Q3 2024 United Fire Group Inc Earnings Call
Good day and welcome to the United Fire Group Insurance 2024 3rd Quarter Conference Call.
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Speaker Change: I would now like to turn the conference over to Tim Borst. Please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Good morning and thank you for joining this call. Yesterday afternoon we issued a press release on our results. To find a copy of this document, please visit our website at ufginsurance.com. Press releases and slides are located under the Investors tab.
Speaker Change: Join me today on the call, our UFC President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Leidwinger, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Julie Stephenson, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Eric Martin.
Speaker Change: Before I turn the call over to Kevin, a couple of reminders. First, please note that our presentation today may include forward-looking statements as defined in the private securities litigation reform act of 1995.
Speaker Change: Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the company, the industry in which we operate and beliefs in assumptions made by management.
Speaker Change: The company caution investors that any forward-looking statements include risk-finness, certainties, and are not a guarantee of future performance. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this presentation's based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it is made.
Speaker Change: These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and the actual results may differ materially, due to leave a variety of factors which are described in our press release and SEC filings discussed specifically in our most recent annual report on Form 10K.
Speaker Change: Also, please note that in our discussion today, we may use some non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are also available in our press release and SEC filings.
Speaker Change: At this time, I will turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Leidwinger, CEO of UFG Insurance.
Kevin Leidwinger: Thank you, Tim. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter conference call. I'll begin this morning by providing a high-level overview of our results. Following my comments, Julie Stephenson will discuss our underwriting results, and Eric Martin will discuss our financial results in more detail.
Speaker Change: But first, we would like to take a moment to extend our deepest sympathies to those impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in recent weeks.
Speaker Change: It's been a devastating hurricane season and we wish a swift recovery to the people and communities who were in the path of these storms.
Speaker Change: Turning to our results, the third quarter reflects our ongoing efforts to improve performance through the execution of our strategic business plan.
Speaker Change: We generated the highest quarterly net income and operating income in the past 10 quarters, demonstrating our progress in improving underwriting and investment returns by engaging with distribution partners to profitably grow our business.
Speaker Change: deepening expertise across the company, enhancing our capabilities, and leveraging technology to improve efficiency, all while upholding the personal relationships and responsive service our partners and policyholders value.
Speaker Change: Net Rend premiums grew 23% to $305.6 million with growth led by our core commercial and alternative distribution businesses.
Speaker Change: Core commercial growth remains steady with average renewal premium increases exceeding 12%, stable retention, and strong new business production.
Speaker Change: Rate increases accelerated to 11.2%, exceeding loss trends with all liability lines near or above double-digit rate increases.
Speaker Change: The third quarter gap combined ratio improved 3.8 points to 98.2 percent from ongoing actions to improve core margins, stable prior period reserve development, and catastrophe losses below prior year and historical averages.
Speaker Change: The third quarter underlying loss ratio of 57.9% improved 2.6 points from prior year, reflecting strong earned rate achievement exceeding loss trends, continued underwriting discipline and lower-than-expected property large loss experience. The third quarter catastrophe loss ratio was 4.4% and below prior year as well as both five-year and ten-year historical averages.
Speaker Change: This quarter's results directly reflect our ongoing efforts to optimize our property catastrophe risk profile, including targeted actions in hurricane-exposed geographies over the past year that reduced our exposure to events like Hurricane Helene, Debbie, and Beryl in the third quarter, and Milton in the fourth quarter.
Speaker Change: At this time, we expect Hurricane Milton to have no material impact on the fourth quarter catastrophe loss ratio.
Speaker Change: Prior period of reserve development was neutral overall in the third quarter. The pattern of stable to favorable loss emergence allows us to continue reinforcing our position against the future inflationary uncertainty challenging our industry and certain liability lines.
Speaker Change: The underwriting expense ratio in the third quarter was 35.9 percent, slightly higher than prior year, as a result of stronger business performance during the current quarter and increased technology costs as we invest in continued growth.
Speaker Change: Third quarter net investment income of $24.4 million increased 49% or $8 million above prior year.
Speaker Change: Recent actions to reposition portions of our fixed income portfolio resulted in a strong and sustainable increase in fixed maturity investment income to $18.7 million in the third quarter and $78 million on an annualized basis going forward.
Speaker Change: New Purchase Yields remain strongly above Total Portfolio Yields, creating potential for further improvement.
Speaker Change: Improved valuations on our limited partnership portfolio contributed $5.4 million in pre-tax investment income in the third quarter.
Speaker Change: Eric will provide more color on these investment portfolio management actions and results in his remarks.
Speaker Change: We continue to make progress in resolving the rating errors in our core commercial business that were identified in the last quarter.
Speaker Change: At this time in the last quarter, we were in the early stages of investigating this matter and recorded a contingent liability based on information available at the time.
