American Financial Group, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American Financial Group fourth quarter full year 2023 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Diane Widener, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to American Financial Group's fourth quarter 2023 earnings results conference call. We released our 2023 fourth quarter and full year results yesterday afternoon. Our press release, investor supplement, and webcast presentation are posted on AFG's website under the investor relations section. These materials will be referenced during portions of today's call. I'm joined this morning by Carl Lindner III and Craig Lindner, co-CEOs of American Financial Group, and Brian Hertzman, ASG CFO. Before I turn the discussion over to Carl, I would like to draw your attention to the notes on slide two of our webcast. Some of the matters to be discussed today are forward-looking. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results and or financial condition to differ materially from these statements. A detailed description of these risks and uncertainties can be found in AFG's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are also available on our website. We may include references to core net operating earnings, a non-GAAP financial measure, in our remarks or in responses to questions. A reconciliation of net earnings to core net operating earnings is included in our earnings release. And finally, if you are reading a transcript of this call, please note that it may not be authorized or reviewed for accuracy. And as a result, it may contain factual or transcription errors that could materially alter the intent or meaning of our statements. Now, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Carl Linder III to discuss our results.

Good morning. I'll begin my remarks by sharing a few highlights from AFG's fourth quarter and four-year results, after which Craig and I will walk through more details. We'll then open it up for Q&A, where Craig, Brian, and I will respond to any questions. Fourth quarter was a strong ending to a great year for AFG. In addition to producing a core operating return on equity of nearly 20% in 2023, net written premiums grew by 8% during the year. And we continue to create value for our shareholders through effective capital management. Our compelling mix of specialty insurance businesses and entrepreneurial culture, disciplined operating philosophy, and an astute team of in-house investment professionals collectively have enabled us to outperform many of our peers over time. Craig and I thank God, our talented management team, and our great employees for helping us to achieve these results. And I'll turn the discussion over to Craig to walk us through some of these details.

Thanks, Carl.

As you'll see on slide three, AFG's core net operating earnings were $10.56 per share for the full year 2023, generating a core operating return on equity of 19.8%. This ROE is calculated using an average of the five most recent quarter end balances of shareholders' equity, excluding AOCI. As Carl noted, capital management is one of our highest priorities. Returning capital to our shareholders is an important component of our capital management strategy and reflects our strong financial position and our confidence in AFG's financial future. We've returned $900 million to shareholders during 2023, including $466 million, or $5.50 per share in special dividends, $221 million in regular common stock dividends, and $213 million in share repurchases. Dividend payments and share repurchases totaled $5.92 billion over the past five years, and our quarterly dividend was increased by 12.7% to an annual rate of $2.84 per share beginning in October of 2023. Growth in adjusted book value per share plus dividends was an impressive 16.6% in 2023. We're proud of the value we've created for shareholders over time. Turning to slides four and five, you'll see that fourth quarter 2023 core net operating earnings per share of $2.84 produced an annualized fourth quarter core return on equity of 20.9%. Net earnings per share of $3.13 included an after-tax non-core realized gain on securities of $0.29 per share, which include fair value changes on securities that we continued to hold at the end of the quarter. Now I'd like to turn to an overview of AFG's investment performance, financial position, and share a few comments about AFG's capital and liquidity. The details surrounding our $15.3 billion investment portfolio are presented on slides six and seven. Looking at results for the fourth quarter, property and casualty net investment income was approximately 1% higher than the comparable 2022 period. Excluding the impact of alternative investments, net investment income, and our PNC insurance operations for the three months ended December 31, 2023, increased by 19% year over year as a result of the impact of rising interest rates and higher balances of invested assets. For the 12 months into December 31, 2023, PNC net investment income was $729 million, approximately 7% higher than 2022, and a new record for AFG. Excluding alternative investments, net investment income and our PNC insurance operations for 2023 increased 35% year over year. As you'll see on slide seven, approximately 68% of our portfolio is invested in fixed maturities. In the current interest rate environment, we're able to invest in fixed maturity securities at yields of approximately 5.5% Current reinvestment rates compare favorably to the approximately 5% yield earned on fixed maturities in our PNC portfolio during the fourth quarter of 2023. The duration of our PNC fixed maturity portfolio, including cash and cash equivalents, was 2.9 years at December 31, 2023. We've strategically managed duration to take advantage of market opportunities as interest rates have increased, from recent historic lows. The annualized return on alternative investments was approximately 0.8% in the 2023 fourth quarter compared to 5.3% for the prior year quarter. Following several years of exceptionally strong returns on investments tied to multifamily housing, which averaged 15% over the past five years, we're seeing the impact of increased supply and the leveling out of rental rates on these investments, which represent about half of our alternative investment portfolio. We expect these headwinds to continue into 2024. Longer term, we remain very optimistic regarding the prospects of our investments in multifamily housing as these properties continue to generate strong net operating income and have desirable geographic positioning and high occupancy rates. The return on PNC alternative investments was 7% for 2023 compared to 13.2% in 2022. The average annual return on alternative investments over the past five calendar years into December 31, 2023 was approximately 13%. Please turn to slide eight where you'll find a summary of AFG's financial position at December 31, 2023. AFG had approximately $800 million of excess capital at the end of 2023. In reviewing our disclosures compared to peer companies and considering the diversity of practice in how companies calculate excess capital, we're likely to move away from providing a specific excess capital number in the future. Yesterday, we announced a special dividend of $2.50 per share payable on February 28th, 2024. This special dividend is in addition to the company's regular quarterly cash dividend of 71 cents per share, most recently paid on January 25th, 2024. We expect our operations to continue to generate significant excess capital throughout the remainder of 2024, which provides ample opportunity for additional share repurchases or special dividends over the next year. We continue to view total value creation as measured by growth and book value per share plus dividends as an important measure of performance over the long term. For the 12 months into December 31, 2023, AFG's book value per share plus dividends increased by 24.1%. AFG's adjusted book value per share plus dividends, which excludes unrealized losses related to fixed maturities, increased by 16.6% during 2023. I'll now turn the call back over to Carl to discuss the results of our PNC operations.

