W. R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

W. R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript April 23, 2024

W. R. Berkley Corporation isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Good day and welcome to W. R. Berkley Corporation First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Today’s conference call is being recorded. The speaker’s remarks may contain forward-looking statements. Some of the forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words including without limitation, believes, expects or estimates. We caution you that such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by us that the future plans, estimates or expectations contemplated by us will in fact be achieved. Please refer to our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023 and our other filings made with the SEC for a description of the business environment in which we operate and the important factors that may materially affect our results.

W. R. Berkley Corporation is not under any obligation and expressly disclaims any such obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Rob Berkley. Please go ahead, sir.

Rob Berkley: Audra, thank you very much and let me echo your words earlier with a warm welcome to all that are participating in the call today. We appreciate your time and look forward to discussing with you our Q1 2024 results. In addition to myself, we also have Bill Berkley on the call, Executive Chairman and Rich Baio, Chief Financial Officer and we are going to follow our typical agenda where I am going to be handing it over to Rich shortly. He will be running through some highlights, once he is completed his comments, I’ll follow along with a few additional thoughts and then we will be pleased to open it up for questions, comments, discussion. But before I do hand it over to Rich, I think anyone who’s had an opportunity to flip through the earnings release would understand already.

But I’ll say it regardless, that we had a very strong and solid quarter, great way to start the year. And when you really look at the results and unpack it a little bit, as we’ll be doing over the next hour or so, it’s pretty clear that the business is firing on many cylinders or essentially all cylinders at this stage. Rich again will get into some details and while there are a couple of moving pieces in the investment portfolio that merit some conversation or discussion, I think the overall story is that whether it’s on the investment side or on the underwriting side, business continues to benefit from the foundation that was poured yesterday. We continue to pour it today and position the business for continued success. This is really a result of the whole team and in particular, I think it’s worth noting that the level of expertise, the focus and as important as anything, the discipline that exists on both the underwriting part of the business, as well as the investment part of the business.

So for us, we’re pleased with the quarter. Rich is going to give you some more detail on it. In addition to that, we’re probably even more enthusiastic because of how we see the business unfolding, not just for the balance of this year, but with every passing day we are laying the groundwork for what 2025 and beyond will look like as well. So with that, let me hand it to Rich and he will share with us some of his thoughts on the quarter. Rich, good morning.

Rich Baio: Thanks, Rob. Appreciate it. As you mentioned, we’re off to a terrific start in 2024, with record quarterly operating income driven by record net investment income and our best first quarter underwriting income. Operating income increased 53.4% to $423 million or $1.56 per share, with an annualized operating return on beginning of year equity of 22.7%. Net income increased 50.4% to $442 million or $1.64 per share, with an annualized return on beginning of year equity of 23.7%. Our growth in net premiums written accelerated to 10.7% to a record of almost $2.9 billion. Rate improvement and exposure growth continue to contribute to the increase in our top line. Before discussing the segment results, we reclassified a program management business from the insurance segment to the Reinsurance & Monoline Excess segment.

This reclassified business has similar characteristics to one of our reinsurance operations already in the Reinsurance & Monoline Excess segment and has common management for both operations. And accordingly, reclassifications have been made to the company’s 2023 financial information to conform this presentation. Having said that, the insurance segment increased net premiums written by a 11.9% to more than $2.4 billion and the Reinsurance & Monoline Excess segment increased 4.2% to more than $400 million. Pretax underwriting income increased 31.8% to $309 million and our calendar year combined ratio improved 1.8 points from the prior year to 88.8%. The current accident year combined ratio ex cats was flat year-over-year at 87.7%. A reduction in the current accident year catastrophe losses contributed to a benefit of 80 basis points to the calendar year loss ratio of 60.2%.

Cat losses were $31 million or 1.1 loss ratio points in the current quarter versus $48 million or 1.9 loss ratio points in the first quarter of 2023. Combining this improvement along with the prior year favorable development of approximately $1 million brings our first quarter 2024 accident year loss ratio ex cats to 59.1%. The slight uptick in the ratio from the prior year is due to business mix. Expense ratio improved 20 basis points to 28.6% due to a non-recurring benefit associated with compensation. We remain confident that our 2024 full year expense ratio should be comfortably below 30%, even with the previously announced new start-up operating unit expenses. Pretax net investment income grew 43.2% to a record $320 million in the current quarter.

