Skyward Specialty Insurance Group Inc (SKWD) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2024 Skyward Specialty Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Natalie Schoolcraft, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

您好，感謝您的支持。歡迎參加 2024 年第三季 Skyward Specialty 收益電話會議。（操作員指示）請注意，今天的會議正在錄音。現在，我想將會議交給今天的第一位演講者、投資者關係主管娜塔莉·斯科爾克拉夫特（Natalie Schoolcraft）。請繼續。

Thank you, Antoine. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Today, I am joined by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Robinson; and Chief Financial Officer, Mark Haushill. We will begin the call today with our prepared remarks, and then we will open the lines for questions. Our comments today may include forward-looking statements, which, by their nature, involve a number of risk factors and uncertainties, which may affect future financial performance. Such risk factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements. These types of factors are discussed in our press release as well as in our 10-K that was previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Financial schedules containing reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures, along with other supplemental financial information are included as part of our press release and available on our website, skywardinsurance.com under the Investors section. With that, I will turn the call over to Andrew. Andrew?

謝謝你，安托萬。大家早安，歡迎參加我們的 2024 年第三季財報電話會議。今天，與我一起出席的是我們的董事長兼執行長安德魯羅賓遜 (Andrew Robinson)；和財務長Mark Haushill。今天，我們將以準備好的發言開始電話會議，然後開放提問環節。我們今天的評論可能包括前瞻性陳述，這些陳述本質上涉及許多風險因素和不確定性，可能會影響未來的財務表現。這些風險因素可能導致實際結果與我們的預測或前瞻性陳述的結果有重大差異。我們的新聞稿以及先前提交給美國證券交易委員會的 10-K 文件中討論了這些類型的因素。包含某些非 GAAP 指標對帳的財務報表以及其他補充財務資訊均包含在我們的新聞稿中，並可在我們的網站 skywardinsurance.com 的「投資者」部分下找到。說完這些，我會把電話轉給安德魯。安德魯？

Thank you, Natalie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We had another solid quarter, reporting adjusted operating income of $0.71 per diluted share. Through 9 months, our adjusted operating income of $2.26 per diluted share is up over 50% compared to 2023. Despite an active catastrophe quarter for the industry and over 25% of our portfolio in property, we reported a 92.2% combined ratio, which includes less than 3 points of cat losses, a testament to our disciplined underwriting and risk management strategy. Our fully diluted book value per share was up 19% from the beginning of the year to $18.99, and our annualized return on equity through 9 months was an outstanding 19.1%. While in pockets, the market is becoming more challenging, I'm pleased with our execution and remain bullish on our outlook. I'll talk more about this later in the call. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark to discuss our financial results in greater detail. Mark?

謝謝你，娜塔莉。大家早安，感謝大家的收看。我們又度過了一個強勁的季度，調整後每股攤薄營業收入為 0.71 美元。過去 9 個月，我們的調整後每股攤薄營業收入為 2.26 美元，與 2023 年相比增長了 50% 以上。儘管本季行業巨災風險較高且我們超過 25% 的投資組合涉及房地產，但我們報告的綜合成本率為 92.2%，其中包括不到 3 個點的巨災損失，這證明了我們嚴謹的承保和風險管理策略。我們的每股完全攤薄帳面價值較年初上漲 19%，達到 18.99 美元，而過去 9 個月的年化股本回報率高達 19.1%。儘管在某些方面，市場變得更具挑戰性，但我對我們的執行情況感到滿意，並對我們的前景保持樂觀。我稍後會在通話中進一步討論此事。說完這些，我將把電話轉給馬克，更詳細地討論我們的財務表現。標記？

Thank you, Andrew. For the quarter, we reported net income of $36.7 million or $0.89 per diluted share compared to $21.7 million or $0.57 per diluted share for the same period a year ago. On an adjusted operating basis, we reported income of $29.4 million or $0.71 per diluted share compared to $25 million or $0.65 per diluted share for the same period a year ago. Gross written premiums grew by 12.4%, in line with our expectations for the third quarter with transactional E&S, surety, captives, programs and agriculture, each contributing meaningfully to growth. Year-to-date, gross written premiums grew by 19%. Third quarter 2024 net written premiums were $268 million and excluding the impact of the quota share reinsurance contract that was canceled in the third quarter of 2023 net written premiums grew by 16.5% in the quarter. Turning to our underwriting results; the second quarter combined ratio was 92.2% and our ex-cat combined ratio was 89.4% with 0.4 point improvement compared to the third quarter of 2023. The current accident year non-cat loss ratio of 60.6% was consistent with the prior year. During the quarter, catastrophe losses, principally from Hurricane Helene and to a lesser extent, other cats in the quarter only accounted for 2.8 points on the combined ratio. Our year-to-date cat loss ratio of 1.5 points is 0.3 better than the same period of 2023. We are still assessing the impact of Hurricane Milton, barring any further major events we maintain the guidance we previously provided for our full year cat loss expectations to 2 points to 2.5 points.

謝謝你，安德魯。本季度，我們報告的淨利潤為 3,670 萬美元，即每股攤薄收益 0.89 美元，而去年同期的淨利潤為 2,170 萬美元，即每股攤薄收益 0.57 美元。在調整營業基礎後，我們報告的收入為 2,940 萬美元，即每股攤薄收益 0.71 美元，而去年同期的收入為 2,500 萬美元，即每股攤薄收益 0.65 美元。毛承保保費成長了 12.4%，符合我們對第三季的預期，其中交易性 E&S、保證金、自保保險、計劃和農業都對成長做出了重大貢獻。年初至今，毛承保保費增加了 19%。2024 年第三季淨承保保費為 2.68 億美元，不包括 2023 年第三季取消的配額份額再保險合約的影響，本季淨承保保費增加了 16.5%。談到我們的承保結果；第二季的綜合比率為 92.2%，我們的除巨災因素外的綜合比率為 89.4%，與 2023 年第三季相比提高了 0.4 個百分點。本事故年度非巨災損失率為 60.6%，與前一年持平。本季度，災難損失（主要來自颶風海倫以及其他程度較輕的其他巨災損失）僅佔綜合比率的 2.8 個百分點。我們今年迄今的巨災損失率為 1.5 個百分點，比 2023 年同期好 0.3 個百分點。我們仍在評估颶風米爾頓的影響，除非發生其他重大事件，否則我們將維持先前提供的全年損失預期 2 個百分點至 2.5 個百分點的指導。

The expense ratio was comparable to the third quarter of 2023 and in line with our expectations of a sub-30 expense ratio. Lower acquisition costs were primarily driven by the impact of canceling the quota share reinsurance contract in the third quarter of 2023. We also continue to get leverage from the increase in earned premiums. Turning to our investment results; our strategy to derisk the portfolio continues to pay off with net investment income of $19.5 million in the quarter, an increase of $6.4 million compared to the same period of 2023. Consistent with our investment strategy to deploy free cash flow to fixed income, in the third quarter, we put $118 million to work at 5.8%. The net investment income from our fixed income portfolio increased $15.5 million from $9.5 million in the prior quarter, driven by improving portfolio yield and significant increase in the invested asset base. Our embedded yield was 5% at September 30 versus 4.1% a year ago and 4.8% at June 30. We reported a loss of $1.1 million in our alternative and strategic investments portfolio compared to a loss of $0.1 million in the prior year quarter. Both periods were impacted by a decrease in the fair value of limited partnership investments that was previously classified as opportunistic fixed income.

費用率與 2023 年第三季相當，符合我們對 30 以下費用率的預期。收購成本降低主要受2023年第三季取消配額再保險合約的影響。我們也繼續從已賺保費的增加中獲得槓桿作用。談到我們的投資結果；我們降低投資組合風險的策略繼續獲得回報，本季淨投資收入為 1,950 萬美元，比 2023 年同期增加了 640 萬美元。根據我們將自由現金流部署到固定收益的投資策略，在第三季度，我們投入了 1.18 億美元，成長率為 5.8%。我們的固定收益投資組合的淨投資收入較上一季的 950 萬美元增加了 1,550 萬美元，這得益於投資組合收益率的提高和投資資產基礎的大幅增加。截至 9 月 30 日，我們的內含收益率為 5%，而去年同期為 4.1%，截至 6 月 30 日為 4.8%。我們報告稱，我們的另類和策略投資組合虧損 110 萬美元，而去年同期的虧損為 10 萬美元。這兩個期間都受到先前歸類為機會性固定收益的有限合夥投資公允價值下降的影響。

At September 30, this portion of the portfolio only comprised 6% of our overall investment portfolio. At September 30, we had approximately $206 million in short-term investments and our yield on short-term investments was 4.6%. We finalized the credit facility with the Federal Home Loan Bank, and we used $57 million of proceeds to pay down a portion of the revolver. Our financial leverage is modest as we finished the quarter with a low 13% debt-to-capital ratio. Given the new facility and our current leverage, we have ample financing flexibility. Lastly, I'm pleased that our Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program of up to $50 million of Skyward ordinary shares. Authorizing a repurchase program is part of the maturation of Skyward as a public company and underscores our commitment to maximizing shareholder value. Given our strong cash position, our cash generation as well as our financing flexibility, we can fund any repurchases from either operational liquidity or via our credit facility that has undrawn capacity of $107 million. We remain confident in the strong growth trajectory and the additional growth opportunities we are targeting and our ability to act on the share repurchase program in an appropriate way. Now I'll turn the call back over to Andrew.

截至 9 月 30 日，這部分投資組合僅占我們整體投資組合的 6%。截至 9 月 30 日，我們的短期投資約為 2.06 億美元，短期投資報酬率為 4.6%。我們與聯邦住房貸款銀行達成了信貸協議，並使用 5700 萬美元的收益來償還部分循環信貸。我們的財務槓桿適中，本季末我們的負債資本比率低至 13%。鑑於新設施和我們目前的槓桿，我們擁有充足的融資靈活性。最後，我很高興我們的董事會批准了高達 5000 萬美元的 Skyward 普通股回購計畫。授權回購計劃是 Skyward 作為上市公司成熟的一部分，並強調了我們致力於最大化股東價值的承諾。鑑於我們強大的現金狀況、現金創造能力以及融資靈活性，我們可以透過營運流動性或透過未動用容量為 1.07 億美元的信貸額度為任何回購提供資金。我們對於強勁的成長軌跡、我們所瞄準的額外成長機會以及我們以適當方式實施股票回購計畫的能力仍然充滿信心。現在我將把電話轉回給安德魯。

Thank you, Mark. The consistency of our results reflects our disciplined approach to underwriting and executing on our Rule our Niche strategy. Our emphasis to seek out growth in high-return areas that are less exposed to the P&C cycles appears to be prudent, and we're making good progress. For Skyward, this currently includes A&H, surety, captives, mortgage, credit and agriculture, which accounted for 37% of our $400 million of gross written premiums this quarter. This aspect of portfolio management has increasingly been an area of focus in our drive to consistently deliver top quartile underwriting returns. Beyond the portfolio focus I just noted, we had double-digit growth in 6 of our 8 divisions. In Industry Solutions, negative growth was again driven by our intentional actions in Commercial Auto, which I have discussed at length in each of our last 3 quarters' earnings calls.

