Root, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROOT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Matt Bonakdarpour: Yes. I will echo what Alex said, we continue to deploy our capital in a disciplined manner, but with a delicate balance between calendar year results and lifetime results. Over the last few quarters, we have been able to gain confidence as leading indicators come in, as we have kind of abbreviated the direct channels. And that explains why we are scaling even further in the coming quarters. So, as we do our financial forecasting, or planning or cash burn analysis and provide this guidance, all of that is taken into account. And as our confidence increases with the leading indicators, we will continue to scale.

David Motemaden: Got it. No, that’s helpful. I appreciate that color. And then just maybe just thinking about, you guys have obviously taken a decent amount of rate, and it’s clearly a hard market in personal auto, so it’s still conducive for that to continue. I guess when you think about, how much rate you still need to take just to keep in €“ keep pace with the loss trend and continue on the right trajectory on the loss ratio. Could you help us think about, how you are thinking about, how much rate you still need to take, as well as what you embed, excuse me, from a frequency and severity expectation for 2023?

Frank Palmer: Sure. Hi, this is Frank. Thanks for the question. As we think about the rate need and think about your question, I want to think about it, not just on a countrywide basis, but on a state-by-state basis. So, as we think about those markets and we go back to your earlier question around marketing, and starting to think about growth, we can find states that have certainly lower loss ratios than other states, as well as segments within those states that are more profitable. And so if that insights on being able to find the states and/or the segments that are profitable that have the lower loss ratios where we have less rate need that allow us to turn on the marketing selectively. But certainly we still have some states that when you look at our country wide loss ratio, there are some states that are ahead of that countrywide loss ratio, that’s where we can do more the marketing, and some states that lag behind, so we will be taking rate more aggressively in the higher loss ratio states.

As a baseline kind of countrywide, I would say our average overall trend, we are thinking it’s around the 7% to 8%. So, if we needed no rate in any state, in order to stay at that same rate level, we would need to raise rates around 7% to 8%, which is about twice what historical rate trends have been. If you think over the last 40 years loss trend has been about 4%, we are thinking all-in it’s about 8%. So, that will be about 8% and then plus more in the states that needed more and maybe a little bit less than the states that needed less.

David Motemaden: Got it. That’s helpful. Yes, that sounds about in line with what we were thinking in terms of loss trends, that makes sense. And then lastly, I guess just I know, you guys are reinsuring a decent amount of the book I guess. Could you just comment, it’s a hard reinsurance market, at least on the property cat side, I am not sure if that really, how much that impacts you guys on the auto side, but wondering if you could share any perspectives you have as you sort of navigate more difficult reinsurance renewals just generally across the marketplace?