Investments, shareholders’ equity and underwriting provisions

Investments

A brief presentation of the investments is included in the notes to the consolidated financial statements starting on page 125.

Total investments (including cash and cash equivalents) were EUR 35,899.1 million as of 31 December 2019. This was below the previous year value of EUR 37,635.6 million as of 31 December 2018 due to the change in consolidation method used for the non-profit societies starting 31 July 2019.

The investments include all land and buildings, all shares in at equity consolidated companies and all financial instruments, using the look-through approach for consolidated special funds, as well as other fund investments allocated to the asset classes. Investments for unit-linked and index-linked life insurance are not included. They increased by 7.1% from EUR 8,048.6 million in 2018 to EUR 8,620.3 million in 2019, mainly due to the positive performance achieved by the underlying unit-linked and index-linked securities.

Shareholders’ equity

Shareholders’ equity decreased by 11.1% to EUR 5,190.7 million in 2019 (2018: EUR 5,835.7 million). This was primarily due to the change in consolidation method used for the non-profit societies starting 31 July 2019. The shareholders’ equity attributable to shareholders increased from EUR 4,547.5 million in 2018 to EUR 5,074.1 million, mainly due to the positive performance achieved by available for sale financial instruments recognised directly in equity.

Underwriting provisions

A detailed disclosure of underwriting provisions is included in Note 11 Underwriting provisions – gross in the notes to the consolidated financial statements.

Underwriting provisions (excluding underwriting provisions for unit-linked and index-linked life insurance) were EUR 31,886.1 million as of 31 December 2019, representing an increase of 4.5% over the previous year (2018: EUR 30,505.9 million).