Good day and welcome to W.R. Berkley Corporation’s Third Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. Today’s conference call is being recorded. The speaker’s remarks may contain forward-looking statements. Some of the forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words including without limitation, believes, expects or estimates. We caution you that such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by us that the future plans, estimates or expectations contemplated by us will in fact be achieved. Please refer to our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 and our other filings made with the SEC for a description of the business environment in which we operate and the important factors that may materially affect our results. W.R. Berkley Corporation is not under any obligation and expressly disclaims any such obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Rob Berkley. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Scarlet and good afternoon all again and thank you for joining us for our third quarter call. So, with me on this end, I have our Executive Chairman as usual, Bill Berkley as well as Rich Baio, our Chief Financial Officer. Consistent with what we have done in the past, I am going to start off with some general comments and I am going to hand it over to Rich. He will get into a bit of the details on the quarter and then we will open it up for Q&A, the three of us will be available to answer any questions you may have, and finally I will have a couple of sound bites at the tail end. So, well, ticking it off, obviously, the third quarter was exceptionally active on the cap front. Before we start getting into the numbers and the day-to-day of the business in the industry, let me first start by expressing our organization’s concern and sympathies for the millions of people that were affected by the events in the third quarter as well as more recently the wild fires in the fourth quarter. Additionally, I would like to thank our colleagues and there are many of them that have worked tirelessly over the past several months to ensure that our customers or claimants were appropriately looked after at a timely manner. And finally, I would like to recognize the countless number of colleagues that have gone above and beyond on a personal level to volunteer and to donate to people in the affected areas. I think this is a true reflection of the values of the people that makeup our organization and ultimately our culture is a reflection of their values. So, we are very proud of the response by many of…

Thanks, Rob. Appreciate it. We reported net income of $162 million or $1.26 per share compared with a year ago quarter, $221 million or $1.72 per share. The most significant difference between the comparable periods of the cat losses as Rob alluded to in the current quarter resulting from several events impacting both the insurance and the reinsurance industry. During the third quarter of 2017, we saw three Category 4 hurricanes make landfall in the U.S. and Caribbean as well as two earthquakes in Mexico. The industry has not experienced this degree of catastrophic events in over a decade. Despite the infrequency of severe events, we have continued to effectively manage our cat exposure and accordingly have reported a low amount of cat losses on both an absolute basis and as a percentage of earnings or capital relative to most industry participants. These cat losses were very much within our expectations for such events. Consequently, our underwriting performance was adversely impacted by the accumulation of approximately $107 million of cat losses from these events on a pre-tax basis. In addition, we had approximately $12 million of other pre-tax cat losses in the quarter. In total, cat losses impacted our results by 7.5 loss ratio points in the quarter or $0.60 per share after-tax. Continuing with our total return investment strategy, we recognized significant pre-tax investment gains in the quarter of $184 million or $177 million after considering related operating costs and expenses, including performance-based compensatory costs. Much of this investment gain was not previously reflected in stockholders’ equity. To be more specific, the pre-announced sale of the real estate investment in Washington DC giving rise to a pre-tax gain of $124 million was not marked to fair value in our financial statements under the accounting rule. The sale of the…

Rich, thank you very much. Scarlet, okay, we are going to pause on our end here and we would appreciate if you could open it up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Kai Pan with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Thank you.

Kai, good afternoon.

Good afternoon to you too. So, thank you so much for disclosing the accident year combined ratio in the press release that save us a question on the reserve releases. So, on that topic you mentioned, increased severity in casualty and professional lines and could you discuss what’s the reason behind it and are you sort of like slow the pace of reserve releases and also increase your – more conservative in your initial loss pick in these lines?

Yes. So, I wouldn’t want you to read too much into this. So, what we are seeing and we have commented on this in the past couple of quarters is there has been some awards that are coming out of the court. The numbers are somewhat inflated compared to what one has seen over the past few years. So, we continue to be very comfortable with our reserves. We think that we are in a very good position. At the same time, given the nature of our business, we want to make sure that we have our head fully around that.

