This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.
spk05: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Kemper's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. My name is Drew and I'll be coordinating your call today. 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 for replay purposes. I'd now like to introduce your host for today's conference call Karen Guerra, KEMPER's Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Guerra, you may begin.
spk06: Thank you, Operator.
spk00: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to KEMPER's discussion of our third quarter 2022 results. This afternoon, you'll hear from Joe Lager, KEMPER's President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Jim McKinney, KEMPER's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Dwayne Sanders, Kemper's Executive Vice President and the Profit and Casualty Division President. We'll make a few opening remarks to provide context around our third quarter results and then open the call for a Q&A session. During the interactive portion of our call, our presenters will be joined by John Buscelli, Kemper's Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. After the markets closed today, we issued our earnings release and published our earnings presentation and financial supplement and Form 10-Q. You can find these documents on the Investors section of the website Kemper.com. Our discussions today may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, but are not limited to, the company's outlook and its future results operations and financial conditions. Our actual future results and financial conditions may differ materially from these statements. These statements may also be impacted by COVID-19 pandemic. For information on additional risks that may impact these forward-looking statements, please refer to our 2021 Form 10-K, as well as our third quarter earnings release. This afternoon's discussion also includes non-GAAP financial measures we believe are meaningful to investors. In our financial supplement, earnings presentation, and earnings release, we've defined and reconciled all the non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP where required in accordance with the SEC rules. You can find each of these documents on the investor section of our website, Kemper.com. All comparative references will be to the corresponding 2021 period unless otherwise stated. I will now turn the call over to Joe.
spk04: Thank you, Karen. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter conference call. In addition to our financial results for the quarter, on today's call, we're also going to highlight a series of strategic initiatives that are underway. I'll start by providing some context for the two main areas of our strategic update. First, a sharpening of our business focus, and second, specific initiatives to enhance our operating model. On page three, we profile our strategic intent, the team and culture that fuel it, the characteristics of our target markets and differentiating capabilities, and our foundational businesses. As a reminder, We focus our energy and capital on markets that are underserved or require specialization where we have or can build systematic, sustainable, competitive advantages and our offerings improve customer lives through better customer understanding and favorable pricing. Kemper Auto and Kemper Life demonstrate how our tailored focus that builds off our differentiated capabilities is leveraged to meet our target customer's unique needs better and more completely than our competition. In both of these businesses, we have leading franchises that provide valuable protection services at attractive prices. As part of our annual planning process, we review our portfolio of businesses to determine if our businesses deliver a competitive advantage and if they are either made better by being part of our portfolio or make the rest of the portfolio better. As a result of this, we've initiated a strategic review of Kemper Personal Insurance, our preferred home and auto business. This includes restructuring to potential divestiture of the segment or components of the segment. We'll provide a further update when we have more information to share. In addition, the sale of Reserve National Insurance Company and its subsidiaries, otherwise known as Kemper Health, to Medical Mutual of Ohio remains on track to close in the fourth quarter. Moving to the second key component of our strategic update, we have initiated several operating model enhancements to enable additional productivity and growth within our core businesses. First, To ensure we have the ability to meet our customers' needs at the lowest possible price, we're always looking for ways to optimize capital usage. To that end, we've established an offshore captive that has unlocked a substantial amount of trapped capital. Additionally, we're in the process of creating a reciprocal exchange. This will enhance customer pricing, lower the cost of capital, reduce earnings volatility, and improve returns on equity. Finally, to ensure our organization is best positioned to thrive in the post-pandemic era, we're announcing a restructuring program that will reduce costs across our business and accelerate capability advancements. The cumulative result of these initiatives will result in a franchise with rapidly improving profitability and a strengthened position to meet current and future customer needs. Jim will share more details on the anticipated benefits from these actions later in this presentation. Moving to page five to review the quarter's highlights. Today we reported results that showed ongoing progress toward restoring profitability. This quarter we again exceeded our P&C rate taking forecast. The cumulative benefit of the planned rate and non-rate actions taken over the past year continues to earn in at an accelerating pace. Although severity inflation remained elevated, incrementally it was less severe than in previous quarters. We remain laser focused on our work to both further accelerate underlying profitability improvement and ultimately grow our franchise. Our actions have more than offset the incremental loss cost pressure particularly in specialty personal auto. They continue to have the anticipated impact. Their benefits are accelerating. Since July 2021, private passenger auto received 35 points of cumulative written rate on 45% of our total auto book. We saw progress displayed in financial results this quarter with a cumulative impact of four and a half points of rate earning into the book. I'm confident these actions combined with our non-rate actions will restore TemporAuto to underwriting profitability next year. In addition, in the life and health segment, profitability improves from declining mortality and higher investment yields. I see things trending in the