Protector Forsikring ASA Aktie

Hello, and welcome to the presentation of the first quarter 2026 results for Protector. We always start with all the employees.

And just before we started now, there was a moment of silence, and that was the same when we started with the employees. And then I had a conversation with some people on the first row about -- and I said that I'm quite good at awkward silence. And the reason why I'm good at awkward silence is because I'm bad at small talk. So I'm not uncomfortable when it's quiet for a couple of minutes right before we start. But what we did focus on in that session is about our vision for 2030.

In March, we met, it was about 550 out of 700 people in Oslo to discuss, have workshops on 3 elements that are part of our vision for 2030. And the first one is about people. The second one is about data and third one is about innovation. And it's about thinking differently.

Back in 2021, we came out of a situation of poor profitability and that we needed more discipline in our underwriting and our profitability focus. And then we decided that growth was something that had to come second. It still is. Profitability is first. But we can now with a stronger basis, stronger profitability basis, have been more bold and have higher ambitions also when it comes to growth going forward.

So a lot about -- a lot of it is about being the challenger and redefining what the challenger is in 2030. It is something else than what it was before and what it is today. The sector is developing. We're growing and the world around us is developing. And in that technology and AI is very important.

And we have 2 targets, and they are the same as they were in 2025 for 2026. One is profitable growth. That will always be there. The other one is data. Last year, we focused on measuring data points and following up. So we have targets on data points. This year, we're shifting the focus to the value of that data. So we need to get something out of the data.

An example can be that we want more recourse on the claims handling side, then we need better data in order to get more recourse or on the underwriting side, we want more relevant and bigger inbox from the brokers, and we want to quote more of that volume. The market history shows that's more about the market. So let's not target that, but we want to see more relevant business.

Then we need more data to provide to the brokers, and we need to be the best one at providing data to the brokers in order to get to that place. So -- and then obviously, using AI will not be any value if we don't have good data. So that's a prerequisite for getting value out of all the projects we have. And we have solutions and functionality with AI technology in Protector today.

There are examples in claims handling and in underwriting and all employees use it on a daily basis to become more efficient, but we're yet to find the way of really changing the way we work. And one focus area we've had is that if you're good at something, when you've done a process many, many, many times and you are to improve that process, you do it with incremental improvements because you know how it's done. But what's important when you have a technology that can support you in creating higher value is to think about where you want to go. And that's actually quite difficult if you're good at doing the process.

So I think that we are very good at -- we have good processes, and we are good at following those processes. But that makes us -- it's a big change to say this is where I want to go. And that's where we need to be in order to make change. So we're focusing on the outcome and the target. And then we start seeing some change, some different approaches to how we do things. But it's a big focus.

We're still investing and it hurts and it costs to increase data quality, quantity, structure and availability. And it costs resources and money to test and fail with AI solutions many times. But it's very interesting, and it is a great opportunity to understand our culture in a new way and a better way. Okay. That was this morning and some insight into the cultural part, which is extremely important in Protector.

The first quarter is -- the growth has been basically announced previously after the quarter 4 when we talked about 1st of January. And what you can see is that the number is lower, meaning that February and March are lower than the January figure was, and that's true for basically all countries, except for the U.K. Combined ratio is very strong. I'll get back to that because you need to normalize it. There are very few large losses there.

And maybe the most important figure here is the one that comes from the U.K., and I'll get back to that when I talk about the volume and the growth later on. One information here, we always really -- since we only work with insurance brokers, we have defined quality together with the brokers, and we do broker satisfaction surveys. And in new markets, we have always done it 18 months after the first policy in sets.

And in France, we have now -- we're not 18 months in, but close to 18 months in. We've conducted our first survey, and we have very good results from that survey, both on the general sales underwriting service and on claims handling, the brokers we work with because we only send it to the ones we work with. So the others don't really have a lot of feedback to us. So that's 40-something brokers that have responded to this survey. So fairly small. It's very early.

So the first survey, you don't -- we haven't had the opportunities to make many mistakes. But it is an indication that what we have delivered during those first 13, 14, 15 months is something that the brokers appreciate more than what the competitors have delivered. So it's a good start, but let's see when we do the next one, and it's even more important further down the line.

So to the volume. And I'll spend the time on 1st of April U.K. because I think that's quite important here. 1st of April 2023, we won a lot of business in public sector and housing in the U.K. The market was hard, meaning that the rates were higher. And some of that business has been out to tender, 1st of April 2026, but not a lot of it. So we've kept a lot of that volume in our books.

And what has been out to tender, we have rewon approximately 80%. So that means that the portfolio that we have that has delivered and delivers very strong profitability is very stable in public sector and housing. And that could have been different. I've previously said that we don't know when our business, when our portfolio goes to market, if the rates are too low, we won't win it back or then we will lose it. And what is for sure is that the rates will go down when it goes out to market because the rates have fallen in the market in general.

So we have a renewal rate in those sectors above 100%. That is that we're retaining most of the clients, and we have inflation and there is some exposure growth for those clients, and we even have some rate increases. So the rate is above 0. The rate, if you adjust for inflation, is above 0 in public sector and housing in total for 1st of April 2026, which is a very strong result, and it could have been very different. The new sales is another story.

So the rates have been falling, and we have seen approximately half of the volume as we saw last year, which was similar to the year before. And we have quoted slightly less. So there have been some clients that we don't like, that we don't have risk appetite for. The hit ratio is slightly lower, very similar for local authorities, public sector and quite a lot lower on housing associations. So that's due to pricing. Competition coming back into the market and pricing being lower.

So the result on public sector and housing is -- it's a very strong result, and it's driven by that not a lot of volume has been out in the market and that we have had discipline in the underwriting. And it's strong discipline to end up with this result. And then that's only the limited segment, public sector and housing. Commercial sector is much bigger. We have a much smaller market share. And so that's where the potential is large, and that's what's driving the growth. So that's where we have the new sales in 2026. It's still a softening market in the U.K., especially on property, but it's flattening out somewhat.

So we are able to convert some of our quotes to wins more than what we have done before, and we're also quoting -- seeing more and quoting more. And then we have the real estate segment, which I have talked about before. We have opened that segment. But I've also said that I don't expect us to quote a lot of business before the fourth quarter of 2026.

We are quoting some business both some in the smaller segment of the real estate segment and also some of the larger clients. What we see is that rates are low as in commercial sector for now, but we are converting some. So we have some hit ratio on what we are quoting. But don't expect a lot to come from that segment before -- or we don't expect to quote a lot before fourth quarter inceptions. And then the market will be what it is.

So we may not win a lot in fourth quarter, but we are more confident today with more data and more knowledge about the real estate sector that this is a segment for us. So it's very similar to the housing sector where we have had very good success. So low deductibles and cost advantage is very important.

I forgot to say before I started that -- I see that they're speaking in the front here. So I forgot to say that questions during the presentation are welcome and better during the presentation than keeping them all for after.

So if you have any questions, the volume side.

[indiscernible] Just on the sort of lower-than-expected tenders out there, and I appreciate that being on the public sector and housing side. But do you have any reflections of why that is?

Because just intuitively, given the -- all of the comments on price pressure and a softening market, if I were to sort of renew my insurance, it feels like this is the time to do it. But now instead, customers are sort of exercising their options to automatically renew on what seems to be a bit old terms. Why aren't more sort of using this opportunity? Is that a negative read to sort of expectations for the even better prices going forward? Or what are sort of your reflections on that?

I mean we don't really know. But there are several reasons that drive it. And one is that some of the capacity -- the public sector housing is in a way, a bit of a strange market because it's mostly when new capacity comes in, it comes in through the existing incumbent insurers, Zurich Municipal is one very large player or it comes through MGAs.

And these MGAs are not really -- they don't really necessarily have the credibility and the trust from the brokers to be place business with. So then they are waiting with bringing it out to market. the local authorities, they are looking to have a reform in the U.K. to merge some of the local authorities and become more efficient or at least that's the ambition. So they are -- there is some uncertainty there, which makes them honor the long-term agreements or an optional year in the long-term agreements.

And then obviously, the insurers are doing a lot to keep the clients. So they're doing something on the renewal side in order to avoid competitions. And that's -- we do that and our competitors do that. So I think there are several reasons why you see that type of lower tender volume in the market. But at the same time, your last comment or assumption, that's an interesting one because we do have a -- we have higher uncertainty on inflation now, and it's a dangerous combo with softening rates and higher uncertainty, and it only goes one way, then on inflation.

So to expect that the softening will continue in that type of an environment with post-COVID learnings not too far away, then at least I think that that's a way of discrediting the market and our competitors because the right thing to do would be to now change.

And just a quick follow-up on that. Let's just assume that those volumes are sort of rolled over to potentially coming out in 2027, both in terms of the market, but also your -- you mentioned sort of like the portfolio composition of a lot of volumes being won in '23 and '24. And given the sort of dynamics with 3- to 5-year contracts, will then '27 be sort of like a very important year with a lot of volumes, both from volumes being basically postponed into '27, but also on your portfolio with a lot of tenders and a lot of sort of contracts having to be renewed then in '27?

So both '27, '28 and even '29 are important renewals of that portfolio. So it's -- in a way, we've talked about this before, and we have some estimates of how that volume will be tendered, but we don't know exactly. So -- but let's say that we expose 20% in '27 and maybe a bit more in '28.

And then the rest -- we've had some exposed now, obviously, than the rest in '29. And then it depends on the market how that is. But -- but the rates we have from there, and this is also something I've said before, they are not something that we expect to be in the portfolio over time. So that will normalize.

And in a way, that market -- those market conditions are better if you have a cost advantage when there is a bit tighter margin than when the margin is very high because then everyone earns money. We go to the claims side, and we like to focus on the risks and the opportunities for improvements. That's on motor this quarter.

Obviously, one quarter is short, we write and say that you need to understand that quarterly volatility must be expected both ways when it comes to growth and profitability in Protector to see it over time. But it is a fact that the underlying realities, if you correct or if you adjust the claims ratio for first quarter '26 and compare it to an adjusted figure for first quarter 2025, it is a worsening. So that's a fact. The reason for it is motor. Motor is poor profitability.

