BERKLEY W R CORP — Call Transcript 2021

Good afternoon, everybody, or happy lunchtime, and thanks for joining us today. We've got our next presentation, our next fireside chat here. It gives me great pleasure in welcoming Bill Berkley, the Chairman of W. R. Berkley, and Rob Berkley, the CEO of W. R. Berkley, for a discussion here. What I'm going to do is I'll go through some questions that I have. We've also got the ability for you, the audience, to ask questions yourselves. You'll see a little spot at the bottom of your screen. Feel free to chat in a question and I will see it here, and I will be sure to ask it. Let me start off with kind of a broader base question here, Rob. We've had this kind of hard or call it firming pricing environment, so let's call it 2019, right? Where do you think we are right now with respect to that pricing cycle, and how much legs does this thing continue to have here, in your view? Well, Brian, first off, thank you very much for the invitation to participate and good day to all that are tuned in. As far as the P&C commercial lines market goes in particular, I think one needs to recognize a bit of a distinction that exists in the cycle today that may have not existed in the past. That is that we have many major product lines within the universe we're discussing that are marching not necessarily in as much of a lockstep manner as they once did in the past. At this stage, we have one of the larger parts of the commercial lines marketplace, that being workers' compensation, that has been going through an extended period of rate erosion. On the other hand, we have, as you suggest, many parts of the balance of the commercial lines marketplace that have been in different stages of firming. From my perspective, I think we are seeing professional liability march to the beat of somewhat of a different drum than workers' comp. Liability marching to the beat of its own drum. Excess versus primary, really not, again, in lockstep, and certainly property is a different animal into itself. The fundamentals of the cycle, regardless of the product line, in our opinion, are still very much intact. What drives the change in the cycle is fundamentally people being alarmed and certainly concerned by results and recognizing a need for change. History would suggest at some point, and I would, to your question, suggest it's not for some period of time when you start to see people become enamored with the margins and then you'll see an erosion in rate terms and conditions. More specifically to your question, from our perspective, workers' compensation, while I have been more optimistic than some as to when we're going to touch bottom, probably in all likelihood, at least another year to go. Commercial auto continues to firm, particularly on the auto liability front, both primary and excess. On the GL front, I think we're looking, there is rate that's being had, likely to see more of that coming through. To talk about professional liability for a moment, obviously a very diverse space. You're seeing pockets where rate increases are still very available, others where perhaps it's slowing. Finally, on the property front, it seems as though Mother Nature's been relatively active recently and continues to send us reminders as to why rates need to continue to move up. Again, all not in lockstep, but with the exception of workers' comp, we think that there is still a fair amount of runway in front of us. Rob, why do you think workers' comp continues to be so depressed from a pricing perspective? Is it just because loss costs are so good? Are margins compressing there? What's going to be the catalyst to get things getting better here? Look, for some number of years now, as far as comp goes, frequency trend has been the friend of the industry, if you will, we've seen frequency continue to come down. We saw it come down dramatically during the peak periods of COVID, though we're seeing it make its way towards more of a traditional normal. Again, this is as far as frequency goes. I think the big wild card out there that I'm not sure the industry is grappling with as actively as they might is questions around severity. Particularly in an environment such as what we're in today, where you see a very tight labor market. As a result of that, you have people in jobs that perhaps they're not as well trained for. You have people working significant amounts of overtime, those two realities oftentimes can lead to, unfortunately, injuries in the workplace. We'll see what happens with that. I guess the other piece worth noting is the developments on the medical front where science has taken us and continues to take us. They're able to do wonderful things for injured workers, but that is coming at a cost, too. Medical trend, particularly with some of the new developments, should not be overlooked or underestimated. Right. Severity is where we got to kind of keep thinking about it. I think that- I guess just keeping an eye. Absolutely, severity, you got to keep an eye on severity. The other piece is, I think it's important that the meaningful frequency break that was caught during COVID when people were locked up at home, that the industry not lose sight of that was a temporary phenomenon and not be caught off guard when you see frequency return to a more traditional norm. Makes sense. I understand some of the rating bureaus also reviewing COVID more as a CAT loss, right? Even if you had some losses in comp related to it, they're kind of saying it's a CAT loss. Is that a problem too? Well, I think, Brian, you may be aware whether it be nat cat or any type of CAT, we struggle with the concept of but for, as an organization philosophically because the but for, it's still the shareholder's money, right? I think there's another important thing to keep in mind, Brian. That is, overall, you still have this rising inflation, and it hasn't yet reflected on the claims in any of these classes. We've had social inflation, and certain lines of business have been impacted by social inflation, and prices have gone up. The fact is that inflation per se is just beginning to impact the cost of your claims. There's going to continue to be pressure on claims, and that'll cause more pressure for increasing rate increases. Higher rates will continue, certainly for the foreseeable future. By the way. Got it Inflationary times have been excellent for the insurance industry. Yeah, no question. I get the social inflation. That was another question I had, and you've talked about it a little bit, Bill and Rob, is how does general inflation kind of impact commercial lines insurance? Because I've heard others talk about, "Oh, we don't care about general inflation and commercial lines insurance." You obviously say, yeah, it matters, right? How do I think about it as- Why would they Well, from our perspective, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Obviously, putting aside social inflation, financial inflation, we think is very real. Not only is it real, it's very much an issue that the industry needs to pay attention to across the board, but in particular, obviously in lines such as property, without a doubt- Yeah. ...the costs of goods are on the rise. If you want to talk about even things such as business interruption, the cost as revenues are going up along with inflation, one needs to keep up with that. Brian, I think the industry is forced to grapple with two realities, or several, but two of them would be social inflation, which we've all been talking about for some extended period of time, and we think it very much is, at least in the data that we see, persisting. Number two, a more recent event, but nevertheless very consequential, is financial inflation. Anyone who thinks that does not apply to commercial lines business, well, they would have a different view than we do. Interesting. Okay. Obviously you guys think that this inflationary environment is much more structural, right, going forward rather than transitory like people are talking about. I'm curious also, though. What's the definition of transitory? Transitory means it'll be over here in the second quarter. Right? We're done. Social inflation. You've talked a lot about this, right? You've been talking about it for a while. I guess the question on social inflation is what are we seeing? We've seen a couple of pretty significant verdicts just recently, right? Are we starting to see some more evidence that this is kind of creeping back up again post-COVID? You think that will kind of ultimately start showing up in industry loss picks and reserves and those types of things? My perspective on that, Brian, is that it is alive and well, and it was alive and well during COVID. It's just when you saw the legal system come to a screeching halt and is ever so gradually opening up and gaining momentum, it's just coming more into focus. I think much of what we're seeing driving social inflation is really just a reflection of society and its mindset, and quite frankly, at this moment in time, where the world is not necessarily just focused on trying to right wrongs, but they're also focused on looking for ways to punish. Many of the awards that we're seeing coming out of the legal system that I think you may be referring to, at least in part, are not as a result of people trying to remedy a wrong as much as just trying to punish and perhaps inflict as much pain on someone that did something wrong as possible. That's just the state of where the world is today, and yes, that absolutely is and will more be taken into consideration how the product is priced. I think a lot of the world loses sight of the fact that ultimately the insurance industry, we're just a mechanism to spread risk. When all of a sudden society chooses to view things through a certain lens, while in the short run it may cost clients pain and maybe it'll cost carriers money, ultimately, society is the one that pays the bill because everyone's insurance costs go up. Yeah, absolutely. Another one I've got here, I've been doing this for a long time. I remember W. R. Berkley very well during the 1990s and the 2000s following of you all, and I remember very well how much your combined ratios went down in the last cycle turn. I guess my question is how much more room do you think you have to improve your combined ratios in your business? Can we get down to those low 80s levels that we saw back in 2004, right? Do we have, is pricing and everything to the same extent we had back in that hard market? I don't think we really know with any certainty other than through a little bit of hindsight how good it actually is. What I would tell you is in 2003, we didn't really recognize how much margin with certainty there was in the business or with great precision. We knew it was good. I would suggest the same thing would apply to sort of 1987, if you will. I think we are very confident that the margins that are in the business that we are writing today is very attractive, and it's one of the reasons you can see in our numbers where the growth has been trending over the past couple of quarters. If you look back over maybe the past couple of years, you could see where our priority was rate versus unit or exposure growth. What's happened as the rate adequacy has gotten to a point that we find it more attractive, we're still pushing on the rate, but our policy count/exposure growth is starting to accelerate considerably. We believe that there is very healthy margin in the business. Some number of years down the road, when we look back at the policy year for 2021, I think that there is a reasonable chance that it proves to be better than how we see it today. That is just a result of our philosophy that our original loss ratio estimates that we use from the start, they tend to be measured, if you will. As those years season out, we will tighten those up. Given that we choose to take a measured approach, it is my expectation down the road, when you look at the policy year 2021 and 2022, it will prove to be very attractive on a combined ratio, loss ratio, whatever metric you choose to focus on. Brian, that really means wonders to my heart, because whenever anyone asks me my worst mistake, it's that in 1986 and 1987, I grossly underestimated the profitability, I didn't expand enough in 1988 and 1989 because I underestimated the profitability. He at least has learned something from my worst mistake. He understands we may well be understating our profitability, he's trying to grow. One of the things to please keep in mind, just going back to an earlier comment, Brian, in sort of 2001, it really tail-ended to 2002 and 2003, we saw product lines throughout the commercial lines market firming together. We saw something similar in 1986. Here, at this moment in time, as we discussed earlier, we have product lines at different points in the cycle. There are parts of the business right now where we find the margins very attractive and are truly leaning into it. There are other parts of the market that we participate in where we are treading more lightly. What are the areas that you're treading more lightly? We are paying close attention to the workers' comp line. If you engage with NCCI or any entity that has large quantities of industry data, and you look at where rates have gone for the comp line, clearly the margin that is available today is not what it was available yesterday. We are trying to make sure that we have as thoughtful an approach to that product line as you would expect us to. We are prepared. We are in the market every day, but to the extent that the market is willing to chase the business down the drain, we will be there, but we are not going to chase it to a place that we don't think makes sense. Got you. What about commercial auto? You talk commercial auto is better rates, but that's an area that I've heard others comment that some of the large, huge verdicts that we've been seeing have been coming out of the commercial auto space, right? Did that give you any pause with respect to what's going on with the society and social inflation stuff? Yeah, I think commercial auto is a great example of if we want to focus on social inflation, certainly a great example of that, and you can see it every day in the claims activity. The industry has been trying to address loss cost trends stemming from social inflation within the commercial auto space for, I don't know, probably a decade at this stage. The mistake that's made oftentimes, in my opinion, by some market participants, and we've made the mistake, by the way, in the past, we make plenty of mistakes, is that you see what a rate need is based on historic results, and you achieve that rate need with your pricing, and then you think you've arrived. You don't recognize, no, that trend is continuing on. You need to not just catch up, but you then need to keep up with it. I think commercial auto is a great example of that, where the industry needs to be very careful with all of the efforts to get to rate adequacy, that no pun intended, they don't take their foot off the pedal. That was a little bit. Makes sense. Of insurance humor, Brian. Terrific. Going back to kind of what's going on, you talked a lot about 2021, 2022, hopefully 2021 kind of be a very profitable year. I guess, there has been a lot of discussion, obviously, about the do the math comment, right? When you do the math, it just seems like the underlying loss ratio improvement that you booked in 2021, it kind of fell short of what I think a lot of people were expecting, right? I get that you want to be conservative, and there's social inflation, a lot of things out there. I guess my question to you is, how overly conservative you think you were, and if you were overly conservative, what does that necessarily portend for 2022 when you think about it? Yeah. Because that's obviously going to be the tune in the fourth quarter and set your loss picks for casualty, right? Okay. Let me take a half a pace back. First off, I think 2020 is going to prove to probably be a pretty good year for the industry, less because of brilliance and discipline, and more because of circumstance and frequency stemming from COVID. If we make our way to 2021, I think you saw some rate momentum building in 2020 for the industry, carried through to 2021, and I think you're seeing some benefit. Now, let's sort of put a little bit more of a magnifying glass or even a microscope on us as an organization. What do we know? We know there's a lot of things we don't know. We know that we have the pleasure of operating in one of the few industries where you don't really know with any degree of certainty your cost of goods sold until oftentimes several years after you have actually entered the transaction. We know that we are in an environment where we are seeing more activity on the loss trend front than the industry has seen in years, and it's coming at us from a variety of different directions. One being, again, social inflation, and as we discussed earlier, more recently, financial inflation. When the day's all done, to your question, sorry for the long way around the barn, the long story short is, are we being measured, if you will? I think that sounds better than conservative. The answer is yes, absolutely. Why are we doing that? Well, we're doing that because we respect the fact that there is a lot of leverage in our model, particularly around loss trend assumptions. Given the level of sensitivity that stems from that, we don't need to be off by very much for it to have a meaningful impact on the business. Look, back of the envelope math, when you do it all, at least our math is we're probably, when you adjust for some, what I would define as property risk losses, we're probably being more than a point, less than two points conservative in our picks, or my words, measured, if you will. I think over time, we will have clarity around that, quite frankly, I think over time, one person's view, not the company's view, my unofficial view as an observer is that it is likely that the industry ourselves included, we will end up doing better than what was anticipated. In 2001, I argued with the actuaries for years about redundancy in our reserves, it took me years to persuade them, and in fact, we were and ended up being substantially redundant. Finality in a business where it's so much easier to look in the rear view mirror than to try and look out ahead is a very difficult thing. Numbers don't lie, they don't lie as long as you're looking at the right set of numbers. That's the problem you face, especially when you have situations like COVID and new information that changes the view. We may well think that we're being conservative, we're being conservative because while the rear view mirror tells us that's probably a conservative stance, we're not as certain as we'd like to be. That uncertainty gives you pause, you're cautious. Makes sense. Bill, Rob, on the COVID question, I guess, or COVID, where is that coming out, you think, relative to what you originally thought might happen back in 2000? Are we getting close to where we've got some more finality around what do we think the BI situation is and general liability and professional liability? Well, certainly as far as this organization goes, based on what we can see today, the pig is almost all the way through the python, if you will. Right. As far as the industry goes, honestly, Brian, I've been shocked by the response or lack of response from some market participants. I honestly have been blown away by the fact that there are some people that are still willing to write event cancellation without a communicable disease exclusion. We won't touch it with a 10-foot pole without a CD exclusion. There are some people that just jump back in, and it surprises us that some people, if you pay the tuition, you better make sure you get the education. Gotcha. I guess going back to my other question, was the pig more digestible than you thought it was, potentially? You know what? The truth of the matter is we really don't like swallowing pigs at all. Was it more digestible? I'm not sure how exactly to read those tea leaves, it certainly seems to be unfolding within sort of what our framework was of how it could have unfolded. Great. That's helpful. Let's talk a little bit about your expense ratio. 