Tryg A/S

Tryg A/S

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Jan 22Next Earn

Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptJanuary 22, 2026

Gianandrea Roberti

Good morning, everybody. My name is Gianandrea Roberti, I'm Head of Financial Reporting at Tryg.

We published our full year figures earlier this morning, and I have here with me Johan Brammer, our Group CEO; Allan Thaysen, our Group CFO; and Mikael Kärrsten, our Group CTO, to present the report. With these words, over to you, Johan.

Johan Kirstein Brammer

Thanks a lot, Gian, and good morning from me as well. This is a good day, and I'll ask you to go to the financial highlights, the first slide of the deck.

Tryg is today reporting an insurance service result of 1.918 billion in Q4, driven by an excellent combined ratio of 81.4. The result is delivered through a top-line growth of 4.1%, driven by increased commercial activities as well as profitability measures, especially in Norway.

In addition, and this is important, the result is also helped by a favorable large and weather claims experience, despite the storm Amy in Norway. This is an example of the benefit we get from being a well-diversified company with three strong market positions across Scandinavia.

The underlying performance continues to develop positively, much in line with recent quarters, and more specifically, the underlying claims ratio improves with 30 basis points for both the group and for the private segment in Q4. The investment result is 171 million, helped by good returns on the free, but also especially the match portfolio.

More importantly, as flagged in the Q3 report, we divested more than 500 million extra properties in Q4, and we can today report that our property exposure is down to 2.3 billion, down by 1 billion from the end of 2024. To sum it up, the pre-tax result is just above 1.7 billion, the return on own funds for the quarter is just below 37%, and we are paying a quarterly dividend of 2.05 DKK per share, in line, of course, with the previous quarters in 2025.

In addition, and this is also important, we are today launching a buyback of 1 billion DKK on the back of a set of very robust full year numbers and a very comfortable solvency position. The solvency ratio at year-end is 196, already deducting the dividends and the announced buyback.

However, please remember that the solvency ratio of 196 is elevated by 3 points due to the temporary debt financing impact that will disappear in Q1. With that, let's move to the next slide on customer highlights.

As we have a target of 83 set for next year, 2027, and we are pleased that by Q4 last year, we were already at 82, as customer satisfaction is and remains paramount for an insurance company, especially in volatile times like the current ones. The recent improvement in our numbers come primarily from our online customer touch points, and in addition, the rollout of a new payment solution in commercial Sweden has been supportive of the higher customer satisfaction in that particular segment.

With that, let's turn to the next slide where we show the group ISR split by segment. As always, the reported figures may be impacted by volatile items such as large and weather claims and the general run-off pattern, of course.

The private segment shows a higher ISR driven by growth in premiums and improved underlying performance and lower weather claims. Within private, we note a particularly strong performance in Norway, which we'll return to later in this presentation.

As for the commercial segment, it shows an ISR that is slightly higher, driven by a moderate premiums growth and improved underlying performance, however, partly offset by a modestly lower run-off. With that, let's turn to the next slide where we illustrate the ISR performance by geography.

The Danish combined ratio is worsened by approximately 400 basis points driving a lower ISR naturally. The underlying performance is actually very stable as the Q4 numbers are impacted by two discrete issues.

Firstly, half of the deterioration in the combined ratio comes from a spike in the quarterly expenses due to periodization of higher IT development costs. Secondly, a number of large claims also impacts the Danish combined ratio.

When adjusting for these factors, the performance is broadly stable and gives absolutely no cause for concern, zero. To reinforce this point, the full-year combined ratio for the Danish business in 2025 is 82.4 against 81.8 in 2024 on more than 18 billion of revenues.

That is stable indeed. As for Norway, we're presenting for Q4 a sharp improvement even including the storm Amy.

We are obviously very satisfied to see that our profitability efforts in our Norwegian business are paying off. When it comes to Sweden, we continue to report very robust figures despite slight impact from the storm Johannes.

In general, the business due to its premiums mix and due to its large PA book is less sensitive to potential winter and summer profitability swings. As usual, on the right-hand side, we are showing the group ISR walk, and I am very pleased to see that the walk is characterized predominantly by a number of positive and green categories, while the only negative drags are the slightly lower run-off in a quarter where reported insurance earnings are very strong, and the modestly higher cost due to primarily the periodization I mentioned before.

