Suncorp Group Limited (SUN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. It's turned 9:00 by my clock. So we'll kick off the session, and good morning, and welcome, everyone. I'm joined today by Sian Mueller, our CFO Financial Services; and Sian's been with Suncorp since 2020 and has been leading our AASB 17 project. Now I'd like to emphasize that today's presentation solely relates to the adoption of AASB 17. We'll be updating on our FY '24 performance at our half year results presentation in February, and we'll be limiting our comments today, therefore, to AASB 17 matters. So I'd like to start by being very clear that the adoption of the new accounting standard will have no impact on the economics of our insurance business. The key changes that AASB 17 will bring can be broadly divided into 2 categories: firstly, measurement changes, which impact the timing of when certain items emerge through the P&L; and in this presentation changes, which impact how certain items are presented in the financial statements. Now whilst we acknowledge that changes to accounting standards does give rise to some friction in the system and can be frustrating for us all, there are benefits to the changes. They should improve the transparency and consistency of our reporting as an industry over time. And the system investment provides great foundations for future-proofing our finance systems and giving us improved granularity of information. We'll also see more focus applied to poor underwriting results, which I'll cover later. I'll now run through what we'll cover in today's session. First up, Sian will cover the key measurement changes in both the GI and Life Insurance businesses, and I'll then take you through the transitional impacts on our balance sheet and capital and outline our approach to management reporting. I'll then conclude by summarizing how we'll support you through this transition, including the release of the pro-forma Investor Pack alongside the presentation this morning. There will be an opportunity for Q&A following the presentation. But on that, I'll now hand over to Sian.

