Swedish general insurance

Our Swedish branch provides insurances to private household customers under the brand name of Vesta Skadeförsäkring. Insurances are primarily sold through Nordea’s branches, our own call centre and via the Internet. The Swedish business has 58 employees, and together with the Finnish branch, it contributes around 1% of the Group’s total earned premiums. The branch was set up in July 2006, and our ambition is to hold 8% of the private market by 2012.

In 2007, gross earned premiums for the Swedish business were DKK 90m, and the total portfolio passed SEK 200m.
 

Large inflow of new customers

Sales by the Swedish business grew at a rapid rate, enabling us to welcome customer number 50,000 in late 2007. We have sold close to 115,000 policies since starting up the business in 2006, equivalent to an average of around 1,700 policies each week. In Q4 2007 we saw premium growth of 2,500 new insurances each week. Overall, we sold a total of almost 87,000 insurances in 2007 compared with some 26,500 insurances in H2 2006.

Nordea sold two thirds of the policies in 2007, while our own staff sold the last third. The chart on the next page compares the level of sales from the start-up in Sweden with the start-up in Finland. Sweden has significantly higher sales because we were able to use our experience from the start-up in Finland and set up our own sales centre in Sweden immediately. We increased the number of employees from 42 to 58 in 2007 in order to retain the high growth rate. Sales continued to be in line with our targets and strategy for the Swedish market.

Focus areas in 2008

In 2008, the Swedish business will focus on sustained growth and on developing the rapidly growing branch further. Due to our high ambitions a special key area in 2008 will be to increase the number of qualified and motivated employees in order to keep up with the strong development in sales.