Thank you, Craig. Now if you'd please turn to slides 9 and 10 of the webcast. And please report very strong underwriting profitability for the full year with an overall specialty, property, and casualty combined ratio of 90.3. We're proud of our consistent record of profitable underwriting results over many years. We're seeing opportunities to grow our specialty, property, and casualty businesses through increasing exposures, new opportunities, and a continued favorable pricing environment. We set new records for premium production in 2023, and we're meeting or exceeding targeted returns in nearly all of our businesses. As you'll see on slide nine, our specialty property and casualty businesses reported a strong fourth quarter, a nice finish to a successful year. The specialty property and casualty insurance operations generated an outstanding 87.7% combined ratio in the fourth quarter of 2023, about a point higher than the exceptional 86.6 reported in the prior year fourth quarter. Results for the 2023 fourth quarter include 1.4 points of catastrophe losses, about a half point higher than last year's fourth quarter, and 3.3 points of favorable prior year reserve development compared to 3.6 points in the fourth quarter of 2022. Fourth quarter 2023 gross and net written premiums were both up 8% when compared to the same period in 2022. And gross and net written premiums increased 7% and 8%, respectively, for the full year in 2023. Average renewal pricing across our property and casualty group, excluding our workers' comp business, was up approximately 7% for the quarter, in line with renewal rates in the previous quarter. including workers' compensation. Renewal rates were up approximately 6%, one point higher than the renewal increases reported in the prior quarter. This is our 30th consecutive quarter to report overall renewal rate increases, and we believe we are achieving overall rate, renewal rate increases in excess of prospective loss ratio trends to meet or exceed targeted returns. In addition to renewal pricing, we are focusing on insured values in our property-related businesses to ensure that our premiums reflect inflationary considerations. Now, I'd like to turn to slide 10 to review a few highlights from each of our specialty property and casualty business groups. Details are included in our earnings release, so I'll focus on summary results here. The businesses in the property and transportation group achieved a 90.3% calendar year combined ratio overall in the fourth quarter, in line with the 90% achieved in the comparable period last year. Excluding crop, the fourth quarter calendar year combined ratio in this group improved three points year over year. Fourth quarter 2023 gross and net written premiums in this group were up 4% and 1% respectively when compared to the 2022 fourth quarter due primarily slightly higher crop premium related to the CRS acquisition, which was partially offset by the timing of renewals in several of our transportation businesses. Overall renewal rates in this group increased 7% on average in the fourth quarter of 2023, a point higher than the previous quarter. Pricing for the full year for this group was up 6% overall. We continue to remain focused on rate adequacy, particularly in our commercial auto liability business. This is our 11th year of rate increases in this line of business, dating back to when we first identified an uptick in commercial auto loss severity in 2012. So we've been at it for a long time, and we're pleased that our starting point for rate increases is different than some of our peers. Businesses in our specialty casualty group achieved an exceptionally strong 84.6 calendar year combined ratio overall in the fourth quarter. 3.3 points higher than the 81.3 reported in the comparable prior year period. With combined ratios at these levels, the underwriting margins in these businesses are generating returns in the mid-20s. Fourth quarter 2023 gross and net written premiums increased 6% and 7% respectively when compared to the same prior year period. Renewal pricing for this group, excluding our workers' comp business, was up 7% in the fourth quarter. and was up 4% overall, with both measures down about a point from the renewal pricing in the previous quarter. Pricing for this group for the full year excluding workers' comp was up 6% and up 4% overall. Specialty Financial Group continued to achieve excellent underwriting margins and reported an outstanding 81.3 combined ratio for the fourth quarter of 2023, an improvement of 1.8 points over the prior year period. Fourth quarter 2023 gross and net written premiums were up 27% and 26% respectively when compared to the same 2022 period and 32% for the full year. Renewal pricing in this group was up 9% in the fourth quarter, accelerating four points from the previous quarter. Renewal pricing in this group was up 5% for the full year of 2022. As noted in yesterday's earnings release, for many years, AFG established a range of coordinate operating earnings per share guidance for the new year and provided various other guidance measures as a part of its fourth quarter earnings release. After reviewing industry and peer practices and following a number of discussion with analysts and shareholders, we have decided we'll no longer provide a range of core earnings per share guidance or other guidance measures beginning in 2024. As noted throughout this call, it's clear that our focus has always been on long-term shareholder value creation by generating strong returns on equity that grow book value per share. We believe that historically providing a greater level of guidance metrics as compared to peer companies has created a distraction from our strong ROEs and a record of long-term value creation. As a result, we believe that this change aligns with that focus. In lieu of guidance, though, we have provided several key assumptions underlying our 2024 business plan, which you'll see summarized on slide 11. These assumptions for 2024 include growth in net written premiums of 8% compared to last year, a combined ratio similar to 90.3 achieved in 2023, a reinvestment rate of approximately 5.5%, and a return of approximately 6% on our $2.4 billion portfolio of alternative investments. We expect that performance in line with the assumptions included in our business plan would result in core operating earnings per share of approximately $11 in 2024 and generate a core operating return on equity excluding AOCI of approximately 20%. We believe that our disclosures are sufficiently detailed and clear, and over the course of 2024, our discussions with investors will focus on the considerations that drive long-term shareholder value. Our IR team and our management team remain available to answer questions and look forward to continuing to educate investors about our business. Craig and I are pleased to report these exceptionally strong results for the fourth quarter and full year. And we're proud of our proven track record of long-term value creation. Our insurance professionals have exercised their specialty property and casualty knowledge and experience to skillfully navigate the marketplace. And our in-house investment team has been both strategic and opportunistic in the management of our $15 billion investment portfolio. We're well-positioned to continue to build long-term value for our shareholders in 2024 and beyond. Now we'll open the lines for the Q&A portion of today's call, and Craig and Brian and I would be happy to respond to your questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Charlie Lederer with Citi. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. Wondering, can you please break out the reserve development, I guess, for non-workers' comp casualty reserve development across accident years 2020 to 22 versus the softer market years prior to that in the quarter?

Hey, can you hear me?

Hi, this is Brian Hertzman. On that question, If you look at where we've seen development by year in casualty, we've seen some adverse development coming out of calendar years 2018 and 2019, so that's consistent with prior periods. If you look at development overall in casualty, we think it's best to look at it for the full year to understand trends. So looking at the full year, I think the first thing to do is to keep in perspective that we're talking about businesses with a calendar year combined ratio for the full year of 87%. with ROEs in the mid-20s, so very strong performing businesses. We discussed in some of the previous quarters, for the full year of 2024, we did have lower levels of favorable development in workers' comp as our initial loss picks have come down in recent years, reflecting our experience and considering some of the price decreases in that business, as well as being mindful about the potential for medical cost inflation going forward. We talked in previous quarters about some adverse development from social inflation in areas like public sector. As with any company that has an E&S business, there can be, over time, there can be occasional large loss activity, which we had in various lines of business in different quarters across the year.

Got it. Thanks. That's helpful. Sorry if I missed it. Did you say the adverse on 18 and 19 that you said at the beginning, did you say what lines those were in in the quarter?

So most of that for the year, most of that's coming on the social inflation exposed businesses. In the quarter, it wasn't necessarily all social inflation. Some of that was just the occasional large losses that could happen in something like E&S. Got it.

