Skyward Specialty Insurance Group Inc (SKWD) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Skyward Specialty Insurance Group's fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call.

(Operator Instructions) As a reminder, today's program is being recorded, and now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Natalie Schoolcraft, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fourth 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'll 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 is included as part of our press release and available on our website, skywardinsurance.com under the Investor section.

With that, I will turn the call over to Andrew.

Andrew?

Thank you, Natalie.

Good morning, everyone.

And thank you for joining us.

We finished the year strong reporting adjusted operating income of $0.80 per diluted share for the quarter, driven by both outstanding underwriting and investment results.

For the third time this year, we delivered quarterly growth above 20%.

For the year, our adjusted operating income of $2.87 per diluted share is up over 28% compared to 2023.

Our book value per share was up 18% from the beginning of the year to $19.79. And our full year return on equity of 16.3% was again a strong result.

The 19% full year top line growth was outstanding given the current market backdrop.

And our focus on shifting our portfolio to less PNC cycle exposed parts of the market is working.

I'll talk more about that later in the call.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark to discuss our financial results in greater detail.

Mark.

Thank you, Andrew.

We had another strong quarter reporting adjusted operating income of $33.2 million or $0.80 per diluted share, and net income of $14.4 million or $0.35 per diluted share.

For the full year, our adjusted operating income of $126.7 million was up 57% over the prior year.

Gross written premiums grew by 21% for the quarter and 19% for the year with surety, programs, captives, transactional E&S, and agriculture, each contributing meaningfully to the growth this quarter.

Net rate and premiums grew by 23% for the year, and our retention of 64.5% was up over the prior year of 62.4%.

Turning to our underwriting results, our fourth quarter adjusted combined ratio was 91.6% and included 2.2 points of cat losses, principally from Hurricane Milton.

Our adjusted operating com combined ratio of 91.2% for the year was elevated slightly compared to 2023, driven by the marginal increase in our cat loss ratio.

The non-cat loss ratio of 60.5% for the quarter and 60.6% for the year were consistent with the prior quarter and the year.

In line with what we previously disclosed, in the fourth quarter, we increased reserves by $25.3 million related to losses previously subject to the LPT from accident years 2018 and prior.

The net impact of the LPT on the combined ratio was 4.2 points in the quarter and 1.1 points for the year.

On January 31, we commuted the OPT, removing future reinsurance recoverable credit risk related to this portfolio.

As we've previously discussed during 2024, we completely rebuilt our actuarial data and converted from policy to accident year for accident years 2020 and after.

This undertaking was considerable as we mapped gross, ceded, and net premiums and losses to each accident year which improved the fidelity of our accident year data compared to our prior estimation method of reserving by policy year and allocating to accident year.

I'll note that our reserve position continues to be strong.

And as a measure of that strength, our IBNR now makes up over 69% of total reserves, up from 63% last year and 57% in 2020.

This is particularly notable as we continue to shorten our liability durations and increase the speed of recognition in claims.

The quarter to date expense ratios of 28.9% respectively, are in line with our expectations of sub-30.

The business makeshift continues to impact acquisition costs for both the quarter and the year, but we're offset by improvements in our other operating and general expenses ratio be benefiting from the scale of our business.

Turning to our investment results, our strategy to de-risk the portfolio continues to pay off with net investment income of $20.7 million in the quarter and $80.7 million for the year, an increase of over $40 million compared to year in 2023.

Consistent with our investment strategy to deploy free cash flow to fixed income.

In the fourth quarter, we put $46 million to work at 5.8%.

The net investment income from our fixed income portfolio increased to $15.9 million from $11.7 million in the prior year quarter, driven by improving portfolio yield and significant increase in the invested asset base.

Our embedded yield was 5.1% at December 31, compared to 4.8% a year ago and 5% at September 30.

We reported a slight gain of $0.1 million in our alternative and strategic investments portfolio compared to a loss of $2.2 million in the prior year quarter.

Both periods were impacted by the change in the fair value of limited partnership investments that was previously classified as opportunistic fixed income.

At December 31, this portion of our portfolio only comprised 6% of our overall portfolio compared to 9% a year ago.

