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Brown & Brown, Inc. (BRO)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Oct 20, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Please standby, we're about to begin. Good morning and welcome to the Brown & Brown Incorporated 2015 Third Quarter Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. Please note that certain information discussed during this call, including information contained in the slide presentation posted in connection with this call, and including answers given in response to your questions may relate to future results and events, or otherwise be forward-looking in nature. Such statements reflect our current views with respect to future events, including those relating to the company's anticipated financial results for the third quarter of 2015, and are intended to fall within the Safe Harbor provisions of the securities laws. Actual results or events in the future are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and may differ materially from those currently anticipated, or desired, or referenced in any forward-looking statements made as a result of a number of factors. Such factors include the company's determination as it finalizes its financial results for the third quarter of 2015 that its financial results differ from the current preliminary unaudited numbers set forth in the press release issued yesterday, other factors that the company may not have currently identified or quantified, and those risks and uncertainties identified from time to time in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Additional discussion of these and other factors affecting the company's business and prospects, as well as additional information regarding forward-looking statements is contained in the slide presentation posted in connection with this call and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. With that said, I will now turn the call over to…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we'll go first to Kai Pan with Morgan Stanley. Kai Pan - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Good morning. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Morning, Kai. Kai Pan - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: First question is on the realignments in the Retail segments, and you said it's a restructuring program, but it doesn't change a lot. And I just wonder what's thought process behind it? And also, if you could talk about those regional present, like compensation structure that what incentivized them to produce a good growth going forward? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. So, number one, we had a number of years ago a regional structure. And then we went into a single leader structure for a period of time and we decided to go back to the regional structure to enable us to grow the business more rapidly and profitably. So, that's number one. Number two, the compensation of those leaders will be directly tied to the performance of their division or region and the overall company performance as well. So, they will be incented to grow organically and profitably, make acquisitions, and help us drive the company forward. I will also say that each one of those regional presidents has a key or a business initiative, which he is responsible for. And so, they are developing the strategy with a group of teammates across the organization and will be helping drive that across the platform going forward. So, that's an increased focus on those particular areas, all of which we believe have growth opportunities in the future. Kai Pan - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. That's great. And then shifting gear to the public exchange, that have been drag…

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Elyse Greenspan with Wells Fargo.

Elyse B. Greenspan - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Yes. Good morning. I was hoping to also spend a little bit more time on the Retail segment. One of your competitors has pointed to some seasonality in their organic reverence growth figures. Did you see any seasonality in the third quarter there? And then, looking forward to the fourth quarter, do you expect that growth might pick up resulting from the realignment that you had mentioned? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, Elyse, can you – you sound very far away. I got the first part on the seasonality. But I'm going to ask you to repeat the other part of the question, if you wouldn't mind, if you could get either closer to the phone or just repeat it?

Elyse B. Greenspan - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Sure. The second part of the question. I was wondering if you could kind of look forward to the fourth quarter, if you expect sequential growth within the Retail segment to pick up in relation to some of the realignments that you mentioned, or is that more of something we'll start to see more significantly in 2016? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. So the first comment about seasonality. No, we haven't seen some marked change or seasonality in our business. We see our businesses impacted and they fluctuate on any given quarter, but no dramatic seasonality or shift in Q3, number one. Number two, I don't want anybody to think that the realignment of Retail is going to have an immediate impact on internal growth, but over a long – intermediate and long-term, we believe that will, and that is our goal. I have said before and I will say it again that we believe Retail is a low to mid single-digit organic growth business in a steady state economy. As you saw in this quarter, we had slight improvement in terms of that Retail organic growth and it's our goal and intention to continue to drive that forward and up. So I think it's going to take a little time, but I'm very pleased with all of our teammates and the outlook going forward.