With that, we are now moving into the first slide in the revenue growth section. Tryg is reporting a growth of 4.1%, primarily driven by the private segment that grows more than 5%, while the growth in the commercial segment is more muted.

It is worth noting that the growth year-on-year on a group level is up from 3.6% in Q4 2024. It's important to remember that our key focus since mid-'22 has been to protect margins in order to mitigate the sudden and large inflation hike, and for 2025, price increases were predominantly focused towards our Norwegian business where we had to improve profitability significantly.

We're now entering 2026 in a very robust position, and therefore we are shifting our efforts towards more commercial activities that will improve our top line in a profitable manner in the longer term. As mentioned before, we strive towards a sustainable and balanced development driven by both pricing, upselling, and cross-selling.

With that, let's turn to the next slide on customer retention. In general, we observe flatish to slightly improving retention levels in the private segment, while these are slightly deteriorating in the commercial segment still.

We are in particular pleased to see retention levels stabilizing in Private Denmark as this segment represents around 30% of group revenues. In general, after a period of price increases as we've been through, it's natural to experience a small drop in retention.

As we are now seeing the trend stabilizing or even slightly improving in the private segment, we do expect a similar bounce back in the commercial segment going forward. We are very focused on our customer offering and value proposition, and this focus will increase further during 2026 to ensure customer loyalty going forward.

With that, let's turn to the next slide where we comment specifically on Norway as we have done for the last few quarters. We are reporting a combined ratio for Q4 in Norway of 87.1, while the full-year number is 86.8.

86.8. It is obvious that 2025 has seen more benign weather in Norway compared to 2024, which is of course supportive of the result.

In general, our underlying performance has improved significantly and clearly. In general, due to the mix of our Norwegian business with 40% being motor, and due to selected important partner agreements, we believe a sustainable combined ratio in the mid-80s will serve us well in Norway.

This is broadly speaking where we expect to be in 2027 and longer term. I'll wrap up this slide on Norway by reminding you that the combined ratio by quarter in Norway will always be more volatile due to the weather patterns in the country and the often harsh winter weather.

With that, I'll turn it over to you, Mikael.

Mikael Kärrsten

Thanks, Johan, and good morning from me as well. As per the past quarters, we report an improved underlying claims ratio for the group and the private segment of 30 basis points.

The improvement mainly stems from the development in our Norwegian operations where restoring profitability is one of our key priorities. As Johan stated, we have taken significant steps in that journey, and we are very comfortable around future profitability levels.

The development remains very anchored to what we communicated at the Capital Markets Day at the end of 2024, where we stated that the underlying claims ratio is expected to be broadly stable to slightly improving towards 2027. Turning to page 14 where we as normal show you the quarterly development of large and weather claims, discounting levels, and run-offs.

From a large claims perspective, Q4 saw large claims coming in at 150 million, below our quarterly guided level of 200 million. It's of course good to see that large claims for a second year in a row in total is below our expected annual levels, but large claims is a volatile item, and over time we expect it to fluctuate around the 800 million.

Weather claims summed up to be 174 million, below our guided Q4 level of 240 million. This is despite the weather events Amy hitting Norway in October, and Johannes hitting Sweden and Norway in the end of December.

Apart from these events, the quarter was favorable, and the 174 million weather claims also included a small positive adjustment to weather events earlier in the year. I remind everyone that we expect seasonal weather event patterns, where in particular Q4 and Q1 are the quarters with the highest weather exposure.

We are naturally also happy to see the full-year weather claims coming in below our annual guided level after two years of being above. Similar to large claims, this is a stochastic element where some volatility is to be expected.

Regarding the discount rate, this was stable at 2.4%, in line with the Q3 level. Please remember that the discount rate is a function of the interest rate environment, but also the claims mix of our business.

Both of these factors impact the discount rate. Finally, the run-off result was 2.1% in a benign quarter in terms of large and weather claims experience.

We have stated at our Capital Markets Day that we expect a run-off result around 2% towards 2027, and this remains very firm. With this, I hand it over to you, Gian.

Gianandrea Roberti

Thanks, Mikael. We will now be commenting on the investment activities.

