Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen SA
WSE:PZU
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[Interpreted] Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to a warm welcome at the recapitulation of our results for the second quarter and the first half of the year. And just as we did in the previous several quarters, also this time, we are having a meeting that is organized online with all restrictions resulting from the current pandemic.
And just like in the case of our previous conferences and the previous quarters, we will say a few words about our major achievements of the PZU Group in the second quarter about what we did in terms of implementing our strategy. During that time, we will recapitulate our financial results. And for the first time, we will show those results against the background of the strategy, which was announced earlier this year.
Let me start then with our major achievements and what shaped our results in the second quarter. What I would like to draw your attention to, because I have the impression we do not all keep that in mind, is that the second quarter was the peak of the third wave of coronavirus. So in spite of the fact that we talked about this wave in the first quarter, it very heavily affected our results. The second was under strong impact of the pandemic. And nevertheless, we are still able to talk today about very good results.
Let me start then from the beginning. Consolidated result PLN 774 million, and that was a major year-on-year growth. Let me remind you that last year this time, we were witnessing quite significant write-offs, impairment write-offs of the assets that were identified during acquisition from 2 banking entities. And that translated very heavily into stronger results at this time last year. This year, of course, there is no such event, but we have the pandemic, which, it might be said, is one-off event, even though we are talking about the current third wave and the fourth one expected later in the year.
And in spite all of those events, we are able to report very high profit, very high return on equity, more than 17% in the second quarter, over 18%, almost 19% in the first half of the year. And these are undoubtedly very, very high satisfactory results. As regards the structure of our group and how -- and from what types of activities and how individual segments contributed to the results, all that will be presented in greater detail in a moment. Right now, I would like to say that the payout of dividend confirmed for the second quarter is one of the higher flows that PZU Group will be able to effect.
In the second half of the year in October, the payment will take place, PLN 3.5 per share. Taking into account the current situation in terms of attractiveness of investing in various types of entities, that is one of the highest results among joint stock companies listed in the Polish stock exchange market. And that is even more satisfactory in the context of the fact that those high results can also be benefited from those -- by those who decided to work with us.
The second quarter was marked by high sales dynamics, record sales for this first half of the year. And the second quarter sales were 11% year-on-year growth. What happened in the second quarter was mainly growth in terms of property insurance, 15% up. We can say that quite significantly, corporate insurance contributed to that growth. And that was in Communications segment here. We recorded growth in Property segment in construction and installation and insurance. On the other hand, very solid growth in mass market. We are growing in terms of MSP. We are growing in terms of house insurance. Also very strong growth in terms of riders that we have on top of banking products, mortgage loans and cash loans.
As a result, in this segment, Property Insurance, we recorded very high growth. It is slightly dampened by what is happening on the motor market. In a moment, I will say a few more words about that. In terms of life insurance, quite good. Growth's 5% up, mainly on protection products, mainly in banking channel. And also, we recorded growth in investment products, both those distributed for banking channels and the ones that we distribute through our traditional channels. We are growing in terms of the number of products in our portfolios. We are growing in terms of sales of riders. We also have quite strong dynamics of sales in PZU Health in the insurance part of this business, which translates into 5% growth in Life Insurance.
As regards the second quarter alone, first of all, we would like to pay attention to profitability that was in relation to our equity. And that was mainly the result of high profitability of Property Insurance combined ratio, 88%, which is a very good result. And that's an excellent resulting, taking into account what is going on outside.
Excellent results in main portfolio in the second quarter alone. The surplus of risk-free ratio 4.4%, profitability 4.7% throughout the first half of the year, over 6%, and that is one of the key drivers, which also contributed in a very positive manner to the return on equity. This was slightly dampened by what happened in Life Insurance. Third wave and its peak, which translated into lower profitability.
In our main Life segment, that is group insurance and individual continued life insurance 10%. Very similar as in the first quarter. If we adjusted this result by events related to coronavirus, this excess mortality, this adjusted margin as we call it today, would be at 26% -- over 26%. Costs are under strict control. The second quarter is very decent, 6.8%. So we are at the level of 7% in the first half of the year at a slightly higher first quarter, which translates into return on equity.
High safety of our business. One of higher solvency ratios against our peers. with the average is at about 200%. We report 223%. And just one comment here. This 223% ratio, in terms of the formula for its calculation, changed slightly compared to how we presented it previously. Later on during our presentation, we show it in a comparative manner to present a comparison to our previous form of presentation. And 223%, taking into account financial supervision authority and taking into account a certain prudential element which the regulatory authority wanted to include here into capital ratio. That requires from the insurer, right at the beginning of the year, to deduct equity by what is subject to pay out in dividend in the following year for the started the year.