Elyse B. Greenspan - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay, great. And then, in terms of contingent commissions, in the past, you had also pointed to a slowdown in the fourth quarter. Any additional commentary on just kind of the level of decline we might see in contingents this coming next quarter just to kind of get that into our models? R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Yeah. Hi. Good morning, Elyse. It's Andy here. As we talked about on previous calls, we are expecting the fourth quarter to be down probably somewhere in the range of about $4 million. It would be our best guess right now, but don't know exactly. It's primarily going to be within Programs. And if you remember, we talked about the fact that Proctor had got notification from one of their carrier partners that contingents would probably be down materially year-over-year on loss experience. And then, our Florida coastal property business is down just because of lower premiums. So that's kind of a ballpark as to where we are. We won't know until we close out the quarter, but probably a pretty good marker for you.

Elyse B. Greenspan - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then, in terms of expectations for share repurchases going forward, just how do you think about the fourth quarter? I mean, I know the preference has been on to use accelerated share repurchase programs to complete – to repurchase shares. Is that still how you guys think that would be done going forward, and just timing on future share repurchases now that the last ASR has been completed? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Elyse, first, I think it depends on the size of the repurchase, the amount. So, depending on what that is, then we'll evaluate what's the best vehicle on which to purchase the shares. And number two, as you know, we have not taken a position to say that we will categorically buy said amount of shares in any quarter. It's something that we talk with our board about actively. We're actually having a board meeting after this call and we'll continue to talk to them about that as well, but we will look at that as an investment as we do in all the other options, both internal and acquisitions, as we've talked about in the system.

Elyse B. Greenspan - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then one last question, on the – the non-cash stock-based compensation has been a bit lower this year than kind of where you guys had pegged it. Just in terms of the fourth quarter, where do you think that might end up? R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Yeah, probably in the $6 million to $7 million range, Elyse, on it. And it always – it does fluctuate based upon participation during the quarter. But that would be our best estimate right now.

Elyse B. Greenspan - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much. R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Mark Hughes with SunTrust.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Morning. R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Morning.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Just to clarify on the margin outlook with respect to potential investment spending. You named a lot of specific items, the Washington impact, et cetera. But if you look at kind of your underlying business, would you expect the margin to be steady to improved? So you're not in a period of kind of extra investment spending, but more likely to think, adjusted for contingents, and these other one timers, that it's sort of a flat to improved outlook? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Mark, what I would tell you is, we plan on continuing to invest as we have historically, but what I can't say and I know this may frustrate you and others, because you can't model this, it is how and when we see opportunities for people that fit culturally will we be opportunistic in those investments. So, there's not an easy answer to your question.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Right. So, you may be opportunistic, but as a general matter, it ought to be more steady to up? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think it's fair to say that it should probably be more steady and there's a good likelihood that we will make opportunistic investments, but it's not something that we don't look very carefully at and think about the overall impact on all fronts every quarter.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Right. R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Hey, Mark, let me see if I can give some real life examples. So in the earnings call for the second quarter of last year, we talked about our investments in our M&A practice, cyber, ZOOM, those were some of the opportunistic. So if you think about what had to occur is that was a year burnt in through our P&L. In order to get there, they're now starting to be revenue producing, but we're continuing to add incremental teammates each and every day through – to the organization.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then, the – likewise on the organic growth outlook, I think you've described a generally upbeat view. Any kind of one-timers that you might expect in the fourth quarter that would lead to organic growth decelerating or should it be steady or improved in the fourth quarter relative to the third quarter level? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We're not aware of anything in Retail. I would tell you that, as you saw and have seen, there's been a little pressure on Programs, that Programs pressure is driven primarily by the catastrophic property declines and the competitive nature of that business, so it's affecting both coasts, not only the East Coast, but the West Coast. So, if I were to speculate, I think that Programs in Q4 would probably be flattish to maybe down very slightly. The Wholesale segment, as you know, had a nice quarter again at 5.5%. They still have a lot of business that's under pressure, but I anticipate them to have a good quarter, not too dissimilar, maybe up a little, but probably down a little, maybe flat to down a little bit, but in that range. But overall, we're not aware of anything that would be one-time in nature, some unusual action of a governmental entity that would impact our business or anything like that.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

