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Operator
Conference Host
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q3 2024 ARCH Capital Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Before the company gets started with its update, management wants to first remind everyone that certain statements in today's press release and discussed on this call may constitute forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. These statements are based upon management's current assessments and assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. For more information on the risks and other factors that may affect future performance, investors should review the periodic reports that are filed by the company with the SEC from time to time, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the 2023 fiscal year. Additionally, certain statements contained in the call that are not based on historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company intends the forward-looking statements in the call to be subject to the safe harbor created thereby. Management will also make references to certain non-GAAP measures of financial performance. The reconciliations to GAAP for each non-GAAP financial measure can be found in the company's current report on Form 8K furnished to the SEC yesterday, which contains the company's earnings press release and is available on the company's website at www.archgroup.com and on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. I would now like to introduce your hosts for today's conference, Mr. Nicholas Papadopoulos and Mr. Francois Morin. Sirs, you may begin.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
Good morning and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. I'd like to begin by wishing the best to my friend and my business partners of 23 years, Mark Goldison, who retired earlier this month. Art had a fantastic run under Mark's leadership. While we will miss him, I'm very excited about the opportunities before us. My message to our shareholders, employees, brokers, clients, and business partners is that it is business as usual at Arch. Our core objective remains unchanged, to be the best-in-class specialty lines insurer in the market. We will continue to execute on the key pillars of our strategy, which are build a diversified mix of businesses, actively manage the underwriting cycle, remain prudent stewards of capital, be dynamic managers of a data-driven enterprise, and foster a culture that attracts best-in-class talent. Back to the quarter, where ARCH generated strong top and bottom line results with an annualized operating return on equity of 14.8% and an 8.1% increase in book value per share. Our third quarter results included 450 million of CAT losses across multiple events, including Hurricane Eileen. It's worth noting that this cat loss is within our third quarter seasonally adjusted cat load. Overall, the P&C environment remains very favorable, despite increasing competition in many lines of business, making underwriting and risk mitigation increasingly important. Underwriting strategies empower our businesses to respond quickly to their trading environment. This has been and remains a competitive advantage as we pursue those opportunities with the best risk-adjusted return. Industry CAT losses have once again exceeded $100 billion for the third quarter. We should continue to support increasing demand for property insurance and reinsurance. Even with this increased CAT activity, we believe the property market remains attractive and one in which disciplined underwriters can produce attractive return on CAT. Casualty rates continue to outpace trend, which is consistent with our hypothesis of a hardening casualty market. We have selectively increased our casualty riding in both insurance and reinsurance as the markets respond to claims inflation and uncertainty around loss trend with higher prices. Turning now to underwriting segments, our insurance segment was 1.8 billion of net premium and delivered 120 million of underwriting income in the third quarter. Our acquisition of the mid-corp and entertainment business from Allianz in August helped drive a 20% growth over the same quarter a year ago. We are confident that the mid-corp team will be an important part of our growth story as we further enhance our capabilities in the middle markets. Excluding mid-corp, insurance growth was mid-single digit as we continue to find attractive growth opportunity in casualty, programs, and our London market specialty business. Premium rates remained competitive in ENS property and professional lines. Reinsurance had another excellent growth quarter with net premium return up more than 24% to over $1.9 billion, along with underwriting income of $149 million, as our team continued to benefit from more robust relationships with our brokers and assistants. Growth was driven by property X cap, including facultative business, casualty, and other specialty. Our industry-leading mortgage segment again contributed significantly to our earnings, with $269 million of underwriting income for the quarter. Underlying fundamentals remain excellent for the mortgage insurance industry, including strong credit conditions and continued favorable house price appreciation. Mortgage origination activities remains light, but new insurance return of $13.5 billion was in line with our expectation, as relatively high mortgage rates and continued house price appreciation have kept most buyers on the sidelines. Finally, the contributions from our investment portfolio were substantial. In the quarter, Arch Investment Management generated $399 million of net investment income. Significant operating cash flows from our underwriting units should support continued growth of our assets under management, setting us up for strong investment contributions in the years to come. Looking ahead, we lack our position in the market opportunities. This is true as we enter a responsible growth part of the P&C cycle, where disciplined underwriting and thoughtful risk selection are essential to success. A few final comments in closing. Arts has proven to be an exceptional company defined by a culture of underwriting excellence, underpinned by our core strategies of cycle management and thoughtful capital allocation. That was true yesterday, it is true today, and it will be true tomorrow. I'm very excited and proud to lead this company and work with our leadership team as we continue to strive to deliver the greatest value to our clients and shareholders over the long term. And now I'll turn it over to François to provide some more color on our financial result in the quarter, and then we will return to take your questions. François.