500 basis points of improvement since 2018. That there's maybe 40-50 basis points of that was COVID related. Given the continued growth that we're seeing here, how low do you think we can get that expense ratio, and at what point does just the infrastructure not let you drive it any lower? Well, I think that we still have plenty of runway in front of us to improve on it from here. Perhaps what maybe caught people a little bit by surprise, and I'm not sure if we really understood why people were quite so surprised. Maybe it's because we're not as good at communicating as we think we are at times. Long story short, Brian, we have a lot of businesses that we have started in particular specialized niches, if you will. We started them along the way, oftentimes when market conditions were not particularly conducive, but they were terrific people that had extraordinary expertise within an attractive niche within the industry. The organization was willing to make the investment in these people and set them up, accepting the fact that the business was going to be subscale for some period of time because of the discipline that group of people would have. What has happened as of late over the past couple of years and really coming into focus over the past several quarters, is market conditions have changed. The opportunity for these businesses to scale has come through, and as a result of that, you're seeing businesses that had expense ratios that would start with a four or more, all of a sudden are having expense ratios that are dropping like a stone, because again, market conditions are allowing them to grow. How much better is the expense ratio going to get? Look, I think that it's going to ebb, it's going to flow. Leading indicator is you can see where our written premium's going. It's going to tell you where the earned is going to go. You have a sense in our economic model of our expense ratio, how much is variable versus how much is fixed. Given those data points, you can kind of extrapolate. Putting aside the 40 or 50 basis points associated with the COVID period, as you referenced, there's still opportunity before us. Got you. I guess a lot of this could be based upon what your growth outlook looks like, too. I guess that would be another question for you with respect to your insurance business. Do you think that you can sustain this kind of level of growth through 2022 that you're seeing right now, given the market environment? There's nothing that we see on the horizon other than just our general knowledge of the industry and the cycle. There's nothing that we see through 2022 that would lead us to believe that the train will get derailed or that the momentum will erode. We see, quite frankly, the flow of business into the specialty market. We see the overwhelming flow of business coming into our E&S operations. The parts of the marketplace that were maybe starting to lose a little bit of momentum, like for example, in the property line, seems like there's some discipline that is returning as a result of catastrophe. That'll be short-lived. Property responds very quickly, and it has a very short memory. The liability lines take longer to respond but have a longer memory. We're seeing great opportunity in the professional space. I think the primary D&O market has some catching up to do, and you're going to see momentum building from here on that front. Again, the amount of business that we're seeing coming out of the standard market into the specialty market, if anything, the momentum continues to build. Wow. On that topic, Rob, maybe talk about not only the hard market, I understand when you're in a hard market, that naturally happens, but are there any structural things also going on with the business that's causing more business to move to the E&S market? How long do you think that'll continue? We've seen the E&S market basically double, grow at twice the rate of the standard market for the last decade, right? There's obviously other things going on within the commercial lines market that's causing that to happen. Look, I think the standard market. A couple of things. First off, the standard market, I think, finds itself in different pockets of their portfolio, realizing that maybe they overreached. Maybe they expanded the appetite too much, maybe they got outside of their expertise, maybe the pricing isn't what it should've been, or maybe, quite frankly, the terms and conditions they use is just not really applicable to the nature of the exposure. I think in addition to that, part of what you're seeing driving some of the growth today is the standard market really does not have a great appetite for new ventures. One of the things that's happened as of late, you saw a lot of businesses going out of business or getting somewhat mothballed as a result of COVID. Now you're seeing a resurgence or green shoots of new businesses coming back, if you will. As a result of that's creating great opportunity for the specialty market as well. I think lastly, there are clearly new exposures that society is having to grapple with, cyber being an extreme example of that, where the standard market really struggles with what its appetite should be along those lines. I think there are others similar to that, but that would be an example. Makes a lot of sense. As far as your other business, or the reinsurance business, what do you think the reinsurance market outlook is right now for 1/1 renewals? How do you fit into that? Do you think there's opportunities? Do you need to see some good strong growth in your reinsurance business? The 1/1 renewal season is notably late. Just as an observer, it seems like it's turned into a little bit of a game of chicken, we're waiting to see who's going to blink. I don't think we're going to have real clarity until early January as to how that plays out. I think much of the reinsurance marketplace is licking its wounds from having grown at exactly the wrong moment and giving away ceding commissions just when it should've been going the other way. If you think about sort of, oh, gosh, I would suggest give or take sort of 2017 through 2019, 2017 through 2020. I think that combined with some of the other issues that we've talked about, financial inflation, social inflation, and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there are a lot of players in the reinsurance space that really have taken some hits stemming from natural catastrophes, whether it be domestically or outside of the U.S. When you put that all together, I think the reinsurance community has realized that they are, in many cases, not covering their true cost of capital and certainly not providing their various stakeholders, in particular their shareholders, with reasonable risk-adjusted returns. Would they like to do something about it? Yes. Are they prepared to draw a line in the sand and make rate a priority over market share or growth? We're going to find out. To the extent they do, you will see our reinsurance business grow. No different than any other part of this organization, we have a view as to what adequate rate is. If the market is there or better, you will see us actively participating. We're there. We'll see where the market is. Got you. Let's flip it the other way then. Given how attractive the pricing is right now in a lot of your casualty business, why aren't you retaining more? We are. You are? We expect that there'll be retention will continue as you kind of look toward 2023? Look, there are a couple of things. You need to remember, or just as a data point. This organization, approximately 90% of our policies have a limit of $2 million or less. We are not, by nature, hugely dependent on reinsurance. Much of what we buy are corporate covers like a CAT cover. Are we insulated from the reinsurance pricing environment? No, not completely. Are we affected by it less than many? Without a doubt. Look, we have a view as to where we think pricing should be. We have certain reinsurers that are truly our partners through thick and thin, and there are other reinsurers where, quite frankly, both they and we view it as more of a financial transaction that's revisited on an annual basis. Got you. At this stage, I think that you will see likely our net growing faster than our gross over a year. Got you. I get a couple others, but I just got one that came in here. Somebody is asking, with work from home as kind of probably being more prevalent here going forward, do you see that there's potentially a permanent kind of drop in frequency in workers' comp? Is that a reason that loss costs may be lower, frequency may be lower here going forward, severity may be lower? Look, certainly there are some industries, some jobs, some organizations that have embraced working from home more than others. In addition to that, I think if you look at the significant part of the premium associated with the workers' comp line, a disproportionate amount of it has to do with jobs that cannot be done very easily from your kitchen table. I would suggest that in certain white-collar positions, could there be some kind of benefit? Yes. When the day is all done, the white-collar positions that could be done from someone's kitchen or den or wherever, that's not what's really driving the workers' comp line, premium-wise or quite frankly, claims-wise. Great. Can we pivot over to the investment portfolio for a little bit here? Given where equity valuations are, given this low interest rate environment, I kind of struggle to see, how can you guys continue to kind of generate these great capital gains that you've been generating over the last decade kind of going forward? Where should we kind of think about that? Well, by and large, we have a fairly diverse portfolio of assets outside of our standard bond portfolio. We have a few billion dollars of real estate. We continually have things we want to sell. We expect, and what we said to people is, we expect to do $25 million of gains a quarter in our real estate portfolio. That was to give people a number. We expect we'll continue to sell some real estate, and we have opportunities that we think are there still. We still have a good size private equity portfolio. We're a major factor in a few private equity funds, and we have our own private equity investing, which has been quite rewarding. On all of those things, we see really a continuation of where our status has been. It's been a small percentage of our portfolio. It's just been a high percentage of our return because we've been successful investors. We think we'll continue to find things and opportunities where we see the world in a different light. Be it natural gas pipelines that we think are going to be harder and harder to rebuild, and for as far as we can see, natural gas is going to be needed to generate electricity or to heat homes. Alternatives to new pipelines are going to be harder and harder to get approval for. We think those give you good returns and probably pretty stable potential. If you look hard enough, there continues to be opportunities, and we really feel like there's not going to be any problem with the kind of returns from our portfolio that we've had in the past. Got you. Bill, you continue to have a lot of cash on your balance sheets, right? That's because he keeps selling so much damn insurance. When you're generating $100+ million a month of cash, you don't find that many good investments because it is a competitive investment market. Got it. We do have a lot of cash, and we're looking for opportunities. This last weekend, we met with some people who had a particular niche in the market. Was really exciting. The niche in total was $250 million. It's nice, but it doesn't help us a lot. We're actively looking for niches. When you're looking for niches, you don't put the money to use as quickly as possible. We do believe, however, in spite of what everyone else seems to be saying, as we said, inflation is here to stay for certainly a few years, and we think interest rates will move up, especially the intermediate term rates, which is where we want to invest. We've reduced our duration of our portfolio to where it's well below the duration we're shooting for. As we start to see interest rates move higher, we think we'll be able to find pretty standard market kinds of things in the fixed income area that we'll be able to invest in and get closer to our target. Got you. How long do you think that takes? Sounds like the Fed's going to start tightening here. What's your perspective? We think that one of the things that is going to face the government is the Federal Reserve has effectively funded much of the government's increasing deficits. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have fallen in love with increasing deficits. We'll see where those increasing spending deficits take us to, and eventually they're going to result in increasing interest rates. We think that that's probably something you'll see in the end of the first quarter of next year or early second quarter of next year. Great. Let's talk a little bit also about capital management. If I take a look at the valuation of your guys' stock, to me, it doesn't reflect a hard market anymore, right? Whereas some other ones out there do. Does that at all lean you more towards share buyback versus special dividends, given where your stock's trading right now? Every day, we look at the stock price, we look at opportunities, we look at our growth, and you try and balance all those things. One of the things that we see is continuing to grow as rapidly as we are makes us need to keep a little more capital than we might have thought. We have to balance all those things. We have to be sure that we always have enough capital to write all the profitable business that comes our way. That's our number one goal. For the moment, we have a lot of that profitable business coming our way. It's a continuous judgment. At some point, we make that decision to buy back stock or to pay a special dividend. Our first goal is to write all the good profitable business that's out there. Got you. Makes sense. Let's see what else I have here for you. Oh, you know what's something we haven't talked about in a while? It briefly gets mentioned in the call and then people ask about it is your High-Net-Worth Personal Lines business. How is that progressing? How competitive is that market? It seems like a lot of players wanted to get into it. Maybe it's less so today, just given what's happening with cat losses and stuff. Maybe talk a little bit about that. Brian, we've been very pleased with the progress. I think as we've chatted about offline, I'm not sure if we fully appreciated how significant the build-out of the platform is in order to play the game. Which, again, it's not just about money, it took time. Actually that's been achieved for some period of time, and the concept of build it and they will come seems to apply here. The business has grown very quickly. We're quite pleased with the margins. We participate in the states that you'd want to be, both from an opportunity perspective as well as avoiding some of the states that are fairly problematic, we have chosen not to go into. Quite frankly, many of the leading players in the space seem to be terribly distracted by what I would define as internal issues, strategic issues, and that's creating real opportunity for us. The business is exceeding expectations and building more momentum every day at this stage. I guess kind of another question that came in. Is this new kind of the market right now creating opportunities to launch new businesses? Certainly something where we are always paying attention. Number 1 is we need to make sure that we believe in the niche or segment of the market long term. Number 2, we need to make sure that we're able to find people with outstanding skills that are able to effectively manage capital within that space effectively and responsibly on behalf of the shareholders. If we're able to do that, obviously market conditions being what they are today, that creates a tailwind and allows you to grow quickly. We've announced a couple of things over the past 12 months. Certainly we're always looking for new opportunities, again, focused on parts of the market that we think offer long-term promise combined with skilled people. Nothing to announce at your conference here today, Brian, but certainly we are actively kissing frogs, and we'll see if anything turns into something. Got you. All right, we're almost at the end of our time, last question here for you both. I'm a new investor. I'm looking at W. R. Berkley. Why do I buy your stock today? You get what you pay for. I think that, long story short, when the day's all done, presumably it's all about value creation and risk-adjusted return. I think one of the things that some people don't fully appreciate is there are some businesses that maybe trade at book value, and maybe you think in a hardening market or a rising tide, that's a better opportunity. I think history would suggest that while as a multiple of book, maybe we seem more expensive as far as value goes and ability to create value for shareholders, I think the premium price is very worthwhile. I think the other piece that's not necessarily always considered is one of the reasons why we've been able to build book value for shareholders so much more quickly than most is because of how we have focused and fashioned the portfolio on the underwriting side. When you compare our ability to build book value compared to most of our peers, why can we do it quicker? Well, it's because we don't give money back when there's a CAT event. There are many other market participants that will have fine results, and then there will be a CAT event, and they will give a lot of it back. How we manage volatility, we do not give it back the same way others do. When the day is all done, from my perspective, it's about how well you can build book value over a period of time, and I think we have a long history of being able to do that reasonably successfully. I want to add one thing. Yeah. We are unique. We are unique in that our company is run by owners. Every one of the top 70 people who work for us get granted stock, and they keep it, and they have to keep it until they retire. Every single one of our top managers own substantially more securities in W. R. Berkley than any of our competitors. It gives a different mindset. When you buy W. R. Berkley stock, you're buying a company whose managers own it and believe in it. It's a very different culture and mindset, and it's priceless. Great. That's a great way to end it right there. Listen, Bill, Rob, that was terrific. I really enjoyed the discussion. Thanks again and best of luck, and we'll be in touch here soon. Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having us.

