Company Reports

Over the first half of 2026, Nationale Nederlanden has delivered results that were very typical of the company. While there were some misses here and there, the business is overall fairly consistently reporting mid-single-digit growth.

NN Group is the largest insurance firm in the Netherlands with over one-third market share. While its roots lie in a spinout from ING, the business has built a strong offering. Its development hasn’t been without hurdles, as it has had ongoing issues with a unit-linked lawsuit. With over 2 million policies sold previously and no way of ascertaining how many of those policyholders would make claims and be successful, this created a lot of uncertainty. However, the settlement with main competitor ASR and the agreement over claims with ConsumentenClaim, Vereniging Woekerpolis, Stichting Woekerpolisproces, Wakkerpolis, and Consumentenbond have left the outlook for NN more certain.

With the European Central Bank increasing its benchmark deposit facility rate to 2.25%, the first rate raise since September 2023, we don't see a meaningful impact on Nationale Nederlanden's balance sheet.

NN Group is the largest insurance firm in the Netherlands with over one-third market share. While its roots lie in a spinout from ING, the business has built a strong offering. Its development hasn’t been without hurdles, as it has had ongoing issues with a unit-linked lawsuit. With over 2 million policies sold previously and no way of ascertaining how many of those policyholders would make claims and be successful, this created a lot of uncertainty. However, the settlement with main competitor ASR and the agreement over claims with ConsumentenClaim, Vereniging Woekerpolis.nl, Stichting Woekerpolisproces, Wakkerpolis, and Consumentenbond have left the outlook for NN more certain, and the business has reached a final settlement.

Nationale Nederlanden has delivered a beat versus our forecasts in nearly all divisions, as the changing landscape of the Dutch pension market starts to take shape and the business makes inroads with its strategic investments.

NN has announced that the settlement of its unit-linked file is final after reaching a 90% acceptance rate and bringing to a close the uncertainties the business and investors have contended with for years.

NN Group is the largest insurance firm in the Netherlands with over one-third market share. While its roots lie in a spinout from ING, the business has built a strong offering. Its development hasn’t been without hurdles, as it has had ongoing issues with a unit-linked lawsuit. With over 2 million policies sold previously and no way of ascertaining how many of those policyholders would make claims and be successful, this created a lot of uncertainty. However, the settlement with main competitor ASR and the agreement over claims with ConsumentenClaim, Vereniging Woekerpolis.nl, Stichting Woekerpolisproces, Wakkerpolis, and Consumentenbond have left the outlook for NN more certain, and the business has now reached a final settlement.

A solid beat from NN has set it up well for the full year with better operating capital generation than company-compiled consensus. Operating profit is better than our estimates, but a loss on the disposal of Turkey and EUR 91 million in Future Ready investments have pulled down the bottom line.

NN Group is the largest insurance firm in the Netherlands with over one-third market share. While its roots lie in a spinout from ING, the business has built a strong offering. Its development hasn’t been without hurdles as it has had ongoing issues with a unit-linked lawsuit. With over 2 million policies sold previously and no way of ascertaining how many of those policyholders would make claims and be successful, this created a lot of uncertainty. However, the settlement with main competitor ASR and the agreement over claims with ConsumentenClaim, Vereniging Woekerpolis.nl, Stichting Woekerpolisproces, Wakkerpolis, and Consumentenbond have left the outlook for NN more certain position.

Nationale Nederlanden Group is the largest insurance firm in Holland with over one-third market share. While its roots lie in a spinout from ING, the business has built a strong offering. Its development hasn’t been without hurdles as it has had ongoing issues with a unit-linked lawsuit. With over 2 million policies sold previously and no way of ascertaining how many of those policyholders would make claims and be successful, this created a lot of uncertainty. However, the settlement with its main competitor ASR and the agreement over claims with ConsumentenClaim, Vereninging Woekerpolis.nl, Stichting Woekerpolisproces, Wakkerpolis, and Consumentenbond has left the outlook for NN more certain position.

Over full-year 2024 Nationale Nederlanden generated operating capital of EUR 1.9 billion, so it is on track to deliver on its EUR 1.9 billion operating capital generation target for 2025. Further, the business has reported free cash flow of EUR 1.5 billion, and this is good growth.

With the European Central Bank lowering the preset interest rate that banks may earn on their overnight deposits under the Eurosystem, the ECB has lowered this deposit facility interest rate by 75 basis points since the beginning of the year. The decision to lower its three key interest rates in October comes on the back of a 50-basis-point drop in eurozone inflation in September. With that fall, inflation is now below the ECB's eurozone target of 2%, which it wanted to achieve by late 2025. Inflation is expected to rise until the end of the year as wages continue to climb and political tensions could potentially add to this. There is some medium expectation that the ECB will cut rates again at its Dec. 12 meeting, bringing total ECB deposit facility cuts to 1% for the year.