What we will report to you will be a ratio, which will be characterized by a sudden decrease in every first quarter that results from this adopted formula for calculation. And then during the year, it will recover because there will this one-off encumbrance, which should not be spread over time. But in order to maintain comparability, we will also show this ratio as calculated by the previous method.
As for the development of our business and what happened in PZU, we would like to show you a broader context and how the market changed during that time, as well as what can follow from those changes, because only that does allow us to talk about full picture of all those activities linked to the implementation of our strategy in a certain broader context.
Let me start then traditionally with nonlife insurance and other personal insurance. The good news is -- and just a word of caution. We are showing the latest results that are available as reported by the Financial Supervisory Authority. These are the results for the first quarter. There is a quarterly shift as usual. But the good news is that in terms of communication and noncommunication, motor and nonmotor insurance, the market shows growth. However, the growth in motor and nonmotor insurance is based on slightly different foundations. In motor, growth dynamics is slightly over 2% and the growth is generated with continuously declining prices in compulsory third-party liability insurance.
Although the number of vehicles increases year-on-year, the number of policies increases year-on-year, the price adjust this growth. So TPL is flat. Practically, the entire growth is generated by Auto Glasgow. As you know, the dynamics of sales of new cars, the dynamics of new registrations, was already seen in the first half of the year and we can see a significant growth in this type of premium written growth. On the side of motor insurance, we have over 8% growth. And that is the growth, which was shaped mainly by nonlife general TPL insurance, and this is directly correlated to how the economy is returning to the situation from before the pandemic.
So there are significant capital expenditures. There is a high level of consumption of sole production and all that translates into a great appetite and greater demand for insurance products. And that again translates directly into higher written premium in the first quarter. As regards market shares, we closed the first quarter at slightly under 32% with technical result share over 41%.
What is going on in motor insurance market? This is always a very interesting picture. It is a good predictor of what we may expect in terms of the budget for the coming quarters and performance, likewise. As you can tell from the graph at the upper part of the slide, during the past 6 quarters, we have seen consistent decline. The transaction price was down from average PLN 700 at the beginning of 2020 to approximately PLN 600 and that varies amongst insurer companies, but the price reduction was from 11% to 15%. So this is a major change.
But we know it very well, but it was possible because at the same time, we have seen a major decline in the frequency of claims and that contributed to additional margin for this segment. The second quarter shows that the trend is actually reversing. What we have experienced was the side effect of major restrictions that were applicable across the country due to lockdown and travel restrictions. Now we see that the claims frequency go up and are back to the level of 2019. During Q2, there were -- claims frequency was up by 7% on a quarter-to-quarter basis. And it becomes a challenge for the market, given the declining prices and the increasing prices of parts, spare parts and labor cost.
So we see that on the cost side, there is accumulation of events that will have adverse impact. Now if we take a look at the written premium at the PZU level, I've already mentioned that we were 15% up, 5% for motor insurance, nonmotor 86% for corpo and for mass market 17%. Now we are growing mainly in nonlife products. And we are also growing in terms of corporate products. In terms of the mass market, it's mostly the housing insurance, SMEs, insurance and any riders that are sold with the banking products. This is all suffered by the pressure that we suffer on the motor side.
Now moving on to the life insurance market. Going back to Q1 2021. The market was up by 6.5%. For PZU Zycie, PZU Life was experiencing a lower growth. And this is the point in time when pandemic affected profitability due to higher benefits. But right now, we are also looking at it from the perspective of the pandemic impact on the written premium. As you may know very well, PZU has a substantial market share in the portfolio of departures related to the coronavirus. We've been through 3 waves of the pandemic. The first one is on the rider, our main segment of group insurance, despite the sizable growth of new sales has suffered from the portfolio losses.
Let me just remind you that we mentioned that during one of the previous meetings, that whenever we look at the distribution of mortality or excess mortality caused by the coronavirus, we can tell that there is fairly substantial, like 80% plus, 84%, 85% mortality rate for the age group 65 years and older. And again, PZU has a great segment -- presence in this age group because of our portfolio. And as a result, that affected our written premium during the past quarter, during Q1.