right direction, and certainly the enhancements in our operating model will only further advance profitability gains. I'll now turn the call over to Jim to discuss additional details on operating results. Thank you, Joe. I'll begin on page six with our consolidated financial results. The ongoing environmental challenges facing the P&C and life insurance industries continue to impact Comfort's results. Notable factors include severity trend inflation, elevated mortality, and Hurricane Ian. For the quarter, we generated a net loss of $1.19 per diluted share and an adjusted consolidated net operating loss of 48 cents per diluted share. This included capacity losses of 27 million, of which approximately 16 million was related to Hurricane Ian. Against this fast drop, We continue to make progress in restoring the business to profitability. Highlights include the approximately three-point sequential quarter improvement in Kemper Auto Private Passenger Auto underlying combined ratio, continued strong profitable growth in commercial vehicle, and a $5.5 million decrease in life policyholder benefits due to lower mortality. Next, I would note that the earning of profit restoration items continues to accelerate. In our P&C segments, the spread between earned rate and ongoing severity trend is widening. This will lead to continued underwriting profit margin improvements. Within life and health, mortality trends continue to moderate and move toward pre-pandemic levels. Together, these items provide a tailwind to continued profitability improvements. Finally, in the quarter, we had roughly $7 million of favorable prior year development. For the year, we have had approximately $22 million of favorable prior year development. In this challenging and dynamic environment, These outcomes demonstrate the quality of our information, analytics, and commitment to operating transparently. Moving to slide seven, we highlight a few key updates. First, this quarter we ceded 80% of our life business to our wholly owned, newly established offshore captive. This initiative unlocked substantial trap capital and enabled a $300 million extraordinary dividend to the holding company, resulting in additional liquidity and capital availability. Second, We remain committed to our long-term debt-to-capital target of 17% to 22%, excluding unrealized fixed income gains and losses. Correspondingly, we have earmarked $150 million to reduce the principal we will eventually refinance in connection with the February 2025 debt maturity. Third, Kemper is adopting the new LGTI accounting guidance effective January 1, 2023, using the modified retrospective method. Dissount rates as of September 30, 2022, resulting in an increase to shareholders' equity of between $175 and $275 million. As a reminder, our asset liability management philosophy aims to closely align our life assets and liabilities. We evaluate life liability cash flows using both economic and accounting views to mitigate economic and short-term valuation volatility. Potential asset liability rate risk is managed to less than $15 million annually. Short-term fixed-income valuation volatility relative to the A-rated eval is limited to $100 million. During the quarter, our asset liability management philosophy resulted in an equity gain of approximately $20 million. Moving to page eight, we maintained significant capital liquidity positions. At the end of the third quarter, we held a healthy liquidity balance of nearly $1.4 billion. The increase in liquidity relative to the second quarter was driven by the aforementioned $300 million life dividend. The Bermuda Reinsurance Initiative also impacted our life and health RBC ratio and improved to 535% from 405%. The debt-to-capital ratio excluding fixed income gains and losses is above our long-term target. The previously mentioned debt reduction initiative and the net transition impact from LBTI are expected to reduce the debt-to-capital ratio by approximately 4.5 points. Further targeted debt repayments using cash on hand and improved operating cash flows will enable us to return to our long-term target debt-to-capital range of 17% to 22% over the next couple of years. Turning to page 9, net investment income for the quarter was $98 million. New investment yields are up 250 to 275 basis points over the prior year, leading to a pre-tax equivalent annualized book yield of 4.2%. We estimate... $275 to $325 million of our fixed income portfolio will be subject to reinvestment in 2023. New money yields are expected to yield 140 basis points higher relative to the investments maturing over the next year. This will provide incremental improvements to future core portfolio net investment income. I'll now turn the call over to Duane to provide details on our P&C segments. Thank you, Jim, and good afternoon, everyone. Moving to page 10, we'll begin with our specialty P&C business details. Specialty auto experienced sequential underlying combined ratio improvement of two points. We more than offset the incremental severity we experienced in the quarter through rate and non-rate actions. For this segment, policies and force declined about 14% year over year and earned premium down 2.7% for the same period. This quarter, for private passenger auto, we exceeded our expectations for filed rates. filing an additional 16% on 7% of the book. We plan to file for an additional 5% on 14% of the book in the fourth quarter. At this stage, we have 4.7 points of earned rate, an increase from 2.4 points last quarter. In the fourth quarter, we expect 3.1 points of additional earned rate. The incremental benefits of earned rate and underwriting actions are expected to more than offset fourth quarter normal seasonality. with incremental net trend leading to at least a point of sequential improvement in PPA's underlying combined ratio. Our commercial vehicle business continues to build momentum with strong results in the quarter. The year-to-date underlying combined ratio, including third quarter seasonality, is 92.7%. Year-over-year, net premium grew 34%, and policies enforced grew 16%. The strength of the underlying business model and our ability to continue to achieve rate will enable us to continue to profitably grow this business. Now let's turn to page 11. Preferred auto experience is sequential underlying combined ratio increase of 2.4 points, driven by a slight seasonal increase in BI claim activity and metal severity. We continue to make progress towards offsetting severity through rate and non-rate actions. Looking at the chart on the upper right, We file for an additional 18% of rate on 40% of our preferred auto book during the third quarter and have 2.5 points of earned rate. We're planning to file an additional 15% of rate on 9% of the book in the fourth quarter. We also expect 1.5 points of additional earned rate in the fourth quarter.