謝謝你，馬克。我們業績的一致性反映了我們在承保和執行「統治我們的利基」策略方面的嚴謹態度。我們專注於在受財產和意外事故週期影響較小的高回報領域尋求成長，這一做法似乎是明智之舉，而且我們正在取得良好進展。對於 Skyward 而言，這目前包括事故與健康保險、保證金、自保保險、抵押、信貸和農業，佔本季 4 億美元毛承保保費的 37%。在努力持續提供最高四分位核保報酬的過程中，投資組合管理的這一方面日益成為我們關注的重點領域。除了我剛才提到的投資組合重點之外，我們 8 個部門中有 6 個都實現了兩位數的成長。在產業解決方案方面，負成長再次是由我們在商用汽車領域採取的有意行動所驅動，我在過去三個季度的財報電話會議上都對此進行了詳細的討論。

In Professional Lines, it's a tale of 2 cities where we have a strong market backdrop for our healthcare professional liability products and services, and we anticipate that our recently launched Media Liability unit will be a significant contributor as we look forward to the coming quarters. On the flip side, we remain in a defensive posture on D&O, and we have experienced a significant change in competition in our miscellaneous E&O unit. That said I remain bullish on both of these divisions given the adjustments we have made and anticipate that we will return to growth without margin compromise in the quarters ahead. We continue to deliver outstanding growth in our transactional E&S and surety divisions as well as consistent strong growth in our other divisions. I'm confident that our strategy, the diversity of our portfolio and our team's execution gives us a formidable platform and that we're well-positioned to deliver strong and profitable growth as we look out over the coming quarters.

在專業險種方面，這是一個關於兩個城市的故事，在這些城市，我們的醫療專業責任產品和服務擁有強大的市場背景，我們預計，我們最近推出的媒體責任部門將在未來幾季做出重要貢獻。另一方面，我們在 D&O 方面仍然保持防禦姿態，並且我們的雜項 E&O 部門經歷了重大的競爭變化。儘管如此，考慮到我們所做的調整，我仍然對這兩個部門持樂觀態度，並預計我們將在未來幾季恢復成長，而不會影響利潤率。我們的交易 E&S 和擔保部門持續實現卓越成長，同時其他部門也保持強勁成長。我相信，我們的策略、投資組合的多樣性和團隊的執行力為我們提供了一個強大的平台，而且我們有能力在未來幾季實現強勁且獲利的成長。

Turning to operational metrics; we had a strong quarter. On pricing, we delivered mid-single-digit plus pure rate and new business pricing was above our trailing 12-month in-force pricing. Global Property and to a far lesser extent, our other property units continue to be impacted by downward pricing trends. It is too early to assess the impact of the recent hurricanes on property pricing, but our working assumption is that the recent activity may slow down but not arrest the softening in the property market.

轉向營運指標；本季我們表現強勁。在定價方面，我們提供了中等個位數以上的純利率，新業務定價高於我們過去 12 個月的有效定價。全球房地產以及我們其他房地產部門（但程度要小得多）繼續受到價格下行趨勢的影響。現在評估最近的颶風對房地產價格的影響還為時過早，但我們的工作假設是，最近的活動可能會放緩，但不會阻止房地產市場的疲軟。

As I mentioned, we will continue to see an intensely competitive backdrop in D&O and now in miscellaneous E&O. And conversely, the market backdrop on casualty and occurrence liability continues to be supportive of decent rate, although the loss cost inflation environment continues to be challenging, and thus, we're being selective in our growth in these areas. Retention was in the mid-70s for the quarter, driven by business mix and our intentional actions on Commercial Auto.

正如我所提到的，我們將繼續看到 D&O 以及現在的其他 E&O 領域的激烈競爭背景。相反，儘管損失成本通膨環境仍然充滿挑戰，但意外險和事故責任險的市場背景繼續支持合理的費率，因此，我們在這些領域的成長上有選擇性。受業務組合和我們在商用汽車方面採取的有意行動的推動，本季的保留率在 75% 左右。

Lastly, we continue to see strong submission activity, which was up over 25% from the prior year quarter. It is hard to believe that we're approaching the end of our second year as a public company, and we are hitting our stride as we continue to deliver outstanding and consistent earnings growth and upper teens ROEs. We remain laser-focused on executing our Rule our Niche strategy and delivering top quartile returns at all parts of the market cycle.

最後，我們繼續看到強勁的提交活動，比去年同期成長了 25％ 以上。很難相信我們作為一家上市公司已經接近第二個年頭，我們正在大步前進，繼續實現出色且持續的盈利增長和超過十幾歲的淨資產收益率。我們始終專注於執行我們的「統治我們的利基」策略並在市場週期的所有部分提供最高四分位的回報。

Lastly, I'd like to take a moment to again acknowledge my 560 colleagues. Recently, we were recognized as one of the best places to work in insurance by Business Insurance and Best Companies Group. This marks our second consecutive year earning this prestigious recognition, which is a true testament to the dedication and passion of our entire team.

最後，我想花點時間再次感謝我的 560 位同事。最近，我們被《商業保險和最佳公司集團》評為保險業最佳工作場所之一。這是我們連續第二年獲得這項殊榮，真正證明了我們整個團隊的奉獻精神和熱情。

I cannot be more grateful to our team for their continued efforts in making Skyward a standout organization in our industry. I'd now like to turn the call back over to the operator to open it up for Q&A. Operator?

我非常感謝我們的團隊，他們不斷努力，使 Skyward 成為我們行業中的傑出組織。現在我想將電話轉回給接線員，以便進行問答。操作員？

Thank you, (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Matt Carletti from Citizens JMP.

謝謝，（操作員指示）我們的第一個問題來自 Citizens JMP 的 Matt Carletti。

Andrew, you talked a bit about, obviously, some of the new initiatives that you are optimistic about driving growth going forward. I think Media Liability is one of the newer ones. Can you talk a little bit about -- just zoom out to kind of 30,000-foot level kind of -- you've added a lot of puzzle pieces since going public and examples like that. What other puzzle pieces or are there many other puzzle pieces that you look to continue to add going forward?

安德魯，您顯然談到了一些推動未來成長的新舉措，您對此持樂觀態度。我認為媒體責任是較新的主題之一。您能否稍微談談——只是縮小到 30,000 英尺的水平——自公開以來您添加了很多拼圖碎片以及諸如此類的例子。您希望在未來繼續添加哪些其他拼圖碎片或許多其他拼圖碎片？

Yes, good morning Matt and thanks for the question. So well, look, I think that as we have talked to you and to others in the past, the first thing I'd say is that we are very strategically oriented, right? So we're not -- it's not sort of we're thinking about something now that we weren't thinking about one or 2 years ago. And in most cases, we're talking about starting with talent that oftentimes we're in conversations with for multiple quarters, sometimes multiple years, right, before we're able to get them across. And that was true in Ag, it was true in mortgage. It was true in Media Liability. And I expect that for the next set of things that will come, it will be true as well. And to that extent, just timing is a little uncertain, right? Because sometimes we're focusing on an area that we want to enter into the market, but we don't control when the person or persons that we're talking to actually are sort of ready to come free and join our team.

是的，早上好，馬特，謝謝你的提問。那麼好吧，看，我認為正如我們過去與您和其他人交談過的那樣，我想說的第一件事是我們非常具有戰略導向，對嗎？所以我們不是——我們現在考慮的並不是一兩年前我們沒有考慮過的事情。在大多數情況下，我們都是從人才開始的，通常我們會與人才進行多個季度甚至幾年的對話，然後才能夠讓他們接受我們的想法。這對於農業來說是正確的，對於抵押貸款來說也是正確的。在媒體責任方面確實如此。而我期望接下來發生的一系列事情也會如此。從這個程度上來說，時間有點不確定，對嗎？因為有時我們專注於我們想要進入的市場領域，但我們無法控制我們正在交談的人何時真正準備好自由加入我們的團隊。

What I will say to you is that I don't believe at this particular moment to sort of achieve what we believe we need to achieve on the next turn, right? So the sort of continued very profitable growth in our organization to be able to distinguish ourselves both on the underwriting line and on the growth line that we really need to add anything. Most of what we're doing at this particular moment is just filling out some of the investments that we've already made. We're adding some adjacencies around those. And so in that regard, I actually feel very good. That said, as I think we've experienced like just in our -- my 4.5 years at the company, right, I came in, there was this crazy pricing environment in access, and there was a crazy pricing environment in cyber and a crazy pricing environment in public D&O and then we had a crazy pricing environment in property. And in every one of those instances, we've seen the sort of the turn going the other way. Now access is coming back again.

我要告訴你的是，我不相信在目前這個特定時刻我們能夠實現我們認為在下一個轉折點需要實現的目標，對嗎？因此，我們組織持續的非常有利可圖的成長使我們能夠在承保線上和成長線上脫穎而出，這是我們真正需要添加的東西。我們目前正在做的大部分工作只是填補我們已經進行的一些投資。我們正在圍繞這些添加一些鄰接。從這個方面來說，我實際上感覺非常好。話雖如此，我認為我們在公司工作了 4.5 年，對吧，我剛加入的時候，訪問領域的定價環境很瘋狂，網絡領域的定價環境很瘋狂，公共 D&O 領域的定價環境也很瘋狂，然後我們的財產定價環境也很瘋狂。在每一個例子中，我們都看到了相反的轉變。現在訪問已經恢復。

And so I think a big part of how we're trying to think about this is just to ensure that a sufficient portion of our portfolio is well-positioned to deliver that top quartile underwriting outcomes we're talking about and buttress against the kind of cycles that we see. And I would say that's sort of a never-ending process, but I feel very good about where we are today. But would I like to add more to that? Sure, I'd like to add more to that. But I don't -- there's nothing I have to announce. What I will say is just a final comment is when you look at something like Media Liability, right, in a short period of time, we have a market-leading team. Literally, I mean, we accumulated some of the best underwriters, claims professionals and a position in the market with a product that I believe is unmatched by anybody. I think we are -- if we're not -- there's an admitted product, if we're not admitted in every state, maybe there's one outstanding large state that we're waiting on. And that's just going to bode really well for our ability to sort of take that particular category by storm and put our sort of Skyward imprint on that market. And that's the way we do things. And I think it's a really great example of how in light of other things that are going on in professional, we're really well-positioned to make sure that portfolio is shaped for us in the right way. So I said a lot there, but hopefully, that gave you at least some color and texture to help you better understand your question.

