Janelle Frost: Right. My best way my best gauge of that is what’s being reported to us in payrolls on a monthly basis. And our construction book the payrolls have been relatively strong. They show both wage growth and some new employee count but not large, large increases. So, from that aspect it’s holding up quite well. I always like to remind people we report out construction as an aggregate group. The largest class within that is roofing. Roofing risk is something that we think we really are experts at. And roofing is not always necessarily new construction. There’s a maintenance component to that which I think we benefit from. So, even if there is a lag or a downturn in commercial construction I feel like that holds up pretty well pretty resilient.
Mark Hughes: And then what are your thoughts on capital? I know there is nice special dividend I think. Where is that going to position you? I guess you’ve got at this point no debt if I’m looking at it properly so kind of your underwriting leverage. If you did lever up with debt how much more capacity could you add?
Janelle Frost: Yes, I’ll say this about the special dividend. And you’re so right about thinking about it in terms of leverage. AMERISAFE has been profitable — from an underwriting standpoint has been profitable for a very long time. And that has enabled us to build excess capital. And then when those rates started declining and the market really started softening the question was to and I think the question the Board was asking itself is what do we do with this capital? Do we invest it in writing unprofitable business? Do we protect our margin? Obviously, our decision was to protect the margin. And so that in turn led to us declaring special dividends to return that capital to shareholders. At this point, we’re starting to see some growth which is great as the decision was to return capital to the shareholders.
But we’ve said this all along and I’ll repeat it is as we are able to grow organically and put that capital to work to grow organically to generate the returns that our shareholders are accustomed to, I would expect there may be some change to that. But as of right now we’re seeing momentum, but we’re not there yet, right? We’re not there yet. And then of course there’s always the possibility of a merger and acquisition. You mentioned we have no debt on the balance sheet. So, there’s — that’s another use of capital if we were to go out and buy something. And we have a share repurchase program as well. And then we haven’t purchased any shares recently but there’s still roughly a little over $12 million left in that share repurchase program.
Mark Hughes: Appreciate that. And then loss cost trends I don’t know if you put that in the release or made a comment but just sort of curious what you see out of the NCCI?
Janelle Frost: Yes, I think for NCCI’s latest number for 2023 and going into 2024 is somewhere around averaging around somewhere around 7.5%. So loss costs that were effective that became effective this quarter for AMERISAFE average around 5%. So still rate declines or still loss cost declines but maybe a slowing in that decline. But if I’m being completely candid, there’s nothing on a macro basis that I see in the industry either in data that were reported or just what other CEOs were sharing that is going to move that needle anytime in the near future in terms of approved loss costs. I think that’s just something we’re — pardon? Thank you, Mark. I appreciate that.
Mark Hughes: Okay. All right. Appreciate it. Thanks Janelle, thanks Mandy [ph].
Janelle Frost: Thank you.,
Operator: Thank you. And that does conclude the question-and-answer session. I’ll now turn the conference back over to Janelle Frost for any additional or closing remarks.
Janelle Frost: We are pleased with the quarter’s results, particularly when driven by the fundamentals we focus on disciplined underwriting, proactive safety, and extensive claims management. Thank you for joining us today.
Operator: Well, thank you and that does conclude today’s conference. We do thank you for your participation and have an excellent day.
