SiriusPoint Ltd

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Serious Point's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the conclusion of prepared remarks, management will host a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded, and a replay is available through 1159 p.m. Eastern time on May 22nd, 2026. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Liam Blackledge, Investor Relations and Strategy Manager. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Serious Points, first quarter 2026 earnings call. Last night, we released our earnings press release, form 10Q and financial supplement, all available on our website at investors.seriouspt.com, along with the slides that will accompany today's discussion. Joining on the call are Scott Eden, our Chief Executive Officer, and Jim McKinney, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's remarks contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations and actual results may differ materially. We will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures which we believe are useful in evaluating the performance of the business. Reconciliations can be found in the presentation and our SEC filings. Please refer to our earnings release and accompanying materials for a more complete discussion of forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures. With that, I'll turn the call over to Scott.

Thank you Liam and welcome everyone to our first quarter 2026 results call. We've started the year with a strong first quarter, continuing to build on our performance momentum. We have delivered strong underwriting profits, disciplined growth and attractive capital returns, and I'm pleased with our delivery. Let me start with our headline results. We delivered a core combined ratio of 88.9%, the lowest we've reported in six quarters. We grew our insurance and services gross written premiums by 8%. Our operating return on equity of 15.3% puts us at the top end once again of our 12 to 15% across the cycle target range. Our gap return on equity was higher at 17.4%, reflecting the closure of the Arcadian sale we announced last year. Our balance sheet is very strong with a BSCR ratio of 242% for the first quarter. We have redeemed $200 million of preference shares and as of earlier this week have bought back over $40 million of common shares. We are announcing today that we're increasing our $100 million buyback intention we announced at full year results by the remainder of our existing authorization, which is another $74 million. Our book value per share is up 5%. And finally, our financial strength ratings have been upgraded to A over the past three months by S&P, Fitch and AMBEST. These results continue to reinforce the progress we're making in building a best-in-class specialty underwriter with a diversified low volatility portfolio. Turning to some of our headlines in more detail and starting with our top line, There's no question that certain parts of the P&C market are softening, and in those areas, we will be disciplined. However, we believe that our product and distribution strategy and our nimble capital allocation model will allow us to grow top line and make attractive underwriting returns. Our first quarter gross written premium showed both of these dynamics. Our insurance and services gross written premium grew again by 8%, driven by the continued momentum in specialty lines with accident and health growing by nine percent. Our reinsurance gross written premium declined ten percent as we remained disciplined particularly in areas such as property cap where some risks did not offer adequate returns. Overall our headline core gross written premiums grew one percent although in Q1 this was impacted by some one-off noise, including reinstatement premiums in the prior year. The same was true for our net written premiums, which also includes the impact of the aggregate programmes we announced at the year end and a one-time surety item from the prior year. Adjusting for these items, both our gross and net written premiums grew around 4% year over year. As a reminder, the aggregate programmes we purchased are part of our lower volatility return strategy and support our 12 to 15% across the cycle ROE target. As I look ahead to the rest of the year, we remain positive about our growth prospects. We have a strong pipeline of MGA opportunities that we are rigorously evaluating and we have the agility to deploy capital in reinsurance should we see opportunities. We expect our overall gross written premium growth to be between 5 to 10% for the full year, with strong growth in insurance and services. Our growth will be more weighted to the second half of the year, primarily driven by the shift in mix to insurance from reinsurance. Turning to underwriting performance, the results this quarter continue to reflect the benefits of the diversified portfolio we've been reshaping over the past few years. We have improved the quality of the portfolio and materially reduced volatility. The consistency of our core combined ratio over the past few years is a clear demonstration of this. In the first quarter, we delivered a core combined ratio of 88.9% and underwriting profits of $71 million. This marks our 14th consecutive quarter of underwriting profitability, an important proof point on the execution of our underwriting strategy. In reinsurance, our combined ratio of 84.2% improved by around 13 points, driven by lower catastrophe losses. This was partially offset by lower PYD and modestly higher acquisition costs and expenses. We remain opportunistic for the right risks, priced appropriately, with a focus on lower volatility outcomes. In insurance and services, the combined ratio improved to 92%. with the ex-cat combined ratio improving by just over half a point. Favorable prior year development reflects our conservative reserving approach in general, but particularly