Total invested assets were 59 billion at the end of the year, of which 45 billion were the match portfolio, nearly entirely invested in Scandinavian covered bonds, while the free portfolio is around 14 billion, of which 2.3 billion were properties. The match portfolio is virtually unchanged from Q3, while properties were down 500 million as mentioned by Johan at the beginning of the call, and we're very pleased to see properties overall, the exposure reduced by 1 billion during the year from 3.3 to 2.3.

In the second slide of the investment activities, we comment on the actual investment results in the quarter, which was a nice 171 million above normalized expectations. The good result was driven by the match portfolio, where in addition to the interest on premium provisions, narrowing covered bond spreads helped the performance.

Also, other financial income and expenses were better than normal at -47 million. It's important to remember that Q4 last year was a little bit of a mixed quarter, primarily driven by the sale of risky asset, chiefly equities and covered and corporate bonds.

We are very pleased to show progress on the sale of real estate, will ensure earning stability and release of capital. With this, over to you, Allan.

Allan Kragh Thaysen

Thanks, Gian. Now let's move into the solvency and expenses section.

This first slide shows details on our solvency position as per end of the quarter. Tryg reports a solvency ratio of 196.

As this number includes a temporary uplift of 3 percentage points from the refinancing of the Tier 1 loan in the autumn, the solvency ratio will be 193 at the end of Q1 2026, all else being equal. As a reminder, the current solvency ratio of 196 already includes the dividend payment for the quarter and today's announcement of a 1 billion share buyback.

As per past quarters, the capital generation remains very strong. Own funds movements are primarily reflecting operating earnings and capital distribution, while the fall in solvency capital requirement is primarily explained by the lower properties exposure and by a few minor changes in our partial internal model.

As mentioned multiple times before, the solvency ratio is expected to gravitate towards a less conservative level long term. We will do so in a controlled manner as opposed to larger movements.

Finally, I also want to reiterate that we expect to continue our year-end assessment of our solvency position also going forward. Now please turn to the next slide.

Here you can see the historical development of our solvency ratio. It is evident that the solvency position has been more robust recently compared to the beginning of the period.

A turbulent macroeconomic environment with a sudden return of inflation and a volatile environment called for an additional layer of conservatism that we believe has served us well. As mentioned in the previous slide, we will continue to work on our capital position to ensure efficiency and to meet our ambitious return on own funds target.

Now please turn to the next slide for updated solvency sensitivities. Solvency sensitivities are broadly unchanged since last quarter.

Our biggest sensitivity is, and will always be, the one towards covered bonds as this is our chosen asset class and represents the vast majority of our investments. It is also important to remember that we primarily invests in AAA-rated covered bonds, and therefore a 100 basis point sensitivity is a very conservative assumption.

Please note that the sensitivity towards Swedish crowns has been slightly reduced following our recent refinancing of subordinated capital. The sensitivity to interest rate movements remains very low taking into consideration our matching strategy, and generally low sensitivities across the board due to our strong and hedged balance sheet.

In a time of higher volatility in capital markets, we are pleased about our very low-risk asset allocation, which results in modest solvency sensitivities. Now let's move to the expense ratio development.

The expense ratio was 13.6% for Q4 and 13.4% for the full year. There are some minor periodization effects in Q4, but in general we believe the full-year figure is completely aligned with our guidance towards 2027 of a stable to slightly improving expense ratio.

It is important to remember that while we continue to improve our efficiency, we are also keen to reinvest in commercial activities to keep a good balance and continue to grow long term. These are the overall drivers behind the development of the expense ratio.

We continue to have a strong belief that the low expense ratio is a key competitive advantage for us, and we will remain very focused on this. Finally, I will comment on the reduced number of employees, which is primarily a function of our expanded agreement with TCS announced during the autumn.

With this, I will hand it over to you, Johan.

Johan Kirstein Brammer

Thanks a lot, Allan, and thanks for that rundown. With that, I will take you to the final part of our presentation on strategy and financial targets, and on the first slide in this section, I am showing you a recap of our three strategic pillars and the impact that each of them will have on our financial targets in 2027.

We are pleased to report, as you can see on the dials on top, that we assess the implementation of most of the strategic initiatives to be either on plan or ahead of plan. This gives us a lot of comfort for what lies ahead of us.