spk03: Although actions will take time to earn into the book, the pace will accelerate in the fourth quarter and throughout 2023. I'll now turn the call back to Joe.
spk04: Thank you, Dwayne. Turning to our life and health segment on page 12, profitability improved due to two primary items. First, COVID-related mortality declined. We've now experienced two quarters of sequential decline. Consistent with national trends, mortality is above pre-pandemic levels, but trending back towards pre-pandemic levels. Second, we had solid investment performance driven by a high-quality portfolio and new money yields increasing long-term spread margins. New rates are exceeding yield maturities by approximately 100 points. Additionally, life-new business sales continue to be at pre-pandemic levels. These items provide a favorable tailwind to restore the business to its pre-pandemic levels of profitability. From a run rate perspective, we anticipate this will occur in the back half of 2023. I'll now turn the call back to Jim so he can share additional details on the strategic initiatives. Moving to page 13. Here we outline initiatives that will strengthen our competitive advantages and accelerate our path to target profitability. These include programs to enhance and optimize spend within LAE, enterprise expense, and real estate. In total, we expect to achieve annualized expense savings in excess of $150 million. The cost to bring these savings to fruition is between $150 million to $200 million in pre-tax chargers and will be incurred over the next three years. A portion of this expense is non-cash. To enable tracking, the table on this page will be provided quarterly with our earnings updates. The actions displayed here are underway. We expect to start to earn some of these benefits in the fourth quarter. The majority of benefits will be realized by the end of 2023 with additional savings in 24 and in 2025. Turning to page 14. As we previously discussed the offshore captive, I'm going to start with the transformation of our P&C personal loans businesses to fee-based models through the incorporation of a reciprocal exchange. An example of this model is Erie. If you are not familiar with this model, it's an alternative way to structure an insurance company. In this configuration, Kemper will be responsible for the day-to-day management of a carrier owned by policyholders, will be paid a fee for our services, and will be removed from underwriting risk. Over a five- to seven-year period, we expect this will free up over 50% of the capital we currently have deployed to support these underwriting activities. In addition, it will provide meaningful tax advantages that we'll use to optimize pricing. The aforementioned capital release will largely be back-ended due to the time it will take for the carrier to become self-sufficient and for us to subsequently deconsolidate it. From a timing perspective, we're at an advanced stage of the planning process. and intend to submit our plan to regulators before year-end. We anticipate beginning to write business in the reciprocal on the third quarter of 2023. We're excited about the long-term prospects of this insurance model and will continue to provide updates on further investor calls. I'll now turn the call over to Joe for closing remarks. Thanks, Jim. As a reminder, we recently published our 2022 ESG report. Updates include enhancement to our ESG transparency with new disclosures, aligned to the sustainability accounting standards board. You can read more about these topics in the report available on Kemper.com. In closing, I'd like to reiterate that the strategic initiatives we announced today are aimed at improving our company and strengthening our strategy over the long term. That will enable us to continue to expand our market share on our core businesses and improve margins. We're continuously enhancing and advancing platforms and capabilities, that help us better serve the affordability and ease of use needs of our specialty and underserved markets. We aim to decrease capital requirements, lower costs, enhance customer product offerings, and reduce our risk profile. This will better position us to serve the needs of our customers and employees and provide significant long-term shareholder value. Finally, I'm confident our actions will generate the necessary results to restore underwriting profitability and make us a stronger organization. Today, we have four and a half points of earned rate running through our personal line auto books. Don't miss the fact that based on actions already effective, by this time next year, we'll have at least 19 points of earned rate running through these books. Further, our operating model enhancements will advance capabilities and our expense initiatives will drive further cost advantages. As always, I want to thank our employees for continuing to strengthen our company, serve our customers, and ensure a bright future. I'll now turn the call over to the operator for questions.
spk05: Thank you. We will now start today's Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from Greg Peters from Raymond James. Your line is now open.