When you say Wholesale flat to down, is that off of the kind of the 5% level they did this quarter? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah... J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: And the reason I can't be more specific, Mark, as you know, is when you have rates down 15% and 20% and 25%, particularly if it's year-on-year, if you renew the account, it's dramatic decrease in your revenue, and if you lose the account, you got to fill that hole in.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Got you. And then, one final question. You had mentioned the claims processing office did well. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? And then, is that recurring? Is that going to be a little bit of a help next quarter and the quarter after? R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Yeah. Mark, it's one of our businesses out on the West Coast and it was really driven by them picking up some new customers. So presuming that we continue to get good claim flow from the customers, then it continue on, but again, we always have a little bit of ebb and flow inside of there. Some of our East Coast businesses did not experience the same claim performance.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Josh Shanker with Deutsche Bank.

Josh D. Shanker - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Yes. Thank you. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions. In the prepared remarks, you might have misstated something you said. So long as there's not a lot of property events and interest rates stay low, we should expect pressure on pricing. What's the relationship between interest rates and pricing? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, like I said, I just think that we're just making a general statement. We're not correlating – you can draw any conclusions you want. We are not trying to draw a correlation between the two. We're just basically saying, in an environment where you have low interest rates and a lot of capital, I don't think we're going to have rates going up.

Josh D. Shanker - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. The only reason why I asked is I wonder if you can dig in a little bit between the relationship between your commission volume and pricing. I mean, the extent (37:18) some of your business is fee driven, some is commission driven. Can we talk a little bit on how much pressure you can see on the pricing side before you see a material headwind on your top line? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Well, number one, we can't give you an exact. Meaning, if, in fact, rates are down this much, then this happens, because there's a whole bunch of factors in there in addition to rates that impact the business, exposure units, competitive pressures, retention rates and the like. What I have said in the past, as you recall, Josh, is that you can have a rate environment where rates are down as we are today, 0% to 5%, and you can grow your business organically in a steady state environment. The last time we were in an environment like this that I recall was in the late 1990s. So, I'm talking about 1998 and 1999. So rates were down in a similar fashion, property – coastal property was not down like it is today, but we were growing organically then as a kind of a benchmark. So, that's where -

Josh D. Shanker - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

And the economy was probably helping back in 1998 and 1999 I imagine? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's correct.

Josh D. Shanker - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. As I look year-over-year on EBITDAC margins, I mean, I wouldn't notice headwinds in your numbers looking at them. It looks like it'd be almost in line with a year ago. Can you talk about Washington? Last quarter, we talked a lot about significant hiring of new producers in a college recruitment program. Has that subsided? I thought that might be more of a headwind coming into this quarter, we didn't see it? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, no. That has not subsided or changed. We continue to invest in. But the cost of those, let's call it, incremental talent investments are going to kind of go up and down in the quarter. So, we didn't call it out not because we're not doing it, we just were trying to give you a good flavor across the platform.

Josh D. Shanker - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

So, one year from now after you've taught these people how to produce, should we see a margin positive impact from their contribution? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, let's make sure we're clear on that. Everybody's development is different. When you hire somebody right out of college, you are teaching them not only insurance, but about life. And so it takes several years for them to get into the production mode, but they're being very successful in adding value to our team and learning the business in other ways, but they may not be a producer right away. So, depending on that person's background, knowledge of insurance or lack thereof, impacts that. It's not as easy as saying, we hire somebody and one year later you have X. It's not that easy. And I know you'd like that, there'd be more like manufacturing, but it's not like that. You hire a new person and some people are successful more quickly, some people, it takes a little longer for them to launch in their career. But we can tell you that we're looking for a certain type of person and that person, when we find them has a high probability of success in our system over a long period time, if they continue to do all the desired outputs and actions that make us a producer successful.

Josh D. Shanker - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Do you have a target for full employee count at year end 2015 compared to where it was in the K last year? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No.

Josh D. Shanker - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

No. Okay. And thank you for your answers. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Josh.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Charles Sebaski from BMO Capital Markets.

Charles J. Sebaski - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Charles.