We actually are happy to see a major growth in the single premium insurance. This is 2% on a year-to-year basis. This is the highest market share we've ever had historically from 2008. For individual insurance, PZU is leading the market, growing substantially on a year-to-year basis. And this growth help us -- helps us offset less optimistic news coming from the group insurance portfolio and individually continued portfolio were, despite the efforts to top up sales on health products or riders during the second quarter of 2021. We added a narrowed rider related to the risk of malignant cancer. But despite all these efforts, we had flattened sales.
In terms of individual insurance, a major increase, mainly the protection products that are sold with our partners from the banking group. And again, that simply proves that this relationship brings very tangible benefits to all the parties.
Now looking at PZU Health. I may say that second quarter was basically the follow-up on what we have seen before. So we have more written premium, 28%, 29% is the growth -- is the increase in the contract numbers to 2.9 million contracts more in the Health segment during Q2. And on the insurance side, it was 2.4 million. So we are working to improve our outreach. We are working to improve our scope. We want to make sure that more specialty services, health care services are offered to our customers. So Q2 continued the trend and improved that.
In terms of assets under management, we see a very dynamic growth. On average, it was 26%. And I may say that PZU continues to be the market leader amongst the nonbank-related TFI. We know what is the situation of banks at TFIs, our colleagues on the banking sector have it easier to convert their customers from strictly CDs or deposits and to the investment products or unit-linked products that are offered by their proprietary investment companies, TFIs. But our TFI, our investment branch, is actually growing at the rate of over 25% on a year-to-year basis despite the fact that we are not a banking business. So this is something that we can be proud of. That is related directly to our product structure and the specialty lines of our TFI.
We offer mainly products that are based on the regular savings and pension savings. It's mostly ECS or employee pension scheme and this, too, account for more than 50% of the portfolio. And in case of ECS, we had a tremendous growth during the first 6 months of this year and that is translated in our market share in this segment.
Now cooperation with the banks. As it was the case with the Health segment, we continue the trend and we improve results. In terms of written premium, we have seen a major development. The premium collected by the banks of the group has been growing at the double rate. We are available at all the channels where the bank customers are present. Therefore, access to insurance product has become easier for end customers. We continue to develop the virtual products that are not combined with the bank products so that our product range is as complete as possible.
And the other way around, we continue the collaboration. We are selling the transaction accounts. We are selling loans. PZU stands as one of the major partners for Pekao Bank and the sales through the app. And the total deposits secured by PZU were way above PLN 800 million. And as of the end of the first quarter 2021, we continue to cooperate with the Alior Bank. We are available in over 3,000 companies that are able to offer such solutions to more than 200,000 employees. So we continue to enhance our outreach.
So how all these things translate into the financial performance in Q2? I have already mentioned our premium, but let me reiterate again, 11% up on a year-to-year basis. That's fairly impressive. Naturally, all these things are combined with the higher claims and higher benefits, mainly in the life insurance sector. This is where we see higher claims as a consequence of the third pandemic wave.
Let me just remind you that last year, during the same period of time, we were the beneficiary of the restrictions that were imposed. As a result of these restrictions, our losses or dismemberment claims were at -- were significantly reduced. That was driven by the travel restrictions, mobility restrictions and overall lockdown. That helped us improve our profitability in Q2 2020.
And if you remember well, Q2 2020, well, our profitability for the group and -- was at nearly 30%, and it was one of the highest numbers we have ever communicated in that segment. We were also benefiting from the reduced utilization of medical packages because of the restrictions and because of the fact that people were refraining from using medical services. During the past quarter, the situation is completely different. We were impacted by the coronavirus and the higher utilization of medical packages. And since we don't have this sort of conducive stimulus of the past year, we show different numbers. With the result, risk-free rate of 3.4%. So this is a very consistent performance.
And I may say that, that is combined with the excellent interest result and equity portfolio results. The equity portfolio has become a stronger contributor to overall positive return. Now looking at the operating -- or administrative costs. We have flat negative, which means that we had minor savings on a quarter-to-quarter basis. And we are happy about it because we understand the wage pressure and the overall inflationary pressure. In terms of the acquisition cost, this is where we are up and this is correlated with the higher sales. The sales were up by 11%. Therefore, the cost increase was disproportionately lower. Therefore, we have higher profitability.
Since the cost of acquisition has a lower contribution to the premium. Over PLN 600 million is then profit on the nonbanking result, but banking was at over PLN 100 million. And as a result, we closed the quarter at PLN 724 million, PLN 87.1 million is the combined ratio and the group insurance is PLN 10 million. And when we make the adjustment that I flagged earlier, it's over 26%. So if not for the situation that we had as a result of the pandemic, our profitability would be very high, all these things with very strong cost discipline in place.