Francois Morin
CFO
Thank you, Nicolas, and good morning to all. As you know by now, we reported third quarter after-tax operating income of $1.99 per share for an annualized operating return on average common equity of 14.8%. Book value per share was $57 as of September 30, up 8.1% for the quarter and 21.4% on a year-to-date basis. Once again, our three business segments delivered excellent underlying results, highlighted by $538 million in underwriting income and an 86.6% combined ratio, which was slightly elevated from an active catastrophe quarter. Our combined ratio was 78.3% on an underlying XCAP accident year basis. Overall, current accident year catastrophe losses were $450 million for the group. In the quarter, split roughly 80-20% between the reinsurance and insurance segments. Approximately 45% of our catastrophe losses this quarter are due to Hurricane Helene, with the rest coming from a series of events, including Canadian events, smaller named hurricanes, U.S. severe convective storms, flooding in Europe, and other events across the globe. As of October 1, our peak zone natural cap probable maximum loss for a single event, one in 200-year return level on a net basis increased slightly. and now stands at 8.1 percent of tangible shareholders' equity as we incorporated exposures from the mid-corp acquisition on August 1. Our PML remains well below our internal limits. Our underwriting income included $119 million of favorable prior development on a pre-tax basis in the quarter, our three points on the combined ratio across our three segments. We recognize favorable development across many lines of business, but primarily in short tail lines in our property and casualty segments and in mortgage due to strong cure activity. As you know, we closed on our purchase of the U.S. Midcorp and Entertainment Insurance businesses from Allianz on August 1st, and I would like to expand on a few items that impacted our financials this quarter. First, The net written premium coming from the acquired businesses was $209 million for the two-month period, contributing to the reported year-over-year premium growth for our insurance segment. Second, in accordance with U.S. GAAP, the fair value of the acquired balance sheet does not include an asset for deferred acquisition costs. Therefore, since there is no amortization of deferred acquisition costs associated with the enforced business at the time of the acquisition, The current quarter's acquisition expense ratio is lower than in the third quarter of 2023. This item resulted in a benefit this quarter of approximately 1.9 point in the insurance segment's acquisition expense ratio. Although we would expect this benefit to become less significant over the next three to four quarters as a larger proportion of our earned premium relates to premium written after the closing date. Operating expenses in the new business were also somewhat lower than ultimately expected as we ramp up operations, contributing to a 60 basis point benefit in the quarter. Third, as is required with business combinations, we recorded goodwill and intangibles in connection with the transaction, primarily from the value of the business acquired, distribution relationships, and the present value adjustment related to the reserves for losses and loss adjustment expenses. This quarter, we incurred an expense for the amortization of intangibles of $88 million, $63 million of which was for the mid-corp and entertainment acquisition. We expect our overall amortization expense across the group to be approximately $100 million in the fourth quarter of this year and $195 million in 2025 spread evenly throughout the four quarters. While still early, The mid-core business is performing as expected, or even maybe slightly better, and we are satisfied with the progress we are making in our integration activities. Turning to our reinsurance group, the team delivered a very solid 92.3% combined ratio in an active catastrophe quarter. Of note, the reported net written premium growth of 24.5% in a quarter was augmented by reinstatement premiums. Adjusting for this item, the growth rate would have been approximately 22.4%. The mortgage segment reported an excellent 14.8% combined ratio as cure activity on delinquent mortgages is strong and the underlying credit quality of the book remains very high. The reported delinquency rate at USMI inched up slightly this quarter and was impacted primarily by seasonal factors. On the investment front, we earned a combined $570 million pre-tax from net investment income and income from funds accounted using the equity method, or $1.49 per share. Our investment income reflects approximately $20 million earned during the two-month period from the assets we received in connection with the mid-corp acquisition. Total return for the portfolio came in at 3.97% for the quarter, as there was significant price appreciation on our fixed income portfolio due to lower interest rates. The appreciation of our available for sale investment portfolio resulted in a book value increase of $1.56 per share net of tax. Cash flow from operations remained strong and exceeds $5 billion on a year-to-date basis. Our effective tax rate on a pre-tax operating income was an expense of 8% for the third quarter and our annualized effective tax rate remains in the 9 to 11 percent range for the full year of 2024. In closing, our balance sheet is strong with common shareholders' equity of $21.4 billion and a debt plus preferred to capital ratio of 14.2 percent. This level of financial resources gives us flexibility to deploy capital as needed and continue delivering outstanding results for the benefit of our shareholders. With these introductory comments, we are now prepared to take your questions.
Operator
Conference Host
Thank you. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question at this time, please press star 1 on your touchtone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star 1 again. And if you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset. Our first question comes from the line of Elise Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Elise Greenspan
Analyst at Wells Fargo
Hi, thanks. Good morning. I guess my first question is on the Allianz deal. You know, you gave us some good color on the expenses, but anyway, could you give us a sense of just the impact on the underlying loss ratio within the insurance segment in the quarter?
Francois Morin
CFO
Yeah, sure. I mean, just to give you a bit more details on that, yeah, the normalized, meaning XCAT, X and Euro loss ratio for the segment was 57.6. Right. And, um, you know, the standalone for, uh, for the mid-core business was 62% in the quarter. So that's, you know, um, how it came up. So effectively kind of increased, uh, you know, call it by 70 basis points that increased, uh, the report of loss ratio or the X cap loss ratio.
Elise Greenspan
Analyst at Wells Fargo
Okay. And then in reinsurance, um, you know, the margin sometimes does fluctuate quarter to quarter, um, But the underlying loss ratio did trend up in the Q3. Was there anything, you know, business mix in there that might have impacted that in the quarter?
Francois Morin
CFO
Nothing specific. Again, we'll go back to our, you know, trailing 12 months way of looking at things. I mean, I took another look this morning and, you know, there's nothing unusual in the quarter. I mean, the trends are very consistent. Trailing 12 months are doing very well. So the answer is, you know, nothing to report. I mean, there's just kind of, you know, some claims happen, some don't. And, you know, over the last 12 months, we're, you know, very comfortable with the loss picks and how things are behaving.