Okay. And then my second question on the sort of like the pricing outlook, I hope you can discuss maybe more on three specific areas. Number one, on the property reinsurance, which you have reduced underwriting a lot over there, at what price levels that you would be becoming more interested? Number two, you mentioned the casualty reinsurance the equally impaired, I don’t know what exactly you mean by that? And number three is that in your insurance business, you see growth opportunity in select areas, can you expand on that?

Sure. So, let me try and take those in order. So, on the property cat front, the answer is considerably more than the market will bear today and that’s why you see us shrinking. As far as the broader commentary about the reinsurance market around the casualty and professional, I think the reality is the reinsurance market while the issue started some years ago in the property cat is spilled over into as we have commented in the past to the casualty and professional market. I think the pricing in those parts of the market have been challenging to say the least and I think for those that have not been cautious over the past couple of years are likely to be in for a rude awakening. I think the differences property cat, the wind blows or the earth shakes and it comes into focus very quickly. As opposed to the casualty and the professional lines, it takes time for that to come through. The problem with that is it allows people to make mistakes from a more extended period of time which then compounds the problem. As far as where we think the opportunities are the insurance market, I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the people that we work for to get granular as to where our best margins are. I would suggest that if you have a look at Page 6 of our release, it gives you a sense as to where we are growing. So, I think that clearly the insurance market. And for that matter, I would define the specialty insurance market is a better place to be today as it has been for the past few years than the reinsurance market. We will have to say whether that’s that case in the future.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Arash Soleimani with KBW. Your line is now open.

Thanks and good afternoon. So, you had mentioned in terms of the building in DC was not recognized, it wasn’t mark-to-market on the balance sheet. Can you remind us as of the end of the third quarter what the magnitude of the gains is on your balance sheet that are not actually mark-to-market?

Hi, this is Bill. We actually don’t try – we don’t try and mark everything to market to a quarterly date. What we have said was we carried that building at cost and it was amongst the list of assets that we went through in a general sense to get people to understand why we valued our assets more highly than the marketplace or the balance sheet stated them to be and therefore we have a number of other buildings. We have other things just different than our ownership in HealthEquity was suddenly mark-to-market when we owned less than 20%, because we no longer equity accounts because at one point, we owned a lot more than 20%. We were trying to get people to understand that difference, but it’s not really something that we are going to try and do on a quarter-to-quarter basis. And Mark, everything we own to market, so everybody can try and keep their track. We continue to have substantial assets that are carried at very far under the fair market value to sell and we expect that it will continue to generate realized gains or as we have said we expect that we will more than $100 million a year for the foreseeable future as we sell from these assets and create hopefully additional investments to give us realized gains.

Thanks. And that $100 million per quarter that you mentioned is that…

I didn’t say quarter I said $100 million a year.

Sorry that’s I meant, my apologies, I meant will that largely stems from items that are not mark-to-market for us that the value basically become?

I can’t give you an answer to that. It’s going to come from various things, because HealthEquity was not mark-to-market. Now, its mark-to-market, some of the gains will come as and when we sell shares in HealthEquity, they will be coming from various things. We have a fairly wide array of things that we own and it will be a mixture of those things.

Sure. And I think you mentioned the wildfires in your prepared remarks, is there any kind of sense you can provide as to what the potential exposure maybe?

Honestly, at this stage, I think it would be premature for us to even speculate as to what our exposure is. Having said that, given when we look at it on maps where our rooftops are, we don’t view this as being an earth-shattering event for us at all.

Okay, that makes sense. And then just the last question I had was in terms of the realized gains, I don’t think in the release you provided the after-tax realized, but can we just basically multiply it by 35% and back that out. Is there any reason why it would be bigger than that?

Yes, that’s correct.

Okay. Thank you very much for the answers.

Thank you for calling in.

Our next question comes from Jay Cohen with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Okay. Hi, good afternoon, Jay.

Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Hey, guys. A couple of questions. I guess first go back to one of Kai’s questions on your view of reserves which really puts with how you manage the business for a long time. Based on your commentary, is it safe for us to assume that the positive development we have seen over the past several years probably comes down a bit going forward as well as it did in this quarter?

I would not – I would think that, that is a leap that I would not make.

Okay.

I think…

Very good. That’s helpful.

