And so just reinforcing with those agents and those relationships that we do have. While we are high hazard and we do have a niche, small to midsize employers, I do think we get lost in the shuffle sometimes in that regard. So I’m very proud of our sales force and our underwriting force and our safety force in terms of developing those agent relationships so they can have the right conversations and possibly get opportunities on books of business or accounts that have been continually renewing with the same account and just reminding them what AMERISAFE offers. So in that regard…
Matt Carletti: Yeah.
Janelle Frost: … we did see new business increase in the quarter, which we were happy to see. Even though renewals remain strong in this rate environment, when you look at the premium dollars, there’s certainly pressure there. So we were able to grow policy count because of some of the new business efforts that we have.
Matt Carletti: Perfect. That’s really helpful. And then maybe just a numbers question for Andy. Andy, you mentioned in the — your opening comments about despite kind of higher yields, investment income dipped a little. Is there any one-time items kind of going on in there contributing to that or is that more so just obviously a paid out of special and maybe the balance is a little lower for a short period of time?
Andy Omiridis: Matt, first of all, good morning to you. But it’s purely the asset-based decrease because of the special dividend.
Matt Carletti: Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We’ll now take a follow-up from Mark Hughes with Truist.
Mark Hughes: Hey. Janelle, you — in your opening comments before my brain got engaged, you had made some comment about something was not as robust as in 2023. Was that wage pressure that you were talking about? What was that, I think…
Janelle Frost: It was, Mark. It was.
Mark Hughes: Okay.
Janelle Frost: Yeah. It was simply the fact that, as I was mentioning, if you look at 2022 quarters or even going into 2021, we had double-digit wage growth coming through or wage payroll increases in those quarters, which we believe bodes for future audit premiums. So, now you look at the quarters of starting with the second quarter of 2023, that number tapered down to 7%, 7.5%, 7.4%, 7.6%. Still very robust, higher than national average, but less than what we were seeing in the previous quarter. So, if you look at that and say that’s indicative of future audit premiums, I do think that while it will remain positive and be a strong number, it’s not going to be as robust as 2023. I think the industry, in my opening comments, I said, I believe that’s not only true for AMERISAFE.
I believe it’s true across workers’ comp. I do think the wage pressure that employers were feeling and experiencing has started to taper. Even if you look at national numbers, that number has slowly come down over time. If you use that as a gauge for audit premium, I think that same being true. However, as I was talking about, for first quarter of 2024, for AMERISAFE, ours was, again, a very strong number, over $6 million, but in comparison to first quarter of 2023, which was a record number, it did show a decrease.
Mark Hughes: Understood. Andy, the expense ratio, underwriting expense ratio at 27.3%. There’s a year-over-year impact on the profit-sharing commission, but is that 27.3% or this level of expense, is that a reasonable run rate or is that skewed by anything?
Andy Omiridis: No. I would say, Mark, first of all, good morning to you. But, no, I think, we are in the range where we normally are, anywhere between a 26% and a 29%, and — so there is nothing skewing. Again, I think the 24.5% from last year is depressed by the 3.3% that favorably came through for the profit commission.
Mark Hughes: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you.
Operator: It appears there are no further questions at this time. I’d like to turn the conference back over to Ms. Janelle Frost for closing comments.
Janelle Frost: Despite challenging market conditions, AMERISAFE’s focus on providing protection for small to mid-sized businesses by caring for their injured workers has a track record of strong retention and delivering robust returns to our shareholders throughout the cycle. The first quarter demonstrated the continued success of our strategy. Thank you for joining us today.
Operator: And once again, that does conclude today’s conference. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.