spk01: uh hey good afternoon everyone um so a lot of information and appreciate the slide deck uh let's i guess my first question would just start off in the specialty pc insurance segment um some of your peers have reported some continuing adverse development and some reserve charges it seemed like you avoided that this quarter uh So maybe you could come on the state of your reserves, and then secondly, on rate. You know, looking at the table that you put on page 10, and it still seems like there's some rate opportunities. So maybe you can give us some color of what's going on state by state.
spk04: Okay, Greg, this is Jim. I'll start with the reserve question. We'll tag team, or Duane and Joe will jump in on the rate. I can follow if there's something that's there. Big picture from a reserving perspective, we feel pretty good in terms of where we're at. Obviously, as we've indicated previously, we try to have a forward view of where these things are going. We try to make sure that we understand each of the underlying pieces and what has to be true for those things to come to fruition. And those things are included in our viewpoints. We get a lot of data on a day in and day out basis and on a quarterly basis that enables us to kind of a very thoughtful, you know, quarterly pick and to watch that through. And secondarily, you know, I'll remind folks, you know, when you think about a 50-50 pick, from a confidence perspective that comes into that, we look to have a 60 plus percent generally confidence, you know, especially in an environment like this with that pick. So there's a I don't want to say conservatism because it's a consistency with which we apply to that. But I think those elements kind of come together to highlight both our reserving philosophy and why you can have good confidence in the quality of our loss ratio picks and the quality of our balance sheet. I'll take a start, Greg, on the rate piece and see if there's additional comments after that. Look, we've been taking a lot of rate and will continue to take a lot of rate. This only shows three-quarters on slide 10, so don't forget there's rate we took and the ones that are sort of rolled off that page that's there for historical information. We didn't try here to present the totality, but that is why I gave you sort of that cumulative, you know, over the last year and a half, what's been running through. We are in states outside of California. basically taking our full rate indications and whenever they're available, taking more. For the large part, we've done that at this point. When the rate indications show that there's an ability to file for more rate, we will. The story in California, there's no particular news to update. I think you've probably seen that they've approved a couple of individual companies' rate programs. They've got an election on Tuesday. We continue to watch the environment, and we'll continue to appropriately file for rate there and move forward once the ones we have are approved.
spk01: That's helpful. I guess my second question, strategically, you've announced a bunch of moves, and I'm particularly interested in the potential divestiture of the preferred business and, of course, the establishment of a reciprocal. So obviously you're not going to share with us everything that's going on, but maybe you could establish some guideposts on how the board and management is thinking about these important moves that you're making and how we as investors should be looking at them on a quarterly and annually annual basis as you deploy the whatever strategies you you've announced?
spk04: Sure, and Jim and I'll tag team this a little bit. Maybe I'll start with the PI and then on the other the other pieces of the enhancements. Jim, I think is outlined a couple of those guidelines, but we'll add a couple more on top of that. We're in a strategic review process with personal insurance. We understand that this is a challenging environment for most of the P&C personal lines industry at this point. We've seen our combined ratios start to drop, but I think you're still seeing a lot of folks seeing theirs climb. That will make this a challenging environment to go through that thought process. We are looking at every option we have in terms of how to think through that business. um and and what we can do on our own or what might make sense um with another partner and we're gonna need a little time um to work through that i don't imagine that will take us um you know more than a couple of quarters to have a point of view on on how to resolve that it may it will likely take longer than that to to complete whatever we're doing um but we'll have a point of view there i just highlight for you that it's a um a challenging environment for everybody in this space now, and that's going to impact the optionality. Greg, from a reciprocal standpoint, I highlight kind of where we start from a principle-based perspective. We're always looking for ways to enable ourselves to be able to provide customers with the lowest potential pricing that we can for the quality products that we provide. The reciprocal structure has several benefits of it, but one or two of them that are really notable are the positive impacts that's there from a capital perspective in terms of lower charges, things of that nature for the policyholder, as well as some tax benefits and things like that that are inside there. When we look at that model, you start with that customer standpoint. It's something that can help us advance the ball further uh, elongate some of the pricing advantages and that, that we have. And it's also very positive, um, you know, for our, the remainder of our stakeholders, that being, you know, uh, effectively the stockholders of the company, um, as well as, you know, employees that pricing advantage that gives us, you know, further competitive advantages, uh, inside the markets makes us stronger, more stable, enables us to grow over the longer term in an accelerated way, making us a further, stronger, uh, company from that perspective. And then again, removing some of the volatility or the elements that you would see from a day-in, day-out model perspective that would be in today's model, I think is good for essentially our stockholders. And so this is our move in that direction. We've been working on this for a while, and we're excited to continue on that path and to unlock these benefits both for our customers and for our stockholders.
spk01: The last question. the reciprocal strategy sounds really interesting. Just from a capital perspective, Jim, it sounds like, I mean, you're going to have to have capital to establish the reciprocal exchange at the same time. Are you going to get the capital from your existing subsidiaries as they move it over to the, I guess I'm just trying to understand sequencing of capital movements between the entities.