We look at our reserves on a quarterly basis. I would tell you that we are focused on erring on the side of caution. And when we pick our loss picks initially, we error on the side of caution and as they season out, we then tighten them up, but no, I would not read into the comment or the number or assume that, that is trying to lead you in a direction that this is the new norm one way or the other.

Got it.

I think we are. Okay.

That’s helpful.

Was there anything else Jay?

Yes. On the high net worth business, just really for modeling purposes, can you give us a sense of what the operating expenses are which will have to shift from one bucket to another?

I would at this stage, I would pencil in $5 million a quarter.

Perfect. That’s helpful.

Anything else, Jay? Scarlet, were there any other questions?

Yes. Our next question comes from Larry Greenberg with Janney. Your line is now open.

Thank you very much. Yes, my questions have all been hit really, but just to follow-up on California would the kind of non-threatening loss maps, would that apply to the reinsurance business as well?

I’m sorry, the non-threatening loss maps, when we look at on a map, it hits to the best of our ability and of course we have loss ratio caps and things like that with much of the reinsurance that we write to. So, again from our perspective, while it’s likely that this is going to be a $5 billion to $10 billion event for the industry, we think we will be notably underweighted as usual.

Great. And then just on taxes, I mean have you seen anything recently on the foreign tax issue that gives you more or less confidence that will be addressed?

Well, I will offer a quick comment and then I will turn it over to my boss, who is more in touch. I think the recent announcement of an inversion and our industry has gotten the attention of many, including one Mr. Paul Ryan and he has – I don’t know his office has publicly expressed a view about that inversion and just the overall ability to do that and actually they offer some comments beyond that as well, but I will pause there and leave it to you.

I think that we should understand that our argument is it makes no sense for a company that’s based in Dublin or Bermuda or the Cayman Islands to the write the same business that originates in the United States and a company based in Hartford or Greenwich or Des Moines or Dallas to write that same business and us to pay as domestic companies to pay full taxes and those companies today with little or no taxes. It was never the intention of tax writers it was an oversight and not a plan. The argument – the international companies put forth is we need their capacity. They are not here, because they are offering capacity there here to make money. At some point, people in Washington realized they are not offering their capacity to be nice, they are offering their capacity to make money. They compete with us everyday. Nothing will change when the tax laws change. I think the people in Washington are seeing it and they are seeing the same thing in reverse happening to many of our technology companies in Europe, where Europeans are saying you have to pay tax here to get business there. So, I think you are seeing it now. The same ideas are expanding in many industries. So, I think the tax writers in Washington are recognizing. It makes no sense that the business originates here you should pay tax and the business that originates here, I think we are getting a much more positive view about it having seen [indiscernible], which was one of our leading partners effectively emerge with an offshore company and get the benefits of that substantially lower tax rate and now just last week assurance doing the same thing effectively in an inversion. They are watching billions of dollars leave the country.

Was there another question.

No, I am good. Thank you.

Thanks.

Our next question comes from Ian Gutterman with Balyasny. Your line is now open.

Hi, thank you. Rob, I was hoping we can go back to your opening comment about the some of the parts not equaling the whole and it seems as if maybe half the losses or maybe more are missing. And do you lay that what the possibilities could be and I agree with those? I guess I wanted to ask you sort of the next part which is what happens next, if it is really isn’t only 50, maybe 60, not a 100, how much has that dampened the pricing momentum. And if let’s say, it is 100 and everyone is late, we are used to seeing average development on these type of events, but not by 2x. So, it seems a little fishy I guess if that’s really the case. But it feels look like people are trying to have, they are taking you to report low losses and still get pricing and you really think things work that way?

Yes. Honestly, it’s hard for us to comment on what’s going on in other organizations, we no different than presumably others on the call today. We do the simple math based on public information and when the pieces aren’t adding up, it kind of makes you pause. I don’t know, how people are thinking about it. I would be surprised if it turned out that the industry loss during the quarter was so much lower that somehow all of a sudden that was the variable that wasn’t making sense. But again, I can’t comment on other people, what I can tell you is in our case, we are carrying a very large amount of IBNR relative to case as it relates to storms. And that again is just in keeping with our philosophy around claims and erring on the side of caution early on and tightening it up over time, but there certainly is evidence that would then the question whether that is the approach that others are taking. I guess there is also the possibility that yes, there is some large participants that haven’t announced a number yet, but even if you take that handful and you apply a big number to them, it doesn’t fill the gap or anything close to it. So, the short answer is I don’t know, but I think at some point something is going to have to give and it’s going to come into focus. And in the meantime, I think as people may recognize the pain over time that may not be a bad thing from the perspective of a hardening market, because it’s going to be a slow drip of pain, it’s not just a quick shot. If you recall back after Andrew years and years ago, you saw a quick spike and then it started to erode quickly. Maybe that won’t be the case here.

