1 million to business as usual claims costs. While the impact of any one of these factors alone would be sustainable in a normal year, with the ongoing effects of the pandemic, this was not a normal year. Jeff will talk to each of these factors in detail shortly, including how we are managing these to mitigate the effects on profitability in FY 2022. Excuse me. Despite the challenges, we have continued to grow ahead of the market, particularly in New Zealand, where GWP rose 7.9% to NZD 350 million. This was achieved through a balanced mix of market premium rating and attracting new customers to Tower. Our customer base grew 5% to 304,000 customers in the year, and market share has increased to 9.2%. This growth also reflects improvements in customer satisfaction, as evidenced by our Net Promoter Score increasing to 43% vs 27% in the prior year. Our flagship Tower Direct business is going from strength to strength, recording 132,000 My Tower registrations in FY 2021, compared with 45,000 last year. Tower Direct gross written premium has grown to NZD 273 million, but noting this now includes the ANZ legacy portfolio, which is midway through migration. This was previously included in the partnership business, which has reduced accordingly. Our partnership business has delivered positive growth as we transform from a more traditional high commission portfolio to a new generation of partnerships. While our Pacific business GWP declined by 10%, primarily as a result of the economic challenges related to COVID-19, it remains resilient. We are simplifying our ownership structure with the purchase of National Pacific Insurance, and our cloud-based platform is live in Fiji and will be progressively rolled out across the Pacific as we more closely align our Pacific and New Zealand businesses. Core to our strategy is leading with a quality, innovative, balanced product range, which enables us to deepen our relationships with customers, improve revenue and increase retention. Underpinning this is our disciplined and agile approach to underwriting, enhanced through our use of data analytics. While external events resulted in our New Zealand loss ratio increasing 4%- 53.6% for the year, we quickly identified the emerging challenges such as construction inflation. Through our leading technology platform, we were able to adjust pricing within weeks to better manage our margin. In August, in response to emerging increases in large house fires, we removed the full replacement for house fire benefit from our policies, and we capped it to an extended sum insured amount. Throughout the year, we have been working to launch New Zealand's first address-based rating tool for flood risk. Tower has invested in detailed modeling, showing the risk of flooding from rivers and rain for residential addresses across New Zealand. Tower is not only sharing flood risk ratings with all New Zealanders, but using the data to more accurately align premium pricing with risks, which supports Tower's ability to manage our loss ratio better. This new feature, launched to the market earlier this month, received a very positive response from customers and stakeholders who recognize that Tower is leading the way in fairer and more transparent insurance pricing. Our customer-first approach is leading to greater loyalty, particularly among an increasing number of customers who hold more than one product with us. In New Zealand, 135,000 customers, representing half of our Kiwi customer base, now hold multiple products with Tower. Multi-product holders have a policyholder tenure of 7.9 years on average, compared to just 4.8 years for those with only one product. A huge opportunity that we are harnessing with clever product pricing and underwriting. By enhancing our product set to keep pace with customers' lifestyles, we are looking to further improve retention rates and build relationships. For example, our boat offering is gaining pace with around 5,000 new business policies sold this year, and our motor policy sales for electric vehicles have increased by 60% since February. With more than half of all service tasks in New Zealand now completed digitally vs 40% last year, and a third of claims lodged digitally vs 23% in the prior year, the customer and efficiency benefits from our leading digital and data technology platform are being realized. 