Property has a very strong and stable profitability, and that's our largest product. And there are not any other problem areas on the product side. So it's motor. So good news is that motor is very short tailed, so you see it very quickly. And it's also easy to understand that if you have many claims, more claims than you had last year as a client and the broker understands this and it's unprofitable, you can adjust prices. But what surprised us is that the claims inflation, which is not only prices, but also frequency increases was higher than what we have seen previously.

So there is something that could be volatility. But the way we see it is that we don't think of it as volatility and bad luck in the first place. We first try to find out if there is a reason, if we can find the reason and if there is a systematic problem. So that's how we started.

Parts of it, it's in particular from Norway and Denmark. That's where the worsening is the worst or the biggest. And we also grew -- we had a strong growth. 1st of January in Norway, in particular. And parts of that portfolio, the new portfolio is not performing well. So we need to understand if we've done mistakes there or if that also is some kind of coincident or volatility. So we're obviously already looking into it.

And so there is something there that we need to understand. And there are actions we need to make. And in addition, you have more uncertainty on inflation going forward. So that's a focus area. But as I said, the good thing is that this is something that we see, we can quickly understand it, and we know it's possible to do something about it.

And we also know that we have very good processes of doing something about it on a client level, which gives good results on renewal pricing and adjustments. But we're not very concerned about it. No change in risk appetite. We still believe that motor is an area where we should continue growing.

Any questions on claims development? When you look at the time lines here, you see on the large loss side that it's -- we're not at the 8% that we now have as a normalized level, but we still believe that, that's a sensible normalized level. And on the runoff side, I have mentioned previously that best estimate is important for us, both on the case reserving and on the actuarial reserving. But coming from a period with more uncertainty, you can expect that, that uncertainty ends up on the conservative side. It could obviously go both ways, but that's some of what you're seeing now.

On the cost side, which we haven't talked about, we talked about the growth and the claims development. On the cost side, there is a reduction. You'll see that broker commission is higher. That's because we grow in France where broker commission is higher. But if you adjust for that, it's a slightly bigger decrease from last year, but most of it is due to the share price reduction and the long-term bonus plan that we have talked about before that has gone the opposite way.

So there's no real reduction in cost quarter-over-quarter. And again, that's investing in data and in AI. But obviously, at some point, we need to see that in the cost ratio. And I think there are good -- we have good solutions and good process improvements that have -- that will drive a reduction and scalability in -- on the cost ratio going forward.

Investments, that's volatile, as you all know. And on the equity side, we had a big loss in the quarter. Most important thing -- or the 2 most important things to mention is the increased yield. So the yield has gone up due to the interest rate increase. And the other thing is that in the equity portfolio, there was a mistake in the presentation that we sent out on estimated intrinsic value discounts, not that, that necessarily is something everyone believe in, but that said 30%, it is -- the correct figure is 37%, which makes more sense when the equity portfolio has had a loss.

So -- but the point is on the equity side is that the underlying performance of the companies has been good. So it's been okay for some time. We've had some poorer performing companies. Now it is -- has turned around. So that's on a good trend. And so that's positive. And just as an example of the volatility, if you look at the equity portfolio today or a couple of days ago, year-to-date, we're plus, and you could figure that out because we have the list of equities. And so the loss is gone and there is a positive return. As of today, but tomorrow could be different.

Any questions on the investment side? Yes. Profit and loss, the only thing that you see is that the tax rate is high. That's obviously due to the profit coming from insurance side and there's tax on that and that the reduction of the profit comes from equities where there's no tax.

Capital position. So in the quarter, the largest reduction in the requirement on the capital side that comes from a reduced equity portfolio. So that has some effect. There is also some reducing effects on the requirement from the exchange rates, the Norwegian kroner strengthening in the quarter.

And then when it comes to the dividend here, the most important factors for that dividend is obviously that we have a faster stress strong capital position. But we also have the U.K. portfolio, we have a high earnings capacity going forward. There's an increased yield in the bond portfolio, but the insurance portfolio is stable. So we know the earnings capacity from that portfolio and more transparency in that following 1st of January and 1st of April in the U.K.

And then the French market now has 5 quarters, and we don't see any signs of that being mispriced or that we've had wrong clients coming in. So we're more confident in the French portfolio, even though it will be volatile, but we see some good development in the French portfolio.

And we -- even though we see lots of opportunities for the future, we don't have in the short term, i.e., a year, we won't have many new markets started within 1 year. And during that time, we have a high earnings capacity. So that's -- those are the reasons for the dividend.

Obviously, we would have liked to have opportunities to use that capital for -- at any time, but this is more a time element. And in the meantime, we will earn some more capital.

So that's it on the summary. Any more questions?

Just a bit more big picture, the developments in the different markets, and I appreciate maybe U.K. being sort of like the main focus more than concern maybe. But just in terms of your competition, I appreciate that more in general, the underlying claims ratio is up, but some of it is due to frequency, but in some way, I guess, pricing also has an impact on that.

Where do you see your competition in terms of their profitability amid a market softening. Is this sort of like a timing issue that the industry will, on a relative basis, bleed out for a few years and then we'll back -- we're back to the '22, '23 situation in the U.K. where you had pretty much the market for yourself?

Or is it a change in your competition as -- are there more efficient players out there now versus before? Just any comments to sort of ease our nerves that this is not, in fact, a structural issue. It's more of an irrational behavior type of thing?

I think it's interesting. But first, predicting where the market will go is very -- we don't spend a lot of energy on that because that's difficult. But we don't see any competition that is different, rather on the opposite where we see MGAs with high cost structures. So there, you know that one element is their commission level. And that commission level is in many cases, almost all cases, double of our cost ratio.

And then there is a carrier behind and there's other cost elements to it. So that's -- and those are the ones that drives price in the U.K. market, if we focused on that. In the Scandinavian market, we don't see any large changes or the Nordic market.

The French market is a bit early to say, but we don't see -- so if there is a difference between the French market and the U.K. market because there are large markets, there are many players, many of the same players. So if there is a difference, it is that the brokers have a larger part of the value chain in France, which gives the relevant part of the cost ratio that where we have an advantage, a smaller part to play.

But at the same time, we see a change in that, that there will be -- it's not sustainable that the brokers have that large part of the value chain over time. So we don't see any signs of that. But obviously, we're paranoid about our cost position in the areas where -- that we need to improve that. because someone could come or competitors can improve. So we need to continue that journey of improvement, and we are focusing on that. So that's important.

But we don't see any signs of it. And how the market cycle goes. The historical facts are that the market cycles are long in the Nordics. They're shorter in the U.K. U.K. motor, the market cycles are -- they can be almost quarterly. And that's driven by the consumer sector, but it is contagious to the sectors we are in. So -- and in a way that it's it must be a good place to be if you have a consistent approach and a disciplined approach to underwriting.

And there are quick market cycles. You don't need to be part of the cycle that is unprofitable. So if you stop there and then you can be part of something that goes up, that must be a good thing. And it is, in many ways, irrational. And some of the segments we're in, we see irrational behavior now.

So there is no way we would -- and maybe we're wrong, but some of those segments where you know that they're not excluding escape of water claims from their cover, our competitors because then they wouldn't be able to win clients. Those escape of water claims, they won't change a lot. They cost GBP 3,500 per claim and the frequency of them, in general, you can predict fairly easily.

And when insurance is priced on the level of those claims, then you don't have anything for cost margin and large losses. So then at some point, it will stop. So in some of those segments, we think -- Thank you.

Could you please elaborate on what are the main opportunities and what are the main trends you see, when are they coming?

So it's elaboration on AI and main opportunities, main threats. And I think I said some words previously. But what we -- so one example of a threat is that we have one distribution channel and thinking about whether that distribution channel is present sometime in the future and how that broker part of the value chain will be when you can use agents for parts of that work as a client. That is an interesting exercise, not because we necessarily -- we could argue against or for that scenario that brokers have a smaller role and that we lose that distribution.

So it's not necessarily believing or not believing in the scenario, but it's a very interesting exercise to do both together with the brokers, but also for ourselves. And I think the outcome of that is that we will deliver -- as we go, we would deliver better to the brokers. And if that scenario ends up being, then we're prepared for them not being there. So that -- and that's agentic wording, marketing and pricing that can be done.

But for the type of clients we have, remember that the average size of our clients is probably something like EUR 150,000. So -- and U.K. has very large clients. That -- to use an agent to quote that is a bit more complex because the data is it's not available like it is in the consumer sector where you have exactly the same cover and exactly the same exposure.

So here, there are very many tailor-made solutions. So that -- but what we believe is that we can obviously get efficiency gains from AI solutions, we already do. So we can do more quotes, we can do more claims per person. And in parts of the processes, we have HQ wise, we can do a lot more on HR and compliance and all the requirements that come from the outside, much more efficient. But that's kind of obvious that you can get efficiency gains from large language models.

What we focus on is to increase the decision-making ability for Protector that we are more precise in our decisions. And that's more dependent on data than technology because the technology is there. So that's -- and I don't know if it's answered your question exactly, but some words on that.

No more questions? Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Jostein Sorvoll, and I'm the Chair of the Board of Protector Forsikring ASA. It is my pleasure to welcome you to this hybrid general meeting where we have shareholders participating both physically here at Filipstad Brygge and digitally.

With me in this room are the following representatives from the company: Chief Executive Officer, Henrik Golfetto Hoye, on my left; Chief Financial Officer, Ditlev de Vibe Vanay, sitting in the audience; Chief Business Controller and Investor Relations, Amund Gronvold Skoglund; and Investor Relations, Elisabeth Krey Helgesen. Furthermore, the company's auditor, Ernst & Young AS is represented by Kjetil Rimstad and the Nomination Committee is represented by their Chair, Andreas Mork.

Before we get going on the planned agenda, I would like to hand the word over to Amund from Investor Relations to share some practical information.

Amund?

Thank you, Jostein. Before I start, is there anyone present digitally now? No. And the one here who has is here physically, has voted now. So then I can skip a lot of what I was supposed to say about the voting because we now have all the votes. So it's now closed for registering and for other shareholders to log in. So we will get a memo from DNB, who has registered 6,000 shares represented by attending shareholders. We have then 44,039,239 shares represented by advanced votes. We have 8,037,793 shares represented by proxy to the Chair. And we have 520,834 shares represented by instructions to the Chair. And that sums up to 52,603,866 or 63.81% of the voting share capital.