At December 31, we had approximately $275 million in short-term investments, and our yield on short-term investments was 4.2%.

Our financial lever leverage is modest as we finish the year with a low 13% debt to capital ratio, given our raw capacity from our revolver, our current leverage, we have ample debt financing flexibility.

Lastly, as previously communicated in our press release on February 5, for 2025, we expect net income of between $138 million and $150 million.

A combined ratio between 91% and 92% inclusive of 2 points to 2.5 points of catastrophe losses, and we expect gross written premium growth in the low to mid 10s.

Now I'll turn the call back over to Andrew.

Thank you, Mark.

It is hard to believe that we've been reporting as a public company for two years now.

And we're hitting our stride, as we continue to deliver outstanding and consistent earnings growth in mid to upper [10s] ROEs.

We remain laser focused on executing our ruler niche strategy and generating top quartile returns in all parts of the market cycle.

Our emphasis on seeking growth in high return areas that are less exposed to the P&C cycles appears to be prudent.

For Skyward, this currently includes A&H, surety, captives, mortgage, credit, and agriculture, which together accounted for 42% of our $388 million of gross written premiums this quarter, and 39% of gross written premiums for the year.

This aspect of portfolio management has increasingly been an area focused on our drive to consistently deliver top quartile underwriting returns.

Beyond the portfolio focus I just noted, we had double digit growth in six of eight divisions.

Professional lines growth is down slightly given softening conditions in more of the lines we target.

We do expect that to reverse in 2025, given the investments we have made in healthcare and media, which should offset a more defensive posture in some of the other professional lines.

Industry solutions continue to be impacted by our intentional actions in commercial auto but grew modestly in the quarter as we continue to find attractive new business opportunities in construction and energy.

Turning to our operational metrics, we had a quarter similar to last.

On pricing, we achieved mid-single digit plus pure rate.

Global property and as I just noted, some of the lines in professional are being impacted by downward pricing trends.

The market backdrop in occurrence liability, including auto liability, continues to be very supportive of decent rate, although the loss cost inflation environment continues to be challenging, and as such, we're being very selective in our growth in these areas.

Retention was strong in the upper 70s for the quarter, driven by business mix and our intentional actions in commercial auto.

Lastly, we continue to see strong submission growth, which was solidly in the 10s this quarter, but modestly down from the 20% in the prior quarters.

We are confident that strong submissions growth will continue across most of our divisions.

As I look back on 2024, I have immense pride at the accomplishments of our Skyward team.

This year was extraordinary with remarkable growth and industry recognition.

From earning our upgrade by A.M. best to a full A to securing our place as nineth on S&P Global's list of top performing P&C companies to earning accolades that affirm our place as an employer of choice.

We've solidified ourselves as a leader in the special specialty property and casualty insurance market.

2025 will mark a significant milestone for our company, as it is our fifth year since rebranding and reintroducing ourselves to the industry as Skywards specialty.

In just five short years we've redefined who we are, consistently performed at a high level, and built a company that reflects our vision for the future we are creating.

We've transformed our business, we've shaped our team, teams and capabilities, placing us in the strongest position yet to defend and expand our increasing leadership in key markets.

On behalf of my colleagues and our board, we thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to our continued success in 2025.

I'd now like to turn the call back over to the operator to open it up for Q&A.

Operator?

Certainly.

And our first question for today comes from the line of Mark Hughes from Truist Securities.

Your question, please?

Yeah, thank you.

Just looking at some of this early company data, it seems like there's still a lot of inflation in casualty, particularly in access.

How do you see the adequacy of the pricing in that market?

Do you think that's going to be a grower for you this year?

Thanks, Mark.

Great question.

Boy, there's a lot to that.

Let me just say, I think, when I look across the market, there's a lot of folks that are reporting, pretty hefty rate increases generally in the occurrence liability lines.

And I think what I'd say to you is that might be an indication that now is the time to grow there.

I think for us specifically; we will take a more cautious approach.

I don't differentiate this that greatly from our discussion a couple of years ago on CAT.

Cap market was like rock hard.