80% of Tower customers have now been migrated to our cloud-based digital EIS platform, which is enabling us to scale quickly as we acquire new business. We remain focused on decommissioning legacy systems, with a further two decommissioned in this financial year, and we anticipate just two remaining by the end of 2022. Meanwhile, new technology releases continue to trend upwards as we become more agile and responsive in anticipating customer needs. Our management expenses continue to reduce while we make smart technology and data investments aimed at efficiency, growth, and resilience. Tower's management expense ratio improved 2% to 37% over the year, thanks to reducing acquisition costs, which are now down to 12.6% and a 22% reduction in net commission expenses following the purchase of ANZ and increased reinsurance profit share. We invest $1 in every $3 of management expenses in digital and data technology that will further accelerate customer and efficiency improvements. Our New Zealand parent's solvency ratio is 271%, which is NZD 56.6 million above our target solvency margin and reflects our strong capital position. During the year, we were pleased to resume dividend payments after a five-year hiatus. The board has confirmed a full year dividend payment of 2.5 cents per share, bringing total dividends for FY 2021 to 5 cents per share. The total dividend payment is NZD 21 million, with NZD 10.5 million to be paid on 2nd of February, 2022. This payment is in line with the ordinary dividend policy of paying 60%-80% of cash earnings where prudent to do so. Tower is in a strong capital position, and we continue to look at acquisitions which are sensible and value accretive for shareholders. In the year, we acquired the ANZ legacy portfolio, and we're now finalizing the acquisition of the National Pacific Insurance. However, in considering current opportunities and our capital position, the board felt it would be appropriate to return excess capital to shareholders. Therefore, as Michael mentioned, the board has proposed a capital return by way of a compulsory share buyback of NZD 30.4 million, subject to necessary approvals being obtained. I will now hand over to Jeff Wright, who'll take you through our financial results in more detail. Thank you, Blair, and good morning, everyone. Looking at the consolidated results, we can see that growth in GWP continued to be a highlight, up NZD 18.9 million or 5% on FY 2020. Reinsurance expenses increased NZD 5 million following adjustments to aggregate sums insured and higher proportional reinsurance. This resulted in an increase in net earned premium of NZD 9.4 million on FY 2020. Investment income was a significant detractor, down NZD 5.1 million. Encouragingly, management expenses as a percentage of NEP were down 2.3% from 39.3% in FY 2020 to 37% as the benefits of EIS platform emerge. Net commission expenses decreased by NZD 3.2 million, driven by both the acquisition of the ANZ portfolio and an increase in the proportional reinsurance profit share. As already highlighted, claims expense increased significantly by NZD 21.3 million before tax across both BAU and large events. Underlying MPAT of NZD 20.8 million is down NZD 7.6 million or 27% on FY 2020. Following the combined impact of several non-underlying items which are detailed in the appendices, reported MPAT was NZD 19.3 million, up 72% on FY 2020. Noting that FY 2020 was impacted by the EQC receivable write-down. General insurers face a number of challenges, largely external, that need to be recognized and actioned promptly to minimize impact. Large events are a source of volatility for New Zealand and the Pacific that are likely to become more pronounced with the impacts of climate change. For Tower, this volatility is primarily managed by our aggregate reinsurance program. From time to time, there will be changes in the drivers of claims expenses that require analysis and action. Tower's recent increase in fire-related large house claims is such an example. While inflation has been relatively benign over recent years, it is an ever-present risk to the cost of claims, as evidenced by the recent COVID-related increase. Finally, across both the New Zealand and the Pacific, supply chain issues can have a material impact because of the high proportion of mainly imported materials for motor, home, and contents claims. The key to managing all these challenges is prompt recognition and remedial action. Although even the most rapid response will take 12 months to flow through an insurance portfolio. It was anticipated that COVID may cause inflationary pressures, particularly for motor. However, it wasn't until the March quarter that evidence of inflation emerged. It has since accelerated rapidly. Supply chain issues for new vehicles have driven up the value of secondhand vehicles by 13% year-on-year, significantly increasing the cost of total loss motor claims. While the inflationary impact on motor parts and repairs hasn't been as dramatic, the full impact may be yet to be felt, with significant delays in completing repairs due to supply chain issues with motor parts. The cost of building materials has become a global issue, with double-digit inflation common. Tower has applied premium increases across motor and home to offset inflation, but also continues to work closely with its supply chain partners to moderate the impact on customers as much as possible. FY 2021 saw an increase in both the BAU claims loss ratio and large event loss ratio of a combined 5% of net earned premium. At 54%, this is the highest claims loss ratio Tower has experienced since 2018. Frequency and severity are the two key components of the claims loss ratio. The severity charts show average motor claims have increased 6% and