The figures and the final voting results will be presented in the minutes, which will be published after the general meeting. And I will now give the word back to you, Jostein, to get us started with the first item on the agenda.

Yes. And that is election of Chairperson of the meeting and two other meeting participants to sign the minutes of the meeting jointly with me. The Board recommends the election of Jostein Sorvoll as Chair of this Annual General Meeting. Together with myself, we suggest that Amund Skoglund and Andreas Mork signs the minutes of the meeting. We have not received any comments regarding this item, and we'll proceed to the vote. If anybody has voted yet or wants to change their vote, please do so now. We will wait a little bit so that everyone gets a chance to vote.

[Voting]

The voting is now closed.

The item has received a sufficient majority and has been adopted as proposed. Exact voting figures will appear for all items in the minutes published after the meeting.

The next item is approval of the notice of agenda for the meeting. We haven't received any comments to this item either, and we will proceed to the vote. If anyone has voted yet or wants to change their vote, please do so now.

[Voting]

The voting is now closed. The item has received a sufficient majority, and we can therefore declare the notice and agenda approved.

We then move forward to Item 3, which is approval of the annual report and accounts 2025, including allocation of the profit for the year. Protector's annual report, which includes the Board's annual report, sustainability report and the company's annual financial statements with notes for 2025 has been made available on the company's website and has been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

Will you, Henrik, please give us the highlights for the financial year 2025.

Absolutely.

And 2025 feels like a long time ago, but I'll make it short then and go through the profitable growth, which obviously is important. Our combined ratio for 2025 was 84.7%. We had a growth in local currencies of 14%. And then the bottom line from the insurance side, the insurance service result was NOK 2.1 billion, and we also had an investment return of NOK 1.6 billion approximately, which made a total profit of NOK 2.7 billion, which equals NOK 31.7 per share, and that is a return on equity of 42.2%. So in addition to that, it is about the capital and the solvency solidity of the company and our solvency capital ratio at year-end 2025 was 219%. So solid company with strong profitable growth in 2025.

Thank you, Henrik. And then we have to ask the auditor. Are you pleased with the way we have closed 2025?

Thank you. I will comment on that. I'm the independent auditor, and we have prepared an audit opinion that is included on Page 163 in the Financial Statements. And our audit opinion is what we call a clean opinion without any remarks or any comments. And that means that we believe that the annual report and the financial statements are prepared in accordance with applicable regulation in all material respects. So yes. Thank you.

We have not received any comments to this item either, and we will proceed to the vote. If anybody has not voted yet or wants to change their vote, please do so now.

[Voting]

The voting is now closed. The item has received a sufficient majority and has been adopted as proposed.

The next item is approval of the Board's guideline for determining salaries and other remuneration to executive personnel. In line with the Public Limited Liability Companies Act, Paragraph 6-16a (2) and the regulation on guidelines and report on remuneration to executive personnel, the Board has prepared guidelines for the remuneration of executive personnel in Protector Forsikring ASA. The guidelines are available at the company's website.

Pursuant to the Section 6-16a (5) of the Public Limited Liability Companies Act, the guidelines shall be received -- reviewed and approved by the general meeting upon any significant change and at least every four years. The guidelines were last approved by the general meeting in 2022 and no significant changes are proposed. We have not received any comments to this item either, and we'll proceed to the vote. If anybody has not voted yet or wants to change their vote, please do so now.

[Voting]

The voting is now closed. The item has received a sufficient majority and has been adopted as proposed.

Then we are over to Item 4.2, advisory vote on report on salaries and other remuneration to executive personnel. In line with the Public Limited Liability Companies Act, long word, #6-16b and associated regulations, the Board has prepared a report on salaries and other remuneration to executive personnel. The remuneration report for executive personnel 2025 is available at the company's website. We have not received any comments relative to prior years to this item, and we'll proceed to the vote. If anybody has not voted yet or wants to change their vote, please do so now.

[Voting]

The voting is now closed. The item has received a sufficient majority and has been adopted as proposed.

The next item on the agenda is Item 5, statement of corporate governance. The statement is included in the annual report on Page 38, and there has been made no significant changes since last year. We now move forward to election, starting with election of member of the Board, Chair of the Board and Deputy Chair of the Board. For items 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3, we will ask that shareholders vote on these items at the same time to make the voting efficient; however, before we open the vote, we would like to hear from the Nomination Committee represented by the Chair, Andreas Mork.

Andreas, please.

So when it comes to the shareholder-elected Board members, there is only one member who is up for election this term, and that is [ Arve Ree. ] And the Nomination Committee recommends that Arve Ree is reelected to the Board as a Board member. And then when it comes to election of Chair and Deputy Chair, the Nomination Committee recommends that Jostein Sorvoll is reelected as Chair and that Arve Ree is reelected as Deputy Chair. So that is the recommendation from the Nomination Committee.

But what kind of work have you done?

So we have -- yes, I should comment on that as well. So we have done like the Nomination Committee has had four meetings between themselves, both physical and digital. We have reviewed the self-evaluation of the Board, which also this year was a very pleasant reading for the Nomination Committee. We've had meetings with all the members of the Board. We've had meetings with Henrik. We've had meetings with leading shareholders. So yes, I think we have a decent understanding of the situation. And in summary, I mean, this is -- our impression is that this is a very well-functioning Board.

Thank you so much. And we have all seen your work, but I thought it was better that you mentioned it.

I should have done that. Thank you.

Thank you, Andreas. We now have -- going to vote on 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 together. We have received no new comments relatively to prior years to these items, and we will proceed to the vote. If anybody has not voted yet or wants to change their vote, please do so now for all 3 items.

[Voting]

This is rather quick. The voting is now closed. The items have received sufficient majority and have been adopted as proposed.

On Item 7, election of Chair and members of the Nomination Committee. We would again like to hear from you, Andreas. Can you give us your reasoning for your recommendations?

I can do that, yes. So Eirik Ronold Mathisen, who has been a member of the Nomination Committee since 2020. He has expressed he wants to leave the Nomination Committee. So Egil Dahl and myself and also Eirik has done some work on identifying a candidate to replace him. And we recommend that Christoffer Callesen is elected as a new member of the Nomination Committee. Christoffer, he is a portfolio manager at Fondsfinans. He -- and he's even a previous Protector employee, I believe. Yes. So he has a long affiliation with the company, and he has accepted to be a candidate. So we're excited about that.

Thank you. The voting...

I should say one more thing. Actually, I forgot that [ 0.71 ] is actually the election of myself as well. I'm up for reelection as well, both as a member and as Chair. So that is 7.1 is the election of me as a member and Chair and 7.2 is Christoffer.

Yes. Thank you. So we are now at election of the Chair. We do that first. And -- then we have 7.1 and 7.2, which is for the year.

Chair and the new member.

The new member, yes.

So we have received no comments to these items, and then we'll proceed to the vote. If anybody wants to change their vote or to vote, please do that now.

[Voting]

The voting is now closed. The items have received sufficient majority and have been adopted as proposed. The next 2 items, Item 8 and 9 concern the remuneration to the members of the Board of Directors and the Board's subcommittees and to the members of the Nomination Committee. Again, Andreas, would you share the reasoning you have had for your proposal.

The intention or the target of the remuneration is that it should be at like a competitive level. The level has grown quite a bit in recent years. This year, we suggest a more modest growth, typically like single digit, around 5%, some a bit more, some a bit less. So in that region. And with that, we believe the Board is remunerated at the right level.

We have not received any comments to these items, and then we proceed to the vote.

[Voting]

The voting is now closed. The items have received sufficient majority and have been adopted as proposed.

Then we are back to approval of remuneration to the auditor. Remuneration to the auditor for audit carried out in 2025 is provided in Note 6.1 in the company's annual account and totaled NOK 2,369,000. We have received no comments to this item, and we'll proceed to the vote.

[Voting]

The voting is now closed. The item has received a sufficient majority and has been adopted as proposed. Then we have Item 11, 12, 13 and 14, which we tend to vote for in combination. These items concern 11, authorization from the general meeting to the Board for acquisition of own shares. 12, authorization to the Board of Directors to increase share capital through issues of new shares.

Item 13, authorization to the Board to raise subordinated loans and other external debt financing. And number 14, authorization to the Board to decide the distribution of dividends. These authorizations are the same authorizations as proposed and adapted earlier years. With one adjustment to Item 11, the maximum purchase price per share has been increased from NOK 450 to NOK 750.

We have received no comments to these items and we'll proceed to the vote. We ask you that you vote on Item 11, 12, 13 and 14 at the same time. If anybody has not voted yet or wants to change their vote, please do so now.

[Voting]

The voting is now closed. The item have received sufficient majority and has been adopted as proposed.

We have now been through all the items on the agenda. Thank you all for the participation. I now declare the meeting adjourned.

All right. Welcome to presentation of Protector's full year '25 results. We will focus on the full year. The quarter is volatile. We say that all the time, focus on the full year result that is more interesting and says more about the underlying realities of the business.

And before I go into the results, I always spend a little bit of time on who we are. And what we did this morning was to continue on looking at what the challenger should be in the future. And one thing that we care about is that we -- even when we are 700 people, even when we grow in a number of countries that we still act as one team, which is a bit contradictory to a performance culture where we compete against each other and also that we want local decisions and also that we want each individual in the company to make decisions because they are where it happens and they should know what decisions to make. So that's what the challenger is. It is about making everything we do, focused and simplistic. But when it comes to culture, we need to complicate it in order to spend time and really understand. So that we're on the same platform and the same grounds for the future because I think that's extremely important in order to stay who we are, the challenger.

And then to the highlights, other than that 84.7% combined ratio and a 14% growth with an investment result of a return of NOK 1.5 billion, leading to NOK 31.7 per share in earnings. We have had some other activities in the quarter, one being the placement of the Tier 1 debt where -- bond where the market was good, so with good terms on that. Maybe the biggest other than the growth for 1st of January, which I come back to. News is that we have now been relieved of the maybe biggest mistake that we've made in Protector workers' compensation in Denmark, where we took on board a portfolio knowing that we didn't have the exact data we needed to underwrite it, but we underestimated the downside of that portfolio. And we have now sold that. So the agreement with DARAG is completed, and we can now focus on the lines of business and the business that we know how to do in Denmark. So that's very good. I'll get back to the reinsurance side and the growth later on.

