Zurich follows through on Italian back book sale, takes 8 solvency points

Zurich Insurance Group made good on a long-standing promise to unload a life and pensions back book to Portuguese insurance company GamaLife, taking a 8 percentage point boost to its Swiss solvency test (SST) ratio as of the end-Q3 reading.

The deal had first been revealed in early January and was promised to free some $1.2 billion in capital for an 11-point boost to the SST solvency ratio.

At the time Zurich had claimed the deal would send approximately $9.5 billion of net reserves to GamaLife. Including the expected cash consideration of €128 million, Zurich had said it expected a boost to group liquidity of some $200 million, Zurich said.

The deal had highlighted a vow to rework th4e Zurich profile towards increasingly capital-light

protection and unit-linked investment products.

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