Porch Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRCH) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Jason Kreyer with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Jason Kreyer: Just wanted to focus on some of the KPIs. So, obviously, pretty impressive growth in the revenue per policy figure. Wondering if we can strip that out in terms of the contribution from the best two settlements, how much of that comes from taking rate, how much of that comes from ceding lower reinsurance, and just try to look at it from more of an organic basis on where that will go from here?

Matt Ehrlichman: Yes. Jason, the easiest way to do that is probably just to look at kind of revenue from the quarter. Again, half of the revenue growth in insurance segment came from less ceding, again, approximately $30 million of revenue came from that in the quarter, and then the balance from all the rest of the operational changes, the price increases, et cetera. So that would be the right proxy to use if you’re applying that into that KPI.

Jason Kreyer: Okay. We’ll try to dissect that a little bit further as well then. Maybe one more just on the outlook for vertical software. Obviously, housing continues to be challenged by high interest rates. Just curious your perspective or what you see as the opportunities for stability or return to growth there?

Matthew Neagle: The first thing I would say is a lot of our businesses are tied to the housing market. But when you look at that vertical software segment, there’s really kind of two lines. There’s our software business and then there’s our move and post move services. The software business, you can see this in more detail in the Q is almost flat, year-over-year, despite a 17% market decline. And that just speaks to the value and the resiliency of those products that they’ve been able to basically overcome the market headwinds. It’s really the move services portion that has been hit really hard. Some of that is, tied to just the number of housing sales, some of it is changes to remote working and people being relocated less.

But those — I work closely with businesses, they have a lot of focus right now. And so, I am optimistic that they’re going to be able to find growth even if the market stays flat. But certainly, when the market turns back, we’re going to be very, very well positioned.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Nikhil Vijay with KBW.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi. This is Nikhil Vijay on for Ryan Tomasello. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, I just wanted to check if you guys have spent any time thinking about how potential changes to the industry’s commission structure could impact Porch, especially around the opportunities that could arise in that fluid story time line. One debate topic that comes up often is the referral source that buyer agents provide for any adjacent service providers and how that might be disrupted. Do you have any initial thoughts you could share?

Matthew Neagle: So, I can take that. We have certainly noticed the kind of landmark case there with the NAR, which is essentially calling into question the commission rate structure for real estate agents and is it too high in the U.S. We have talked about it internally. We think it’s going to put more scrutiny on the real estate agent commission and the services that they provide, and it could lead to more negotiation between buyers and sellers and agents and buyers and sellers. The place where we get interested in what could potentially flow from that. One is, if the commissions are lower, agents are going to have to be more efficient and there may be fewer agents. And that actually makes it easier for us to partner with the real estate industry, if there’s fewer agents to partner with.