Media release
St.Gallen, 24 May 2024

 

Helvetia Holding AG shareholders approved all proposals put forward by the Board of Directors at the company's Annual General Meeting. Members and Chair of the Board of Directors were re-elected.

The Chair of the Board of Directors, Dr Thomas Schmuckli, welcomed 2,394 shareholders with voting rights (representing 62.94% of share capital) to Helvetia Holding AG's 28^th ordinary Annual General Meeting held at the Olma Messen St.Gallen venue. Fabian Rupprecht, Group CEO of Helvetia, presented the annual result for 2023. Helvetia successfully continued on its selective growth path with a focus on profitable and capital-efficient business fields and increased its business volume by 7.2% to CHF 11,311.3 million on a currency-adjusted basis. The Helvetia Group generated underlying earnings of CHF 372.5 million (2022: CHF 492.9 million). The result was characterised by exceptionally high claims from natural catastrophes and major loss events in the insurer's non-life business in Switzerland and Europe. As at 1 January 2024, the SST ratio stood at an outstanding 288%.

"The past year has shown how important excellent management of our core business is. We are continuing to place a clear focus on this in order to strengthen our technical profitability in view of the challenging market environment", explained Fabian Rupprecht at the Annual General Meeting.

Chair of the Board of Directors reports on artificial intelligence
In his meeting address, Dr Thomas Schmuckli referred to the topic of artificial intelligence and highlighted the potential of using artificial intelligence at Helvetia, saying, "The ability of AI to recognise patterns is key for Helvetia, for example when it comes to detecting insurance fraud." He also outlined how the Helvetia chatbot Clara, which is linked to ChatGPT, improves the experience for customers contacting Helvetia with queries. "The benefits are obvious: a chatbot allows us to respond to queries in a wide range of languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Simple but frequently occurring business transactions can be fully automated", he explained.

Dividend increase of 40 centimes
Due to Helvetia's profitable growth and resilient result in the 2023 financial year as well as the Group's continued strong capitalisation, the Board of Directors proposed to the Annual General Meeting that the dividend be increased by 40 centimes to CHF 6.30 per share. The shareholders approved this proposal. Helvetia is therefore well on track to meet its strategic ambition to pay out more than CHF 1.65 billion in dividends for the financial years 2021 to 2025.

Re-election of all members of Board of Directors and Chair
The Annual General Meeting confirmed Dr Thomas Schmuckli as Chair of the Board of Directors. All other members of the Board of Directors were also re-elected.

Compensation approved
The shareholders also approved the total amounts of fixed compensation for the members of the Board of Directors and the fixed and variable compensation for the Executive Management. In addition, the Bachmann law firm and notary's office, St.Gallen, was confirmed as an independent proxy and KPMG AG, Zurich, was re-elected as statutory auditor.

About the Helvetia Group
Helvetia Group, with its headquarters in St. Gallen, has grown since 1858 to become a successful insurance group with over 13,800 employees and more than 7,2 million customers. It has been enabling its customers to seize opportunities and minimise risks for all that time – Helvetia is there for them when it matters. Helvetia is the best partner and is present everywhere that protection needs arise, with insurance, pension and investment solutions from a single source as well as simple products and processes. The insurance group knows the business, from mobile phone insurance and insurance cover for the Gotthard Base Tunnel to the long-term investment of customer assets. Helvetia develops and opens up new business models with enthusiasm and drives forward its own business in a powerful and future-oriented manner. It acts with foresight and responsibility in everything it does: for the benefit of its shareholders, customers and employees as well as its partners, society and the environment.
Helvetia is the leading all-lines insurer in Switzerland. In the Europe segment comprising Germany, Italy, Austria and Spain, the company has firmly rooted market positions for generating above-average growth. In the Specialty Markets segment, Helvetia offers tailored special insurance and reinsurance cover worldwide. With a business volume of CHF 11.3 billion, Helvetia generated underlying earnings of CHF 372.5 million and an IFRS net income of CHF 301.3 million in the 2023 financial year. The shares of Helvetia Holding AG are traded on SIX Swiss Exchange.

Cautionary note
This document was prepared by Helvetia Group and may not be copied, altered, offered, sold or otherwise distributed to any other person by any recipient without the consent of Helvetia Group. The German version of this document is decisive and binding. Versions of the document in other languages are made available purely for information purposes. Although all reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the facts stated herein are correct and the opinions contained herein are fair and reasonable, where any information and statistics are quoted from any external source such information or statistics should not be interpreted as having been adopted or endorsed as accurate by Helvetia Group. Neither Helvetia Group nor any of its directors, officers, employees and advisors nor any other person shall have any liability whatsoever for loss howsoever arising, directly or indirectly, from any use of this information. The facts and information contained in this document are as up to date as is reasonably possible but may be subject to revision in the future. Neither Helvetia Group nor any of its directors, officers, employees or advisors nor any other person makes any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this document.
This document may contain projections or other forward-looking statements related to Helvetia Group which by their very nature involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and there is a risk that predictions, forecasts, projections and other outcomes described or implied in forward-looking statements will not be achieved. We caution you that a number of important factors could cause results to differ materially from the plans, objectives, expectations, estimates and intentions expressed in such forward-looking statements. These factors include: (1) changes in general economic conditions, in particular in the markets in which we operate; (2) the performance of financial markets; (3) changes in interest rates; (4) changes in currency exchange rates; (5) changes in laws and regulations, including accounting policies or practices; (6) risks associated with implementing our business strategies; (7) the frequency, magnitude and general development of insured events; (8) mortality and morbidity rates; (9) policy renewal and lapse rates as well as (10), the realisation of economies of scale as well as synergies. We caution you that the foregoing list of important factors is not exhaustive; when evaluating forward-looking statements, you should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to Helvetia Group on the date of its publication and Helvetia Group assumes no obligation to update such statements unless otherwise required by applicable law.