因此，我認為，我們考慮這個問題的很大一部分目的是確保我們的投資組合中有足夠多的部分能夠實現我們所談論的頂級承保結果，並抵禦我們所看到的那種週期。我想說這是一個永無止境的過程，但我對我們目前的狀況感到非常滿意。但我還想補充更多嗎？當然，我還想補充更多內容。但我沒有——我沒有什麼可宣布的。我最後要說的是，當你看像媒體責任這樣的事情時，在短時間內，我們就擁有了一支市場領先的團隊。從字面上理解，我的意思是，我們累積了一些最好的承保人、索賠專業人員，並且在市場上擁有一種我認為無人能及的產品。我認為，如果我們沒有，那麼就有一個被承認的產品，如果我們沒有在每個州都被承認，也許有一個優秀的大州正在等待我們。這對我們來說是一個好兆頭，因為我們有能力迅速佔領這一特定類別，並在該市場上打下我們的《天空之城》烙印。這就是我們做事的方式。我認為這是一個非常好的例子，考慮到專業領域中發生的其他事情，我們完全有能力確保以正確的方式塑造我們的投資組合。所以我在這裡說了很多，但希望至少能給你一些色彩和質感，以幫助你更好地理解你的問題。

For sure. No, that was great. And then one other, if I could. I mean, obviously, for the industry, casualty reserves are in pretty good focus. You guys have had very stable results since going public and for a while now. Can you just peel back the onion a little bit and give us a little color on kind of what you're seeing, if there's any moving pieces of note kind of behind the scenes as you think about managing that part of your book?

一定。不，那太棒了。如果可以的話，再說一個。我的意思是，顯然，對於該行業來說，傷亡儲備是人們關注的重點。自從上市以來，你們的業績一直非常穩定。您能否稍微剖析一下情況，向我們介紹一下您所看到的情況，在您考慮管理這部分內容時，是否有任何值得注意的幕後細節？

Yes. Well, look, I think that -- the first thing I'd say to you, though, Matt, on sort of outlook is that it's a pretty decent rate backdrop on occurrence liability, casualty. And I think the reason is, is that everybody is properly recognizing social inflation, which I feel like we have been talking about, even though we're a small company, and we don't necessarily command the attention of others, I feel like we are talking about in front of others. I'll remind you and others on the phone that we consistently talk about reserving at a very conservative level. And so for us, that might mean that if our indication on a particular book of business is X, we might reserve at X plus 3% or X plus 5%. And oftentimes, with the best knowledge that we have about what loss cost inflation looks like.

是的。嗯，看，我認為 - 不過，馬特，關於前景，我要對你說的第一件事是，這是一個相當不錯的發生責任和傷亡費率背景。我認為原因是，每個人都正確地認識到了社會通膨，我覺得我們一直在談論這個話題，儘管我們是一家小公司，不一定能引起別人的注意，但我覺得我們是在別人面前談論這個話題。我會透過電話提醒您和其他人，我們一直在談論以非常保守的水平進行保留。因此對我們來說，這可能意味著，如果我們對某筆特定業務的指示是 X，我們可能會保留 X 加 3% 或 X 加 5% 的金額。很多時候，我們盡可能了解損失成本通膨的情況。

And in some cases, in our casualty portfolio, that X plus 3%, that 3% or 5% buffer that we set it with might today have eroded to being 2% or 3% or 1% or 2%. It's not across our portfolio. There are some places in our portfolio. I'd particularly point to the liability side of our transactional E&S business where we reserve very conservatively, but above our indications.

在某些情況下，在我們的意外險投資組合中，我們設定的 X 加上 3%，即 3% 或 5% 的緩衝，今天可能已經縮減為 2% 或 3% 或 1% 或 2%。它並不涵蓋我們的投資組合。我們的投資組合中有一些地方。我想特別指出的是，在我們的交易性 E&S 業務的負債方面，我們的儲備非常保守，但高於我們的預期。

But we've seen development that's been favorable to our indication. So it's not sort of a single profile across our entire book. But certainly, for us, and I've been saying this and we talk about it in the context of Commercial Auto, that bodily injury exposed risk for us, in particular, is the place where you can see the sort of the changing severity.

但我們看到的發展有利於我們的指徵。因此，它並不是我們整本書的單一概況。但可以肯定的是，對我們來說，我一直在說這個，我們在商用汽車的背景下討論這個問題，對我們來說，人身傷害暴露的風險，特別是嚴重程度不斷變化的地方。

And the good news for us is that, by and large, because we're conservative relative to our indications that the current position is inside of where we're reserved, meaning that we haven't backed up and thus why you haven't seen necessarily any reserve movement from us on the negative over the last few quarters. And we expect that we'll continue to see that sort of conservative position that we've taken to provide dividends for us as we look forward.

對我們來說，好消息是，總的來說，因為我們相對保守，所以目前的倉位是處於我們保留的範圍之內，這意味著我們沒有後退，因此在過去幾個季度裡，你沒有看到我們有任何負面的保留動向。我們預計，我們將繼續採取這種保守的立場，以便在未來為我們提供紅利。

Our next question comes from Gregory Peters from Raymond James.

我們的下一個問題來自雷蒙德詹姆斯 (Raymond James) 的格雷戈里彼得斯 (Gregory Peters)。

I guess I'm going to build on part of your answer to the previous questions. This is the end of the year. I know budgets are being submitted. I'm just trying to triangulate between your commentary on pricing, certain lines, you call Commercial Auto, financial lines, you called out property where rates could be under pressure depending on what the outcome is of hurricane season for the fourth quarter here. So as I put those negatives in, then we hear a lot of positives about areas of growth for you. Just trying to figure out how you're thinking about top line growth because when I see the share repurchase program, it might signal that you don't have opportunities to invest in internally. So I'm just trying to figure it all out.

我想我將基於您對前面幾個問題的回答進行部分補充。今年已經是年底了。我知道預算正在提交。我只是試圖在你對定價的評論、某些線路（你稱之為商業汽車線路）、金融線路以及你提到的房地產之間進行三角測量，這些線路的利率可能會承受壓力，這取決於第四季度颶風季節的結果。因此，當我把這些負面因素放進去時，我們就會聽到很多關於你的成長領域的正面因素。只是想弄清楚您是如何考慮營收成長的，因為當我看到股票回購計劃時，它可能表明您沒有內部投資的機會。所以我只是想弄清楚這一切。

It's -- thanks, by the way. I'm glad we're being asked this question. And one of the reasons we wanted to get out the share repurchase program announcement as part of our earnings release and be able to then address it on this call. So I'm glad you asked the question. So let me just say this. First is I just will amplify what Mark said in his prepared remarks, right? There's just a maturation of the company. We -- I'll remind you that in our first year, we almost eliminated the entire overhang of Westaim. And since then, Westaim has exited. So our -- we have the full float of our company out in the public markets now. So I would just tell you that kind of we've gotten to the point where we've grown up as a company, a public company in terms of the float, and we view this as just a sort of a sensible thing to do. It's just part of the maturation. We note that it's not a particularly large buyback, which is an indication of really how we want to use it.

這是—順便說一句，謝謝。我很高興我們被問到這個問題。我們希望將股票回購計畫公告作為收益報告的一部分發布，然後能夠在本次電話會議上解決它。我很高興你問了這個問題。我就說這麼多吧。首先，我只是想進一步闡述馬克在準備好的發言中所說的內容，對嗎？公司正在逐漸成熟。我提醒你們，在第一年，我們幾乎消除了 Westaim 的整個懸垂部分。自此以後，Westaim 退出了。所以我們的——我們公司的全部股票現在都在公開市場上流通。因此，我只想告訴你們，就流通股而言，我們已經成長為一家上市公司，我們認為這是明智之舉。這只是成熟的一部分。我們注意到，這並不是一次特別大規模的回購，這確實顯示了我們想要如何使用它。

And I do want to just talk a moment about how we want to use it, which is that if you look over the last quarter, and I think many of you have heard from us on this, we believe that in spite of the rise in our share price, we're still a company that the full value is not appreciated by the -- by our investors, and we understand that, that will take time for us to continue to deliver consistent outstanding results for us to be fully valued. But if you look at what happened over the last quarter, there were 2 periods where following our disclosures after the Q and then when Westaim came out of the remaining 4.5%, 5% of the stock, the stock went way down. And we didn't have this tool in our toolkit, and we would have liked to have this tool in our toolkit because we believe it would have been an incredible buying opportunity.

我確實想花點時間談談我們希望如何使用它，如果你回顧上個季度，我想你們很多人都聽說過我們在這方面的情況，我們認為儘管我們的股價上漲了，但我們仍然是一家沒有得到投資者充分重視的公司，我們明白，我們需要時間才能繼續提供充分重視的業績，從而得到充分重視。但如果你看看上個季度發生的情況，你會發現有兩個時期，在我們披露 Q 之後以及當 Westaim 出售剩餘的 4.5%、5% 的股票時，股價大幅下跌。我們的工具箱裡沒有這個工具，但我們希望有這個工具，因為我們相信這將是一個絕佳的購買機會。

When you look at our share price and you look at our performance on a relative basis against others, and I'll remind you that at a 13% debt to capital, right, as compared to others, we are very undelivered, right? So if you put proper leverage into our business, you start to understand the intrinsic value of this company. And so for us, this is much about a buttress against sort of any moments in time where we believe that there's a situation where the company is not sort of seeing the full and fair value of our stock. And as I said, we experienced that, and this is just an instance where if we had this tool in our toolkit for the last quarter, we probably would have acted on it.

當您查看我們的股價並比較我們與其他公司的業績時，我會提醒您，與其他公司相比，我們的債務與資本比率為 13%，我們的業績表現非常不理想，對嗎？因此，如果您對我們的業務投入適當的槓桿，您就會開始了解這家公司的內在價值。因此對我們來說，這在很大程度上是為了防止我們認為公司沒有看到我們股票的全部和公平價值的任何時刻。正如我所說，我們經歷過這樣的事情，這只是一個例子，如果我們上個季度的工具箱中有這個工具，我們可能會採取行動。

That makes absolute sense.

這絕對有道理。

And it's about 3%.

大約是3%。

Totally -- the message is crystal clear on that, triangulating back to just the budget outlook for the.