Speaker 2: Good afternoon, everybody, or happy lunchtime, and thanks for joining us today. We've got our next presentation, our next fireside chat here. It gives me great pleasure in welcoming Bill Berkley, the Chairman of W. R. Berkley, and Rob Berkley, the CEO of W. R. Berkley, for a discussion here. What I'm going to do is I'll go through some questions that I have. We've also got the ability for you, the audience, to ask questions yourselves. You'll see a little spot at the bottom of your screen. Feel free to chat in a question and I will see it here, and I will be sure to ask it. Let me start off with kind of a broader base question here, Rob. We've had this kind of hard or call it firming pricing environment, so let's call it 2019, right? Good afternoon, everybody, or happy lunchtime, and thanks for joining us today. good afternoon everybody or happy lunchtime and thanks for joining us today We've got our next presentation, our next fireside chat here. we've got our next presentation our next fireside chat here It gives me great pleasure in welcoming Bill Berkley, the Chairman of W. it gives me great pleasure in welcoming bill berkley the chairman of w R. r Berkley, and Rob Berkley, the CEO of W. berkley and rob berkley the ceo of w R. r Berkley, for a discussion here. berkley for a discussion here What I'm going to do is I'll go through some questions that I have. what i'm going to do is i'll go through some questions that i have We've also got the ability for you, the audience, to ask questions yourselves. we've also got the ability for you the audience to ask questions yourselves You'll see a little spot at the bottom of your screen. you'll see a little spot at the bottom of your screen Feel free to chat in a question and I will see it here, and I will be sure to ask it. feel free to chat in a question and i will see it here and i will be sure to ask it Let me start off with kind of a broader base question here, Rob. let me start off with kind of a broader base question here rob We've had this kind of hard or call it firming pricing environment, so let's call it 2019, right? we've had this kind of hard or call it firming pricing environment so let's call it 2019 right Where do you think we are right now with respect to that pricing cycle, and how much legs does this thing continue to have here, in your view? Where do you think we are right now with respect to that pricing cycle, and how much legs does this thing continue to have here, in your view? where do you think we are right now with respect to that pricing cycle and how much legs does this thing continue to have here in your view

Speaker 3: Well, Brian, first off, thank you very much for the invitation to participate and good day to all that are tuned in. As far as the P&C commercial lines market goes in particular, I think one needs to recognize a bit of a distinction that exists in the cycle today that may have not existed in the past. That is that we have many major product lines within the universe we're discussing that are marching not necessarily in as much of a lockstep manner as they once did in the past. At this stage, we have one of the larger parts of the commercial lines marketplace, that being workers' compensation, that has been going through an extended period of rate erosion. On the other hand, we have, as you suggest, many parts of the balance of the commercial lines marketplace that have been in different stages of firming. Well, Brian, first off, thank you very much for the invitation to participate and good day to all that are tuned in. well brian first off thank you very much for the invitation to participate and good day to all that are tuned in As far as the P&C commercial lines market goes in particular, I think one needs to recognize a bit of a distinction that exists in the cycle today that may have not existed in the past. as far as the p&c commercial lines market goes in particular i think one needs to recognize a bit of a distinction that exists in the cycle today that may have not existed in the past That is that we have many major product lines within the universe we're discussing that are marching not necessarily in as much of a lockstep manner as they once did in the past. that is that we have many major product lines within the universe we're discussing that are marching not necessarily in as much of a lockstep manner as they once did in the past At this stage, we have one of the larger parts of the commercial lines marketplace, that being workers' compensation, that has been going through an extended period of rate erosion. at this stage we have one of the larger parts of the commercial lines marketplace that being workers' compensation that has been going through an extended period of rate erosion On the other hand, we have, as you suggest, many parts of the balance of the commercial lines marketplace that have been in different stages of firming. on the other hand we have as you suggest many parts of the balance of the commercial lines marketplace that have been in different stages of firming From my perspective, I think we are seeing professional liability march to the beat of somewhat of a different drum than workers' comp. Liability marching to the beat of its own drum. Excess versus primary, really not, again, in lockstep, and certainly property is a different animal into itself. The fundamentals of the cycle, regardless of the product line, in our opinion, are still very much intact. What drives the change in the cycle is fundamentally people being alarmed and certainly concerned by results and recognizing a need for change. History would suggest at some point, and I would, to your question, suggest it's not for some period of time when you start to see people become enamored with the margins and then you'll see an erosion in rate terms and conditions. From my perspective, I think we are seeing professional liability march to the beat of somewhat of a different drum than workers' comp. from my perspective i think we are seeing professional liability march to the beat of somewhat of a different drum than workers' comp Liability marching to the beat of its own drum. liability marching to the beat of its own drum Excess versus primary, really not, again, in lockstep, and certainly property is a different animal into itself. excess versus primary really not again in lockstep and certainly property is a different animal into itself The fundamentals of the cycle, regardless of the product line, in our opinion, are still very much intact. the fundamentals of the cycle regardless of the product line in our opinion are still very much intact What drives the change in the cycle is fundamentally people being alarmed and certainly concerned by results and recognizing a need for change. what drives the change in the cycle is fundamentally people being alarmed and certainly concerned by results and recognizing a need for change History would suggest at some point, and I would, to your question, suggest it's not for some period of time when you start to see people become enamored with the margins and then you'll see an erosion in rate terms and conditions. history would suggest at some point and i would to your question suggest it's not for some period of time when you start to see people become enamored with the margins and then you'll see an erosion in rate terms and conditions More specifically to your question, from our perspective, workers' compensation, while I have been more optimistic than some as to when we're going to touch bottom, probably in all likelihood, at least another year to go. Commercial auto continues to firm, particularly on the auto liability front, both primary and excess. On the GL front, I think we're looking, there is rate that's being had, likely to see more of that coming through. To talk about professional liability for a moment, obviously a very diverse space. You're seeing pockets where rate increases are still very available, others where perhaps it's slowing. Finally, on the property front, it seems as though Mother Nature's been relatively active recently and continues to send us reminders as to why rates need to continue to move up. More specifically to your question, from our perspective, workers' compensation, while I have been more optimistic than some as to when we're going to touch bottom, probably in all likelihood, at least another year to go. more specifically to your question from our perspective workers' compensation while i have been more optimistic than some as to when we're going to touch bottom probably in all likelihood at least another year to go Commercial auto continues to firm, particularly on the auto liability front, both primary and excess. commercial auto continues to firm particularly on the auto liability front both primary and excess On the GL front, I think we're looking, there is rate that's being had, likely to see more of that coming through. on the gl front i think we're looking there is rate that's being had likely to see more of that coming through To talk about professional liability for a moment, obviously a very diverse space. to talk about professional liability for a moment obviously a very diverse space You're seeing pockets where rate increases are still very available, others where perhaps it's slowing. you're seeing pockets where rate increases are still very available others where perhaps it's slowing Finally, on the property front, it seems as though Mother Nature's been relatively active recently and continues to send us reminders as to why rates need to continue to move up. finally on the property front it seems as though mother nature's been relatively active recently and continues to send us reminders as to why rates need to continue to move up Again, all not in lockstep, but with the exception of workers' comp, we think that there is still a fair amount of runway in front of us. Again, all not in lockstep, but with the exception of workers' comp, we think that there is still a fair amount of runway in front of us. again all not in lockstep but with the exception of workers' comp we think that there is still a fair amount of runway in front of us

Speaker 2: Rob, why do you think workers' comp continues to be so depressed from a pricing perspective? Is it just because loss costs are so good? Are margins compressing there? What's going to be the catalyst to get things getting better here? Rob, why do you think workers' comp continues to be so depressed from a pricing perspective? rob why do you think workers' comp continues to be so depressed from a pricing perspective Is it just because loss costs are so good? is it just because loss costs are so good Are margins compressing there? are margins compressing there What's going to be the catalyst to get things getting better here? what's going to be the catalyst to get things getting better here

Speaker 3: Look, for some number of years now, as far as comp goes, frequency trend has been the friend of the industry, if you will, we've seen frequency continue to come down. We saw it come down dramatically during the peak periods of COVID, though we're seeing it make its way towards more of a traditional normal. Again, this is as far as frequency goes. I think the big wild card out there that I'm not sure the industry is grappling with as actively as they might is questions around severity. Particularly in an environment such as what we're in today, where you see a very tight labor market. As a result of that, you have people in jobs that perhaps they're not as well trained for. You have people working significant amounts of overtime, those two realities oftentimes can lead to, unfortunately, injuries in the workplace. Look, for some number of years now, as far as comp goes, frequency trend has been the friend of the industry, if you will, we've seen frequency continue to come down. look for some number of years now as far as comp goes frequency trend has been the friend of the industry if you will we've seen frequency continue to come down We saw it come down dramatically during the peak periods of COVID, though we're seeing it make its way towards more of a traditional normal. we saw it come down dramatically during the peak periods of covid though we're seeing it make its way towards more of a traditional normal Again, this is as far as frequency goes. again this is as far as frequency goes I think the big wild card out there that I'm not sure the industry is grappling with as actively as they might is questions around severity. i think the big wild card out there that i'm not sure the industry is grappling with as actively as they might is questions around severity Particularly in an environment such as what we're in today, where you see a very tight labor market. particularly in an environment such as what we're in today where you see a very tight labor market As a result of that, you have people in jobs that perhaps they're not as well trained for. as a result of that you have people in jobs that perhaps they're not as well trained for You have people working significant amounts of overtime, those two realities oftentimes can lead to, unfortunately, injuries in the workplace. you have people working significant amounts of overtime those two realities oftentimes can lead to unfortunately injuries in the workplace We'll see what happens with that. I guess the other piece worth noting is the developments on the medical front where science has taken us and continues to take us. They're able to do wonderful things for injured workers, but that is coming at a cost, too. Medical trend, particularly with some of the new developments, should not be overlooked or underestimated. We'll see what happens with that. we'll see what happens with that I guess the other piece worth noting is the developments on the medical front where science has taken us and continues to take us. i guess the other piece worth noting is the developments on the medical front where science has taken us and continues to take us They're able to do wonderful things for injured workers, but that is coming at a cost, too. they're able to do wonderful things for injured workers but that is coming at a cost too Medical trend, particularly with some of the new developments, should not be overlooked or underestimated. medical trend particularly with some of the new developments should not be overlooked or underestimated

Speaker 2: Right. Severity is where we got to kind of keep thinking about it. Right. right Severity is where we got to kind of keep thinking about it. severity is where we got to kind of keep thinking about it

Speaker 3: I think that- I think that- i think that-

Speaker 2: I guess just keeping an eye. I guess just keeping an eye. i guess just keeping an eye

Speaker 3: Absolutely, severity, you got to keep an eye on severity. The other piece is, I think it's important that the meaningful frequency break that was caught during COVID when people were locked up at home, that the industry not lose sight of that was a temporary phenomenon and not be caught off guard when you see frequency return to a more traditional norm. Absolutely, severity, you got to keep an eye on severity. absolutely severity you got to keep an eye on severity The other piece is, I think it's important that the meaningful frequency break that was caught during COVID when people were locked up at home, that the industry not lose sight of that was a temporary phenomenon and not be caught off guard when you see frequency return to a more traditional norm. the other piece is i think it's important that the meaningful frequency break that was caught during covid when people were locked up at home that the industry not lose sight of that was a temporary phenomenon and not be caught off guard when you see frequency return to a more traditional norm

Speaker 2: Makes sense. I understand some of the rating bureaus also reviewing COVID more as a CAT loss, right? Even if you had some losses in comp related to it, they're kind of saying it's a CAT loss. Is that a problem too? Makes sense. makes sense I understand some of the rating bureaus also reviewing COVID more as a CAT loss, right? i understand some of the rating bureaus also reviewing covid more as a cat loss right Even if you had some losses in comp related to it, they're kind of saying it's a CAT loss. even if you had some losses in comp related to it they're kind of saying it's a cat loss Is that a problem too? is that a problem too

Speaker 3: Well, I think, Brian, you may be aware whether it be nat cat or any type of CAT, we struggle with the concept of but for, as an organization philosophically because the but for, it's still the shareholder's money, right? Well, I think, Brian, you may be aware whether it be nat cat or any type of CAT, we struggle with the concept of but for, as an organization philosophically because the but for, it's still the shareholder's money, right? well i think brian you may be aware whether it be nat cat or any type of cat we struggle with the concept of but for as an organization philosophically because the but for it's still the shareholder's money right

Speaker 1: I think there's another important thing to keep in mind, Brian. That is, overall, you still have this rising inflation, and it hasn't yet reflected on the claims in any of these classes. We've had social inflation, and certain lines of business have been impacted by social inflation, and prices have gone up. The fact is that inflation per se is just beginning to impact the cost of your claims. There's going to continue to be pressure on claims, and that'll cause more pressure for increasing rate increases. Higher rates will continue, certainly for the foreseeable future. By the way. I think there's another important thing to keep in mind, Brian. i think there's another important thing to keep in mind brian That is, overall, you still have this rising inflation, and it hasn't yet reflected on the claims in any of these classes. that is overall you still have this rising inflation and it hasn't yet reflected on the claims in any of these classes We've had social inflation, and certain lines of business have been impacted by social inflation, and prices have gone up. we've had social inflation and certain lines of business have been impacted by social inflation and prices have gone up The fact is that inflation per se is just beginning to impact the cost of your claims. the fact is that inflation per se is just beginning to impact the cost of your claims There's going to continue to be pressure on claims, and that'll cause more pressure for increasing rate increases. there's going to continue to be pressure on claims and that'll cause more pressure for increasing rate increases Higher rates will continue, certainly for the foreseeable future. higher rates will continue certainly for the foreseeable future By the way. by the way

