Insurance giant Aegon on Wednesday announced a drop in pre-tax profit of 6% compared with the same period a year ago, to €469m.

The figure is much worse than analysts were forecasting. They expected the company to make a pre-tax profit of €547m, the Financieele Dagblad reports.

Aegon, which has high turnover in the US and which owns Dutch bank Knab, earned more money from pension insurance, from its US activities and from investments for big investors such as pension funds.

The company also attracted a lot more new savers in the Netherlands.

The downturn in profit came from more life insurance claims in the US, more policy cancellations in Poland and the low interest rate, the company said in a statement.