完全正確 — — 這項資訊十分明確，可以追溯到預算前景。

Oh, I'm sorry, the growth side. Hey listen, we -- last year, this time, we told you and others what our internal plans look like. And as we look forward to next year, when we're ready, we'll certainly -- we will communicate again what our internal plans call for. But what I would say to you is that at this moment in time, despite what I would characterize as, by and large, a more challenging market. And the reason I say that is that because it's the rate backdrop for casualty may be better right now than it was this time last year. I think that there is a fuller appreciation of the industry that rates required given maybe starting point, loss cost inflation, etcetera. What I would say about our business is that we feel as good about our growth outlooks right now, next 5 quarters as we did when we entered this year. And you saw the growth that we had over the first 3 quarters. If you listen closely to Mark's comment, he would tell you that in his comments, in his prepared remarks, the 12.4% was consistent with our expectations for this quarter. We did -- we had expectations. We understood enough about our book about how things had some seasonality and some ebb and flows that we looked at our 12.4% growth this quarter, and that was entirely consistent with the 15% plan that we set out at the beginning of the year. So there's nothing about this quarter that surprised us, and there's nothing about this quarter that gives us concern. And as we look out, we feel darn good about our growth outlook. And again, it will be up to us to execute, and it will be contextualized whether we see that sort of market in a sort of condition that we see it in right now. And so I'd say very positive.

哦，抱歉，是增長方面。嘿，聽著，我們——去年這個時候，我們告訴你和其他人我們的內部計劃是什麼樣的。展望明年，當我們做好準備時，我們一定會——我們會再次溝通我們的內部計劃。但我想告訴你們的是，儘管我認為目前市場整體上面臨更大的挑戰。我這樣說的原因是，目前的傷亡率背景可能比去年同期好。我認為，業界對於所需利率的認知已經得到更充分的體現，這些利率可能是基於起點、損失成本通膨等因素。我想說的是，我們對目前以及未來 5 個季度的成長前景感到十分樂觀，就像今年初一樣。大家也看到了我們前三個季度的成長。如果你仔細聽馬克的評論，他會告訴你，在他的評論中，在他準備好的評論中，12.4%與我們對本季的預期一致。我們確實有期望。我們對帳本有足夠的了解，知道事物具有一定的季節性和起伏，所以我們看到本季度的增長率為 12.4%，這與我們年初制定的 15% 計劃完全一致。因此，本季沒有什麼令我們感到驚訝的事情，也沒有什麼令我們擔心的事情。放眼未來，我們對我們的成長前景感到非常樂觀。再次強調，這將由我們來執行，我們是否看到這種市場處於我們現在所見的狀況將取決於具體情況。所以我認為是非常積極的。

Okay. Just a follow-up. In your comments, you mentioned submission activity. And obviously, it continues to be quite strong. Can you give us some context about what that means and how that translates to your top line results, please?

好的。只是後續行動。在您的評論中，您提到了提交活動。顯然，它仍然保持強勁。您能否向我們介紹一下這意味著什麼以及這對您的營收結果有何影響？

Yes. No, listen, we definitely see submission activity increasing. And we talked a little about this in the past, but I'll break it into sort of 3 parts, right?

是的。不，聽著，我們確實看到提交活動正在增加。我們過去談論過這個問題，但我會把它分成 3 個部分，對嗎？

Part number one is kind of almost if you think about like same-store sales, right? So underwriters that were sort of fully in situ this time last year. Obviously, we've added a lot of new underwriters in almost every instance because of the markets we compete in the business tends to follow those folks like they have their strong relationships. The trading partners tend to want to trade with those underwriters. So the books of business will oftentimes follow them, and we'll see a lift as a result of that. So that's sort of part 2.

如果您考慮同店銷售額的話，第一部分就差不多了，對嗎？因此，承銷商去年此時基本上已經完全到位。顯然，我們幾乎在每種情況下都增加了許多新的承銷商，因為我們競爭的市場往往會追隨那些與我們有牢固關係的人。交易夥伴往往願意與那些承銷商進行交易。因此，商業帳簿往往會跟隨它們，我們將看到其帶來的提升。這就是第二部分。

And then part 3, there's no question that in a number of areas in our business and most notable things that are in surplus lines, but not only in surplus lines -- we're seeing a, what I'd say, a considerable increased flow. E&S is the easy part, right, because you still have a lot of business that's coming out of the admitted markets into the surplus lines market. What I will say is that in select instances, we're seeing sort of more pitches, but they're not necessarily pitches that we're swinging at, right? So maybe more stuff is coming in. But it doesn't necessarily fit entirely with what we're looking for. But by and large, I just will say that for the surplus lines part of the equation, the flow is increasing.

然後是第三部分，毫無疑問，在我們業務的許多領域，最值得注意的是盈餘線，但不僅僅是盈餘線——我們看到，我想說的是，流量顯著增加。E＆S 是比較容易的部分，對吧，因為你仍然有很多業務從承認市場流向剩餘線市場。我要說的是，在某些情況下，我們會看到更多投球，但它們不一定是我們要揮棒的投球，對嗎？因此可能會有更多的東西湧入。但它不一定完全符合我們的要求。但總的來說，我只想說，對於等式的剩餘線路部分，流量正在增加。

And so when I sort of put those 3 equations together, the first being kind of same-store sales, we're still seeing increases simply because we're delivering technology and things that improve the efficiency of our underwriters. We've added a lot of new underwriters, which, of course, gives us growth. And in a number of our markets, we're just seeing an increased amount of submission activity because those markets, either economically or in the case of surplus lines are gathering a larger share of the market.

因此，當我將這三個等式放在一起時，第一個等式是同店銷售額，我們仍然看到成長，這僅僅是因為我們正在提供技術和東西來提高承保人的效率。我們增加了很多新的承銷商，這當然促進了我們的成長。在我們的許多市場中，我們看到提交活動的數量增加，因為這些市場無論是從經濟角度還是從盈餘角度來看，都佔據了更大的市場份額。

Our next question comes from Paul Newsome from Piper Sandler.

我們的下一個問題來自 Piper Sandler 的 Paul Newsome。

Totally different topic perhaps. Could we revisit the investment income portfolio and changes that you've made? And just sort of what is left to be done as we try to get a better sense of how investment income will change prospectively?

也許是完全不同的話題。我們可以重新審視投資收益組合和您所做的改變嗎？那麼當我們試著更了解投資收益未來將如何變化時，我們還有什麼工作要做呢？

Hey Paul, it's Mark. What I would say is what's left to be done is very little. We like the structure of the portfolio. We like the asset allocation. I like the duration. So there's really not much left to do in the portfolio. Well, the only thing that we are focused on or more focused on is the redemptions out of opportunistic fixed income or the alts. That's in line with exactly where we thought it would be for '24 and will be a very small portion of the portfolio at the end of '25. So in its simplest form, Paul, think about $1.4 billion in core fixed income that I said the embedded yield is right at 5%. We continue to have about $200-ish-million in short-term investments where the yield there was 4.6%. I recognize that there may be pressure on short-term rates, and we are looking at that in terms of putting that to work longer term. But in terms of the overall portfolio, I feel great about where it is, and I don't think we need to be doing anything different. Having said that, if the interest rate backdrop does change, we have the flexibility to move within different portions of the portfolio.

嘿，保羅，我是馬克。我想說的是，剩下能做的事情已經很少了。我們喜歡該投資組合的結構。我們喜歡資產配置。我喜歡這種持續時間。因此，投資組合中確實沒有什麼可做的了。好吧，我們唯一關注或更關注的是機會性固定收益或另類投資的贖回。這與我們對24年的預期完全一致，而且到25年底，這只佔投資組合的一小部分。保羅，最簡單的形式是，想想 14 億美元的核心固定收益，我說內含殖利率剛好是 5%。我們繼續擁有約 2 億美元的短期投資，收益率為 4.6%。我認識到短期利率可能存在壓力，我們正在從長期角度考慮這個問題。但就整體投資組合而言，我對目前的狀況感到很滿意，我認為我們不需要做任何不同的事情。話雖如此，如果利率背景確實發生變化，我們可以靈活地在投資組合的不同部分內進行調整。

But the impact of the liquidation of the alternatives portfolio is largely in the current run rate or not?

但另類投資組合清算的影響是否主要在於目前運作率？

Yes. It is.

是的。這是。

I mean just -- Paul, just to qualify one other thing. I mean the last part of that, what was formerly opportunistic is less than 6% of our portfolio. And as Mark noted, it's in redemption. We'll be out of those. Obviously, we're going to redeploy that, and it will generate returns that are -- have probably less volatility with them is what I would say. And as you think forward, look, we obviously are putting a lot of cash to work. We've been -- just our paid incurreds have been running in the kind of mid-60s worst case, low 70s for a number of quarters. We're putting a lot of cash to work. We expect to continue to put a lot of cash to work. And what's working probably against us for next year, we're at a 5% embedded yield on fixed income.

我的意思是──保羅，只是為了限定另一件事。我的意思是最後一部分，以前的機會主義投資只占我們投資組合的不到 6%。正如馬克所說，這是一種救贖。我們將不再有這些。顯然，我們將重新部署它，它將產生回報——我想說的是，它的波動性可能會更小。如果你展望未來，你看，我們顯然投入了大量的資金。我們一直——只是我們的已支付費用已經處於 65% 左右的水平，最糟糕的情況是幾個季度內達到 75% 出頭。我們投入了大量的現金。我們預計將繼續投入大量現金。而明年可能對我們不利的是，固定收益的內含收益率為 5%。

I don't know if we're going to go much north of that. But if you look at the first 3 quarters, there's -- as you look forward, there's probably on average over the first 3 quarters, there's some upside to it. The thing that works against us is that we had unbelievable yield on the circa $300 million of cash that had been sitting on the balance sheet that will not be replicated next year regardless of where we put it to work, whether you put it into core fixed income, or we stay with a heavy dose of cash. It's not something that we can replicate just simply because what we were able to earn on our money market was extraordinary this year. And so that's the one thing that's probably working against us as we look forward to next year.

我不知道我們是否能再往北走一點。但如果你看一下前三個季度，那麼展望未來，前三個季度的平均值可能還是有一些上升空間的。對我們不利的是，我們從資產負債表上約 3 億美元的現金中獲得了令人難以置信的收益，無論我們把這筆錢用在何處，無論是投入核心固定收益，還是持有大量現金，明年都無法複製這一收益。這不是我們可以複製的事情，只是因為今年我們在貨幣市場上的收益非常可觀。因此，展望明年，這可能是對我們不利的一件事。

Our next question comes from Yaron Kinar from Jefferies.

下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 Yaron Kinar。

So Andrew, I hear some caution on Professional Lines and Commercial Auto pricing. I don't think that's really new here. So I was hoping maybe you could touch on why the Professional Lines and Industry Solutions gross premiums written started declining this quarter.