I will now unfold each of the three pillars in the next few slides. As for the first on the next slide on scale and simplicity, it is clearly the most important strategic pillar in terms of financial impact.

Within this pillar, we announced at Q3 an expansion of our partnership with TCS to simplify and modernize our IT landscape. We're very pleased with the progress so far and the handover is progressing according to plan.

This has allowed us to streamline our IT operations and focus on the more customer-oriented IT systems. In Q4, as an example, we've started to implement, and we are already now actively using, a new contact center solution called Puzzle, which when fully implemented across the group will handle the 12 million calls we have with our customers every year.

With Puzzle, we'll be replacing three contact center systems and five supporting systems, a total of 18, with one shared contact center system across the group, thus realizing cost synergies. Also, on top of efficiencies, we also now still are starting to see the positive effects of the unified systems including improved customer experience, lower average handling time, and a more simple and more intuitive platform for our employees.

As for technical excellence, on the next slide, profitability Norway has improved significantly driven by better tools, driven by smarter pricing, and driven by a more data-driven approach. As for the new underwriting platform, we've discussed before, it enables more precise and consistent risk selection and pricing.

As for the scored loss model, it ensures smarter pricing by adjusting rates based on customer profitability, retaining good risks, and pricing others more fairly. As for the general rate increases, these have supported profitability gains, though we expect the pace of increases to moderate going forward.

This is important because in addition to boosting profitability, these efforts have also laid the foundation for more prudent future growth in our Norwegian business. Lastly, I'd like to remind you all that with a combined ratio in the mid-80s, our Norwegian business contributes significantly to our group ROOF targets.

On the next slide, when we dive into customer and commercial excellence, we are on the next slide detailing additional levers that will serve to improve the commercial momentum in our Swedish operation. In Q4, I want to highlight the following three initiatives.

On the left-hand side, we've launched a new and improved house insurance product, which has been very well received by customers with the largest package, which also includes a voluntary on-site risk inspection and prevention advice, being ranked number one by an independent consumer advisory bureau. In the middle, we show how we've continued to increase the number of partnerships in the motor space, and as a result, we now expect the annual sales contribution from new motor partnerships to reach 130 million Swedish krona.

Lastly, on the right-hand side, we saw good progress in sales in Q4 through our Aktsam brand, increasing by some 20% in the quarter. This is helping us to gain market shares outside the bigger cities in Sweden.

That brings me to the next slide on the financial score card where we show how the 2027 targets and illustrate how we're tracking towards them. It's very pleasing to see that we're tracking well towards all of our targets, both the financial and the strategic ones.

We're demonstrating a market-leading profitability with very low earnings volatility, benefiting from our hedged position across three markets. In addition, we deliver a very attractive return on own funds in excess of 40% for the full year.

Also important, we are on track to deliver, of course, on our target of returning 17 to 18 billion to our shareholders during the strategy period made up by the ordinary dividends and the buyback of 2 billion announced at the CMD back in December 2024. The 1 billion of extraordinary buyback announced today is on top of that target and reinforces our constant focus on remunerating our shareholders.

With that, let's turn to the next slide where we are essentially just summarizing the achievements in 2025, a year that has proven remarkable for us. To boil it down, we've had the strongest start of a new strategy period ever in Tryg.

Norway is producing very robust earnings, while in Q4 2024 the combined ratio was above 100, that is long forgotten by now. Thirdly, we're now launching a new buyback of 1 billion on the back of a strong set of results and a robust solvency position supportive of future capital returns.

That brings me to our final slide in our presentation. You've seen it before, it's our traditional quote from Rockefeller.

This should serve as a clear reminder to all of you on this call that we know our investment case and we will not forget it, and with that, I think we're ready to move into Q&A.

Operator

Thank you, Johan. If you do wish to ask a question, you will need to press 5 star on your telephone.

To withdraw questions, press 5 star again. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question.

If you have additional questions, you may rejoin the queue. Our first question comes from the line of Asbjørn Mørk from Danske Bank.

Please go ahead, your line will be unmuted.

Asbjørn Mørk

Good morning, thanks for for taking my question. I'll limit myself to one question and congratulations on the on the strong results.

