W. R. Berkley Corporation
Q2 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 22 Jul 2021

[Operator:]

Good day, and welcome to W.R. Berkley Corporation's Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. Today's conference call is being recorded. The speakers' 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, except 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.

[Rob Berkley:]

Susanne, thank you very much, and good afternoon everyone and again welcome to our Q2 call. Along with me co-hosting, we’ve our Executive Chairman, Bill Berkley; as well as Rich Baio, Group CFO. We're going to follow a similar agenda to what we've done in the past where in a moment or two I’m going to hand it over to Rich to walk us through the quarter and focus our attention on a few highlights. And once he is through, I’m going to offer a few sound bites and then we will open up for Q&A. Rich, so if you please.

[William R. Berkley:]

Great. Thanks, Rob, and good afternoon, everyone. The positive momentum continues to build in our business as evidenced by our growth in premium and expansion in underwriting profits as rate improvements and additional premium associated with increased exposure earned through the income statement. We reported a consecutive quarterly record underwriting profit in the second quarter of 2021 along with strong net investment income, resulting in an annualized return on beginning of year equity of 15%. The company reported net income of $237 million, or $1.27 per share. The components include operating income of $219 million, or $1.17 per share, and after tax net investment gains of $18 million, or $0.10 per share. Drilling down into our quarterly underwriting performance, you will note that gross premiums written grew by $529 million, or 24.8%, almost $2.7 billion. Net premiums written grew $472 million or 27.2% to more than $2.2 billion recognizing an increase in both segments. Our overall session rate decreased in the quarter due to changes in certain underlying outward reinsurance arrangements, lower reinstatement premium and business mix. Moving into segment production of net premiums written, the Insurance segment grew 29.2% almost $2 billion with an increase in all lines of business. Professional liability led this growth with 64.8% followed by commercial auto of 31%; other liability of 28.7%, short-tail lines of 21.2% and workers' compensation of 15.6%. The Reinsurance & Monoline Excess segment grew about 11% to $218 million, with an increase in Monoline Excess of 20.9% and Casualty Reinsurance of 17.5%, partially offset by a decrease in property reinsurance of 13.8%.

[Rob Berkley:]

Rich, thank you very much. So let me just offer a couple of quick observations, and then we'll get to your Q&A and take the dialogue anywhere participants would like to. I think by virtually any measure, it was a great quarter for the company. And from my perspective, it's been in the making for some period of time. In addition to that, I think there's a growing amount of evidence that would support the idea that there is more to come, and it's just again, quite encouraging. As far as drilling down into the market a little bit more when we looked at the major product lines with the exception of workers' compensation, all of them continue to get rate increases that outpace our view of loss trend. And that is even as we have been factoring in a bit more for financial inflation. Regarding workers' compensation, they are again growing, but early signs that the level of erosion there is slowing. That having been said, we also we're paying close attention to wage inflation and what that may mean for the comp economic model. Rich walked you through the top line. Obviously, the 27% growth plus is pretty healthy. A couple of observations there, though. One, please keep in mind, if you go back and you look at 2020, we were not an organization here in Q2 of '20, our top line fell off a cliff. We were give or take flat. So this was not just a bounce back to a normal run rate. This was a meaningful growth. In addition to that, Richard commented around the Excess and Reinsurance segment. You would have noted possibly in the release, and also again in Richard's comments, that it was the Reinsurance segment where particularly our domestic treaty business, where we backed away from a couple of deals where we just thought as though the rates were good, they weren't good enough for us to participate.

[A - Rob Berkley:]

Elyse, good afternoon.

[Elyse Greenspan:]

Hi. Thanks. Good afternoon as well. My first question, I wanted to drill down into some of what you said in the introductory comments. Rob, you said that you're factoring in a bit more for financial inflation. Can you just expand on that and what change in terms of your loss plans assumptions in the current quarter?