Elise Greenspan
Analyst at Wells Fargo
And then my last question is on capital, right? You know, you guys have, you know, left the door open, just given your, you know, excess capital position to, you know, doing something, right? to return to shareholders, be that a quarterly dividend, a special, or even a return to repurchase. So what's the timing there? I thought maybe it was post the end of wind season. Does that still apply? And how are you thinking about how you might look to return capital to shareholders?
Francois Morin
CFO
I mean, you hit all the good points. I think it's very much a conversation. And it's not a new conversation. It's a conversation we have all the time. And yes, we had certainly mentioned that we wanted to wait until the end of the win season, which is coming close to an end. And as we get ready for 2025, certainly part of the outlook for 2025 growth opportunities, where we may be able to deploy the capital is something we'll consider as well. But Yeah, no question that this is an area that we're focused on and, you know, I'll say, you know, you should, you know, we're not sleeping on it and we'll report back when there's more to say on that.
Operator
Conference Host
Okay, thank you.
Francois Morin
CFO
You're welcome.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Kliegerman with TD Cowan.
Andrew Kliegerman
Analyst at TD Cowan
Good morning. Maybe following up on the insurance division and mid-corp. And I think, Francois, if I heard correctly, the mid-corp impact on the underlying loss ratio was about 60 to 70 basis points. And if that's the case, it kind of moved up a fair amount, like 250 bps year over year. So I'm trying to get a sense of, you know, should we be thinking that this is kind of a good run rate underlying number for the loss ratio? How should we think about it going forward?
Francois Morin
CFO
Well, I mean, we indicated that we thought initially, I mean, we have to get, you know, call it under the hood. We have to understand the business. But we certainly had said that, you know, in the first year, we thought this business was going to be breakeven for us. So, yeah, we should expect a little increase in the loss ratio and the combined ratio for the segment, no question. In terms of run rate, I'd be a little bit, you know, hesitant to commit to anything beyond, call it the first, you know, year. I think we're already, you know, making adjustments, taking, underwriting the, you know, actions in terms of what we like, what we don't like as much. I think there is good traction, good opportunities in terms of the casualty business that they write. The right environment is very strong, so that will help, we think. So, you know, that's, again, the short-term answer is yes. I think the combined ratio will probably inch up a little bit, but we have, you know, very, you know, definitive, you know, ideas and plans on how to bring that down as we move forward.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
Yeah, and I think it's, and maybe it's dynamic. I mean, again, we... I mean, if you look at the insurance group overall, it's heavy, you know, non-property lines, so the property line attract lower loss ratios. We were growing in the property line in the last couple of years, and the market now makes it more difficult. And, you know, we have a large component of professional lines where, you know, rates have been challenging, so that probably in-couple loss ratio And then we have casualty where I think we think there is opportunities potentially to grow more with higher margin, but he may come also with a higher loss ratio than property. So, you know, that's a playbook that we are facing.
Andrew Kliegerman
Analyst at TD Cowan
Interesting. And maybe, you know, breaking down some of the lines of business and insurance, you know, what kind of rate are you seeing and is this rate exceeding loss costs? I suspect it's not in property, but maybe you could talk a little bit about some of the key lines in insurance.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
So, I mean, let's talk about casualty, which is, you know, talk of the time. You know, I think in casualty, we definitely see, you know, rate over trend, but there are really good reasons for that. I think the market is going through some pain, and so, I think we are underweight, you know, casualty, you know, we historically underweight casualty. So now I think based on our own analysis of the pocket of casualty business that we like, we are selectively growing both from the insurance and the insurance side. So there, you know, I expect margin to expand. I think if you mentioned property, you know, if you talk about, insurance versus insurance. We are mostly focusing on insurance. You know, on ENS property, we think the profitability is actually very attractive. I think over the last few years and post, you know, the hurricane in, I think the business has reacted with a lot of weight increase and a lot of change in terms and conditions, which make the business really attractive. So there, I think after a year without losses, people have a pretty short memories, you know, we see a lot more, you know, competitions coming from Lloyd's, coming from MGS, coming from new entrants that want to have a piece of that business. So I think we, you know, our rates are pretty flat, but I think we would expect that, you know, margin on the business will be, you know, will depend on you know, the reaction to the catastrophes that just happened. So I think, you know, with Milton and Helene, my expectation is things would stabilize, but ultimately it's the supply and the demand. There's more supply. We think there's more demand. I think the demand has been constrained by the high price and high deductibles and the high retention on the reinsurance side. So I think we're close to an equilibrium. So I think the business will remain attractive for a while.
Andrew Kliegerman
Analyst at TD Cowan
Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from the line of Mike Zaremski with BMO Capital Markets.
Mike Zaremski
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
Hi. First question, thanks, is on catastrophes. So I don't know if you disclosed what you're assuming for Hurricane Helene. I know you're – I think the cats were a bit higher than consensus, but you guys have done a good job of giving us disclosure that you've been taking more risk in Florida specifically and just overall. And then also, should we be thinking about Milton – as well. I think there's some conflicting numbers out there on Milton. Sure, PCS is only at 5 billion so far, but, you know, there's some much bigger numbers out there.