Speaker Change: We have since completed our investigation, and based upon an evaluation of our findings, the Iowa Insurance Division elected to take no action nor require refunds.
Speaker Change: Through the Iowa Insurance Division, we continue to work with regulators in other states to achieve resolution and have not changed the amount of the pre-tax charge reported last quarter.
Speaker Change: In conclusion, I'm pleased with our third quarter results and the cumulative progress we've made over the past nine months. Our strategic actions continue to materialize in our results and we remain committed to driving ongoing improvements through the strategic execution of our business plan.
Speaker Change: I'll now hand it over to Julie Stephenson, our Chief Operating Officer, to discuss our underwriting results in more detail.
Julie Stephenson: Thank you Kevin. Net written premium in our core commercial business, which includes small business, middle market and construction, grew 13% to $186 million in the third quarter compared to prior year.
Julie Stephenson: Renewal premium change in our core commercial business accelerated to 12.4%, with rates up 11.2% and exceeding loss trends.
Julie Stephenson: Commercial property premium change remained strong at nearly 20%, with pricing accelerating from the second quarter for commercial auto and general liability. Retention remained consistent and within expectations at 81%.
Julie Stephenson: Law severity trends remain elevated but are consistent with our expectations and showing signs of stabilization. We continue to see ongoing frequency improvement across the portfolio.
Speaker Change: Core commercial new business production was strong and well above prior for the quarter with small business middle market and construction adding quality accounts delivered through improved alignment with our distribution partners. Alternative distribution, surety and specialty all contributed diversifying and measured growth for the quarter.
Speaker Change: The third quarter underlying loss ratio of 57.9% improved 2.6 points from third quarter of 2023, continuing the momentum reflected in our first and second quarter results.
Speaker Change: We saw favorable results across all major lines of business this quarter. Earned rate achievement is impacting the loss ratio to a larger extent than previous quarters and continues to exceed loss trends, while lower-than-expected large property loss experience seen in the second quarter continued into the third quarter.
Speaker Change: Prior period reserve development was neutral overall in the third quarter. Consistent with the first two quarters of 2024, loss emergence was neutral to favorable across the portfolio.
Speaker Change: These positive indications enable us to continue to reinforce our position against the future inflationary uncertainty challenging our industry in certain liability lines.
Speaker Change: We are pleased with the progress made in our reserve position and will prudently maintain a solid foundation for future success.
Speaker Change: Our third quarter catastrophe loss ratio of 4.4% was 1.5 points below prior year, and below our 5-year and 10-year historical averages by 8 points and 5.5 points respectively.
Speaker Change: Hurricane Helene had a small impact on our quarterly catastrophe loss ratio, while our non-hurricane catastrophe losses were well below expectations.
Speaker Change: We continue to execute multifaceted strategies to improve our property catastrophe risk profile, leveraging advanced analytical tools to manage and monitor our exposure to severe convective storm and hurricane risks.
Speaker Change: Specifically, we're more closely managing our geographic concentration and improving risk quality by focusing our risk improvement and deductible actions on roof quality, building age, and construction type.
Speaker Change: I will now turn the call over to Eric Martin to discuss the rest of our financial results.
Eric Martin: Thank you.
Eric Martin: Thank you, Julie. Starting with the investment portfolio, total invested assets and cash ended the third quarter at $2.2 billion, a high-quality portfolio with an overall credit rating of AA-, and a duration of approximately four years.
Eric Martin: Total net investment income was $24.4 million in the third quarter, up $8 million, or 49% compared to the third quarter of 2023, due to strong improvement in both fixed income and alternative asset portfolio returns.
Eric Martin: These third quarter results show how the actions taken since transitioning management of our fixed income portfolio to our partners at New England Asset Management are delivering increasing benefits.
Eric Martin: continued repositioning out of tax-exempt municipals into high-quality assets offering more attractive tax equivalent yields in order to take advantage of the current elevated interest rate environment are significantly and sustainably increasing investment income.
Eric Martin: As you may recall, in the second quarter, we invested over 20% of the fixed income portfolio at an average yield of 5.6%.
Eric Martin: In the third quarter, these actions continued, but to a lesser degree as we invested over 10% of the portfolio at an average yield of approximately 5.2%, which continues to outpace portfolio yield by more than 100 basis points.
Eric Martin: The benefits of reinvesting over one-third of our fixed maturity portfolio in the last two quarters contributed a third quarter fixed maturity income increasing 29% or 4.3 million dollars over prior year to 19 million dollars
Eric Martin: This high volume of asset purchases at attractive yields will enhance shareholder returns for years to come.
Eric Martin: Our third quarter fixed maturity portfolio is expected to generate $78 million of fixed maturity income on a prospective annualized basis.
Eric Martin: with additional increases possible from future reinvestment at higher rates.
