Achmea doubles operational result to €285 million
- Net profit of €272 also supported by further cost reductions
- Financial position further strengthened by increased solvency ratio to 225% from 215% (IGD)
- On track for targets relating to Acceleration & Innovation
- Continuing focus on innovation in customer service and operations
- Creation of Genera Pension Fund (GPF) for Centraal Beheer
Willem van Duin, Chairman of the Executive Board:
“Over the first six months of this year Achmea posted a net profit of €272 million. Net profit improved as a result of lower operational expenses, higher investment results and an incidental positive result in the health insurance segment.The operational result has doubled from €142 to €285 million, which demonstrates that we are on the right track in terms of the underlying business. All our insurance activities contributed to the improved result. Our international business also achieved better results. Storms in the first half of this year caused considerable damages to our customers’ property and impacted our result by €25 million.
Our financial position remains as robust as ever and our customers can count on us continuing to be a reliable financial partner in the future. Our solvency ratio for insurance entities has increased by 10 percentage points to 225% since the end of last year.
Achmea sets the tone in the Pension market and has decided to establish a General Pension Fund. Centraal Beheer provides us with a sound starting position in this market. In line with this, we also concentrate the operational asset management activities within our group. The new segment, Achmea Investment Management, manages over €71 billion for several pension funds and for Achmea itself.
At the same time we have a continued focus on innovation. Company-wide , more than 150 new initiatives were put in motion, both in the service to our customers and our business. On the one hand we are renewing our service to customers and on the other we are standardizing and automating our processes and systems.
Acceleration & Innovation also includes cutting costs by a total of €450 million with the necessary reduction of the number of jobs by about 4,000 by the end of 2016. With a reduction of costs of over €200 million since the start of the change programme at the end of 2013 and of the number of jobs by 2,100, we are on schedule to meet these targets. In addition to innovation, the focus on costs and return will continue to be important in order to offer our customers insurance products at the most competitive prices.”