And speaking about the growth, I think that it is important, in particular, following the 1st of January with high growth. It's important to remember how the portfolio is put together. And what we see here is a development. The development is driven by disciplined underwriting. So we underwrite in all these segments. And remember that the commercial segments, so if you look at the segment distribution on the left of the cake diagrams here. Commercial sector in all countries is bigger than the public and housing sectors. And -- but we have grown more in the public sector. That is due to mostly market conditions being -- it's been more rational pricing in the public and housing sectors than what it has been in the commercial sector. So that's why public sector and housing has grown a lot also in the past 5-year period.

And property and motor, by far, our biggest product, short-tail products. And U.K. is now close to half the business or at least 42% of the business. But it's also important to remember that the 1st of January growth is related to the Scandinavian markets or the Nordic markets and France, not U.K. And the market conditions are different in those two geographies. So it's been easier to grow in the Nordics and France than what it has been in the U.K. in the past year. So it's just a support so that you see what the inception structure in our portfolio was in the years from '21 to '25. Obviously, we don't know exactly how that will look in '26, but at least you then see that distribution.

And when it comes to '25, what you have seen throughout the year is that from the U.K., we've had a good 1st of April in public sector and housing, but we -- I've also said and we've also experienced that the market has been softening. So rates have been going down, especially on the product -- the property product in commercial sector. So it is slightly harder to achieve price increases. It's slightly harder to renew clients and also to get new sales. But the churn in the U.K. during 2025 has been good. So we've managed to keep the churn at a good level around slightly above 10% and been disciplined in the new sales side.

And then we've had strong growth in the other territories or in Scandinavia. And that is supported by good renewals, renewal rate of 95% in total for the company, it's basically the same in the Nordics. And -- but we've also had some new sales. So the markets there are -- it's good on the Norwegian business, which has the highest growth out of the Scandinavian countries on 1st of January '26. So a similar situation to what you see here. Denmark is #2 1st of January '26, but Sweden has a lower growth in '26.

So Sweden is a market where there is still more competition and more competition that we view as irrational. And then you have the French business, of course, where not a lot happens in quarter 4. So most of it is old news of the start there. However, 1st of January is an interesting date because we communicated an estimated number of what we thought we would quote for 1st of January following quarter 3. And -- that number was roughly right. So what we have seen in the market for 1st of Jan in France is that we have won approximately 10% of what we have quoted in the commercial sector space, motor. And that's a lower figure than what we are used to in Scandinavia. It's more in line with what we are used to on the motor side in the U.K.

And then on the housing sector, where most of the property volume from '25 comes from, we have basically won nothing 1st of January '26. So one of the big competitors, AXA has come in and lowered prices a lot compared to what they did in '25. So it's not a hat trick in France. We have not won volume in all the segments we're in, but we've got some traction on the municipality side, the public sector side, where the market situation is very different from the housing sector.

And the interesting thing is that the housing sector is quite similar to what we know in the U.K., where there is low deductibles, lots of escape of water claims and calculating the price is not very difficult. So when we may make a mistake and the competitors that price lower than us, they may know something we don't. Absolutely, it's new. We're new in France. But at the same time, it's difficult to see that it's very sustainable those levels that we see in the housing sector now. So at some point, we believe that we can have success there as well. Maybe not in the same way as '23 in the U.K., but at least it's not on the public sector side, which is more about large loss and risk selection.

There are a lot of questions along the presentation.

Sorry, I forgot to say that. So please ask questions during the presentation.

[indiscernible] France, after quarter 3, you said that -- at that time -- have been seeing around EUR 300 million in potential volume. And that your effective quotation rate would be around 70 to 75 [indiscernible] So approximately where [indiscernible]

So it continued to grow, not a lot from that, but the quotation rate went slightly down, both because of capacity -- our own capacity. So we prepared as well as we could, but we didn't have enough manpower to do that with quality. So the actual number is very similar to what you could derive out of the 370 to 375...

Any more questions on volume side? And please ask questions in writing as well.

Okay. Again, when we look at the full year, we also bring out the longer picture here, and there is volatility in not only the runoff and the large losses, but also on the loss ratio below those large losses and without the runoff. The large loss situation in 2025 is lower than what we had said is normalized. And the comment on the top here going from 7% to 8%, I'll get back to when I speak about the reinsurance, but that goes for '26, not for '25. So for '25, it's still a normalized level at 7% approximately.

So we're slightly lower than a normalized level in '25 and had some run-off gains, even though it's best estimate, but I've also said previously that following a period with uncertain inflation, you should expect that we -- that there is a bit more uncertainty and then there could be some runoff gains from that situation if we have been on the conservative side.

And then when it comes to claims, I think the important message here is to say that if we compare full year '25 to full year '24, and you normalize for runoff and large losses, all countries are slightly better on the loss ratio side. So it's an improvement coming from the price increases where we have unprofitable products or clients. And that's the simple way of seeing it. The only country that is slightly up, but very much the same is Sweden.

And then there are some technicalities, one of which is on the -- or related to the transfer of the Danish Workers' Comp portfolio. So the risk margin is reduced. It's a one-off of approximately NOK 80 million for the quarter and the year due to lower risk in the remaining portfolio, have changed that model.

And then there is a small -- between the countries, it has nothing to -- or no consequence on the total loss ratio. But between the countries, there is -- we've changed from a standard, very old model of calculating the future claims handling costs and that changes the distribution with slightly lower cost, which is claims handling cost is on a loss ratio for U.K. So U.K. is slightly higher and then Norway and Sweden have had a bit more of that cost, and that's a one-off again. So they're slightly lower. And with that information, it's -- the conclusion is that all countries compared to '24 are slightly better, normalized for all of that.

Any questions on the loss development side? You have all the figures on large loss in order to normalize on all these levels. So I won't go through each of them, but that's the total picture.

So we have cost and quality leadership leading to profitable growth as our targets. The cost side is very flat. There is no or very limited efficiency improvements in what you see here. There are some effects that make this look -- '25 look higher than '24. But if you correct for the fact that the share price has increased, we've talked about that before, more than what it did in '24, and that is connected to incentive-based share program for some employees and France, then you'll get slightly lower than what we had in '24 on the cost side. But there is no or very limited efficiency improvement.

And we do that consciously. But of course, we do want to see the effects of that investment we make. I think it's more likely that we see that effect in new opportunities for growth that we spend it on developing the company in -- on the growth side to grow then that we cut and slim down departments very quickly in order to get the low cost. And that takes some time, as you understand. So I think that there is no -- nothing very special to comment on here other than those comments I've already had, unless you have any questions on specific countries or the totality on cost.

Now continue to the quality leadership. And last time we brought this up, we had the U.K. survey with the brokers where we got very strong feedback. We've also had the Scandinavian or the Nordic surveys out and had very strong feedback. And it's especially good to see that we are increasing the distance to our competitors in all the Scandinavian countries. And we are also winning more prices, external prices from the brokers. So the largest broker in Scandinavia. We are #1 in Sweden and in Norway. And we've also won other external surveys that support our own survey. But at the same time, and as always, the most important thing about this survey is to understand that feedback, use it as a basis to discuss with the brokers who are our best and only friends, how we can improve, what we should prioritize to improve in the future.

So this is good news. It doesn't automatically mean that we will get more business from the brokers, but it means that we can -- we're in a position to require more from our best and only friends. And I think that's the important part that the long-term gain from this is that we can require better data, more data, we can require that they invest together with us in competing against the direct channels and that we can do those larger projects because we -- you say that we are the best partner for you. So that's a good thing, but it doesn't mean that we win more clients tomorrow.

Yes, there is basically nothing I haven't touched upon here since we've talked about the cost previously as well. So I'll move forward to the investment side. And -- yes, when you see this, it's per 31st of December and does not then include the reduction from the transfer of the workers' comp agreement, which is for '26, and it does not include new growth, of course. So that's a change.

But the results on the investment side are strong in absolute terms and relative, especially on the equity side, but also on the bond side in a very strong market. And the yield is down due to the reference rate, if you compare it to last year. Other than that, on the bond side, it's very similar portfolio. We steer interest rate towards our liabilities, and we have a slightly shorter duration in our reserves. So that's down. And then you see the comment at the end that we have the assets under management are reduced by the transaction amount of the reserves that we had on the Danish workers' comp portfolio, approximately NOK 1 billion.

And on the equity side, I think it's right to say that it's both absolute and relatively strong result. There is some changes in the portfolio. You see that the discount to intrinsic value has reduced significantly from last year. Some of it is obviously that we've had the gain that we had. So the share prices have gone up, but there are also some companies or some sectors that have performed worse than what we have expected. So there have been some changes in the intrinsic value. So we're open as a value. So -- and this year, it has been some disappointments on certain segments and companies and some changes in that portfolio. But even though it's the same number of holdings, there have been some changes in the portfolio during 2025. And you'll see that in the annual report what we had at year-end '25.

Any questions to the investment side? Microphone?

You managed to earn an annual rate of return on investments of like 14% over the last 10 years, which you saw on the last slide. How did you do that? And are you going to keep on doing it? Or is it going to be another number in the next 10 years?

So Dag Marius is here and he's in charge of that, but I can answer that question in at least a simple way, and that is that we believe in what we're doing, and we will continue believing in doing that. So investment is core business for Protector as insurance is. And we will continue to step-by-step have improvements in our processes. And -- but what the future will give, that's very difficult to say. Our ambition is to beat the market over time. And we think that those processes are set to do so. So unless Dag Marius has anything to add.

On the income statement here, we have a couple of comments. And I've touched upon one of them before, the change in risk adjustment, it's an IFRS element. So it's on top of the best estimate reserves. There is a risk adjustment in IFRS. And when a long-tailed reserve portfolio is out of our portfolio, then the risk in total for the rest of the portfolio is lower. So that's why we've made that change. It's a one-off, and it should be a stable number or fairly stable number in the future, depending on where the growth comes from.