Thanks, Jeremy, and good morning, everyone. I'll start by running you through the key changes resulting from AASB 17 that will impact the measurement of our general insurance contracts. The first thing I'd like to note is that the entire GI business is eligible to report under the -- at Premium Allocation Approach. This is a simplified approach for recognizing revenue and expenses over the life of the contract, which is predominantly 12 months for our GI business. The approach is closely aligned with the outgoing Australian standard AASB 1023; there are, however, some key differences. Firstly, the risk adjustment on claims liabilities reduces, driven by a lower probability of adequacy requirement. There is the addition of an illiquidity premium to the rate by which claims are discounted, and the replacement of the liability adequacy test with a more granular onerous contract assessment. I'll run you through each of these in more detail over the next few slides. I'll start with the risk adjustment and reserving. Insurance companies are required to hold reserves to cover the expected cost of claims. And under AASB 1023, reserves were held at 90% probability of adequacy, meaning that the claims reserve needed to be sufficiently large such that there was a 90% confidence that adequate funds were available to pay the claims that emerged. That requirement reduces to a 75% probability of adequacy under the approach that we have adopted, which is based on our cost of capital. On transition, this change in risk adjustment will result in an increase in retained earnings of approximately $500 million before tax. Now while this number may appear large, it's simply a result of the reduction on the probability of adequacy from 90% to 75%. We've chosen to have 75% applied across the book as we believe it aids simplicity and noting it also broadly aligns with APRA capital requirements. The risk adjustment is expected to be relatively stable year-to-year. The ongoing P&L impacts are expected to be broadly neutral with current year risk adjustments offset by releases of risk adjustment on prior year claims. Okay. So on to claims discounting. And the key change relates to the addition of an illiquidity premium to the risk-free rate when discounting claims. We've calculated the illiquidity premium with reference to average historical credit spreads and expect it to be relatively stable going forward. The mechanics of discounting claims remain the same as under AASB 1023 and these are: the initial discounting of new claims reserves; the impact on reserves from changes in discount rates, which going forward will include the illiquidity premium; and the discount unwind. Both the transition adjustment and capital impact will be minimal, and the ongoing P&L impact is expected to be broadly neutral with the larger PV adjustment offset by the additional discount unwind. The other key change is how discounting is presented in the financial statements. With the discount unwind and the impact of changes in discount rates no longer included, no longer being recognized in net incurred claims lowering the reported claims expense, and this is consistent with the way we have previously prepared our key management reporting analysis. So on to onerous contracts, and under AASB 1023, the liability adequacy test was performed at an entity level. The incoming standard requires a more granular onerous test known as onerous contract assessment. Suncorp has based this test at the level at which the business is managed, which has resulted in the identification of 17 groups. Each of these groups is separately assessed at the start of the year to determine onerous risks, noting that the test uses the probability of adequacy in line with the risk adjustment at 75% and not the central estimates. This means that a group only needs for its underwriting margin to be below the risk adjustment for it to be considered onerous. If onerous, the standard requires that the future expected losses are recognized immediately in the P&L, known as the loss component. Note that this does not impact the ultimate profitability of the group, but the timing of profit being recognized in the accounts. To determine the balance sheet impacts, we were required to look back to the balance sheet transition date of 1 July 2022, and assess whether any of the groups would have been onerous at that date. Based on that assessment, some groups were considered onerous with the most material being consumer motor mass brands and Queensland CTP. The initial assessment of the loss component resulted in $55 million being recognized on balance sheet and adjusted through retained earnings. Throughout FY '23, as persistent high inflation impacted the Motor portfolio, the application of the new standard method, the loss component increased. Overall, the impact of onerous contracts in FY '23 is to reduce profit by the increase in the loss component over the course of the year, a total of $43 million. At the end of FY '23, the loss component provision totaled $98 million, with the majority relating to motor mass brands. As we've noted on the slide, in FY '24, we expect the onerous balance for motor mass brands to reduce the higher pricing it's been through. Although this may be potentially offset by the impact of ongoing inflation, Queensland CTP balance remains broadly stable. I'll now move to the New Zealand Life business. There are 3 measurement approaches under AASB 17 and all of which will apply to elements of our New Zealand Life business. However, 70% of our premiums relate to business that's renewed annually and is therefore eligible to apply the simplified premium allocation approach. As with the GI business, the application of the new standard will not change the underlying cash flows for the New Zealand Life business, only the timing of profit emergence. And importantly, the planned profit margins are not expected to be impacted materially. There are 2 main measurement changes. The first change relates to the amortization of acquisition costs for business under the premium allocation approach. Previously, acquisition costs were deferred and amortized over an extended period through until the natural expiry of the policy. Under AASB 17, acquisition costs will be amortized using an agreed run off pattern, and this change accelerates the amortization of deferred acquisition costs. The second key measurement change relates to contract boundaries, which essentially is the period during which rights and obligations exist under our policy. Projections of cash flows are no longer over the life of the contract, but until the insurer can reassess and re-price accordingly. This change impacts our stepped -- largely impacts our stepped premium business as the view of contract boundary has materially shortened from a long-term natural expiry boundary to 12 months under AASB 17. The shorter contract boundary and the impact this has on experience profits is largely responsible for the reduction in AASB 17 NPAT in FY '23. For example, previously, the benefits from favorable economic assumption changes, including higher CPI and policies with built-in indexation were capitalized and booked in the current year. Under AASB 17, we can only recognize the year 1 benefit in the P&L. Now on that note, I'll hand you back to Jeremy.