Our core portfolio increased more than 63%, which was influenced by Argentine inflation linked securities. We don’t expect the remainder of 2024 to benefit as significantly from much of these securities which have matured in the first quarter. Partially offsetting this benefit is a loss of $29 million from investment funds. As you may recall, we report investment funds on a one quarter lag and since our first quarter represents the fourth quarter of the year for investment funds, we believe their mark-to-market process is more rigorous due to financial statement audits. The two primary fund strategies for the current quarter’s loss were transportation and financial services. To synthesize this down for the second quarter of 2024, we expect investment funds will have less impact from mark-to-market and perform more like they did in the fourth quarter of 2023, as we expect the Argentine inflation linkers to do as well.

We had very strong operating cash flow of $746 million in the first quarter, an increase of almost 68% compared with last year. The combination of new money rate above the roll off yields on our fixed maturity portfolio and increasing investable asset base, the company is well positioned for a future investment income growth. In addition, credit quality of the portfolio remains at a AA minus, duration increased from 2.4 years to 2.5 years in the first quarter. The effective tax rate increased to 23% in the first quarter and we expect this to remain elevated throughout 2024 when compared to the prior year. The amount of foreign income and its contribution to the global earnings of the company at tax rates greater than 21% statutory rate in the U.S. will likely result in a higher annual expected effective tax rate.

Our stockholders equity remains very strong at a record $7.8 billion, despite an increase in unrealized losses and currency translation losses of $98 million in the quarter. Book value per share was $30.34 at quarter end, an increase of 4.4% from year end and 14.7% over the prior year quarter. With that, Rob, I’ll turn it back to you.

Rob Berkley: Okay. Rich, thank you. So, let me start with a few sort of comments on the marketplace and then I’ll offer a few further observations on our quarter. So perhaps a place to begin would be bifurcating between insurance versus reinsurance, which obviously the markets are related, but they’re not one in the same and starting with insurance maybe calling out E&S as a part of the market. I think there’s been some commentary around perhaps E&S is losing some momentum and I would suggest that one needs to use, at least through my lens, somewhat of a finer brush. As far as we can see, the momentum for the liability lines is — continues to be as strong as ever. To the extent you’re seeing any slowing in the momentum of E&S, it’s likely to be property related.

As far as the property market in general, when it comes to insurance, we think that it still does have some momentum, but it probably does not have the level of momentum that it had last year. We’re still seeing rates moving up and we expect they will continue to move up for the immediate future. That having been said, I think part of what you’re seeing is the insurance marketplace catching up to what the reinsurance marketplace had taken action around and their costs of the capacity the rent has gone up. As far as GL, again, from our perspective, it remains very robust, both admitted and non-admitted and no surprise, it’s the social inflation continuing to persist that is driving that. Just on the topic of social inflation auto, which as I think I’ve commented on in the past, continues to be very much in the crosshairs of social inflation.

We think that, that is part of the market that you’re going to see considerable additional firming going on, specifically in commercial auto. Excess and umbrella, particularly to the extent that it relates to the commercial auto market, you are going to see additional firming there as well. Workers compensation, we have offered our more defensive view around that. And of course, as far as professional liability goes, we have called out D&O where obviously some number of years it spiked. More recently it has been dropping at somewhat of a precipitous rate. And at this stage, we view that it is not bottomed, but it is closing in on the bottom. Pivoting to reinsurance, barring what Mother Nature may do tomorrow, it would seem as though the property cat cycle has run a bit of its course.

From our perspective, rates were off for property cat reinsurance at 1.1, 5% or more risk adjusted. And, you know, we’ll have to see how that unfolds. That having been said, we are seeing some potential green shoots of discipline returning to the liability market within under the umbrella of reinsurance. We have been reasonably outspoken about our concerns around discipline over the past couple of years within the liability or the reinsurance liability market and we will see what comes of that. Turning to our quarter top line, just shy of a 11%. As you would have noted in the release, we are pleased with the rate increase that we got at the 7.8%, which in our opinion is comfortably outpacing trend in the aggregate. And the renewal retention ratio continues to be at approximately 80%, which is what we would expect.