average house claims 7% on FY 2020. Most of this inflation was in the second half of FY 2021, and evidence is that it is continuing. Frequency of motor claims is largely unchanged, but house claims frequency continues to rise. The two charts on slide 18 highlight that in FY 2021, Tower experienced the highest number of large house claims and large events claims for many years, and particularly higher than in FY 2020. The majority of large house claims are fire-related, and as a result of the marked increase, Tower removed the uncapped total loss house fire benefit from new and renewing policies, capping the additional benefit to 20% of the sum insured. The majority of large events were New Zealand flood, which is in contrast for recent years, such as 2017 and 2018, which included significant impact from Pacific cyclones. This apparent increase in New Zealand flood highlights the importance of pricing appropriately, which Tower announced on the tenth of November for new and renewing policies. Management expenses reduced in absolute terms by NZD 3.9 million before tax to NZD 123.3 million, down from NZD 127.2 million in FY 2020. As a percentage of net earned premium, this represents a reduction of 2.3%- 37%. In addition to cost containment measures introduced in FY 2021 in the face of rising claims cost, the reduction of people expenses of NZD 4 million before tax and other expenses of NZD 0.6 million before tax was achieved in part through the benefits of the EIS platform post-implementation. As stated previously, net commission reduced NZD 3.2 million before tax, driven by both the acquisition of the ANZ portfolio and higher proportional reinsurance profit share. Amortization increased with additional capitalization of EIS platform enhancements and the acquisition of the ANZ portfolio. In addition, the liability adequacy test resulted in a NZD 2.5 million deficiency before tax, requiring an additional NZD 2.1 million of expense in FY 2020 for acquisition costs that would have otherwise been capitalized. Tower maintains a conservative investment policy with a focus on high credit quality and liquidity. Net investment income in FY 2021 was significantly reduced to just NZD 0.2 million before tax, compared with NZD 5.3 million before tax in FY 2020. This was driven by low interest rates in the first half of the year and the negative impact of rapidly rising interest rates in the second half. Although Tower maintains a relatively low duration of between 0.5-0.75 years, the mark-to-market impact of rapidly rising interest rates in the last quarter of FY 2021 contributed to NZD 2.4 million of unrealized losses in the balance sheet as at 30th September 2021, compared with just NZD 200,000 as at 30th September 2020. Tower generally holds investments to maturity. These unrealized losses will unwind as the underlying investments reach their maturity dates. CEQ claims have reduced to 33 claims from 59 as at 30th September 2020. This was after receiving an additional 30 new overcaps and reopened claims, bringing the total number of claims closed in FY 2021 to 56. The rate of new overcaps and reopens was in line with expectations, and the pipeline appears to be slowing in the second half. There remains a small core of complex long-term claims, with several of these having significantly strengthened through FY 2021. These continue to be closely managed. There was a net strengthening of outstanding claims of NZD 4 million through FY 2021, offset by a board decision to release the NZD 5 million additional risk margin, noting that net outstanding claims are now below NZD 20 million for CEQ. Tower's FY 2022 catastrophe program was well subscribed by reinsurers, and following an increase in the excess from NZD 10 million to NZD 11.25 million, was placed at risk adjusted near flat premium. The total catastrophe cover has increased to NZD 873 million from NZD 812 million in FY 2020, reflecting higher sums insured and the growing portfolio. As is the case with aggregate programs globally, the placement of Tower's FY 2022 aggregate program was more challenging. This was due to both reduced appetite among reinsurers for aggregate programs following poor recent international experience and the large number of aggregate impacting events in New Zealand over the last 12 months. Accordingly, Tower's FY 2022 aggregate program excess has increased to NZD 20 million from NZD 14 million in FY 2020, and the event limits have changed to be between NZD 2 million and NZD 10 million, up from NZD 1 million to NZD 7.5 million in FY 2020. It should be noted that the setting of an excess at NZD 20 million implies reinsurers on average expect that level to be exceeded one in every four years. Tower New Zealand parent actual solvency capital or ASC has increased from NZD 150 million at 30 September 2020 to NZD 179 million, boosted by the receipt of the EQC receivable. The Tower board set a target solvency margin above minimum capital, or MSC, that is reviewed at least annually. Above this target solvency margin is a target operating range. As