Charles J. Sebaski - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Good morning. First question on contingents, I guess what I'm curious about is kind of 2016 outlook. If we look kind of some of the contingent come down this quarter due to profitability and we look at the industry and pricing down, should we think that 2016 should have a lower profile relative to how 2015 is shaking out, is that directionally how you guys would lead us to think or - R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Yeah, Charles, let me see if I can give a little bit of backdrop is, one, we never give outlook on contingents and it's due to a couple of reasons is, it's got, one, an impact of what happens with loss experience. And that's something that we never can project a year out, and the other is what's going on with underlying rates in both of them. And so, if you were to take the current environment where there's rate pressure out there today, and I think if you were going to forecast up, that might not be a good bet in all of it, but we do not actually estimate anything. I think most of you guys go out there and just use our year-over-year in all of it. The fourth quarter is a good example, as of where we're seeing pressure down on some of our Florida coastal property programs, because it's just premium shrinkage. So, if that was going to continue, you'd expect for it to continue to be down a little bit.

Charles J. Sebaski - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Okay. I guess next would be on the Retail segment and the re-org. Is there – should we think that there's any kind of additional expense? You setup these regional heads. Do they sort of have some expense of kind of putting their team in place on how they want hiring and firing? Should we think that there's some new leadership that they might have some people that they might not think are as good a fit for their units and kind of a standard corporate re-org that there's some near-term expense increase? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Charles, the way I would think about it is, could there be some incremental expense over time? Yes, possibly, but the way you describe that is sort of a big corporate re-org. And I don't want you to think of it that way. I want you to think of it as basically these leaders, all of them, were senior leaders of the company before. And they have all – these six individuals now have a region of responsibility that varies in size, but they have a number of high quality teammates already in place in those regions. So, I would just say that as they see fit to hire additional people to help grow the business, that's the way I think of it, as opposed to layers of people that don't sell insurance. I don't want you to think that way.

Charles J. Sebaski - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Yeah. No, I understand you guys are a flatter organization. I would just think that this change of structure is in theory to lead to better growth in the Retail Division. And if there isn't going to be change of some size, how does change get enacted? I mean, if it's the same people doing the same jobs without changes, which change means money, how do you get there? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, let me maybe address that a little differently. If you look at the business initiatives and the fact that each one of those regional presidents has a business initiative, which they are going to be responsible for driving that strategy across our platform, if, in fact, that means that's a different concept, we haven't done that before in this form or fashion, number one. Number two, I want you to understand that we're not doing it the same way as that we did it because we want to have a different outcome. And the last time I checked, if you do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome, I think Albert Einstein said that's the definition of insanity. So we are definitely going to be doing some things differently, which I'm excited about, and we believe we'll deliver the desired results. But like I said, in our system, expense is typically driven around production and service talent. They are directly aligned with the customer experience. So that's how we think about it. R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: And, Charles, I'd probably add to that is, Powell mentioned that each of the regional presidents also lead one of the business initiatives. And one of the ways that we structured this in order to not put a lot of cost inside of here is the teammates that sit inside of the business initiative come right out of the regions. What better way to actually solve a problem is solve it yourself. And so therefore, they've got representations. So, we didn't go in and go create all these new groups with all kinds of extra cost and then they get to go tell a region what to do, they're going to do it for themselves, it's about really coming together and collaborating. So it is a different approach.

Charles J. Sebaski - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Okay. And then just finally, in some of the investments you guys have made, I'm thinking back to last quarter and how you're seeing the business opportunities today and new team, how much of it is large account versus your more traditional small middle account? And I'm just wondering if there's been any expansion of kind of the larger account business from Beecher Carlson that came through, and if those – if there is some kind of difference in view between the types of business there? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. So, let's think about just over the last year plus. Remember, we acquired last year in the spring Pacific Resources, which is large account capability in the ancillary markets, typically clients approximately 8,000 lives and up. Also, this year, we acquired Strategic Benefits outside of Boston, which also focuses on large employee benefits, both health and ancillaries. And those two businesses are very complementary with the Beecher Carlson business in terms of the same client base and the ability to call on clients either simultaneously or existing clients of one might be a potential opportunity of another. We have made investments over time in Beecher Carlson. As Andy early alluded to, the M&A practice and the cyber liability practice, we've made some additional production and placement capability investments there. But what I would say is our investment appetite in Retail, in middle market Retail, I would say has been very similar. That does not mean that periodically we come across a couple of people that we just realized we got to a higher. But what I would say is the more strategic investment or opportunistic investment hires have probably been more in the large account area. If you were going to make a broad statement and in middle market Retail, it's been more traditional investment over time. That's the way I would describe it.