[Rob Berkley:]

So we are constantly visiting and revisiting our last picks and trying to refine them based on all the available information at any moment in time. I think from our perspective, it's pretty apparent that there is more financial inflation in the system today, if you will, than there was a year-ago. And as we think about our loss costs, for example, in the property line, the costs of building materials, or the cost of auto parts or other things like that, one need to appropriately factor in the financial inflation and what that means and how that impacts.

[Elyse Greenspan:]

Can you give us a sense of just the magnitude of the movement you guys saw in the quarter relative to your loss …?

[Rob Berkley:]

Generally speaking, at least we don't dissect that our loss picks to that extent. But certainly, I can assure you that when we have factored it in, it has led us to raise some of our picks from what we have been using in the past.

[Elyse Greenspan:]

Okay. And then my second question on, you guys -- also going back to some of your remarks, the expense ratio on 28.7 in the quarter, I know you said it was 50 basis points from COVID. But it sounds like given the fact that there's a lot of leverage to the top line growth, that perhaps this could be kind of a new run rate expense ratio both when we still see some pandemic savings, and even when we get COVID, that it could be within the range of a 28.7. Can you just help us think through kind of the run rate for the expense ratio?

[Rob Berkley:]

Sure. So what I would suggest you do is if you sort of add back in the 50 basis points for COVID, then you look at the momentum behind our earned premium in part by looking at our written and how that's going to come through. And while, yes, some of that expense is variable, commissions, boards, bureaus and so on, a meaningful amount of our expenses is somewhat fixed. And to Richard's point earlier, I think that that will certainly offset and probably then some the COVID component not being part of the business, hopefully going forward because everyone is back to a more traditional way of operating.

[Elyse Greenspan:]

Okay. Thanks for the color.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Phillips from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

[Rob Berkley:]

Hi, Mike. Good afternoon.

[Michael Phillips:]

Thank you. Hey, Rob. Thanks. Two questions. First question on the loss ratio ex-cat and the COVID. For this quarter, in insurance, it looks like it's flat compared to last year. And I think it's where I kind of want to get either reminder or clarification. I think last year you had some frequency benefits. So maybe this quarter actually did improve in insurance, and can you remind us or talk about that?

[Rob Berkley:]

I'm sorry, Michael, could you repeat the question? You broke up a little bit.

[Michael Phillips:]

Sure. Apologize. Yes, yes. So the Insurance segment of loss ratio ex-cat and COVID impacts, it looks like the loss ratio there back in that was flat year-over-year compared to 2Q '20. But I think that you had some frequency benefits also that made 2Q '20 a little bit tougher comp as you look at the whole numbers. So want to see if that was the case and clarify that, so actually this quarter did improve in insurance.

[Rob Berkley:]

Yes. I'll give you my two sense, and Rich may have some thoughts to add to it. I think the biggest piece was the comment that both Rich and I made around non-cat property related losses being a bit more challenging in Q2, '01 than what we saw last year. And I think that would be a leading factor. And again, that was primarily fire. Rich, do you have any further thoughts on that?

[William R. Berkley:]

That's spot on, Rob. That's exactly right. So I don't have any additional thoughts.

[Rob Berkley:]

Okay.

[Michael Phillips:]

Okay. So I was getting to maybe there was something last year that kind of dropped that loss ratio, but maybe not. So it's more just elevated this year from what you said. So okay, that's helpful. Second question, Rob, did you approach the, I guess, the way you set reserve the philosophy behind how you set reserves for '20, given all that was going on last year, any differently than you otherwise do in the reserve ?

[Rob Berkley:]

Certainly all of us, we, as a team took note of the impact of COVID on multiple levels, some of it to that was helpful, some of it was not helpful. But it's by the big piece that perhaps you're referring to, is frequency trend, and there were many product lines that benefited from COVID as it relates to frequency. And how we have thought about it, first off, we recognize that is not the new normal, and we're seeing frequency trend virtually across the board returning to a more traditional norm. And second of all, as far as what I would define is a unique situation in 2020 and some one-time benefits that came up out on the frequency assumption. We have recognized some of that but, I think, as we mentioned last quarter, we're reluctant to declare an outcome Prematurely because there are certain things you can include that they're done. And there are other things, it's hard to know whether there's just a pinch point in the legal system, for example, and there will be a catch up.

