Balance sheet 2006 (IFRS):
- Profit before taxes rose by 25% to €238 million
- Net profit for the year increased by €42 million or 31% to €175.1 million
- Return on equity over 20%
- Dividends should increase by more than 34% to €0.35
- Group premiums for the first time over €5 billion – international share around 33%
- Reduced claim and cost ratios improved technical results
- Around €21.2 billion assets under management

UNIQA Group Austria has further strengthened its position as one of the leading insurance companies in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and with an improvement in profit on ordinary activities (before taxes) to €238.5 million successfully continued its growth course, which focuses on profit. The already good profit before taxes recorded in 2005 was thus again exceeded by 25.3%. 

UNIQA's Chairman of the Management Board, Konstantin Klien comments: “The basis for our success is our strong position in Austria as well as the internationalisation strategy which is clearly aimed at profitable growth. The massive expansion in recent years has resulted in UNIQA being represented in 20 European countries via participations and cooperative activities, and substantial increases in the premiums and profit that we produce outside Austria. With over 12.5 million managed insurance policies, gross premiums of around €5.1 billion and capital investments over €21 billion the UNIQA Group is today not only one of the leading groups in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, it is also one of the most successful in financial terms. At the same time as expanding our action radius, we have succeeded in raising sales profitability from 1.5% in 2002 to 5.8% in the 2006 financial year by continuously reducing cost and loss ratios and good financial profits. In line with the pleasing development of the UNIQA Group in all areas, at the annual general meeting in May we will recommend another substantial 34.6% increase in dividends to 35 cents and therefore pay out €42 million to our shareholders. They will benefit from the successful implementation of our strategy with dividends that have more than doubled since 2002.”

The UNIQA Group’s consolidated gross premiums (incl. the savings portion from unit- and index-linked life insurance policies) increased in 2006 by 7.6% to €5,091.4 million. The growth drivers were clearly the Eastern and South-Eastern European markets and life insurance business in Italy. The increased competition especially in property insurance business throughout Western Europe, the special situation regarding life insurance in Austria – with high expirations especially in bank sales and a substantial reduction in single premiums – and the strategic withdrawal from less profitable segments had a braking effect on growth rates.
Overall the consolidated premiums of the insurance companies that are part of the UNIQA Group in Austria (UNIQA Personen- and UNIQA Sachversicherung, Raiffeisen Versicherung, FinanceLife Lebensversicherung, Salzburger Landes-Versicherung and CALL DIRECT Versicherung) rose by 1.0% to €3,420.5 million.
The highly developed Western European Markets (WEM) of Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein – where UNIQA operates in profitable niches - formed the second strongest Group region after Austria, with premiums of €1,031.1 million (+19.5%).
The highest rates of growth were recorded in the racing economic development of CEE  (Central and Eastern Europe) and EEM  (European Emerging Markets). The companies in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Serbia that are already included in the consolidated accounts produced premium income of €639.8 million – 32.7% more than in the previous year with an ongoing high potential for the future.
With a volume of €1,670.9 million (+24.3%) the companies outside Austria recorded a 32.8% (2005: 28.4%) share of Group premiums in 2006. Thus, with clear growth in Austria and a significant increase in profit and financial power the UNIQA Group has managed to nearly triple the international share of premiums since 2002 – whereby the most recent acquisitions in Ukraine and Romania are not jet included.

At the business segment  level – in spite of the special situation in Austria – life insurance recorded the strongest growth rates at 10.9% and reached premiums of €2,164.5 million.
In particular, the successes in the CEE and EEM regions and the booming market in Italy further extended the importance of life insurance as the largest segment. In 2006 premium income made up 42.5% of the total consolidated premiums. Group companies in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe produced – from a market-related low level – an excellent increase in premiums totalling 77.1% to €210.1 million. Here Hungary took on a special position because changes to the legal environment resulted in an unusually strong demand for single premiums and an extremely high increase in premiums (+172.4%). The other countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe also recorded an average increase in premiums totalling 35.8%, showing how high potential still remains in this area.
In Western Europe the booming business in Italy (+43%) as a result of changes to the tax framework stood out and dominated the 42.2% increase in premiums in this region to €475.5 million. In total in 2006 at €685.5 million (+51.3%), 31.7% of life insurance premiums was already recorded outside Austria (2005: 23.2%). Even if we do not expect the special effects in Italy and Hungary to be repeated the backlog demand in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe together with the strengthened sales power from the preferred partnership with Raiffeisen will keep the level of internationalisation in life insurance high in the medium term.
The 1.3% fall in life insurance premiums in Austria to €1,478.9 million was primarily the result of high expirations in bank sales. In addition, the targeted and market-led fall in single premium business, which currently makes up 13% of the UNIQA Group life business in Austria, had a dampening effect. The income from policies with recurring premium payments in contrast rose by 4.1% to €1,287.5 million. UNIQA was able to extend its leading position with a dynamic growth in state-subsidised old-age provision (“Zukunftsvorsorge”) in a falling market and in this area held its market share at around 33%. 