Charles J. Sebaski - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Thank you very much for the answers. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Ryan Byrnes with Janney.

Ryan Byrnes - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, guys. Just a question again following with kind of the Retail realignment, does that have any impact to the M&A process at all? Are they out there trying to maybe source some of those smaller Retail deals as well? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, the short answer is, all of these individuals have been involved with acquisitions prior to the realignment. And so, as you know, when and why people do acquisitions is different for every person. And so, remember, we have 195 leaders of business units or profit centers, all of which have the ability to engage in a discussion around an acquisition either a fold-in or on a standalone basis, number one. Number two, each of those regional leaders or regional presidents or other senior leaders, do have – there's an expectation for them to try to continue to bring in investment or acquisition opportunities as well. So I don't want to give you the impression that it's going to do something dramatically differently because these people were already doing that.

Ryan Byrnes - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC

Analyst

Got you. Okay. Thanks for that. And then quickly, kind of in the press there's been some kind of noise that you guys maybe looking to do a new win Program, so kind of Program business kind of heading into next year. Should we think about that as any sort of a positive driver for organic growth kind of within the Program segment heading into 2016? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, we'd like to think that it'll be a positive opportunity for growth. But once again, remember, we continue to see pressure as I've alluded to on property around the country. That's a East Coast, West Coast, everywhere and between situation. And so I would say that that may offset some of the down draft in some of our existing Programs that are impacting that growth in Q3 and Q4 and end of the first quarter of – the first part of next year. We do think that there's a lot of opportunity, but we're very cautious in terms of how to translate that to organic growth yet until we see the Program up and running for a couple of quarters.

Ryan Byrnes - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC

Analyst

Okay, great. And then just my last one, just kind of a more numbers questions. But the – the life business within the Retail segment, how big is that in general? Again, I'm really not sure I know that number and just wanted to, I guess, talk about what kind of lumpiness really goes on, on a quarter-to-quarter basis there? R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Yeah, Ryan, it's Andy here. We don't disclose the individual businesses underneath on it, but like I said, it had about a 40 basis point impact on organic growth when we kind of look at all them together. And as I mentioned, it is kind of lumpy. We can kind of – it just depends on when business gets closed during the quarters, back and forth. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: And, Ryan, just as a additional comment there, remember, when we're talking about life insurance, that's generally speaking a one-time event. So that's a non-recurring revenue stream. So, that doesn't mean that that's bad. It just means that we could have – it can be peaks and valleys or lumpy, as Andy said. And so you could have a number of large cases sold in a quarter or in a year and then, in the following year, you just don't sell as many or you sell more. So I just want to make sure, that's a one-time only. It's like a builders risk policy or a project policy or anything that is one-time in nature, there's a non-recurring revenue component.

Ryan Byrnes - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC

Analyst

Great. Thanks for the color there, guys. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Jeff Schmitt from William Blair & Company. Jeff Schmitt - William Blair & Co. LLC: Hi. Good morning, everyone. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Jeff Schmitt - William Blair & Co. LLC: In the Program business, what are you seeing going on with workers' comp rates? And could we get a sense maybe at the degree the downdraft you're seeing in California, specifically? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. So I think we talked about this the last time, whereas as it's – although rates are down and they can be up in certain classes, the issue in California that we experienced in the second quarter and in the third quarter was a change of one of the risk bearers' appetites in certain classes of business. So, what I would tell you is, as you know, Southern California, like Southeast Florida and Southeast – really, South Texas, are very interesting legal environments. So, you want to have your risk bearers to be not only comfortable, but in a position where they feel like they can make money over time in those areas. So, I know that's a long winded answer to say that I believe it's more risk appetite than rate impact in the State of California. Jeff Schmitt - William Blair & Co. LLC: Okay. Got you. R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: And, Jeff, we're going to expect that's probably going to be – unless there's a change there with the carrier around risk, that's going to probably be a headwind for the next few quarters. Jeff Schmitt - William Blair & Co. LLC: Yeah. Okay. And then just on Wright, was there any…