And then it's the larger change that we've made on reinsurance. And it's a bit complicated just because there are no figures that will exactly clarify what has happened on the reinsurance side in the accounts. But to make it simple, we see it from two sides. So I said that we increased the large loss -- normalized large loss rates by 1 percentage point from 7% to approximately 8%. So we're taking a bit more risk ourselves, buying less reinsurance on certain programs. I'll get back to that. And then on the other side, we pay less for that reinsurance. And we wouldn't have done that if we didn't think it was a good idea. And we've done that on the areas where we have a lot of data, so where we think that we're actually able to predict what those large losses will be over time. So that's -- so one angle is that we have increased risk, and that's -- that will mean that -- so it's the very large losses. And as you've seen over the last 5 years, our large loss rate is lower than 7%. And so these are the very large losses. So it's not something that will happen every year. It's -- this is a volatile element. It's a volatile part. It's long -- far out on the tail that 1 percentage point that we're speaking about. And then the reduction in cost is then higher than what that increase is.

On the capital development side, on the own funds, we have the Tier 1 that we issued. And then as we're growing, we utilize more of the Tier 2 capital that we have issued previously. And then that's basically the same amount as the dividends that will be paid. So that's stable. And then on the requirement side, it's on the insurance side that there is a change and it's related to reinsurance. And that's the other angle to that reinsurance exercise that we -- so it's increased approximately NOK 300 million on the requirement side. And when we do that, and we have a target or a requirement of 20% return on that capital we need to hold for NOK 300 million insurance risk, which is higher than NOK 300 million, of course. Then our view is that has to be that it's much higher or higher than 20% return on that equity. And our estimation is that it is much higher than that. If not, we wouldn't have done it.

So what we have done is to say that on what we call risk -- the risk program, that's basically fires that can be that large on the risk program. We have increased from 100 million Scandinavian kroners or 10 million pounds or euros to NOK 330 (sic) [ 300 ] million. And that's because we have very solid data sets to document and to calculate losses between or up to NOK 300 million and the price is too high. So let's not buy it. We can take that volatility. But obviously, there will be slightly more volatility in our results. But the economic realities of it is that it's the right thing to do.

The cat is different. So natural catastrophes, that's different. Just like predicting the interest rate, I don't think we should believe that we are best in the world at predicting what the weather will look like and what climate changes will do. So to increase too much on that side, obviously, we have a view of both how we select risks when it comes to natural catastrophes. We have processes and data that aim to avoid the worst ones where there will be the most flood or the most windstorm damage. But to predict the consequence of weather-related damage to our portfolio is difficult. So we have increased retention on the traditional program to the same level or actually higher since it is in Danish kroner as on the risk side, but that's only for the first loss, then we bought more reinsurance that reduces that to DKK 100 million on the second loss. And the reason is basically that we don't think we know exactly how to calculate that.

On the U.K. liability, it's just a too high price. So we -- then we say that you pay this price or we take it ourselves to the reinsurers and some wanted to pay that price or take that price and some didn't. So then we took a higher share of the layer between GBP 10 million and GBP 25 million on U.K. liability. And we are much more comfortable with that portfolio today than what we were when we entered the U.K. So that's -- yes.

Any questions on the reinsurance side?

Henrik, one, I think that what you're doing sounds reasonable, absolutely, so we like it. What's your estimated or guesstimated increase in retention rate after this one? Because when we do our calculation, we end up that you estimate a large loss ratio to go up from 7% to 8%. And our estimation is that the retention rate will increase with around 2.0 percentage points. Is that a fair assumption, would you say?

Yes, I think that's a fair assumption. And obviously, it depends on how the portfolio develops. But with the '25 portfolio, it's a fair assumption.

Distribution policy, it is very similar to what we have had previously. What you do see is for the one who has studied it next to each other is that it is -- the arrow is slightly taller. The green starts slightly higher up and the box -- the blue box above 200 is slightly higher than the one below. And that is to reflect the process that we have where it's not really about these numbers, 200% or 150% is important. That's the bottom and then there are activities. But it's about the risks that we look at and evaluate every quarter on the different areas, mainly the insurance side and the investment side, but all the underlying risks from them and then the stress scenarios and what we have in a stress situation because what we always want to be sure of is that we are ready to act on profitable growth and good investment opportunities in a crisis situation, but at the same time, not to get lazy, obviously, and make sure that we don't think that we can make a lot more than you if we don't see those opportunities right in front of us. But that's -- it's a quarterly process or a continuous process with a quarterly decision, and it is -- it happens after we know what the results are, not before.

Our long-term financial targets, no change in them. And it may seem a bit conservative to say 91% combined ratio with the history of the past 5 years. And the underlying realities is, when I say that they look good and we deliver 85%, they still look good. So -- but it is something about the growth -- Protector as the growth company. We -- profitability is extremely important, but we also have to face the fact that in order to find new markets, there is a bit more uncertainty and we need -- price is the deciding factor. So 91% is long term, a very good return on equity and the same there, conservative relative to those numbers, but I think that it is a good steering to have.

And then we're back to the summary and any questions on the totality or the last part?

My name is [indiscernible]. I have a question, if I remember correctly, at the last quarterly presentation, you talked about the possibility of entering a new market in the U.K. within real estate. Could you say something about -- are you quoting for the 1st of April already? Or is it too soon? And could you say something about your volume expectations in this market?

Yes. Good question. I should probably have said something about it on the volume side. So it's -- we have quoted very selectively so far in the real estate market. We have won a handful of clients in that market. But the selectiveness is due to the fact that we basically only quote what looks like what we have from before, housing, for instance, in the real estate sector. And in that part of the real estate segment and especially for the large clients, it seems like the rates are a bit too low. So we haven't won many of the larger clients there yet. But we have quoted very little so far, so that it's a bit unsure if the market intelligence is significant. But we're building those databases with data from the brokers. We're actually getting large databases from the brokers. And when we have a more granular model that can separate the different types of risks within real estate, we are very ready to make that a quoting machine.

So we have -- there, we have the model, the people and the setup. So we're feeding that with data. And then we've said that it's approximately GBP 1 billion in that market for what we have risk appetite for. And over time, and I don't know what that is. I'd say it could be 3 years. If things -- if it's a hard market and a rational market, it could be 7 years if it's a bit up and down. But we should have a large share of that market, meaning at least double-digit percent or higher than that is quite obvious because there is a lot of attritional losses and cost will matter in that segment. It's very similar to what we do.

So nothing in the figures for now. No good understanding of the market situation, but we're preparing, still preparing. 1st of April is not necessarily a very large date. It's more spread out on the real estate sector.

Thomas Svendsen from SEB. So a question to your U.K. business, just to help us to try to calculate sort of the trajectory of the combined ratio there. So the business you have today, that's the back book and then you have the front book. So how many years do you think it will take before you have replaced the favorable business with the new maybe softer business?

So it's -- I've commented on this before, and we haven't changed the view on it other than that -- the parts of the portfolio that should be out in 1st of April '26 is going to be smaller than what we estimated. So it's not coming out for tender. But basically, what you can say is that for all the business we wrote in '23, which is the big inflow as 1st of April '23. It will be some clients with -- then 3 years, but I'm saying that that's a smaller share than what is the normal. And then some clients with a 4-year before they go to market. And then -- so let's say that it's approximately, I think I said that before, 40% on 4 years and 40% on 5 years and then 20% on 3 years. And then maybe it's 42% and [ 42% -- 16% ].

Okay. Good. And just on your -- if you look away from France, but just on your combined ratio. So are you thinking -- are you prepared to go materially above or somewhat above 91% in certain of your established markets if some are below and you think about the average on your existing business looking away from France?

I think on existing business, we are prepared to write contracts over time that can be slightly above 91% on short-tailed business, if it makes sense. And that can mean first year not to do a price system, but that it is necessary to come in on a higher combined ratio than -- or significantly higher than 91% on the first year with mechanisms and risk management initiatives that make it profitable over time. And we -- but maybe more interesting, I think, is that we then -- we're more interested in looking at new segments or going into business that we find data for, but that are new to us, which there is a bit more uncertainty around, but we have a strong book in the bottom.

[indiscernible] A question regarding volume in Sweden going forward. You mentioned that it's still somewhat irrational pricing there and as such, a bit harder to gain volume. Should we expect the coming years '26, '27 to be at approximately '25 levels? Or do you expect that to decrease or increase based on the market situation?

I think that it's very hard to predict what the competitors will do over the next 2, 3 years. But I -- what we see now is that it is still more difficult in Sweden, and that probably doesn't change tomorrow. But there are a couple of market movements in Sweden that can give us more opportunities. So one of the largest players in Sweden is not -- they haven't officially run out with it, but they are not very interested in brokers, and that can give some better opportunities, more opportunities. There are also some large initiatives on facilities in the Swedish market that goes for the whole Scandinavian market, where we have a very strong position with the brokers to do that cooperation. And then we're in a game where it's more about finding an efficient way of dealing with clients that are slightly smaller and give them a good product through a broker, and that can grow the broker market share -- brokers' market share. And that's -- since the largest Scandinavian broker is headquartered in Sweden, they are furthest ahead there. So there are some market opportunities that can be bigger, but the competitive landscape is a bit volatile in Sweden.

You've probably been asked this question many times before, but why did you really choose France?

Yes. So the short version of that is that we looked at many countries on a high level. Is it -- do the brokers have a good market share? And is the market large enough that we -- that it is interesting to us? Is data available in that market. And public sector has been important for us. That is a market that is -- has the same dynamics as we used to with public procurement regulations and a similar type of insurance purchase. And then we -- through the high-level analysis we started in Spain, we didn't get data in Spain. When we went to France, which was #2. And then we met the brokers, got data in France, and then we can go to the table and at least have a similar starting point as competitors when it comes to competence and understanding of the history.

No more questions. Thanks for meeting or listening in. I wish you a good day.

Hello and welcome to the presentation of quarter 3, 2025 results for Protector. As always, I want to start with who we are and a small recap of what we do, this morning with all employees.

The topic has for some time been the challenger. And it's, to us, very relevant with new technology and AI and a more uncertain future when it comes to what we -- or how we should do what we do. So what we have done lately is to involve all employees in exploiting the opportunities with AI. And we've done that through giving access to an enterprise model through Google to absolutely everyone. So it gives the opportunity to generate agents and use AI as we know it through ChatGPT and other types of platforms. But what we want from it is to make sure that everyone understands the value of data because when you use AI with poor or little data, then you get the wrong results. And data is our currency. It is 1 out of 2 targets we have for 2025 for the company. And we say -- we practice saying that it is our job to invest that data and create value by understanding our risks and making profits out of that.

