Bäte: (laughs) Well, not at all, after all there's plenty to do. Incidentally, net profit is also at an all-time high, which is probably even more relevant.

Coste-Lepoutre: Our growth is driven by two fundamental factors. Firstly, there are macroeconomic trends such as the increasing need for retirement provision. Secondly, people are looking for security in this world, which is very uncertain and complicated. Our brand is very strong, stands for trust and conveys this security. The two factors together are therefore strong drivers for growth. These remain the central themes for the period 2025 to 2027.

Bäte: That's an important point: growth is now more uneven. We therefore need to get used to not simply using a single quarter as a benchmark for the future. The fourth quarter of 2024 was by far the most successful quarter ever for Allianz. However, as I said, this is not an indicator for all future quarters.

Bäte: Overall, we will see more volatility and greater fluctuations within a year. However, we believe that the underlying growth, which used to be closer to 3%, will be significantly higher in the next three years.

Coste-Lepoutre: That's true in principle. At the same time, we have communicated that we are aiming for more than 17%. We are currently just below that. So we are on a very good path, but not quite there yet.

Bäte: People only ever look at progress. In our planning, however, we also have to take into account that there may be setbacks. Another point is that the capital markets will remain volatile due to political uncertainties.

Bäte: Absolutely – for example, if a trade agreement is reached between US President Donald Trump and China. This could provide a further short-term boost to growth, at least this year. So we are prepared for volatility in both directions.

Bäte: It's true that we had an enormous boom in reinsurance, and industrial business, and this boom is coming to an end. But don't forget: the private customer market, particularly in Europe, has been very weak in recent years. In motor insurance, we had a loss and expense ratio of more than 110% across the entire industry.

Bäte: Not everything is perfect at Allianz, the combined ratio in the private customer business is one percentage point higher than Claire-Marie and I would actually like. We still have potential, even if prices in the industrial insurance segment are weakening somewhat.

Coste-Lepoutre: The teams' hard work to cushion the effects of inflation and the impact of natural disasters is bearing fruit. The measures taken to combat inflation in particular are having an impact on the figures. In addition, our German automotive business had the most successful renewal round in its history at the beginning of the year. This is a sign of the strength of the German team.

Bäte: Our life insurance business is extremely resilient. Many of our competitors have withdrawn from the life insurance business and declared that it no longer has a future. However, the reality is quite different. With rising interest rates, this business is growing very strongly again – and with extremely high margins. Ten years ago, when I became CEO, we were still struggling to achieve a new business margin of 3%. Today we are slightly below 6%.

Bäte: Asset management has been a challenge over the last three years because rising interest rates have weighed on the bond markets. However, our US subsidiary Pimco now has a market share of over 50% in the US in terms of net inflows. Assets under management are growing massively. Even AGI is doing much better than observers had predicted. To summarise, I can say: yes, there are challenges, perhaps there will now be fewer price increases in the retail business. But we have a broad global base and are very well diversified.

Bäte: We always look at such opportunities. But they have to make sense.

Coste-Lepoutre: In our view, the approach of using the previous year as a benchmark has proved its worth. Of course, this entails a certain conservative basic orientation. But this is right in the current economic situation.

Bäte: We always try to do our best. Let's see how the year goes.

Coste-Lepoutre: For the property and casualty business, I expect continued growth and an improvement in the margin, mainly due to a lower claims ratio and somewhat due to the falling expense ratio. I also expect investment income in this segment to be slightly lower. The life and health insurance segment will also see somewhat lower investment income. In addition, the exit from the joint venture with Unicredit in Italy will have a negative impact of 200 million euros on our operating result. However, the effect on the net result will be much smaller because we only own 50% of the joint venture.

Coste-Lepoutre: The environment there remains complex. We have therefore planned a rather cautious development for this segment. Overall, however, we are confident that we will fully achieve the targets we set ourselves at the Capital Markets Day.