Thanks very much, Sian. Well, I'm going to quickly now touch on some of the transition impacts, and I'll start with the balance sheet. So Sian's taken you through each of the items in some detail already, but the overall net assets are expected to increase by $122 million on transition, primarily driven by the increase in retained earnings from risk adjustment changes in General Insurance, partially offset by an expected reduction in New Zealand Life net assets. Now it's important to note that the adjustment to retained earnings does not impact on capital with regulatory capital requirements largely unchanged. Moving then on to capital. And the impact from implementing the standards is broadly neutral with higher CET1, but also higher targets. Now I note the impact on capital of the opening retained earnings adjustments, which is then offset by a reduction in excess tech reserves to give rise to a net neutral impact. This, as I said before, is because the regulatory capital levels remain largely -- or remain unchanged. The modest increase in CET1 of 0.05x is largely driven by transitional tax relief, that's on the tax liability for the retained earnings adjustment giving rise to a deferred tax liability. The transitional tax relief will unwind over the next 4 years, reducing the CET1 ratio by around 0.01x each year. The increase in GI capital targets of 0.025x is driven by a change in APRA treatment on excess tech reserves, increasing the risk of DTAs, deferred tax assets, in downside scenarios, and hence, giving rise to a higher capital target. The capital impact in New Zealand Life is expected to be broadly neutral. I'll now talk you through some of the disclosure and presentation changes that we've made. And arriving at our management accounts view, we've applied a number of key principles. Alignment to the statutory accounts where possible to avoid overly complex reconciliations and over time, aid global comparison across insurance peers, alignment with the way the business is managed commercially, alignment where appropriate with historical practice to alleviate changes for our investors and analysts. We've considered the presentation formats adopted by our local peers, albeit I do acknowledge that we're further apart than I would ideally like. And we've adopted a presentation that is easy and intuitive for investors to understand and analyze. On the slide, we've provided a reconciliation between the FY '23 reported results and our new AASB 17 format. Now whilst it does look complex, the key changes are actually reasonably straightforward. And the key ones are the separation of the discount unwind and market rate adjustment on claims liabilities, out of net incurred claims into a separate P&L category. I do note this is consistent with the way we have historically analyzed our net incurred claims numbers. Operating expenses have been split into direct operating expenses, commissions and a new category non-directly attributable expenses that's required under the standard. And in the introduction of an insurance service result, which gives more focus on underwriting performance and is similar to a traditional combined ratio metric. The color coding on the slide shows how the AASB management P&L, maps and reconciles with the previously reported P&L for FY '23. If you just look at the box in the middle of the slide, the presentation or mapping adjustments are listed at the top table in the middle of that slide, and these have no impact on earnings and have moved to align with statutory reporting, eliminating the need to reconcile these items going forward. At the bottom of that table in the middle, we've listed the measurement changes that will have an impact on reported profit. And we've already walked you through the mechanics of most of these changes. I do note the change to group expenses. Under AASB 17, there are less direct -- there are less costs that may be DAC-ed, including the non-directly attributable expense category. The change also allows for some methodology simplification. I note that the new NDAE expense category will be managed within our overall cost target, which is around a flat expense ratio. Moving then to our key metrics. Now the adoption of the new standard has provided an opportunity to reflect on the key metrics we use to measure business performance. However, the first thing I want to make clear is that we'll continue to report an ITR and underlying ITR results. And whilst the ITR will be impacted by the key measurement changes, the underlying ITR calculation under AASB 17 is expected to remain very similar, notwithstanding some ongoing financing. I note that we do not expect the AASB 17 changes to impact on our underlying ITR outlook provided for FY '24 or our target ranges. But at the same time as that, we'll begin reporting on the underlying insurance services ratio or underlying ISR, which we believe has a couple of big advantages. Firstly, it reflects the underwriting performance of the business with the exclusion of net investment income, as discussed on the previous slide, and it provides comparability given it's inverse of the combined ratio used by other companies. Similar to underlying ITR, it will be normalized for items such as natural hazard experience and prior year reserve releases and, therefore, will provide a through-the-cycle view. So I'd like to conclude by summarizing quickly what we've provided for you today in the pro-forma Investor Pack that we released alongside this presentation. We've restated the FY '23 financials, including for each of the halves under the new AASB 17 format to align with ongoing reporting. Now I note that we've only provided you with the sections that are relevant to these changes. We've also restructured the path to align with the new operating structure of the business with new consumer and commercial segments for Australia. So you have the pro-formas for those. We've also included more detail on underlying ISR and yields both the group and in the line of business level. Going forward, we'll continue to report GWP as our primary sales metric, and we'll also continue to report on underlying ITR. Reconciliations between AASB 17 and AASB 1023, the old and the new profits, will be provided over a transitional period. So that brings us to the end of our presentation, and we'll now move to questions. We're also joined today by Andrew Huszczo, our Chief Actuary; and Carla Pickford, who will join us now. Now we're using Teams for the first time for this meeting. So hopefully, it's going to work and Neil's moderation will be seamless. I do remind you all to put your hand up if you want to ask questions. And on that, we're now happy to move to questions.