Speaker 2: Got it Got it got it

Speaker 1: Inflationary times have been excellent for the insurance industry. Inflationary times have been excellent for the insurance industry. inflationary times have been excellent for the insurance industry

Speaker 2: Yeah, no question. I get the social inflation. That was another question I had, and you've talked about it a little bit, Bill and Rob, is how does general inflation kind of impact commercial lines insurance? Because I've heard others talk about, "Oh, we don't care about general inflation and commercial lines insurance." You obviously say, yeah, it matters, right? How do I think about it as- Yeah, no question. yeah no question I get the social inflation. i get the social inflation That was another question I had, and you've talked about it a little bit, Bill and Rob, is how does general inflation kind of impact commercial lines insurance? that was another question i had and you've talked about it a little bit bill and rob is how does general inflation kind of impact commercial lines insurance Because I've heard others talk about, "Oh, we don't care about general inflation and commercial lines insurance." You obviously say, yeah, it matters, right? because i've heard others talk about "oh we don't care about general inflation and commercial lines insurance." you obviously say yeah it matters right How do I think about it as- how do i think about it as-

Speaker 3: Why would they Well, from our perspective, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Obviously, putting aside social inflation, financial inflation, we think is very real. Not only is it real, it's very much an issue that the industry needs to pay attention to across the board, but in particular, obviously in lines such as property, without a doubt- Why would they Well, from our perspective, that doesn't make a lot of sense. why would they well from our perspective that doesn't make a lot of sense Obviously, putting aside social inflation, financial inflation, we think is very real. obviously putting aside social inflation financial inflation we think is very real Not only is it real, it's very much an issue that the industry needs to pay attention to across the board, but in particular, obviously in lines such as property, without a doubt- not only is it real it's very much an issue that the industry needs to pay attention to across the board but in particular obviously in lines such as property without a doubt-

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 3: ...the costs of goods are on the rise. If you want to talk about even things such as business interruption, the cost as revenues are going up along with inflation, one needs to keep up with that. Brian, I think the industry is forced to grapple with two realities, or several, but two of them would be social inflation, which we've all been talking about for some extended period of time, and we think it very much is, at least in the data that we see, persisting. Number two, a more recent event, but nevertheless very consequential, is financial inflation. Anyone who thinks that does not apply to commercial lines business, well, they would have a different view than we do. ...the costs of goods are on the rise. ...the costs of goods are on the rise If you want to talk about even things such as business interruption, the cost as revenues are going up along with inflation, one needs to keep up with that. if you want to talk about even things such as business interruption the cost as revenues are going up along with inflation one needs to keep up with that Brian, I think the industry is forced to grapple with two realities, or several, but two of them would be social inflation, which we've all been talking about for some extended period of time, and we think it very much is, at least in the data that we see, persisting. brian i think the industry is forced to grapple with two realities or several but two of them would be social inflation which we've all been talking about for some extended period of time and we think it very much is at least in the data that we see persisting Number two, a more recent event, but nevertheless very consequential, is financial inflation. number two a more recent event but nevertheless very consequential is financial inflation Anyone who thinks that does not apply to commercial lines business, well, they would have a different view than we do. anyone who thinks that does not apply to commercial lines business well they would have a different view than we do

Speaker 2: Interesting. Okay. Obviously you guys think that this inflationary environment is much more structural, right, going forward rather than transitory like people are talking about. I'm curious also, though. Interesting. interesting Okay. okay Obviously you guys think that this inflationary environment is much more structural, right, going forward rather than transitory like people are talking about. obviously you guys think that this inflationary environment is much more structural right going forward rather than transitory like people are talking about I'm curious also, though. i'm curious also though

Speaker 3: What's the definition of transitory? What's the definition of transitory? what's the definition of transitory

Speaker 2: Transitory means it'll be over here in the second quarter. Right? We're done. Social inflation. You've talked a lot about this, right? You've been talking about it for a while. I guess the question on social inflation is what are we seeing? We've seen a couple of pretty significant verdicts just recently, right? Are we starting to see some more evidence that this is kind of creeping back up again post-COVID? You think that will kind of ultimately start showing up in industry loss picks and reserves and those types of things? Transitory means it'll be over here in the second quarter. transitory means it'll be over here in the second quarter Right? right We're done. we're done Social inflation. social inflation You've talked a lot about this, right? you've talked a lot about this right You've been talking about it for a while. you've been talking about it for a while I guess the question on social inflation is what are we seeing? i guess the question on social inflation is what are we seeing We've seen a couple of pretty significant verdicts just recently, right? we've seen a couple of pretty significant verdicts just recently right Are we starting to see some more evidence that this is kind of creeping back up again post-COVID? are we starting to see some more evidence that this is kind of creeping back up again post-covid You think that will kind of ultimately start showing up in industry loss picks and reserves and those types of things? you think that will kind of ultimately start showing up in industry loss picks and reserves and those types of things

Speaker 3: My perspective on that, Brian, is that it is alive and well, and it was alive and well during COVID. It's just when you saw the legal system come to a screeching halt and is ever so gradually opening up and gaining momentum, it's just coming more into focus. I think much of what we're seeing driving social inflation is really just a reflection of society and its mindset, and quite frankly, at this moment in time, where the world is not necessarily just focused on trying to right wrongs, but they're also focused on looking for ways to punish. My perspective on that, Brian, is that it is alive and well, and it was alive and well during COVID. my perspective on that brian is that it is alive and well and it was alive and well during covid It's just when you saw the legal system come to a screeching halt and is ever so gradually opening up and gaining momentum, it's just coming more into focus. it's just when you saw the legal system come to a screeching halt and is ever so gradually opening up and gaining momentum it's just coming more into focus I think much of what we're seeing driving social inflation is really just a reflection of society and its mindset, and quite frankly, at this moment in time, where the world is not necessarily just focused on trying to right wrongs, but they're also focused on looking for ways to punish. i think much of what we're seeing driving social inflation is really just a reflection of society and its mindset and quite frankly at this moment in time where the world is not necessarily just focused on trying to right wrongs but they're also focused on looking for ways to punish Many of the awards that we're seeing coming out of the legal system that I think you may be referring to, at least in part, are not as a result of people trying to remedy a wrong as much as just trying to punish and perhaps inflict as much pain on someone that did something wrong as possible. That's just the state of where the world is today, and yes, that absolutely is and will more be taken into consideration how the product is priced. I think a lot of the world loses sight of the fact that ultimately the insurance industry, we're just a mechanism to spread risk. Many of the awards that we're seeing coming out of the legal system that I think you may be referring to, at least in part, are not as a result of people trying to remedy a wrong as much as just trying to punish and perhaps inflict as much pain on someone that did something wrong as possible. many of the awards that we're seeing coming out of the legal system that i think you may be referring to at least in part are not as a result of people trying to remedy a wrong as much as just trying to punish and perhaps inflict as much pain on someone that did something wrong as possible That's just the state of where the world is today, and yes, that absolutely is and will more be taken into consideration how the product is priced. that's just the state of where the world is today and yes that absolutely is and will more be taken into consideration how the product is priced I think a lot of the world loses sight of the fact that ultimately the insurance industry, we're just a mechanism to spread risk. i think a lot of the world loses sight of the fact that ultimately the insurance industry we're just a mechanism to spread risk When all of a sudden society chooses to view things through a certain lens, while in the short run it may cost clients pain and maybe it'll cost carriers money, ultimately, society is the one that pays the bill because everyone's insurance costs go up. When all of a sudden society chooses to view things through a certain lens, while in the short run it may cost clients pain and maybe it'll cost carriers money, ultimately, society is the one that pays the bill because everyone's insurance costs go up. when all of a sudden society chooses to view things through a certain lens while in the short run it may cost clients pain and maybe it'll cost carriers money ultimately society is the one that pays the bill because everyone's insurance costs go up

Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Another one I've got here, I've been doing this for a long time. I remember W. R. Berkley very well during the 1990s and the 2000s following of you all, and I remember very well how much your combined ratios went down in the last cycle turn. I guess my question is how much more room do you think you have to improve your combined ratios in your business? Can we get down to those low 80s levels that we saw back in 2004, right? Do we have, is pricing and everything to the same extent we had back in that hard market? Yeah, absolutely. yeah absolutely Another one I've got here, I've been doing this for a long time. another one i've got here i've been doing this for a long time I remember W. i remember w R. r Berkley very well during the 1990s and the 2000s following of you all, and I remember very well how much your combined ratios went down in the last cycle turn. berkley very well during the 1990s and the 2000s following of you all and i remember very well how much your combined ratios went down in the last cycle turn I guess my question is how much more room do you think you have to improve your combined ratios in your business? i guess my question is how much more room do you think you have to improve your combined ratios in your business Can we get down to those low 80s levels that we saw back in 2004, right? can we get down to those low 80s levels that we saw back in 2004 right Do we have, is pricing and everything to the same extent we had back in that hard market? do we have is pricing and everything to the same extent we had back in that hard market

Speaker 3: I don't think we really know with any certainty other than through a little bit of hindsight how good it actually is. What I would tell you is in 2003, we didn't really recognize how much margin with certainty there was in the business or with great precision. We knew it was good. I would suggest the same thing would apply to sort of 1987, if you will. I think we are very confident that the margins that are in the business that we are writing today is very attractive, and it's one of the reasons you can see in our numbers where the growth has been trending over the past couple of quarters. If you look back over maybe the past couple of years, you could see where our priority was rate versus unit or exposure growth. I don't think we really know with any certainty other than through a little bit of hindsight how good it actually is. i don't think we really know with any certainty other than through a little bit of hindsight how good it actually is What I would tell you is in 2003, we didn't really recognize how much margin with certainty there was in the business or with great precision. what i would tell you is in 2003 we didn't really recognize how much margin with certainty there was in the business or with great precision We knew it was good. we knew it was good I would suggest the same thing would apply to sort of 1987, if you will. i would suggest the same thing would apply to sort of 1987 if you will I think we are very confident that the margins that are in the business that we are writing today is very attractive, and it's one of the reasons you can see in our numbers where the growth has been trending over the past couple of quarters. i think we are very confident that the margins that are in the business that we are writing today is very attractive and it's one of the reasons you can see in our numbers where the growth has been trending over the past couple of quarters If you look back over maybe the past couple of years, you could see where our priority was rate versus unit or exposure growth. if you look back over maybe the past couple of years you could see where our priority was rate versus unit or exposure growth What's happened as the rate adequacy has gotten to a point that we find it more attractive, we're still pushing on the rate, but our policy count/exposure growth is starting to accelerate considerably. We believe that there is very healthy margin in the business. Some number of years down the road, when we look back at the policy year for 2021, I think that there is a reasonable chance that it proves to be better than how we see it today. That is just a result of our philosophy that our original loss ratio estimates that we use from the start, they tend to be measured, if you will. As those years season out, we will tighten those up. What's happened as the rate adequacy has gotten to a point that we find it more attractive, we're still pushing on the rate, but our policy count/exposure growth is starting to accelerate considerably. what's happened as the rate adequacy has gotten to a point that we find it more attractive we're still pushing on the rate but our policy count/exposure growth is starting to accelerate considerably We believe that there is very healthy margin in the business. we believe that there is very healthy margin in the business Some number of years down the road, when we look back at the policy year for 2021, I think that there is a reasonable chance that it proves to be better than how we see it today. some number of years down the road when we look back at the policy year for 2021 i think that there is a reasonable chance that it proves to be better than how we see it today That is just a result of our philosophy that our original loss ratio estimates that we use from the start, they tend to be measured, if you will. that is just a result of our philosophy that our original loss ratio estimates that we use from the start they tend to be measured if you will As those years season out, we will tighten those up. as those years season out we will tighten those up Given that we choose to take a measured approach, it is my expectation down the road, when you look at the policy year 2021 and 2022, it will prove to be very attractive on a combined ratio, loss ratio, whatever metric you choose to focus on. Given that we choose to take a measured approach, it is my expectation down the road, when you look at the policy year 2021 and 2022, it will prove to be very attractive on a combined ratio, loss ratio, whatever metric you choose to focus on. given that we choose to take a measured approach it is my expectation down the road when you look at the policy year 2021 and 2022 it will prove to be very attractive on a combined ratio loss ratio whatever metric you choose to focus on

Speaker 1: Brian, that really means wonders to my heart, because whenever anyone asks me my worst mistake, it's that in 1986 and 1987, I grossly underestimated the profitability, I didn't expand enough in 1988 and 1989 because I underestimated the profitability. He at least has learned something from my worst mistake. He understands we may well be understating our profitability, he's trying to grow. Brian, that really means wonders to my heart, because whenever anyone asks me my worst mistake, it's that in 1986 and 1987, I grossly underestimated the profitability, I didn't expand enough in 1988 and 1989 because I underestimated the profitability. brian that really means wonders to my heart because whenever anyone asks me my worst mistake it's that in 1986 and 1987 i grossly underestimated the profitability i didn't expand enough in 1988 and 1989 because i underestimated the profitability He at least has learned something from my worst mistake. he at least has learned something from my worst mistake He understands we may well be understating our profitability, he's trying to grow. he understands we may well be understating our profitability he's trying to grow

Speaker 3: One of the things to please keep in mind, just going back to an earlier comment, Brian, in sort of 2001, it really tail-ended to 2002 and 2003, we saw product lines throughout the commercial lines market firming together. We saw something similar in 1986. Here, at this moment in time, as we discussed earlier, we have product lines at different points in the cycle. There are parts of the business right now where we find the margins very attractive and are truly leaning into it. There are other parts of the market that we participate in where we are treading more lightly. One of the things to please keep in mind, just going back to an earlier comment, Brian, in sort of 2001, it really tail-ended to 2002 and 2003, we saw product lines throughout the commercial lines market firming together. one of the things to please keep in mind just going back to an earlier comment brian in sort of 2001 it really tail-ended to 2002 and 2003 we saw product lines throughout the commercial lines market firming together We saw something similar in 1986. we saw something similar in 1986 Here, at this moment in time, as we discussed earlier, we have product lines at different points in the cycle. here at this moment in time as we discussed earlier we have product lines at different points in the cycle There are parts of the business right now where we find the margins very attractive and are truly leaning into it. there are parts of the business right now where we find the margins very attractive and are truly leaning into it There are other parts of the market that we participate in where we are treading more lightly. there are other parts of the market that we participate in where we are treading more lightly