Francois Morin
CFO
Yeah, sure. On Helene, you know, our view is that it's going to be the type of event that probably will have a bit more leakage than you would otherwise expect. I mean, it's just a you know, multiple states and it's, you know, a lot of flooding. So we are currently assuming, call it a $12 to $14 billion industry loss, which is maybe higher than others. But, you know, that's how we see it today. I mean, things could change, but that hopefully informs, you know, how we thought about the event initially and, you know, is reflected in our third quarter numbers. As relates to Milton, we need to do a bit more work, but we will certainly give you our, you know, initial thoughts on that, I think, in the coming weeks in terms of what a loss, you know, what a range of estimates could be for us. But, you know, no question that, you know, what we thought, what people thought might have been, you know, a really scary and large event, you know, doesn't seem to have materialized. I think industry estimates are coming down as we speak. So call it the $30 billion plus or minus market loss seems to be about right, given what we know today. And in terms of our own loss related to that, I mean, again, more to come, but you shouldn't expect anything unusual from us. I think from what we can tell at this point, it should be in a relatively consistent kind of market share for us for an event of that size.
Mike Zaremski
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
Okay, that's helpful. And my last question for Nikolas, is there any context or color you can add to why the CEO change took place? That's been the number one question I'm sure you all have received, and we have too. People are wondering if it's performance-related versus just some other events or anything else. Any color you'd be able to add?
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
I didn't understand the deal.
Francois Morin
CFO
No, the CEO, Mark's departure.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
Oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry. Should know that. No, I mean, again, it was a personal decision of his. I think, you know, as I said, Mark and I were a good friend. You know, it's a bit bittersweet for me, but, you know, based on his decision, I'm actually, you know, very excited about the... the opportunity in front of us. I think, you know, Mark is, I think Arch is bigger than any one of us. And I think we have a lot to do and we have a lot of exciting things to continue to do, you know, in the coming years. And I think we have a really good, really good, you know, management team. We have 7,000 employees that are really engaged in As I said, I think Art is an exceptional company, and I'm really looking forward to continue its journey. And certainly, I think Mark Departure is not performance-related. The guy under his leadership, as I said, the company performed amazingly well.
Mike Zaremski
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
And I guess, Nicolas, it's helpful. Obviously, you'll put your own stamp on it. on the company over time and you're a different type of leader and we're all excited about your position. But I'm just curious, now that you are the boss, are there certain things we should kind of stay tuned for that have kind of been on your wishlist that you'll be able to kind of push through? Or do you kind of expect just more of the same directionally? Thanks.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
No, my message to, it's really business as usual. I think, I've been with the company for 23 years I've worked very closely with Mark in the last five or six years in setting up strategies, looking at operation changes, looking at culture. So I think we, you know, him and I were extremely aligned. So I think I would not expect, you know, any changes, you know, in the way we operate. Thank you.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from the line of Jimmy Buller with J.P. Morgan.
Jimmy Buller
Analyst at J.P. Morgan
Hey, good morning. So first, just had a question on your views on one one renewals and what do you think about the sort of supply demand imbalance and has that sort of shifted given losses from Milton or is it is your is your view consistent with how you would have thought before?
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
So is the question property cat assume?
Jimmy Buller
Analyst at J.P. Morgan
Yeah, yeah.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
Yeah, so. I think as you've seen, we've grown the book quite a bit in the last two or three years, so we think the returns are really attractive. Yes, I think the event of Milton and Eileen, in my view, what we hear is that you've stabilized the market. I think there was some supply, as I said earlier, is there from... from Lloyd's or from MGS or from our competitors, you know, after one year without losses, really wanting to get back into business and realizing that they may have missed out on a profitable line of business. What I would expect, and we see it on the insurance side, that things have stabilized. And I think, you know, my guess is At this stage is that you will do the same on the on the on the on the cat's winch on side More specifically are you expecting pricing to be down flat or?
Jimmy Buller
Analyst at J.P. Morgan
And to whatever extent you're able to qualify a quantify would be helpful.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
Yeah, I Don't have a crystal ball But I would say, you know again it's always the same we've programs that have been impacted by losses, I would expect prices to go up. In regions that have had no losses, you know, you could see, you know, in the bottom of the programs, I think people are still really scared about frequency, so I would expect, you know, the bottom to middle side of the program to perform well. The upper layers, you know, where people seem to be more comfortable to play, where competition is is coming because you are away from the mid-sized losses. It could be a little bit of weakness, but not really have a strong conviction in a way, but I think mostly stable.
Jimmy Buller
Analyst at J.P. Morgan
And then on casualty reserves, a lot of companies have had adverse development, some on recent years, some on pre-COVID years as well. Can you talk about your own comfort with your casualty reserves on your legacy book as well as the Watford business?
Francois Morin
CFO
Sure. I mean, reserves is something we looked at, you know, we look at regularly, quarterly, right? So it's nothing new here. I think we're, you know, to answer your question, we're very comfortable with our reserve levels. I think, you know, from, you know, A couple of reasons. One is we were, as Nicholas said, we have been underweight in casualty for a number of years. So as much as, yes, we do feel and see some of the impacts of social inflation and pressures on loss trends on casualty business in general, I mean, the fact that we're underweight in those lines has been very helpful. So, yes, we are monitoring casualty reserves. We have experienced some adverse development, but, you know, it's been overall very manageable. And, you know, that explains, in our mind, is a big reason as to why rates are moving up because the industry is seeing the pressure. And, you know, a way to correct for those, you know, results is really by getting more rate.
Yaron Kinnar
Analyst at Jefferies
Thank you.
Francois Morin
CFO
Yep.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from the line of KV Montessori with Deutsche Bank.
