Craig Kliethermes
Analyst · KBW. Your line is open
Thanks, Tom. Good morning, all. A solid start to the year with a 91 combined ratio and the second consecutive quarter of 11% top line growth. I think, it is fair to say that the momentum we ended last year with is continuing so far this year. The market is still very competitive, but we are seeing more opportunities across the niches in which we compete. Submissions are up, which means more people are shopping as our competitors are reacting to underlying loss cost trends and some self-induced pain. Our product breadth provides many touch points for opportunities and our underwriting discipline provides the confidence to capitalize when the time is right. This quarter, we saw organic growth across most of our product portfolio. This growth continues to be fueled by an improving economy, new distribution partners, investment in existing relationships and technology, as well as continued evolution of the new product started over the last several years. We have also recently observed competitors’ quote moving up nearer to our price level, allowing us to hang around the room on more new business opportunities. To be clear, we are not in a hard market. We still see a rational behavior in several places where MGAs have been given the pen or standard markets are trying to gain a foothold in the specialty space. In those more challenging markets we continue to be prudent, retrenching if required. Let me talk a little bit about results by segment. In casualty, we grew top line 11% while reporting a 99 combined ratio. The bottom line was much improved over last year as a result of better prior year loss development across most products, but particularly from our transportation business. Transportation grew top line 18% in the quarter. Rate increases continue in this line with renewals up 9%. At the same time, we have invested in more boots on the ground, visiting our customers and producers with new loss control services and on-site agency calls. Our established commercial and personal umbrella products also continued to grow 5% and 7% respectively. The drivers are deeper and newer producer relationships, investments in technology, and modestly higher prices. Both products continued to deliver bottom line results as well. I’ve mentioned several newer products in past quarters. We continue to deliver top line growth from these products as they generate nearly half of the premium growth for the segment. This is important to note that these products generally throw off little underwriting profit until they gain some level of maturity. Although we are very pleased to deliver an underwriting profit in this segment, we remain vigilant for underlying severity inflation based on a more pro-plaintiff litigation environment and rising medical costs. Our property segment grew 24%, while posting an 83 combined ratio this quarter, despite 6 points of Northeast storm losses. We realized growth across all three of our major products in this segment. Our E&S property business, which is made up mostly of CAT exposed business, grew 37%. Both the earthquake and wind products grew by over 30%. Wind renewal pricing is up about 10%, while quake pricing was closer to flat. We’re seeing about 15% more new business submissions than last year as the market seems to be coming to us in both wind and quake. For now, some level of sanity has returned to the CAT market but there are still a number of NGAs willing to write business below our pricing floor. Our marine and Hawaii homeowners business were up 19% and 7%, respectively as they continue to build more distribution and needed scale. We are pleased with the overall direction of this segment. Our surety segment remains the most competitive. Surety topline continues to struggle for growth and was down 1% for the quarter. The combined ratio of 65 speaks for itself. All of our underlying products in this segment remain profitable but all are challenged by new entrants and more aggressive established players. Although the economy has helped the bottom and top line in this segment, a reduction in public construction spending and less regulation has flattened overall demand, while the number of sureties fighting for market position has increased. Contract and energy surety have suffered the most. But, our underwriting appetite remains consistent, taking advantage of opportunities as they arise, looking for like-minded partners to grow with, specializing even more deeply and investing in better technology to make our customer experience differentiating. Discipline will ultimately prevail. Overall, solid start to the year with good top and bottom-line results. Our underwriters and claim personnel are narrowly focused and have very deep knowledge of their space which helps us deliver more consistently. We continue to prune underperformers, nurture new initiatives while realizing the benefits of our well-tended portfolio. Our balance sheet is strong, and our underwriting discipline and diverse specialty portfolio give us the confidence to execute where opportunities arise. Our talented associates delivered again this quarter. At RLI, we think differently. And for our employee, owners and all of our shareholders, that difference works. Thank you. And I’ll turn it over to Aaron to open it up for questions.