First question is from Andrei.

Sorry, can you hear me now?

Yes.

Brilliant. I wanted to ask 2 questions. And look, the first one, can you just explain a little bit more on Slide 14, the slide where you have the classic underlying insurance merger of 10.4%. But also the new method of 10.7%. I feel like maybe this could be a point of slight confusion for investors like how to think -- they're broadly similar numbers, how to think about them going forward, should they remain broadly similar numbers? What is the value focus on one versus the other?

Yes. Thanks very much, Andrei. Look, the first 2 columns on that chart, the yellow columns, the underlying ITR metrics, and they are similar but not the same. The key difference between the 10.9% under the old AASB 1023 and the 10.4% under AASB 17 is the change to the expense methodology. So the non-DAC'ing of NDAE and then some of that smaller methodology changes that we've made. But DAC is a timing -- given that we were a short-tail business largely, the DAC normalizes itself. So whilst the FY '23 underlying ITR is a lower number, as you can see on here, the difference between the 10.9% and 10.4%, that then catches itself up into FY '24, which is then why I made the comment that the underlying ITR guidance that we've provided for FY '24 and our target ranges should remain unchanged from the AASB -- the shift to AASB 17. So going forward, we would expect that underlying ITR number to align between the 2 versions. And then the numbers on the right-hand side, is really just showing that we're going to put a little bit more focus on to the underlying ISR, the insurance services result, which is a classic underwriting result of the business and give you and investors a little bit more transparency over that. And really what we're trying to do there is showing how that reconciles up, adds up with the underlying ITR. And obviously, the key difference in the numbers there is that the NDAE not included in the line on the right-hand side. But we can easily include those for consistency purposes and then that total would also add to the 10.4%.

And look, my second question, not related to IFRS or AASB 17, but really, I just want to ask, there is a cyclone heading towards the Cairns, Port Douglas area. Can you remind us like how does the new cyclone reinsurance pool work? Like, is your entire book including the back book, not just the front book now part of that pool? And how do you think this kind of test of the pool will play out in terms of the potential financial impact for Suncorp?

Look, thanks, Andrei. At the outset, I did make it clear that we're only going to be talking about AASB 17 today. So if you don't mind, we'll limit our comments to that. Notwithstanding, we entered into the cyclone pool effective 1st of July. And I guess, Cyclone Jasper still has a little bit to play out in terms of where it hits and the strength of it. If you don't mind, we'll just keep the comments today to AASB 17.

The next question is from Sid.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Great. Okay. I have a couple of questions, Jeremy. Firstly, I just wanted to clarify one of the technical points you raised about the onerous contracts. I think you say there that you expect no impact going forward on from Queensland CTP failing the onerous contracts test at the end of '23. I think you say, you expect interest rates should offset the benefits from -- or sorry, the impact from RACQ -- coming on -- some of the redistribution of the RACQ contracts done. I just wanted to clarify why that would be the case. I mean interest rates are hitting down at the moment, wouldn't there be an expected further strain rather than a benefit.

Yes. Thanks, Sid. Look, I think with -- we've acknowledged that the Queensland CTP portfolio from RACQ is less profitable than ours, but we're still picking up that portfolio and analyzing the exact performance of it. I think there will be some movements in the yield curve. That may be up, that may be down. There will be some movements on that onerous contract from the RACQ business. I think the key point is, at this stage, we don't expect it to have a material impact on that onerous -- net onerous contract balance through to FY '24. But there'll be a number of moving parts that we're still working through. But as I said, the key point is we don't expect it to have a material impact at this stage.

And that's for all the failures and all the moving parts, I think it not just for RACQ...

Correct. Correct. Yes. On CTP in -- Queensland CTP in aggregate, yes.

Okay. Great. Okay. If I could just ask a second question just around the illiquidity premium. Is your approach for it to be stable? Or will you be reassessing it over time. I think we've had different approaches from different insurance companies. I just want to understand your approach.

