Bret Conklin: Yes, Meyer, this is Bret I actually, as usual, I wouldn’t get overly excited with one quarter, you’re right it, I think it was below 26%, 25.8%, just for the standalone quarter. But if you look at the expense ratio, on a year-to-date basis, for the nine months, we’re basically hovering right around 27%, which is typically around the area we would guide to the 27% to 27.5%. So I wouldn’t, I don’t think our philosophy with expenses is really going to change, I think we’re a good steward of what we spend. And I would say, probably in the last two to three years, specifically, I think we’re doing a very good job of balancing kind of the run the railroad expenses, and at the same time, focusing on the strategic initiatives that we’ve set out.
That in the current environment are focused on growth, where it’s profitable, as we’ve talked about early today. So it’s not the first quarter where expenses can go down a little bit, or we have quarters where they may be higher than the typical 27% to 27.5% expense ratio. But I don’t think you need to think about the expenses going forward any differently other than the fact that we’re going to continue to balance between what we need to run, run the ship, if you will, and then also being focused on strategic growth initiatives.
Marita Zuraitis: Yes, Bret, that’s really well said what we spend hasn’t really changed, as Bret said. We remain consistent and disciplined on the expense ratio that we have talked about, pretty consistently. How we spend it, has changed a lot. We funded for at least two major acquisitions that brought us the diversification that they were intended to, and have a lot of excitement about what they will become over time, especially as it relates to cross sell, and educator data, and info. And, we are also funding for systems modernization, Guidewire implementation and Lifepro implementation isn’t inexpensive. But we’re doing these things while remaining consistent in what we spend. So Steve mentioned some of the digital capabilities.
We talked about what we do on our website, how we engage with customers in our contact center. These are investments that are underway, but yet we made a commitment that we would do it in a very consistent way as far as what we spend. So I think Bret is right, what stays consistent is how changes based on the strategic initiatives we have in front of us and a track record of doing it without blowing the budget, if you will.
Meyer Shields: Perfect. Thank you so much. It really helps.
Marita Zuraitis: Thank you, Meyer.
Operator: The next question comes from Greg Peters from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Analyst : Hey, good morning. This is Sid on for Greg. In the prepared comments. You mentioned vehicle repair and replacement costs have moderated. Can you just comment on what you’re seeing is driving the moderations there? And if you’re seeing any easing of pressures and other areas like bodily injury?
Marita Zuraitis: Yes, I can turn that over to Mark. I know that he has answered this question for all of us. So let him answer it for you. Mark?
Mark Desrochers: Sure. Yes, I think when we look at vehicle repair costs, we’re seeing it primarily in parts. And the fact that use car indexing is the pricing is coming down, so the cost of total losses is coming down. Offsetting it a little bit is continued pressure on labor costs and time to repair in terms of the cycle time. So, we’re spending more money on rental vehicles and things like that. But, overall, we’ve definitely seen a moderation from mid to high double digit severity trends down into the mid to low — I’m sorry, mid to high single digit. On the, the injury side, what I would say is, it’s still stubbornly high, maybe moderated slightly from where we were a year ago, in terms of injury severity, but I think we are still seeing some of the impacts of social inflation.
