Company Reports

While Sampo's second-quarter results are a marginal miss versus company-compiled consensus, they are much better than the comparative quarter as well as the first three months of this year. That is due to both a solid underwriting improvement and a recovery in the investment result.

Sampo is an efficiently run Nordics-based personal lines insurer that tends to focus on improving its underwriting quality year on year, whether that is through holding on to customers for longer and therefore paying less in acquisition costs; digitalizing its operations and extracting expenses; gaining scale and negotiation power with its partners such as BMW, Ford, Mercedes, Nissan, Nordea, Volkswagen, and Volvia; or an ability to select lower-cost customers in terms of claims or customers that are willing to pay that little bit more in price. Sampo has proved this ability year after year, and to achieve this, it tends to invest organically around EUR 100 million annually. We think the savings the company has generated from these investments have more than covered their cost. We believe these investments have been good for shareholders.

Sampo is an efficiently run Nordics-based personal lines insurer that tends to focus on improving its underwriting quality year on year, whether that is through holding on to customers for longer and therefore paying less in acquisition costs; digitalizing its operations and extracting expenses; gaining scale and negotiation power with its partners such as BMW, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Nordea, Volkswagen, and Volvia; or an ability to select lower-cost customers in terms of claims or customers that are willing to pay that little bit more in price. Sampo has proved this ability year after year, and to achieve this, it tends to invest around EUR 100 million annually. We think the savings the company has generated from these investments have more than covered their cost. We believe these investments have been good for shareholders.

For the first quarter of 2026, Sampo has delivered buoyant underwriting profits. Yet realizing debt and Noba investment losses has led to the company reporting negative net income of EUR 46 million.

Sampo has packed a lot into its full-year 2025 results, with the EUR 540 million gain on the NOBA sale leading to buoyant net income. The business has also upgraded its distribution policy, but when we dig deeper we see underlying performance slightly lagging.

Sampo is an efficiently run Nordics-based personal lines insurer that tends to focus on improving its underwriting quality year on year, whether that is through holding on to customers for longer and therefore paying less in acquisition costs; digitalizing its operations and extracting expenses; gaining scale and negotiation power with its partners such as BMW, Ford, Mercedes, Nissan, Nordea, Volkswagen, and Volvia; or an ability to select lower-cost customers in terms of claims or customers that are willing to pay that little bit more in price. Sampo has proved this ability year after year, and to achieve this, tends to invest around EUR 100 million annually. We think the savings the company has generated from these investments have more than covered their cost. We believe these investments have been good for shareholders.

Sampo is an efficiently run Nordics-based personal lines insurer that tends to focus on improving its underwriting quality year on year, whether that is through holding on to customers for longer and therefore paying less in acquisition costs; digitalizing its operations and extracting expenses; gaining scale and negotiation power with its partners such as BMW, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Nordea, Volkswagen, and Volvia; or an ability to select lower-cost customers in terms of claims or customers that are willing to pay that little bit more in price. Sampo has proved this ability year after year, and to achieve this, it tends to invest around EUR 100 million annually. We think the savings the company has generated from these investments have more than covered their cost and more than covered the returns the business was already generating. We believe these investments have been good for shareholders.

For the third quarter of 2025, Sampo has reported a good set of results. Numbers are tracking ahead of our full-year forecasts even when we strip out the EUR 355 million gain that has been recorded for the group's ownership of Noba Bank Group.

Sampo is an efficiently run Nordics-based personal lines insurer that tends to focus on improving its underwriting quality year on year, whether that is through holding on to customers for longer and therefore paying less in acquisition costs; digitalizing its operations and extracting expenses; gaining scale and negotiation power with its partners such as BMW, Ford, Mercedes, Nissan, Nordea, Volkswagen, and Volvia; or an ability to select lower-cost customers in terms of claims or customers that are willing to pay that little bit more in price. Sampo has proved this ability year after year, and to achieve this, it tends to invest around EUR 100 million annually. We think the savings the company has generated from these investments have more than covered their cost and more than covered the returns the business was already generating. We believe these investments have been good for shareholders.

Sampo has delivered solid financial results for the second quarter of 2025, with net income of EUR 417 million, which is EUR 80 million ahead of company-compiled consensus. With this performance, the company has added EUR 25 million to its full-year underwriting profit outlook.

Sampo is an efficiently run Nordics-based personal lines insurer that tends to focus on improving its underwriting quality year on year, whether that is through holding on to customers for longer and therefore paying less in acquisition costs; digitalizing its operations and extracting expenses; gaining scale and negotiation power with its partners such as BMW, Ford, Mercedes, Nissan, Nordea, Volkswagen, and Volvia; or an ability to select lower-cost customers in terms of claims or customers that are willing to pay that little bit more in price. Sampo has proved this ability year after year, and to achieve this, it tends to invest around EUR 100 million annually. We think the savings the company has generated from these investments have more than covered their cost and more than covered the returns the business was already generating. We believe these investments have been good for shareholders.