Okay. And then maybe just on the premium growth embedded in your business plan, would you be able to kind of uh parts out i guess like what um how much of that what you're expecting for crop i guess from a non-crs and then including crs perspective and and kind of versus the rest of the business you know we're kind of we've moved away from talking segment by segment i'm happy to uh you know to give you some color on the crop to the

The crop business, part of the premium determination for this year is a volatility factor, which is determined in the next month or so, and also kind of the average of February futures prices for the December contract in corn and the November contract, I believe, in soybeans. When you look at the current pricing, that's it's the average of the whole month of February. So, you know, we don't know until we get down to the end of February exactly what the impact on the premiums are. I think our 8% reflects our current, you know, our current view that crop premiums aren't going to be as large as what we would have previously, you know, projected in that because of, you know, the commodity prices. I can't tell you that. With the CRS business that we added, that business will be up about 50% on a gross written premium basis for this year.

I hope that's helpful.

Yeah, thank you. I guess just one follow-up. Would you expect any changes in your crop retention plans if pricing is materially lower?

I know. I think probably one of the positive things if you're starting off, if the pricing for corn and soybeans ends up being lower, if from a price exposure, since this is revenue protection or revenue coverage, you could argue that it may be tougher to see prices come off you know, by significant amounts from a lower spring discovery prices if that's in fact what happens at the end of February. So, you know, that can kind of cut both ways. We'll have lower premium, but maybe you have lower exposure from a price, you know, from a price decline standpoint from those base levels, if that makes sense.

Yeah, understood. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Newsome with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Thanks for the call. Wanted to touch maybe back on your comments about pricing being above where you think inflation is to achieve target. At the moment, the ROE is very high. Is that really a comment that you continue to expect to achieve sort of the targeted returns? Or are you thinking that the price increases are sufficiently to maintain the current sort of margins that you have today?

Yeah, Paul, I think overall, you know, we're achieving price, you know, overall price increase levels that are, you know, are in excess, you know, overall of, you know, the prospective loss ratio trends in our business. And some businesses, you know, those increases might lead to returns that exceed, you know, our targets. In other businesses, they would lead towards meeting our targets. I think we're blessed today, except for a few businesses, you know, almost all of our businesses are are meeting the targeted returns.

Great. Maybe we could turn to capital management a little bit. You know, I think in the past we've talked about, you know, the stock being attractive in your view, and you've got sort of 10, 11 times EPS, which is kind of where it's been. but you haven't seen a huge aggressive stock repurchase focused more on special dividends. Is that still kind of your view or is there a different view on allocation of capital because of the M&A environment or just your general thoughts on how those pieces all go together?

Yeah, I think every year is a different mix based on we take an opportunistic approach. We think our stock is you know especially attractively valued um you know we've shown over this in the past year that we you know been in the market repurchasing shares and value that um you know where we're generating large amounts of excess excess capital at these kinds of returns um you know special dividends can also be important but obviously properties are organic growth building the business itself. We're tough buyers on the M&A side, but we look at lots of things and we're always starting businesses, building businesses, and acquiring things that make sense and can earn double-digit returns for us over time. You've seen our annual increase in our annual dividend has been substantial over time. So we also think our shareholders value a consistent increase in our annual dividend also. That's the way we think about things. Each year is going to be a different mix.

Great. Always appreciate the help. I'll let some other folks ask questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Cerumski with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Hey, great.

Good afternoon. Just kind of want to make sure, you know, as we think through the combined ratio guidance for next year and, you know, what ultimately equates to a very strong ROE, of course, you know, if we reflect on 2023 a bit, In investors' minds, there was a bit of a pothole from kind of social inflationary adverse development. I believe crop was a little below normal. There was an A&E kind of ding, maybe 1% to 2% in earnings. So I guess you just want to make sure that if I'm thinking about those correctly, so on a go-for basis, you don't expect you know, the combined ratio to improve, just because I guess maybe, you know, pricing's an excess of trend, but just the trend is still, you know, I guess I'm just trying to think through, like, am I missing something? I guess the trend is maybe moving a little higher, pricing's moving higher, but, you know, just returns might not be as excellent. Even if I, you know, X out those items, I just started kind of calling out.

I think the returns, uh, very similar and, you know, we're projecting, uh, our business plans for a combined ratio that's at the same level of a, of a really great year. Um, certainly in comparison to our peers, um, you know, it's, uh, one of the stronger performances on underwriting and on return on equity, um, you know, uh, and that, so, uh, we're proud of those results and, um, There's, you know, there'll be, uh, there'll be businesses that, uh, you know, as in workers comp, you know, in this year that had less favorable development that have outstanding results, you know, when you look back on this year, but, um, the underwriting profit wasn't as large. Um, there's businesses, as you said, like crop hail, um, that had a below average year and, uh, In our business plan, the way it is together, in the past when we were giving guidance, we were planning for average crop year. The way we build our plan is really consistent with the way that we used to give guidance as far as how we would get there. Our guidance generally was based off of our business plan in the past.

Mike, this is Craig. One thing that I think you need to recognize in this year's plan is an assumption on return on alternatives that is somewhat below the historical level and certainly below what we expect to see on a go-forward basis. We have $2.4 billion invested in alternatives About half of that is invested in multifamily in the balance and more traditional private equity investments. In our plan for 2024, we're assuming a low single-digit return on our multifamily properties and a high single-digit return on the balance of our alternative investments. To give a little color on our view of multifamily, we still like the asset class approach. We've generated fantastic returns in the past. As I said in the conference call script, we've averaged 15% annual return over the last five years. We are in very attractive markets. Florida and Colorado represent 53% of our multifamily investments. Dallas, Phoenix, and North Carolina, another 27%. They're markets with very strong population growth. So the new builds in the recent past, you know, the bulk of the new builds have been at attractive markets with population growth. That is impacting our ability to push rates the way we have in the recent past. So we think it's going to take 12 to 18 months to work through this new inventory, the new supply of multifamily properties. And then we do expect that the... we will have the ability to push rental rates more in line with what we've done in the recent past and generate strong returns. But our long-term expectations on alternative investments would be for a return of 10% plus. Historically, we've done better than that. If you normalize this year's return and use 10% as kind of a normalized number, it would add 90 cents per share to the EPS, which is about a point and a half of ROE. So I think that is something that investors need to recognize because of our significant multifamily exposure, which near term is going to hurt these returns. It's an unusually low return expectation for this calendar year. And I think that needs to be normalized when you take a look at this year's earnings expectations.

Okay. That helps. I think investors will understand that. Okay. Lastly, and this might be for Brian, just, you know, I'm triangulating the excess capital and the parent company cash and all those moving parts. I believe the debt to capital, if I'm thinking about the right way, is below the... the company's kind of, maybe it's a max threshold of 30, or I don't know if it's a target of 30, you can clarify that, but is there a, you know, would there be an option to issue some debt in the future, potentially, to release excess capital to the extent there weren't, you know, M&A opportunities, or is that not something we should be thinking about as a lever? Thanks.