Yes. Look, we've said it's referenced to the average 5-year credit spread and then a multiple on that, which is the basis of it. But it's what I call range bound. So as long as it stays within a certain range, we don't expect to change it. And by reference, it would have been -- it wouldn't have changed. It has stayed within that range for 80%, 90% of the time over the last 25 years or so. So we don't expect it to move -- to be volatile. But there may be -- you can think of scenarios where credit spreads move in an extreme fashion that may cause it to move. But we generally expect it to be pretty stable.

Okay. Great. And just one final question. Just you had a focus on underlying ITR in terms of your guidance for a long time. Are you -- over time, are you expecting a move to this UISR and also, I mean, does that -- is there a slight change in terms of how we should be thinking about your targets going forward. Because the underlying ITR effectively includes the benefits of yields, but underlying ISR, I suppose, doesn't, right -- will that be fair, is that right?

Yes. Look, I think we're still working through what we would provide. But certainly, for a transitional period, we will be focusing on underlying ITR. I think over time, we will look to introduce more analysis and discussion around the ISR ratio. But at the end of the day, when you look at the P&L, the underlying ITR is really just the underlying ISR plus the underlying yield, which will -- you can see in the pro-formas we provided minus the NDAE expenses. So it all adds up in a very transparent way. And the important thing I think for today is that the underlying ITR guidance ranges that we've given remain unchanged even under AASB 17 methodology approach.

The next question is from Kieren.

2 questions, if I can, maybe just starting on a follow-up on that underlying ITR conversation, Jeremy. With that, non-directly attributable expense differential that comes through, which I think you said is sort of the key driver of the 50-basis-point impact on the underlying ITR last year. Even though you're not changing your view on the range for '24, 10% to 12%, does it influence where you think you're going to land in that range at 50 basis points? Just trying to get a sense that how material factor is on a go forward? Is it fairly similar?

No, because it's DAC related and DAC obviously washes itself out over a reasonably short period of time. So effectively, what we see here is that the old underlying ITR would have been a higher number in '23 and a lower number in '24, i.e., that would have been with a higher DAC balance in '23, there would have been a higher drag into FY '24. We no longer see that drag under the AASB basis because it's now effectively been neutralized out in FY '23. So DAC's short term, it's timing, which is why, therefore, the underlying ITR on either basis -- sorry, on AASB 1023 or AASB 1017 basis gets to a similar point to what we previously expected for both the first half and second half '24 guidance.

Okay. All right. And secondly, just on the -- this new divisional disclosure, and apologies, I haven't had a chance to look through it in a huge amount of detail at this stage. But your main P&L now includes sort of internal reinsurance. So I'm just wondering if you can confirm exactly what's going into that? And then sort of on the underlying segmental reconciliation for GI, that's not included sort of as an area. So I'm just wondering where that gets reallocated to?

Yes. So in the first P&L, you'll see that we show, we've got an item that is the head office, figure if we pulled it -- internal reinsurance, sorry. And so that's where you can see quite transparently that number. That is the impact of the internal reinsurance on the Australian business. We've left the impact of the internal insurance in the New Zealand business because we think that makes sense. And then we've given a note in those pro-forma disclosures around how that internal reinsurance effectively works between premiums, reinstatement premiums, the actual hazards incurred and has allowed. So I think when you have the time to go through the pack period, it should all be reasonably straightforward and there's a bit of disclosure in the pack around how that works. But the reason we haven't changed necessarily the way we've thought about that internal reinsurance. But as we go into FY '24, with that larger internal reinsurance layer in place, it becomes quite more significant material and therefore, we felt the need to be a bit more transparent around the disclosures around it.

Kieren, we can take you through that offline. The next question is from Julian Braganza.

Can you hear me clearly?

Yes.

Perfect. Just a couple of quick ones from me. So in terms of just the tax benefit, that you've taken there, just the detail on transition. I just want to understand, has that been confirmed and reviewed. In other words, is that subject to review by the -- by APRA or the ATO? Or is that all final and okay to be taken into capital at this stage?

Yes. I think that's what's been confirmed in terms of legislation chart.

The legislation hasn't been fully enacted yet, but it's been confirmed. It's within the draft legislation that there's a 5-year transition period that you can elect to take.