Speaker 2: What are the areas that you're treading more lightly? What are the areas that you're treading more lightly? what are the areas that you're treading more lightly

Speaker 3: We are paying close attention to the workers' comp line. If you engage with NCCI or any entity that has large quantities of industry data, and you look at where rates have gone for the comp line, clearly the margin that is available today is not what it was available yesterday. We are trying to make sure that we have as thoughtful an approach to that product line as you would expect us to. We are prepared. We are in the market every day, but to the extent that the market is willing to chase the business down the drain, we will be there, but we are not going to chase it to a place that we don't think makes sense. We are paying close attention to the workers' comp line. we are paying close attention to the workers' comp line If you engage with NCCI or any entity that has large quantities of industry data, and you look at where rates have gone for the comp line, clearly the margin that is available today is not what it was available yesterday. if you engage with ncci or any entity that has large quantities of industry data and you look at where rates have gone for the comp line clearly the margin that is available today is not what it was available yesterday We are trying to make sure that we have as thoughtful an approach to that product line as you would expect us to. we are trying to make sure that we have as thoughtful an approach to that product line as you would expect us to We are prepared. we are prepared We are in the market every day, but to the extent that the market is willing to chase the business down the drain, we will be there, but we are not going to chase it to a place that we don't think makes sense. we are in the market every day but to the extent that the market is willing to chase the business down the drain we will be there but we are not going to chase it to a place that we don't think makes sense

Speaker 2: Got you. What about commercial auto? You talk commercial auto is better rates, but that's an area that I've heard others comment that some of the large, huge verdicts that we've been seeing have been coming out of the commercial auto space, right? Did that give you any pause with respect to what's going on with the society and social inflation stuff? Got you. got you What about commercial auto? what about commercial auto You talk commercial auto is better rates, but that's an area that I've heard others comment that some of the large, huge verdicts that we've been seeing have been coming out of the commercial auto space, right? you talk commercial auto is better rates but that's an area that i've heard others comment that some of the large huge verdicts that we've been seeing have been coming out of the commercial auto space right Did that give you any pause with respect to what's going on with the society and social inflation stuff? did that give you any pause with respect to what's going on with the society and social inflation stuff

Speaker 3: Yeah, I think commercial auto is a great example of if we want to focus on social inflation, certainly a great example of that, and you can see it every day in the claims activity. The industry has been trying to address loss cost trends stemming from social inflation within the commercial auto space for, I don't know, probably a decade at this stage. The mistake that's made oftentimes, in my opinion, by some market participants, and we've made the mistake, by the way, in the past, we make plenty of mistakes, is that you see what a rate need is based on historic results, and you achieve that rate need with your pricing, and then you think you've arrived. You don't recognize, no, that trend is continuing on. You need to not just catch up, but you then need to keep up with it. Yeah, I think commercial auto is a great example of if we want to focus on social inflation, certainly a great example of that, and you can see it every day in the claims activity. yeah i think commercial auto is a great example of if we want to focus on social inflation certainly a great example of that and you can see it every day in the claims activity The industry has been trying to address loss cost trends stemming from social inflation within the commercial auto space for, I don't know, probably a decade at this stage. the industry has been trying to address loss cost trends stemming from social inflation within the commercial auto space for i don't know probably a decade at this stage The mistake that's made oftentimes, in my opinion, by some market participants, and we've made the mistake, by the way, in the past, we make plenty of mistakes, is that you see what a rate need is based on historic results, and you achieve that rate need with your pricing, and then you think you've arrived. the mistake that's made oftentimes in my opinion by some market participants and we've made the mistake by the way in the past we make plenty of mistakes is that you see what a rate need is based on historic results and you achieve that rate need with your pricing and then you think you've arrived You don't recognize, no, that trend is continuing on. you don't recognize no that trend is continuing on You need to not just catch up, but you then need to keep up with it. you need to not just catch up but you then need to keep up with it I think commercial auto is a great example of that, where the industry needs to be very careful with all of the efforts to get to rate adequacy, that no pun intended, they don't take their foot off the pedal. That was a little bit. I think commercial auto is a great example of that, where the industry needs to be very careful with all of the efforts to get to rate adequacy, that no pun intended, they don't take their foot off the pedal. i think commercial auto is a great example of that where the industry needs to be very careful with all of the efforts to get to rate adequacy that no pun intended they don't take their foot off the pedal That was a little bit. that was a little bit

Speaker 2: Makes sense. Makes sense. makes sense

Speaker 3: Of insurance humor, Brian. Of insurance humor, Brian. of insurance humor brian

Speaker 2: Terrific. Going back to kind of what's going on, you talked a lot about 2021, 2022, hopefully 2021 kind of be a very profitable year. I guess, there has been a lot of discussion, obviously, about the do the math comment, right? When you do the math, it just seems like the underlying loss ratio improvement that you booked in 2021, it kind of fell short of what I think a lot of people were expecting, right? I get that you want to be conservative, and there's social inflation, a lot of things out there. I guess my question to you is, how overly conservative you think you were, and if you were overly conservative, what does that necessarily portend for 2022 when you think about it? Terrific. terrific Going back to kind of what's going on, you talked a lot about 2021, 2022, hopefully 2021 kind of be a very profitable year. going back to kind of what's going on you talked a lot about 2021 2022 hopefully 2021 kind of be a very profitable year I guess, there has been a lot of discussion, obviously, about the do the math comment, right? i guess there has been a lot of discussion obviously about the do the math comment right When you do the math, it just seems like the underlying loss ratio improvement that you booked in 2021, it kind of fell short of what I think a lot of people were expecting, right? when you do the math it just seems like the underlying loss ratio improvement that you booked in 2021 it kind of fell short of what i think a lot of people were expecting right I get that you want to be conservative, and there's social inflation, a lot of things out there. i get that you want to be conservative and there's social inflation a lot of things out there I guess my question to you is, how overly conservative you think you were, and if you were overly conservative, what does that necessarily portend for 2022 when you think about it? i guess my question to you is how overly conservative you think you were and if you were overly conservative what does that necessarily portend for 2022 when you think about it

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 2: Because that's obviously going to be the tune in the fourth quarter and set your loss picks for casualty, right? Because that's obviously going to be the tune in the fourth quarter and set your loss picks for casualty, right? because that's obviously going to be the tune in the fourth quarter and set your loss picks for casualty right

Speaker 3: Okay. Let me take a half a pace back. First off, I think 2020 is going to prove to probably be a pretty good year for the industry, less because of brilliance and discipline, and more because of circumstance and frequency stemming from COVID. If we make our way to 2021, I think you saw some rate momentum building in 2020 for the industry, carried through to 2021, and I think you're seeing some benefit. Now, let's sort of put a little bit more of a magnifying glass or even a microscope on us as an organization. What do we know? We know there's a lot of things we don't know. Okay. okay Let me take a half a pace back. let me take a half a pace back First off, I think 2020 is going to prove to probably be a pretty good year for the industry, less because of brilliance and discipline, and more because of circumstance and frequency stemming from COVID. first off i think 2020 is going to prove to probably be a pretty good year for the industry less because of brilliance and discipline and more because of circumstance and frequency stemming from covid If we make our way to 2021, I think you saw some rate momentum building in 2020 for the industry, carried through to 2021, and I think you're seeing some benefit. if we make our way to 2021 i think you saw some rate momentum building in 2020 for the industry carried through to 2021 and i think you're seeing some benefit Now, let's sort of put a little bit more of a magnifying glass or even a microscope on us as an organization. now let's sort of put a little bit more of a magnifying glass or even a microscope on us as an organization What do we know? what do we know We know there's a lot of things we don't know. we know there's a lot of things we don't know We know that we have the pleasure of operating in one of the few industries where you don't really know with any degree of certainty your cost of goods sold until oftentimes several years after you have actually entered the transaction. We know that we are in an environment where we are seeing more activity on the loss trend front than the industry has seen in years, and it's coming at us from a variety of different directions. One being, again, social inflation, and as we discussed earlier, more recently, financial inflation. When the day's all done, to your question, sorry for the long way around the barn, the long story short is, are we being measured, if you will? I think that sounds better than conservative. The answer is yes, absolutely. Why are we doing that? We know that we have the pleasure of operating in one of the few industries where you don't really know with any degree of certainty your cost of goods sold until oftentimes several years after you have actually entered the transaction. we know that we have the pleasure of operating in one of the few industries where you don't really know with any degree of certainty your cost of goods sold until oftentimes several years after you have actually entered the transaction We know that we are in an environment where we are seeing more activity on the loss trend front than the industry has seen in years, and it's coming at us from a variety of different directions. we know that we are in an environment where we are seeing more activity on the loss trend front than the industry has seen in years and it's coming at us from a variety of different directions One being, again, social inflation, and as we discussed earlier, more recently, financial inflation. one being again social inflation and as we discussed earlier more recently financial inflation When the day's all done, to your question, sorry for the long way around the barn, the long story short is, are we being measured, if you will? when the day's all done to your question sorry for the long way around the barn the long story short is are we being measured if you will I think that sounds better than conservative. i think that sounds better than conservative The answer is yes, absolutely. the answer is yes absolutely Why are we doing that? why are we doing that Well, we're doing that because we respect the fact that there is a lot of leverage in our model, particularly around loss trend assumptions. Given the level of sensitivity that stems from that, we don't need to be off by very much for it to have a meaningful impact on the business. Look, back of the envelope math, when you do it all, at least our math is we're probably, when you adjust for some, what I would define as property risk losses, we're probably being more than a point, less than two points conservative in our picks, or my words, measured, if you will. Well, we're doing that because we respect the fact that there is a lot of leverage in our model, particularly around loss trend assumptions. well we're doing that because we respect the fact that there is a lot of leverage in our model particularly around loss trend assumptions Given the level of sensitivity that stems from that, we don't need to be off by very much for it to have a meaningful impact on the business. given the level of sensitivity that stems from that we don't need to be off by very much for it to have a meaningful impact on the business Look, back of the envelope math, when you do it all, at least our math is we're probably, when you adjust for some, what I would define as property risk losses, we're probably being more than a point, less than two points conservative in our picks, or my words, measured, if you will. look back of the envelope math when you do it all at least our math is we're probably when you adjust for some what i would define as property risk losses we're probably being more than a point less than two points conservative in our picks or my words measured if you will I think over time, we will have clarity around that, quite frankly, I think over time, one person's view, not the company's view, my unofficial view as an observer is that it is likely that the industry ourselves included, we will end up doing better than what was anticipated. In 2001, I argued with the actuaries for years about redundancy in our reserves, it took me years to persuade them, and in fact, we were and ended up being substantially redundant. Finality in a business where it's so much easier to look in the rear view mirror than to try and look out ahead is a very difficult thing. Numbers don't lie, they don't lie as long as you're looking at the right set of numbers. I think over time, we will have clarity around that, quite frankly, I think over time, one person's view, not the company's view, my unofficial view as an observer is that it is likely that the industry ourselves included, we will end up doing better than what was anticipated. i think over time we will have clarity around that quite frankly i think over time one person's view not the company's view my unofficial view as an observer is that it is likely that the industry ourselves included we will end up doing better than what was anticipated In 2001, I argued with the actuaries for years about redundancy in our reserves, it took me years to persuade them, and in fact, we were and ended up being substantially redundant. in 2001 i argued with the actuaries for years about redundancy in our reserves it took me years to persuade them and in fact we were and ended up being substantially redundant Finality in a business where it's so much easier to look in the rear view mirror than to try and look out ahead is a very difficult thing. finality in a business where it's so much easier to look in the rear view mirror than to try and look out ahead is a very difficult thing Numbers don't lie, they don't lie as long as you're looking at the right set of numbers. numbers don't lie they don't lie as long as you're looking at the right set of numbers

Speaker 1: That's the problem you face, especially when you have situations like COVID and new information that changes the view. We may well think that we're being conservative, we're being conservative because while the rear view mirror tells us that's probably a conservative stance, we're not as certain as we'd like to be. That uncertainty gives you pause, you're cautious. That's the problem you face, especially when you have situations like COVID and new information that changes the view. that's the problem you face especially when you have situations like covid and new information that changes the view We may well think that we're being conservative, we're being conservative because while the rear view mirror tells us that's probably a conservative stance, we're not as certain as we'd like to be. we may well think that we're being conservative we're being conservative because while the rear view mirror tells us that's probably a conservative stance we're not as certain as we'd like to be That uncertainty gives you pause, you're cautious. that uncertainty gives you pause you're cautious

Speaker 2: Makes sense. Bill, Rob, on the COVID question, I guess, or COVID, where is that coming out, you think, relative to what you originally thought might happen back in 2000? Are we getting close to where we've got some more finality around what do we think the BI situation is and general liability and professional liability? Makes sense. makes sense Bill, Rob, on the COVID question, I guess, or COVID, where is that coming out, you think, relative to what you originally thought might happen back in 2000? bill rob on the covid question i guess or covid where is that coming out you think relative to what you originally thought might happen back in 2000 Are we getting close to where we've got some more finality around what do we think the BI situation is and general liability and professional liability? are we getting close to where we've got some more finality around what do we think the bi situation is and general liability and professional liability

Speaker 3: Well, certainly as far as this organization goes, based on what we can see today, the pig is almost all the way through the python, if you will. Well, certainly as far as this organization goes, based on what we can see today, the pig is almost all the way through the python, if you will. well certainly as far as this organization goes based on what we can see today the pig is almost all the way through the python if you will

