Andrew Steinerman: Hi, Elizabeth, you pointed to the high end of the 2023 guidance range now being expected. Was that just for revenues or for other figures as well? And then, when I look at the high end for the 2023 revenue guide, I get an implied revenue growth for the fourth quarter of plus 4%, of course, that would be as reported. Could you help us with the counterpart the OCC revenue growth implied in the fourth quarter?
Elizabeth Mann: Yes. Thanks for the question, Andrew. That comment about the high end was specific and confined to revenues and did not apply to the other line items. And I’m not here to comment on the fourth quarter in specific, other than the points I made about the year-over-year comps.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Silber from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Jeff Silber: Thanks so much. I’m going to ask a question about 2024, but not a numbers question. I’m just curious, compared to a year ago, what areas of your business are you feeling more confident about it as we head into the next year? And conversely, what areas might be a bit more concerning for you than they were a year ago? Thanks.
Lee Shavel: Thank you, Jeff. It’s an interesting question, and I would start off by saying that first, at a high level, I feel as though the strategic engagement that we’ve had has created broader opportunities for us to advance in a number of businesses by more effectively communicating the value to their enterprises. So I think that’s certainly something that we feel strongly about. We — in addition, feel confident about the core lines reimagine investment that we have made and our ability to deliver greater value to our clients over the next several years and to participate in that. I think that we are also seeing in the property market and the focus around profitability and opportunity to serve our clients more broadly.
I think the other thing that we would look at this year that we have benefited from is some higher level of transactional activity, particularly in the auto side with high levels of shopping that have contributed to our growth rate that may not be sustained into 2024. Similarly, on the property side, some higher levels of activity there that have contributed to strong growth. I think overall, we’re really pleased with the growth that we generated in 2023. We had some tailwinds. We aren’t providing guidance on 2024 at this point. We have to step back and assess where we are, and we’ll do that in the first quarter. But I think strategically and from a — from an investment standpoint, we’re excited about where we’re investing core lines, generative AI, investments that we’re making in broadening our ecosystem and integrating other partners that add value to our customers.
And we’ll continue to work to offset and mitigate any of the transactional benefits that we’ve had in 2023.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Nicholas with William Blair. Your line is now open.
Andrew Nicholas: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Wanted to ask a modeling one, not specific to fourth quarter 2023 necessarily. Just wanted to ask the last half decade has been a little bit of a crazy one. I think that’s speaking to it lightly, a lot of moving parts where the business sits today. Is there any — how would you kind of describe the seasonality of transaction revenue? Is there a –if we’re talking about 2025/2026, is there like a typical cadence that we should expect on the non-subscription line given the makeup of the underlying businesses that comprise that? Thank you.
Elizabeth Mann: Yes. Thanks for the question, Andrew. The biggest component of the transaction revenue that has some seasonality to it, there’s two that come to mind. One is the weather, the weather-related seasonality in property estimating solutions that on a long-term historical basis tends to occasionally get a boost in the third quarter as a function of Atlantic hurricanes last year in 2022 that happened to hit in October and fell in the fourth quarter. The other element that you saw last quarter, the securitization market can sometimes that hits in the second quarter primarily. That’s a relatively small part in our business. The other elements of transactional revenue don’t necessarily have a seasonal pattern to them, the life insurance services, the auto, underwriting product is more a function of their own markets.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Heather Balsky with Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Heather Balsky: Hey, thank you for taking my question. I was hoping you could update us on your expense program where you are today. Are there any other areas that you’re identifying in terms of opportunity as we move forward? Thanks.
Elizabeth Mann: Yes, Heather, thanks for the question. Our expense program, as we highlighted in the past, I think we said sort of over 90% of the benefit is experienced in 2023. So I think of those original set of actions, we think they’ve largely been action that are expressing themselves in the margin expansion that you’re seeing today. There is continued focus on cost efficiency at Verisk. And so we’re looking in the future for opportunities based on our global talent outsourcing program and based well on investments in internal efficiency that will play out over time like the ERP program that we’ve talked about.
Lee Shavel: Yes. And Heather, I would say, look, we’re very focused on the margin objectives that we set at Investor Day and I think we had a very good start and what we have delivered and have been realizing the benefits of that. But it’s a continuous process for us and we’re always going to look for where we can achieve greater efficiencies throughout the business. Elizabeth mentioned several, but as we have been able to make the business a more integrated business focused on insurance, I think we’ve identified some areas where we can improve both effectiveness and efficiency in the organization and we’ll expect to be pursuing those in 2024 to continue that momentum.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Seth Weber with Wells Fargo Securities. Seth, your line is open.
Seth Weber: Thanks. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I was interested in your comment in the prepared remarks about incremental business on the life side. I’m wondering if you could just unpack that a little bit and talk about customer appetite for more cross-selling and taking more solutions here in this environment. Thank you.