Basically my question goes around sort of the fundamental improvements, not only the you can say the Johan, you mentioned the strongest start to a strategy period to date. I think you mentioned quite a lot of things that are moving in the right direction.

Even I think you said even that you are on plan or ahead of plan on on all your items. Looking at the especially the Norwegian market, the very strong improvements we see there, how how sustainable do you see those trends looking at the price initiatives that both you and your peers have done in in Norway?

I guess we should expect those to continue also during '26 and potentially into '27. If I adjust sort of for the for the for the lucky hand you've had during '25 on weather and large claims, but I do think that you are improving your underlying underwriting trends, and also considering the retention elements.

It seems like you are close to delivering on your '27 targets already in '26, and if we then expect further improvement going forward, I guess there is a likelihood that you could exceed your '27 targets. I guess my my question is really, do you sort of share that view, and is there any likelihood that sometime during the strategy period that you would revise your your financial targets?

Johan Kirstein Brammer

Good morning, Asbjørn, and I'll start by addressing the question on Norway. You're quite right.

We're very pleased around our development in Norway. If I just do sort of a quick run through of the numbers, we're printing a combined ratio of 87 this year.

Again, that is helped a little bit by luck, especially by volatile items like weather. Naturally, on top of that, we have been driving significant price increases throughout 2025.

We will continue to see the earnings impact of those increases. For 2026, we are pricing significantly lower, but at the same time significantly above the inflation.

Obviously, we do expect that there will be continuous improvements throughout the rest of the strategy period, and we're very comfortable around reaching our mid-80s combined that we have communicated. Then on that, Mikael, if I can just go to your point, Asbjørn, around our targets for 2027.

You're right saying that with the delivery today for 2025, we are at 7.9. That is close to the range we guided for 2027, which is 8 to 8.4.

When you adjust for some of the tailwind we're getting from large and weather, which is 442 million, you actually bring it down on a normalized level around 7.5, which is spot on where we expected to be and guided to be. I think in that sense there's still room for us to move, we still need to continue to improve the business.

That being said, right, we are a confident management team here today, as you mentioned, we are ahead of the implementation of many of our initiatives in the strategy, I couldn't ask for a better spot to be in right now in terms of the strategy execution. We are four quarters into a three-year plan, it's way too soon for us to revisit our targets.

Asbjørn Mørk

If I may then ask, if we leave aside sort of the lucky hand you've had on whether large claims, is there anywhere where your progression so far has been slower or less than that you had expected/hoped for? Because it seems like I guess you wouldn't have imagined that kind of repricing in Norway when you stood in December '24 and gave us the '27 targets.

I guess client retention is better than expected, now also the different measures that you had in the end of the presentation on the different things that are more within your own control. Is there anything we should be aware of in terms of where we could see underlying deterioration?

Johan Kirstein Brammer

I don't have any concerns in terms of deterioration in the underlying at all. If you ask me what are the obstacles going forward, as you're rightly saying, we've seen a swing now in our customer retention in the private lines part of the business, retention rates are improving.

We're still waiting for that to happen also in the commercial segment in the quarters to come. That's probably one thing I would like to see.

Then in terms of any other obstacles, we have seen inflation across the board being a little bit more stubborn than expected, that is also why, as Mikael is saying, we are pricing ahead of inflation in Norway, but in all markets we need to cater for inflation. I don't see any concerns in terms of me delivering on the underlying, no.

Asbjørn Mørk

All right, that was very clear. Thank you.

Operator

Next up is Mathias Nielsen from Nordea. Your line is open.

Mathias Nielsen

Thanks a lot, and also congratulations on the strong start or strong end to the year, last year. My question is coming a bit back to the top line and I'll try to limit myself to one question with more aspects of it.

The first one is when we look at the pricing component in Q1 '26 and compare that to Q4 '25, is there anything in particular that we should pay extra awareness to in terms of the magnitude of price hikes and so on? Then related to that on the top line, maybe also a bit on the retention rates, as you mentioned, they look like they're improving a bit.

How is it actually when you look at the whole market? I guess the retention rate for all insurance company must be a bit under pressure with price hikes.