The strength in the insurance growth, as Rich referenced, just shy of 13% is quite strong. Property in particular was a contributor as we take advantage of that market opportunity. And again, in keeping with my comments about market conditions on the reinsurance front, you would have seen us continuing to exercise discipline when it comes to the casualty or liability lines. As far as our loss ratio goes, clearly a good performance in the quarter and we believe that the stage is set for a good balance of the year, as well as increasingly what we should be expecting for 2025 and beyond. Just as a data point that I share from time-to-time because I think it’s a helpful indicator or certainly a truth that we can all hang our hat on. During the quarter, our paid loss ratio was a 45.8, which is the second lowest it’s been in the past eight years and the only time it was lower, it was lower by 50 basis points.

So we are in a very comfortable place on that front. Just on the topic of losses, maybe spending a few moments on the topic of loss reserves and I think there’s a shared appreciation for the challenges that stem from just to put a stake in the ground 19 and prior and what that may mean. From our perspective, I think that we are well on our way, as I suggested to some, to having that behind us. The averaged life of our reserves is just inside of four years, so at this stage that period is getting very much towards the tail end, is there perhaps a little bit out there still? We’ll see what time it’s possible, but certainly our expectation is that much of it has been processed, if you will. I think a few other data points that are worth noting at least we find them to be helpful as leading indicators when it comes to strength of reserves and putting aside the comment about paid losses, we would encourage people to consider having a look at IBNR as a percent of total reserves, the ratio of IBNR to case reserves and while some people may look at those two data points and say, well, you know, they could be impacted by the growth in the business and certainly there would be that reality to a certain extent, though I would suggest that people should look more carefully at how much of our growth was coming from rate.

That all having been said, there is another data point that we look to and we would encourage others to consider as well and that is initial IBNR as a percent of net premium earned. I think all of these data points that I and drawn to your attention to are worth your consideration and I think would suggest the — this our reserves are in a improving a good place and more likely than not continuing to improve and we will see that mature over time. As far as the expenses go, Rich walk through that. In particular, I would just call out that we had four businesses that had been in their infancy and the first quarter of this year is the first time we pulled them into the expense ratio and we’re pleased to see how they are developing and maturing.

On the investment portfolio, Rich had walked you through this as well, but a couple of highlights from my perspective, he referenced the AA minus and it happens to be a very strong AA minus, so there could be a lot of credit activity and we would still be in a very comfortable place. As Rich flagged the duration, it nudged out from 2.4 to 2.5. Do we continue to look for opportunities to nudge it out? Yes, absolutely. Do we feel any pressure that we need to do that overnight? Absolutely not. The book yield as Rich referenced or maybe he didn’t, I’ll be referencing now was 5.9%, but if you back out the Argentine component, the book yield is actually 4.2%. I think that’s relevant because when we talk about how we’re sort of laying the ground for the future here or what one should expect going forward with our sort of core domestic portfolio, which is the lion’s share of what we have at 4.2% and a new money rate that’s somewhere between 5.25 and 5.50.

I think that combined with the strength of our cash flow should give you a sense as to the earnings power of the business and the contribution that we will be receiving from the investment portfolio, which again, I think there’s considerable upside from here, again with the domestic core fixed income portfolio, that’s 100 basis points plus upside from here. So when you, you put it all together, I think that we have been thoughtful and prudent on the underwriting side. We responded to the data and pushed rate and adjusted terms, conditions and appetite mix of business and we are seeing the benefits of that, but we don’t want to quite frankly as we had shared with you in the past, declare victory prematurely and but more likely, in my opinion than not, but we’ll see with time, good news to come on that front.

In addition to that, as I just suggested, as it relates to the other part of our economic model, our investment portfolio, very well positioned, benefiting from the focus and the discipline and the opportunity to take advantage of a new money rate that is 100 basis points above where our book yield of our core portfolio will prove to be very advantageous. So with that, I will pause there and Audra, if we could please open it up for questions?

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Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We’ll take our first question from Mike Zaremski at BMO.

Rob Berkley: Good morning, Mike.

Mike Zaremski: Hi, good morning. Thanks for the data point on the pay to incurred and the color on the reserves. Just curious, you know, your — we did see in the staff statements too, that the, the reserves ratios appear to be getting better. Just curious, do you guys make any material changes or maybe top off a little bit the 2023 vintage as well?