In property and casualty insurance the premiums across the Group increased by a substantial 5.4% to €2,037.1 million – matching a 40.0% share of total Group premiums. As a result of an over-proportional increase by 18.0% to €426.8 million, the CEE and EEM countries strengthened their importance within the UNIQA Group in this segment.
In contrast, in the Western European Markets premiums fell slightly by 0.6% to €376.2 million as a result of the generally tougher competition. This resulted in an 8.5% overall increase in international business to €803.0 million, which corresponds to a 39.4% share of consolidated premium volumes for property and casualty insurance.
In Austria the UNIQA companies succeeded in increasing gross premiums by 3.4% to €1,234.1 million in spite of the late start to the vehicle market due to the long winter and the increasing price competition. In spite of the severe winter and the claims related to heavy snow supported by consistent reorganisation measures activities and a risk-oriented underwriting policy, it was possible to further reduce the claims ratio. Combined with an equally successfully reduced cost ratio, this resulted in a consolidated combined ratio (gross) of 95.4%, which is substantially below the previous year’s level (98.2%). 

The health insurance premiums increased by 5.3% over the previous year to now €889.8 million – corresponding to 17.5% of total consolidated premiums.
In Austria where UNIQA is the clear market leader by far the Group recorded premium volumes totalling €707.4 million in 2006 (+2.0%). 
In the Western European countries health insurance premiums rose by 19.9% to €179.5 million. Part of this increase came from only consolidating Mannheimer Krankenversicherung – in which UNIQA holds 100% - into group accounts for three quarters in 2005.
In Eastern and South-Eastern Europe private health insurance still plays a subordinate role – premiums increased by 61.1% from a low level.
The level of internationalisation in the UNIQA Group for health insurance is around 20.5%.

The UNIQA Group’s consolidated retained insurance benefits fell in spite of the claims related to heavy snow at the start of the year and the increased business revenue by a total of 1.6% to €3,715.6 million. In Austria UNIQA even managed to reduce insurance benefits by 5.2% to €2,807.4 million. In the other regions there was an increase in benefits as a result of the strong increase in premium volumes, which at 11.2% was clearly below the increase in premiums. Overall the relationship between benefits and premiums earned (incl. the savings portion from unit- and index-linked life insurance) fell from 87.6% to 80.3%.

The costs, which as part of the profit improvement programme only increased under-proportionally to premium development, resulted again in a much lower cost ratio – both in Austria (19.8% compared with 20.2% last year) and the companies in Western, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (23.3% compared with 24.9% in the previous year). The Group cost ratio was 20.9% (2005: 21.5%). The administration cost ratio fell even more strongly and at the end of the year was 7.3% (2005: 8.1%). 

The UNIQA Group continued to increase the number of employees at home and abroad especially as a result of internationalisation. Overall the number of employees in the UNIQA Group increased in 2006 to 10,748 people (2005: 9,943).

Total investments of the UNIQA Group were €21,155.2 million and therefore €1,787.9 million or 9.2% above the comparison value of the previous year. This makes UNIQA by far the largest asset manager amongst Austrian insurance companies.

The net profit for the year was €175.1 million after increasing by 31.4%. The earningsper share climbed to €1.29 from €0.94 in the previous year. The gross IFRS-ROE  also reached a new high in 2006 at 20.8% (2005: 19.7%). At the same time total equity was strengthened by €196.1 million and at €1,329.8 million is more than double as high as in 2003 (€649.4 million).