spk04: Yeah, so we'll start with a surplus note and other from a capital perspective. It will then obviously create over time. This is one of the reasons it takes five to seven years to fully appreciate those benefits. But then that surplus note will become repayable as you go forward in the future as the reciprocal in and of itself becomes self-sufficient. Again, that will take about five to seven years to fully come to fruition. But that capital benefit is very meaningful that comes there for our customers. And it will, you know, obviously provide meaningful capital to the organization as a whole in terms of our, you know, our ongoing endeavors to, you know, continue to grow the business or, you know, if the right option there is to return the capital, we'll return the capital. So both of those things I think are big positives and effectively that's how we're going to start.
spk01: Got it. Makes sense. Thanks for the answers. Thank you.
spk05: Our next question today comes from Paul Newsome from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
spk02: Good evening. Thanks for the call. A little bit of follow up on the reciprocal idea. Is the idea here that essentially the reciprocal would start with its own sort of fresh policy licenses and filings, and it would be independent from what you currently have? Or is there some sort of transfer process that happens? Theoretically, that would? And I guess, you know, mechanically, how would that work for? Would you be transferring the book? Or is it simply starting new business with reciprocal and then letting whatever the good question?
spk04: I'm sorry to interrupt you. I thought you were done.
spk02: Oh, I'm good.
spk04: Thank you. Okay. No, good question. What we'll do is we will start and create a fresh entity with fresh licenses and fresh filings. It will be, in many cases, mirror the products we're using already, and we will write new business into that entity. If we took state X and we started doing it, we would stop writing new business in our old entities and write all the new business in the new entities. As Jim mentioned, you started with a surplus note to get it capitalized, and then as it takes the surplus contributions that are part of the policy or the premium and the underwriting profit it makes, and it's generating its own capital over time, and we'll fill it up. So what will happen as the new business gets written there and we stop new business in other entities, it will gradually naturally shift over. Very similar to how sometimes you'll see a company do an open book, closed book strategy where they change products and use a different legal entity inside the organization. The old program winds down and the new one grows. This will do the same thing in that process. And that's, again, part of why it takes a little bit of time. It's because it transfers on new and because it has to build up its own capital.
spk02: That makes sense. The reciprocal, this is just for the specialty business. It wouldn't be for the preferred or would it be for the commercial business as well, or is that separate?
spk04: Yeah, Paul, good question. At this time, it's intended to be for the personal line, the P&C personal lines underwritings as we go forward. So we've got to go through, complete, essentially, our strategic review of PI, but either depending on what direction, it would also be included on this, depending on what the outcome is of that review, or it will be the KAPPA underwritings. The commercial business, it has the potential to go through here, but our intent at this stage is for it to continue to write in the entities that it's currently in. The current benefits and where we think about it at this point in time, there's a very clear benefit for the PPA side. It's a little bit more It's a little more cloudy, if you will, and whether or not there's that benefit. But if it were to produce that benefit, then we would head in that direction again so we could provide that. But right now, it's the intent for the PPA writings to go through that. And to be clear, Paul, we're going to start with the specialty PPA. and be working there, we'll, I agree 100% with Jim, but we'll complete our review, strategic review of PI before we conducted any opportunity to move in that direction.
spk02: Okay, that's great. And then I guess I'll ask one question. I wanted to know kind of the cash flow process of the life captive. Did that tie to the operating cash flow negativity in your days? And I guess relatedly, the trapped captive, was that purely a statutory capital amount? So you're essentially holding a little less or able to hold less capital in the captive, or is it something that you were able to do with the life reserves as part of the transfer?
spk04: Mr. Paul, if I understand correctly, I'm going to answer. And if I don't get to what you're looking for, please ask a follow-up on this. you know, big picture, it's 100% consolidated with ours, first of all. The second of all, when we went through with the transfer, you know, that we then received an extraordinary dividend that effectively went to the holdco from essentially United, or the entity that was essentially holding the reserves today. You know, from in terms of what you're going to see on an ongoing basis, it's going to act in in the same way that the rest of our business does. This is a statutory capital release versus entrapped capital versus essentially, I guess, a gap capital in terms of where you're at. But in terms of our ability for uses and other elements, we obviously have the same freedom. And then if you're thinking about kind of what that reinsurance structure looks like, it's done on a funds-withheld basis. Happy to talk to any questions if you've got them further inside there, but hopefully I hit on the points that you were hoping I would touch on.
spk02: No, I think I get it. It's just a question of how much capital is actually in the captive versus what got pulled out of the insurance subsidiary. There's a difference there.
