And that’s a little bit what I talked about in my comments and obviously from a quarter ago. But I wouldn’t expect further product exits.
Andrew Andersen: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Charlie Lederer with Citi. Your line is open.
Charlie Lederer: Thanks. Good morning. Jeremy, you mentioned the 95% combined is above target but in line with expectations I guess Wondering if you can unpack that a little bit. Are you holding more IBNR here in the first quarter to reflect uncertainty? Or any color there that I guess should we expect that to improve as the year progresses?
Tom Gayner: Yes Jeremy, go ahead please?
Jeremy Noble: Yes. Of course. Thanks Charlie. Yes, I would expect that that would improve over the course of the year. I’m not going to put any specifics around that or any guidance around that. But what I would say as you know is we’ve taken a lot of actions. It takes a while for that to earn through the book. So where we’ve exited unprofitable products and products are really disproportionately contributed to some of the underwriting loss reported in the fourth quarter a year ago. And where we’re taking underwriting actions to improve the profitability profile of ongoing lines. It takes a little while to give credibility to the actions that we’ve taken and it takes a little while for that earnings to come through. And then also to your point we are carrying more of a margin of safety within our reserve selections.
As I mentioned before, we can be pretty clear on some of the actions that we’re taking and we can be pretty clear about the pricing environment. Overall, what the actual end of day inflationary environment trend environment that were going to experience is a little bit uncertain. So we’re going to be cautious in that space. But I think over the course of the year on a like-for-like basis barring on something that’s unforeseen, we should continue to see the result improve as we earn through the effect of the actions we’ve taken.
Charlie Lederer: Got it. Thank you. That’s helpful. I guess just within the current accident year picks either in insurance or reinsurance, did you guys have any exposure to the bridge collapse in Baltimore?
Tom Gayner: As Jeremy and I were joking anything you see on TV from around the world, we probably have some of. We have a global book of business all around the world. So when you see disasters happen on TV, you can count that we probably have some of that. But that is the business we are in and that’s how we backstop our customers and take care of them in times of need but that’s normal course of business for us. I don’t know if you want to add anything, Jeremy?
Jeremy Noble: The only thing I would add to that is, which really is complementary to what you just shared Tom is, there’s nothing that’s unusual or outsized about that event for us, which is why we don’t call that out separately. It is a significant event obviously for the industry, and there’ll be sort of ripple effects over time as we assess liability and we evaluate contingent exposures and those sorts of things. But nothing that we would point to that’s unusual or outsized.
Charlie Lederer: Okay. So we shouldn’t really think about that as being kind of a meaningful contributor to the attritional loss ratio increase year-over-year. It’s more just a higher loss pick?
Jeremy Noble: I think what Tom said, large losses are happening all over the world all the time across a broad set of products and classes. We’re obviously more acutely aware of the significance of that event that we might be in the US around loss events occurring elsewhere around the world. But whatever might be happening, there’s a chance that we’re going to have exposure in our portfolio. So, I think that’s true for us. I think that’s true for most of the global players. We don’t tend to call out every single individual loss event to try to carve that out from our underlying results.
Charlie Lederer: Okay. All right. Thank you. I’ll get back in the queue.
Operator: Your next question comes from Charles Gold [ph] with Truist. Your line is open.
Unidentified Analyst: Thank you. Congratulations to the three of you and the whole Markel team for the performance you just posted. And Tom, I wanted to follow-up on a comment that you made about shares outstanding after the quarter end being below 13%. Is that from the number in this Q 13 — $137 million? Or is there another number that was the starting point for that comment?
Tom Gayner: No. It would be reflective of the fact that we were darn close to 13% as of March 31 and we have purchased shares between the time of March 31 and May 2 where we stand right now.
Unidentified Analyst: Right. That’s well. I was asking what number was at the end of March? Do you have a…
Tom Gayner: It was 13.0 something. Brian might have the exact number there.
Brian Costanzo: Yes. The 13.1 that you quoted that was the number at the end of March, yes. And to Tom’s point, yes the comment was the subsequent purchases post the number in the Q, which will be the March 31 number have dropped below.
Unidentified Analyst: Right. And Tom, I would enjoy building out some of those tunes with you reunion, if you just get me some of the lyrics and make a hell of a party songs.
Tom Gayner: That’s right. You got yourself a deal.
Unidentified Analyst: All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Tom Gayner: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of John Fox with Fenimore. Your line is open.
John Fox: Hi. Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Tom Gayner: Good morning, John.
John Fox: So I’m curious in the other insurance operations, looks like there was a $17 million reserve increase. And I think I remember from reading the Q last night that it was an aspects and environmental, which we haven’t heard from in a long time. And I recall you used to review that in your third quarter. So maybe Jeremy could comment on what’s going on there? Is that a one-off or what’s happening? Thank you.
John Fox: Jeremy, could you give the details on that?
Jeremy Noble: Yes. Of course. Hey. Good morning, John. You’re exactly right. And your memory is very sound with regards to how we used to approach our annual reserving. So in the other discontinued segment, we did recognize about $15 million of strengthening associated with claims — ongoing claims handling costs for really a large outstanding remaining APH or specific environmental exposure. That hasn’t moved in some time. We regularly review that. We would look at that in some ways more frequently than annual. We don’t have as much of an outstanding pot of reserves in as many ways that we’re monitoring. So we don’t have that annual study the way that we used to. We just review that time. Nothing — I would not expect any more in that space anytime soon. We just tried to put that behind us.