at 30th September 2021, after allowing for the 2.5-cent dividend, Tower NZ parent's ASC was NZD 56.6 million above the target solvency margin and NZD 37.7 million above the top of the operating range. As a percentage of MSC, the current ASC is 271%. The board considers there is sufficient solvency margin to allow the repayment of NZD 30.4 million in capital by way of a compulsory share buyback, subject to the necessary approvals being obtained. This would leave Tower NZ's parent ASC NZD 26.2 million above the target solvency margin and NZD 7.3 million above the top of the operating range, positioning Tower well for the future. As we have said, Tower will pay a dividend of NZD 0.025 per share, bringing the total FY 2021 dividend to NZD 0.05 per share. This represents a dividend payout ratio of 80% of cash earnings, which is at the top of the current dividend policy range but is considered prudent given the overall strong capital position. The record date is the 19th of January 2022, with the payment date the 2nd of February 2022. In addition, Tower proposes returning NZD 30.4 million in capital by way of a compulsory share buyback under a court scheme of arrangement of 1 in every 10 shares held at a price of NZD 0.72 per share. This is a premium of 12% on the closing price on the 23rd of November of NZD 0.645. This is subject to obtaining IRD approval that the capital return is not taxable in New Zealand and is not in lieu of a dividend, in addition to High Court approval and shareholder approval. This slide provides indicative dates for this process, with the shareholder vote anticipated to occur at the Tower annual shareholder meeting on 2nd of February, 2022. Tower anticipates underlying NPAT of between NZD 21 million and NZD 25 million for FY 2022. This range is based on the assumed utilization of the full NZD 20 million excess of the aggregate program. This represents a NZD 4.4 million after-tax increase in the impact of large events when compared to FY 2021. Any lower utilization will increase the expected underlying NPAT. In setting this guidance, Tower has assumed inflationary pressures continue throughout FY 2022. Tower anticipate a full-year dividend of NZD 0.05 per share or NZD 0.055 per share should the buyback of shares proceed. Thank you. I'll now hand back to Blair, who will provide an update on our strategy and outlook. Thank you, Jeff. As I outlined at the half year, despite the headwinds, today's results demonstrate the resilience of our customer and digitally led strategy. We are continuing to grow, to drive down expenses, and to respond quickly to the changing external environment. You can be confident that we are very focused on addressing the challenges we've identified, improving profitability, and continuing to leverage our technology, customer, and partnership advantage for growth. Our core strategy is around our personal lines and small to medium-sized commercial in New Zealand and the Pacific region. We have a clear focus set of five strategic priorities. We are relentlessly focused on our customers, deepening our customer relationships with them through rewards, new products, and other offerings that make sense and drive value. As you have seen today, we are leveraging the full capability of our cloud-based platform by using the insights from our data to make our customers' lives easier and to understand their needs better. We're finding the best people to partner with to boost our offering, develop new products, and deliver services in better ways and more efficiently. We understand that our people are the ultimate drivers of our success as they are on the front line building our customer relationships. Importantly, we are committed to maintaining a strong capital and solvency structure, delivering value for shareholders. Building deeper, more engaged customer relationships lies at the heart of our strategy. We are seeking a seamless integration between telephone and digital customer service. In the year, this approach saw the number of quotes issued by the Tower Direct business grow steadily to reach an increase of 31% vs FY 2020, with the bulk of these coming through digital channels. This was helped in part by optimizing our customer quote to buy journey in order to deliver the quickest insurance quote in the market, which boosted our sales conversion rate from 18%- 24%. A commitment to making insurance a simple and rewarding customer experience has seen more customers than ever choosing to purchase a Tower policy online, with digital sales increased to 59% over the year, with the Net Promoter Score for our quote to buy process achieving 57%. Positive feedback from customers was a key factor in Tower winning Canstar's top car insurer of the year award for 2021, and also an outstanding value award alongside our partner brand Trade Me, an achievement we are very proud of this year. Underpinning this has been a significant improvement in our contact center wait times, which we have halved in this past 6 months through a combination of enhanced training, technology