KV Montessori
Analyst at Deutsche Bank
Morning. First question is on growth. I guess, François, you've already explained the growth in primary insurance. I guess underlying, once you exclude mid-corps, about 5%. In inter-bank insurance, you also mentioned the impact of reinstatement premium. But I think you said it was still 22% growth, even adjusting for that. still a big number. Could you give us a bit more color on what drove that in terms of how much of that was pricing, how much of that was unit growth, how much of that was maybe writing more casualty business? Any type of color on that would be quite helpful, please.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
Yes, I think for the quarter, I think that the driver of the growth was a bit of casualty, return mostly out of our U.S. company where I think we selectively are trying to, are getting on programs that we haven't been. As rates get better, we think there's opportunities for us to write attractive casualty business. And the other side of the business that grew is the specialty business, you know, the return. And that's more of a, you know, business that we wrote at 1.1 that is coming in on quota shares. And some of it is, you know, we have a decent-sized book of business that support Lloyds, Lloyds Syndicates, where, you know, it's called Funds at Lloyds, where we get quota share of what they write, net of their protection. That business is growing, Lloyd is growing, and we think it's a profitable business, so we benefit from that. And the second aspect is we have a decent-sized book of motor, you know, United Kingdom motor, and that business is really dislocated, has been dislocated, and we've been playing in that field for a while, and as rates are continuing to go up, and I think they added at 1.1 an additional relationship, We're benefiting of this in the quarter, but it's not any action that we actually took during this specific quarter. So I think the last piece is our facultative operation that, you know, has an amazing track record and is, you know, is one of the leading facultative operation, property operation in North America, and they also have shown some excellent growth.
KV Montessori
Analyst at Deutsche Bank
Perfect. My follow-up is on the mortgage insurance business. I guess two parts to that question. The first one is the growth in the quarter, was that primarily driven by the Fed cuts that just boosted demand? And I guess linked to that is the pickup in delinquency in mortgage insurance, is that also just linked to more activity? I know you mentioned some seasonal factors. I don't know where those were. If there's any details we can have on that, please.
Francois Morin
CFO
Yeah, I'll start with that. I think the delinquency, again, yes, it's up, but it's absolutely very much within our expectations. The one thing maybe for people to remember or appreciate is, given we refinanced a significant part of the book in 2020 and 2021, we're now entering, you know, the call it the prime years of when delinquencies get reported. So that's very much part of the, again, within our expectations, right? So as new loans get on the books, usually it takes, you know, three, four years for them to show a bit of, just call it really predictable and normal delinquencies. So that explains why, in aggregate, delinquency rate is trending up a little bit. And more specifically in the seasonal aspect, I mean, every year, you know, there's fairly predictable behaviors that we see from the borrowers, whether they get their tax refunds in the first quarter and then they catch up on their mortgages and whether they borrow more to buy holiday presents. So, you know, that happens. And then the third quarter is typically expected and seen as we, I mean, we've seen that in the recent history that the delinquency rate just goes up in the third quarter without, you know, any more, you know, it's just So, again, we're very comfortable with the overall rate. And, again, there's a little bit, you know, the same differential that I mentioned last quarter related to the RMIC acquisition is still there. So it's a pre-financial crisis book that has its own set of characteristics. So we're, again, overall very happy, very comfortable with the delinquency rate. And in terms of the premium, your first part of the question, you know, there's a couple of accounting, you know, differences and nuances this quarter. So I wouldn't read too much, I think, in the growth that we saw this quarter. There's a little bit of a catch-up on premium that was related to old or related to Bellamy transactions on the seeded side. So, you know, generally speaking, I'd say the mortgage segment is is relatively flat in terms of growth opportunities. Thank you.
David Modemaden
Analyst at Evercore ISI
You're welcome.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from the line of David Modemaden with Evercore ISI.
David Modemaden
Analyst at Evercore ISI
Thanks. Good morning. Francois, thanks. Thanks so much for all the detail you gave on the insurance underlying loss ratio, both including and excluding the mid-core So I guess just sort of running through those numbers there, it looks like if I take out mid-corp, it was about a 57% underlying loss ratio for the sort of core arch insurance business. And so that picked up a little over 100 basis points versus last quarter and also on a year-over-year basis. So I'm just wondering if you could help me think through some of the drivers. of that increase.
Francois Morin
CFO
Yeah, I'd say, again, it's, Nicholas touched on it, it's growth-related and mixed, right, in the sense that, you know, where you saw us grow this quarter, and, you know, I don't think we have the time to look at, you know, in the supplement, how we report the lines of business, which is, you know, which we have changed this quarter relative to you know, the past, more growth in casualty and other liability lines of business, both, I mean, primarily on an occurrence basis, claims made, which is more professional lines book and cyber that has come down. But, you know, that business, you know, typically carries a higher, you know, accident year loss ratio than property business once we remove the cap load. So, That is really the big driver of the pickup is really mix as we have grown in the last little while, more in casualty and remain relatively flat on property.
David Modemaden
Analyst at Evercore ISI
Got it. Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate that. And then maybe a follow-up on that. on the reserves just within insurance and reinsurance. I was wondering if there's any way you could size those moving pieces for us between the short tail and the long tail development.