Rob Berkley: When you say top off, what is your…

Mike Zaremski: Just curious if you made any changes to kind of your view on the more — on the 2023 vintage as well, which we couldn’t see in any changes there on the staff data, we won’t see that until next year.

Rob Berkley: Nothing particularly material at this stage. Again, we think that the — look, we were constantly looking at our loss picks in trying to tweak and refine. So it’s not like we come up with these picks and then they’re frozen indefinitely. That having been said, there was nothing material or consequential to the portfolio overall as far as changes during 2023.

Mike Zaremski: Okay, got it. You know, in your prepared remarks, Rob, in the beginning, it sounded like, you know, you’re just as optimistic or maybe more optimistic about the — how the portfolio is coming together than you were last quarter. I guess, you know, pricing power, you know, I know it’s just a quarter doesn’t make a trend, looks like it’s kind of flattish. Are you — are we still kind of on the view that top line growth is likely to be in the low double digits for the year? Or do you think things could play out a bit better, especially if pricing on the cash flow side for the industry starts to move a bit north?

Rob Berkley: My best guesstimate at this stage and that’s with a capital G is that we should be able to grow the business all, given what I see between 10% and 15%. As Mike, I know you’re aware of and we all presumably have a shared appreciation. We have 60 different businesses, all focused on different niches within the marketplace. And at any moment in time, there are parts of the market that we participate in that are improving and there are parts of the market that are facing more of a headwind. One of the things, again, as I think we’ve discussed in the past is that once upon a time, these product lines marched in lockstep, at this stage, they have seemed to be decoupling more and more every day. So there’ll be some puts and there’ll be some takes, but overall, I think that there’s a better than average chance that we can grow between 10% and 15% for the foreseeable future.

Could there be a quarter that we come in shy of that? Yes. Could there be a quarter that we exceed that? Yes, but that’s sort of the channel markers I would offer you.

Mike Zaremski: Okay. And just lastly, on property, I feel like there was a couple of comments made. You said that maybe that’s an area that could lose a bit of pricing momentum in the E&S marketplace, given it’s a more, you know, my words, a little bit more commoditized line in terms of ability for people to come in and out. But then you also said, you know, you’re, you know, you think you’ve been growing into property a bit over time. So just want to be clear, do you still feel like property is an area that over the course of the year, you know, returns are good that Berkley which is underweight can play more offense?

Rob Berkley: Look, so let maybe just to bifurcate it a little bit between insurance and reinsurance. So, first off, I think that one needs to understand just because pricing is peaked, that doesn’t mean there’s not still good margin to have. So if you look at our reinsurance business and the opportunity that we still see in property, we view it as still a healthy line. That having been said, barring the unforeseen event, we think that property cat specifically has perhaps seen the peak we’ll see with time. Obviously, the reinsurance marketplace has an impact on the insurance market, when reinsurance costs are up, then obviously that there is a trickle through or a waterfall effect for the insurance market and there is a little bit of a delay in that.

So, the reinsurance market, which force the firming, I think, is out ahead. I think there’s still margin to be had there, I think the impact that it’s had on the insurance market is still very real, as the insurance market is still coming to grips with that higher cost of capacity that they rent from the reinsurance marketplace. But I don’t think that there is the same level of pressure in or urgency in the insurance marketplace in particular E&S that we saw or felt a year ago. That doesn’t mean there’s not still opportunity. That doesn’t mean we don’t still like the margin and don’t still want to have a second helping of whatever the market can offer. We have a view as to what adequate rate is in order to achieve the risk adjusted return that we think is appropriate.

Right now, we think that opportunity, generally speaking, still exists in property. How quickly that will dissipate? I don’t know, but we play close attention to it and we will not have an issue shutting off the spigot if we don’t think it is a good use of capital going forward.

Mike Zaremski: Helpful. Thank you.

Rob Berkley: Thank you.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Josh Shanker at Bank of America.

Josh Shanker: Yes. Good morning, everybody.

Rob Berkley: Good morning, Josh.

Josh Shanker: Thank you. I was interested in just getting a little bit of past perspective and maybe future perspective on the impact of the Argentine component of the investment portfolio in the traditional NII. How has it impacted the past, this quarter and how should we think about it in the future as a one-off line item?