Okay. And do you have a view on Maria, because that’s the one that obviously the modeling terms are way off on it and for the people who have put out by storm estimates, it seems people are coming out losses on Maria less in the first two. And I guess personally that surprised me, I thought maybe Maria would have been higher, I don’t know if you agree with that, the first two?

I am not going to speculate as to what we think the industry loss is. I think anyone who pays attention like I am sure you are doing and others on the phone do, you look at the level of destruction and you hear the stories and then you try and dial it down for the media component that tends to sensationalize things it’s still a horrific situation at best. I think the scale of the loss I think we will have to see with time, I think that there are lot of questions around Maria, I think there are lot of questions around mortgage exposure in general. I think the mortgage insurance industry, I don’t know what their exposure is to Puerto Rico, but certainly, their exposure to Texas is very material. I don’t know how the movie plays out, if you sort of roll it forward and you have someone who has the house worth $100,000 or so and they didn’t have flood insurance, the house is trashed and they don’t have enough money, because they don’t have flood insurance to rebuild the house. I don’t know what that means when all of a sudden they go back to the bank and hand them the keys. So, there are a lot of questions there and really quite frankly, there are no answers at this stage. I think the other big wild card as we have talked about stemming from these storms is business interruption. And it tends to be one that people tend to overlook, people tend to think of when there is a catastrophe solely on the property loss or what happened to the structure, but the BI is not something that some that folks should underestimate.

Absolutely, absolutely. And then as far as specifically your clauses, can you give us some sort of sense on the insurance side, are you into your reinsurance treaty, do you still have if we saw develop adversely?

Yes, we are very comfortable as to our numbers as I suggested earlier. And in addition to that, if there was an unforeseen event between now and our renewals, we are as comfortable today as we were before the series of events.

Are you, I guess…

I am trying to answer your question…

No, I am going to ask a slightly different question, which is about…

Okay.

When you get to your reinsurance renewal, I mean obviously if you have toasted your treaty that’s a different issue and then you can punt on the question, but if your – sort of a lot of companies are suggesting they are slightly into their treaties, if you are sort of in a similar position, I assume if someone comes to you and tries to push a big rate increase, the obvious responses is we didn’t hit you that hard. Is that fair or is that not the conversation, is it more understanding given the market losses?

Sorry, can you repeat the question?

Well, just on your outbound program right, if when your re-insurers come to you and say we want a healthy double-digit percent rate increase, I assume the natural response to that is we then hit you as hard as other guys hit you. So, why you are asking us for it sort of…

I think that ultimately our re-insurers have supported us for an extended period of time. And our view is that they should acknowledge or recognize our results and how we have served them well by protecting their capital just like we protect our own and that’s been demonstrated by the results.

That’s what I thought I just want to make sure. And then just real quick and then I’ll hop off, is your reinsurance side, can you just – the reinsurance is a little higher than I was modeling I get the total I guess I had right, but I just have the segments off. Was there anything specific on the reinsurance, was it mostly from cat treaties, was it per risk or fact or anything that kind of stood out they can call out?

As far as our loss activity?

Yes, the strong losses on the reinsurance segment?

Yes, honestly, it was give or take in line with our expectations.

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Okay. Unfortunately, it would seem as though the fire alarm is going off in our building. And as a result of that, we are going to have to cut the call a little bit short, so please accept our apologies. Obviously, if you have further questions, by all means feel free to reach out to Karen, to Rich, myself and we will be pleased to answer those questions. And again, from our perspective on a relative basis, we think the results were pretty good given the circumstances. And finally, we are well-positioned if the market conditions change as we think they might take full advantage of it. Thank you again for calling in. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.