upgrades, and additional resourcing. Ultimately, these innovative approaches are aimed at creating deeper and more engaged customer relationships that lead to growth. Which is why we're pleased to see average GWP gross written premium per customer increasing to around NZD 1,300 in FY 2021. Investments in our scalable digital platform allow us to quickly develop and bring to market a quality, innovative, balanced product range, which in turn enables us to deepen our customer relationships with customers, improve revenue, and increase retention. In New Zealand this year, we launched an end-to-end online boat experience following our acquisition of the referral rights for Club Marine. We launched a new travel product in anticipation of future travel bubbles and border openings. We enhanced our home offering with a new sustainability benefit, which contributes NZD 15,000 to sustainable products for a total rebuild. In the Pacific, we launched new home and contents and motor policies. In the coming year, we'll be working hard on a new home renovation product. We are planning to upgrade our rural and SME offerings, and our exciting new pet product will launch in time for Christmas this year. We are also continuing to deepen engagement with our GoCarma customers who drove 10.5 million km over the year, receiving safe driving tips and feedback, as well as rewards and offers. Already, we are able to offer excess discounts to those customers who demonstrate a lower risk profile through safer driving, and we continue to learn and investigate other opportunities for similarly innovative underwriting approaches. This year, we have raised the benchmark around open and transparent pricing for customers. Through My Tower, we are now presenting visual breakdowns of customer premiums in an easy to understand chart, which compares year-on-year changes for the various pricing elements. In November, we also became the first New Zealand insurer to provide customers with a risk rating for flood and earthquake hazards for their homes. This was developed in partnership with Risk Management Solutions or RMS, a world leader in catastrophe risk solutions. Risk-based pricing is a fairer way to structure insurance, as it means that customers don't pay for risks they don't have. We know that customers with multiple products stay with us on average for almost eight years, compared to less than five years for customers with only one product. That's why these progressive product pricing and underwriting approaches are key to attracting new customers, deepening our engagement with them on our digital channels, and having them buy more products and keeping them with us for longer. Ultimately, this results in growth and a more profitable business that continues to improve shareholder value. As we continue to simplify and streamline our customer experiences, our products, and our operations, we are focused on aligning our Pacific business more closely with our New Zealand operations. Our goal for 2022 is for Tower to offer a world-class digital experience on one core leading platform for all of our personal lines customers across New Zealand and the Pacific. We took an important step towards this aim in November with the announcement that Tower will acquire the remaining shares in National Pacific Insurance, taking our shareholding up to 100% in December this year. One of the first steps will be to rebrand NPI to Tower, which will coincide with the launch of the first digital insurance solution in these markets. We will complete Tower's digital rollout across the Pacific in FY 2022. Our 100% cloud-based EIS platform has already gone live in Fiji this year and will be launched in Vanuatu in the coming weeks. These enhancements are already delivering benefits with our management expense ratio for the Pacific dropping to 43% compared with 51% in the prior year. Our agility and digital capability is leading to new product lines aimed at supporting the unique needs of our Pacific customers, as well as growth in this important market. One concept in development is a parametric insurance product, which we intend to pilot in FY 2022. A key element of our strategic focus has been to secure mutually beneficial partnerships that drive significant growth and quickly give us capabilities that we would otherwise have to build from scratch. Our exciting partnership with Allianz, one of the world's largest insurers, has led to the development of new pet and travel products this year. Importantly, we will use insights from our data to make customers' lives easier and to better understand their needs. We're continuously utilizing more than 1.7 billion data points thanks to over 25 external partners, including Microsoft, EIS, Friss, Amodo, and Ushur, who are helping us to improve customer outcomes and make better decisions. In our partnership business division, we are building what we believe is a truly unique model, one that relies less on higher commission and more on our technology capability, customer experience, and balanced referral arrangements with