From the point of view of profitability in individual segments, I would like to draw your attention to 2 or 3 elements. Once again, sales. In many subsegments, sales dynamics was 2-digit. And in spite of the difficulty on the current market, we record high returns, high profitability, both in non-life personal insurance in Poland and in life. We can say that is against the trend that we see outside. Also our colleagues in Baltic countries, our companies there have very high profitability levels and that allows the company to close the quarter at profitability in excess of 17%.
From the perspective of individual segments and profitabilities, there, we can say that combined ratio in motor insurance continues at decent levels, 92%. We can say that we benefit from slightly better developments in losses. That is previous runoffs and previous compensations paid out translated into the possibility for us to show decreases in loss ratios in those segments, both in corporate and in mass markets.
As for non-motor insurance, we can say that we have solid results. Actually, numbers which we have really good use, the lower ratios on fined insurance, good agricultural insurance, a lower loss ratio on weather conditions. In the second quarter, we had excessive flooding. We had intense rainfall. This time, those events were shifted to the third quarter, July and August. And probably, this is something we will talk about when discussing our results for the next quarter. But this time, in this segment with events related to weather conditions, we had very good results.
In terms of life products, the dominant effect is that of coronavirus. In the second quarter, we had a weakening of the third wave. And as a result, we were able to dissolve the provision that was established at the end of December 2020, that was for pending risks in the amount of over PLN 50 million. And that translated into improved profitability in that area. And obviously, as I have already signaled how utilization of paramedical risks and also benefits linked to children in individual market margins, we had a decrease that was caused by higher sales in the banking channel. So that drove higher distribution costs and high acquisition costs.
On the other hand, we also know that this segment, to a lesser extent, but yet reflects the pandemic situation. And what was the situation like? So a few numbers. If we look at quarter-to-quarter numbers, increased number of deaths in Poland by over 20%. That's what we have mentioned so far. So we had increased loss ratio in the second quarter, quarter-to-quarter by almost 26 percentage points, of which death's 19 percentage points. That was mainly hospitalization and other health products, 4.4%.
As regards other risks related to inability to work or disability, the share was over 2%, which is a very significant growth year-on-year. Last year, the situation was completely different. And the same goes for normalized long-term trend. Here, the growth is almost 20%. If we eliminate positive events of the second quarter last year, all those things directly contribute to our situation in the second quarter.
Very good result on investment interest result. Capital portfolio's -- that's also something that played the greatest role in our results, and that shaped our result in that period, slightly adjusted by negative result on valuation and implementation, mainly on decreased valuation and negative exchange rate differences.
Let me remind you, we are trying to make sure that the currencies show the right mix so that eventually, we become neutral in a natural way. And that means that currency strategies that we implement correspond to our portfolios. And this, in turn, correspond to our insurance items. So as in principle, we have natural foreign exchange hedging. Costs are under strict control year-on-year, decreased by 0.4 percentage points with very high payout ratio. But that's already something that I've mentioned.
We would also like to show a few graphs on how the activities that we conducted in the first quarter can be placed in the context of our intention and strategic ambitions. And I'm referring to the strategy that was announced at the beginning of this year. Let me start with written premium. We estimated that we present a comparison of the first half this year to the first half of last year. The dynamics is quite at 6% and it can show how we are on our way towards achieving our main strategic objective and have almost 20% growth with estimated growth for that period and the strategy at almost 80% net profit.
Here, this reference is not quite representative. We know what was going on last year. At this time of the year, we talked about the impairment adjustments. And now it is very difficult to draw far-reaching conclusions. We have a growing contributions from banks, from negative at the end of the first half of the year, contribution at PLN 251 million. Solvency ratio continues flat. Assets under management are up, and I've already talked about that. That translates into growth in terms of return on equity.
Here, I think I would like to end. Well, maybe not finally, but for the time being. I assume that you might want to ask some specific questions. And probably this is the right moment when we should stop telling you things and start answering your questions from the room or actually from outside the room, because we have very few people here.
Okay. The first question. In what time perspective profitability of life can return to around 20%?
We are at 20% plus if this element of coronavirus is eliminated. Last quarter, we talked about it and we are talking about this, this quarter as well. Let me remind you also certain seasonality linked to this segment. Seasonality, which is characterized by significantly higher profitability in summer quarters. That is second and third and significantly was first and fourth quarters. So we can say that excluding the effect of coronavirus, we are still there. But this is a question a little bit to the effect when the negative effects of coronavirus will disappear finally.