Speaker 2: Right. Right. right

Speaker 3: As far as the industry goes, honestly, Brian, I've been shocked by the response or lack of response from some market participants. I honestly have been blown away by the fact that there are some people that are still willing to write event cancellation without a communicable disease exclusion. We won't touch it with a 10-foot pole without a CD exclusion. There are some people that just jump back in, and it surprises us that some people, if you pay the tuition, you better make sure you get the education. As far as the industry goes, honestly, Brian, I've been shocked by the response or lack of response from some market participants. as far as the industry goes honestly brian i've been shocked by the response or lack of response from some market participants I honestly have been blown away by the fact that there are some people that are still willing to write event cancellation without a communicable disease exclusion. i honestly have been blown away by the fact that there are some people that are still willing to write event cancellation without a communicable disease exclusion We won't touch it with a 10-foot pole without a CD exclusion. we won't touch it with a 10-foot pole without a cd exclusion There are some people that just jump back in, and it surprises us that some people, if you pay the tuition, you better make sure you get the education. there are some people that just jump back in and it surprises us that some people if you pay the tuition you better make sure you get the education

Speaker 2: Gotcha. I guess going back to my other question, was the pig more digestible than you thought it was, potentially? Gotcha. gotcha I guess going back to my other question, was the pig more digestible than you thought it was, potentially? i guess going back to my other question was the pig more digestible than you thought it was potentially

Speaker 3: You know what? The truth of the matter is we really don't like swallowing pigs at all. Was it more digestible? I'm not sure how exactly to read those tea leaves, it certainly seems to be unfolding within sort of what our framework was of how it could have unfolded. You know what? you know what The truth of the matter is we really don't like swallowing pigs at all. the truth of the matter is we really don't like swallowing pigs at all Was it more digestible? was it more digestible I'm not sure how exactly to read those tea leaves, it certainly seems to be unfolding within sort of what our framework was of how it could have unfolded. i'm not sure how exactly to read those tea leaves it certainly seems to be unfolding within sort of what our framework was of how it could have unfolded

Speaker 2: Great. That's helpful. Let's talk a little bit about your expense ratio. 500 basis points of improvement since 2018. That there's maybe 40-50 basis points of that was COVID related. Given the continued growth that we're seeing here, how low do you think we can get that expense ratio, and at what point does just the infrastructure not let you drive it any lower? Great. great That's helpful. that's helpful Let's talk a little bit about your expense ratio. 500 basis points of improvement since 2018. let's talk a little bit about your expense ratio 500 basis points of improvement since 2018 That there's maybe 40-50 basis points of that was COVID related. that there's maybe 40-50 basis points of that was covid related Given the continued growth that we're seeing here, how low do you think we can get that expense ratio, and at what point does just the infrastructure not let you drive it any lower? given the continued growth that we're seeing here how low do you think we can get that expense ratio and at what point does just the infrastructure not let you drive it any lower

Speaker 3: Well, I think that we still have plenty of runway in front of us to improve on it from here. Perhaps what maybe caught people a little bit by surprise, and I'm not sure if we really understood why people were quite so surprised. Maybe it's because we're not as good at communicating as we think we are at times. Long story short, Brian, we have a lot of businesses that we have started in particular specialized niches, if you will. We started them along the way, oftentimes when market conditions were not particularly conducive, but they were terrific people that had extraordinary expertise within an attractive niche within the industry. Well, I think that we still have plenty of runway in front of us to improve on it from here. well i think that we still have plenty of runway in front of us to improve on it from here Perhaps what maybe caught people a little bit by surprise, and I'm not sure if we really understood why people were quite so surprised. perhaps what maybe caught people a little bit by surprise and i'm not sure if we really understood why people were quite so surprised Maybe it's because we're not as good at communicating as we think we are at times. maybe it's because we're not as good at communicating as we think we are at times Long story short, Brian, we have a lot of businesses that we have started in particular specialized niches, if you will. long story short brian we have a lot of businesses that we have started in particular specialized niches if you will We started them along the way, oftentimes when market conditions were not particularly conducive, but they were terrific people that had extraordinary expertise within an attractive niche within the industry. we started them along the way oftentimes when market conditions were not particularly conducive but they were terrific people that had extraordinary expertise within an attractive niche within the industry The organization was willing to make the investment in these people and set them up, accepting the fact that the business was going to be subscale for some period of time because of the discipline that group of people would have. What has happened as of late over the past couple of years and really coming into focus over the past several quarters, is market conditions have changed. The opportunity for these businesses to scale has come through, and as a result of that, you're seeing businesses that had expense ratios that would start with a four or more, all of a sudden are having expense ratios that are dropping like a stone, because again, market conditions are allowing them to grow. How much better is the expense ratio going to get? Look, I think that it's going to ebb, it's going to flow. The organization was willing to make the investment in these people and set them up, accepting the fact that the business was going to be subscale for some period of time because of the discipline that group of people would have. the organization was willing to make the investment in these people and set them up accepting the fact that the business was going to be subscale for some period of time because of the discipline that group of people would have What has happened as of late over the past couple of years and really coming into focus over the past several quarters, is market conditions have changed. what has happened as of late over the past couple of years and really coming into focus over the past several quarters is market conditions have changed The opportunity for these businesses to scale has come through, and as a result of that, you're seeing businesses that had expense ratios that would start with a four or more, all of a sudden are having expense ratios that are dropping like a stone, because again, market conditions are allowing them to grow. the opportunity for these businesses to scale has come through and as a result of that you're seeing businesses that had expense ratios that would start with a four or more all of a sudden are having expense ratios that are dropping like a stone because again market conditions are allowing them to grow How much better is the expense ratio going to get? how much better is the expense ratio going to get Look, I think that it's going to ebb, it's going to flow. look i think that it's going to ebb it's going to flow Leading indicator is you can see where our written premium's going. It's going to tell you where the earned is going to go. You have a sense in our economic model of our expense ratio, how much is variable versus how much is fixed. Given those data points, you can kind of extrapolate. Putting aside the 40 or 50 basis points associated with the COVID period, as you referenced, there's still opportunity before us. Leading indicator is you can see where our written premium's going. leading indicator is you can see where our written premium's going It's going to tell you where the earned is going to go. it's going to tell you where the earned is going to go You have a sense in our economic model of our expense ratio, how much is variable versus how much is fixed. you have a sense in our economic model of our expense ratio how much is variable versus how much is fixed Given those data points, you can kind of extrapolate. given those data points you can kind of extrapolate Putting aside the 40 or 50 basis points associated with the COVID period, as you referenced, there's still opportunity before us. putting aside the 40 or 50 basis points associated with the covid period as you referenced there's still opportunity before us

Speaker 2: Got you. I guess a lot of this could be based upon what your growth outlook looks like, too. I guess that would be another question for you with respect to your insurance business. Do you think that you can sustain this kind of level of growth through 2022 that you're seeing right now, given the market environment? Got you. got you I guess a lot of this could be based upon what your growth outlook looks like, too. i guess a lot of this could be based upon what your growth outlook looks like too I guess that would be another question for you with respect to your insurance business. i guess that would be another question for you with respect to your insurance business Do you think that you can sustain this kind of level of growth through 2022 that you're seeing right now, given the market environment? do you think that you can sustain this kind of level of growth through 2022 that you're seeing right now given the market environment

Speaker 3: There's nothing that we see on the horizon other than just our general knowledge of the industry and the cycle. There's nothing that we see through 2022 that would lead us to believe that the train will get derailed or that the momentum will erode. We see, quite frankly, the flow of business into the specialty market. We see the overwhelming flow of business coming into our E&S operations. The parts of the marketplace that were maybe starting to lose a little bit of momentum, like for example, in the property line, seems like there's some discipline that is returning as a result of catastrophe. That'll be short-lived. Property responds very quickly, and it has a very short memory. The liability lines take longer to respond but have a longer memory. We're seeing great opportunity in the professional space. There's nothing that we see on the horizon other than just our general knowledge of the industry and the cycle. there's nothing that we see on the horizon other than just our general knowledge of the industry and the cycle There's nothing that we see through 2022 that would lead us to believe that the train will get derailed or that the momentum will erode. there's nothing that we see through 2022 that would lead us to believe that the train will get derailed or that the momentum will erode We see, quite frankly, the flow of business into the specialty market. we see quite frankly the flow of business into the specialty market We see the overwhelming flow of business coming into our E&S operations. we see the overwhelming flow of business coming into our e&s operations The parts of the marketplace that were maybe starting to lose a little bit of momentum, like for example, in the property line, seems like there's some discipline that is returning as a result of catastrophe. the parts of the marketplace that were maybe starting to lose a little bit of momentum like for example in the property line seems like there's some discipline that is returning as a result of catastrophe That'll be short-lived. that'll be short-lived Property responds very quickly, and it has a very short memory. property responds very quickly and it has a very short memory The liability lines take longer to respond but have a longer memory. the liability lines take longer to respond but have a longer memory We're seeing great opportunity in the professional space. we're seeing great opportunity in the professional space I think the primary D&O market has some catching up to do, and you're going to see momentum building from here on that front. Again, the amount of business that we're seeing coming out of the standard market into the specialty market, if anything, the momentum continues to build. I think the primary D&O market has some catching up to do, and you're going to see momentum building from here on that front. i think the primary d&o market has some catching up to do and you're going to see momentum building from here on that front Again, the amount of business that we're seeing coming out of the standard market into the specialty market, if anything, the momentum continues to build. again the amount of business that we're seeing coming out of the standard market into the specialty market if anything the momentum continues to build

Speaker 2: Wow. On that topic, Rob, maybe talk about not only the hard market, I understand when you're in a hard market, that naturally happens, but are there any structural things also going on with the business that's causing more business to move to the E&S market? How long do you think that'll continue? We've seen the E&S market basically double, grow at twice the rate of the standard market for the last decade, right? There's obviously other things going on within the commercial lines market that's causing that to happen. Wow. wow On that topic, Rob, maybe talk about not only the hard market, I understand when you're in a hard market, that naturally happens, but are there any structural things also going on with the business that's causing more business to move to the E&S market? on that topic rob maybe talk about not only the hard market i understand when you're in a hard market that naturally happens but are there any structural things also going on with the business that's causing more business to move to the e&s market How long do you think that'll continue? how long do you think that'll continue We've seen the E&S market basically double, grow at twice the rate of the standard market for the last decade, right? we've seen the e&s market basically double grow at twice the rate of the standard market for the last decade right There's obviously other things going on within the commercial lines market that's causing that to happen. there's obviously other things going on within the commercial lines market that's causing that to happen

Speaker 3: Look, I think the standard market. A couple of things. First off, the standard market, I think, finds itself in different pockets of their portfolio, realizing that maybe they overreached. Maybe they expanded the appetite too much, maybe they got outside of their expertise, maybe the pricing isn't what it should've been, or maybe, quite frankly, the terms and conditions they use is just not really applicable to the nature of the exposure. I think in addition to that, part of what you're seeing driving some of the growth today is the standard market really does not have a great appetite for new ventures. One of the things that's happened as of late, you saw a lot of businesses going out of business or getting somewhat mothballed as a result of COVID. Now you're seeing a resurgence or green shoots of new businesses coming back, if you will. Look, I think the standard market. look i think the standard market A couple of things. a couple of things First off, the standard market, I think, finds itself in different pockets of their portfolio, realizing that maybe they overreached. first off the standard market i think finds itself in different pockets of their portfolio realizing that maybe they overreached Maybe they expanded the appetite too much, maybe they got outside of their expertise, maybe the pricing isn't what it should've been, or maybe, quite frankly, the terms and conditions they use is just not really applicable to the nature of the exposure. maybe they expanded the appetite too much maybe they got outside of their expertise maybe the pricing isn't what it should've been or maybe quite frankly the terms and conditions they use is just not really applicable to the nature of the exposure I think in addition to that, part of what you're seeing driving some of the growth today is the standard market really does not have a great appetite for new ventures. i think in addition to that part of what you're seeing driving some of the growth today is the standard market really does not have a great appetite for new ventures One of the things that's happened as of late, you saw a lot of businesses going out of business or getting somewhat mothballed as a result of COVID. one of the things that's happened as of late you saw a lot of businesses going out of business or getting somewhat mothballed as a result of covid Now you're seeing a resurgence or green shoots of new businesses coming back, if you will. now you're seeing a resurgence or green shoots of new businesses coming back if you will As a result of that's creating great opportunity for the specialty market as well. I think lastly, there are clearly new exposures that society is having to grapple with, cyber being an extreme example of that, where the standard market really struggles with what its appetite should be along those lines. I think there are others similar to that, but that would be an example. As a result of that's creating great opportunity for the specialty market as well. as a result of that's creating great opportunity for the specialty market as well I think lastly, there are clearly new exposures that society is having to grapple with, cyber being an extreme example of that, where the standard market really struggles with what its appetite should be along those lines. i think lastly there are clearly new exposures that society is having to grapple with cyber being an extreme example of that where the standard market really struggles with what its appetite should be along those lines I think there are others similar to that, but that would be an example. i think there are others similar to that but that would be an example

Speaker 2: Makes a lot of sense. As far as your other business, or the reinsurance business, what do you think the reinsurance market outlook is right now for 1/1 renewals? How do you fit into that? Do you think there's opportunities? Do you need to see some good strong growth in your reinsurance business? Makes a lot of sense. makes a lot of sense As far as your other business, or the reinsurance business, what do you think the reinsurance market outlook is right now for 1/1 renewals? as far as your other business or the reinsurance business what do you think the reinsurance market outlook is right now for 1/1 renewals How do you fit into that? how do you fit into that Do you think there's opportunities? do you think there's opportunities Do you need to see some good strong growth in your reinsurance business? do you need to see some good strong growth in your reinsurance business