spk04: There's still about $400 million of capital that's inside the entity. As we continue to work through some of the benefits as you go forward, just the natural, you would expect another $100 million or so to come out over the next year or so that will go to the Holdco. And you'll see us run the life entities at very similar ratios that we've run at in the past. Obviously, right now, we're much higher than that. But that really, you know, should be highlighting kind of the strength and just where we're at, you know, from an overall position there.
spk02: Okay. Thank you. Always appreciate the help.
spk05: Our next question today comes from Brian Meredith from UBS. Your line is now open.
spk01: Hey, good evening.
spk04: A couple of them here for you. First, just on the operating model enhancements here. So I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. So in theory, over the next couple of years, we're going to see your LAE ratio decline by two and a half to three points. And also your expense ratio. I think if I look at 60 to 70 million run rate, that's about a point to point and a half in your expense rate. Is that the way to kind of think about it? Let me real estate optimization a little bit more. I'm fine. I think you're thinking about it the right way. Now, again, different sizes or whatnot would be there. But yes, if you just extrapolate it to where we're at today, that is the right directional answer. Excellent. And then second question, I'm just curious, you know, obviously you put through a lot of rate increases, you know, so far. Where are you with respect to rate adequacy right now, you think, on your book of business as far as what you've filed as of today? And the reason I'm asking is, is there a point at which we could maybe start to see some sequential improvements in PEF, obviously excluding California because that's a different animal. Hi, this is Dwayne. Yeah, good question. I'd say outside of California, we're there. We're largely rate adequate and we continue to, I think as Joe mentioned, you know, we're looking at indications on a regular basis and we'll address that, you know, should we need rate. Gotcha. So you're in a position to, perhaps start to grow again outside of California? We're trying to be careful with our words here, so I'm going to be blunt about it. We believe we're laid adequate. We believe that there's still a significant inflationary environment around, so we'll remain, for the moment, modestly cautious outside of those geographies. We want to see that rate earn in. I want to see a little bit more on what inflation does and make sure that we're following up with the rate behind it because we don't want to be behind. Again, we want to get back out in front of it. So we'll be a little tempered when we step on the gas. And the only other piece that I would add is that it's your position in the marketplace relative to others. So sometimes it's that, are we moving you know, in tandem or we move differently. And so depending on how that, you know, how you find that in the marketplace will also dictate our ability to grow. Right. If our prices are higher than everybody else, because we moved earlier, we might not be growing because we're not competitive. It's not just an underwriting filter. It's, it's, we might be, you know, customers going to choose the person to choose to buy from the person who's still inadequate. Gotcha. That makes sense. And then last, just a quick question. I'm just curious about, You know, post-Hurricane Ian, I know some things happened in Florida from a regulatory perspective. One of them, I believe, is that they've suspended use and file. Does that change your all, your kind of outlook in Florida right now as far as, you know, where you are with respect to, you know, growing in that state or doing stuff in that state? Not at this time. Again, Florida's been one of the states where we've been very active in terms of trying to, you know, get us in the right place from a rate position. Um, and we'll continue, you know, as those, you know, as those rules change, we'll continue to abide accordingly. And, um, you know, if we have to go through an approval process on that, on the front end is some of the other states that we, you know, we're in do, then that's, that's, that's what we'll do. A lot of times what you find is the states have an official regulatory category using file, file and use prior approval, however they describe it. And then there's, how do they function? They may be changing some of the rules. It doesn't appear that they're changing in terms of how they function in what they're doing. And to clarify sort of my last thought, Brian, I don't want to leave my last comment to suggest we think we're price uncompetitive. I think we've taken a lot of rate. We think we've gotten ourselves rate adequate. But doing Dwayne's point was generally you've got to be responsive to what else is going on in the market and what's happening there. You're just seeing the same shopping activity, the same moving activity, the same other activity, and we'll be in that spot. I still think we have a very strong competitive advantage, an attractive expense profile, an attractive ability to serve our customer needs. And I think when we're confident it's time to grow, that the ability is there.
spk07: Great. Thank you.
spk06: Our next question comes from Matt Carletti from JMP. Your line is now open.
spk05: Looks like the question dropped there, so our next question is from Gary Ransom from Dowling and Partners. Please go ahead.
spk03: Yes, good evening. A lot of my questions on the reciprocal been answered, but I have a couple more. The way you seem to be describing it, it sounds like you put in a surplus note, you write some new business. If things go well, you put in another surplus note, you write some more business. That process continues over this five to seven years. I'm trying to understand exactly what you mean by the transition at that point. Are you saying that that's when it's self-sufficient and you don't have to put any more funding into it, or are you self-sufficient at that point
spk04: because you've already gotten all that all the surplus notes back and you can deconsolidate at that point yeah so um good question um you may not have all of the surplus notes back but you would be self-sufficient from that you wouldn't necessarily need to be putting any more capital in from that perspective from reinsurance or other elements that you would look at and it's making earnings along that journey and those are building up and at that point in time it's self-sufficient for you know, writing new business or other elements that would come into the entity at that point. The note in and of itself probably, it's an extended term note, right, that would come out in, you know, kind of normal course. Think about it like a 30-year mortgage or something to that extent.
