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 108.

Total investments (including cash and cash equivalents) were EUR 36,646.3 million as of 31 December 2020. This was higher than the previous year value of EUR 35,899.1 million as of 31 December 2019.

The investments include all property, 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. This does not include investments for unit-linked and index-linked life insurance, which decreased 7.6% in 2020, from EUR 8,620.3 million in 2019 to EUR 7,968.0 million, mainly due to an increase in policy expirations in Austria.

Shareholders’ equity

Shareholders’ equity increased 1.8% to EUR 5,285.8 million in 2020 (2019: EUR 5,190.7 million). This development was primarily due to the positive perfornance of the available for sale financial instruments recognised directly in equity and reinvested profits. Shareholders’ equity was negatively affected by exchange rate changes affecting subsidiaries accounted for in foreign currencies. The shareholders’ equity attributable to shareholders increased from EUR 5,074.1 million in 2019 to EUR 5,162.7 million in 2020 for the reasons indicated above.

Underwriting provisions

A detailed disclosure of underwriting provisions is included in Note 10. 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 32,230.1 million as of 31 December 2020, representing an increase of 1.1% compared to the previous year (2019: EUR 31,886.1 million).