People were loading up on it was, it was pretty extraordinary, and we just sort of stuck to our plan, right, which is, let's be sensible and in this particular case.

I'd say that you can only be confident to the extent that you're confident in the loss inflation.

And I think that yeah, there's probably not a company out there that is not surprised at the increasing loss inflation as compared to what they thought the loss inflation would be two or three years ago.

And if that trend continues, it may very well be those 10 points, or 11 points, or 12 points of rate is not enough.

Moreover, it's probably not enough if your starting point isn't right.

And so I think we're being really selective about where we're growing.

We're trying to make sure that we're shying away from the places where personal injury, bodily injury, may be most prevalent in sort of the loss, makeup, and I think in that regard, we're being smart.

But I just, I do find it interesting, right?

Because there's a lot of companies out there growing, and it seems like investors are applauding it.

When you see the growth, particularly a lot of that's being driven by rate, not as much as units.

And I wonder whether that ultimately is going to produce the kind of outcome that people believe it will.

I think for us we're taking a more measured approach as we have been over the course of the last probably 18 months or so.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

How about your pace of hiring?

You've done well, growing the top line by adding new teams, new capabilities.

How do you see 2025 shaping up?

I think that we are a winner, a very strong winner.

We added 19 underwriters in Q4, a very difficult time to add underwriters.

We had seven in surety.

And I need not to sort of wax on about, the wonders of our surety business.

By the way, back to your other question mark, it's a fantastic position to be in that we can grow there with people whose books of business will generally follow them versus, having to sort of lean in on a, an uncertain loss inflation environment on casualty.

So, I feel really good about it.

We've definitely been a winner.

I think our ability to attract talent is amongst the very best in the industry, and I don't see any reason that's not going to continue, here in 2025.

Thank you appreciate it.

Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Matt Carletti from Citizens JMP.

Your question, please?

Hey, thanks.

Good morning.

Good morning, Matt.

Andrew, maybe following on Mark's question there.

I mean you guys have obviously done a really good job, adding teams and growing organically.

Can you talk a little bit about how you view M&A?

Just if it is part of the discussion, if it is off the table if it's just something you look at.

Just want to get inside your head and think a little bit about how you if there's a time and place for that?

Or if that's just not for Skyward.

Yeah, thanks, Matt.

I am so, here's what I'd say over, sort of my five-year operation, right, we had a lot of work to do to get the business, fully in the position that we wanted it to be in.

By the way, I'll tell you we are there, I think that 2024 was a watershed year for us in many regards.

And I think we're there.

That said, like we just delivered a 21%, organic growth outcome.

By the way we did it in places that maybe others aren't doing it, because we're having to work really hard on like if you want to grow in surety, right?

You have to be able to attract great talent.

The first thing I'd say is that we cannot do anything that impedes what is an incredibly successful organic engine that we've created here, and so that is topmost of mine.

And then the second thing of course is, if you're going to do M&A, you have to be proportional in terms of, the kind of risk that you're taking on.

If it brings with a balance sheet risk, we want to be incredibly measured there, that said.

During 2024, we hired a head of corporate development, Shakoor Khan, who had worked for me, in my prior, part of my career.

I personally trained and developing myself, and we are much more active at looking at opportunities, but I would just say to you, and to our investors that, rest assured that the bar is exceptionally high, because we recognize that even if something mathematically looks like it's a creative to our shareholders, it brings with it a different profile of risk and we need.

They can have, any undue risk, on anything that we may acquire, but more importantly, we just can't disrupt the organic engine that we have going as a company, because it is really a distinctive feature of this company, that I'm really proud of what we created, and you just don't want to interfere with that.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

And I just follow up question, on capital, just, how should we think about, do you feel you're sort of excess capital currently?

Do you feel your kind of about right given the growth and just maybe stepping back?

is there a, I look at like premiums to equity.

I know it's a very blunt instrument, is there a certain level that on the outside we kind of look at to help gauge that as time goes on that that feels like a right leverage ratio.

Hey Matt, it's Mark.

First, feel really great about our capital, I mean, you, you're right, 1.5 [each] to 1 we're pretty balanced.

I think we could lever that up a little bit, so I don't feel any pressure on capital.

