PFA: Significant growth in revenue and profit and strong investment returns
In 2024, PFA’s customers once again received attractive returns, and payments grew significantly, amounting to over DKK 61.3 billion for the first time in PFA’s history. PFA’s results, which will be shared with our customers, have also improved significantly. Insurance operations continue to progress and are on course to remain in balance through 2025 as well.
In 2024, PFA experienced a profit before tax and profit sharing with customers amounting to DKK 2,471 million compared to DKK 1,620 million in 2023.
The significant improvement in results can be attributed to improved and simplified operations, a large influx of customers in recent years, and an improvement in the investment return on the capital base as a result of the positive developments in the financial markets. In the past 2 years alone, contributions to PFA have increased by DKK 15 billion, which corresponds to over 30 per cent.
“PFA’s customers also received one of the pension industry’s best investment returns in 2024 and have now received returns ranked at the top of the commercial pension market over the past five years when markets have gone up and down. We are happy about this, as it provides our customers with financial security.” I also note that we have a very high growth in payments of 16.8 per cent and for the first time in PFA’s history, payments exceed DKK 61 billion. This is due to a large influx of new customers and the fact that PFA’s existing corporate and organisational customers are successful, growing and wanting to stay with PFA. The customer community and our business have both seen significant and profitable growth in recent years, which can be seen on the bottom line. Overall, we are very satisfied with our results and the value we have created for our customers in 2024,” says Ole Krogh Petersen, CEO of PFA.
PFA’s profit benefits customers in the form of profit-sharing via PFA’s CustomerCapital. In spring 2025, PFA once again expects to pay out DKK 2.1 billion to our customers as interest on Individual CustomerCapital for 2024. This is DKK 400 million more than in 2024 and the highest figure in 7 years. Since the introduction of PFA CustomerCapital in 2004, profits worth DKK 28.2 billion have been shared with PFA’s customers.
Reaching new milestones with more customers and record-high payments
In 2024, PFA saw a significant growth in payments from customers compared to 2023.
Total payments amounted to DKK 61.3 billion compared to DKK 52.5 billion last year, which was in itself a record year. That is a growth of 16.8 per cent. Over the past two years, payments to PFA have grown by substantial DKK 15 billion, which corresponds to 33 per cent.
The growth in 2024 comes from an increase in regular payments of 9 per cent to DKK 33 billion compared to DKK 30 billion in 2023. In addition, single payments during this period increased by 27.5 per cent to DKK 28.8 billion compared to DKK 22.5 billion in 2023, while net payments (payments minus payouts) increased by 6 per cent to DKK 17.4 billion from DKK 16.4 billion. These high net payments show just how significantly PFA is growing. The influx of new customers and good investment results meant that customer funds increased by DKK 64 billion to DKK 678 billion in 2024 compared to DKK 614 billion in 2023.
In 2024, PFA saw a net addition of 1,208 corporate and organisational customers, which is an increase compared to last year, when the number was 901. The net addition has resulted in an increase in annual payments of approximately DKK 665 million. In 2024, PFA welcomed approximately 21,000 new customers to PFA’s customer community. That is 37 per cent more than in 2023.
“We are happy and proud that so many customers choose PFA as their pension company. The high growth in payments and the addition of so many new customers show just how strong a position we have in the market with a strong value proposition for our customers. The cornerstones of our value proposition are financial security, good health and senior solutions and corporate responsibility, which are also the areas that customers are focused on - so we will continue to focus on them in 2025,” says Ole Krogh Petersen and continues:
“The large and profitable growth we have seen at PFA benefits customers in the form of economies of scale, which leads to lower costs and lower prices as well as greater profits which can be attributed to customers in the form of CustomerCapital.”
Continued progress in the health and accident insurance area
In connection with the new Danish executive order on health and accident insurance, since 1 January 2022 PFA has, among other things, been writing occupational capacity insurance under life insurance instead of under health and accident insurance. Overall, the current operating result of PFA’s insurance products in 2024 will be DKK -456 million, which is a significant improvement of DKK 443 million compared to 2023, where the result was DKK -899 million. PFA is thus following the recovery plan in the field of health and accident insurance and expects to remain in balance with the insurance results throughout 2025.
Progress in 2024 can be attributed to three overarching factors.
Firstly, PFA continues to help more customers to avoid long-term illness. In 2024, PFA’s healthcare professionals were consulted by customers a total of 323,000 times, an increase from 310,000 in 2023.
In addition, customers are making much greater use of the ability to get quick help online. In 2024, customers contacted PFA Health Insurance digitally approximately 65,600 times to get help with mental and physical challenges. This is an increase of 117 per cent compared to 2023. At the same time, PFA has helped more than 129,000 children and adults with treatment programmes to prevent long-term illness. This is an increase of 17 per cent compared to the previous year. This development has mainly been driven by the fact that more customers have needed help and advice for mental health issues or musculoskeletal injuries, as well as the fact that PFA has increased its proactive efforts towards helping the customers and their health.
Secondly, PFA has maintained its focus on helping customers who suffer from long-term illness to get back to work, with 1,588 customers returning to the job market in 2024. Overall, PFA has helped 3 per cent more customers return to the labour market compared to 2023.