所以安德魯，我聽到一些關於專業線路和商用汽車定價的謹慎看法。我認為這並非什麼新鮮事。所以我希望您能談談為什麼專業險和行業解決方案的毛保費本季開始下降。

Yes. So Yaron, thanks for the question. On Professional, it's really easy. I'll remind you that first, our D&O portfolio is -- has virtually no public in it, right? So it's been a private company portfolio predominantly and over time, has become almost an entirely private company portfolio. And as we're in the whatever X number of quarters of what has been, I think, just out and out insane public D&O pricing market, we clearly have seen just quarter-on-quarter continued pressure into the private company market, right? So it's not like that has followed exactly the public D&O market. It's a lot worse today than it was a year ago. So that's one sort of small change. And when we take a defensive posture, I will tell you, our loss ratios are absolutely outstanding. I mean, like literally outstanding, where as we're planning for next year, we're seeing indications that are coming down 5 points, 6 points, 7 points.

是的。所以 Yaron，謝謝你的提問。在專業版上，這真的很容易。我首先要提醒你，我們的 D&O 投資組合中幾乎沒有公眾，對嗎？因此，它主要是私人公司投資組合，隨著時間的推移，幾乎變成了完全私人公司投資組合。而且我認為，我們已經處於 X 個季度的瘋狂公共 D&O 定價市場中，我們清楚地看到私人公司市場逐季持續承受壓力，對嗎？因此，這並不完全遵循公開的 D&O 市場。今天的情況比一年前糟糕多了。這只是一種小小的改變。當我們採取防禦姿態時，我會告訴你，我們的損失率絕對是出色的。我的意思是，確實很出色，當我們為明年做計劃時，我們看到有跡象表明會下降 5 點、6 點、7 點。

And we're like, yes, we probably won't react to that, but it tells us that our guys are underwriting in a very, very thoughtful way. The big change I will tell you is what's happening on the miscellaneous side, and maybe a little bit of history here will be helpful, which is as the cyber market kind of blew up a couple of years ago, our miscellaneous business or unit, which has just probably 15-plus of the best underwriters I've ever met, a number of which had worked for me in my prior life, we built an extraordinary book of business in a very short period of time, largely because the brokers were so overwhelmed during the sort of difficult cyber period with that, that we were just seeing incredible opportunities for us in the miscellaneous side. We built the book of business, terrific book of business.

我們覺得，是的，我們可能不會對此做出反應，但這告訴我們，我們的員工正在以非常非常周到的方式承保。我要告訴您的重大變化是在雜項方面發生的事情，也許了解一點歷史會有所幫助，那就是幾年前網絡市場開始爆發，我們的雜項業務或部門，擁有我見過的 15 多個最好的承銷商，其中有很多在我之前的工作中曾為我工作過，我們在很短的時間內建立了非凡的業務記錄，主要是因為經紀人在那種困難的方面在那個困難方面看到了重要我們寫了商業書籍，一本非常棒的商業書籍。

We added a lot of technology to it that gives our underwriters leverage in ways that they haven't had. And then what we've seen in the course of the last couple of quarters is just competition probably from a number of folks who are finding it difficult in other areas of professional, most notably in D&O, private company D&O, reallocating time, capital resources towards the miscellaneous portion of the market. And we just -- we've seen just a fundamental change. And that, that is probably the thing that I would just describe as most notable. It's a great book. It's incredibly profitable for us.

我們添加了許多技術，讓我們的核保人員能夠以前所未有的方式獲得優勢。我們在過去幾季中看到的只是競爭，可能來自一些在其他專業領域遇到困難的人，最明顯的是在 D&O、私人公司 D&O 領域，重新分配時間和資本資源到市場的雜項部分。我們只是──我們看到了根本的改變。而這，或許就是我所描述的最值得注意的事。這是一本好書。這對我們來說是極其有利可圖的。

We have an incredible team, but the market has changed in a very short period of time. And I'm sure that if you listen closely to some others, you'd probably hear some version of this message. And then on the Industry Solutions, yes, I think that what I would describe to you is if you -- again, if you listen closely to my remarks, we are in a great rate backdrop, but we're being more cautious, not because we have concerns with -- in fact, I would argue that our energy book is probably our second or third most profitable and second or third highest returns on capital. And what I -- and that's one of 2, right, construction being the other piece of it. But I'd tell you, the loss cost inflation backdrop is something that I'm sure every CEO is taking sort of attention to.

我們擁有一支出色的團隊，但市場在很短的時間內發生了變化。而且我確信，如果你仔細聽其他人說話，你可能會聽到這個消息的某個版本。然後關於行業解決方案，是的，我想我會向您描述的是，如果您—再說一次，如果您仔細聽我的評論，我們處於一個很好的利率背景下，但我們更加謹慎，並不是因為我們擔心—事實上，我認為我們的能源賬簿可能是我們第二或第三大盈利能力和第二或第三高的資本回報率。而我 — — 這是其中之一，對吧，建築是其中的另一部分。但我要告訴你，我相信損失成本通膨背景是每個執行長都會關注的問題。

In our case, I'm generally sort of taking a more cautious view and believe that if we're to deploy capital in our business, I want to deploy it in places where I feel a little bit better about the loss cost inflation. So we've kind of suppressed the growth over in those areas. And I think what you're seeing here in this quarter is the sort of Commercial Auto impact really come through. I do suspect that if you look out maybe one or two quarters, given some adjustments that we made, entrance into -- in our Energy business, some of the things that we're doing in renewables, I suspect what you're going to see is that, that will be sort of returning to the kind of growth trajectory that maybe you're more accustomed to.

就我們的情況而言，我總體上採取了更加謹慎的看法，並認為如果我們要在業務中部署資本，我希望將其部署在那些讓我對損失成本通膨感覺更好一些的地方。因此我們在某種程度上抑制了這些地區的成長。我認為您在本季看到的是商用汽車真正產生的影響。我確實懷疑，如果你觀察一兩個季度，考慮到我們所做的一些調整，進入我們的能源業務，以及我們在再生能源領域所做的一些事情，我懷疑你會看到，那將會回到你可能更習慣的那種成長軌跡。

Got it. That's very helpful and comprehensive. My other question just goes to the catastrophe guidance that you're offering for the full year. I think that comes to about 4 points or over $10 million of cat load in the fourth quarter, which would be the highest in the company's history. Is that just a matter of conservatism here or do you have greater weighted exposure to like Western Florida where Milton hit?

知道了。這非常有幫助並且很全面。我的另一個問題是有關您提供的全年災難指導。我認為，第四季的巨災保險費將達到約 4 個點，即超過 1,000 萬美元，這將是公司歷史上的最高水準。這僅僅是一個保守主義的問題嗎，還是你們對米爾頓襲擊的西佛羅裡達州有更大的加權敞口？

Yes. No, I think the way I would interpret what Mark said, which is that we're going to be within the 2 point to 2.5 point guidance that we gave at the beginning of the year, barring any unforeseen additional cats is consistent with normally what you get from us is that we are providing commentary that we believe reflects a conservative view. We know our claim count on Milton. It has not changed now for probably 6, 7, 8 days. We have a loss quantum on that.

是的。不，我認為我對馬克所說的話的解讀是，我們將按照年初給出的 2 點到 2.5 點的指導方針行事，除非出現任何不可預見的額外損失，這與您通常從我們這裡得到的信息一致，即我們提供的評論反映了保守的觀點。我們知道我們對米爾頓的索賠金額。現在大概已經 6、7、8 天沒有改變了。我們對此有一定的損失。

And I would just say to you that we feel very good about our cat results for the fourth quarter. I'm not going to say more than that. I think you jumped to the $10 million number. I wouldn't necessarily jump there is what I would say.

我只想說，我們對第四季的業績非常滿意。我不會再多說了。我認為你已經跳到了 1000 萬美元這個數字。我想說的是，我不一定會跳到那裡。

Our next question comes from Meyer Shields from KBW.

下一個問題來自 KBW 的 Meyer Shields。

Andy, I was hoping you could talk about whether we're seeing any changes in competition for Surety business. I know you and a couple of other companies have talked about growing that book and [the line] track record is phenomenal. Is that manifesting itself in pricing or commissions in any way that's different from the last couple of years?

安迪，我希望您能談談我們是否看到保證業務競爭的任何變化。我知道您和其他幾家公司已經談論過發展這本書，而且該系列的業績記錄非常出色。這在定價或佣金方面是否與過去幾年有什麼不同？

To be honest, Matt, no. I mean, just straight up, no. We monitor our rate levels and surety has never really had a hard market recently. And while our surety guys will call it a soft market it's clearly not a soft market given the results that we're generating. But if you look at -- there's a relationship between sort of size of bond, size of program and the rate per unit exposure. What I will say to you that's really a positive thing is that this is the one part of the P&C world where inflation is a wildly good thing for us because a bond that maybe you bonded 4 years ago for $10 million, and that same work today is, let's say, $18 million, just using kind of a number. Well, it's not like your loss likelihood has changed. And so once you pay out commissions, right, everything else in there is higher exposure for effectively if you have a, let's say, your loss ratio target in surety is a 20% or an 18% or 22%, you're generating more profit. And it's been a really positive thing.

說實話，馬特，不是的。我的意思是，直接說，不。我們監控我們的利率水平，而且保證金市場最近從未真正遭遇過困難。儘管我們的擔保人稱之為軟市場，但從我們所取得的成果來看，這顯然不是一個軟市場。但如果你看一下——債券規模、專案規模和單位風險敞口利率之間存在某種關係。我要告訴你們的真正積極的事情是，這是財產和意外事故保險領域中一個非常重要的部分，在這個領域，通貨膨脹對我們來說是一個非常好的事情，因為也許 4 年前你簽發的債券價值為 1000 萬美元，而今天同樣的債券價值，比如說 1800 萬美元，這只是一個數字而已。嗯，這並不意味著你的損失可能性已經改變了。因此，一旦您支付了佣金，那麼其中的其他所有風險都會更高，因為如果您的保證金損失率目標是 20％ 或 18％ 或 22％，那麼您就會獲得更多利潤。這是一件非常正面的事情。

We've not seen a change in competition. But I also will tell you, and it's maybe the first place that I would brag about our company is we have built a genuinely world-class surety business. I would argue that in the part of the market where we compete, we are one of one. I mean I literally -- we have a great team. We every day are attracting talent who are coming to us. It's been almost overwhelming. You saw an announcement last quarter. We got another one coming that's going to be equally compelling and the breadth of what we do on the commercial contract, SBA, transactional, all the different areas, we just have a great business. And then the last part of it is that we recently got approval where we're restructuring our -- the sort of organization of our statutory entities, which restacks our capital such that we can effectively double our T listing. And so that's going to give us just another tool in our toolkit as we look out to, I think that normally is a 6-month delay from the end of the year. So by mid next year, we'll have that approved. And that's just going to be another tool in our toolkit that's going to just continue to drive what is a really outstanding business for us situated with some of the best people in the industry on the underwriting and the claims side that I have ever met.