Speaker 3: The 1/1 renewal season is notably late. Just as an observer, it seems like it's turned into a little bit of a game of chicken, we're waiting to see who's going to blink. I don't think we're going to have real clarity until early January as to how that plays out. I think much of the reinsurance marketplace is licking its wounds from having grown at exactly the wrong moment and giving away ceding commissions just when it should've been going the other way. If you think about sort of, oh, gosh, I would suggest give or take sort of 2017 through 2019, 2017 through 2020. The 1/1 renewal season is notably late. the 1/1 renewal season is notably late Just as an observer, it seems like it's turned into a little bit of a game of chicken, we're waiting to see who's going to blink. just as an observer it seems like it's turned into a little bit of a game of chicken we're waiting to see who's going to blink I don't think we're going to have real clarity until early January as to how that plays out. i don't think we're going to have real clarity until early january as to how that plays out I think much of the reinsurance marketplace is licking its wounds from having grown at exactly the wrong moment and giving away ceding commissions just when it should've been going the other way. i think much of the reinsurance marketplace is licking its wounds from having grown at exactly the wrong moment and giving away ceding commissions just when it should've been going the other way If you think about sort of, oh, gosh, I would suggest give or take sort of 2017 through 2019, 2017 through 2020. if you think about sort of oh gosh i would suggest give or take sort of 2017 through 2019 2017 through 2020 I think that combined with some of the other issues that we've talked about, financial inflation, social inflation, and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there are a lot of players in the reinsurance space that really have taken some hits stemming from natural catastrophes, whether it be domestically or outside of the U.S. When you put that all together, I think the reinsurance community has realized that they are, in many cases, not covering their true cost of capital and certainly not providing their various stakeholders, in particular their shareholders, with reasonable risk-adjusted returns. Would they like to do something about it? Yes. Are they prepared to draw a line in the sand and make rate a priority over market share or growth? We're going to find out. To the extent they do, you will see our reinsurance business grow. I think that combined with some of the other issues that we've talked about, financial inflation, social inflation, and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there are a lot of players in the reinsurance space that really have taken some hits stemming from natural catastrophes, whether it be domestically or outside of the U.S. i think that combined with some of the other issues that we've talked about financial inflation social inflation and we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there are a lot of players in the reinsurance space that really have taken some hits stemming from natural catastrophes whether it be domestically or outside of the u.s When you put that all together, I think the reinsurance community has realized that they are, in many cases, not covering their true cost of capital and certainly not providing their various stakeholders, in particular their shareholders, with reasonable risk-adjusted returns. when you put that all together i think the reinsurance community has realized that they are in many cases not covering their true cost of capital and certainly not providing their various stakeholders in particular their shareholders with reasonable risk-adjusted returns Would they like to do something about it? would they like to do something about it Yes. yes Are they prepared to draw a line in the sand and make rate a priority over market share or growth? are they prepared to draw a line in the sand and make rate a priority over market share or growth We're going to find out. we're going to find out To the extent they do, you will see our reinsurance business grow. to the extent they do you will see our reinsurance business grow No different than any other part of this organization, we have a view as to what adequate rate is. If the market is there or better, you will see us actively participating. We're there. We'll see where the market is. No different than any other part of this organization, we have a view as to what adequate rate is. no different than any other part of this organization we have a view as to what adequate rate is If the market is there or better, you will see us actively participating. if the market is there or better you will see us actively participating We're there. we're there We'll see where the market is. we'll see where the market is

Speaker 2: Got you. Let's flip it the other way then. Given how attractive the pricing is right now in a lot of your casualty business, why aren't you retaining more? Got you. got you Let's flip it the other way then. let's flip it the other way then Given how attractive the pricing is right now in a lot of your casualty business, why aren't you retaining more? given how attractive the pricing is right now in a lot of your casualty business why aren't you retaining more

Speaker 3: We are. We are. we are

Speaker 2: You are? We expect that there'll be retention will continue as you kind of look toward 2023? You are? you are We expect that there'll be retention will continue as you kind of look toward 2023? we expect that there'll be retention will continue as you kind of look toward 2023

Speaker 3: Look, there are a couple of things. You need to remember, or just as a data point. This organization, approximately 90% of our policies have a limit of $2 million or less. We are not, by nature, hugely dependent on reinsurance. Much of what we buy are corporate covers like a CAT cover. Are we insulated from the reinsurance pricing environment? No, not completely. Are we affected by it less than many? Without a doubt. Look, we have a view as to where we think pricing should be. We have certain reinsurers that are truly our partners through thick and thin, and there are other reinsurers where, quite frankly, both they and we view it as more of a financial transaction that's revisited on an annual basis. Look, there are a couple of things. look there are a couple of things You need to remember, or just as a data point. you need to remember or just as a data point This organization, approximately 90% of our policies have a limit of $2 million or less. this organization approximately 90% of our policies have a limit of $2 million or less We are not, by nature, hugely dependent on reinsurance. we are not by nature hugely dependent on reinsurance Much of what we buy are corporate covers like a CAT cover. much of what we buy are corporate covers like a cat cover Are we insulated from the reinsurance pricing environment? are we insulated from the reinsurance pricing environment No, not completely. no not completely Are we affected by it less than many? are we affected by it less than many Without a doubt. without a doubt Look, we have a view as to where we think pricing should be. look we have a view as to where we think pricing should be We have certain reinsurers that are truly our partners through thick and thin, and there are other reinsurers where, quite frankly, both they and we view it as more of a financial transaction that's revisited on an annual basis. we have certain reinsurers that are truly our partners through thick and thin and there are other reinsurers where quite frankly both they and we view it as more of a financial transaction that's revisited on an annual basis

Speaker 2: Got you. Got you. got you

Speaker 3: At this stage, I think that you will see likely our net growing faster than our gross over a year. At this stage, I think that you will see likely our net growing faster than our gross over a year. at this stage i think that you will see likely our net growing faster than our gross over a year

Speaker 2: Got you. I get a couple others, but I just got one that came in here. Somebody is asking, with work from home as kind of probably being more prevalent here going forward, do you see that there's potentially a permanent kind of drop in frequency in workers' comp? Is that a reason that loss costs may be lower, frequency may be lower here going forward, severity may be lower? Got you. got you I get a couple others, but I just got one that came in here. i get a couple others but i just got one that came in here Somebody is asking, with work from home as kind of probably being more prevalent here going forward, do you see that there's potentially a permanent kind of drop in frequency in workers' comp? somebody is asking with work from home as kind of probably being more prevalent here going forward do you see that there's potentially a permanent kind of drop in frequency in workers' comp Is that a reason that loss costs may be lower, frequency may be lower here going forward, severity may be lower? is that a reason that loss costs may be lower frequency may be lower here going forward severity may be lower

Speaker 3: Look, certainly there are some industries, some jobs, some organizations that have embraced working from home more than others. In addition to that, I think if you look at the significant part of the premium associated with the workers' comp line, a disproportionate amount of it has to do with jobs that cannot be done very easily from your kitchen table. I would suggest that in certain white-collar positions, could there be some kind of benefit? Yes. When the day is all done, the white-collar positions that could be done from someone's kitchen or den or wherever, that's not what's really driving the workers' comp line, premium-wise or quite frankly, claims-wise. Look, certainly there are some industries, some jobs, some organizations that have embraced working from home more than others. look certainly there are some industries some jobs some organizations that have embraced working from home more than others In addition to that, I think if you look at the significant part of the premium associated with the workers' comp line, a disproportionate amount of it has to do with jobs that cannot be done very easily from your kitchen table. in addition to that i think if you look at the significant part of the premium associated with the workers' comp line a disproportionate amount of it has to do with jobs that cannot be done very easily from your kitchen table I would suggest that in certain white-collar positions, could there be some kind of benefit? i would suggest that in certain white-collar positions could there be some kind of benefit Yes. yes When the day is all done, the white-collar positions that could be done from someone's kitchen or den or wherever, that's not what's really driving the workers' comp line, premium-wise or quite frankly, claims-wise. when the day is all done the white-collar positions that could be done from someone's kitchen or den or wherever that's not what's really driving the workers' comp line premium-wise or quite frankly claims-wise

Speaker 2: Great. Can we pivot over to the investment portfolio for a little bit here? Given where equity valuations are, given this low interest rate environment, I kind of struggle to see, how can you guys continue to kind of generate these great capital gains that you've been generating over the last decade kind of going forward? Where should we kind of think about that? Great. great Can we pivot over to the investment portfolio for a little bit here? can we pivot over to the investment portfolio for a little bit here Given where equity valuations are, given this low interest rate environment, I kind of struggle to see, how can you guys continue to kind of generate these great capital gains that you've been generating over the last decade kind of going forward? given where equity valuations are given this low interest rate environment i kind of struggle to see how can you guys continue to kind of generate these great capital gains that you've been generating over the last decade kind of going forward Where should we kind of think about that? where should we kind of think about that

Speaker 1: Well, by and large, we have a fairly diverse portfolio of assets outside of our standard bond portfolio. We have a few billion dollars of real estate. We continually have things we want to sell. We expect, and what we said to people is, we expect to do $25 million of gains a quarter in our real estate portfolio. That was to give people a number. We expect we'll continue to sell some real estate, and we have opportunities that we think are there still. We still have a good size private equity portfolio. We're a major factor in a few private equity funds, and we have our own private equity investing, which has been quite rewarding. On all of those things, we see really a continuation of where our status has been. It's been a small percentage of our portfolio. Well, by and large, we have a fairly diverse portfolio of assets outside of our standard bond portfolio. well by and large we have a fairly diverse portfolio of assets outside of our standard bond portfolio We have a few billion dollars of real estate. we have a few billion dollars of real estate We continually have things we want to sell. we continually have things we want to sell We expect, and what we said to people is, we expect to do $25 million of gains a quarter in our real estate portfolio. we expect and what we said to people is we expect to do $25 million of gains a quarter in our real estate portfolio That was to give people a number. that was to give people a number We expect we'll continue to sell some real estate, and we have opportunities that we think are there still. we expect we'll continue to sell some real estate and we have opportunities that we think are there still We still have a good size private equity portfolio. we still have a good size private equity portfolio We're a major factor in a few private equity funds, and we have our own private equity investing, which has been quite rewarding. we're a major factor in a few private equity funds and we have our own private equity investing which has been quite rewarding On all of those things, we see really a continuation of where our status has been. on all of those things we see really a continuation of where our status has been It's been a small percentage of our portfolio. it's been a small percentage of our portfolio It's just been a high percentage of our return because we've been successful investors. We think we'll continue to find things and opportunities where we see the world in a different light. Be it natural gas pipelines that we think are going to be harder and harder to rebuild, and for as far as we can see, natural gas is going to be needed to generate electricity or to heat homes. Alternatives to new pipelines are going to be harder and harder to get approval for. We think those give you good returns and probably pretty stable potential. If you look hard enough, there continues to be opportunities, and we really feel like there's not going to be any problem with the kind of returns from our portfolio that we've had in the past. It's just been a high percentage of our return because we've been successful investors. it's just been a high percentage of our return because we've been successful investors We think we'll continue to find things and opportunities where we see the world in a different light. we think we'll continue to find things and opportunities where we see the world in a different light Be it natural gas pipelines that we think are going to be harder and harder to rebuild, and for as far as we can see, natural gas is going to be needed to generate electricity or to heat homes. be it natural gas pipelines that we think are going to be harder and harder to rebuild and for as far as we can see natural gas is going to be needed to generate electricity or to heat homes Alternatives to new pipelines are going to be harder and harder to get approval for. alternatives to new pipelines are going to be harder and harder to get approval for We think those give you good returns and probably pretty stable potential. we think those give you good returns and probably pretty stable potential If you look hard enough, there continues to be opportunities, and we really feel like there's not going to be any problem with the kind of returns from our portfolio that we've had in the past. if you look hard enough there continues to be opportunities and we really feel like there's not going to be any problem with the kind of returns from our portfolio that we've had in the past

Speaker 2: Got you. Bill, you continue to have a lot of cash on your balance sheets, right? Got you. got you Bill, you continue to have a lot of cash on your balance sheets, right? bill you continue to have a lot of cash on your balance sheets right

Speaker 1: That's because he keeps selling so much damn insurance. When you're generating $100+ million a month of cash, you don't find that many good investments because it is a competitive investment market. That's because he keeps selling so much damn insurance. that's because he keeps selling so much damn insurance When you're generating $100+ million a month of cash, you don't find that many good investments because it is a competitive investment market. when you're generating $100+ million a month of cash you don't find that many good investments because it is a competitive investment market

Speaker 2: Got it. Got it. got it

Speaker 1: We do have a lot of cash, and we're looking for opportunities. This last weekend, we met with some people who had a particular niche in the market. Was really exciting. The niche in total was $250 million. It's nice, but it doesn't help us a lot. We're actively looking for niches. When you're looking for niches, you don't put the money to use as quickly as possible. We do believe, however, in spite of what everyone else seems to be saying, as we said, inflation is here to stay for certainly a few years, and we think interest rates will move up, especially the intermediate term rates, which is where we want to invest. We've reduced our duration of our portfolio to where it's well below the duration we're shooting for. We do have a lot of cash, and we're looking for opportunities. we do have a lot of cash and we're looking for opportunities This last weekend, we met with some people who had a particular niche in the market. this last weekend we met with some people who had a particular niche in the market Was really exciting. was really exciting The niche in total was $250 million. the niche in total was $250 million It's nice, but it doesn't help us a lot. it's nice but it doesn't help us a lot We're actively looking for niches. we're actively looking for niches When you're looking for niches, you don't put the money to use as quickly as possible. when you're looking for niches you don't put the money to use as quickly as possible We do believe, however, in spite of what everyone else seems to be saying, as we said, inflation is here to stay for certainly a few years, and we think interest rates will move up, especially the intermediate term rates, which is where we want to invest. we do believe however in spite of what everyone else seems to be saying as we said inflation is here to stay for certainly a few years and we think interest rates will move up especially the intermediate term rates which is where we want to invest We've reduced our duration of our portfolio to where it's well below the duration we're shooting for. we've reduced our duration of our portfolio to where it's well below the duration we're shooting for As we start to see interest rates move higher, we think we'll be able to find pretty standard market kinds of things in the fixed income area that we'll be able to invest in and get closer to our target. As we start to see interest rates move higher, we think we'll be able to find pretty standard market kinds of things in the fixed income area that we'll be able to invest in and get closer to our target. as we start to see interest rates move higher we think we'll be able to find pretty standard market kinds of things in the fixed income area that we'll be able to invest in and get closer to our target