[Michael Phillips:]

Okay. That’s helpful. I guess the reason I was asking, Rob, because I think it's no secret that there's probably some cushion in the industry numbers. I'm not going to ask you about yours, but industry numbers because of 2020 accident year . And I guess what I was getting at is, do you think there's any impact of that on the overall pricing cycle because of what needs to be more of a cushion because of COVID results?

[Rob Berkley:]

I think that different organizations have chosen to recognize that cushion at a different pace. I think a lot of that cushion came through primarily in the shorter tail lines, which would have been recognized sooner rather than later. And fundamentally, I think a lot of the drivers that are pushing this market to continue to firm are coming about as a result of other things.

[Michael Phillips:]

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Rob Berkley:]

So I don’t see that cushion is going to impact the direction or the momentum that exists. Thanks for the question.

[Michael Phillips:]

Okay. Thanks so much.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Tunis from Autonomous Research. Your line is now open.

[Rob Berkley:]

Good afternoon, Ryan.

[Ryan Tunis:]

Hey, good evening, Rob. So question on -- the growth obviously strong. When we see that coming back and kind of the pivot toward the growth, does that change how you see the loss ratio progressing, maybe looking at over the next year relative to what you might have thought 6 months ago?

[Rob Berkley:]

From our perspective, again, nobody knows exactly what tomorrow will bring, or there's always the unforeseen event. But when we look at the data points, you can see rates continuing to outpace our view on trends by and large. In addition to that, when you do the math, one needs to factor in the impact of terms and conditions, particularly in the E&S space as well as on the facultative front and even into this broader specialty space. So, when I think about it, I think that there's further opportunity from here for things to improve. And again, we have a view that our rate increases on a written basis and an on an earned basis will continue for some period of time outpacing trend.

[Ryan Tunis:]

Got it. And then a follow-up on, I guess, just little bit a reminder, obviously, Berkley has a lot of the individual underwriting entities and these are pretty decentralized generally. So it doesn't work in such a way that those entities are kind of reporting up loss ratios to you guys and you're kind of counting up the picks, or to what extent centrally are you guys able to kind of actually have control the assumptions that go into like underlying loss ratios?

[Rob Berkley:]

Yes, so at the heart of our model, it's not an us and them so to speak. A model is much more of a collaborative one. So things such as loss pick using that as an example, that is certainly something that is a collaborative effort amongst really driven very much by the colleagues in the field at the same time, it is collaborative with us here. And we work together and we try and make sure that we're looking at it, if you will, a more local granular level. At the same time, we want to make sure that we're getting the benefit of the broader view of the group and beyond. So it's not one or the other. It is really a team effort from my perspective, and there's what I would define as a very healthy give and take.

[Ryan Tunis:]

Understood. Thanks.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Josh Shanker from Bank of America. Your line is now open.

[Rob Berkley:]

Yes .

[Joshua Shanker:]

Hi. Good afternoon, everybody.

[Rob Berkley:]

Great. Thank you.

[Joshua Shanker:]

So -- good. So please don't get angry, I got a tough question, but I'm sure you have a . I look to you guys as the poster child for we recognize bad news quickly and good news, we left sort of, I guess, incubate some of your putting it in the numbers. I was just looking through the numbers and it seems like you guys have been releasing reserves and workers' comp for reconnecting years, I'm sure there is reason for it. And I know that you guys usually sit on reserves, even think of producing favorable and a long-tail line for a number of years until you did that with confidence. So I'm hoping that you might be able to enlighten me on how it works a little bit.

[Rob Berkley:]

So, Josh, let me say it back to you because the line isn't great. And I want to make sure that I understood your question. You're making an observation around how what our loss reserve development has been in the workers' comp line and philosophically how we think about that?