So, yeah, so the 30%, is sort of a guideline for us. So we would look to that as our maximum, not that we couldn't go over that if the opportunity presented itself, but that does leave open the possibility for borrowing money at the right rate in the right environment to move towards that ratio if it makes sense from a long-term value creation for shareholders perspective. So it would be on the table, but not in our immediate plan. Thank you.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question at this time, please press star 1-1 on your touchstone telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Anderson with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hey, good afternoon. In the press release, you mentioned lower underwriting profit and ENS. Could you expand a bit on that? Was that just large losses on property or casualty, and does it reflect a change in underlying loss trend assumption?

Yeah, I think... You know, the quarter was in the 80s. The combined ratio for the overall group, you've got to put that in perspective. So, you know, the quarter had an outstanding combined ratio to start with. As Brian said, when you put it in the perspective of the whole year, you know, there was the difference in the growth Reserve development was less favorable workers' comp for the whole year, some impact from social inflation, and in some quarters, some large loss on the casualty side activity. I think that's the right way to look back if you're trying to look at trends for us.

Thank you.

And are you seeing any change in the competitive environment within ENS?

I think maybe a bit more competition on the ENS property side. We've been expanding our property business on the ENS side. It seems like some more interest in that sector and you know some more competition there I think on the end on the positive side of other you know interesting things I think we're seeing on the DNO side where you know the pricing's been down double-digit in the fourth quarter we saw it being down single-digit which I saw as a positive trend when we've thought that there have been too many competitors, too much capital, and pricing levels that don't make sense in public D&L. So that was positive. I think another positive thing we saw in the fourth quarter on the pricing front was our commercial auto pricing. You know, they're in national interstate and van liner moved to double digit, to 10% plus. which I see as a positive competitive sign.

Thanks. And maybe just a quick numbers question. Thirty-four million of other expense in the quarter, I suspect that's higher amortization from CRS, but is that kind of a good run rate for this line item in 24?

So it looks like you're looking at our line item for sort of other corporate expenses. So what falls under that line, It's really everything that's not part of our property and casualty operations. And then we show the interest expense separately. So that's mostly holding company expenses in that line, but it's also net of any investment income earned by the parent company. So there's a couple of things going on there in the quarter when you compare it to previous quarters, particularly the fourth quarter of 2022. One of the bigger things in there is that during the fourth quarter of 2023, we had lower levels of cash and investment balances at the parent company as we tend to keep most of our cash and investments down in the P&C operations. So the investment income that's sort of netted into that number is about $4 million lower in 2023 compared to 2022 in the same quarter. And then also in the fourth quarter of 2023, we just happened to have a couple of sort of one-off elevated expenses, and that was magnified by a benefit in the fourth quarter of 2022. In the fourth quarter of 2022, we had a benefit related to some employee benefit plans that are tied to the stock market that didn't recur this year. So when you look at the things in the fourth quarter of 2023 versus the 2022 quarter that are different, I would say the lower parent company investment income, which is about $4 million, that's probably something that would go forward. And I would consider if you're looking at a run rate, the other items, are really sort of one-off things that could happen in any quarter, but I wouldn't consider them something that I'd put in a run rate.

Yeah, I'm going to go back on the ENS umbrella and excess liability business just to be clear. When you look at, if you would just look at that part of our business in the fourth quarter, it would be in line with what the combined ratio was for the whole year in that. And, you know, we had ended up with excellent underwriting results you know, in E&S, umbrella, and excess liability overall.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Meyer Shields with Keith Brouillette and Woods. Your line is now open.

Great. Thanks so much.

In terms of understanding, I don't want to call it guidance anymore, but the expectations, there are a few companies out there who provide some sort of outlook for combined ratio and explicitly uh say that that does not include reserve development i just want to understand whether we should look at your expectations the same way or whether maybe there's some measure of reserve lease anticipated all right this is brian so when we look at our our combined ratio overall um we feel like we set our reserves optimistically

I'm conservatively and we're optimistic about the potential for future favorable prior development, but we wouldn't explicitly disclose any kind of components of our combined ratio. I think it's important to know that we think our reserve position is very strong. And if you look at our plan for 2024, we did react to the higher frequency of catastrophe losses that occurred in 2023, along with CAT experiences in other recent years. We look at things like social inflation. We've been really focused on price increases, terms and conditions like passable points and retentions. And so we feel really good about the actions in that area. So if you look overall, I think while we wouldn't explicitly put anything in there to say anything about prior development, we're optimistic that we could have some and feel good about where our reserves are.

Okay, perfect. I just wanted to understand what the expectation entailed. Carl, you mentioned some timing issues with regard to transportation.

I was hoping you could flesh that out. Could you repeat that?

I wasn't sure what the question was.

I'm sorry. So when you're talking about the property and transportation segment, you mentioned some timing, I think, with regard to fourth quarter premium growth. And I was just looking to understand whether some of that was deferred to the first quarter of 24 or how we should think about that?

It's really just time between quarters.

Some stuff moved to other quarters. Sometimes things renew in a different month or have a different policy term or things like that.

Okay. And then one final question.

Outside of crop, can you talk about your expectations for reinsurance purchasing in 2024 versus 2023?

So you're talking about reinsurance in general across all of our lines?

Yeah. Each year our... Go ahead, I'm sorry. So separating out the CAT program from our just traditional other non-CAT reinsurance, or are you focusing on the CAT? Both. On the catastrophe reinsurance side, so we did renew our property CAT treaty here for 2024. The attachment point for that CAT treaty moved up some from 2023, mostly due to our increased exposure as we have increased property exposures in both our ENS business and in our financial institutions business. So we'll be attaching at a $70 million level instead of a $50 million level. So if you think about our property CAT reinsurance tower, so the retention is $70 million We then have traditional reinsurance for $55 million in excess of the 70. And then our CAT bond comes in on top of that, providing a coverage for the vast majority of any single event up to $450 million. And that CAT bond is in place through the end of 2024. So on the cost of that, the cost of the reinsurance, we're buying less coverage. the risk-adjusted rent is actually slightly lower for that cost in 2024 than it was in 2023. As far as reinsurance outside of the property CAD cover, our business units look at that year by year and business unit by business unit to purchase reinsurance where they think that it provides an attractive balance of risk and return for the company. So there's no real overall trend there. I wouldn't expect our reinsurance retentions to be Super different when you look across the company as a whole in 2024 versus 2023, but we are careful at each business unit in determining the right coverage each year.

All right, perfect. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And I'm currently showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the call back over to Diane Widener for closing remarks. Thanks.

Thank you, Shannon, and thank you all for joining us this morning as we reviewed our fourth quarter and four-year results for 2023. We look forward to talking with you all again next quarter. Hope you all have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call.

Thank you for your participation.

You may now disconnect. you Thank you. Thank you.