And some of the activity we've done is, as you have most likely heard, challenging to quantify in an actual return. But obviously, there are efficiency gains that you get immediately from usage of AI. But our focus is more to see if we can solve the more complex tasks. So focusing on really challenging AI and the creation of agents and support to solve what we either have seen as too capacity requiring or too complex to solve ourselves. And what we see is that we get these efficiency gains. So we can -- we've made some agents and some functionality that reads through health documentation for personal lines or employee benefits in Norway. It takes 5 hours normally to read through it and get something out of it. Now it's a few minutes. We do that for incoming e-mail. It makes it a lot more efficient. And that's interesting but that's something that will happen. So in our opinion, that's not where our focus should be. Our focus should be in seeing if we can get better results.

And it is something interesting around the fact that you will accept a poorer accuracy from a human than what you will accept with AI. And what we can see is that we get very high accuracy with very little effort, for instance, on what we call preunderwritings, we get a tender, get lots of information from the broker and then we run it through a process that evaluates 7 criterias. And in order to decide whether we should spend time on it and evaluate it further and price it and quote it or not. And it is obviously also a start of the underwriting process. And we had one target and that was to increase the quote rate. So meaning that we should actually quote more than what we have done because sometimes it is noise in the decision of whether to quote or not and some kind of assumption from an underwriter that this is going to take a long time or since I've seen it previously, it is a bad risk, which is not necessarily the case. It needs to be based on data.

And we've increased the quote rate in the U.K. from 38% to 44% through using an application that we've designed on AI. And that's to us being the challenger. And then this -- what we do becomes old very quickly as the technology develops. And we are not spending any time in predicting what this will look like in the future because I don't think that we are any -- or have any edge in that. But what we do know is that we're not taking advantage of a fraction of what we can do today. So we still have a lot of investment to do when it comes to utilization of AI and actually using data or investing data as our currency. And we've discussed different ways of investing that time. We could have set up some expert center of excellence groups and see if we could find something genius through those groups of people who know the technology and know the business. But we have decided that Protector is -- and we get some kind of -- I've never used our -- and I've used our values and our culture a lot in my decision-making every day but I've never used it as much as now because it is more uncertain.

And due to who we are, people who have a common set of values who should make decisions all of us because that's what best-in-class decision-making is. We have decided that we will include absolutely everyone in it but also that the only focus of our leadership development program that starts now in the first quarter of 2026 is AI. The previous decision, not too long ago, was data because that has been a focus. But then we have realized that now it is about AI because it will include data. And we need to make all our leaders, there are 140 leaders in Protector today, responsible for taking that ownership of utilizing AI because the fact is it is here and we are not utilizing even a fraction of it. So that's been part of the topic.

And in order to do those things, we have also decided that for the first time in many, many years, all Protector employees will get together. So in March, we will get all Protector employees together in Norway at a place that is big enough to house close to 700 people. And we will have workshops to decide together with everyone and prework before we go there, who we will be and where we want to be in 2030. So -- which could be an exercise that we did in the management group and we did as leaders but we want to include everyone in that. It's a complicated resource requiring -- task to do that well. And I don't know if we're going to do it well but at least we have decided that going forward, both because we are growing, becoming more people, more countries and getting a bigger risk or having a bigger risk of becoming like everyone else, which is, in my opinion, the biggest risk of Protector.

We need to invest more in this and in our people. So that's how we -- that's the angle that we take to AI. And unfortunately, we don't have a lot of exciting demos and value creation documentation to share with you. But a lot of it is happening. And we are investing, which you have also seen in our cost ratio and which I will come back to. But then let's get over to the results. So the quarter 3 results are very strong on the profitability side. As always, I get back to normalizing that and explaining the underlying realities. We have a weak growth in quarter 3 and I'll get back to that as well. So -- and then the investment result is in absolute terms, poor and also that I will explain further when I get into that. On the side of that, the transfer deal of the portfolio on Danish workers' comp that we previously expected to be finalized in quarter 3 is -- and it was due to subjectivities and that is mainly the authorities in the different countries is now expected to complete in quarter 4.

So volume. And I think that this is, in many ways, where we have spent more time this quarter because this is not anything close to what we have had previously in percent. It is the smallest quarter. It's 12% of the volume totally in Protector. So there is some volatility in it. But the composition is some underwriting discipline, which we should have. Profitability comes first. So we've lost some large clients, some of which we wanted to lose. So we actually priced them out. Some have been -- we haven't managed to match the price, which is fair. And then there is this normal churn where we don't manage to renew all the clients. And then there are some technicalities in this where inception dates moved from -- it was -- the volume incepted quarter 3, 2024 and then they've moved the inception date to another. We mentioned this in the quarter 1 presentation that we had some volume there that moved to quarter 2 and quarter 4. And there's some of that. But it's also -- so it's a mix of that, discipline and some technicalities but also some realities.

And the reality is that, in particular, in the U.K. market, we don't get support from high inflation -- inflationary increases on the prices anymore. So the property market, which is our biggest product, is in a softening cycle. So the rates are going down. And then we don't get that -- and we get very high churn if we continue to increase prices and we don't need it, as you can see on the profitability side in the U.K. So that's a reality and we have talked about that before as well. I forgot to say that it's better if we have questions during the presentation then all of them are saved for the end. So please raise your hand and I guess you'll get a microphone if you have questions along the way here.

So -- and the market situation in the different areas is interesting to say something about in quarter 3. And there is not anything very special from what we have communicated previously. So the softening property market in the U.K. and that's both corporate and public sector and housing makes it harder to retain the clients at the same rate levels and makes it harder to win new business. In the Nordic countries, it is no real change in the market situation. So it's still a rational market. But obviously, we don't get that support from the same inflationary increases also there. And our new sales in quarter 3 are on the low side. We've missed out on also some of the larger opportunities that sometimes come our way and now not -- I wouldn't read too much into that part of it because it doesn't look like a trend. So that's quarter 3. Any questions to quarter 3? [indiscernible]?

[indiscernible] I guess, I have 2 questions, Henrik. First, could you give a bit more flavor on the U.K. real estate statement you have on one of the bullets here to make us understand a bit more. And the second question is that you have seen so far EUR 460 million in France. Will that figure increase through quarter 4? Or is it kind of the final volume that you will see in entering January 1?

Yes. I can do that. So I was just wondering if there were any more questions on quarter 3 because I was going to get to those 2 about France. Get the microphone and can run a bit now.

Thomas Svendsen from SEB. So questions to the U.K., it has been -- the combined has been stable at around [ 80% ] for several quarters. So what is your assessment? What is sort of the new level of combined ratio there?

On new sales?

On new sales.

No, I think that on the corporate, so commercial sector, we basically target below 91% and have been doing that for some time but we've been able to get rate increases in renewals. And so not a lot of difference on the corporate commercial sector. We've been quite stable there. But obviously, in the public sector and housing, where we haven't had a lot of competition, we have not targeted a lower combined but we have been able to increase our margin and still win business. So then I think that for new sales, I would say that we will close in towards 91% combined ratio on our new sales over time. But that market will fluctuate and have volatility. Ulrik?

Ulrik Zürcher, Nordea. You say that it's softening a bit in the U.K. Should we read anything into that into the renewal next year, has an impact on growth expectation?

Yes. It has been softening for some time on the property side. If you read the big reports of property and property rates in the U.K., you'll see that there was quite significant rate reductions in that market. But that doesn't mean that we come from those extremely high levels on everything. So I wouldn't read too much into it. We see that we can be -- we can still be competitive in the U.K. property market. But the kind of 2023 -- 1st of April 2023 situation is not the case anymore. So it's more like a normal...

Yes. But we have to counter like something is the same, borough, like public market but then we also need to the new market, the real estate. So I'm just -- they're -- you're not saying there's any reasons why you shouldn't have very potentially high growth in U.K. next year in new business or...

No. So -- and then I can come to that because that's interesting. In a market like the U.K. So we've -- we're in the corporate sector clients with GBP 50,000 and more annual premium and that's where we started. And we're in -- we've also entered what we call the mid-market between GBP 20,000 and GBP 50,000 approximately annual premium. So we're starting to get some kind of traction in that market. And then we've had public sector and housing the whole time. And that's where we have a fairly high market share. So we are a top 3 player there. There's still opportunities but the real opportunities lie in the commercial private space. And there, we will find pockets and segments that are fairly big pockets because it's the U.K. and the U.K. real estate is one of them.

And there's 2 reasons why we are entering that market now. One and the most important one is that we have hesitated entering that market because of extremely high commissions. So there's been commissions between 30% and 40%, not only to the broker but also to the property administrators. And the value chain is not very transparent. We don't want to be part of that type of a value chain. And in addition to that, the volatility in those -- or fluctuations in those commission levels means that cost ratio -- cost advantage is not that important because it's -- a lot of it is with the brokers and the administrators. Now the authorities have put a focus on it. So the commission levels are coming down. So that market is more professional. It suits Protector in a better way.

And then we have achieved the A rating, which is important in that sector because the banks who finance the properties, they require it in their contracts. So then we get an access to that market. So we've spent some time getting to know the brokers who operate in that market. So the large players -- the largest broker players in that market gathering data. And it's always a milestone to win the first client in the segment that has a new product. So the new terms and conditions and it is accepted by the market when you win the new client. So this is a big market. It's bigger than GBP 1 billion. That's our risk appetite. So that's basically what we will -- what we think we will quote on. So that's a big opportunity.

And then on France, it is the same thing. We need to say something about what we know and what we know is the tender volume. It will [indiscernible] not stop there. So there is still volume coming out but we know -- this we've known for some time that the tender volume is quite -- is a high number for 1st of January '26 because we do pipelining together with the brokers. But then the ones that they don't know about will come out throughout quarter 4, especially on the motor side, which is 50% of this and -- but also on the public sector and housing side. In France, they have something they called failed tenders. So if a tender doesn't meet the criteria, then they put it in a failed category and then they can go out and negotiate those contracts. And they have budgets on -- so they -- most of them fail because of a budget that is too small on the premium. So -- and if it doesn't meet, then they have to, so they're required to cancel it. So they will come out. A few of those will come out as well. Ulrik?

Just one follow-up. You forgot a bullet point because you forgot to put in your expected win rate.