our partners. These include corporates, insurtechs, advisory businesses and our cornerstone partner, Trade Me, with whom we recently renewed our agreement for another five years. We are acutely aware that our ability to continue to grow, to partner and innovate as a leading digital and data business is only possible with the support of our fantastic Tower team and the communities we serve. This year we started a sustainability journey with the development of an ESG strategy that will guide how Tower manages its environment, social and governance issues in the future. Importantly, we have taken our first step in measuring our total carbon emissions across our New Zealand and Pacific operations. What gets measured, gets done. With this in mind, we now know that our carbon emissions reduced 31% year-on-year, primarily driven by lower emissions from travel due to COVID-19 restrictions. We're committed to taking the lessons from 18 months of remote working and setting a science-based target for meaningful reductions towards a zero carbon future. This year, our commitment to supporting our customers in navigating the impacts of climate change saw Tower pledge to support scientific research, education and innovation through student scholarships for the world's first Bachelor of Climate Change degree at the University of Waikato. As I noted earlier in this section, none of this would be possible without our wonderful Tower team, which is why we want to build the best possible culture where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and build a fulfilling career. That's why we're pleased to see our employee engagement scores continue their positive trend upwards in FY 2021, with our score increasing 6%- 77%. This is particularly pleasing in a year when we have navigated the challenges of COVID-19 lockdowns, both in New Zealand and across our Pacific offices. While 100% of our people are able to work remotely, we know it's not easy, and we've put in place a number of initiatives to support our people through this time. It's also good to see that cultural diversity across our business continues to be strong, with well over half of our people identifying as non-European. For those of us in Auckland, we officially moved into our new 6 Green Star-rated building. While we only got to enjoy the new space for two business days before the current lockdown, we are excited about its potential to promote more agile, collaborative and sustainable and creative ways of working. It's clear that FY 2021 was a challenging year and we have taken decisive actions to deliver improvements in FY 2022. Tower is a well-capitalized business with a strong balance sheet and solvency margins. We have delivered customer and premium growth while improving our management expenses. We are delighted to have resumed dividends in this year and propose to return excess capital to shareholders. Looking to FY 2022, our focus is on driving shareholder value by accelerating growth and innovation, continuing decisive action to address challenges with claims inflation and climate change risks, and continuing to invest in our digital and data platform to drive efficiency and support growth. In the meantime, I'm pleased to say that we've started this year positively in terms of new business and relatively benign weather, and this is in sharp contrast to last year, which began with a large fire at Lake Ohau Village and significant floods in Napier. We look forward to sharing a trading update with you at our annual shareholder meeting in February. Thank you for your time this morning. I will now hand back to the operator to ask for any questions. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you need to cancel that request, it is the pound or hash key. Our first question comes from Andrew Buncombe at Macquarie Bank. Please go ahead. Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Three questions, please. The first one is in relation to the LAT expense. Should we be expecting that to be one-off, or recurring into next year? The second question is, how should we be thinking about GWP growth for FY 2022? Then finally, if you can quantify your net COVID benefits in FY 2021, that would be fantastic. Thank you. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Andrew. I'll pick up the LAT question. No, in New Zealand markets, we generally or we rarely have a LAT deficiency. This is the first one for a few years. We believe that we've put through the pricing and the expense management issues and the like, that this will actually unfold through FY 2022. Because it's not capitalized, we'll have a lower amortization of the deferred acquisition cost through the year, so we don't expect it to be repeating. Thanks, Jeff. Regarding GWP. Thanks, Andrew. You know, this year we grew our GWPs to over the NZD 400 million milestone, which was a 5% year-on-year growth. We look at New Zealand specifically, we're up 7.9% to NZD 350 million, and we expect that to continue into FY 2022. We're very focused on growth and innovation over the coming year. That's reflected in our guidance, where we've outlined an impact of NZD 21 million-NZD 25 million. On the last question on Yeah, I'll pick up the last question there, Andrew. You're asking us to quantify the COVID benefit. I guess that's a little bit challenging for us because it implies there was a benefit. As you go through our presentation, there is a benefit there we mention in regards to the frequency of COVID. Most of the inflationary impacts that we've felt, which are much greater, in the severity side, offset that. We wouldn't be seeing a COVID benefit at all. In general, inflation and cost higher, frequency down a little, but the net is against it, is not a benefit. Perfect. Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. Our next question comes from James Lindsay at Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead. Yeah, thank you very much. Well done on the result, on the capital side of things. Three questions from me as well. Just, if you could, expand on the forecast for New Zealand growth drivers, which obviously been very strong. Just in that forward-looking year, just some of the drivers for that growth. Second question, just with regard to the MER. It's good to see some progress on there as well. If I go back a few years ago, you talked about a 35% MER, as a target for around about this sort of timeframe. Just, maybe some views about, how far away a, you know, the sort of 35 number, could be in the future. Thirdly, just on the tax rate, just any guidance for the next upcoming years just with regard to tax being paid that's above the New Zealand corporate rate? Thanks so much. Thanks, James. Would we like to take those in reverse, Jeff? Do you wanna take the- Yeah, sure. tax rate first and Yeah, the tax rate, as it's presented in the financial statements, can be a little misleading if the expectation is 28%, because there are items in the expenses for which we don't get a tax deduction, such as the amortization of the Youi portfolio and the like. You will always, in relation to New Zealand, have a tax rate above the 28% as long as those non-deductible items exist. Across the Pacific, you have a varying tax rate in each of the jurisdictions, which, depending on where the profit's driven, can vary that. The sort of number you've got at the moment and over the last three or four years would be what we'd expect to sustain. Just on the first one, in terms of the drivers for the growth. James, you know, we have a very clear strategy around to really engage with customers. We know if we have a good online/offline experience, the customers come on, they buy more, they stay longer, and that ultimately flows through to better profitability. Underpinning all of that is our ability to do it in an efficient way, and that's where the digital and the data platform comes from. This year, we hope to have all of our personal lines business on that core platform, New Zealand and the Pacific, and that enables us to scale both online and the telephone and also reach those margins better. Underpinning the margins, of course, is how we manage the underwriting, and that's where we're building out that unique capability around how we use data. You know, we're leading out with much more fairer, transparent pricing. We believe that links to better satisfactions, again, with customers who stay longer, buy more, and the cycle continues. That's underpinning it. Finally, the MER you referred to. The 37% MER of this year was including the NZD 2.1 million LAT effect. Without that, it would've been slightly lower. The 35% is still a very reachable goal. We do need to be leveraging all dimensions of the EIS platform. We haven't necessarily articulated a goal, but at that number, we'd expect to continue to come down as we realize the benefits. Two things. We realize the benefit of growth, but also, we realize the efficiencies of the system. Anybody else? Please go ahead, James Lindsay. Yeah, just one further question just with regard to the capital return. The RBNZ had stated that they were preferring insurers not to pay out capital. Is there any possibility of complaints from the RBNZ with regard to insurers or and that capital return? Or have you already had discussions and that seems fine? James, what you're referring to was during the height of COVID last year, the RBNZ did come out with a statement for both banks and insurers on that effect, which they then lifted in November of last year. There's no instruction following that. Yes, we do consult with the RBNZ as a responsible insurer would. We'd anticipate no issues in that regard. That positivity is reflected in the fact that over the year we've had the reduction in our solvency condition to NZD 25 million. We have a very, very good Tower parent solvency at 271% ratio. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. I don't- We have no s- No further questions. Go ahead. On behalf of Blair and Jeff and the rest of the Tower team, thank you for listening this morning and we'll let everyone get back to their day jobs. Thank you very much. Thank you.