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Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American Financial Group fourth quarter full year 2023 results conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Diane Widener, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to American Financial Group's fourth quarter 2023 earnings results conference call. We released our 2023 fourth quarter and full year results yesterday afternoon. Our press release, investor supplement, and webcast presentation are posted on AFG's website under the investor relations section. These materials will be referenced during portions of today's call. I'm joined this morning by Carl Lindner III and Craig Lindner, co-CEOs of American Financial Group, and Brian Hertzman, ASG CFO. Before I turn the discussion over to Carl, I would like to draw your attention to the notes on slide two of our webcast. Some of the matters to be discussed today are forward-looking. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results and or financial condition to differ materially from these statements. A detailed description of these risks and uncertainties can be found in AFG's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are also available on our website. We may include references to core net operating earnings, a non-GAAP financial measure, in our remarks or in responses to questions. A reconciliation of net earnings to core net operating earnings is included in our earnings release. And finally, if you are reading a transcript of this call, please note that it may not be authorized or reviewed for accuracy. And as a result, it may contain factual or transcription errors that could materially alter the intent or meaning of our statements. Now, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Carl Linder III to discuss our results.

Good morning. I'll begin my remarks by sharing a few highlights from AFG's fourth quarter and four-year results, after which Craig and I will walk through more details. We'll then open it up for Q&A, where Craig, Brian, and I will respond to any questions. Fourth quarter was a strong ending to a great year for AFG. In addition to producing a core operating return on equity of nearly 20% in 2023, net written premiums grew by 8% during the year. And we continue to create value for our shareholders through effective capital management. Our compelling mix of specialty insurance businesses and entrepreneurial culture, disciplined operating philosophy, and an astute team of in-house investment professionals collectively have enabled us to outperform many of our peers over time. Craig and I thank God, our talented management team, and our great employees for helping us to achieve these results. And I'll turn the discussion over to Craig to walk us through some of these details.

Thanks, Carl.

As you'll see on slide three, AFG's core net operating earnings were $10.56 per share for the full year 2023, generating a core operating return on equity of 19.8%. This ROE is calculated using an average of the five most recent quarter end balances of shareholders' equity, excluding AOCI. As Carl noted, capital management is one of our highest priorities. Returning capital to our shareholders is an important component of our capital management strategy and reflects our strong financial position and our confidence in AFG's financial future. We've returned $900 million to shareholders during 2023, including $466 million, or $5.50 per share in special dividends, $221 million in regular common stock dividends, and $213 million in share repurchases. Dividend payments and share repurchases totaled $5.92 billion over the past five years, and our quarterly dividend was increased by 12.7% to an annual rate of $2.84 per share beginning in October of 2023. Growth in adjusted book value per share plus dividends was an impressive 16.6% in 2023. We're proud of the value we've created for shareholders over time. Turning to slides four and five, you'll see that fourth quarter 2023 core net operating earnings per share of $2.84 produced an annualized fourth quarter core return on equity of 20.9%. Net earnings per share of $3.13 included an after-tax non-core realized gain on securities of $0.29 per share, which include fair value changes on securities that we continued to hold at the end of the quarter. Now I'd like to turn to an overview of AFG's investment performance, financial position, and share a few comments about AFG's capital and liquidity. The details surrounding our $15.3 billion investment portfolio are presented on slides six and seven. Looking at results for the fourth quarter, property and casualty net investment income was approximately 1% higher than the comparable 2022 period. Excluding the impact of alternative investments, net investment income, and our PNC insurance operations for the three months ended December 31, 2023, increased by 19% year over year as a result of the impact of rising interest rates and higher balances of invested assets. For the 12 months into December 31, 2023, PNC net investment income was $729 million, approximately 7% higher than 2022, and a new record for AFG. Excluding alternative investments, net investment income and our PNC insurance operations for 2023 increased 35% year over year. As you'll see on slide seven, approximately 68% of our portfolio is invested in fixed maturities. In the current interest rate environment, we're able to invest in fixed maturity securities at yields of approximately 5.5% Current reinvestment rates compare favorably to the approximately 5% yield earned on fixed maturities in our PNC portfolio during the fourth quarter of 2023. The duration of our PNC fixed maturity portfolio, including cash and cash equivalents, was 2.9 years at December 31, 2023. We've strategically managed duration to take advantage of market opportunities as interest rates have increased from recent historic lows. The annualized return on alternative investments was approximately 0.8% in the 2023 fourth quarter compared to 5.3% for the prior year quarter. Following several years of exceptionally strong returns on investments tied to multifamily housing, which averaged 15% over the past five years, we're seeing the impact of increased supply and the leveling out of rental rates on these investments, which represent about half of our alternative investment portfolio. We expect these headwinds to continue into 2024. Longer term, we remain very optimistic regarding the prospects of our investments in multifamily housing as these properties continue to generate strong net operating income and have desirable geographic positioning and high occupancy rates. The return on PNC alternative investments was 7% for 2023 compared to 13.2% in 2022. The average annual return on alternative investments over the past five calendar years into December 31, 2023 was approximately 13%. Please turn to slide eight where you'll find a summary of AFG's financial position at December 31, 2023. AFG had approximately $800 million of excess capital at the end of 2023. In reviewing our disclosures compared to peer companies and considering the diversity of practice in how companies calculate excess capital, we're likely to move away from providing a specific excess capital number in the future. Yesterday, we announced a special dividend of $2.50 per share payable on February 28th, 2024. This special dividend is in addition to the company's regular quarterly cash dividend of 71 cents per share, most recently paid on January 25th, 2024. We expect our operations to continue to generate significant excess capital throughout the remainder of 2024, which provides ample opportunity for additional share repurchases or special dividends over the next year. We continue to view total value creation as measured by growth and book value per share plus dividends as an important measure of performance over the long term. For the 12 months into December 31, 2023, AFG's book value per share plus dividends increased by 24.1%. AFG's adjusted book value per share plus dividends, which excludes unrealized losses related to fixed maturities, increased by 16.6% during 2023. I'll now turn the call back over to Carl to discuss the results of our PNC operations.