And you can estimate and guess as much. I'm sure that we could probably be slightly more accurate than you but we don't know what the market is. And there is actually a -- so there's actually a reason for why we -- why I don't even want to indicate anything there because we -- from the beginning, which is right to do, we have been a bit more restrictive on terms and we have slightly higher margins on what we quote in the beginning. And it should be like that because we both need to get confidence in what we look at. And the first ones that come out have had slightly poorer data than what we require. And then we need to test the market. So we know very little about the quotes that are out in the market now because the ones we have sent out and have some feedback on, they are not representative for the majority of them. [indiscernible]?

Regarding the U.K. real estate market, you have won the first client now in the third quarter. Last time you presented, you said that you expected the first client to be on board at the earliest April 2026. I have in my notes. What has happened and has the process speed up?

I think it's a combination of things. We -- so the reason why we said 1st of April was that we didn't believe that we were able to -- we were going to be able to collect this -- enough data to quote in that market before that batch 1st of April inception. And then we also know that we needed a different kind of process -- underwriting process and using technology has made it easier to create those models. So we have, in our IT systems today, 60% of the code is AI generated. But on the underwriting side, I'd say that probably at least 2/3 of the code is AI generated on our modeling. And that gives a huge advantage in developing these models. So we can make one version, benchmark it with another one. And then so we can create a lot of different models and benchmarks them with each other without being delayed in the process.

So that's that. And then we've also got -- managed to get traction with at least one of the brokers earlier than what we expected. They were a bit skeptical in the beginning because there are many competitors in this market and it's a commodity and it's a -- so -- but then they've understood that we have an edge and have something to bring to the table. So then they have started to send us. So it's actually a case where we've said no to quote cases because we are not ready.

But is 1st of April also very important in this segment as the other in U.K.?

1st of April is because of some kind of a strange financial year setup there, is important in all segments but not at all like public sector. So it's more spread out in the real estate. But we don't have all the data. So we don't exactly, know exactly know how it's spread out. But it's less dominant 1st of April in real estate.

Okay. So that's, volume. Again, so if you look at it, on the face, adjust for large losses and runoff compare the quarter 3 figures there to quarter 3 last year, you see a very similar number on the loss ratio. But the underlying realities are slightly better than that in '25 relative to '24. We have had large losses on the property side only in U.K., Sweden and Norway in quarter 3, not in the other countries. So then you understand that they are artificially low in Denmark, Finland and France to a certain degree. But France, as I said last time when we had black figures on the combined ratio, it's very early and I wouldn't read much into the loss ratios in France for quarter 3. So that's on the large loss side.

Runoff gains in all quarters. We had a question around our practice of best estimate reserving, which we follow and which is correct, both on the case side and on the actuarial side. But obviously, following a period of time when there's been more uncertainty on the inflation, which I have mentioned before, there is a higher probability of some runoff movements and uncertainty sometimes makes us a bit more conservative. So I think that it's slightly higher probability that you get gains than losses for some time after a uncertain inflation period. So that shouldn't be too much of a surprise either. And then there was a big storm that mostly hit in Norway but also a little bit in the U.K. and Denmark. And for the Norwegian part of this, this is quarter 4 numbers. It is -- it doesn't make a big difference, as you can see, if you try to calculate those numbers and especially with the reinsurance side of it.

So we get our share but the Natural Perils Pool is reinsured with a quota share this year. So it's not a very large number, some few tens of million Norwegian kroner approximately is what that will have an effect. So one large loss. Yes. So any questions on the claims development? I've touched upon some of these points that you could potentially see here, both on the runoff but also on the volatility for large losses. I think that still it's important not to kind of look for trends in large losses because this is about very few losses and it's very volatile. So I would still look at around 7% as a normalized level.

When it comes to the cost ratio, it is up exclusive of commissions by a bit more than 1 percentage points for quarter 3. And there's been a development in the share price. We've talked about this before. And only that is -- so if you correct for that relative to quarter 3, this is real cost. So it's about the salaries for some key people that have been part of a bonus scheme for some time that follows with synthetic shares that follow the share price. And when there is a lot of movement there, it does affect. But if you correct for that, you're basically at the same level. And then France was booked on the other expenses row before. Now it's in the cost ratio. And so that's a bit more. So it's slightly lower if you correct for those 2. I don't think it's very important to correct for any of them because the important message I want to give and what we talk about with the employees is that we are in a position now where we have a lot of development opportunities on the volume side.

So we've opened a new market. U.K. is still -- there's a lot of opportunities. And even in the Nordics, there are a lot of opportunities on facilities and the property side. So we're investing in creating. It's a great time to invest in creating better data and preparing ourselves for the future in utilizing AI. So let's do parallel processes where we create AI functionality that can do exactly the same as the process today and then we benchmark. That costs some resources and we could have been more efficient today and I've talked about that before. I still mean that. We have overcapacity and we're not stressing in taking out those efficiency gains at the moment because that's probably the wrong decision. Any questions on the cost side? [indiscernible]?

Not on the cost side but on AI. You are using a lot of time talking about AI and I understand you are putting a lot of effort on this. Regarding your competitors, how are they using the same tool? Do you have some indication or...

Right now I think it's much better that we spend our time on how we can utilize it. But obviously, we should learn from successes and mistakes out there. So we need to look out, out the window as well. And -- but I think what we do see is that lot of our competition, they focus that on their customer experience and because of the consumer -- the weight of the consumer segments in their companies. So it's a lot about improving the customer journey or whatever they call it, which is not very relevant for us. And I also -- what I do hear and see is that it is a lot about efficiency.

So it's automation, which is not what AI is -- that's not our focus at least. That's a bonus and it will happen. So let's not stress about getting some efficiency gains because we're all becoming more efficient every day and you are, I'm sure. So that's not the main aim of this. It's the quality. And automation and robots and that is something we could have done a long time ago. So that's not really about AI. But I think the focus is -- we hear that the focus is a lot around that.

So to the investment side, I'm not planning on spending a lot of time here but please come with questions. So in absolute terms, poor equity results. And then we've done a -- so we've accumulated profits or own funds in the different currencies and countries as that has come in. And now we've moved that equity home. That increases the running yield on the interest rate, the bond portfolio slightly because we get better yield in the Norwegian bonds than what we have on average for the rest. And then on the underlying realities for our papers or the companies in the equity portfolio, it is a -- so we have some IT consultancy where there is some poorer underlying development. And other than that, it's a good development. So in total, we characterize that as okay. So it's not like it's just volatility there but we haven't changed any strategy. And 1 quarter is a short time. A year is a short time, as we've said many times on this area. No losses in the bond portfolio.

Capital position is -- so, yes, so there's no -- if you look at the other income expenses row here, you see that it is a high increase. That is due to the increased debt that we have, the Tier 2 debt that we have increased during 2025, so the interest rates there. Other than that, nothing special. And then this is slightly new in how we present it. The biggest element that you can see here is on the market risk, on the solvency capital requirement on the market risk, the [NOK 558 million that is on the orange box is due to the -- to moving the equity from the branches to Norway that decreases the requirement on the market risk. But on the other side, we get less diversification. So -- but there is an effect there on the solvency, which takes the requirement down.

And the solvency position is very strong. And we still see obviously some geopolitical uncertainty in the world. And then in spite of what you see on the growth side for quarter 3, we see a lot of opportunities. When that volume will come in, that I don't know because that's dependent on the market. But we see a lot of opportunities and we have the data and we are quoting and we're comfortable with the quotes we send to the market. So we still believe that over time, the growth journey of Protector will continue. And therefore, it's good to be on the solid side since there is some volatility in that. And so that we don't have to do stupid things or the wrong thing either on the insurance or the investment side in the future.

Yes, Ulrik.

You have a Tier 2 bond that's up in December, right?

Yes.

Will you refinance that? Or will you cancel it?

So we will continuously look to what we can utilize because there is a -- so now we're not able to utilize and partially because the requirement has reduced, right, from taking the equity on. So we'll continuously monitor how much we can utilize. And there are also limitations on how much we can take in. So it may be that we wait. But most likely, we won't renew it in December. December is also a poor date. So it's better to have it at a different date but that's a small part of it. But we'll assess that going forward. And then we'll most likely renew it or fill up with something in 2026 on that. Is that an okay answer, detailed comment?

Yes. Because it's a bit important when we judge your like actual solvency now. It's like that bond is that, [ i.e.,] because now you're not utilizing, so you could pay that back and then you can utilize what you have or you're very forward leaning on growth, so you need...

Also that's, so in general, what we will aim to do is to have what we can utilize. So that's where it will be. And then you probably in a good market, be a bit ahead of that curve rather than behind it. So I spent more time here on this than I usually do and we do that in the organization as well. But when it comes to the quarter 3 results, this is the same slide as I started out with. So any further questions outside of what we have covered so far or anything that we have online?

Yes, we have a couple of questions. Some of them have been dealt with already. But continuing on the capital situation, which is assumingly very strong and the potential for high growth in France, given the numbers. Could you say something about how much of that volume we will win, how much that will kind of consume of capital? So how much will NOK 1 in growth consume January 1?

I can't give an exact answer. But today, we -- I guess it's about 30%. So 1 unit is 0.3%. And then there is something on the -- especially on the cat side, natural catastrophes that will make a difference because France is a different geographical area. So we will get diversification. So a property will -- in France consumes less because we have a lot of property pounds and property kroners. So that's -- so yes, it consumes slightly less on the property side, not on the motor side.

Any other questions? Thanks for coming. Thanks for listening.

Thank you.

Hello, and welcome to the Second Quarter 2025 Presentation of Results for Protector Forsikring. We started the day as always, with the employees in Protector, who are the ones who have delivered the results and we have obviously discussed our targets, profitable growth and data as currency. The status of where we are and how we understand those targets and results. But we have also talked about our culture and the important thing that we are focusing on is to understand our culture and the statements, our values and our targets in the context of that we have grown as a company.

So we are different. We are in different phases in different countries and in different areas of the business. But also that the world around us is changing. So we need to redefine and reunderstand what it means to be credible in the different roles around and invest time in really continuing, developing that culture in the company. Because as I said, it is all of those 650 people who have created, 84.9% combined ratio in the second quarter and a growth of 16% in local currencies. And together with the investment result that has become NOK 8.7 per share.