We talked about the flexibility we have, with the revolver,

So, right, I feel really good about where we are, and Matt, the organic, capital that we're generating, is supporting what we see as growth opportunities.

Sorry for the third time I feel great about it.

And Matt, I have 11 other things, which are that something I don't believe we get enough credit for as a company.

We are distinct certainly amongst companies our size in the diversity of our portfolio, and that has obviously benefitted in terms of options for where we apply deploy capital it creates obviously multiple avenues for growth for earnings diversification, but really importantly it creates a capital diversification for us.

And the one thing I can say is that, without revealing too much our internal plans as we look out through 2025.

Will put us, we put up the pie chart at the end of this year, oh my God, this is like an incredibly well diversified portfolio with every single one of the businesses at scale, and that's a hugely capital efficient, approach.

And so, when Mark says, 1.5% to 1%, he's talking about, net premium to surplus, if you think about it in statutory terms, that number may go up here, in terms of leverage as we continue to get more balance in our portfolio.

As I said, I don't think we get enough credit for it.

Alright, thank you very much for the color.

Very much appreciate it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Andrew Andersen from Jefferies Your question, please?

Hi guys, good morning, this is [Charlie] on for Andrew.

I was wondering if you could provide some color in terms of what you're seeing on submission flows and what might be driving the slow down, to the mid 10s and maybe if that's, coming from mix or if there are other drivers and then to that end, have there been any changes in the quote to submission ratio or the binding to quote?

Yeah, thank you for the question.

Yeah, I don't know if I would read too much into it.

I think that we're seeing a lot of submissions.

There's no question about it.

It's not -- we don't -- we're not concerned about what we're seeing.

There are ebbs and flows in terms of the quality that fit what we do.

I mean, for example, as I said, if you take for example E&S, and we're very much a true E&S writer and so very little of our portfolio is kind of the marginal stuff, the E&S light that comes in and out of the market.

But we're seeing plenty of submission flow.

And I think that's self-evident in the results and I'll point you to something that's very important, which is, last quarter, where the growth was down a little bit, from where we had been, we had reported submission growth, well north of 20%.

And this quarter, we're 21% growth and we, described that it dropped.

Into the 10s, I just, I don't think that we have any concerns there and we feel pretty good about, the opportunities that we're going to have to write new business in 2025.

It's just not, I wouldn't point to that as an area of particular concern for us.

Okay great, and then sorry, I just want to follow up on that the quote to submission ratio or the bind to quote any major changes there.?

I don't know if we're seeing if we're really seeing changes, there.

I think that as I mentioned, a lot of it has to do with, what you might necessarily be seeing in a quarter in terms of whether it fits with our appetite, there's periods where.

Somebody will, let's say on the admitted side will exit the market and you suddenly see a flow of business and, oftentimes it doesn't fit us.

I really -- again we're not -- I would not point to any trends that we can see in our business.

There is ordinarily noise from quarter to quarter, but then what you oftentimes will see is that quarter to quarter noise will revert back and so there really isn't anything there that I would report out to you that is notable for us.

Okay.

Understood and then last one if I could sneak one in, could you just provide an update on how much work is left to be done on the commercial auto portfolio?

Yeah, I think I reported out on this last quarter or the quarter before the question was asked.

I think at the at the end of this quarter that we're in right now, there will be no more work done on the portfolio.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I believe roughly about 12% or 13% of our premium this quarter, was in commercial auto, and we have a little bit more work to do and that will be it.

Now, by the way, I'll point you as well to the obvious fact that exposure is coming down, but not unlike everything you've heard from everybody else, price is going up.

So, that written premium is a far lower exposure base just simply because of the pricing actions that are happening on top of the exposure that we're keeping.

Okay, and just to confirm that was end of 1Q '25.

Yeah, the current the current quarter is absolutely.

Yes, cool.

Well, thank you guys for the questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Meyer Shields from KBW.

Your question, please?

Hi, this is Dean for Meyer.

I was curious, as your business makeshifts toward those lines of business that aren't, as correlated with the PNC market cycle, I was wondering what implications that has on the expense ratio?

Oh, that's a great question.