And when will we be able to say that the excess mortality will discontinue. Normal level is about 8,200 deaths per week. During those waves of coronavirus, we had weeks where mortality rate was more than double that number. So the answer to this question is a little bit the answer to the question, "What and how will shape the development of the pandemic going forward?"
We can risk the following statement. If the pandemic is over, we can deal with 1 of 2 scenarios. The first, where we benefit from significantly higher returns. And when we have significantly higher profitability, which is a direct function of the fact that for a longer time, after worse results that stemmed from accumulation of negative events, there will be a weakening of those negative events and rather weak impact on our results. As a consequence, mortality in Poland will stay for some time below that normal level I mentioned a moment ago.
On the other hand, we are aware of the fact that on top of this positive scenario, we might have another one. For sure, it will materialize. That is the so-called medical debt scenario. Here, we are saying that in the past 18 months, we've seen a certain restraint in taking care of our health appropriately, just as before the pandemic. And that restraint was caused by the fears and a lot of people thought that a visit to hospital, which was not absolutely necessary, could end up in catching COVID. That is why some people postponed their visits. On the other hand, certain diseases which require lasting medical care, could have developed in an undesirable way. So again, we will probably see materialization of something that we call medical debt. And this, in turn, may dampen this potential benefit.
So again, if we assume that as a society, we get vaccinated. And if we are able to effectively stave off the next waves, we can say that the third quarter could be at a level similar to 20% -- close to 20%. And the whole year, at the earliest, that will happen next year.
M&A transactions became popular in the insurance market. We can question this point. Does PZU have appetite for any acquisitions in the insurance sector?
I will reiterate something that has already been stated. Yes, we have the appetite, but we're not talking about acquisitions in the Polish market. Here, the situation is difficult, taking into account the concentration, both in life and in nonlife insurance. So it will be hard to say that we would be able to acquire a major market player with the approval of the Office for the Protection of Competition and Consumers. We -- because then we would exceed all concentration limits. Already now in some segments, we account for a major part of the market. So we have to be aware of that. We have to keep that in mind when we think about the M&A transactions in Poland. And outside Poland, probably there are not so many of these transactions.
If any, then they are either based on the multipliers that tend to be difficult for us if we are not able to get synergy in the local markets. And I understand that synergy is a factor in the transaction prices, regardless whether these transactions are closed at the end of the day. So certainly, we cannot afford all these banks. But yes, we do want to grow our business, and we want to be quite opportunistic about it. Therefore, we will take advantage of such transactions when plausible.
What amount of the current year has been recognized for the purposes of the solvency ratio?
Well, let me refrain from answering this question. I don't want to heat up the discussion about our presumptions and predictions and projections for the end of the year. We follow a conservative approach and -- to projecting the result for this year. And we also look at the historical levels of the payouts. We -- you know very well that during the past few years, we were at 75%, 78%. Therefore, I may say that we continue our approach and intention to be an attractive public company. But at this point, I may not actually provide you any numbers.
Adjusted margin at the group level, was it about Q2? Or was it about the first 6 months?
Well, it was about Q2. But looking at the 6 months of 2021, profitability is at the level of 22% or 23%. Therefore, when we eliminate this particular factor, we continue to be where we used to be in terms of the margin.
In the motor sector -- motor insurance sector, is it likely that the prices will go up during the second half of the year?
I think that this is inevitable. The prices have to go up. I may say that Q2, to me, was surprising in terms of very, sort of timid approach of the market. You can tell that we are in the side market in terms of the prices. The prices has become fairly constant. There are just tiny movements up and down. And when you look at the frequency of claims, all of us travel the roads. All of us see that traffic jams are picking up again, so this increase in prices is inevitable. And to give you a range, well, I should say that if we are back to the same frequencies of claims as we had in 2019, the market has gone up by 15% in terms of prices with the average motor claim as we have it today.
And the pricing of claims has been going up because of the higher prices of parts, because of the fact that people tend to drive faster, newer, better vehicles and this is a stronger contributor to the price. This is a price parameter, but it's not currently reflected in the pricing. So the price has to rebound. And in my opinion, it should have started in quarter -- in the second quarter of the year. But as of today, everyone in the market is watching what others are doing.
And now a question from the logistics. What was the contribution from this sector?