Francois Morin
CFO
Well, I mean, we, in total, I mean, and that'll be in the, in the, in the queue, but yeah, we definitely very favorable on on short tail lines of business, a little bit of adverse on long tail lines. So that's, consistent with recent trends. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, we are, you know, we're seeing a little bit of pressure on casualty, longer tail lines of business. You know, there's been some favorable on workers' comp, as you've seen, I'm sure, with many of our, you know, competitors. I think that's been a consistent story for quite some time. But, you know, again, the bottom line in aggregate is we're, you know, we're able to, you know, we're observing kind of favorable development lower actual than expected, and that is coming through in our numbers. Understood. Thank you. You're welcome.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from the line of Yaron Kinnar with Jefferies.
Francois Morin
CFO
Yaron? I think he might have dropped. We're not hearing anything.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from the line of Meyer Shields with KBW.
Meyer Shields
Analyst at KBW
Great. Thanks so much. I think we've talked about this in the past, but I wanted to get Nicholas's thoughts on cycle management, specifically, I guess, with retail distribution and, in particular, the mid-core business. Is that less amenable to cycle management?
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
So, I mean, my view is it's a different type of cycle management. I mean, you know, what's attractive with the mid-core business is it's more stable, so which means that the cycles are more muted. You don't see, you know, you don't see the same price going up and down like XSDNO, public XSDNO, where, you know, you go up 40 and you make up 20 or 10. So I think in the middle market business, I think you have more you know, it's going up slower and it's, you know, and it's going down much slower. So I think that provides, the thing we like is that provides a much balance to our insurance book that has a large component of, you know, larger corporate risks that are more subject to, you know, large fluctuations in rates. So, and, you know, the, yeah, the, The thing that's attractive to us is the value proposition of a carrier in the mid-corp segment is better because usually the distribution partner, the broker, rely on the carrier to provide more than one line of business. So you're more important to him. The interaction with the carrier is more valued. So you create the stickiness that really help, you know, you're not competing solely on price, where, you know, when you deal with a large account and a risk manager, you know, price is an important component of the value proposition. But here, I think, so it's less subject to, in my view, price competition, which make it more stable and more attractive. And I think the thing that's interesting to us, you know, with the mid-corp acquisition is that the timing is pretty good because we've seen price increases on the property side because this book is more exposed to secondary periods and the liability component of the book is subject to the discussion that we talked about before. So I think our timing is really good. I think the book looks to be performing well, well enough. And so we're pretty excited to be able to finally get like a decent chunk of that business and to be at scale and being able to expand our footprint in what we think is a very attractive part of the market.
Meyer Shields
Analyst at KBW
Okay, that's very helpful. And then if I can switch gears a little bit, I know it's early on the January 1 discussions for PropertyCat. Is there anything you can share with regard to expectations for seating commission trends in casualty reinsurance?
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
So I'm going to be the wise person here. I think as we ensure, including ourselves, see more bad news coming from the past, I mean, there will be pressure on the Seating Commission. You would expect that. The question is the supply. I mean, the pressure on the Seating Commission will be muted by the supply, because it if there's more people wanting the business and there's a limited amount of business being placed, you know, I think the brokers is going to, you know, is going to play a big role in minimizing, I mean, the directions of where the sitting commission are going to be. So it's going to be, you know, some sort of a, a conflict between what the reinsurance wants and what the seeding companies are willing to do. But the driver would be the supply versus the demand, I think. And what I'm hearing is that there is ample supply in the marketplace.
Meyer Shields
Analyst at KBW
Okay, perfect. Thank you so much.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from the line of Yaron Kinnar with Jefferies.
Yaron Kinnar
Analyst at Jefferies
Thank you. Good morning, and I apologize for dropping earlier. I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into the other liability occurrence growth in insurance. How much of that came from MCE versus just organic or legacy growth?
Francois Morin
CFO
That's a good question. There was a fair amount of E&S casualty business on our kind of like that was just organic, right? So that is an area of maybe the most exciting area for us. I mean, where rates are well into the double digits in terms of rate increases. So that is a very, very attractive area. The MCE book is split. You know, there's some commercial multi-parallel. There's some occurrence of the liability occurrence. So it's a mixed bag. But I'd say I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I think the takeaway is that the rate environment in that particular line of business is very, very good right now.
Yaron Kinnar
Analyst at Jefferies
Okay. And what is it about this third quarter where the environment seems to have accelerated significantly, or at least the opportunities that another liability occurrence accelerated significantly?
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
I think it's just the functions of people realizing that, you know, the way they were looking at the reserves, you know, in the last few years is not exactly playing out. I think COVID for a while, you know, muted the claims. So people kind of, you know, in my view, sitting out there to make sure they were not making the wrong reason. And since COVID, I think we've seen some severity, large jury awards, planted jury awards, and we've seen more places where those jury awards are taking place, large jury awards. So I think you have social inflation that's driving much more severity And you have also frequency of places, you know, it used to be, you know, Cook County, you know, the South Texas-Mexican border, but now you have Georgia, you have, you know, some places in Nevada where certain juries have actually, if you get caught in one of those juries, you're going to get a significantly larger reward. So I think it's a combination of frequency and severity and people realizing that they have to stay ahead of those. the normal reaction, which I think is the right reaction for the market, has been to cut limits. Because if you're caught up in one of those difficult juries, you want to have small limits. And typically, when you have, I don't know, 2 million dollar placement with 10 players, and suddenly you have 40 players to complete the placement, some of those layers going to the you're starting to see some drastic rate increases, and that's what we're witnessing right now.
Yaron Kinnar
Analyst at Jefferies
But if I could maybe flush this out a little more, what you're describing is not new. I mean, if we go back to previous management meetings, conferences, calls, we have been hearing management talk about this for several quarters, if not years even in some cases. So what's happened in this third quarter that seems to have, triggered some significant change?
