Cincinnati Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:CINF) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Johnston: That has not been part of our disclosure, Meyer.

Operator: The next question comes from Grace Carter with Bank of America.

Grace Carter: Hi, everyone. Looking at the commercial property underlying loss ratio, that experienced quite a bit of improvement, both sequentially and year-over-year. Obviously, that line can be really volatile but I was just curious the extent to which that was maybe impacted by the classification of cat versus non-cat in the quarter and pricing flowing through and just the extent to which we should extrapolate that going forward?

Steve Spray: I can — Grace, Steve Spray. I can take a shot at that. We have individual state plans, both for all lines — for all lines and segments. But in Commercial Lines specifically and we — the first thing we look at, I think, at every state is just the cat profile. We do believe you can underwrite and price for cat, you have to. And I would think terms, conditions percentage deductibles for cat. We’ve got the tools to understand what the — what our average annual loss looks like. We price to that. So I think you’re seeing improvement just because of the discipline that we’ve put both in the cat and the non-cat. I don’t know if anybody else wants to add anything as far as numbers.

Steve Johnston: I think — you handled it quite well, Steve.

Grace Carter: Okay. And I guess, looking at the workers’ comp underlying loss ratio. That ticked up a bit versus what we’re used to seeing. I was curious if there is anything kind of one-off there or if you’ve seen a change in loss trend or if that’s just the accumulated impact of lower pricing in that line over time.

Steve Johnston: Grace, this is Steve Johnston. I do think that just accumulation of the lower pricing over time it just does have a compounding effect. We’ve been very disciplined. As you can see, there have been a decrease in our writings there as we’ve maintained discipline over a period of time so that we feel particularly as an account underwriter that we’re in a good spot overall.

Grace Carter: And then I guess, finally, just talking about commercial casualty pretty broadly umbrella and — I mean the underlying loss ratio there did see some improvement as well as a pretty favorable impact from reserve releases. I’m just trying to square that versus some of the commentary that we’ve heard over the past few quarters over being pretty cautious in that part of the business. Did you get any new information in the quarter regarding loss cost trends that gives you some more confidence regarding where that line is going? Or is this just kind of the impact of the actions that you’ve taken in that book over the past several quarters?

Steve Johnston: I think your last point is what it is. It’s been the action over the last several quarters and trying to get out early and start to address the inflation and the leveraged effect of inflation.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Fred Nelson [ph] of Private Investor.

Unidentified Analyst: Yes. Two things that are really all of you that are on the call have worked with the company needs to know that the philosophy of Cincinnati Financial of rising dividends and integrity and honesty. I cannot tell you the number of people that have told me that it’s allowed them to do things in their lives with their kids, their grandkids that they never dreamed possible. And I think we’re going to say thank you to all of you for that philosophy because it’s really, really important in our country. The thing that I’d like to know is the number of shares outstanding at the end of the period? It says you divide the shareholders’ equity for the number of shares out there to get the book value and I would appreciate if you could tell me how many shares are outstanding at the end of the period to get the book value.