Okay. Great. And in terms of just the change in the capital targets, is that largely to reflect that DTL -- or is there additional changes that are incorporated in that delta and how you're looking at the capital targets?

Well, so the CET1 is impacted by the -- that transitional deferred tax liability. But Carla, you might want to just give a bit of color on the target change.

Yes, sure. So when we model our capital targets, we look at a range of severe scenarios and in those scenarios, we have some deterioration in excess technical provisions. What we have now is that when APRA changed the prudential standards to allow for IFRS 17, they're now requiring us to assume that the tax effect on excess technical provisions is deferred. And so what that means is that whenever we have deterioration in excess tech, it's the gross of tax impact that comes through, not the net of tax because the DTA is a deduction from capital. So that's something that when we model the targets, it just means that we have a larger deferred tax asset in downside scenarios, and that means that then when we analyze how much of the size of the capital target we need to set, it's a higher target. So that's not related to the transitional impact at all. It's purely related to the APRA change to the prudential standards.

Okay. Great. That's super clear. And then just in terms of the -- just the last question for me. In terms of the onerous contracts, I'm not 100% sure. I just wanted to check just the decision to increase it from a 60% threshold to a 75% threshold. Is that prescribed or is that more discretionary in how you decided to set that PoA?

Well, it's effectively prescribed in the sense that the standard requires a cost of capital approach. We have certainly thought long and hard about, can we justify a different one for that onerous contract calculation. But at the end of the day, that was not the case. And so effectively, it's prescribed in the sense that's the calculation we get to through the cost of capital approach. And obviously, it's consistent with the same probability of adequacy on the open claims reserves as well.

The next question is from Andrew Adams.

Thanks for all the detailed historical disclosure too, really helpful. Just on some of those other items, just thinking about our projections. So the NDAE, is that a normal level that we saw in '23 that we should think about projections going forward? Or is there anything in there to call out just we'll be thinking about using that FY '23 basis?

Thanks, Andrew. Look, I think the NDAE is probably an item that's going to have a little bit more volatility because it tends to be -- it will be project related and projects that we can't directly attribute. So for example, IFRS 17 has been a feature of it over the last couple of years. The thing I would say is that the NDAE is an accounting -- it's an accounting standard change. It's not the way we think about managing our cost base in the business. And maybe an approach is to -- is just to add it in with the direct operating expenses. And as I said...

As a matter to glue them together, but just you kind of use it as a disclosure perspective going forward type of thing.

Correct. Yes.

Yes. And then just below the insurance results, so when we look at that other income and shareholders' funds, just looked like -- I guess I wasn't expecting them to change. But why did some of those numbers change, so investment income and shareholders' funds lifted, but maybe schemes was down. What was the reason for the change in some of those specific items?

I want to come back on that Andrew, because I didn't think those have changed, particularly much, the investment income or shareholders' funds and managed funds. So...

Okay. I assume you did have a $20 million boost or something, but we can take that offline.

I think $4 million, yes, $4 million delta.

Other expenses getting moved.

Yes. Okay. So there's just a little bit of noise, but it should be -- maybe it is a $4 million delta. You might be looking at what we've done in the pack is we've shown an underlying and a nonunderlying version. And so the underlying version changed because we've taken out the mark-to-market on fixed income movements and shareholders' funds. But the nonunderlying version should have remained largely the same.

So there'll be some permanent expenses to go in there that weren't in there previously.

Yes. It's pretty small line of stuff, yes.

And capital funding just in that other item there?

Yes, it will be. Yes.

Thank you. There are no more questions at the moment. [Operator Instructions] I think we've exhausted you all with our extensive presentation today. I'd just like to conclude by saying that we will have an Excel spreadsheet with all of the tables that are in the Investor Pack that we'll put on to our website later today.

Okay. Thanks very much, Neil. Look, if you do have any more questions, I know there's a reasonable amount to digest here. The team is more than happy to take the call and help you work through any of those questions you've got. But thank you very much for joining us today. Really appreciate your attendance. And if we don't see you beforehand, I wish you all a very good -- a very Happy Christmas and Happy New Year as well. So thanks very much, everyone.