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Meyer Shields with KBW Equity Research. Meyer Shields - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thanks. Good morning, guys. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Good morning. Meyer Shields - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Two quick questions. One, I think, Powell, you mentioned that most of the improvement in Retail organic growth was from new business. Can you give us an update on what's happening with renewal retentions? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. The renewal retention is generally the – in the same historic levels, and we've talked about this before. Other than the piece in Washington, which is a very unusual circumstance, I would say, generally speaking, our renewal retention in most offices is in line with our expectations. Meyer Shields - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay. And could you give us a little bit more color on – you talked about the Retail realignment leaders having responsibility for specific business initiatives. I'm not really sure what that refers to? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. So, let me give you an example. We have one leader who is charged with the strategy on small commercial and personal lines. So in that, there are similarities in the way the carriers treat that, and those are two important businesses for us. So an individual, who is one of the regional presidents, helps develop that strategy and drive that strategy across the entire Retail platform. We have one person in charge of employee benefits. We have one person in charge of large accounts, and we kind of go on down. So, each one of those is a higher level of focus in specific areas in the business. So, for example, in employee benefits, you've heard us we're impacted substantially this year by the situation in the State of Washington, but our large group in many instances is growing nicely and our small group is underperforming. And so, we're looking at ways to obviously grow overall employee benefits more quickly and have more solutions for our clients. So think of it as a senior leader, a regional president, who owns a segment of the business and he's thinking about it all the time and helping drive that strategy across the platform. Furthermore, we have additional measures and metrics that we're going to be looking at on all of those segments of business a little differently, which will highlight performance or lack of performance. Meyer Shields - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay. That helps a lot. Thank you very much. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Mark Hughes with SunTrust.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah, just one quick follow-up. The Advocator Group, any observations you might have regarding the Social Security Administration's willingness to approve disability applications? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, the answer is, I think that business as usual in the last several quarters. Obviously, one thing that could impact that business would be, if our government decided to shut down again. Now, we don't anticipate that and I know no one hopes for that, but I would just say, how people think about hiring or freezing in that segment of government can impact the way those approval processes – or the approval process occurs, but we are not seeing something materially different this quarter or anticipating in Q4 that we have been seeing in the past.

Mark Douglas Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Dan Farrell with Piper Jaffray. Daniel D. Farrell - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Hi. Good morning. I was wondering if you're seeing any differences in organic growth trend by account size within commercial Retail business, large account versus your small, middle book? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think it's a good question. As you know, in the large account space, when you get an account, it can be very positive for your organic growth, but when you lose one, it's a real bummer. Having said that, so you have a little bit more lumpiness in an individual office on a companywide basis that moderates that impacts slightly, but I would tell you that each of our businesses are growing. What I would say is at the present time, small accounts is probably growing generally slightly slower but steadier over time. Daniel D. Farrell - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): That's helpful. And then, I was wondering if you could just comment on what your expectations might be for capital expenditure looking ahead to 2016 relative to what we've been seeing this year? J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, can I take a wag at? R. Andrew Watts - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Yeah. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: What I wanted to do is say this, and I'm going to let Andy articulate it relative to numbers, you've heard us say that we are looking to continue to invest or improve our technology platform. And so we are currently doing with our CIO, we are evaluating, one, a financial package, number one, for our financial program across the system, and two, our agency management systems.…

Operator

Operator

And it appears there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back to our moderators for any additional or closing remarks. J. Powell Brown - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No. Thank you, Tracy. We'd like to wish everybody a great day and we look forward to talking to you again in January. Have a wonderful day. Good bye.

Operator

Operator

This does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.