我們沒有看到競爭發生變化。但我還要告訴您，這也許是我要誇耀我們公司的第一件事，那就是我們已經建立了真正的世界級保證業務。我想說，在我們競爭的市場領域中，我們是獨一無二的。我的意思是，我們確實擁有一支出色的團隊。我們每天都在吸引人才。這幾乎讓人難以承受。您上個季度看到了一則公告。我們即將推出另一個同樣引人注目的項目，我們在商業合約、SBA、交易等所有不同領域的業務範圍非常廣泛，我們的業務非常出色。最後一部分是，我們最近獲得了重組我們的法定實體的組織形式的批准，這將重新整合我們的資本，以便我們能夠有效地將我們的 T 上市規模翻一番。因此，這將為我們提供另一個工具，以便我們著眼於未來，我認為這通常是從年底開始的 6 個月的延遲。因此到明年年中，我們將獲得批准。這只是我們工具包中的另一個工具，它將繼續推動我們真正出色的業務，我們擁有我所見過的承保和索賠方面業內最優秀的一些人才。

Okay. That's very helpful. Second question, I guess, if we look at the Accident & Health book, should we think of medical inflation as being sort of the key risk out there or is there some other factor that we should also be monitoring?

好的。這非常有幫助。第二個問題，我想，如果我們看《意外與健康》這本書，我們是否應該將醫療通膨視為主要風險，或者是否還有其他需要我們監控的因素？

Yes. Because it's a stop-loss book, and so your covers are specific and then like an aggregate loss, I think that the -- so the medical inflation part, we really get in terms of how we structure. I think the bigger thing is starting to be like the prevalence of designer drugs, genetics, things like that, that are changing some of the course of actions that directly are the kinds of things that if you think about what our product is, right, it's an excess product, the kind of things that would expose us. And what I would say is that without going too far into this because I'd prefer if we had our experts at the table on this, that we understand that part of the issues. And I think that we're building product and our business with full consideration for that.

是的。因為它是一本止損帳簿，所以你的封面是具體的，然後像總損失一樣，我認為 - 所以醫療通膨部分，我們真正了解我們的結構。我認為更大的問題開始像設計藥物、基因等的流行一樣，它們正在直接改變一些行為的進程，如果你想想我們的產品是什麼，對吧，它是一種過剩產品，這類東西會暴露我們。我想說的是，我們不必對此進行過多討論，因為我更希望我們的專家能夠參與討論，以便我們能夠了解問題的這一部分。我認為我們在打造產品和業務時充分考慮到了這一點。

Our next question comes from Mark Hughes from Truist Securities.

下一個問題來自 Truist Securities 的馬克休斯。

Andrew, I wonder if you might talk a little more about the property market. I know you all do more sophisticated underwriting. You participate in a lot of the towers. How do you find the supply, demand, the competition for that property business now?

安德魯，我想知道您是否可以再談論房地產市場。我知道你們的核保工作都更加複雜。你參與了很多塔樓。您現在如何看待房地產行業的供給、需求和競爭情況？

Good morning Mark and thanks. Great question. So the first thing I'd say is it's definitely not even across the various places where we write property. So by and large, I would say that the marine market, yes, we're definitely seeing some competition. We're seeing probably more pressure on terms than price. In transactional E&S, where, again, I'll just remind you, we generally are writing property exposures that are measured in single millions or low double-digit millions kinds of exposure and probably 60% of our business is we're writing the entire [TIB] and maybe 40% of the business, we're writing the primary, and there's an excess above us. That's still -- we're seeing a lot of flow. It's definitely a more competitive market from a price perspective, but we're talking about pricing that we can make a really, really, really attractive return. So you're coming off of a really good position. Global Property is an entirely different story.

早安，馬克，謝謝。好問題。因此，我要說的第一件事是，它絕對不存在跨越我們寫入財產的各個地方的情況。所以總的來說，我想說，在海洋市場，是的，我們確實看到了一些競爭。我們看到條款方面的壓力可能比價格方面的壓力更大。在交易 E&S 中，我再次提醒您，我們通常會承保以百萬或低兩位數千萬計的財產風險，大概 60% 的業務是承保整個 [TIB]，大概 40% 的業務是承保主要的，還有超出的部分。但我們仍然看到大量的流量。從價格角度來看，這無疑是一個競爭更激烈的市場，但我們正在討論能夠獲得真正、真正、真正有吸引力的回報的定價。所以，你現在處於一個非常好的位置。全球房地產則是完全不同的故事。

The crazies have taken over, to be honest. We have examples of companies doing things that are every bit as irresponsible as maybe what you've heard in the D&O market. I'm thinking of some recent accounts. I will give you one example where we were a lead line on a large account, so writing a significant portion of the primary $100 million. We wrote that for a 20% rate. So just think of you wrote that entire line, that's a $20 million premium. And this year, that primary layer, which we came off of was renewed with the leaders taking a $300 million stretch, not $100 million stretch for $21 million. So they added $200 million of vertical exposure for an additional $1 million. That is just irresponsible. There's no justification for that. And we see these kind of spot examples popping up with more regularity. And so despite the fact that you've heard from me about our Rule our Niche strategy, our Rule our Niche strategy in Global Property has everything to do with our long-standing position, strong relationships with risk managers and most importantly, we bring a lot of capacity given our quota share support we're just not going to let -- we're just not going to follow the market down when it behaves that badly. And it's coming from a number of places, London and some of the large multinational players. And it's just a grab for a lot of premium, and it's being done in an irresponsible way and let them [have at it], and it will come back around to us once they sort of get their sort of their full experience and what it's like to write that business at that kind of price.

說實話，瘋子們已經接管了一切。我們有一些公司所做的事情非常不負責任，就像你在 D&O 市場上聽到的一樣。我正在考慮一些最近的帳目。我給你舉一個例子，我們是一筆大帳戶的主導資金，因此承擔了主要 1 億美元資金中的很大一部分。我們以 20% 的利率寫下此文。所以想想看，如果你寫了整句話，那就是 2000 萬美元的保費。今年，我們脫離了初級階段，領導人獲得了 3 億美元的延伸，而不是 1 億美元的延伸，獲得 2,100 萬美元。因此，他們又花費 100 萬美元增加了 2 億美元的垂直風險敞口。這簡直是不負責任的行為。這是沒有道理的。我們發現這類實例越來越頻繁地出現。因此，儘管您已經從我這裡聽說了我們的「統治我們的利基」策略，但我們在全球房地產領域的「統治我們的利基」策略與我們的長期地位、與風險管理者的牢固關係息息相關，最重要的是，鑑於我們的配額支持，我們帶來了很大的容量，當市場表現如此糟糕時，我們不會跟隨市場下跌。這些資金來自多個地方，包括倫敦和一些大型跨國公司。這只是為了攫取大量的溢價，這是以一種不負責任的方式進行的，然後讓他們 [得逞]，一旦他們獲得了完整的經驗，了解了以這種價格開展這項業務的感受，他們就會把利潤返還給我們。

With that in mind, is that a growth business as we think about the next 4 quarters, say?

考慮到這一點，我們設想的未來 4 個季度這是否是一項增長型業務？

No. I would say that our plan coming into this year, last year in Global Property, if my memory serves me correctly, we wrote around $235 million specifically in Global Property. This year, we came in with a plan below that. And already next year, I know that, that is an area where I already know what our plan looks like for next year. And yes, we will, within our assumptions, make sure that we are holding the line on what we believe is appropriate, which means that we're going to be letting business go.

不。我想說的是，如果我沒記錯的話，我們今年、去年在全球地產領域的計畫是，我們在全球地產領域專門投入了約 2.35 億美元。今年我們制定了低於該水平的計劃。而且我已經知道明年了，在這個領域我已經知道我們明年的計畫是什麼樣的。是的，我們將在我們的假設範圍內，確保我們堅持我們認為合適的底線，這意味著我們將放手做生意。

And by the way, the flip side of this is this could turn into Robinson said, let me just say that one of the reasons we have the portfolio that we have is that when we see these kinds of changes in the market that we are incredibly well-positioned to continue to drive attractive profitable growth that's distinctive relative to our peers because we have a portfolio that allows us to do that. I'm like -- it doesn't feel great when this happens, Mark, but I certainly feel very good about the outlook of our business regardless because we have enough other great things in place that this would not overwhelm us the way it might some other organizations.

順便說一句，這件事的另一面是，這可能會變成羅賓遜說，我只想說，我們擁有這樣的投資組合的原因之一是，當我們看到市場發生這些變化時，我們處於非常有利的位置，可以繼續推動有吸引力的盈利增長，這種增長與我們的同行相比是獨一無二的，因為我們擁有可以讓我們做到這一點的投資組合。我想——馬克，當這種情況發生時，感覺並不好，但無論如何，我對我們的業務前景感到非常滿意，因為我們有足夠多的其他好東西，這不會像其他一些組織那樣壓垮我們。

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Michael Zaremski from BMO.

（操作員指示）我們的下一個問題來自 BMO 的 Michael Zaremski。

I guess first question, so Global Property and Agriculture, I'm not sure how big agriculture is, and I don't know if you could size it up, but the data we've seen points to the -- at least the U.S. crop season looking particularly profitable better than a normal year. I don't know if you all have exposure to that.

我想第一個問題是全球房地產和農業，我不確定農業有多大，我也不知道你是否可以對其進行評估，但是我們看到的數據表明 - 至少美國農作物季節的利潤看起來比正常年份要好。我不知道大家是否都接觸過這件事。

Yes. So Mike, last year, rough numbers. And by the way, as we roll into next year, we're going to the -- changing our divisions. Last year was our first year with Ag. And so it was tiny, really, we tried to put it in a place where it made best sense. It was probably about $30 million this year. It's considerably above that. So you'll see those numbers as we run the corner for next year. Relative to the U.S. crop exposure, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'll remind you that our business is a global business. So across the Americas, we write in Canada, Brazil, U.S. and the U.S. multi-peril crop probably is I'm going to guess, maybe 20% of our business. There's a separate U.S. program dairy and livestock that we participate in that's independent of the MPCI. But we would agree that it's a good year. What I will say to you is that given the size, some of the very large sophisticated primary writers will adjust their loss picks over the course of the year. We set our loss picks at an incredibly conservative level, and we've not, in any way reflected that sort of that positive outlook that you're describing in our picks, but we see it.