[Joshua Shanker:]

I was looking through the schedule of PIC recent accident years and workers' comp are throwing off favorable development. And I imagine you guys would long-tail on like workers' comp traditionally, you would sit on those reserves for a few years before making any changes.

[Rob Berkley:]

Well, I think the answer to the question, and again, we're happy to get into a more granular discussion with you offline is that we are looking at our picks. And we're looking at the historical data and we are looking at low frequency and we're looking at severity, and we're trying to adjust appropriately. I think we tend to be particularly cautious early on out of the gates. And then of course, as it seasons, we will respond. But again, I don't have the in front of me, so I'd be reluctant to try and get into a more granular discussion. But if you'd like to take it up offline, we would be pleased to do that with you or one of your colleagues, whatever would be most convenient for you all.

[Joshua Shanker:]

Happy to do that. And the other question I had was about the arbitrage market. You guys let that fund get bigger, sometimes gets smaller. What's your outlook right now given where the market is and the opportunities there is? Will you be allocating more capital or less capital in the future to that in your minds?

[Rob Berkley:]

I think if we take it one day at a time, we have some extraordinarily skilled colleagues that run that business and we have no shortage of cash as you would see from our balance sheet. So while it's been pretty steady, if they see more opportunity, we are certainly in our position to provide them more capital to manage.

[Joshua Shanker:]

Okay, thank you very much.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Meyer Shields from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. Your line is open.

[Rob Berkley:]

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for calling in.

[Meyer Shields:]

How are you, Rob? So two quick questions. I think if I understand your response to at least correctly, you're talking about tweaking up some loss picks because of higher financial inflation. But if we take out the non-cat weather in the quarter, it looks like the underlying equity and loss ratio was better than in the first quarter. So I feel like I'm missing something there.

[Rob Berkley:]

Well, I think obviously, we're in an industry where the -- you price your product before you fully know your cost of goods sold. And when we're thinking about the impacts of financial inflation, and what that may mean for our claims costs in the future, we're trying to make sure that we appropriately factor that in. I think if you're like me and you show up at Home Depot once a month, you'll notice that a lot of the stuff you buy there is considerably more expensive than it was a year-ago. So we're just trying to make sure that we are appropriately adjusting for the shift in a lot of commodity pricing and the shift in a lot of costs that would come about with claims.

[Meyer Shields:]

Okay. The examples you gave for the financial inflation all seem to focus on short-tail lines. Are you seeing similar worsening inflation on the liability of the longer-tail lines?

[Rob Berkley:]

Not as visibly if the shorter-tail lines is using a pretty broad brush, I would -- we will have to see the impact over time. Obviously, there can be an impact on things -- on certain things, but for us on the liability side, it tends to continue to be more of a social inflation discussion.

[Meyer Shields:]

Okay, perfect. And then one last question, if I can. I assume that some of the employment costs you have are fixed costs. Is inflation there getting any worse?

[Rob Berkley:]

I think generally speaking, there is wage inflation throughout the country, and there's likely to be more of that for at least the short-term. We'll have to see what it means over time.

[Meyer Shields:]

Okay, perfect. Thank you so much.

[Rob Berkley:]

Thank you for your questions.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Meredith from UBS. Your line is now open.

[Rob Berkley:]

Hey, Brian.

[Brian Meredith:]

Good, good. Hey, Rob, a couple of quick ones here. The first one, just back to the fire loss you had in the quarter, I imagine you expect some level fire losses every quarter, right? And I'm just curious, kind of is there a kind of a -- is there -- is it above baseline, it was last year's fire losses abnormally low, just trying to kind of establish kind of what a good baseline is here right now for the underlying loss ratio.

[Rob Berkley:]

Yes, I would -- it was a series of losses. It wasn't just one loss.

[Brian Meredith:]

Yes.

[Rob Berkley:]

And I would tell you, I don't have the numbers in front of me. Rich, I would say it's a little bit of both of what Brian referenced. I think last year was a little on the lighter side this year was particularly heavy and run rates probably somewhere in between the book end . So I think the 2.4 were last year, I'd say a .5 I put back in, what's your thought on that?