What is your perceived market share gain out of that? Do you see yourself as now starting to be flat on market shares or taking a bit market shares again after having had a few quarters with market share loss?

How do you see it yourself?

Johan Kirstein Brammer

All right, you're touching upon a few topics. Maybe I can start on the whole growth component.

We're reporting for Q4 a growth for the group of 4.1. It's 5.3 for the private segment.

You're also sort of alluding to the composition of the growth because we are honestly coming out of a highly inflationary environment. We're quite content with the growth level we're seeing around 4%.

If you just ask me, and I think that's what you were trying to do in your question, sort of compare the composition of the growth if you go back some quarters, we are seeing as inflation tapers off, we're also seeing that pricing makes up a smaller and smaller part of our growth component. I think when you fast forward to the end of the strategy period, I think price will take up even less space of the growth than it does today.

We are seeing the trend moving. As for retention, you're right, there are some specifics for all insurance companies that of course when there's a repricing, that increases mobility in the market.

I think that's a market dynamic. I think you're spot on.

I think you're also talking into sort of the repricing in terms of inflation. Mikael, I don't know if you want to touch that.

Mikael Kärrsten

Yes, just to be clear on pricing and I think it's important to understand that we have three slightly different stories depending on country. Again, if I start with Norway, we are pricing clearly lower than what we did last year, but still we are significantly above the inflation level in the way we price going forward in Norway.

When it comes to Denmark, we're pricing slightly ahead of inflation, and Sweden we're pricing on inflation. It's all dependent on the sort of market starting point and our commercial activities, etc., etc., in the markets.

Mathias Nielsen

My main question was basically just when you look at Q1, the growth in Q4 was obviously helped by price hikes that was quite high in Norway over the past years, in Q1 should we expect the growth to take a small hit in downward direction from the pricing element coming down or do you see yourself offsetting that by market share momentum coming up?

Johan Kirstein Brammer

Are you asking about Q1 2026?

Mathias Nielsen

Yeah.

Johan Kirstein Brammer

I think I'll refrain from going into specifics around the quarter we're in today, but I understand your question also as to how much should we get hung up on a quarterly spike. I think honestly, I don't think we should get too hung up on the quarterly developments in our growth numbers.

There will be stochastic swings in that. I think you should see it in a more longer term, our growth components.

It doesn't take a lot to swing the numbers. We are very pleased with how we're coming out of 2025 here, the first year of the strategy period.

We're comfortable also coming into next year. We are optimistic in terms of our growth.

We're not hung up on any specific numbers. We're more interested in the quality and the composition of our growth, and we're very optimistic on that.

Operator

Thanks. Our next question comes from the line of Martin Gregers Birk from SEB.

Please go ahead.

Martin Parkhøi

Thank you so much. Perhaps talking a little bit about capital.

You reduce your underlying solvency capital ratio by 3 percentage points or so. Just trying to bridge that to your earlier comments about a gradual adaptation of your solvency ratio.

I guess my question is why isn't 1.5 billion in share buybacks a better number in order to support you in walking the talk of a gradual adaptation of your solvency ratio? Thanks.

Johan Kirstein Brammer

Good morning, Martin, and thank you for your question here. Let's just start with the fact that we are very pleased to launch a 1 billion share buyback today.

With this, the solvency position is slightly less conservative than it was a year ago, which obviously means that this is a step in the right direction and fully in line with what we have been communicating, that we expect the solvency position to gravitate towards a less conservative level in the longer term. As stated several times before, we will do so in a controlled manner as opposed to larger movements.

It is in that light you should see the 1 billion that we have announced today.

Martin Parkhøi

Allan, in all respect, at the current pace, it's going to take you 5 years to reach the 180 target, right?

Johan Kirstein Brammer

I'm not aware of which target you are alluding to here. We don't have a solvency target.

Martin Parkhøi

I'm alluding to the 180.

Johan Kirstein Brammer

But 180 is your number, it's not a number that you have been hearing me communicating. Martin, just if you take a step back, in the last 13 months, we've done a total of buybacks of 3 billion: the 2 billion we announced December 2024, and a billion we announced today.

I think that's a pretty significant shareholder remuneration. Of course, you're right: 1.5 is better than 1, but I think we are not here to win the race short term, we're here to win the race long term, and I think we're in a good, gradual journey in a controlled manner.

