content_image/85931.jpg content_image/85930.jpg content_image/85929.jpg
## GERMANY 

_ With revenues of 10.1 billion euros, Allianz Sachgruppe Deutschland (SGD) is number one in the German property and casualty insurance market. 

_ In addition to being the holding company, Allianz AG is also the Group’s reinsurer. Its premium income amounted to 5.5 billion euros. 

## Gross premiums 

<img src='content_image/85931.jpg'>

## Earnings after taxes and before amortization of goodwill 

<img src='content_image/85930.jpg'>

## Sachgruppe Deutschland 

<img src='content_image/85929.jpg'>

Total premium income in Germany increased by 313 million eu- ros or 2.5 percent to 12.6 billion euros. 

At 4.1 (9.2) billion euros, earnings after taxes were substantially lower than in 2002, which is in particular attributable to excep- tionally high disposition gains in the previous year. 

## Sachgruppe Deutschland 

Premium income of SGD grew by 3.4 percent to 10.1 billion eu- ros, driven mainly by premium growth in automobile insurance (2.7 percent), casualty insurance (3.9 percent) and liability in- surance (4.5 percent). 

The claims ratio clearly improved to 68.1 (73.5) percent. In the previous year, the high claims expenses caused by the flooding disasters had pushed up this indicator by 5.1 percentage points. Putting this aside as one separate occurance, the improvement comes to 0.3 percentage points. Comprehensive cost cutting, mainly in administrative expenses and IT costs, which had already been launched in the previous year, brought down the expense ratio to 24.9 (28.0) percent. 

SGD’s investments totaled 22.3 (21.3) billion euros at the end of the year. The corresponding income of 565 million euros re- mained clearly below the year 2002 figure of 2.4 billion euros. This figure, however, reflected the one-off special effect produced by the substantial gains. As a result, earnings after taxes fell to 0.4 (1.9) billion euros. 

In the current fiscal year , we expect SGD to be able to sustain its improvement of the combined ratio, even while it is pursu- ing its risk and earnings-oriented rate and underwriting policy. We project premium growth of approximately 1 percent. 

