Selective Insurance Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SIGI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

So that’s about 30 basis points of deterioration in the overall expense ratio, including dividends. And that gets you to kind of an underlying loss ratio of about 59.3 for the full year 2023. Now when you think about that 130 basis points of improvement. Another way to look at that is about half of it is really normalizing out the unusual reinstatement premiums we had in 2022. We had the casualty exceeded reinstatement premiums in Q3, and then the Elliot driven cat reinstatement premiums in Q4 to the tune of about $20 million in total between the two and then about the other half really represents a mix of business. So I would kind of put it into those bullet strokes in terms of our consignment from 2022 to 2023.

Mark Dwelle: Truly helpful that pretty much nails it. The second question that I had was related to personal lines in the fourth quarter specifically, the accident year loss ratio was kind of the highest of the year, the expense ratio in the quarter was kind of the lowest for the year nearly, was there anything particular to either of those or is it just kind of the obvious pressure on loss trend on the former any expense saves on the latter?

Mark Wilcox: I’d say for personal lines in the quarter, we, personal lines did absorb its share of losses from Elliott and there is the offsetting reinstatement premium and that does put a little bit of a drag on the ratios when you have a lower denominator on the back of the reinstatement premium. We did also see some pretty significant non-cat property losses within personal lines in the first quarter to the tune of 45.7 percentage points. If you look at the run rate on those, it’s a meaningful increase. And it’s actually if you compare it to our total expectations that’s a full 10 percentage point above what we would have expected for the quarter and that was really the driver on that underlying loss ratio.

John Marchioni: And then I think the expense benefit, there’s probably a little bit more one income from claims probably related to the fourth quarter storms as a positive item in the personalized commission wise, that would be the only other offsetting item but with regard to casualty movement, either current year or prior year, there was none in personal lines.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Meyer Shields of KBW.

Meyer Shields: Great, thanks, good morning. When you look at, I think predominantly the reasonable maybe the mutual competitors that are out there, is there a sense that they’re less able to grow? Because of their exposure to the same sort of higher attachment points and higher reinsurance costs that are out there?

John Marchioni: Yes, I think it’s a great question, Meyer. I think, without having full insight into what happened when everybody’s one, one renewal, I do think that in many cases, those competitors will be more highly dependent on reinsurance. That’s certainly assuming their loss effected. And even if they weren’t likely under the same pressures as everybody else in the market to raise the attachment point and meaningfully impact the costs. So I would assume that you’re seeing a more outsized impact on that group. Now, and I mentioned this, I think this is indicative of what’s happening in the market. Just broadly, it was in my prepared comments, and I want to make sure it didn’t get lost is that our January commercial lines pricing was 6.5% up almost a four point from Q4.

And my sense is actually more than my sense, it was driven by a pretty meaningful movement in the property line. So I think that’s indicative of a shift in the marketplace. And whether that’s smaller versus larger or across the board. I couldn’t really tell you, but I think your original point is pretty accurate in terms of whether the impact of the reinsurance renewal was felt more than others.