We have tweaked our assumptions and model for Sampo to better reflect the underwriting improvements the business generates as a result of its investments in proprietary technology, the source of its narrow moat.

Sampo is an efficiently run Nordics-based personal lines insurer that tends to focus on improving its underwriting quality year on year, whether that is through holding on to customers for longer and therefore paying less in acquisition costs; digitalizing its operations and extracting expenses; gaining scale and negotiation power with its partners such as BMW, Ford, Mercedes, Nissan, Nordea, Volkswagen, and Volvia; or an ability to select lower-cost customers in terms of claims or customers that are willing to pay that little bit more in price. Sampo has proved this ability year after year, and to achieve this, tends to invest around EUR 100 million annually. We think the savings the company has generated from these investments have more than covered their cost and more than covered the returns the business was already generating. We believe these investments have been good for shareholders.

For the first quarter of 2025 Sampo has delivered double-digit growth in its top line and reported an underwriting result of EUR 336 million. The strong underwriting profit in the quarter was buoyed by benign winter weather and large claims that supported this profit by EUR 55 million.

Sampo is an efficiently run Nordics-based personal lines insurer that tends to focus on improving its underwriting quality year on year—be that through holding on to customers for longer and therefore paying less in acquisition costs; be that through the digitalization of its operations and extraction of expenses; be that through scale and negotiation power with its partners such as BMW, Ford, Mercedes, Nissan, Nordea, Volkswagon, Volvia; or be that through an ability to select lower-cost customers in terms of claims, or customers that are willing to pay that little bit more in price. Sampo has proved this ability year on year and tends to invest around EUR 100 million a year to achieve this. We think the savings the company has generated from these investments have more than covered their cost and more than covered the returns the business was already generating. In other words, we believe these investments have been value-accretive.

For full-year 2024 Sampo has beat consensus almost across the board delivering EUR 1.557 billion in group profit before tax—EUR 30 million better than Vara consensus.

We think Sampo showed continued progress toward its 2024-26 targets in its third-quarter and nine-month earnings release. In the company’s core Nordics If division, the business delivered 6.4% gross written premium growth. The company targets 7.5% growth in If private insurance, and at 6.0% for the first 9 months it is a bit behind this. However, the If business is delivering on its expense ambition with 20 basis points coming out of the 2024 cost ratio on the first nine months of 2023. The third If target is to have over 70% of claims reported online by 2026. Sampo hasn’t given an indication of how this has progressed.

With the UK government’s announcement to bring together industry experts, consumer watchdogs, and regulators to tackle the rising cost of UK car insurance, the outlook deteriorated for insurance companies where a large part of their revenue is derived from UK motor insurance. The UK government aims to tackle what it cites as a 21% rise in motor insurance premiums since June 2022 as evidence that there is no longer a fair deal in the UK for consumers paying for motor insurance. Because motor insurance prices in the UK have risen faster than in other European countries, the UK government believes this stunts the economy and prevents economic growth. It has launched a new task force with the aim of driving down the cost of car insurance.

On Sept. 16, 2024, Sampo made the preliminary announcement of attaining 92.6% of the outstanding Topdanmark shares excluding treasury shares, as final. As Sampo owns more than 90%, starting Sept. 20, 2024, Sampo will therefore buy the remaining 6.6 million shares of Topdanmark that it does not own at a price of DKK 366.38 per share, 1.25 times Sampo’s June 14, 2024, EUR 39.29 per share closing price. This residual acquisition is expected to cost around EUR 325 million of the EUR 400 million set aside for the squeeze out. The EUR 400 million share buyback announced as part of the EUR 800 million capital deployment will be increased to EUR 425 million, which should end no later than Nov. 30, 2024. We maintain our narrow moat rating and our fair value estimate.

After the expiration on Sept. 9 of the offer to buy the remaining Topdanmark shares that it does not own, Sampo announced on Sept. 10 that based on the preliminary nonbinding acceptances, it would own 92.6% of Topdanmark shares, excluding those held in treasury. As a result of owning over 90%, Sampo has announced that—assuming the preliminary result is announced as final—it will no later than Sept. 16 carry out a squeeze-out of the remaining shares using EUR 400 million of the EUR 800 million set aside in relation to the offer for a buyback and potential squeeze-out. That squeeze-out should be cash settled. The offer is expected to settle on Sept. 19. Sampo has obtained all necessary regulatory approvals. We maintain our fair value estimate and our narrow moat rating.