American Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:AFG) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 4 of 4

Brian Hertzman: Hi, this is Brian. So when we look at our combined ratio overall, we feel like we set our reserves optimistically and conservatively and we’re optimistic about the potential for future favorable prior development, but we wouldn’t explicitly disclose any kind of components of our combined ratio. I think it’s important to know that we think our reserve position is very strong. And if you look at our plan for 2024, we did react to the higher frequency of catastrophe losses that occurred in 2023, along with cat experiences in other recent years. We look at things like social inflation. We’ve been really focused on price increases, term and conditions, like your possible points and retentions. And so we felt really good about the actions in that area. So if you look overall, I think while we wouldn’t explicitly put anything in there to say anything about prior development, we’re optimistic that we could have some and feel good about where our reserves are.

Meyer Shields: Okay, perfect. I just wanted to understand what the expectation entails. Carl, you mentioned some timing issues with regards to transportation. I was hoping you could flush that out.

Carl Lindner: I’m not, could you repeat that? I couldn’t, I wasn’t sure what the question was.

Meyer Shields: I’m sorry. So when you’re talking about property and transportation segment, you mentioned some timing, I think with regard to fourth quarter premium growth. And just looking to understand whether some of that was deferred to the first quarter of ‘24 or how we should think about that?

Brian Hertzman: It’s really just time between quarters. Some stuff moved to other quarters. Sometimes things renew in a different month or have a different policy term with things like that.

Meyer Shields: Okay, and then one final question. Outside of crop, can you talk about your expectations for reinsurance purchasing in 2024 versus 2023?

Brian Hertzman: So you’re talking about reinsurance in general across all of our lines?

Meyer Shields: Yes.

Brian Hertzman: Each year our –

Meyer Shields: Go ahead. I’m sorry.

Brian Hertzman: So separating out the cat program from our just traditional other non-cat reinsurance, or are you focusing on the cat?

Meyer Shields: Both.

Brian Hertzman: On the catastrophe reinsurance side, so we did renew our property cat treaty here for 2024. The attachment points for that cat treaty moved up some from 2023 mostly due to our increased exposure as we have increased property exposures in both our ENS business and in our financial institutions business. So we’ll be attaching at a $70 million level instead of a $50 million level. So if you think about our property cat reinsurance tower, so the retention is $70 million. We then have traditional reinsurance for $55 million in excess of the $70 million. And then our cat bond comes in on top of that, providing a coverage for the vast majority of any single event up to $450 million, and that cat bond is in place through the end of 2024.

So, on the — and the cost of that — the cost of the reinsurance, we’re buying less coverage. The risk adjusted rate is actually slightly lower for that cost in 2024 than it was in 2023. As far as reinsurance outside of the property cat cover, our business units look at that year by year business unit by business unit to purchase reinsurance where they think that it is, provides an attractive balance of risk and return for the company, so there’s no real overall trend there. I wouldn’t expect our reinsurance retention to be super different when you look across the company as a whole in 2024 versus 2023, but we are careful at each business unit in determining the right coverage each year.

Operator: Thank you. And I’m currently shown no further questions at this time. I’d like to hand the call back over to Diane Weidner for closing remarks.

Diane Weidner: Thank you, Shannon, and thank you all for joining us this morning as we reviewed our fourth quarter and full year results for 2023. We look forward to talking with you all again next quarter. Hope you all have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Follow American Financial Group Inc (NYSE:AFG)

Page 4 of 4