Thank you for asking it.

I, we're seeing it come through here.

I mean, it's not just that, it's not expense ratio alone.

It's all facets of -- kind of the combined ratio of metrics and I'll give you a couple of examples.

But I think by and large, what you're seeing where our acquisition costs are going up.

I think is a trend that will likely continue for us.

And then, sort of our other underwriting expenses.

We've been -- we're sort of now into the period where, the growth in our business is providing us scale and leverage there, we're sticking to our kind of, Mendoza line of sub-30.

It's sort of critical to us to continue to grow our underwriting income in a way that we're targeting.

But I think what you'll see is you'll see that geography.

But the other thing I'll point out to you is that some businesses like a great example is A&H will run sort of in the 70s, and probably around mid-70s on loss ratio, yet our ANH business.

Is virtually an almost a capital free business differently, Mark and I have modeled where if we removed it, we wouldn't release any capital.

And so, growth there would actually probably drive up our combined ratio, because it sits higher than our average of kind of, 9,091.

But from a return on capital perspective it's hugely accretive.

And so, there are other things that happen in there, but by and large what I would just say to you to your question is we'll be saying sub-30.

And you'll continue to see a little bit of a rise on acquisition costs and a continued leverage on our other underwriting expense.

Got it.

That makes sense.

And then just, last one, are there any new units' you guys expect to launch in like '25 or 2026?

I know there was a few years rolled out this year, so I was just curious about that.

Yeah, well, in this past year, right, we launched a bunch, right?

We launched mortgage and credit.

We did renewables launch inside of energy.

We launched media liability life sciences, I mean, the list goes on.

We did quite a bit.

You can imagine, as I said in the past, we are, we're strategy led, right?

So, kind of in our thinking, there are always things to do.

Frequently, those are tied to teams or leaders that we will target, and that targeting might take quarters if not years to actually get those people into our organization.

Because we're kind of patient in that regard.

The answer is yes, we have some things that we're working on, whether we have new launches, here in 2026 or not depends a lot on whether we get, the talent across that we're aiming at.

We're going to be doing some things to change up our divisional reporting.

As we roll into '25 to put a bit more granularity around that, which will be helpful to everybody, I hope.

But otherwise, I think that what you should assume is that we have a pretty strong growth engine from the range of things that we've done here over the past few quarters that with that, now we'll start making a meaningful contribution to towards our top line.

Got it.

Thank you, Andrew.

Thank you.

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

Your question, please?

Hey, good morning, thanks for taking my question.

It's down for Mike.

Maybe first can you just walk us through the reserve change where you're going from the policy year to accident year and just, is this now the industry norm or maybe why Skyward wasn't conforming to that in the past?

Thanks.

Well, this is Andrew.

I'll let Mark answer the question why we weren't conforming to it.

I don't know, right?

We, I inherited an organization that reported by policy year.

And, in due course, we always knew that we were going to fully convert it, but I would just say God invented time so that everything doesn't happen at once and we got to this in the sort of the time frame we could.

And the fidelity of what we have now is terrific.

I don't know much more to say about it than that's the context.

I don't know if there's anything you'd add.

Yeah, exactly.

And look what we said earlier, I think is we used to allocate from policy year to accident year.

What we've done now is refined it, and have a true accident year representation, so it was just it was legacy, it was something that we knew we had to do.

And it was a big project.

Yeah, accident year is the norm, and we knew it was coming, so we executed it in '24.

It's the norm here in the United States.

Lloyd's works on a policy or basis and so, and my predecessor, is a Brit who grew up inside of Lloyd's and so maybe that's the reason, but I don't know that.

Okay, that's helpful, thanks.

And then just sticking with reserves, maybe you mentioned that normally there's a ground up review at the conclusion of the year.

Just wondering outside of, the LPT noise in this quarter if you know there are any puts and takes to that annual review.

I mean, look, there, let me just say this, we will be filing our K on March 3.

There's a little bit of puts and takes, but nothing really major to talk about.

But once you get the K and the annual statements are filed, we're happy to get to have any discussions or go through that with you.

And will be -- and the P will be out next week as well.