Thank you, Craig. Now if you'd please turn to slides 9 and 10 of the webcast and please report very strong underwriting profitability for the full year with an overall specialty, property, and casualty combined ratio of 90.3. We're proud of our consistent record of profitable underwriting results over many years. We're seeing opportunities to grow our specialty, property, and casualty businesses through increasing exposures, new opportunities, and a continued favorable pricing environment. We set new records for premium production in 2023, and we're meeting or exceeding targeted returns in nearly all of our businesses. As you'll see on slide nine, our specialty property and casualty businesses reported a strong fourth quarter, a nice finish to a successful year. The specialty property and casualty insurance operations generated an outstanding 87.7% combined ratio in the fourth quarter of 2023, about a point higher than the exceptional 86.6 reported in the prior year fourth quarter. Results for the 2023 fourth quarter include 1.4 points of catastrophe losses, about a half point higher than last year's fourth quarter, and 3.3 points of favorable prior year reserve development compared to 3.6 points in the fourth quarter of 2022. Fourth quarter 2023 grossing net written premiums were both up 8% when compared to the same period in 2022. And grossing net written premiums increased 7% and 8% respectively for the full year in 2023. Average renewal pricing across our property and casualty group, excluding our workers' comp business, was up approximately 7% for the quarter, in line with renewal rates in the previous quarter. including workers' compensation. Renewal rates were up approximately 6%, one point higher than the renewal increases reported in the prior quarter. This is our 30th consecutive quarter to report overall renewal rate increases, and we believe we are achieving overall rate, renewal rate increases in excess of prospective loss ratio trends to meet or exceed targeted returns. In addition to renewal pricing, we are focusing on insured values in our property-related businesses to ensure that our premiums reflect inflationary considerations. Now, I'd like to turn to slide 10 to review a few highlights from each of our specialty property and casualty business groups. Details are included in our earnings release, so I'll focus on summary results here. The businesses in the property and transportation group achieved a 90.3% calendar year combined ratio overall in the fourth quarter, in line with the 90% achieved in the comparable period last year. Excluding crop, the fourth quarter calendar year combined ratio in this group improved three points year over year. Fourth quarter 2023 gross and net written premiums in this group were up 4% and 1% respectively. when compared to the 2022 fourth quarter, due primarily to slightly higher crop premium related to the CRS acquisition, which was partially offset by the timing of renewals in several of our transportation businesses. Overall renewal rates in this group increased 7% on average in the fourth quarter of 2023, a point higher than the previous quarter. Pricing for the full year for this group was up 6% overall. We continue to remain focused on rate adequacy, particularly in our commercial auto liability business. This is our 11th year of rate increases in this line of business, gaining back to when we first identified an uptick in commercial auto loss severity in 2012. So we've been at it for a long time, and we're pleased that our starting point for rate increases is different than some of our peers. The businesses in our specialty casualty group achieves an exceptionally strong 84.6 calendar year combined ratio overall in the fourth quarter, 3.3 points higher than the 81.3 reported in the comparable prior year period. With combined ratios at these levels, the underwriting margins in these businesses are generating returns in the mid-20s. Fourth quarter 2023 gross and net written premiums increased 6 and 7% respectively. when compared to the same prior year period. Renewal pricing for this group, excluding our workers' comp business, was up 7% in the fourth quarter and was up 4% overall, with both measures down about a point from the renewal pricing in the previous quarter. Pricing for this group for the full year, excluding workers' comp, was up 6% and up 4% overall. Specialty Financial Group continued to achieve excellent underwriting margins and reported an outstanding 81.3 combined ratio for the fourth quarter of 2023, an improvement of 1.8 points over the prior year period. Fourth quarter 2023 gross and net written premiums were up 27% and 26% respectively when compared to the same 2022 period and 32% for the full year. Renewal pricing in this group was up 9% in the fourth quarter, accelerating four points from the previous quarter. Renewal pricing in this group was up 5% for the full year of 2023. As noted in yesterday's earning release, for many years, AFG established a range of coordinate operating earnings per share guidance for the new year and provided various other guidance measures as a part of its fourth quarter earnings release. After reviewing industry and peer practices, And following a number of discussion with analysts and shareholders, we have decided we'll no longer provide a range of core earnings per share guidance or other guidance measures beginning in 2024. As noted throughout this call, it's clear that our focus has always been on long-term shareholder value creation by generating strong returns on equity that grow book value per share. We believe that historically providing a greater level of guidance metrics as compared to peer companies has created a distraction from our strong ROEs and a record of long-term value creation. As a result, we believe that this change aligns with that focus. In lieu of guidance, though, we have provided several key assumptions underlying our 2024 business plan, which you'll see summarized on slide 11. These assumptions for 2024 include growth in net written premiums of 8% compared to last year, a combined ratio similar to 90.3 achieved in 2023, a reinvestment rate of approximately 5.5%, and a return of approximately 6% on our $2.4 billion portfolio of alternative investments. We expect that performance in line with the assumptions included in our business plan would result in core operating earnings per share of approximately $11 in 2024 and generate a core operating return on equity excluding AOCI of approximately 20%. We believe that our disclosures are sufficiently detailed and clear, and over the course of 2024, our discussions with investors will focus on the considerations that drive long-term shareholder value. Our IR team and our management team remain available to answer questions and look forward to continuing to educate investors about our business. Craig and I are pleased to report these exceptionally strong results for the fourth quarter and full year, and we're proud of our proven track record of long-term value creation. Our insurance professionals have exercised their specialty property and casualty knowledge and experience to skillfully navigate the marketplace, and our in-house investment team has been both strategic and opportunistic in the management of our $15 billion investment portfolio. We're well positioned to continue to build long-term value for our shareholders in 2024 and beyond. Now we'll open the lines for the Q&A portion of today's call, and Craig and Brian and I would be happy to respond to your questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Charlie Lederer with Citi. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. Wondering, can you please break out the reserve development, I guess, for non-workers' comp casualty reserve development across accident years 2020 to 22 versus the softer market years prior to that in the quarter?

Hey, can you hear me?

Hi, this is Brian Hertzman. On that question, if you look at where we've seen development by year in casualty, we've seen some adverse development coming out of calendar years 2018 and 2019, so that's consistent with prior periods. If you look at development overall in casualty, we think it's best to look at it for the full year to understand trends. So looking at the full year, I think the first thing to do is to keep in perspective that we're talking about businesses with a calendar year combined ratio for the full year of 87% with ROEs in the mid-20s, so very strong performing businesses. We discussed in some of the previous quarters for the full year of 2024, we did have lower levels of favorable development in workers' comp as our initial loss picks have come down in recent years, reflecting our experience and considering some of the price decreases in that business, as well as being mindful about the potential for medical cost inflation going forward. We talked in previous quarters about some adverse development from social inflation in areas like public sector. As with any company that has an E&S business, there can be, over time, there can be occasional large loss activity, which we had in various lines of business in different quarters across the year.

Got it. Thanks. That's helpful. Sorry if I missed it. Did you say the adverse on 18 and 19 that you said at the beginning was that Did you say what lines those were in, in the quarter?

So most, most of that in the, in the, for the year, most of that's coming on the social inflation exposed businesses in the quarter. It wasn't necessarily all social inflation. It was, some of that was the, just the occasional large losses that could happen in something like ENS. Got it. Okay.