I think that the contribution was nearly PLN 80 million.
Can profitability in the group level be affected by the high or by the excess mortality?
Well, let me answer this question in the following way. When we listen to what is being said globally about the fourth wave of pandemic, I think that we have to yes to this question.
Is good performance of your equity portfolio driven by single exposures? Or is it the portfolio based?
I think that I have already answered this question to some extent. But in addition to what I have said, I may say that we have been very consistent in building our private equity portfolio. This is quite a challenge, because from the point of view of the profitability, you have a J curve. Because our colleagues in the funds, many times, have their management fee based on the commitment. It's not based on the actual assets that are engaged. Therefore, this portfolio has to be built very consistently, but we have to actually avoid dramatic changes, not to recognize negative situations. We have been doing that for a fairly long time. Therefore, equity portfolio has been always -- has been also under the influence of the strategy.
Recently, we read in the media, but the PZU has turned their policy and claims adjustment and the how they are going to work with the body shops. And can you see the first effect in your results?
No. We haven't seen that reflected in the results yet. Perhaps I will answer this question as follows. We have not changed our policy for claims adjustment. We have been very consistent with the rules that we have implemented with our business partners, meaning the workshops and garages. But at the same time, we have to be aware of the fact that the prices that we pay for the claim adjustments have to do a lot with how we can actually determine our prices for the customers. And when you look back at the past few quarters, you can't tell, but in certain cases, our average price related to the adjusted motor claim was deviating from the market too much.
What does it mean? It means that our partners, regretfully, have been taking advantage of us. They have treated us as an easy -- sort of an easy way to offset the declining frequencies of claims. Because look at it, at the lower frequency of claims, less business for the garages and body shops. So they have less claims to adjust. There is less work for them. And we continue to hear about the price pressure and everyone thinks how you can best manage in the situation.
In terms of our policy, nothing has really changed. We are trying to sort of put these appetites on hold just to make sure that we may continue to keep our prices attractive to -- for end customers. And let me just say that our profitability in the motor insurance segment has been eroded. And if we are not safeguarding the market, we may end up with a situation where the changes in the market are very detrimental to the customers at the end of the day. And I just want to say that we need to look at the price in terms of the adequacy of this price compared to the total cost that is incurred in this particular market segment.
Therefore, if you want to be serious about it, you either manage your costs or you need to adjust your prices, because otherwise, you get into trouble. And if you get in trouble, that affects your capital standing. You remember what happened in 2017, what started to happen at the end of 2020. So this is how we see that and how we respond to that. It's not that we are changing the policy or the rules of collaboration with our partners.
So is good, combined ratio beyond the motor market is a one-off? Is it a seasonal thing? What can we expect in the coming quarters?
Well, certainly, during this quarter, we haven't seen the same developments as we observed in the Q2 of 2020 when we had a lot of floodings and a lot of rainfall and hail and all kinds of natural calamities, weather related. So the sort of weather seasonality shifted to Q3. And we will keep you updated on that in the due course.
The quarterly margin in individual insurance segment has been the lowest for the past 10 years. Why did it happen? What was driving that? And can you treat that as a one-off event?
I think that I have already covered that. On one hand, this is the result of the major distribution in the banking segment, and this is where the distribution cost is lower. And at the same time, as it was the case with the Life segment, we -- we're affected by excess mortality. The number of deaths went down in Q2.
No, it is not true. In Q2, we didn't have a reduction in deaths. Let me make -- reiterate it. 16- to 17-week show the peak of pandemic. And as you can remember and count back, April was a very bad time for us. And our Life business was in the negative territory at that moment. It's not that we have fully recovered from that.
Now can you actually comment on the development of the benefit systems -- ecosystem of benefits for drivers, e-drivers?
And I may say, we are finalizing our work on this ecosystem, and we will communicate that at the end of this year. The benefits and the driver ecosystem is something that will help us move into the next year. In terms of the technological capacity and the throughput that you need for that, well, we know very well that it is not easy to recruit IT resources. Therefore, we had to schedule that solution accordingly and how it is going to be inserted in our corporate insurance portfolio. So we will communicate it at the end of the year, and the benefits for the drivers is the next stop.
Now that would be all in terms of the questions that we have received from our Internet audience. I cannot see any further questions. Therefore, I would like to thank you all for joining us. Unless we have questions coming from the audience, I can tell that there is no one raising their hands. So thank you so much, and I'm looking forward to see you back during our next conference.
[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]