I look -- I just -- I'd say this, yes, we did a bottom up.

In no uncertain terms, our reserves are in the best position they've ever been in.

Our redundancy relative to our central estimate is the strongest, both on a dollar and on a percentage basis that it's ever been in.

I, it's near impossible not to look at an increase from 63% of our reserves in IBNR to 69% while we're simultaneously shortening liabilities and speeding our claims recognition as indicators of a really strong position on the liability side of our balance sheet.

So, I think that everything is in the context of we were in a good position, and we are in a better position.

Great, thank you.

Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Alex Scott from Barclays.

Your question, please?

Morning, yeah, I was hoping you could, kind of give us an update on the new strategy you all have.

Where are you seeing good opportunities, as you look forward in the '25 and '26?

Thanks, Alex.

Boy, that's a -- so there's probably a long list out there, and I will also say that.

With the change of administration comes, a change in some emphasis of opportunities, but I, I'll just highlight a couple of them.

There's no question about it that we are, we're seeing a lot of opportunity on the energy side.

We were seeing opportunity on the energy side before the change in the administration, reminds you that we launched a focus around renewables in addition to our more traditional energy sector focus, but that's one area that we're certainly seeing a good deal of opportunity.

Life Sciences looks like we timed our entry well.

We've got a great leader there, with a great product, and there's no question about it and sort of, early indications from.

The brokers that that's going to be a part of our business that I believe will be a meaningful growth contributor.

One thing I will say about, sort of our healthcare professional liability.

The market around that is interesting, because I wouldn't describe it as a hard market, but the nature of exposure is changing so dramatically that, we're a true E&S writer there and so we're writing to the exposure.

And as such, I think we're seeing, for example, in that particular part of our professional liability division, we're seeing a lot of opportunities that we can convert on.

It really runs the gamut, but I also believe that probably another two quarters out from now as sort of the effects of the administration start to take root, in the economy that we might be talking about a handful of different things, but I will say to you those examples I gave you are indicative of the kinds of breath that we're seeing across our business in total.

That's really helpful thank you.

Just a follow up and apologies ahead of time.

There were some overlapping calls.

If I'm asking something repetitive, my apologies.

I wanted to ask you about stop loss.

I know it's a small business; it's something you guys have grown a little bit in, seems like it's been fine for you all.

I mean, it hasn't affected the consolidated result seemingly at least.

Industries is facing some pressure there, I think even some of the better underwriters, disclosed a bit more pressure this quarter so interested in what your experience has been.

And if it's been good, I mean it seems like 2025 is going to be a hard market for that business.

Were you able to lean in anything around the new year?

By the way, thank you, Alex, and thank you for asking that and know nobody did ask that.

And we have heard that we had 11 analysts write about this around.

I like -- I just, I'm completely confounded because if there's problems that companies like [Voya], it has absolutely nothing to do with our I mean couldn't, it's like it's, it has nothing to do with our business at all.

And we -- 80% of our business is focused on the market that's 500 employees and less, and we don't even see the guys that are being referenced.

The business is fantastic for us.

It's never been performing better.

The contribution from that business is quite honestly.

It's now at a level where from a combined ratio perspective, even though, barring my comments earlier when I said like in a normalized basis it'll run at a higher level, it's actually running consistent with our overall combined ratio for our business on a, on an area that is very little capital.

And you're right, 11 has been a boon.

I mean, we just, we had an unbelievable 11 in A&H, and we're seeing it in multiple places.

The most notable thing is that, going back about 24 months ago, we launched, a captive capability inside of our A&H business, that complemented sort of the individual employer medical stop loss, so it's a group captive kind of play.

And we started to really see a lot of traction in 2024 there and in 2025, not only are we seeing a lot of traction there, but now we've also seen sort of the return of the more traditional business.

There's a couple of entities that have completely pulled back, MGAs that have lost paper and so forth.

And it's just opened up the market for us.

And we kept our powder dry, our growth was sort of in the low 10s, and we see an unbelievable amount of opportunity.

But I'll reemphasize something that's really important, which is this talk about kind of the problems in the market has like literally nothing to do.

We don't see any of the names that are describing, problems out there.