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
I think it's just the accumulation. People took actions, but when actuaries or management look at the chance for the business they're running today to be profitable, they ask themselves, they need more safety margin. I think it's a... You know, I think there was some rate increase, double digits, rate increase two or three years ago. Then, you know, for a little while, we went to single digit, and suddenly we are back in double digits. It tells you that there is pain, you know, in the backyards of people that have returned the business, you know, in the early years and in the last few years. And usually the reaction, it's not unusual that the reactions are more abrupt, because At some point, management loses faith in the story they've been told, so they require more drastic actions. That's a usual playbook of how, you know, how market happens.
Yaron Kinnar
Analyst at Jefferies
Thank you. You're welcome.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from the line of Brian Meredith with UBS Financial.
Brian Meredith
Analyst at UBS Financial
Yeah, thanks. I want to follow up on that a little, just a little bit. I understand what you're saying about your opportunities for growth here in some of the casualty lines, but maybe I can get your perspective a little bit more on what do you think casualty trend is and where is it going? Just because you must be pretty confident in kind of having a good grasp on where casualty trend is, given that you're growing and some other are shrinking.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
Yes. I think, I mean, it's a tale of several stories. I think, you know, at the bottom of the program, I think people can have a, pretty good idea what the casualty trend is, whether it's mid-single digit. You know, the issue is when you go excess. You know, if you go excess of 50 million, if you go excess of 100 million, that's where, you know, the trend gets to multiply, I think. So, you know, and you're certainly in double digits, I think. I think, you know, ourselves, you know, in a way, we... We were lucky. We didn't have a huge footprint on the casualty business, but we had enough of a footprint to be able to do our own analysis. And again, it's selective. You know, the thing, you know, you have to treat different class of business, different geographies, you know, you have to be able to do, you know, really selective price increases analysis to get comfortable that in certain jurisdictions with, you know, certain class of business, You think the business, based on your own actual experience, the business makes sense to be returned. So it's not, I would not say it's a sea challenge that suddenly any pieces of business that come across your desk is going to be profitable. You have to be selective and have a thoughtful approach to what you want to underwrite. That's the market we are in.
Brian Meredith
Analyst at UBS Financial
Gotcha, gotcha. And the same question, I guess, for reinsurance, right? Because reinsurance, you're kind of relying on the seedings.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
Yes, again, I mean, the job of the reinsurer is to back the right companies. So I think, you know, we are, for a while, I think we've been really underweight, you know, on the casualty US, you know, full of shares and excessive loss. And I think, you know, this dislocation in the marketplace has allowed us to get on programs that we wanted to get on two or three years ago, because we We like the underwriting. We like the, you know, the limit discipline. We like the class of business they write. But we couldn't get on because nobody was exceeding. So I think there is some sort of a flight into quality of, you know, who is here for the long term and who is not. And I think we're benefiting from that.
Brian Meredith
Analyst at UBS Financial
Makes sense. And then, François, one quick one here for you. On the investment portfolio, I guess one, where are we looking at new money yields versus current book yields? And where are you at deploying the assets you got out of mid-corp? Is there some more potential book yield to come out going forward?
Francois Morin
CFO
Yeah, I mean, part of the transaction was certainly a good chunk of the assets came in cash. So our investment team's been very disciplined and thoughtful on where to put that money to work. But the good thing is just on money market or cash, we're still getting decent yields. But yeah, I'd say I call it 4.5% on new money yields. I mean, as you see, the book yield and the new money yields are kind of pretty close to each other right now. Um, you know, we're, we're still very, uh, you know, very short duration, very high quality fixed income books. So that, that's not changing, but yeah, there's certainly been a call at the, the 2 billion in assets that we got. Um, we are, you know, uh, putting that to work and, uh, you know, trying to fit that into the portfolio as best we can. Great.
Brian Meredith
Analyst at UBS Financial
Thank you.
Francois Morin
CFO
You're welcome.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from the line of Joshua Shanker with Bank of America.
Joshua Shanker
Analyst at Bank of America
Yeah, good morning or almost afternoon, everybody. How you doing?
Francois Morin
CFO
Doing good. We're hungry.
Joshua Shanker
Analyst at Bank of America
I get it. I get it. You know, there's less food and sports talk than ever. But I was wondering, you know, in the past we've talked about the ROIC on the different legs of the arch stool. reinsurance, insurance, mortgage. Could you review right now a sort of state of the union on what the return on new capital is for the various businesses?
Francois Morin
CFO
We like all our businesses. That has not changed. The one thing that I'd say right now is, I mean, fourth quarter, we're a little bit kind of dependent on where the market goes at 1.1. So that is... Certainly, reinsurance has been just a really, really good environment for 2024. How does it play out in 2025? It's still a little bit early to know for sure. We think it's going to be still a very good market. Is it going to get better to the point where we have the ability to deploy that much more capital in reinsurance? We don't know quite yet. So, you know, that's kind of the answer. I mean, there were a little bit, you know, wait and see approach in terms of how the market plays out. But again, what we talked about this morning, the growth opportunities and casualty in particular, I think are exciting to us. So both insurance and reinsurance, I think we're ready to play. And mortgage is, don't want to forget about mortgage. I mean, this has been a terrific engine for us. Yeah, no question that You know, the origination market is not as large as we'd like it to be, but that's okay. I mean, we've got terrific earnings coming from the Inforce book. And, you know, we're finding other opportunities outside of primary MI in the U.S. And, you know, we're deploying the capital in the right way. So we're very comfortable with the mix right now.