Um, and then maybe just on the premium growth embedded in your, in your business plan. um would you be able to kind of uh parse out i guess like what um how much of that what you're expecting for crop i guess from a non-crs and then including crs perspective and and kind of versus the rest of the business you know we're kind of we've moved away from talking segment by segment i'm happy to uh you know to give you some color on the crop to the

The crop business, part of the premium determination for this year is a volatility factor, which is determined in the next month or so, and also kind of the average of February futures prices for the December contract in corn and the November contract, I believe, in soybeans. When you look at the current pricing, that's it's the average of the whole month of February. So, you know, we don't know until we get down to the end of February exactly what the impact on the premiums are. I think our 8% reflects our current, you know, our current view that crop premiums aren't going to be as large as what we would have previously, you know, projected in that because of, you know, the commodity prices. I can't tell you that. With the CRS business that we added, that business will be up about 50% on a gross written premium basis for this year.

I hope that's helpful.

Yeah, thank you. I guess just one follow-up. Would you expect any changes in your crop retention plans if pricing is materially lower?

I know. I think probably one of the positive things if you're starting off, if the pricing for corn and soybeans ends up being lower, if from a price exposure, since this is revenue protection or revenue coverage, you could argue that it may be tougher to see prices come off you know, by significant amounts from a lower spring discovery prices if that's in fact what happens at the end of February. So, you know, that can kind of cut both ways. We'll have lower premium, but maybe you have lower exposure from a price, you know, from a price decline standpoint from those base levels, if that makes sense.

Yeah, understood. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Newsome with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Thanks for the call. Wanted to touch maybe back on your comments about pricing being above where you think inflation is to achieve target. At the moment, the ROE is very high. Is that really a comment that you continue to expect to achieve sort of the targeted returns? Or are you thinking that the price increases are sufficiently to maintain the current sort of margins that you have today?

Yeah, Paul, I think overall, you know, we're achieving price, you know, overall price increase levels that are, you know, are in excess, you know, overall of, you know, the prospective loss ratio trends in our business. And some businesses, you know, those increases might lead to returns that exceed, you know, our targets. In other businesses, they would lead towards meeting our targets. I think we're blessed today, except for a few businesses, you know, almost all of our businesses are are meeting the targeted returns.

Great. Maybe we could turn to capital management a little bit. You know, I think in the past we've talked about, you know, the stock being attractive in your view, and you've got sort of 10, 11 times EPS, which is kind of where it's been. but you haven't seen a huge aggressive stock repurchase focused more on special dividends. Is that still kind of your view or is there a different view on allocation of capital because of the M&A environment or just your general thoughts on how those pieces all go together?

Yeah, I think every year is a different mix based on we take an opportunistic approach. We think our stock is you know especially attractively valued um you know we've shown over this in the past year that we you know been in the market repurchasing shares and value that um you know where we're generating large amounts of excess excess capital at these kinds of returns um you know special dividends can also be important but obviously properties are organic growth building the business itself. We're tough buyers on the M&A side, but we look at lots of things and we're always starting businesses, building businesses, and acquiring things that make sense and can earn double-digit returns for us over time. You've seen our annual increase in our annual dividend has been substantial over time. So we also think our shareholders value a consistent increase in our annual dividend also. That's the way we think about things. Each year is going to be a different mix.

Great. Always appreciate the help. I'll let some other folks ask questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Cerumski with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Hey, great. Good afternoon.

Just kind of want to make sure, you know, as we think through the combined ratio guidance for next year and, you know, what ultimately equates to a very strong ROE, of course, you know, if we reflect on 2023 a bit, In investors' minds, there was a bit of a pothole from kind of social inflationary adverse development. I believe crop was a little below normal. There was an A&E kind of ding, maybe 1% to 2% in earnings. So I guess you just want to make sure that if I'm thinking about those correctly, so on a go-for basis, you don't expect you know, the combined ratio to improve, just because I guess maybe, you know, pricing's an excess of trend, but just the trend is still, you know, I guess I'm just trying to think through, like, am I missing something? I guess the trend is maybe moving a little higher, pricing's moving higher, but, you know, just returns might not be as excellent. Even if I, you know, X out those items, I just started kind of calling out.

I think the returns, uh, very similar and, you know, we're projecting, uh, our business plans for a combined ratio that's at the same level of a, of a really great year. Um, certainly in comparison to our peers, um, you know, it's, uh, one of the stronger performances on underwriting and on return on equity, um, you know, uh, and that, so, uh, we're proud of those results and, um, There's, you know, there'll be, uh, there'll be businesses that, uh, you know, as in workers comp, you know, in this year that had less favorable development that have outstanding results, you know, when you look back on this year, but, um, the underwriting profit wasn't as large. Um, there's businesses, as you said, like crop hail, um, that had a below average year and, uh, You know, in our business plan, the way it is together, you know, in the past when we were giving guidance, we were planning for average crop year. So that's, you know, the way we build our plan is really consistent with the way that we used to give guidance, you know, as far as how we would get there. Our guidance generally was based off of our business plan in the past.

Mike, this is Craig. One thing that I think you need to recognize in this year's plan is an assumption on return on alternatives that is somewhat below the historical level and certainly below what we expect to see on a go-forward basis. We have $2.4 billion invested in alternatives About half of that is invested in multifamily in the balance and more traditional private equity investments. In our plan for 2024, we're assuming a low single-digit return on our multifamily properties and a high single-digit return on the balance of our alternative investments. To give a little color on our view of multifamily, we still like the asset class approach. We've generated fantastic returns in the past. As I said in the conference call script, we've averaged 15% annual return over the last five years. We are in very attractive markets. Florida and Colorado represent 53% of our multifamily investments. Dallas, Phoenix, and North Carolina, another 27%. They're markets with very strong population growth. So the new builds in the recent past, you know, the bulk of the new builds have been at attractive markets with population growth. That is impacting our ability to push rates the way we have in the recent past. So we think it's going to take 12 to 18 months to work through this new inventory, the new supply of multifamily properties. And then we do expect that the... we will have the ability to push rental rates more in line with what we've done in the recent past and generate strong returns. But our long-term expectations on alternative investments would be for a return of 10% plus. Historically, we've done better than that. If you normalize this year's return and use 10% as kind of a normalized number, it would add 90 cents per share to the EPS, which is about a point and a half of ROE. So I think that is something that investors need to recognize because of our significant multifamily exposure, which near term is going to hurt these returns. It's an unusually low return expectation for this calendar year. And I think that needs to be normalized when you take a look at this year's earnings expectations.

Okay. That helps. I think investors will understand that. Okay. Lastly, and this might be for Brian, just, you know, I'm triangulating the excess capital and the parent company cash and all those moving parts. I believe that debt to capital, if I'm thinking about it the right way, is below the... the company's kind of, maybe it's a max threshold of 30, or I don't know if it's a target of 30, you can clarify that, but is there a, you know, would there be an option to issue some debt in the future potentially to release excess capital to the extent there weren't, you know, M&A opportunities, or is that not something we should be thinking about as a lever? Thanks.