Thirdly, insurance prices continue to balance out, and combined with initiatives, this has had a substantial financial impact and improved the results.
“We can see that our work in offering customers quick and proper help is having an effect. We are also trying to prevent long-term illness, among other things, by using artificial intelligence so that we can proactively contact customers who are in particular need of help. This way, we are helping more customers remain fit for work and in good health,” says Ole Krogh Petersen.
PFA’s use of artificial intelligence has been shown to contribute in minimising the risk of long-term illness among customers in high-risk groups by around 70 per cent by ensuring an earlier and more targeted effort. This is something that PFA has won several awards for, including the main prize at the Finans Impact Awards 2024.
“We must constantly work to develop the help and solutions we provide to our customers, because the health of the population in Denmark is unfortunately under pressure. That is why we have also provided new online health services in 2024 to our customers with health insurance so that they can make use of Online Doctor, Online Physiotherapy, Online Psychologist, Online Family Therapist and Online Coach services. This means that our customers now receive help even faster and earlier than before, thus minimising the risk of symptoms turning into long-term illness,” says Ole Krogh Petersen.
In isolation, the result of the remaining health and accident insurance in 2024 was DKK 37 million. The result in 2023 was DKK -59 million.
If the health and accident insurance result had been calculated before a part of health and accident insurance was moved to the life insurance business from 2022 onwards, the result in 2024 would have been DKK -282 million compared to approximately DKK -640 million in 2023. This result also aligns with the recovery plan in the health and accident insurance area and is expected to remain in balance in 2025.
Customers’ pension plans received large returns
Despite an unstable world with ongoing wars and conflicts, the global economy has generally performed well in 2024. Inflation has slowed, employment levels have been high and interest rates are falling. This has provided a tailwind for the financial markets, in turn benefiting PFA’s many pension customers who have profited greatly from the continued rise in shares which has in turn resulted in high investment returns that provide financial security.
A typical customer in PFA’s recommended investment profile C (Medium risk) with 15 years to go until retirement has received a return of 13.7 per cent and can thus enjoy significant, double-digit returns for the second year in a row. Over the past five years, customers have received a return of 37.7 per cent, which ranks at the top among pension companies. Over 10 years, the return for a typical customer is 93 per cent.
“I am very pleased that we have once again delivered strong investment returns in 2024. Our investment results are excellent both in absolute terms and in relation to our competitors, which helps to create the greatest possible financial security for our customers - which is one of our most important tasks,” says Ole Krogh Petersen.
All of PFA’s investment profiles have yielded positive returns in 2024. This applies to both PFA Plus and PFA’s more climate-focused savings solution, PFA Climate Plus, which has also performed well through 2024. A customer in PFA Climate Plus with medium risk (investment profile C) with 15 years to retirement has received a return of 14.4 per cent in 2024.
Although PFA has generated some of the market’s best returns in recent years, we are continuously working to optimise our investment processes and solutions so that the positive returns only continue to get better. Therefore, in 2024, PFA developed three new investment profiles which will replace the four current profiles from April 1, 2025. The transition from the old to new profiles will take place gradually throughout 2025. The new profiles, like the current ones, are based on a life-cycle approach, where the equity portion is gradually phased out as the customer approaches retirement and, as a new feature, this will also continue during retirement to ensure greater stability in the customers’ pension payments as they grow older.
“With the new profiles, we have increased the proportion of shares, etc. and at the same time adjusted the phase-out of shares so that a higher return potential can be maintained over a longer period. “Our analyses show that in this way we can increase customers’ expected returns and payouts while continuing to ensure security and stability throughout retirement,” says Ole Krogh Petersen.
In the latter half of 2024, PFA informed all customers about the new profiles, and based on the feedback, the messages have been well received by both customers and experts in the field. At the same time, PFA has experienced great engagement among customers, with many signing up for the webinars about the new profiles which PFA will be holding over the coming months.
PFA has the pension industry’s most satisfied customers
One of PFA’s central objectives is to ensure satisfied customers. It is therefore with great pleasure that PFA managed to be ranked number 1 in customer satisfaction in 2024 among both private and business customers as seen in EPSI and Aalunds Firmapensionsbarometer, respectively. While customer satisfaction has developed positively and is now the best in the market, PFA’s reputation has continued to improve as well.
In addition to having the best reputation among the pension companies in the EPSI and Aalund surveys, PFA has also made significant progress in Imageanalysen, which is published in Berlingske. Here, PFA ranks as the number 1 pension company and number 24 among the country’s 100 largest companies, which is an increase of 20 ranks in 2 years.
“It is a big pat on the back for PFA and all our colleagues that customers are so satisfied with being part of our customer community. Especially in a year where we have welcomed more customers than ever before. Satisfied customers are central to our work, so delivering the industry’s best solutions and advisory services will continue to be an important focus area for us in 2025,” says Ole Krogh Petersen.
For more information
Contact Rikke Gredsted Seidenfaden, Head of Press at PFA, tel. (+45) 2758 9588, rgs@pfa.dk
Financial highlights for the PFA Group