是的。麥克，去年的粗略數字。順便說一下，隨著明年的到來，我們將改變我們的部門。去年是我們與 Ag 合作的第一年。所以它實際上很小，我們試圖把它放在最合理的位置。今年大概是3000萬美元。它遠高於這個數字。當我們為明年的比賽做準備時，你會看到這些數字。相對於美國農作物的風險敞口，我面前沒有具體的數字，但我要提醒大家，我們的業務是全球性業務。因此，在美洲，我們在加拿大、巴西、美國開展業務，我猜美國的多災種作物業務可能占我們業務的 20%。我們參與了另一個獨立的美國乳製品和牲畜項目，該項目與 MPCI 無關。但我們一致認為，這是豐收的一年。我要告訴你的是，考慮到規模，一些非常大型、經驗豐富的主要作家將在一年內調整他們的損失選擇。我們將虧損選擇設定在一個非常保守的水平，並且我們沒有以任何方式反映出您在我們的選擇中所描述的那種積極前景，但我們看到了它。

Okay. That's super helpful. And just lastly, as a follow-up, I think this was asked a bit, but I don't know if you could provide any more color. Any kind of puts and takes that are noticeable on reserve releases or small adds in the major lines or anything -- or was that already covered?

好的。這非常有幫助。最後，作為後續問題，我認為這有點難以回答，但我不知道您是否可以提供更多詳細資訊。在儲備釋放或主要線路的小幅增加或任何其他方面，是否有任何明顯的看跌和看漲跡象 - 或者這些是否已經被涵蓋？

Mike hey, it's Mark. No, there were no puts or adds during the quarter.

麥克，嘿，我是馬克。不，本季沒有出售或增加任何股票。

Yes. I would describe this quarter as a very quiet quarter for us. And I go back to what I said earlier, which is that, again, by and large, our reserving, we are reserving consistently above indicated. So should there be erosion, there's a delta between indicated and where we booked. And for us, the most important thing is that we always stay on the right side of the book. And -- but this quarter was a very quiet quarter for us.

是的。我認為本季對我們來說是一個非常平靜的季度。我回到之前說過的話，那就是，總的來說，我們的儲備始終高於預期。因此，如果出現侵蝕，則指示的位置和我們預訂的位置之間會存在差異。對我們來說，最重要的是我們始終遵循正確的原則。但這個季度對我們來說是一個非常平靜的季度。

Our next question comes from Michael Phillips from Oppenheimer & Co.

下一個問題來自 Oppenheimer & Co. 的邁克爾·菲利普斯。

Andrew, I wanted to maybe just drill down a little bit deeper into a couple of prior questions. On your earlier answer to the Industry Solutions segment, you talked about maybe in a couple of quarters, we'll see some things turn to normal there. Does that mean you're where you want to be in your Commercial Auto book or is there still more cuts to come? I think the cuts were kind of offsetting or being offset by rate. Maybe that wasn't the case here because you're being more cautious. But are you where you want to be with that segment or is there more kind of cuts to come in Commercial Auto?

安德魯，我想更深入地探討前面的幾個問題。您之前在行業解決方案部分回答過，也許再過幾個季度，我們就會看到一些情況恢復正常。這是否意味著您在商用汽車業務上已經達到了預期目標，還是還會有進一步的削減？我認為削減是一種抵銷作用，或是被利率抵銷作用。也許情況並非如此，因為你更加謹慎了。但是，您是否希望在該領域維持現狀，或者商用車領域是否還會進一步削減開支？

There is -- so thanks for the question, Michael. So the first thing I will say to you is that you are correct in that rate is hiding a further reduction in exposure, right? So if you're hitting that category with 10%-plus rate, then obviously, units are coming down even faster than that. So that is true for Commercial Auto. I think that we probably have two more quarters of some adjustments that we're making that -- I don't know if it will come through in the results, I'll certainly be talking about it. But I think as we look out probably to the end of the first quarter of next year, the things that I've been talking about for the last three quarters where I think we were probably one of the first to basically say it's no longer acceptable to deliver 10%, 11%, 12% rate against what is a difficult loss cost inflation backdrop regardless of the profitability whether you're booking at a 60% or 65% or wherever you are, regardless of the profitability, that's just a really tough loss cost inflation backdrop. And so we still have some exposure reduction that we're going after, and that probably run through the fourth quarter into the first quarter.

是的——所以謝謝你的提問，邁克爾。因此，我要對你說的第一件事是，你說得對，該利率隱藏著風險的進一步降低，對嗎？因此，如果您以 10% 以上的成長率達到該類別，那麼顯然，單位數量的下降速度會比這更快。對於商用汽車來說，情況確實如此。我認為我們可能還需要兩個季度的時間來進行一些調整——我不知道這是否會在結果中體現出來，但我肯定會談論它。但我認為，當我們展望明年第一季末時，我過去三個季度一直在談論的事情，我想我們可能是第一批基本上說在困難的損失成本通膨背景下不再接受 10%、11%、12% 的利率的人之一，無論盈利能力如何，無論是 60% 還是 65% 的成本，無論你在哪裡，無論你在哪裡，非常困難的成本。因此，我們仍在尋求減少風險，這可能會持續到第四季到第一季。

Okay. Good. So when you were talking earlier about inflation in that Energy Solutions and you're more cautious, was that specific to that -- your Commercial Auto or was that also part of energy and construction as well, the inflation you were cautious about?

好的。好的。所以當您之前談到能源解決方案中的通貨膨脹時，您更加謹慎，這是針對商用汽車還是也包括能源和建築的一部分，您對通貨膨脹持謹慎態度？

Yes. It's Commercial Auto first for sure. But we write auto as part of the solutions for construction and energy. What I'd say to you is that energy for us is we're very -- it's a very profitable business. It's been that way for a long time, it's a very well-seasoned business. But at the same time, like some of the things that we're entering into on the renewable side, which will be a liability-focused principally exposure, it doesn't have this kind of bodily injury things that you might see in other parts of our portfolio. Construction is frequently a bodily injury exposed book of business. And it really is -- I think it is bodily injury specifically where we are seeing -- and that can happen in both auto as well as on liability, where we're seeing the greatest loss cost inflation occur. And so the parts of our portfolio that not every exposure in GL is equivalent, right? Some have heavy prem ops exposure, some don't. And so obviously, we're making adjustments with a view towards where I'm describing we see some of the greater loss cost inflation. But rest assured it is, first and foremost, driven by auto.

是的。毫無疑問，它首先是商用汽車。但我們將汽車作為建築和能源解決方案的一部分。我想說的是，能源對我們來說是一項非常有利可圖的業務。這種情況已經持續了很長時間，這是一家經驗非常豐富的企業。但同時，就像我們在再生能源方面涉足的一些領域一樣，這些領域主要集中在負債方面，它並不像我們投資組合的其他部分那樣具有身體傷害的風險。建築業是經常發生人身傷害事故的業務。事實確實如此——我認為我們看到的尤其是人身傷害——這種情況可能發生在汽車和責任險中，我們看到損失成本膨脹最為嚴重。那麼，在我們的投資組合中，並非 GL 中的每個風險敞口都是等同的，對嗎？有些人有豐富的 prem ops 經驗，有些人則沒有。因此顯然，我們正在進行調整，以應對我所描述的更大的損失成本通膨。但請放心，它首先是由汽車驅動的。

Okay. No, thanks for the details. And then just one more, if I could. I certainly appreciated your comments on kind of the reserves and the conservatism and staying above where things might go. But I guess on -- and you mentioned before the liability occurrence stuff, it's just a quiet quarter. But you have said recently that you're seeing some extra emergence in some of that business. And I guess it sounds like that extra emergence didn't continue or get worse. It kind of just stayed where it was, but I just kind of want to see what your thoughts there were.

好的。不，謝謝你的詳細資料。如果可以的話，我再說一次。我當然很欣賞你關於儲備、保守和維持事態發展的言論。但我想—正如您之前提到的責任發生的事情，這只是一個平靜的季度。但您最近說過，您看到部分業務出現了一些額外的成長。我想這聽起來像是額外的出現並沒有繼續或變得更糟。它只是停留在原處，但我只是想看看你的想法。

Yes. I mean I'll take a shot at trying to clarify and then Mark will probably clean up what I say, right? So I think what Mark has said in the past is that it is consistent with what I described, which is that if you look across, let's say, liability, general liability, as an example, occurrence liability, it's not like we see consistent patterns. Again, on one hand, if you look at our E&S transactional E&S book, like if our indicated was X and we were picking our booked was at X plus 5 or X plus 6, we've seen that develop to below X, right? So it's more favorable than what our initial indicated has been, and we haven't responded to that. And there are other parts of our portfolio where, again, we might be at X plus 3 or X plus 5 in terms of where we're booking with X being the indicated and some of that position indicated has eroded. It hasn't been consistent. The key part for us is to not sort of be in a negative position relative to our book, right? We might start to back up from our initial indicated, but not to book. And again, I think that some of what we saw last quarter, we didn't -- it didn't repeat itself this quarter.

是的。我的意思是我會嘗試澄清，然後馬克可能會澄清我所說的話，對嗎？因此，我認為馬克過去所說的與我所描述的是一致的，也就是說，如果你縱觀整個範圍，比如說責任、一般責任、發生責任，我們就不會看到一致的模式。同樣，一方面，如果你看一下我們的 E&S 交易 E&S 賬簿，比如，如果我們的指示是 X 並且我們選擇的賬面價值是 X 加 5 或 X 加 6，我們已經看到它發展到 X 以下，對嗎？因此，這比我們最初表示的更為有利，但我們尚未對此做出回應。並且在我們的投資組合的其他部分中，我們可能處於 X 加 3 或 X 加 5 的狀態，就我們的預訂而言，X 表示指示，並且指示的部分位置已經被侵蝕。它並不一致。對我們來說，關鍵的是不要對我們的書持負面態度，對嗎？我們可能會開始偏離最初指示，但不會回到預定的方向。而且我認為，上個季度我們看到的一些情況本季沒有重演。

And by the way, I mean, let's be practical, right? We have $450 million of direct written premium running through our books on every quarter. It's made up of lots of pieces. And so unsurprisingly, you can have a large loss in a quarter or 2 large losses and you're like, oh, well, that really changes our view over here, but it isn't necessarily replicated across our business and might not even be replicated from period to period.

順便說一句，我的意思是，讓我們務實一點，對吧？我們每季的直接承保保費為 4.5 億美元。它是由很多塊組成的。因此，毫不奇怪的是，你可能會在一個季度或兩個季度內遭遇巨額虧損，你會想，哦，好吧，這確實改變了我們的看法，但它不一定會在我們整個業務中重現，甚至可能不會在各個時期重現。

Our next question comes from Gregory Peters from Raymond James.

我們的下一個問題來自雷蒙德詹姆斯 (Raymond James) 的格雷戈里彼得斯 (Gregory Peters)。

Sorry about that. I had my phone on mute. Thanks for letting me squeeze in one last question. Hey Andrew, there's been a fair amount of activity in the delegated underwriting market over the last year. And I'm just curious if you could just help us frame your perspective on how you're approaching that market and your views. It's certainly -- when I go over to London, it certainly seems to be quite a hot topic.