[William R. Berkley:]

Yes, I think that's right. I would agree with that.

[Brian Meredith:]

Perfect. That's helpful. And then another one just quickly on the underlying loss ratios. When you’re growing your book pretty quickly right now. Is that is that mix of business going to kind of have some effect here going forward as we kind of looked at the combined ratio or the loss ratio, just because some of those casual lines probably carry a little bit higher underlying loss ratio?

[Rob Berkley:]

I think that it is going to prove over time that the margin in the business that we're writing is very attractive.

[Brian Meredith:]

Okay, great. And then my last question. I'm just curious, you said you're concerned about wage inflation with respect to workers' comp. But don't you actually get premium for any type of payroll, isn't that based on payroll? So why would it be concerned?

[Rob Berkley:]

Thanks for raising that, Brian. I may have mischaracterized it or misspoke. Actually it's the other way around. So when as you've had to listen to us wine for the past several quarters about the workers' comp line and how even though frequency may be the industry's friend and certainly it was the industry's friend during COVID, we continue to be focused on the severity component and we are meaningfully concerned about that for the industry, which has led to some of the commentary you heard. When you come up with a loss pick for workers' comp, obviously, there are a variety of components. One of the components is the medical trend assumption that you're using. So when you think about a -- the exposure, you make certain assumptions around payrolls. And to the extent that payroll or wage inflation is driving payrolls up more, and perhaps medical inflation is going up, but not going up by as -- or is not keeping up with the wage inflation, that could inert to the benefit of the margin.

[Brian Meredith:]

Got you. Makes sense. Thank you.

[Rob Berkley:]

Thanks for the question.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Dwelle from RBC. Your line is now open.

[Mark Dwelle:]

Yes. Good afternoon. Let me start with just a small numbers question. Was there in fact any COVID expense within the catastrophe, the $44 million a catastrophe that you had this quarter? Or is that you’re no longer looking anything?

[Rob Berkley:]

So there's -- there was a relatively modest -- Rich, do you recall how much it was?

[William R. Berkley:]

Yes, we had about 1.2 loss ratio points embedded in the current accident year cat losses for COVID. So just under $25 million.

[Mark Dwelle:]

Okay. That’s helpful. Thank you. And then second question, and I'm tempted to ask you what the last thing you bought at Home Depot was what I'll actually ask you is -- in terms of competition across the industry, are you still seeing primarily rational competitive behavior, or are you seeing any signs around the edges of call aggressive competition, or price limited competition like you would typically see, perhaps new peaks of a pricing cycle?

[Rob Berkley:]

There is nothing that leads us to believe -- let's put workers comp aside for the moment. There is nothing that leads us to believe that the opportunities in virtually every other product line are not very meaningful today, and will be very meaningful tomorrow. We continue to see the opportunity to push rates further and quite frankly, we're seeing the standard market continue to push business out creating opportunity for the specialty market. So we remain very encouraged by and large, as it relates to the opportunities. And no, we do not think that this marketplace has peaked in any way, shape, or form quite to the contract. Workers' comp, again, being the one outlier. Are we seeing the rate decreases depending on the state slowing a little bit? Yes, there is signs of that. At the same time, it is been surprising to us how there are certain markets that are becoming exceptionally aggressive with things such as commissions. And quite frankly, we just shake our head, we've kind of seen the movie before. We know how it ends. And it's usually a sign that we're getting towards the end.

[Mark Dwelle:]

Thank you. That's very helpful. That's all my questions.

[Rob Berkley:]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator:]

There are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

[Rob Berkley:]

Okay. Suzanne, thank you. So we, first of all, thank you all very much for finding time to join us as you would have gathered not only was it a strong quarter, but we're very optimistic about where things are going for the next couple of years. And from our perspective, the table is set for some pretty terrific returns. And we will look forward to enjoying those again over the next couple of years. So we will update you again in about 90 days. Thank you for your time.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.