Other highlights in the quarter is the rating that we have released previously. So that is old news, but there are some effects of it. We previously said that we get access to enough risks and enough volume without an A rating, but the upgrade gives us access to some more business, and in particular, in some of the newer segments that we are looking into in the U.K. and potentially also in France. In addition to that, the -- some of the clients who have not come our way and not have a very strict requirement on rating, they don't really have an excuse anymore. So -- but mostly, this is about that we get what we think we deserve over time.

And in the larger markets, there are some clients who have assets that are financed by banks who require A-rated insurance companies. So then such as the real estate market and then we get access to larger parts of that real estate market. In addition to that, in the U.K., we have a different timing on the broker satisfaction index, which is the quality defined together with brokers made into questions. And so the results from this broker satisfaction index is a snapshot of the perceived quality that we deliver to the brokers. We have received that only a couple of days ago. We don't have all the details yet. But it is a very strong result where the brokers ranking Protector ahead of the competition for the eighth year in a row but also with an increasing distance, in particular to the major players who have most of the volume that we see as attractive.

The important thing about the survey is to understand, to get the details and then use that in the dialogue with the brokers in order to find out where we should prioritize to improve what we do. And then the dividend distribution here, I'll come back to and I'll go into the capital position later on in the presentation. As always, I forget to do what I'm told to do. So Amund always helps me to say that you -- or remind you that you have to ask questions during the presentation. There is a lag on what we do. So it's very good if we have those questions and can take them right away at the end of the presentation. So please do that if you have any questions.

On the volume side, the second quarter is a lot about 1st of April in the U.K. and 1st of April in public sector, U.K. We've already said what that result was when we presented quarter 1 figures. And then something has obviously happened after that. And it is slightly stronger than what the result was on 1st of April. For the U.K. in particular, we did say in quarter 1 that the volume was slightly lower than what the underlying reality was due to change of inception dates from quarter 1 to quarter 2 and quarter 3. So some of that has come in, in quarter 2, obviously, and that increases the volume and is more of a technicality. It's not -- it didn't belong to quarter 2 previously. So that's not growth in that sense. That's a small part of it. We said that it was GBP 3.8 million that had moved and 2/3 of that has moved to quarter 2. So then you can figure it out yourself.

Other than that, in the U.K. business, we have gained some momentum in the mid-market, the smaller clients. We have had the focus on larger clients from the beginning in commercial sector U.K. And then we have set up an initiative on the smaller clients. We've gained some momentum there. And we still have a strong renewal situation in the U.K. in spite of the continuous softening market, which we have talked about before, and there is no change in that. It continues to soften in particular on the property side, but also on motor and liability.

In the Nordic countries, there is some volatility with fairly small volumes for the quarter, but in the growth but it is very strong in Denmark due to some momentum on new sales in particular on the motor side. Done with the same methodology as we have done in Sweden for many years and that we use in the company. So analytical fact-based approach. So it's good to see that the market is more rational on the motor side in Denmark, but obviously, a very small quarter in small numbers. And then in Sweden, we have good renewals and some new sales gaining some momentum there as well with in particular, the motor market continuing to look fairly rational whereas the property market, we've even lost some of our existing clients. So we have some churn on the property side due to what at least we deem to be irrational pricing. In Norway, there has been very little volume out in the market, but we have strong renewals, so very low churn in the quarter.

So on the volume side, it is a continuous price increase gain on the portfolio to counter claims inflation, and we have low churn giving -- and that gives us a high renewal rate, as you can see. The most important always is about the profitability and the claims development, and that is a strong results for quarter 2 and the first half year. And if you adjust for large losses and runoff and compare the 2, the underlying realities are stronger than what they were in '24. So there is an improvement there of particular elements in the results. You can see that on the U.K. result here, the gross figures are very different from the net figures, and that has to do with very few number of large claims from previous years that have been adjusted up on the liability side. So there is a runoff loss where the majority is with reinsurers and not for our own accounts.

And then on the net side, you see an improvement on the U.K. side. And that is in spite of that the large losses come from U.K. and Norway in the quarter. When -- so Sweden and Denmark have no or very little large losses. And when it comes to the runoff situation that is in all countries, except for Denmark and on the product side, it comes mainly from the property. And on motor, we have some reserve losses and motor is, in general, still the product where we have some need for price increases above inflation or corrections. And that is in particular in Norway and the U.K. where there are 2 different situations. In Norway, there is a frequency development and a higher claims inflation than the rest of the countries, which you have seen from some of our competitors as well. So you need to do more price increases in the Norwegian market. And in the U.K., it is about a lag from previously in longer contracts that we wrote a while back. So it takes some time to get into where we want to be there.

If we look at the historical picture on large loss and runoff, it is important, I think, for me to say that even though the period we show here, which is IFRS numbers, so it's not coincidental period. It's what we have restated or delivered on IFRS standard is at 6% large losses. It's not -- that's not a normalized situation necessarily. So I would say that in this period, we have had lower than normalized large loss share. If this continues for a very long time, then you can come back and ask me that question again, but I would say it is higher than what you see here.

And on the runoff side, I think it shows that the best estimate is what we are looking at. And you can see that even though there is volatility between the quarter and that is absolutely true when we look at country-by-country overview. And the only thing I haven't commented on as per normal on the profitability side is the cost. And you can see the cost here. And it is increasing from -- relative to '24 but there are some elements that you could argue are one-off. So we have talked about a long-term bonus scheme, which is connected to the share price, and the share price has increased a lot. And for both quarter 2 and the first half year. If you adjust for that, you get close to the figure in '24. So it's a very similar cost ratio, excluding our commission.

We also see some noise on the commission side where, in particular, Norway has a much lower commission which is commissioned to agents where we have agent agreements, and that's a technicality from quarter 2, which we mentioned then. But the running rate is more correct with the figure from '25 to the figure we have now. And in U.K., you also see that it is decreasing. It's about the product mix and segment mix. There are different commission levels and different products and segments depending on how much the broker can take, but also how much work they do. So that's what you see there.

And commenting on the French business, it's obviously interesting to see that it's possible to show some black figures in a quarter in France. But as you understand, this is just coincidental and says nothing about what's going on other than that we have had not had a lot of large losses or any large losses in the French business, but this will be volatile. We don't know anything about that business other than that we have done our underwriting at what we think will be profitable levels. But the claims development, the cost situation is absolutely not critical mass. And let's follow the French profitability now, but not to conclude on anything until we have some volume out in 2026, I would say. So that's the totality for the countries.

And I have mentioned the broker satisfaction index earlier and in the introduction, the numbers are here. So you can see the increase of 4 points from last year's survey and we always say that the more interaction we have with the brokers, the -- in a new country, the bigger the probability of that they will find some mistakes, and we will make mistakes. But it seems like the U.K. team has been concerned enough and looked at and really prioritize what matters with the brokers in the U.K. And I think that when we are looking at new segments and subsegments in the U.K. market, it is very important to continue to have this type of feedback with the brokers so that we can understand where we can improve. And also the position, of course, will help us.

The smaller clients that I mentioned earlier, they -- the brokers have a larger placing power for those than for the larger clients where the client is in the decision process to a larger extent. So if the brokers are satisfied and more efficient when they work with Protector than the other ones, it is a bigger chance that we will both see volume and also win volume.

On the investment side, we have a quarter that, in a way, looks a bit boring with a good return, both absolute and relative. But there has been a lot of volatility in the beginning of the quarter. So this lies a little bit. But I think the important elements here is on the running yield. It is down. That is due to interest rate changes because we have some spread increase, and that is due to some increase in the high-risk side, where most of that increase is from the volatility in the market where there were some opportunities that we saw. So that's approximately 2/3 of it, some bond funds, some single high-yield papers where we saw that opportunity in the turbulence. And then the rest of it is secured real estate, which is classified in that.

So the assets under management grew by 9% since end of quarter 1. And the equity side has delivered good absolute and relative return. And there is -- has been some changes in that portfolio, but end of quarter, end of quarter, not a lot of change and still a portfolio, we believe, in the future return on.

The income statement is basically nothing in particular to point on here, and we've been through the key figures. So on the capital position, what happens during this quarter is that the capital increases with profit for the quarter, and then there is a dividend there that is subtracted. But on the requirement side, it is about insurance growth. And then growth of the investment portfolio and some increase in risk on the bond side. And then there are some currency effects that were on the positive side or reducing the requirement in quarter 1 where the Norwegian kroner was increasing and then the opposite in quarter 2 and the composition of both capital and risk is fairly similar relatively from earlier.

So then it is back to why these results are what they are. It's about the people in Protector and then we are ready for some questions potentially before I say I wish everyone a good summer.

Yes, a couple of questions. Can you grow more in France in the second half year of '25 than you did in Q2? Or it's all about 1st of Jan '26?

Our data, which we have collected a lot of shows that it basically is all about 1st of January. But what we're learning is that there are some opportunities in French market between 1st of January and -- so there are some that change their inception dates or something happening in the market. And then there are some clients that -- obviously, we don't have the data from before. So there will be some growth in the French market most likely more so on the commercial side than on public, which is a little bit different from what we thought before. It doesn't necessarily represent how the market works, but it's -- that's the short term. But we've also lost some opportunities that we have looked at in the French market in quarter 4 or quarter 3.

So among them, a large one, where we see that there is -- it's not irrational competition, but there is competition, and we did not -- we have the opportunity to win, but we stopped because we came too far down on the margin. So there, you may see some growth in the third and fourth quarter. But the absolute large one is 1st of January, that's what we should focus on. And we know that there is a large pipeline and many opportunities for 1st of January. What comes out of it is a different question because I don't think we have a -- any accurate view on the competitive situation in France at the moment.

Denmark, will you expect more stable combined ratios when workers' compensation is out of the books?

Yes. It is also this quarter, some reserve losses from the workers' comp book. And so you will see more stable combined ratios.

And then underlying claims ratio in Sweden, it's flat year-over-year. Do you think that could improve going forward?

I think that it is strong profitability in the Swedish book, and we have good processes for both renewals and new sales. I would -- with growth, I would expect it to slightly increase because our long-term target on combined ratio is higher than what we are at the moment. So I would expect that to increase somewhat in a situation where we grow more. And then it could improve if we don't grow so much.

Thank you. There's no further questions.

Thank you for listening in and for the questions. And with that, at least for the ones who are watching now. I wish you a great summer. Thank you.