Eric Martin: In addition to the improvements in our fixed income portfolio, we also saw increased valuation on limited partnerships and alternative assets. This part of the portfolio contributed $4.3 million of the increase in investment income from prior year.
Eric Martin: Turning to the expense ratio, we continue to make good progress in reducing our overall cost structure while also investing in the business.
Eric Martin: We've seen some geography shifts impacting our underwriting expense ratio.
Eric Martin: Since the beginning of 2023, we have made meaningful changes to the size and composition of the UFG team, with total headcount down approximately 20% in that time.
Eric Martin: A larger reduction in the size of the claims team combined with significant investments in capabilities supporting long-term profitable growth has resulted in a shift in the geography of our overall expense.
Eric Martin: but a larger decrease in claims which benefits our loss ratio.
Eric Martin: However, our expense ratio remains too high and we'll continue to focus on bringing this down over time.
Eric Martin: This quarter was impacted by improved business performance that drove slightly higher expenses.
Eric Martin: as well as an increase in technology spending compared to the same quarter last year.
Eric Martin: Third quarter net income was 76 cents per diluted share.
Eric Martin: with a non-gap adjusted operating gain of 81 cents per diluted share.
Eric Martin: Adjusted book value per share, which excludes the impact of unrealized investment losses, increased to $32.42.
Eric Martin: From a capital management perspective, during the third quarter, we declared and paid a 16 cent per share cash dividend to shareholders of record as of August 30th, 2024. This concludes our prepared remarks. I will now have the operator open the line for questions.
Speaker Change: We will now begin the question and answer session.
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Eric Martin: At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.
Speaker Change: Our first question today comes from Paul Newsome with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Paul Newsome: Good morning.
Paul Newsome: I've got a few quick questions here, I think. First.
Eric Martin: I want to ask you about the sustainability of the combined ratio excluding catastrophe losses and reserve development.
Eric Martin: It looked like you had some good guys, at least in the catastrophe loss ratio. Were there any sort of good or bad guys that you would like to call out as we think about...
Eric Martin: The current level being the proper run rate.
Speaker Change: Hi Paul, of course you know I think we see overall improvement across all lines of business and I think
Eric Martin: As we continue to drive strong rate achievement, and that rate achievement earns through,
Speaker Change: We believe that the loss ratio that we're seeing on these lines will continue to be favorable. We also have continued to see frequency decline, and it looks as if severity is showing some signs of stabilization.
Speaker Change: You know, all of those things suggest that the loss-ratio improvement we've seen is sustainable over time. And, of course, we are continuing to take measures to continually improve the risk profile of the business we're putting on the books.
Speaker Change: And then maybe turning to the top line growth, maybe some additional color on what's happening there. I was hoping to kind of slice it maybe two different ways.
Speaker Change: One, looking at sort of rate versus exposure versus unit growth and then maybe some thoughts about sort of specifically where you're growing from a product perspective as well and where you think the opportunities are.
Speaker Change: Hi Paul, we missed the first part of the question. Could you just clarify the intro? We need the context to be able to answer your question.
Speaker Change: I'd like you to talk about your premium revenue line, the top line, and I'd like you to hopefully talk about it in two different ways. One would be rate versus exposure versus unit growth.
Speaker Change: And the other way I was hoping you could talk about it would be from a product perspective and where you think the best advantages are.
Speaker Change: certainly and I'll take that Paul I mean
Speaker Change: Yeah, thank you for the clarification.
Speaker Change: I think we were really pleased this quarter to see growth across all of our business units.
Speaker Change: It had been a while since we were able to do that.
Speaker Change: As you know, we took a chance to rebuild our surety organization, rebuild our specialty organization under a new leader.
Speaker Change: and certainly have taken measures to bring a higher degree of specialization to core commercial. And so I think all of those things you're beginning to see the result of in this favorable growth.
Speaker Change: You know, as an account solution provider in core commercial, getting the business mix and line of business mix right is a priority. We think that we're heading in the right direction and that we're well poised to grow. Also taking a lot of opportunity to reinforce our relevance with our distribution partners.
Speaker Change: and as they understand more about where we're headed, we feel very confident that we'll continue to see a nice flow of the quality of new business that we want.
Speaker Change: From a rate perspective, as I mentioned before, we still are seeing some rate acceleration. We hope that will continue. We saw the leveling off in property, but acceleration well above trend in auto, which we think will continue, and solid rate achievement in GL.
Speaker Change: So, in the current conditions, we hope that that will continue into future quarters. From a count perspective, policy counts are remaining relatively stable. The profile of our business is changing a little bit as we are looking to write more sophisticated insurers.
Speaker Change: We may see a slight decrease in the number of clients that we're adding, but nothing material. And it would all be based on the fact that we're just writing larger accounts.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Appreciate the help.
Speaker Change: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Kevin Leidwinger for any closing remarks.
Speaker Change: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.