And I couldn't, again, I mean, I know I'm saying these things over and over.

It may be one of the best success stories of 2024 for our company and our position coming into 2025.

And our results for the 11 renewals, which is something like 55% of the business for the year, was absolutely extraordinary.

Great.

It's very interesting.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Mike Phillips from Oppenheimer.

Your question, please?

Hi, good morning.

It's Roland on for Mike.

I wanted to quickly go back to commercial auto.

Given the industry challenges and your own caution on that line?

Is there any sort of lost trend detail you're able to give on your book, reserve stats, what sort of classes of business, et cetera?

Specifically, for -- are you asking specifically for the

--

Commercial auto since you are so cautious about the growth there.

Yeah, so, I'm going to highlight something I've talked about in the past.

We really have sort of three buckets of commercial auto.

One bucket is a very long-standing program with an entity that, we are a material owner in and, effectively, they're an expert in a very specific area.

And that business, by the way, has delivered, fantastic outcomes for 10 plus years for us.

And there, because the nature of that business, we're seeing a lower loss trend.

I would describe it, kind of in the mid to upper single digit, loss trend.

So that's one area.

The second area is in our captives, our group captives.

There's a good deal of auto, there -- within the group captives, the principal, captives there are very technology intensive.

So, pretty much, these are heavy, they have autos.

They're loaded with pretty much everything that you can possibly imagine, which is really important from a risk management perspective.

But also, obviously, you can know a great deal about the loss very quickly.

And I would say there, we're probably seeing what the industry is seeing driven by severity your kind of talking 10%, severity trends, generally speaking, you're going to see in our results our frequency is way down.

I mean like when you look at our results, there's going to -- there's a break in our frequency around the time that I joined when we started exiting, some really bad stuff.

And our frequency is down about 50% on a per exposure basis, but it's also down, 50% on an open claims basis across the entire life cycle.

You'll see that.

And then the third bucket is basically what supports our industry solutions.

And there I think again, I think on a severity trend we're probably seeing what the industry is seeing, which is 10% plus or minus.

What I'm, going back to my comments earlier, what I'm cautious about is that 10%, it's not unreasonable to think that that 10% could be 12%, 14%.

Some higher number, a couple or three years out three a couple.

Or three years out, which again, for us, makes it perplexing, some of the confidence comments that we hear from others, because while there's a lot of rates to be captured, it brings with it, a good deal of risk.

And on the flip side, not to sort of go on too much.

I don't know if you saw it, but this week, the Legislature in Georgia put forward a bill that is really the kind of change that has to happen from a tort reform perspective, that I think if it occurs in Georgia and other states start to act accordingly.

That's the kind of thing that can really bend the curve on the loss cost inflation, but without that change, that's scenario that I described where, it looks like 10% today and it could go to 12%, 13%, %14, and higher, is not an unreasonable scenario and that's the reason why we're cautious.

And also, why you'll see, certainly in the last couple of years of our accident years, we're just, we, for the small, much smaller portion of our business that is bodily injury exposed, we've got up, a lot of IBNR, should there be a change in trend going forward.

That's super helpful.

Thank you so much.

Shifting a little bit, I was just curious how much your growth expectation is from the new hires or teams versus existing verticals?

And then on that topic, how do you book new products?

Is there a sort of extra layered caution that goes into the loss bit there and sort of what timeline does it take for you to be comfortable with your loss picks on new business?

Yeah, great question.

So, for nearly all of our businesses, we endeavor to put a margin above our indicated.

For newer businesses that margin is greater.

Also, in every single planning year when we come into the year, Mark and I hold back what we call corporate IBNR, so that should we launch a business during the course of the year, we can put further risk margin into that.

The answer is yes, and yes, across the board.

Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Andrew Kligerman from TD Cowen.

Your question, please?

Hey, good morning, nice quarter.

So, I was particularly interested, you saw some great growth, and I was particularly interested in the two growth areas programs where I know you've got, kind of a broad mix of proper products, property, GL, commercial auto, excess liability, workers' comp, kind of curious where you're seeing the growth within programs?

And then, in that excess liability area, are you seeing a lot of growth there as well?

Thank you, Andrew, and thanks for the question.

I'm going to try to source it before hopefully before the end of my full answer, but, yes, it was a bump up in programs for this quarter, but I do believe that, for the full year it was much more moderate.

So, unsurprisingly there could be some lumpiness there.

What I will tell you on the program side, our program strategy very much follows what I've been describing to you overall.

Right?

So, we're not, we're not leaning in on programs on liability.

In fact, quite the contrary, I think that we're probably, even more cautious, on liability and programs because obviously, that's an instance where, you're delegating authority.

And I just think that it requires an extra level of precaution.

So, most of our growth, there is coming from areas that aren't in the areas that you mentioned.

Where it is coming from the areas, that you mentioned are things like, we have a cannabis program, which is both property and liability, but that's very specific.

It's not cat exposed on one hand and a liability, it is prem ops, but you don't find the kind of bodily injury that you're finding elsewhere.

And so, I would just -- I would say to you that, shouldn't surprise you that, sort of our development there is following, you know what we're doing overall and we're finding niches here and there that are very complimentary to overall business.

Look on the excess side, I need to be very clear that, principally as a company our access first off, we keep our limits short, we only offer $5 million limits, for all but one area.

Our access is written over our own primary, right?

So, it's an umbrella as opposed to a standalone access, where we write standalone ex access in our transaction in business, we write virtually no auto.

We're really writing the same kinds of DL exposure that we write on a primary side.

We write on a standalone access.

We also might write access, supporting our own primary there.

But in that regard, we -- I just, I'm making this point, because we have a pretty refined view of the classes where the bodily.

Injury is driving loss inflation and certainly in our E&S business where we are leaning in on liability, we are very much not writing in those loss inflation classes and where we are, you wouldn't surprise you that either we are sublimating things.

So, for example, we don't do just comprehensive assault and battery exclusions.

We might supplement it to a very low level.

If there's a sault and battery, we're going to basically pay a very short limit and get out, right, as opposed to fighting about whether the loss is covered or not.

And so I think in many regards we've built an approach that really protects the sort of the current environment that we're in both in what we're writing in excess and how we're approaching kind of the social inflation, environment where we're leaning in on liability.

That was very helpful.

And maybe a similar question with regard to captives which were, gross written was up 43%.

And again, I think you're in the same broad spectrum of lines and captives as you are in programs.

Where do you -- I think if I remember correctly, you attached somewhere around $350,000 on average?

Correct.

It's either it's anywhere between $350,000 and $500,000.

And then, you basically have that layer, depending on the business we will write the access, partially, but it'll be on our paper.

I will clarify though most of the growth in in captives is actually coming from something that is a very innovative captive that we talked about that we introduced in 2023.

We built a really unique property captive to the automotive dealer sector with, ensure tech partner of ours, called Understory Weather.

And it is, it's unbelievable.

I mean, we have -- it's just been an incredible growth engine.

And the results are equally astounding.

I can't remember whether I made this point.

But during, I believe it was Helene, we had something like $200 million of exposure in Bradenton and got that all that exposure out largely because of the technology that we use.

And so, our loss experience has been absolutely extraordinary and it's pretty hard to put a captive together around property, particularly those kinds of vertical limits.

The fact that we did it and we have great reinsurance support, that's really been the source of our growth.

Got it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Mark Hughes from True Securities.

Your question, please?

Mark, I don't know if you'll have this, but do you happen to have the cash from operations for the full year?

Right, I had about $300 million, Mark.

$300 million.

Yes, okay, that was it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Alex Scott from Barclays.

Your question, please?

Oh, sorry about that.

I didn't mean to be back in the queue.

Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) And this does conclude the question-and-answer session of today's program.

I'd like to hand the program back to Natalie Schoolcraft for any further remarks.

Thanks, Jonathan.

And thank you everyone for your questions, for participating in our conference call and for your continued interest in and support of Skyward Specialty.

I'm available after the call to answer any additional questions that you may have.

We look forward to speaking with you again on our first quarter earnings call.

Thank you and have a wonderful day.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference.

This does conclude the program.

You may now disconnect.

Good day.