for newer MGA relationships, where we reserve at higher than price loss ratios in the early years. An improving accretional loss ratio and higher prior year releases resulted in higher profit commission accruals for our MGA partners, lifting acquisition costs. We structurally design our MGA partnership in this way, where we ensure an alignment of interest to underwriting performance. The higher acquisition costs simply reflects strong partner performance. We are happy to pay enhanced commissions for superior performance. Important to note, these are mostly accruals and not cash payments. Many of our profit commission structures include a carry forward feature, allowing profit and losses to be offset across accident years. Our other underwriting expenses were elevated in the quarter due mostly to timing items and we reaffirm our full year guidance range of 6.5% to 7%. This quarter we've introduced some additional slides enhancing our disclosures as we try and give further insights into our business. First, we've introduced a new return on equity metric focused on our go forward business. As a reminder, we label this our core business. Important to note that nothing has changed from a definition perspective. Our core business definition has been stable since the beginning of 2024 after the major underwriting reshaping that took place in late 2022 and during 2023. The reason for introducing the measure is to try and give people a better indication of the performance of our ongoing business without the impact of historically exited business. Eventually, runoff will run off. and I will come back to that later. Over the last nine quarters, the core portfolio has generated strong ROE, as you can see from the graph on slide nine. For the first quarter, it was 17.9%, reflecting a strong trend and reinforcing the earnings power embedded in the go forward portfolio today. Our second area of enhanced disclosure is around our approach to MGA partnering, an area we are often asked questions on. We strongly believe in the strength of the distribution channel, its growth, and most importantly, our approach to it. Slide 15 shows some metrics linked to how we think about MGAs. From our selection process, where we choose less than 10% of partners we evaluate, to our own boarding, where we typically take six to nine months and get to know potential partners, to our deal structuring, where there are no volume incentives in any of our relationships, and where almost 90% of our partners have incentivization linked to underwriting profits. And finally, our prudent financial management, where we typically reserve above pricing level for new partners and prudently in general. It is this mix of measures and approach that we believe makes our strategy compelling and sustainable. But it's not just one way. We are also a partner of choice for many MGAs. And as a reminder, last year, we won the US Programme Carrier of the Year. We hope this slide's helpful. Finally, we've added a page on runoff, which I touched on earlier. Runoff performance sits outside of our core metrics. And again, just to reinforce, nothing has been added to the runoff portfolio since the end of 2023, an important discipline. We did see some losses here in the first quarter, like we have seen over the past few years. There's nothing noteworthy to draw any specific comment on. Importantly, our net runoff reserves are now under $500 million, down from just over a billion dollars at the end of 2023. and the portfolio should be 90% reported by mid-2027. Ending with a balance sheet. A disciplined approach to capital management is a key part of our strategy. Our prudent approach to reserving saw our 20th consecutive quarter of prior year releases. It's also worth noting that we have minimal claims from the conflict in the Middle East and there has been no significant impact on our loss reserves from the change in market estimate relating to the Baltimore Bridge collapse. As I said earlier, so far in 2026, we've returned over $240 million of capital to shareholders, including the redemption of $200 million of preference shares and the buyback of over $40 million of common shares as part of our $100 million commitment we announced at year end 2025. Supported by a stronger than expected year-end capital position, continued performance momentum and a BSCR capital ratio of 242%, we are pleased to deploy additional capital by increasing our 100 million buyback commitment to the full pre-authorisation amount of $174 million. Our leverage of 23% is at a historic low and since our full year results in February, S&P AMBEST and Fitch have upgraded their financial strength ratings to A, citing consistent earnings and balance sheet strength, a long way from where we started. So to close, before I pass across to Jim, who'll take you through the financials in more detail, I will leave you with a few key takeaways. Our strong underwriting focus and capability continues to show itself meaningfully through our results. Our approach in building a low volatility diversified specialty platform focused on niche distribution means we can perform strongly during softer market conditions. We are positive about our growth opportunities for the remainder of the year and expect strong growth in our insurance and services business. Our prudent reserving and capital management coupled with our rating agency upgrades position us strongly in the market. And finally, our drive, ambition and attention to detail across the company is a key differentiator in our journey to be a leading specialty player. My final comment, as always, goes to our biggest asset, our people. I am deeply grateful again to all of my colleagues for another strong quarter and for their continuing levels of energy and commitment. I'm immensely proud to lead them on this journey. And with that, I'll turn over to Jim to walk through the financials in more detail.