Nationale Nederlanden reported fair results for the first half of 2024. While the business looks like it will remain on track to meet its operating capital generation target of EUR 1.9 billion for 2025, some caution has been added over the EUR 1.5 billion OCG target for life. This depends a bit on market movements and particularly pertains to mortgage spreads. The EUR 1.6 billion 2025 free cash flow target stands. Solvency is a little low at 192%, but at the top end of the 150%-200% target. The unit-linked file settlement is on track to be completed by June 2025. The business has announced an interim dividend of EUR 1.28, which is a 14.3% increase versus the interim dividend last year. Dividends are tied to the mid-single-digit target for free cash flow growth and with the EUR 300 million annual buyback, the target is between a 7% and 8% annual dividend-per-share rise. Group profit before tax of EUR 824 million, versus our forecasts, looks a bit light. We maintain our EUR 55 fair value estimate and no moat rating.

According to an article in banken.nl, Nationale Nederlanden has outlined its desire to move more fully into the Dutch banking market with the development of current accounts, debit cards, and various savings and mortgage applications. This is a move forward from the business’ traditional mortgage business with more long-term orientated savings, and it helps NN pursue customers who want all their financial products from one provider. We maintain our fair value estimate and our no-moat rating.

Nationale Nederlanden Group is the largest insurance firm in Holland with over one-third market share. While its roots lie in a spinout from ING, the business has built a strong offering. Its development hasn’t been without hurdles as it has had ongoing issues with a unit-linked lawsuit. With over 2 million policies sold previously and no way of ascertaining how many of those policyholders would make claims and be successful, this created a lot of uncertainty. However, the settlement with its main competitor ASR and the agreement over claims with ConsumentenClaim, Vereninging Woekerpolis.nl, Stichting Woekerpolisproces, Wakkerpolis, and Consumentenbond has left NN in a much more certain position.

NN Group reported another solid set of results, with operating capital generation of EUR 1.9 billion in 2023 versus EUR 1.711 billion in the prior year. As result, the group raised its 2025 target to EUR 1.9 billion. The amount of capital available for the business to invest and distribute to shareholders rose to EUR 1.4 billion in 2023 from EUR 1.3 billion. Commensurately, NN raised its 2025 free cash flow target to EUR 1.6 billion from EUR 1.5 billion and increased its full-year dividend to EUR 3.20 per share, above the EUR 3.05 consensus forecast as per LSEG. We had estimated EUR 2.69 per share. The final dividend of EUR 2.08 per share will be paid in cash or stock on June 20; on May 28, the shares will trade excluding this dividend. This means NN shares offer an 8.4% dividend yield, bolstered by an annual share buyback that has been raised to EUR 300 million from EUR 250 million. Our forecast for earnings per share was off, with NN delivering EUR 4.04 in 2023 versus our EUR 4.90 prediction.

Nationale Nederlanden Group is the largest insurance firm in Holland with over one-third market share. While its roots lie in a spinout from ING, the business has built a strong offering. Its development hasn’t been without hurdles as it has had ongoing issues with a unit-linked lawsuit. With over 2 million policies sold previously and no way of ascertaining how many of those policyholders would make claims and be successful, this created a lot of uncertainty. However, the settlement with its main competitor ASR and the agreement over claims with ConsumentenClaim, Vereninging Woekerpolis.nl, Stichting Woekerpolisproces, Wakkerpolis, and Consumentenbond and other interest groups has left NN in a much more certain position.

NN Group has announced the settlement of its unit-linked file and this removes some uncertainty around the name. The settlement NN Group has agreed with the claims foundations is EUR 300 million and the business has provisioned an additional EUR 60 million for claims arising from customers unaffiliated with these claims foundation claims. The total settlement of EUR 300 million covers all three NN Group entities of Nationale Nederlanden Levensverzekering, Delta Lloyd, and ABN Amro Levensverzekering as well. When we estimated the cost of the potential settlement for NN after ASR announced a similar settlement in November last year, we estimated that the cost would be around EUR 255 million, give or take around EUR 100 million. We accounted for this amount within our estimates at that time. We maintain our EUR 55 per share fair value and maintain our no-moat rating.

With the news Nov. 30 that ASR has reached a settlement to close its unit-linked file, we reduce our Uncertainty Rating for NN Group from High to Medium and we maintain our EUR 55 per share fair value estimate. The settlement of EUR 250 million relates to around 140,000 policies represented by the claims foundations. While ASR has set aside a further EUR 50 million as a buffer for claims not included in this settlement, and that is on top of an existing EUR 40 million provision, the total set aside of around EUR 340 million represents a substantially lower amount than the guestimate that has previously been circulated, around EUR 2,430 per policy versus prior working numbers of around EUR 15,000.

Nationale Nederlanden is the former Europe and Japan insurance business of International Netherlands Group and includes the divested asset management division. When the global financial crisis hit, International Netherlands Group was forced to divest its insurance assets as part of the conditions for receiving government aid. Originally, the spinoff of these assets was mandated to occur before end-2013. This deadline was extended to end-2014 and National Nederlanden was subsequently listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. The larger banking group has subsequently sold the rest of its stake in Nationale Nederlanden.