Despite the financial crisis, AachenMünchener Versicherungen successfully completed the 2008 business year and thus strengthened its market position in a difficult environment. Especially the life insurer grew stronger than the industry, maintaining its no. 2 position among German life insurers and leaving its competitors further behind. The property, personal accident and general liability divisions of the multiple line insurance company also recorded a positive development.

For the first time, the life insurance and composite insurance business of AachenMünchener exceeded the € 5 bn threshold. "Business development is impressive. Despite the crisis and the incipient recession, we have been able to continue the 2007 trend together with our long-standing strategic partner, Deutsche Vermögensberatung, and have once again achieved above-average growth”, says Michael Westkamp, Chief Executive of AachenMünchener.

Premiums in excess of € 5 bn
For the first time, the gross premiums written of AachenMünchener reached the historic high of € 5,137.8 m (previous year: € 4,941.4 m) - corresponding to a 4.0 percent growth. The premium income in the industry only increased by 0.5 percent. Despite the crisis of the financial markets, AachenMünchener achieved a profit of € 77.3 m (previous year: € 153.1 m). The life and composite insurance business of AachenMünchener has 3.4 m customers holding a total of 11.6 m policies.

Growth through extraordinary distribution achievements of Deutsche Vermögensberatung
The above-industry-average growth is owing to the extraordinary distribution achievements of Deutsche Vermögensberatung and its more than 37,000 financial advisors. The long-standing strategic partner of AachenMünchener has once again proven to be a stable guarantor of growth. Transferring the distribution of AachenMünchener to Deutsche Vermögensberatung thus proves to be a great success. Customers can exclusively purchase the products of AachenMünchener from the worldwide no. 1 of independent financial services distributors. AachenMünchener concentrates on its core business - products, customer and distribution service.

Life insurer records high growth
AachenMünchener Lebensversicherung improved the gross premiums written by 5.7 percent to € 4,110.6 m (previous year: € 3,889.4 m). The premium income in the industry only increased by 0.8 percent. New business in terms of regular premiums rose to € 556.8 m (previous year: € 449.4 m). This corresponds to a 23.9 percent growth, compared to an industry plus of 6.3 percent. Single-premium premiums recorded a 30.9 percent growth to € 364.4 m (previous year: € 279.2 m) compared to an industry growth of to 4.0 percent. In total, the new business of AachenMünchener grew by 26.6 percent to € 922.3 m (previous year: € 728.6 m), whereas the industry gained 4.6 percent. The amount of cover of the policy portfolio increased by 3.1 percent in 2008, reaching € 131.6 bn (previous year: € 127.7 bn). AachenMünchener Lebensversicherung now has a policy portfolio totaling 5.5 m.

Riester pensions - a success story
The business with government promoted retirement provision was an important growth engine. The Riester pension accounted for 42 percent of the new business of AachenMünchener last year. One reason for this success was the increase in the government-subsidized maximum contribution to the Riester pension from 3 to 4 percent or a maximum of € 2,100. This resulted in a new business growth of € 79.1 m. Even without the Riester increase step, the new business of AachenMünchener would have grown by 6.3 percent - whereas the industry would have recorded a 6.5 percent downturn without this step. In total, AachenMünchener issued more than 267,000 Riester policies (previous year: 172,450). The recently introduced Riester product STRATEGY No. 1 accounted for a major portion of this. AachenMünchener now has a Riester policy portfolio totaling 1.055 m.

Safety-oriented investment policy
Because of its long-term, safety-oriented investment strategy, AachenMünchener was not affected as severely by the financial crisis last year as other companies of the industry. In late 2008, the equity weighting amounted to 4.0 percent and had declined by 1.4 percentage points compared to 2007. The capital investment performance dropped from € 773 m in the year 2007 to € 553 m in the last business year. The net interest return was also influenced by the financial crisis and amounted to 3.0 percent (previous year: 4.3 percent). As profit bonus, AachenMünchener passes an amount of € 332.7 m (previous year: 571.9 m) on to its customers.

Composite: Property, personal accident and general liability business records growth
In the composite insurance business, AachenMünchener recorded premiums written of € 1,027.2 m and once again exceeded the € 1 bn threshold. This signifies a success because the transfer of the internal master organization AachenMünchener Beratungs- und Service Organisation AMBuS to Deutsche Vermögensberatung was associated with a loss in sales and distribution capacity of approximately 8 percent. This loss was mainly noticeable in the composite business and was expressed by lower premiums written. In total, gross premiums dropped by 2.7 percent from € 1,052 m in the year 2007. The industry achieved a slight plus of 0.2 percent in 2008. AachenMünchener Versicherung had a policy portfolio totaling 6.1 m in late 2008.

VERMÖGENSSICHERUNGSPOLICE property cover contributes to growth
The property, private accident and general liability divisions achieved a premium income of € 622.8 m (previous year: € 612.2 m) or a 1.7 percent increase - which was slightly above the 1.6 percent industry growth. The VERMÖGENSSICHERUNGSPOLICE property cover presented itself as an important growth factor of the composite business in 2008. During the last business year, 185,678 policies (previous year: 121,671 policies) were sold - an increase by 64,007 or 66 percent. This property cover unites a homeowners', accident, glass insurance and - on request - legal insurance in a single policy.

Motor insurance change business stabilized
The loss in premium income in the 2008 business year results from the decline in the motor insurance. There, contribution income also dropped by 8 percent to € 404.4 m (previous year: € 439.8 m) as a result of the loss in sales and distribution capacity and an unfavourable change business 2007/2008. The industry recorded a 2.0 percent decline. By contrast, the motor insurance termination business 2008/2009 experienced a positive development. Further losses of existing policies could be avoided. Since May 2008, AachenMünchener has for the first time offered a tariff that includes a basic and a PLUS option. The basic option provides for particularly low-cost protection, whereas the PLUS option offers all-round protection for motor vehicles.

Improved combined ratio of claims and expenses
The combined ratio of claims and expenses could be improved to 94.2 percent in 2008 (previous year: 97.1 percent). There were no major incidents of damages, such as hurricanes, although the year 2008 also saw a number of violent weather events. The combined ratio of claims and expenses of AachenMünchener is 0.8 percentage points better than the industry average of 95 percent. The value of 97.1 percent recorded in 2007 was attributable to the storm Kyrill.

Pressesprecher::
Andreas Krosta
medien@amv.de
Aureliusstraße 2
52064 Aachen
Telefon: (02 41) 4 56-54 81
Telefax: (02 41) 4 56-55 14
www.amv.de