spk03: Right. Yeah, okay. I understand. And then when I think about the other reciprocals out there, whether, you know, Erie, USAA, Farmers, there's more of a preferred writing bent to it. yours being a little bit more shorter duration or shorter lifetime customers. And I was just wondering if that in any way affects how you are thinking about the buildup of that transition, if you have to keep churning these customers a little more than other reciprocals.
spk04: So I think the Erie model is a good model to reference. I think what I would actually highlight and why I think this becomes more of a challenge necessarily for maybe preferred or standard companies versus maybe specialty or non-standard um is it just takes longer to move the entire business and to recover those benefits because our policy life isn't quite as long as what you would see right on that term it actually happens faster and so right there i actually think there's more benefits for someone like us or at least that's what our modeling and other elements would suggest that it's actually better and more favorable for us. And the difference that you might be is if I was a 100% standard preferred and I didn't have it, it might be more like a 10 to 15 year period before you got to that deconsolidation versus kind of our five to seven.
spk03: Great. And a couple other little detailed questions. Are you When you're talking about tax benefits, are you imagining that the premium the customer pays might be partly attributed to a capital contribution?
spk04: That is correct, yes. And so that component of it that's there obviously creates that tax benefit that's come through. And if you think about that being maybe 50% of the margin that you might have, you might think of it as small, but you might think of it as large. It just depends on how you're thinking about it.
spk03: Right. And then what domicile are you setting up the reciprocal in?
spk04: So we haven't announced that. There's a couple, though, that I would say two or three that were fairly deep and what we're working on is the final details there and where it's going to be kind of the optimal location for us. And so there'll be more details here to come, obviously, shortly.
spk03: It's not actually finalized yet. Okay. All right. And, yeah, I guess that's it. I think I understand. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot, Gary.
spk05: Our final question comes from Andrew Kligerman from Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.
spk04: Hey, thanks a lot. Good evening. I just want to fill in a bunch of blanks, a lot of good answers. So just looking at slide 10 and the written overall impact, it looks like you'll get a little less than one percent written impact and and i think earlier you said that you feel like you're you're pretty uh you said we're there i think so you i guess that illustrates that you're pretty far along everywhere in in california correct can you can you i'm not seeing what you're seeing andrew can you help one more time with where you are in the one percent Yeah, you know, we're going from 13 seven on written overall impact to 14 six, so a little less than 1% impact or, or multiplying the 14% times five in the fourth quarter doesn't seem like you need a lot more. And hence your comment with their, you know, that that reflects it, right? Yeah, I think what you're seeing in that overall impact column is that the the written impact of the rate that's working. So I'm not sure I would read the 13.7 to the 14.6 as being a point and that's driving it. What that's just saying is another quarter, another group of policies renewed or written new at the effective rate level, and that's the weighted average impact on the overall book. I think the earned rate is really what you want to look to in terms of how it's working through the earnings. because that's what's impacting the current period, the loss ratio. The 4.7 you see in the third quarter, I pointed out that the rate we've taken on the overall book, when you look at that, it will come out to be about 19 points of earned rate by this time next year. So the 4.7 works up to a 7.8, and that number will be about a 19 by this time, at least 19 this time next year. And I think the earned impact is what you want to watch because that's when the eggs fully snake and working through. When we say we're about there, you won't see it on the slide. That becomes a state-level price adequacy or rate adequacy analysis. And we were saying that we believe we're about rate adequate in all states other than California, which means if there was no inflation or it will be expected over the next couple of months, we'd have rates that were adequate for what we needed. Now, we've got to watch what the inflation is because if that rises up, then we're now inadequate again. And, again, that's normal, ordinary course. If you expected it to be 8 and it was 10, you're two points light. If you expect it to be 10 and it's 7, you're three points heavy. We've got some of those views baked into our pricing. That's what's helping us say that we're rate adequate and everywhere, roughly rate adequate and everywhere other than California in this business. you can't quite pull it off the chart. Right, right. I guess I was just getting at it. It just doesn't look like there's incrementally much rate to be taken going forward, and I guess I would throw in non-rate actions. Is that fair to think about it that way, that you're probably across your entire book, ex-California, you're probably not looking at much more than 1% or 2% in the next quarter? I'm not... So this is Jim. I would not look at it that way. Our actual rate filing activity is on the page. I think we're highlighting that we're going to file at about 14% of the premium that will be impacted, a weighted average rate of 5%. I think that tells you what we're doing. I mean, we've generally outperformed kind of those numbers. And I think if you're looking to say, what is it that we're doing over the next quarter, two quarters, others, I think that's the right one to kind of look at when you're thinking about the right side of the written, this is about how it turns into the book or what has essentially been priced against it. Right. And this is telling