Speaker 2: Got you. How long do you think that takes? Sounds like the Fed's going to start tightening here. What's your perspective? Got you. got you How long do you think that takes? how long do you think that takes Sounds like the Fed's going to start tightening here. sounds like the fed's going to start tightening here What's your perspective? what's your perspective

Speaker 1: We think that one of the things that is going to face the government is the Federal Reserve has effectively funded much of the government's increasing deficits. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have fallen in love with increasing deficits. We'll see where those increasing spending deficits take us to, and eventually they're going to result in increasing interest rates. We think that that's probably something you'll see in the end of the first quarter of next year or early second quarter of next year. We think that one of the things that is going to face the government is the Federal Reserve has effectively funded much of the government's increasing deficits. we think that one of the things that is going to face the government is the federal reserve has effectively funded much of the government's increasing deficits Both the Republicans and the Democrats have fallen in love with increasing deficits. both the republicans and the democrats have fallen in love with increasing deficits We'll see where those increasing spending deficits take us to, and eventually they're going to result in increasing interest rates. we'll see where those increasing spending deficits take us to and eventually they're going to result in increasing interest rates We think that that's probably something you'll see in the end of the first quarter of next year or early second quarter of next year. we think that that's probably something you'll see in the end of the first quarter of next year or early second quarter of next year

Speaker 2: Great. Let's talk a little bit also about capital management. If I take a look at the valuation of your guys' stock, to me, it doesn't reflect a hard market anymore, right? Whereas some other ones out there do. Does that at all lean you more towards share buyback versus special dividends, given where your stock's trading right now? Great. great Let's talk a little bit also about capital management. let's talk a little bit also about capital management If I take a look at the valuation of your guys' stock, to me, it doesn't reflect a hard market anymore, right? if i take a look at the valuation of your guys' stock to me it doesn't reflect a hard market anymore right Whereas some other ones out there do. whereas some other ones out there do Does that at all lean you more towards share buyback versus special dividends, given where your stock's trading right now? does that at all lean you more towards share buyback versus special dividends given where your stock's trading right now

Speaker 1: Every day, we look at the stock price, we look at opportunities, we look at our growth, and you try and balance all those things. One of the things that we see is continuing to grow as rapidly as we are makes us need to keep a little more capital than we might have thought. We have to balance all those things. We have to be sure that we always have enough capital to write all the profitable business that comes our way. That's our number one goal. For the moment, we have a lot of that profitable business coming our way. It's a continuous judgment. At some point, we make that decision to buy back stock or to pay a special dividend. Our first goal is to write all the good profitable business that's out there. Every day, we look at the stock price, we look at opportunities, we look at our growth, and you try and balance all those things. every day we look at the stock price we look at opportunities we look at our growth and you try and balance all those things One of the things that we see is continuing to grow as rapidly as we are makes us need to keep a little more capital than we might have thought. one of the things that we see is continuing to grow as rapidly as we are makes us need to keep a little more capital than we might have thought We have to balance all those things. we have to balance all those things We have to be sure that we always have enough capital to write all the profitable business that comes our way. we have to be sure that we always have enough capital to write all the profitable business that comes our way That's our number one goal. that's our number one goal For the moment, we have a lot of that profitable business coming our way. for the moment we have a lot of that profitable business coming our way It's a continuous judgment. it's a continuous judgment At some point, we make that decision to buy back stock or to pay a special dividend. at some point we make that decision to buy back stock or to pay a special dividend Our first goal is to write all the good profitable business that's out there. our first goal is to write all the good profitable business that's out there

Speaker 2: Got you. Makes sense. Let's see what else I have here for you. Oh, you know what's something we haven't talked about in a while? It briefly gets mentioned in the call and then people ask about it is your High-Net-Worth Personal Lines business. How is that progressing? How competitive is that market? It seems like a lot of players wanted to get into it. Maybe it's less so today, just given what's happening with cat losses and stuff. Maybe talk a little bit about that. Got you. got you Makes sense. makes sense Let's see what else I have here for you. let's see what else i have here for you Oh, you know what's something we haven't talked about in a while? oh you know what's something we haven't talked about in a while It briefly gets mentioned in the call and then people ask about it is your High-Net-Worth Personal Lines business. it briefly gets mentioned in the call and then people ask about it is your high-net-worth personal lines business How is that progressing? how is that progressing How competitive is that market? how competitive is that market It seems like a lot of players wanted to get into it. it seems like a lot of players wanted to get into it Maybe it's less so today, just given what's happening with cat losses and stuff. maybe it's less so today just given what's happening with cat losses and stuff Maybe talk a little bit about that. maybe talk a little bit about that

Speaker 3: Brian, we've been very pleased with the progress. I think as we've chatted about offline, I'm not sure if we fully appreciated how significant the build-out of the platform is in order to play the game. Which, again, it's not just about money, it took time. Actually that's been achieved for some period of time, and the concept of build it and they will come seems to apply here. The business has grown very quickly. We're quite pleased with the margins. We participate in the states that you'd want to be, both from an opportunity perspective as well as avoiding some of the states that are fairly problematic, we have chosen not to go into. Brian, we've been very pleased with the progress. brian we've been very pleased with the progress I think as we've chatted about offline, I'm not sure if we fully appreciated how significant the build-out of the platform is in order to play the game. i think as we've chatted about offline i'm not sure if we fully appreciated how significant the build-out of the platform is in order to play the game Which, again, it's not just about money, it took time. which again it's not just about money it took time Actually that's been achieved for some period of time, and the concept of build it and they will come seems to apply here. actually that's been achieved for some period of time and the concept of build it and they will come seems to apply here The business has grown very quickly. the business has grown very quickly We're quite pleased with the margins. we're quite pleased with the margins We participate in the states that you'd want to be, both from an opportunity perspective as well as avoiding some of the states that are fairly problematic, we have chosen not to go into. we participate in the states that you'd want to be both from an opportunity perspective as well as avoiding some of the states that are fairly problematic we have chosen not to go into Quite frankly, many of the leading players in the space seem to be terribly distracted by what I would define as internal issues, strategic issues, and that's creating real opportunity for us. The business is exceeding expectations and building more momentum every day at this stage. Quite frankly, many of the leading players in the space seem to be terribly distracted by what I would define as internal issues, strategic issues, and that's creating real opportunity for us. quite frankly many of the leading players in the space seem to be terribly distracted by what i would define as internal issues strategic issues and that's creating real opportunity for us The business is exceeding expectations and building more momentum every day at this stage. the business is exceeding expectations and building more momentum every day at this stage

Speaker 2: I guess kind of another question that came in. Is this new kind of the market right now creating opportunities to launch new businesses? I guess kind of another question that came in. i guess kind of another question that came in Is this new kind of the market right now creating opportunities to launch new businesses? is this new kind of the market right now creating opportunities to launch new businesses

Speaker 3: Certainly something where we are always paying attention. Number 1 is we need to make sure that we believe in the niche or segment of the market long term. Number 2, we need to make sure that we're able to find people with outstanding skills that are able to effectively manage capital within that space effectively and responsibly on behalf of the shareholders. If we're able to do that, obviously market conditions being what they are today, that creates a tailwind and allows you to grow quickly. We've announced a couple of things over the past 12 months. Certainly we're always looking for new opportunities, again, focused on parts of the market that we think offer long-term promise combined with skilled people. Nothing to announce at your conference here today, Brian, but certainly we are actively kissing frogs, and we'll see if anything turns into something. Certainly something where we are always paying attention. certainly something where we are always paying attention Number 1 is we need to make sure that we believe in the niche or segment of the market long term. number 1 is we need to make sure that we believe in the niche or segment of the market long term Number 2, we need to make sure that we're able to find people with outstanding skills that are able to effectively manage capital within that space effectively and responsibly on behalf of the shareholders. number 2 we need to make sure that we're able to find people with outstanding skills that are able to effectively manage capital within that space effectively and responsibly on behalf of the shareholders If we're able to do that, obviously market conditions being what they are today, that creates a tailwind and allows you to grow quickly. if we're able to do that obviously market conditions being what they are today that creates a tailwind and allows you to grow quickly We've announced a couple of things over the past 12 months. we've announced a couple of things over the past 12 months Certainly we're always looking for new opportunities, again, focused on parts of the market that we think offer long-term promise combined with skilled people. certainly we're always looking for new opportunities again focused on parts of the market that we think offer long-term promise combined with skilled people Nothing to announce at your conference here today, Brian, but certainly we are actively kissing frogs, and we'll see if anything turns into something. nothing to announce at your conference here today brian but certainly we are actively kissing frogs and we'll see if anything turns into something

Speaker 2: Got you. All right, we're almost at the end of our time, last question here for you both. I'm a new investor. I'm looking at W. R. Berkley. Why do I buy your stock today? Got you. got you All right, we're almost at the end of our time, last question here for you both. all right we're almost at the end of our time last question here for you both I'm a new investor. i'm a new investor I'm looking at W. i'm looking at w R. r Berkley. berkley Why do I buy your stock today? why do i buy your stock today

Speaker 3: You get what you pay for. I think that, long story short, when the day's all done, presumably it's all about value creation and risk-adjusted return. I think one of the things that some people don't fully appreciate is there are some businesses that maybe trade at book value, and maybe you think in a hardening market or a rising tide, that's a better opportunity. I think history would suggest that while as a multiple of book, maybe we seem more expensive as far as value goes and ability to create value for shareholders, I think the premium price is very worthwhile. You get what you pay for. you get what you pay for I think that, long story short, when the day's all done, presumably it's all about value creation and risk-adjusted return. i think that long story short when the day's all done presumably it's all about value creation and risk-adjusted return I think one of the things that some people don't fully appreciate is there are some businesses that maybe trade at book value, and maybe you think in a hardening market or a rising tide, that's a better opportunity. i think one of the things that some people don't fully appreciate is there are some businesses that maybe trade at book value and maybe you think in a hardening market or a rising tide that's a better opportunity I think history would suggest that while as a multiple of book, maybe we seem more expensive as far as value goes and ability to create value for shareholders, I think the premium price is very worthwhile. i think history would suggest that while as a multiple of book maybe we seem more expensive as far as value goes and ability to create value for shareholders i think the premium price is very worthwhile I think the other piece that's not necessarily always considered is one of the reasons why we've been able to build book value for shareholders so much more quickly than most is because of how we have focused and fashioned the portfolio on the underwriting side. When you compare our ability to build book value compared to most of our peers, why can we do it quicker? Well, it's because we don't give money back when there's a CAT event. There are many other market participants that will have fine results, and then there will be a CAT event, and they will give a lot of it back. How we manage volatility, we do not give it back the same way others do. I think the other piece that's not necessarily always considered is one of the reasons why we've been able to build book value for shareholders so much more quickly than most is because of how we have focused and fashioned the portfolio on the underwriting side. i think the other piece that's not necessarily always considered is one of the reasons why we've been able to build book value for shareholders so much more quickly than most is because of how we have focused and fashioned the portfolio on the underwriting side When you compare our ability to build book value compared to most of our peers, why can we do it quicker? when you compare our ability to build book value compared to most of our peers why can we do it quicker Well, it's because we don't give money back when there's a CAT event. well it's because we don't give money back when there's a cat event There are many other market participants that will have fine results, and then there will be a CAT event, and they will give a lot of it back. there are many other market participants that will have fine results and then there will be a cat event and they will give a lot of it back How we manage volatility, we do not give it back the same way others do. how we manage volatility we do not give it back the same way others do When the day is all done, from my perspective, it's about how well you can build book value over a period of time, and I think we have a long history of being able to do that reasonably successfully. When the day is all done, from my perspective, it's about how well you can build book value over a period of time, and I think we have a long history of being able to do that reasonably successfully. when the day is all done from my perspective it's about how well you can build book value over a period of time and i think we have a long history of being able to do that reasonably successfully

Speaker 1: I want to add one thing. I want to add one thing. i want to add one thing

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: We are unique. We are unique in that our company is run by owners. Every one of the top 70 people who work for us get granted stock, and they keep it, and they have to keep it until they retire. We are unique. we are unique We are unique in that our company is run by owners. we are unique in that our company is run by owners Every one of the top 70 people who work for us get granted stock, and they keep it, and they have to keep it until they retire. every one of the top 70 people who work for us get granted stock and they keep it and they have to keep it until they retire Every single one of our top managers own substantially more securities in W. R. Berkley than any of our competitors. It gives a different mindset. When you buy W. R. Berkley stock, you're buying a company whose managers own it and believe in it. It's a very different culture and mindset, and it's priceless. Every single one of our top managers own substantially more securities in W. every single one of our top managers own substantially more securities in w R. r Berkley than any of our competitors. berkley than any of our competitors It gives a different mindset. it gives a different mindset When you buy W. when you buy w R. r Berkley stock, you're buying a company whose managers own it and believe in it. berkley stock you're buying a company whose managers own it and believe in it It's a very different culture and mindset, and it's priceless. it's a very different culture and mindset and it's priceless

Speaker 2: Great. That's a great way to end it right there. Listen, Bill, Rob, that was terrific. I really enjoyed the discussion. Thanks again and best of luck, and we'll be in touch here soon. Great. great That's a great way to end it right there. that's a great way to end it right there Listen, Bill, Rob, that was terrific. listen bill rob that was terrific I really enjoyed the discussion. i really enjoyed the discussion Thanks again and best of luck, and we'll be in touch here soon. thanks again and best of luck and we'll be in touch here soon

Speaker 3: Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Brian. thanks brian

Speaker 1: Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. thanks for having us