That's who we are as a company.

Martin Parkhøi

I guess, Johan, in all fairness, you also make a lot of money, right? You do have peers that are pointing to a solvency ratio that is significantly below yours.

In my book you're rather straight in communicating that you want to pay out as much as you can, and when we then get the numbers, I guess it's also fair to say that you perhaps do not necessarily walk the talk in this respect.

Johan Kirstein Brammer

Martin, I totally get what you're saying, right? I must say I fundamentally disagree.

I remember in December 2024 we said that we had been living in a very unstable environment, and that being a little bit conservative on our solvency has served us well. We also said that when we saw the world stabilize, we would also gravitate more towards a less conservative level.

Those were the words that came out of our mouth on December 2024. I think it's fair to say if you look at the world the last week or so, I think it's still serving us well to be prudent.

You will see us come down to a less conservative level, and we are taking a step today. I see your point, right, and we can always discuss the speed, but we are moving in the right direction exactly as we said 13 months ago.

Operator

All right, stay tuned. Next up is Vrish Musalia from Goldman Sachs.

Please go ahead, your line will be unmuted.

Vrish Musalia

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I just had one and it's again a little bit on your top-line growth.

Just trying to understand, in the past you've basically said that you expect growth to be in the 4% to 7% historical range. I was hoping that as we get closer to the end of the strategic period, your growth would accelerate.

Based on what you've said today, essentially feels like your pricing is going to come off a little bit in Norway. In Sweden, you're in line with inflation, and in Denmark, just a little bit ahead.

I'm struggling to see what might potentially be the levers as to what you could pull to actually grow faster. It just sounds like your growth could taper off a little bit more from this point simply because pricing will now start to moderate.

If you could just help me understand how to really think of top-line growth and the 4% to 7% historical range, that would be very helpful. Thank you.

Johan Kirstein Brammer

Thanks for that question, and maybe I'll just start here. I think when you are operating in mature markets as we are at Tryg, most customers already well insured, and when you're growing in a mature market, you need to have a very disciplined approach, especially in highly inflationary markets.

I must say, coming out of a very highly inflationary environment with a growth in the quarter of 4.1 gives me a lot of comfort. When you're alluding to sort of what is the growth going forward, I think I remember saying that in history we had been between 4% to 7% and we would aim to be in that range.

For me, the importance is not where we are in that range, it's the quality of the growth we see. Growing in insurance is easy, growing in a profitable manner requires skill, and we want to do this very gradually.

As to your question, where is the growth going to come from? Just to give you a few examples, I think I alluded to some of them today.

Yes, you're right that the pricing is coming slightly off in Norway, but still higher than inflation. What we are seeing is our retention levels in the private business is coming back, that is going to be fueling growth.

What we're seeing, as I mentioned, we have made a number, I think 12 motor agreements in Sweden in private lines, that's going to fuel the growth on motor in Sweden, which was part of our CMD targets. We are seeing cyber insurance growing between 15% and 25% across Scandinavia.

We are seeing pregnancy insurance taken from Sweden growing in Denmark and Norway. There's a number of growth pockets, and I'm very comfortable that we can deliver a strong, profitable growth in the business.

For me, it's the quality of the growth that you guys should be observant on, not hung up on a decimal.

Vrish Musalia

If I could kindly just follow up on that. On the quality of growth, can you just maybe help us quantify a little bit as to if you had to accelerate your growth by 1 percentage point, how much would you potentially have to give away in margin so just that we understand the trade-off a little bit better?

Johan Kirstein Brammer

That's essentially trying to ask me to tell you the length of a rubber band. If you go into the very exotic risk on a global property market, you can take whatever growth component you want and you can throw away as much profitability as you want to.

We are very disciplined player. We have shied away from a lot of international corporate business.

We are a retail-oriented player. It's very much an SME and private lines business where we are today, and in that market, it comes down to actually making prudent decisions on your risk, making prudent decisions on your pricing.

I'm not in the market of trading top line with bottom line. That's not how I see it.

I think the trick here, and that's what we're doing, is to grow in a profitable manner. We don't want to have a very strong variance in now we're growing, now we're shrinking.

