Karl Mueller
Analyst · JMP
Good afternoon, everyone. Before commenting on the first quarter results, I'd like to add to Craig's earlier comments and recognize our accounting and financial reporting associates for their diligence and commitment during this period of turmoil resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the fact that most of our employees were working remotely, we were able to complete the financial close without significant disruption while at the same time, retaining the integrity of our internal control process. Job well done by everyone.Turning now to the quarterly results. This morning, we announced first quarter net income, which excludes all investment gains and losses of almost $141 million, which is up nearly 16% from a year ago. On a diluted per share basis, that equates to $0.47, which is an increase of 17.5% from the prior year. As noted in this morning's release, our operating results were largely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the resulting disruption to the financial markets led to substantial declines in the fair value of our equity portfolio. The pretax fair value decline of approximately $963 million was really the main contributing factor to the first quarter reported net loss and corresponding reduction in book value.Consolidated net premiums and fees earned registered strong growth of a little over 10% to $1.5 billion. The General Insurance group increased about 2.5%, and our Title group grew by almost 24%, as Carolyn will address in a few moments. Net investment income grew nearly 2% to a -- due to a larger invested asset base and greater dividend income, which arises from the relatively higher-yielding equity portfolio and that was offset by slightly lower yields on the bond portfolio. From an underwriting perspective, this quarter's consolidated combined ratio of 94.9%, marked about a 1.1 percentage point improvement over 2019. The quarterly claims ratio trended lower, and the expense ratio ticked upwards slightly primarily due to a mix of business shift. And then that shift was more towards the Title segment, which as you know, carries a lower loss and a higher expense ratio. Consolidated claim reserves developed slightly favorable in both periods, reducing the reported claim ratio by 0.8 and 1.6 percentage points for the current and prior year quarters, respectively. We experienced favorable prior year development on the reported claims ratios for each of our operating segments to varying degrees during the quarter. This morning's release, along with the financial supplement, provide some additional detail about those historical development trends.Turning now to our financial condition. Total cash and invested assets decreased to $13.5 billion at the end of March. Driving this change was the combination of strong operating cash flow of $216 million offset by, as I mentioned earlier, the substantial unrealized market depreciation in both the equity as well as the fixed income portfolios. As a reminder, the composition of our portfolio is approximately 76% allocated to bonds and short-term investments and 24% to equity securities. Our equity portfolio consists of approximately $100 million that are predominantly large-cap, value-oriented, dividend-paying companies. We manage the portfolio within our risk management framework, which does take into consideration expected price volatility.The value of our portfolio -- equity portfolio declined by approximately 24% during the quarter to an unrealized loss position of roughly $22 million at the end of March. As of yesterday's close, the portfolio had rebounded to a $175 million unrealized gain. Despite this significant downdraft in valuation at the end of March, we are still operating within our risk tolerance thresholds. And consequently, we have not made, nor do we expect to make any material changes to our investment strategy. Old Republic's book value per share decreased from $19.98 at the end of 2019 to $17.29 at the end of March. As previously noted, the most significant contributor to this decline relates to the $2.53 per share reduction in the fair value of the equity portfolio. Operating income of $0.47 was additive to the book value, and we returned capital to our shareholders in the form of the regular cash dividend, and that amounted to $0.21 per share or $0.84 on an annual basis. And this year's annual dividend payout represents about a 5% increase over last year's regular cash dividend rate.This year, 2020, marks the 79th year of paying uninterrupted regular cash dividends as well as consecutive years of increasing the dividend rate for the past 39 years. We ended the quarter with $6.1 billion of total capitalization, low debt leverage ratios and adequate liquidity throughout the enterprise. As highlighted in the release, we believe that our strong financial position will enable us to weather these challenging times. So as Craig mentioned, let me now just briefly discuss our run-off mortgage insurance segment. From a capital management perspective, we entered this year with the anticipation of beginning to withdraw excess capital from our mortgage guaranty run-off operation. During the quarter, we did, in fact, obtain regulatory approval and received a $37.5 million extraordinary dividend from our two principal mortgage insurance companies. Total statutory capital at the end of March continues to remain strong and registered $410 million.The first quarter mortgage insurance results were not significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as Craig mentioned earlier. The impact on unemployment levels in real estate markets, along with the mitigating effects of the government loaned forbearance programs are areas that we are monitoring closely. By definition, a mortgage in forbearance is not considered to be in default. Let's also keep in mind that this is a mature book of business. We've not written a new policy since 2011. A large percentage of the in-force file was written in 2009 and earlier years. In addition, approximately 60% of the loans that are insured have previously been modified or refinanced under the government's home affordability programs, the HARP and HAMP programs. So these factors, along with the rate at which the U.S. economy recovers, could affect future claims experience and potentially slow the return of capital from the run-off business, until there is greater clarity. So that said, we continue to pursue all previously mentioned options in the interest of producing the most beneficial long-term outcome for all stakeholders. With that, I'll now turn things back to Craig for discussion of the General Insurance group.