you when you think about like the percentage of the book that had these pricing elements against it, this is telling you that that's, you know, at the 14.6 component, right. That that's working its way in there. So we just should be careful between the tables, what we're trying to express. Um, and I think the right one for you to think about if you're looking at what we're doing from a rate perspective is what we're planning to do from a filing perspective. Yeah. The left side of the chart on the left side of the dotted line is the incremental changes to the rate card in this time period. The right side of the chart is the cumulative impact of all prior changes, and our comments on rate adequacy are not represented here. So what you could take away from this is that if we believe we were rate adequate in all states other than California now, that we are also planning on taking 5% of rate on roughly 14% of our book because that is there in our rate indications, and we are conservatively and thoughtfully saying we want to make sure we're ahead of this, not behind this. Now, we were taking, you know, rated average rates of 16 and 19 in the two previous quarters, so we're slowing down the pace, but it's not as slow as you were thinking. Right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So 14 times 5, and maybe you'll do more after that, but it makes plenty of sense. And then maybe... Again, I'm going to interrupt you for one second, Andrew. You might be right that 14 times 5 might be one point on the whole book. I think what you're trying to get, what's more important to get is that when we're going into those states, we're still looking for about a 5% rate increase, not a 1%, a 5. The impact on the whole book might be about 1, but it's a 5, and that would be indicative of what we would be thinking in other geographies. Your math on converting it to an earned amount might be appropriate, but I don't want other folks to miss direction where we're saying we're going. Yeah, the only reason I was going there was just it feels like you're coming toward the end of the line there, and that's why I just sort of multiplied the 14.5, but I think we're on the same page, so. No need to. Yeah, that is what we were trying to communicate. Andrew, is that outside of California, we feel like we're nearing rate adequacy, that you're seeing earned rate in. And I think the last comment I made before we took questions, or close to the last comment, was by this time next year, if we did nothing else, we already have taken actions that are going to push 19 points of earned rate through this book. All of that benefit is coming. Now, we are going to do more on top of that, but that's in the bank. But for the passage of time, it'll come out. And absolutely clear and highly significant. And then maybe shifting over to the preferred business and the potential sale. As we think about it with the loss experience being so challenged at this point in time, it you know how much capital is tied up in the preferred business and uh would you anticipate that you you could could get a premium to that value or there may be a cost to that value how are you thinking about uh potential exit values on that business without being too specific obviously You made a couple of good points there, and they conflict a little bit. In one, you highlighted that the losses are challenged there and remind us that it's a difficult environment. That would be putting downward pressure on a value. Then you asked if there was a premium, which is an upward pressure. We're going to go through a process. I'm not sure this is the right form for us to describe that before we've talked to potential interested parties. Let's work our way through that. But you can do your own evaluation of what you think the, you know, the business's current position in the market environment. Okay, fair enough. And in terms of the secondary question, in terms of the capital, you could see this from various colleagues, but it's between $400 million and $500 million. The reason that I highlight that range is just it's obviously dependent on underwritings, mix of business, things of that nature. But that's essentially, however you're going to work through it, that's the capital that's pledged against the business. Okay, that's helpful. And then as I think about the reciprocal, as I think about the captive that, you know, where you're able to extract $300 million, How are the rating agencies looking at these two specific entities? I know they're very different. Where are you rated now by the agencies on claims paying ability and where would you see them coming out as we move down the line with each of these businesses? So I would just highlight, you know, we're rated an a, uh, inside the business. We expect that to continue. Um, when you're thinking about this in terms of the overall transaction, um, we're stronger, right? We have a tighter RB. We have a higher RBC ratio. We have greater flexibility and we will be less leveraged, uh, as a company because of this, all of those things are very positive, right? From a credit perspective. And notice that what we're highlighting is our first priorities and our uses for capital is to maintain that very strong risk profile. And so I would tell you I think these are all positive elements, and we don't foresee any changes in terms of the way we're managing the business or other that would come through and any kind of change of ratings.
spk02: Terrific. Thank you very much. Thank you.
spk05: There were no further questions at this time. I will now hand you back over to Joe Locker for closing remarks.
spk04: Thank you, everybody, for joining us on our call today, for your interest and your questions. We're excited about where we're headed and making good progress on restoring the underlying profitability. of the organization and I think as we mentioned a couple of quarters ago, we were going to spend some time on what we refer to as home improvement projects and you start to see the fruit of those labors being brought online. I look forward to speaking to you again next quarter. Take care.
spk05: This concludes campus third quarter earnings conference call. You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer