James J. McKinney
Analyst · Oppenheimer & Company
Thank you, Scott. Turning to our second quarter results on Slide 13. Let me begin by saying we are pleased with our financial results this quarter and for the half year. We meaningfully improved both the reported and core combined ratios. In addition, we generated higher gross and net written and earned premiums. At 89.5%, the core combined ratio improved 3.8 points versus the prior year. The combination of higher premiums, a strong core attritional loss ratio and favorable prior year development produced core underwriting income of $68 million. This is an 83% increase from the second quarter of 2024 and our 11th consecutive quarter of positive income. These items are a testament to the team's strong execution, disciplined underwriting and focused capital management. Moving to net service fee income. As a reminder, following the deconsolidation of Arcadian in the second quarter of 2024, our share of Arcadians profits are reported through other revenues. To normalize for this change, we focus comparison to the 100% owned A&H consolidated MGA businesses. This view highlights a 16% increase in year-over-year service revenues as well as net service fee income increasing 6% to $9 million. The investment result is $69 million. It includes the full impact of the actions taken during the first quarter to support our repurchase activities. Net investment income continues to benefit from a supportive yield environment. We continue to see reinvestment rates greater than 4.5%. Underlying net income is $78 million. This excludes nonrecurring items such as foreign exchange losses. Year-over-year, this is up 35%. Net income for the quarter was $59 million, resulting in diluted earnings per share of $0.50. This includes $17 million in foreign exchange losses, a significant portion of which are noncash items related to period-over-period valuation changes with corresponding offsets within our investment portfolio that are recognized through other comprehensive income. These items are recognized in our income statement when realized. This is consistent with our approach to economically hedge exposures. In summary, our second quarter results demonstrate our ability to profitably grow and create value for our shareholders. Moving to our half year results on Slide 14. Themes are consistent with the second quarter, strong execution, disciplined underwriting and focused capital management produced profitable growth. Underwriting income for the period is $96 million. This includes solid gross premiums written, net premiums written and net premiums earned growth of 11%, 14% and 19%, respectively. The core combined ratio was 92.4%. This represents a slight year-on-year improvement despite elevated catastrophe losses incurred within the first quarter. Net service fee income was $28 million, representing a slight decrease from the prior year period. Our 100% owned A&H consolidated MGAs produced $28 million of net service fee income, which is up 14% versus half year 2024. Net investment income for the first half of the year was $139 million, down slightly from the prior year period as a result of the lower asset base. Lastly, common shareholders' equity increased $168 million to $1.9 billion resulting in diluted book value per share ex AOCI growing 7% or $1 to $15.64. Moving to Slide 15 and double clicking into our underlying earnings quality. Our underwriting-first focus continues to deliver strong underlying margin improvement. The attritional combined ratio chart on the left-hand side of the page strips out the impact from catastrophe losses and prior year development as these inherently vary over time. We believe this metric is useful to examine the quality of our underwriting income. Our 90.9% core attritional combined ratio in the first half of the year represents a 2.3 point improvement versus the prior year period of 93.2%. All facets of the ratio improved. The attritional loss ratio improved 1.1 points. The acquisition cost improved 0.6 points and the OUE ratio improved 0.6 points. Important to note, we continue to benefit from scale from our earned premium growth. For the full year, we remain comfortable with an expense ratio expectation of 6.5% to 7%. The right-hand side provides a bridge from our underlying earnings quality to our core combined ratio. This displays 3.8 points of favorable prior year development in the first half, partially offsetting 5.3 points of catastrophe losses that relate entirely to California wildfires. Turning to our Insurance & Services segment results on Slide 16. Gross written premiums increased $70 million or 14% to $560 million in the quarter, driven by strong growth within our A&H other specialties and property lines. For the half year, gross written premiums increased $181 million or 18% to $1.2 billion. We expect to see existing growth trends persist throughout the remainder of the year. The Insurance and Services segment achieved a combined ratio of 89.3%, a 6.7 point improvement from the prior-year quarter. This was driven by an 8-point decrease in the loss ratio, partly offset by a 1-point increase in the acquisition cost ratio and a 0.3- point increase in the other underwriting expenses. The improvement in the loss ratio is largely due to a 4-point improvement in the attritional loss ratio from our North American P&C business. The quarter also saw no catastrophe losses representing a 0.9 point improvement year-over-year and favorable prior year development of $10 million, representing a 3.1 point improvement year-over- year. The half year result is strong with the combined ratio improving 5.5 points to 91.6%. This result was driven by a 6.3-point decrease in the loss ratio and a 0.4-point decrease in the OUE ratio, partially offset by a 1.2-point increase in the acquisition cost ratio. Similar for the second quarter, attritional losses for the half year represent the majority of the improvement down 4.1 points versus prior year, largely driven by our North American business. Favorable prior year development represented 6.3 points of the combined ratio compared to 3.3 points in the first half of last year and was driven largely by favorable movement within Accident & Health. Our Accident & Health book of business has provided us with a stable source of underwriting profit through the cycle and is a key offering that adds diversification to our portfolio and produces consistently strong results. Premium and the Specialism are up 14% in the first half of the year and represent roughly half of the business mix. In Insurance & Services, rates in U.S. Medical continued to rise at or above loss trend, while personal accident lines continue to see single-digit rate softening. Pricing in Life Reinsurance continues to trend back towards pre-COVID pricing. The pricing environment within A&H continues to meet our risk and return profile, and we continue to see growth opportunities within this specialism. Within Casualty, premiums for the first half of the year have decreased by 10% as we continue to allocate capital towards opportunities to have more attractive underlying margin. The book continues to benefit from positive rate movements exceeding trend, particularly in excess casualty that has seen mid double-digit rate increases. Rates continue to hold firm due to lost cost trends, with industry-wide reserve strengthening, litigation financing and nuclear verdict pressures. We are never afraid to take decisive action to protect the bottom line. Within our auto book, we continue to reduce underwritings and exit businesses where rate is not keeping pace with loss cost trends. Other specialties continued to see strong growth, with surety and environmental both seeing strong year-over-year increases in premiums. Within aviation, major airline renewals continue to see 5% to 10% increases with performance mix between subsegments. Most airline renewals are not due until the fourth quarter at which point the Air India incident will be better reflected in pricing. Space continued to see double-digit price increases, given the significant losses experienced in the market in 2023 and resultant capacity exits. Within energy, rates are a bit of a mixed bag. Energy liability rates remain positive and averaged 5%. Power rates are experiencing mid- to low single-digit rate pressures. Despite this, we believe power remains rate adequate. Within upstream energy, small to medium risk, pricing is roughly flat to down single digit. Rate decreases for larger risks are down by around 10%. Turning to Marine. Rates continue to soften across the board. Cargo and hull generally saw single-digit rate decreases. Rates for marine liability and ports and terminals remain firmer with a range of low single-digit rises to low single-digit reductions. Premiums from our property specialism grew double digit in the quarter and first half. This is driven by growth from MGA programs within our international business and from partnerships entered in 2023 and 2024. Our primary property portfolio is predominantly non- catastrophe and continues to experience rate adequacy. Moving to our Reinsurance segment results on Slide 17. This quarter, the segment saw gross premiums written increased $17 million or 5% to $370 million. Double-digit growth in other specialties was partially offset by reductions in property reinsurance premiums. On a half year basis, gross premium written increased by 2%. On a net basis, premiums written decreased by 1% in the quarter and 4% in the first half. The combined ratio for the quarter improved 0.4 points to 89.8%. The result was driven by a 0.7 point improvement in the acquisition cost ratio and a 0.2 point improvement in the OUE ratio, partly offset by a 0.5 point increase in the loss ratio. The loss ratio increased to 56.6%, partly as a result of a $9 million large loss from the Air India crash, driving attritional losses up 0.9 points versus the prior year. The half year combined ratio of 93.5% contains 2.6 points of improvement in the acquisition cost ratio and 0.6 points of improvement in the OUE ratio. The loss ratio increased 9.5 points from the prior year period, driven largely by the California wildfires from the first quarter. Other Specialties saw 22% gross premium written growth this quarter and 6% growth in net premiums written. Within credit, non-pricing is under pressure stemming from strong performance and ample capacity. The second quarter saw credit spread tightening, which impacted premium levels, while terms remain firm. Within aviation, reinsurance, pricing within excess of loss and pro rata was generally flat, although it is worth noting that Air India incident is not yet reflected in pricing as the majority of 7/1 renewals were already priced when the incident occurred. For Casualty Reinsurance, gross premiums written increased by a modest 2% in the quarter, but are down 6% at the half year. Casualty Reinsurance continued to benefit from positive rate that exceeded trend, but as we guided since the fourth quarter of 2024, we reduced exposures on structured deals and certain casualty classes at 1/1, such as commercial auto, as underwriting discipline led us to reallocate capital to protect underwriting margins. Within Property Reinsurance, premiums decreased 5% in the quarter, in line with the tougher market conditions in this specialism. For the first half, premiums are roughly flat, driven by reinstatement premiums from the California wildfires. We continue to monitor rate adequacy and property reinsurance, particularly following the heightened catastrophe activity in the last 12 months. Important to note, we will only grow premiums where we believe the margins are within our risk and