John Fox: Okay. Great. And then Tom, I have a bigger picture question. It was interesting with the change in the proxy this year moving from book value to operating income. And my sense is there’s a lot of shareholders in Markel that think about 10, 20 years ago when you’re primarily insurance and book value was a good way to look at the company. But you’re really signaling a change going to operating income. And could you talk about how you think about how Markel is a better, stronger company, right? Being more diversified than just especially insurance? Observations are not correct, please correct me.
Tom Gayner : No, I think your applications are spot on. Yes, you go back 10, 20 years ago when the business was dominated by the insurance engine, and we didn’t even call it that then because that would have implied that perhaps there were other engines, which they were not. And book value is a pretty darn good proxy for describing economic progress of insurance operation, a bank, a financial institution like that. As we have emphasized investments, and we’ve emphasized that for a long time and the growth of the ventures businesses, the economic value being created by those businesses doesn’t get well reflected in book value. So they do make money. They are worth something, and we think the operating income line that we gave you over multiple full years and with the multiyear horizon.
That is sort of a separate component of the overall value, now that’s sort of accounting presentation and trying to pencil out what it’s worth. To the meta point of the Markel Group being a resilient and robust company, I like the idea of three distinct streams of income that are flowing into the coffers. And in any given period, one of those engines might not be fired, two of those engines might not be fired. But usually, at least one is, in the first quarter was a case where all three were. So it makes things more robust, more resilient more able to absorb volatility in any one line of business. And in fact, I think one of our major competitive advantages is that throughout the entire Markel organization, when we’re faced with the business decision, Oftentimes, it’s pretty clear that there are things which might cost you something in the short-term, but it’s better for the long-term.
Now if you’re under pressure to pay a short-term bill or meeting a short-term quarterly estimate. The temptation to take the short-term decision exists. We try everything we can possibly do to not have that temptation. We want to do things that are in the right long-term interest of the Markel Group our shareholders, our customers, our associates. And we’ve just taken away a lot of the noise. And I think it’s a beautiful piece of architecture that underpins what we’ve been trying to do for a long time. And it’s nice to get to a quarter like this where you see all three engines firing, and it’s clear.
John Fox: Right. Thank you. I just have a suggestion on the presentation. I think Brian referenced like a five-year cumulative investment gain or something, maybe you could put the five-year cumulative on your releases, because one quarter of investment gain, which was nice to make $1 billion last quarter, but a lot of — some of that’s already gone in the month of April in stocks and bonds. So thinking about that and showing it out of five-year and what the cumulatives are might help communicate that. So that’s the suggestion.
Tom Gayner : All right. Good stuff.
John Fox: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from Scott Heleniak with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Scott Heleniak: Yes. Good morning. You mentioned the rate increases picking up in casualty. Just wondering, are you seeing that across the board? Is there any lines where it kind of sticks out and it’s perked up a lot more? Relative to the past few quarters? And then just the second part is any sense on where just generally a loss cost trend is in casualty? I know it’s tough to do by — given your product set but anything you can share on either one of those?
Tom Gayner: Jeremy, if you’d be so kind to address that?
Jeremy Noble: Yeah, sure. Sure, Scott and good morning. I would say that the biggest pockets of our overall casualty portfolio, the ones that we’re working on most focused on and the ones that probably heard my comments around rates are really going to be in the primary casualty and excess and umbrella space within the US and that contract from and also our larger risk managed excess casualty offerings both in the US and Bermuda. I would contrast that a little bit with let’s say what’s happening in the pricing environment per say our binding lines or other casualty offerings be it be in the health care space or the environmental space where the rates wouldn’t be quite as strong as what I commented on. So across the portfolio that’s the case. As far as loss trends go, I said high single digits to low double digits for rate. And I would tell you it’s loss cost trends are a few points below that.
Scott Heleniak: Okay. That’s definitely helpful. And then just switching to Reinsurance, I know you’ve been remixing that business for a while and doing non-renewals just getting a book to where you want it to be. Do you feel like it’s pretty close to that point and maybe you could see some growth in later in 2024 and 2025? Just anything you can share there on just the reinsurance side?
Jeremy Noble: Sure Scott. So I mean overall you’re exactly right. We’ve been working really hard. We have been remixing the portfolio, taking a lot of actions over the last several years. I’m pretty pleased with our position within Reinsurance. And I think the market conditions are pretty favorable at the moment in the current trading environment overall. We have walked away from renewals where the pricing was at the levels we wanted to support. So I know that the team is acting with discipline. And we’re certainly being prepared to push and be exacting around pricing in terms of conditions and structures. So we need to continue to see a favorable trading environment within Reinsurance. So our overall focus is absolutely on bottom line financial performance and underwriting profitability.
But that being said, we certainly had a broad portfolio within the Casualty Professional and Specialty space. We’re writing that on a global basis. We’re seeing pockets to grow. I think marine and energy is a good example right now in 2023 and 2024 where we’re opportunistically growing. So we’re and we’re exploring other product areas or clients so we can support. So we’re certainly not at all opposed to growth, but we’re also not chasing growth right now. We want to active a great deal of discipline and we want to really see that total performance underwriting profitability come through. There is really a contrast between having to address those older accident years, which we talked about where we’ve seen some of the reserve development over the last couple of years in Reinsurance and that current portfolio that you point to that we’re feeling pretty good about.