Joshua Shanker
Analyst at Bank of America
Would it be wrong to paraphrase that reinsurance is better than insurance and mortgage, but that's depending what happens on one one?
Francois Morin
CFO
It's not wrong. I think that's a fair statement. It's better right now. We like to think it's going to stay better, but just don't know quite yet.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
It's a higher component. I mean, reinsurance is a higher component of property business. So you have to think of the, you know, half of the business is property. So you, it's high risk, high reward, you know. So I think we have, we get paid a high, the high return, but it's also high risk, as we saw this quarter. I think the insurance book is much more heavily geared toward casualty and professional lines. So I think it's an environment that has its own challenges, but it's a different set of return values. I think you have to balance those two. And sometimes the E in the ROE doesn't do enough of that, I think.
Joshua Shanker
Analyst at Bank of America
And Francois, you made the comment that the origination market in mortgage isn't quite as strong as you'd like it to be. But also, Arch has lowered its market share of new business compared to where it was three years ago or so. If Arch wanted to ramp it up, is there a possibility of growing that business without improvements in the origination market? Or would that cause pricing and margins to weaken in that business?
Francois Morin
CFO
Yeah, it's becoming a more homogeneous market, right? So I think the risk of trying to grow market share is, just as you said, I think you have to cut prices. I think we've built a very resilient, very high-quality book through picking different types of loans to ensure different geographies. I think we are very comfortable with what we've done, but For us to move from the call at 16%, 17% market share and say we want to be at 18%, 19%, 20%, right now we just don't see that happening because the market, you know, I think will just react with us and it will just push prices down. So I think right now, I mean, it would just be surprising for us to grow our market share that significantly in the near term.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
Yeah, we've asked this question all the time. And the answer is that we ended up in a worse place. I think, you know, I think the status quo, the current status quo based on the, you know, remember we're dealing with monoline business. That's all what they have. So I think ultimately they're going to defend their book and we'll end up in a worse place. That has been the analysis that we've carried.
Joshua Shanker
Analyst at Bank of America
Well, thank you very much for all the answers and I'll let you go to lunch.
Francois Morin
CFO
Thanks, Josh.
Operator
Conference Host
Our next question comes from Elise Greenspan with Wells Fargo.
Elise Greenspan
Analyst at Wells Fargo
Hi, thanks. I'll just shove a few more in before lunch. But my first question is on Hurricane Helene, right? I think you guys said it was 45% of cats. So I calculate that at just over $200 million. So that's like 1.5% to 1.7% market share, given you're 12% to 14%. Is that about what you would expect, I guess, for these large type events? And does that share a good frame of reference when thinking about Milton?
Francois Morin
CFO
I mean, your math is about right, but Helene's a bit unusual for us. I mean, it's a little bit on the elevated side in terms of market share based on some of the accounts we wrote. Again, Milton is different because it's Florida only, so we have a different mix of business there, different type of accounts we write. So I would not draw a correlation or an analogy from the Helene, call it implied market share, to what Milton could look like.
Elise Greenspan
Analyst at Wells Fargo
Okay, that's helpful. And then my second one, I guess, is a follow-up on reserves, right? We had another company this morning that kind of flagged they're kind of going to take an in-depth review and there might be some movement with their fourth quarter review. It sounds like from earlier questions that you guys really haven't seen a change in loss trends or actual versus expected in the third quarter versus earlier in the year. But is there anything, I guess, that you're concerned about or anything that's come up with the quarterly reviews that you guys are paying particular attention to when we go into the end of year review?
Francois Morin
CFO
There's nothing unusual. I mean, it's something we look at all the time. The trends are relatively stable. I mean, we had views, you know, going way back that, you know, the loss trends that we were seeing in the market were a bit optimistic. So, we've always taken a longer-term view of trends. And we, you know, we review those, you know, annually at a minimum, sometimes some twice a year. But, yeah, really nothing that stands out that's, I'd say, unusual or, you know, that we're, you know, overly concerned with. I mean, that's the standard kind of themes that we've been talking about for quite some time.
Elise Greenspan
Analyst at Wells Fargo
And then I might just shove one last one in there. You guys have an upcoming investor day in a couple of weeks. You know, is this, you know, are you going to expecting to use this to lay out, you know, bigger strategy, financial targets, something on capital, I guess. Can you just give us a little bit of a, you know, preview of, you know, what you expect to talk to us about in a few weeks?
Francois Morin
CFO
We're just missing you guys in person, so that's why we scheduled this. But, no, I wouldn't expect anything really unusual from the upcoming Investor Day. You've known us for a while. The strategy remains the same. Nicholas will obviously be focal point, so we'll make sure everybody gets to hear a bit more from how he wants to shape the company going forward. But I would not message or think that there's anything unusual you know, unusual or, you know, kind of a new revelation that you should expect to hear from us in a couple of weeks.
Operator
Conference Host
Okay. Thank you.
Francois Morin
CFO
You're welcome.
Operator
Conference Host
I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Nicholas Papadopoulos for closing remarks.
Nicholas Papadopoulos
CEO
Yes, there's not any more questions, so this will conclude today, and thank you for your questions, and we see you next quarter.
Operator
Conference Host
Thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may all disconnect.
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