Helvetia Annual General Meeting confirms all Board of Directors' proposals

Helvetia Holding AG / Key word(s): AGMEGM
Helvetia Annual General Meeting confirms all Board of Directors' proposals

24.05.2024 / 13:00 CET/CEST

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Media release
St.Gallen, 24 May 2024

Helvetia Holding AG shareholders approved all proposals put forward by the
Board of Directors at the company's Annual General Meeting. Members and
Chair of the Board of Directors were re-elected.

The Chair of the Board of Directors, Dr Thomas Schmuckli, welcomed 2,394
shareholders with voting rights (representing 62.94% of share capital) to
Helvetia Holding AG's 28th ordinary Annual General Meeting held at the Olma
Messen St.Gallen venue. Fabian Rupprecht, Group CEO of Helvetia, presented
the annual result for 2023. Helvetia successfully continued on its selective
growth path with a focus on profitable and capital-efficient business fields
and increased its business volume by 7.2% to CHF 11,311.3 million on a
currency-adjusted basis. The Helvetia Group generated underlying earnings of
CHF 372.5 million (2022: CHF 492.9 million). The result was characterised by
exceptionally high claims from natural catastrophes and major loss events in
the insurer's non-life business in Switzerland and Europe. As at 1 January
2024, the SST ratio stood at an outstanding 288%.

"The past year has shown how important excellent management of our core
business is. We are continuing to place a clear focus on this in order to
strengthen our technical profitability in view of the challenging market
environment", explained Fabian Rupprecht at the Annual General Meeting.

Chair of the Board of Directors reports on artificial intelligence
In his meeting address, Dr Thomas Schmuckli referred to the topic of
artificial intelligence and highlighted the potential of using artificial
intelligence at Helvetia, saying, "The ability of AI to recognise patterns
is key for Helvetia, for example when it comes to detecting insurance
fraud." He also outlined how the Helvetia chatbot Clara, which is linked to
ChatGPT, improves the experience for customers contacting Helvetia with
queries. "The benefits are obvious: a chatbot allows us to respond to
queries in a wide range of languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Simple but frequently occurring business transactions can be fully
automated", he explained.

Dividend increase of 40 centimes
Due to Helvetia's profitable growth and resilient result in the 2023
financial year as well as the Group's continued strong capitalisation, the
Board of Directors proposed to the Annual General Meeting that the dividend
be increased by 40 centimes to CHF 6.30 per share. The shareholders approved
this proposal. Helvetia is therefore well on track to meet its strategic
ambition to pay out more than CHF 1.65 billion in dividends for the
financial years 2021 to 2025.

Re-election of all members of Board of Directors and Chair
The Annual General Meeting confirmed Dr Thomas Schmuckli as Chair of the
Board of Directors. All other members of the Board of Directors were also
re-elected.

Compensation approved
The shareholders also approved the total amounts of fixed compensation for
the members of the Board of Directors and the fixed and variable
compensation for the Executive Management. In addition, the Bachmann law
firm and notary's office, St.Gallen, was confirmed as an independent proxy
and KPMG AG, Zurich, was re-elected as statutory auditor.

   Analysts Philipp Schüpbach Head of        Media Jonas Grossniklaus Head of
   Investor Relations Phone: +41 58          Corporate Communications Phone:
   280 59 23                                 +41 58 280 50 33
   (1)investor.relations@helvetia.ch         (1)media.relations@helvetia.ch
   1.                                        1.
   mailto:investor.relations@helvetia        mailto:media.relations@helvetia.c
   .ch                                       h

About the Helvetia Group
Helvetia Group, with its headquarters in St. Gallen, has grown since 1858 to
become a successful insurance group with over 13,800 employees and more than
7,2 million customers. It has been enabling its customers to seize
opportunities and minimise risks for all that time - Helvetia is there for
them when it matters. Helvetia is the best partner and is present everywhere
that protection needs arise, with insurance, pension and investment
solutions from a single source as well as simple products and processes. The
insurance group knows the business, from mobile phone insurance and
insurance cover for the Gotthard Base Tunnel to the long-term investment of
customer assets. Helvetia develops and opens up new business models with
enthusiasm and drives forward its own business in a powerful and
future-oriented manner. It acts with foresight and responsibility in
everything it does: for the benefit of its shareholders, customers and
employees as well as its partners, society and the environment.
Helvetia is the leading all-lines insurer in Switzerland. In the Europe
segment comprising Germany, Italy, Austria and Spain, the company has firmly
rooted market positions for generating above-average growth. In the
Specialty Markets segment, Helvetia offers tailored special insurance and
reinsurance cover worldwide. With a business volume of CHF 11.3 billion,
Helvetia generated underlying earnings of CHF 372.5 million and an IFRS net
income of CHF 301.3 million in the 2023 financial year. The shares of
Helvetia Holding AG are traded on SIX Swiss Exchange.

Cautionary note
This document was prepared by Helvetia Group and may not be copied, altered,
offered, sold or otherwise distributed to any other person by any recipient
without the consent of Helvetia Group. The German version of this document
is decisive and binding. Versions of the document in other languages are
made available purely for information purposes. Although all reasonable
effort has been made to ensure that the facts stated herein are correct and
the opinions contained herein are fair and reasonable, where any information
and statistics are quoted from any external source such information or
statistics should not be interpreted as having been adopted or endorsed as
accurate by Helvetia Group. Neither Helvetia Group nor any of its directors,
officers, employees and advisors nor any other person shall have any
liability whatsoever for loss howsoever arising, directly or indirectly,
from any use of this information. The facts and information contained in
this document are as up to date as is reasonably possible but may be subject
to revision in the future. Neither Helvetia Group nor any of its directors,
officers, employees or advisors nor any other person makes any
representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy or
completeness of the information contained in this document.
This document may contain projections or other forward-looking statements
related to Helvetia Group which by their very nature involve inherent risks
and uncertainties, both general and specific, and there is a risk that
predictions, forecasts, projections and other outcomes described or implied
in forward-looking statements will not be achieved. We caution you that a
number of important factors could cause results to differ materially from
the plans, objectives, expectations, estimates and intentions expressed in
such forward-looking statements. These factors include: (1) changes in
general economic conditions, in particular in the markets in which we
operate; (2) the performance of financial markets; (3) changes in interest
rates; (4) changes in currency exchange rates; (5) changes in laws and
regulations, including accounting policies or practices; (6) risks
associated with implementing our business strategies; (7) the frequency,
magnitude and general development of insured events; (8) mortality and
morbidity rates; (9) policy renewal and lapse rates as well as (10), the
realisation of economies of scale as well as synergies. We caution you that
the foregoing list of important factors is not exhaustive; when evaluating
forward-looking statements, you should carefully consider the foregoing
factors and other uncertainties. All forward-looking statements are based on
information available to Helvetia Group on the date of its publication and
Helvetia Group assumes no obligation to update such statements unless
otherwise required by applicable law.


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End of Media Release

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   Language:       English
   Company:        Helvetia Holding AG
                   Dufourstrasse 40
                   9001 St.Gallen
                   Switzerland
   E-mail:         media.relations@helvetia.ch
   Internet:       www.helvetia.com
   ISIN:           CH0466642201
   Valor:          46664220
   Listed:         SIX Swiss Exchange
   EQS News ID:    1910889

End of News EQS News Service
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1910889 24.05.2024 CET/CEST