I think we want to be stable, that's what you're seeing. That's because we have a prudent underwriting philosophy and a very prudent pricing methodology.

It's not how we see it.

Vrish Musalia

Got it. Thank you so much.

Operator

As a reminder, press 5 star to ask a question. Our next question comes from the line of Tian Lu from UBS.

Please go ahead, your line will be unmuted.

Tian Lu

Morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question, it's Qian Lou from UBS.

Just a quick one on commercial. Retention rates and top-line growth were still a bit soft in Q4.

You mentioned about turn of larger accounts. Could you please maybe give some color on the January renewals for commercial and comment on the competitive dynamics across the countries and in different segments, i.e., SMEs and larger accounts?

Should we expect commercial growth to recover to a more normalized level like mid-single digits? Thank you.

Johan Kirstein Brammer

Thanks for that question, and maybe I can start on your question on renewals. I would argue it's probably more a question that we should discuss when we report Q1.

That being said, we are in an environment now where we see inflation tapering off compared to where it was just a year ago, and that also makes me quite optimistic as for the renewals. I think we'll get back to the actual reporting of that as we report Q1.

As for the market dynamics, maybe, Mikael, you will say a few words.

Mikael Kärrsten

Yes. I think overall we're very pleased around sort of our starting point when it comes to sort of all the different markets, Sweden, Norway, Denmark.

As Johan was saying before, we are mainly an SME player, but obviously sort of also looking out for specific pockets in the somewhat larger segment. Overall, we see that we have a very strong position and are comfortable that we can have profitable growth also in these segments going forward.

Vrish Musalia

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Vinit Malhotra from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Vinit Malhotra

Yes, good morning, thank you. I hope you can hear me.

I'll try to put in two into one, sorry for that, but it is one. In Denmark, it's now the second quarter that there is some explanations that are being needed on the large losses or IT costs, and just curious whether, when you dig deeper, you're saying everything is in line, is some of this coming from some of your acquisitions, or what do you think is driving that?

The sort of half-link question to that is whatever you're seeing in Denmark or Sweden or Norway is that giving you a bit more confidence from, you talked about 7.5 underlying technical going towards 8.2, let's say. Is that giving you a bit more confidence from these four quarters of this plan, or is that giving you just the right confidence to achieve that step between 7.5 to 8.2?

Thank you.

Johan Kirstein Brammer

Thanks, Vinit, for that, and maybe I'll just start here. You're right that we are coming out today with a Q4 with a few explanation as to why the combined for Denmark is up.

I am full of confidence that there is nothing that you need to worry about in our Danish operation. In this particular quarter, it comes down to IT periodization and the fact that last year in that particular quarter, we had very little large claims.

There are a good explanation, and I think you need to come back to the full-year combined for Denmark, which comes to 82.4. That's why I have very strong confidence in not just the 2025, but also into the 2027 numbers.

There's nothing in our strategy execution or in our financial plan execution that gives me any concerns for our 2027 targets. I'm full of confidence.

I couldn't honestly have wished for a better position. We are very strong, we're solid, and we're now in a position where we can start to invest even more into the market to grow partnerships, to grow product categories, to cross- and upsell.

I think being where we are after the last few years, I couldn't have wished for a better position.

Vinit Malhotra

Could it mean that there is a bit more upside towards 8.4, or is it just because, people are trying to understand because the buyback has just been in line, and then, the the pressure from us is from the market to us is can Tryg do a little more on that target? I'm just curious about that.

Johan Kirstein Brammer

I think we're four quarters into a three-year plan, I think it's way too soon to consider our targets. As we mentioned initially, and I understand where you're coming from, but as I mentioned initially, we have tailwind in 2025 of 442 million on better large and weather.

That is, of course, supporting our 2025 numbers. When you strip that out, we are exactly where we want to be in our plan and our execution.

We are very confident where we are, but it's way too soon to consider targets. We have four quarters in.

Vinit Malhotra

Great, thanks, Charles. Thank you.

Operator

As no one else has lined up for questions, I'll now hand it back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Mikael Kärrsten

Thank you all for your very good questions and for listening to our call. As always, the IR team at Tryg, it's at your disposal today in the next few days.

Otherwise, I'll thank you again and see you soon.