很抱歉。我把手機調成了靜音。感謝您讓我擠出時間問最後一個問題。嘿，安德魯，去年委託承銷市場活動相當活躍。我只是好奇您是否可以幫助我們闡述您對該市場的看法和觀點。確實——當我去倫敦時，這似乎是一個相當熱門的話題。

Great question. Thanks for that, Greg. So I guess what I'd say is this, there are some really great MGAs, program administrators out there, people that I have long-standing relationships with some of the underwriters who are some of the best out there and have great appreciation. I believe that the frothiness that's out there is way overcooks the quality. There's a lot of business that I would describe as kind of like dirty admitted or light E&S, tough business, a lot of have prem ops kind of exposure where the industry is fooling itself in terms of what that profitability disposition. I have -- we unsurprisingly have great respect for very select competitors. And one of our competitors said in this call that I would encourage you to go look at the schedule piece of the fronting companies. I thought that was a really thoughtful thing to say they would agree with that. That's a transformer into some portion of the MGA market. So look, there are parts that are very attractive.

好問題。謝謝你，格雷格。所以我想我要說的是，有一些非常優秀的 MGA 和專案管理員，我與一些承銷商保持了長期的關係，他們是其中最優秀的，我非常欣賞他們。我認為，泡沫過多會降低其品質。在我看來，有很多業務都是骯髒的、輕度 E&S 的、棘手的業務，很多都有預先運營類型的風險，而行業在盈利能力配置方面是在自欺欺人。我有——毫無疑問，我們非常尊重精選的競爭對手。我們的一位競爭對手在這次電話會議中表示，我鼓勵你去查看前端公司的行程。我認為，說他們會同意這一點是非常深思熟慮的事情。這對 MGA 市場的一部分來說是一個轉變。所以你看，有些部分非常吸引人。

Our whole philosophy is Rule our Niche. So if we can partner with somebody who can -- where we can go Rule our Niche in a category and not replicate what they do, owing to some technology, distribution, some dimension of their business, that's where we'll seek to partner if it's in a category that is strategically relevant to us. And we have a number of those efforts already obviously in place, and then we have a number that are underway. But I would describe our -- sort of our approach as being more selective. And I think I would just echo some of the best underwriting companies out there who are rewarded with really high valuations who are saying pretty much the same thing, which is that there are parts of the market that really aren't very good, and it's just a matter of time before that sorts out.

我們的整體理念是「統治我們的利基」。因此，如果我們可以與能夠讓我們在某個類別中佔據主導地位並且不複製他們所做的事情的人合作，由於他們的某些技術，分銷，業務的某些方面，如果該類別與我們具有戰略意義，我們就會尋求合作夥伴。顯然，我們已經採取了一些行動，還有一些工作正在進行中。但我想說，我們的方法更具選擇性。我認為，我只是想呼應一些獲得極高估值的最佳承銷公司的觀點，他們也表達了同樣的看法，那就是，市場中確實有些部分不太好，而解決這些問題只是時間問題。

Our next question comes from Alex Scott from Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的亞歷克斯·斯科特。

Hey, thanks for squeezing me in here at the end. I had a question on transactional E&S. I just wanted to see if you could dig into some of the details of what's driving the really strong growth there. I mean, on the property piece of that, are you seeing some of the same competitive dynamics that I think were more comments on the Global Property?

嘿，謝謝你最後把我擠到這裡。我對交易 E&S 有疑問。我只是想看看您是否可以深入了解推動那裡真正強勁增長的一些細節。我的意思是，在房地產方面，您是否看到了一些相同的競爭動態，我認為更多的是針對全球房地產的評論？

Yes. Thanks, Alex, and good to have you with us, by the way. So what I'd say is that transactional E&S for us has been -- is and continues to be terrific. It's -- the bulk of that is, as I mentioned, on the property side, we're talking about writing exposures that are measured in the millions of dollars to low double digits and about 60% of our book is the full limits and 40% we're writing the primary and somebody is writing the excess. And on the liability side, the bulk of it is primary. We do write a book of excess. We write almost no Commercial Auto exposure at all in our E&S in excess. And so it's a real -- it's truly a GL book. And look, I think it's really simple. We have a great team. The majority of that team has been connected to me professionally for a number of years. So dating back to my prior life, and we've added that team with some incredible talent, some of which we've been public around announcing.

是的。謝謝，亞歷克斯，順便說一句，很高興你能加入我們。所以我想說的是，對我們來說，交易 E&S 一直是、並且將繼續是非常棒的。正如我所提到的，其中大部分是在房地產方面，我們正在談論以數百萬美元到低兩位數來衡量的風險敞口，而我們賬簿的約 60% 是全部限額，40% 是我們寫入的主要限額，有人在寫入超額限額。在負債方面，大部分是原發性的。我們確實寫了一本多餘的書。我們在 E&S 中幾乎沒有寫入任何商業汽車風險的超額部分。所以，這是一本真正的 GL 書。你看，我認為這真的很簡單。我們有一個優秀的團隊。團隊的大部分成員都與我有多年的專業聯繫。回顧我以前的生活，我們團隊中加入了不少才華橫溢的人才，其中一些我們已經公開宣布過了。

And then I think just the backdrop is there's just still a very strong flow. A large portion of the growth that you hear about when I talk about 25% increase in submissions, one of the big sort of weighted average contributors to that is still E&S. And I don't see anything that's going to change that, to be honest. I feel very good. And terms and price continue to be very good. On property, they're coming off a little bit, but from what I would describe as historically profitable levels. And on the liability side, I think just generally, the loss cost inflation backdrop in general is putting a sort of a nice lift into the GL market for us on our transactional E&S liability, and I feel great about it.

然後我認為背景就是仍然存在非常強勁的流量。當我談到提交量增加 25% 時，您聽到的成長中很大一部分，其中最大的加權平均貢獻者仍然是 E&S。說實話，我看不出有什麼可以改變這個現狀。我感覺非常好。而且條款和價格仍然非常好。就房地產而言，他們的利潤略有下滑，但我認為還是處於歷史盈利水平。在負債方面，我認為總體而言，損失成本通膨背景總體上為我們在交易 E&S 負債方面的 GL 市場帶來了良好的提升，我對此感到很滿意。

As I said, almost every turn when we do another actuarial review, we're like, oh, well we booked above our indicated and then we're like, oh, this is developing favorable to our indicated. That tells us that we're in a really great position with the book in terms and conditions that even if we were to see a bit of a deteriorating market, we'll be delivering outstanding returns and probably would not dimune the way that -- because of the way that we book, it would not dimune our sort of our underwriting profitability.

正如我所說的，幾乎每次當我們進行另一次精算審查時，我們都會想，哦，我們的預訂超過了我們的預期，然後我們會想，哦，這對我們的預期有利。這告訴我們，從條款和條件來看，我們的帳簿管理處在非常有利的地位，即使市場出現一些惡化，我們仍將提供出色的回報，而且可能不會削弱我們的承保盈利能力。

Got it. Very helpful. And maybe a quick follow-up on gross to net premiums. Can you help us out a little bit in terms of just what to expect in 4Q because we still sort of have, I think, the weird comparable associated with the quota share cancellation last year?

知道了。非常有幫助。或許可以快速跟進總保費與淨保費的關係。您能否幫助我們預測第四季度的情況，因為我認為，我們仍然面臨著與去年取消配額相關的奇怪的可比性問題？

Yes. I mean, it's Mark. The way we think about it is just assume low 60s in terms of gross to net.

是的。我的意思是，這是馬克。我們思考的方式就是假設毛利率與淨利率比低於 60%。

For the full year.

全年。

Yes, for the full year. It can bounce around due to the way we book excess of loss treaties, but just think about it in the low 60s.

是的，全年。由於我們登記超額損失條約的方式不同，該數字可能會有所波動，但想想看，這個數字大概在 60 年代初期。

Yes. And Alex, I might be wrong, so let us follow up, but I don't believe that in the fourth quarter, what we addressed in the third quarter repeats itself. The third quarter was unusual because with the cancellation of that quota share, we unwound what was in the first and second quarter. So you recaptured 3 quarters of ceded premium, thus distorting the third quarter of last year. I think the fourth quarter is a very, very good reference point. And the one thing I would just pay attention to a question that was asked earlier, I forgot you asked the question, I'll always remind folks that our gross to net is pretty normal, except for 2 areas, which is captives and our Global Property, captives because that's structurally the way it works and Global Property because we are a large line writer with significant quota share support, long-standing quota share support. So if Global Property becomes a smaller portion of our overall percentage, obviously, you'll start to see that drift up. And then as a company, as our balance sheet gets bigger and bigger, our risk appetite goes up. And so we'll try to take back some of the underwriting profit where we believe that we can. And I think as we get to the turn of the year and we give you guidance for next year, we'll be specific on what that looks like for the full year.

是的。亞歷克斯，我可能錯了，所以讓我們繼續討論，但我不相信在第四季度，我們在第三季度討論的問題會重演。第三季比較不尋常，因為隨著配額份額的取消，我們抵銷了第一季和第二季的減幅。因此，您收回了 3 個季度的轉讓保費，從而扭曲了去年第三季的數據。我認為第四季是一個非常非常好的參考點。我只想注意之前提出的一個問題，我忘了你問過這個問題，我會一直提醒大家，我們的毛利與淨利非常正常，除了兩個領域，即自保公司和我們的全球財產，自保公司是因為結構上就是這樣運作的，而全球財產是因為我們是一家大型線路作家，擁有大量配額份額支持，長期的配額份額支持。因此，如果全球房地產在我們的整體百分比中所佔的比例變小，顯然，你會開始看到這種上升趨勢。作為一家公司，隨著我們的資產負債表越來越大，我們的風險偏好也會上升。因此，我們將盡力收回部分承保利潤。我認為，當我們迎來新年並為您提供明年的指導時，我們將具體說明全年的情況。

In the interim, I believe that Mark's guidance is pretty good.

在此期間，我認為馬克的指導相當不錯。

I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back over to Natalie Schoolcraft for closing remarks.

我目前沒有其他問題。現在我想將發言權交還給娜塔莉·斯庫爾克拉夫特 (Natalie Schoolcraft)，請她作最後發言。

Thanks, everyone, for your questions, for participating in our conference call and for your continued interest in and support of Skyward Specialty. I am available after the call to answer any additional questions that you may have. We look forward to speaking with you again on our fourth quarter earnings call. Thank you, and have a lovely Halloween.

感謝大家的提問、參加我們的電話會議以及對 Skyward Specialty 的持續關注和支持。通話結束後，我仍可以回答您可能有的任何其他問題。我們期待在第四季財報電話會議上再次與您交談。謝謝您，祝您萬聖節快樂。

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

感謝您參加今天的會議。該計劃確實結束了。您現在可以斷開連線。