So, yeah, so the 30%, is sort of a guideline for us. So we would look to that as our maximum, not that we couldn't go over that if the opportunity presented itself, but that does leave open the possibility for borrowing money at the right rate in the right environment to move towards that ratio if it makes sense from a long-term value creation for shareholders perspective. So it would be on the table, but not in our immediate plan. Thank you.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question at this time, please press star 1-1 on your touchstone telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Anderson with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hey, good afternoon. In the press release, you mentioned lower underwriting profit and ENS. Could you expand a bit on that? Was that just large losses on property or casualty, and does it reflect a change in underlying loss trend assumption?

Yeah, I think... You know, the quarter was in the 80s. The combined ratio for the overall group, you've got to put that in perspective. So, you know, the quarter had an outstanding combined ratio to start with. As Brian said, when you put it in the perspective of the whole year, you know, there was the difference in the growth Reserve development was less favorable workers' comp for the whole year, some impact from social inflation, and in some quarters, some large loss on the casualty side activity. I think that's the right way to look back if you're trying to look at trends for us.

Thank you.

And are you seeing any change in the competitive environment within ENS?

I think maybe a bit more competition on the ENS property side. We've been expanding our property business on the ENS side. It seems like some more interest in that sector and you know some more competition there I think on the end on the positive side of other you know interesting things I think we're seeing on the DNO side where you know the pricing's been down double-digit in the fourth quarter we saw it being down single-digit which I saw as a positive trend when we've thought that there have been too many competitors, too much capital, and pricing levels that don't make sense in public D&L. So that was positive. I think another positive thing that we saw in the fourth quarter on the pricing front was our commercial auto pricing. You know, they're in national interstate and van liner moved to double digit, to 10% plus. which I see as a positive competitive sign.

Thanks. And maybe just a quick numbers question. 34 million of other expense in the quarter. I suspect that's higher amortization from CRS, but is that kind of a good run rate for this line item in 24?

It looks like you're looking at our line item for sort of other corporate expenses. So what falls under that line, It's really everything that's not part of our property and casualty operations. And then we show the interest expense separately. So that's mostly holding company expenses in that line, but it's also net of any investment income earned by the parent company. So there's a couple of things going on there in the quarter when you compare it to previous quarters, particularly the fourth quarter of 2022. One of the bigger things in there is that during the fourth quarter of 2023, we had lower levels of cash and investment balances at the parent company as we tend to keep most of our cash and investments down in the P&C operations. So the investment income that's sort of netted into that number is about $4 million lower in 2023 compared to 2022 in the same quarter. And then also in the fourth quarter of 2023, we just happened to have a couple of sort of one-off elevated expenses, and that was magnified by a benefit in the fourth quarter of 2022. In the fourth quarter of 2022, we had a benefit related to some employee benefit plans that are tied to the stock market that didn't recur this year. So when you look at the things in the fourth quarter of 2023 versus the 2022 quarter that are different, I would say the lower parent company investment income, which is about $4 million, that's probably something that would go forward. And I would consider if you're looking at a run rate, the other items, are really sort of one-off things that could happen in any quarter, but I wouldn't consider them something that I'd put in a run rate.

Yeah, I'm going to go back on the ENS umbrella and excess liability business just to be clear. When you look at, if you would just look at that part of our business in the fourth quarter, it would be in line with what the combined ratio was for the whole year in that. And, you know, we had ended up with excellent underwriting results you know, in E&S, umbrella, and excess liability overall.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Meyer Shields with Keith, Briette, and Woods. Your line is now open.

Great. Thanks so much.

In terms of understanding, I don't want to call it guidance anymore, but the expectations, there are a few companies out there who provide some sort of outlook for combined ratio and explicitly say that that does not include reserve development. I just want to understand whether we should look at your expectations the same way or whether maybe there's some measure of reserve lease anticipated.

Hi, this is Brian.

So, when we look at our combined ratio overall, we feel like we set our reserves optimistically I'm conservatively and we're optimistic about the potential for future favorable prior development, but we wouldn't explicitly disclose any kind of components of our combined ratio. I think it's important to know that we think our reserve position is very strong. And if you look at our plan for 2024, we did react to the higher frequency of catastrophe losses that occurred in 2023, along with CAT experiences in other recent years. We look at things like social inflation. We've been really focused on price increases, terms and conditions like passable points and retentions. And so we feel really good about the actions in that area. So if you look overall, I think while we wouldn't explicitly put anything in there to say anything about prior development, we're optimistic that we could have some and feel good about where our reserves are.

Okay, perfect. I just wanted to understand what the expectation entailed. Carl, you mentioned some timing issues with regard to transportation.

I was hoping you could flesh that out. Could you repeat that?

I wasn't sure what the question was.

I'm sorry. When you were talking about the property and transportation segment, you mentioned some timing with regard to fourth quarter premium growth. I was just looking to understand whether some of that was deferred to the first quarter of 24 or how we should think about that?

It's really just time between quarters.

Some stuff moved to other quarters. Sometimes things renew in a different month or have a different policy term or things like that.

Okay. And then one final question.

Outside of crop, can you talk about your expectations for reinsurance purchasing in 2024 versus 2023?

So you're talking about reinsurance in general across all of our lines?

Yeah. Each year our. Go ahead, I'm sorry. So separate out the CAT program from our just traditional other non-CAT reinsurance or are you focusing on the CAT? Both. On the catastrophe reinsurance side, so we did renew our property CAT treaty. here for 2024. The attachment point for that CAT treaty moved up some from 2023, mostly due to our increased exposure as we have increased property exposures in both our ENS business and in our financial institutions business. So we'll be attaching at a $70 million level instead of a $50 million level. So if you think about our property CAT reinsurance tower, so the retention is $70 million We then have traditional reinsurance for $55 million in excess of the 70. And then our cat bond comes in on top of that, providing a coverage for the vast majority of any single event up to $450 million. And that cat bond is in place through the end of 2024. So on the and the cost of that, the cost of the reinsurance, those who are buying less coverage, the the the risk-adjusted rent is actually slightly lower for that cost in 2024 than it was in 2023. As far as reinsurance outside of the property CAD cover, our business units look at that year by year and business unit by business unit to purchase reinsurance where they think that it provides an attractive balance of risk and return for the company. So there's no real overall trend there. I wouldn't expect our reinsurance retentions to be Super different when you look across the company as a whole in 2024 versus 2023, but we are careful at each business unit in determining the right coverage each year.

All right, perfect. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And I'm currently shown no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the call back over to Diane Widener for closing remarks.

Thank you, Shannon. And thank you all for joining us this morning as we reviewed our fourth quarter and full year results for 2023. We look forward to talking with you all again next quarter. Hope you all have a great day. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.