profitability profile with competitive pressures persisting across reinsurance markets. Catastrophe excess of loss placements, have seen the greatest pressure with double- digit decreases across non-loss impacted placements. These accounts had previously seen the greatest rate increases over the prior few years. Proportional business is also competitive, but has seen opportunities particularly for structured deals. Margins are tightening. However, there is still potential in loss-affected segments as improved rate adequacy, legal changes and increased reinsurance availability to support both new and existing carriers entering the market. Slide 18 shows our catastrophe losses versus peers and the reduction in volatility of our portfolio. Following portfolio actions taken in 2022, we have materially decreased our catastrophe exposure in order to deliver more consistent returns to our shareholders. The charts show how we reduced our catastrophe losses in 2023 and 2024 and have continued on this path in 2025. Catastrophe losses in the first half represent 5.3 points of our combined ratio and were driven by the California wildfires in the first quarter with no losses in the second quarter. During the second quarter, our loss estimate for California wildfires decreased by less than $1 million. Of course, it is more useful to view the loss ratios on an annual basis, but our half year 2025 figure already shows a comparatively low loss ratio amongst peers and demonstrates the benefits of our highly diversified portfolio. Moving to Reserving. Our strong history of prudence is shown on Slide 19. Favorable prior year development in the quarter stood at $14 million for the core business versus $4 million in the prior year quarter. It is important to consider our consolidated result here as this includes the business we have put into runoff. We have favorable prior year development on a consolidated basis of $9 million, marking the 17th consecutive quarter of favorable prior year development. Our track record of consecutive favorable releases well exceeds the average duration of our insurance liabilities of 3.1 years, highlighting our prudent approach to reserving. Additionally, we show here the strong level of protection we have on each of our 3 loss portfolio transfers that were completed in 2021, 2023 and 2024. Turning to our strong investment results on Slide 20. Net investment income for the first half of the year was $139 million, down slightly from the prior year period as a result of lower asset base following the settlement of the CM Bermuda transaction in the first quarter. We reinvested over $300 million this quarter with new money yields in excess of 4.5%. The portfolio continues to perform well, and there were no defaults across our fixed income portfolio. We remain committed to our investment strategy, which focuses on high-quality fixed income securities. 79% of our investment portfolio is fixed income, of which 97% is investment grade with an average credit rating of AA minus. Our overall portfolio duration remained at 3 years, while assets backing loss reserves remain fully matched and are at 3.1 years. Moving on to our Slide 21, looking at our strong and diversified capital base. Our second quarter estimated BSCR ratio stands at 223%, decreasing by 2 points versus the end of the first quarter. Our capital position continues to be robust and contain sufficient prudence as shown by the stress test scenario of a 1-in-250-year PML event. Moving on to our balance sheet on Slide 22. We continue to have a strong balance sheet with ample capital and liquidity. During the quarter, the debt-to-capital ratio fell again to 24.4%, driven by an increase in shareholders' equity from the level of retained earnings, partially offset by a weakening of the U.S. dollar, Swedish krona exchange rate, increasing the value of our debt issued in krona. Our debt to capital levels remain within our targets. We continue to have strong liquidity levels, including $682 million of liquidity available to the HoldCo following the final payment of $483 million to CM Bermuda in the first quarter. As a reminder, in the first half of the year, both AM Best and Fitch revised our outlook to positive from stable, while Moody's and S&P affirmed our ratings. Fitch highlighted the significant underwriting improvement in 2023 and 2024 and the completion of the CM Bermuda buyback, while AM Best called out the strength of our balance sheet when making their upgrades. We believe our balance sheet continues to be undervalued. There remains significant off-balance sheet value and the consolidated MGAs, which we own. This was demonstrated when we deconsolidated Arcadian last year and generated almost $100 million of book value. The carrying value on our balance sheet of the 3 remaining MGAs is $83 million with net service fee income for the trailing 12 months of $45 million. This equates to an earnings multiple of just over 2x the earnings versus the double-digit earnings multiple used by the market. With this, we conclude the financial section of our presentation. This quarter saw a continuation of strong double-digit growth in our top line while delivering a 3.8 point improvement in our core combined ratio, of which 1.8 points came from attritional loss ratio improvement. Underlying return on equity for the quarter of 17% contributes to a first half underlying return on equity of 15.4%. This delivery at half year means we are on track to deliver another year with return on equity within our 12% to 15% across the cycle target. We have built a strong track record of delivery, and this quarter's result further validates the significant progress we have made on our journey to becoming a best-in-class specialty underwriter. And with that, I will hand the call back over to the operator, and we can now open the lines for any questions.