McKeel O. Hagerty
Analyst · Raymond James
Thanks, Jay, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you taking the time to join Hagerty's Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. This summer has been another great driving season as we remain on track to welcome a record number of new members to Hagerty in 2025, helping them protect, buy, sell and enjoy their special cars. After 4 decades in the car world, I have learned that everyone has their own car story, ranging from someone who loves brass horseless carriages to modern day high-performance vehicles, off-road vehicles to vintage woody wagons and American-made muscle cars to Japanese Kei cars. Regardless of the type of vehicle, we know it's special to that member, leading to an emotional connection that inspires safer driving habits, which in turn leads to lower claims frequency and consistently strong underwriting results. And our team of auto enthusiasts is here to provide the excellent service, guaranteed value coverage and a suite of Hagerty products and services to help celebrate their vehicle. This passion and love of cars shared by One Team Hagerty and our members results in sustained high rates of growth. Let me dig into some highlights from the first half of 2025 shown on Slide 3. Total revenue increased 18%. New business count fueled an 11% increase in Written Premium and a 12% growth in our Commission revenue. Earned Premium for our risk-taking entity, Hagerty Reinsurance, increased 12% and Membership, marketplace and other revenue jumped 68% due to higher inventory sales and the launch of our European auction business. Moving to profitability. During the first 6 months of the year, our operating margins jumped another 210 basis points, resulting in net income gains of 46% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 28%. Over the last 3 years, we have expanded first half operating margins by nearly 14 percentage points, and we expect continued gains as we double our Policies in Force to 3 million by 2030. Let's move on to Slide 4, which details our 2025 strategic priorities built around 3 themes: simpler, faster and better integrated. First is to expand our specialty insurance offerings to protect more of the collectible market, including modern enthusiast vehicles with the launch of our Enthusiast+ program in Colorado 2 weeks ago. Second is to simplify and better integrate the Membership experience across our products and services, creating revenue synergies and driving cost efficiencies. This is how we engage with our members in a unique and authentic way. Third is to expand our marketplace business internationally, leveraging the trust that we have built in the United States. We announced 2 additional European auctions on the heels of the excellent results from our inaugural Villa d'Este auction in May, where we achieved a 78% sell-through rate. These include auctions built around partnerships with the Zoute Concours in Belgium and Auto Zurich in Switzerland. We are methodically building Hagerty and Broad Arrow into the most trusted brands to help people around the world buy and sell special vehicles. And finally, we are investing in the technology replatforming that will enable efficiency gains shown on Slide 5. I would note that we recently launched Enthusiast+ on Duck Creek, a leading cloud-based insurance platform. Our technology spend should trend down as a percent of revenue as we accelerate the top line in 2026 and 2027 and begin to realize the efficiency benefits from these investments. Before I turn the call over to Patrick to share more details on our results and increased 2025 outlook, I wanted to walk you through the recently announced fronting arrangement with our long-standing partner, Markel, shown on Slide 6. As you know, we have had a highly successful partnership with Markel that began in 2013 when they acquired Essentia to underwrite Hagerty's U.S. business. In 2017, we began to assume 25% of the premium and risk associated with our high-quality book of business and steadily increased it to the current quota share of 80% with Markel retaining 20%. On July 24, we announced that we had signed an LOI to move to a new fronting arrangement with Markel, where Hagerty would control 100% of the premium and risk commencing in 2026 while paying a 2% fronting fee to Markel to issue policies and provide administrative support. The evolution of this partnership will result in increased profitability for Hagerty in the form of additional underwriting and investment income, along with greater operational control. We are excited to continue partnering with Markel and believe the new arrangement will position us to unlock even more value for Hagerty shareholders over the coming years. Patrick?