Axis Capital Holdings Ltd (AXS) Q2 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the AXIS Capital Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Rohrmann, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Cole. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm happy to welcome you to our conference call to discuss the financial results for AXIS Capital for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021. Our earnings press release and financial supplement were issued yesterday evening after the market closed. If you'd like copies, please visit the Investor Information section of our website at axiscapital.com. We set aside an hour for today's call, which is also available on the audio webcast found on the Investor Information section of our website. With me today are Albert Benchimol, our President and CEO; and Pete Vogt, our CFO. Before I turn the call over to Albert, I'll remind everyone that the statements made during this call, including the question-and-answer session, which are not historical facts, may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including the risk factors set forth in the company's most recent report on Form 10-K and other reports the company files with the SEC. This includes additional risks identified in the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements in our earnings press release issued yesterday evening. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. In addition, this presentation may contain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations are included in our earnings press release and financial supplement. With that, I'll turn the call over to Albert.

Thank you, Matt. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining today's call. This has been another strong quarter for AXIS, an additional data point that reinforces the positive momentum in our positioning and performance which we believe is the outcome of a multiyear effort to build a more profitable and resilient company. In both the second quarter and first half of 2021, we reported record operating earnings per share underpinned by excellent production, strong underwriting and solid investment income. And we believe that we're only just beginning to show what we're capable of achieving. While the broader industry benefited from a relatively low cat quarter, the big story for AXIS is the continued strengthening of our core underwriting performance. Our current year ex-cat combined ratio of 88.7% for the quarter is almost 3 points better than the prior year, marking the seventh consecutive quarter since the fourth quarter of 2019 that we have driven improvements in our underlying core results. Our insurance segment followed a very strong start of the year with an even better second quarter. Indeed, our insurance business is delivering performance on par with the best companies in our industry, including strong growth and improvements across almost all underwriting metrics to deliver an all-in quarterly combined ratio of 85. Our work over the last few years has positioned us very favorably in the market, as we're experiencing the strongest conditions, and we're firmly on the front foot, leading to record new business production. I'll expand on it later in our call, but we expect favorable market conditions will continue well into 2022, providing us with an even broader set of opportunities to build on our progress. Our reinsurance team is also leveraging current market conditions to further optimize their contribution to our consolidated portfolio, and the team is delivering on its goals. We're growing where it makes sense, holding the line where conditions are not as attractive as they should be and meaningfully reducing catastrophe PMLs, all of which are leading to a stronger, more profitable portfolio. I'd make a couple of observations about our premium production and reinsurance. We're building the book of business that will drive the earnings profile that we want. Excluding property and catastrophe, where we're targeting lower exposures, gross reinsurance premiums written would be up 14% in the quarter. Importantly, as many of you have noted, given the improved construction of our portfolio, we're keeping more of what we're producing and net written premiums are up 8% this quarter, and that's what will be driving profitable earned premium growth in the coming periods. Moreover, our reinsurance team's consistent approach to underwriting profitability continues to deliver sub-90s accident year ex-cat combined ratios and an all-in quarterly combined ratio of 90. We're pleased with the progress that we're making across our company. We believe we're making the right moves, and we have the wind at our backs. We worked hard to get to this point, and we feel great about the direction that we're heading in. And throughout the business, our team is playing to win. I'll now pass the floor to Pete, who will walk us through the second quarter financials. Then I'll come back and discuss market trends, and we'll have our Q&A. Pete?

Thank you, Albert, and good morning, everyone. This was an excellent quarter for AXIS, with a number of positive highlights underscored by the continuing improvement in the company's core underwriting results. During the quarter, we generated net income available to common shareholders of $228 million and an annualized ROE of 19.3%. Operating income was $171 million with an annualized operating ROE of 14.4%. Diluted book value per share increased by $2.47 in the quarter to $55.50. This was principally driven by the net income and partially offset by common share dividends. As Albert noted, the consolidated current accident year combined ratio ex-cat and weather was 88.7%, or more than 2.5 points better than the prior year quarter, principally driven by improvements within the insurance segment. The consolidated current accident year loss ratio was 58.2%, a decrease of 3.3 points over the prior year as both the ex-cat and cat loss ratios improved. The quarter's pretax cat and weather-related losses net of reinsurance were $29 million or 2.5 points. There was no change to the net loss estimate of $360 million established for the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The consolidated G&A expense ratio was 14.1%, which is consistent with our expectations. Overall operating efficiency and expense control remain important goals for us, and we continue to target a G&A ratio in the low 14s for 2021. Lastly, on a consolidated basis, fee income from strategic capital partners was roughly flat year-over-year. Now we'll discuss the segments. I will start with the insurance segment, where we had impressive performance across a number of metrics. Gross premiums written increased by 22.3% to $1.3 billion, a quarterly record for the segment. Note that the year-to-date production of $2.4 billion is a record for the first half of the year. The increase primarily came from new business and favorable rate changes in the professional lines, property lines, and liability lines. During the quarter, the insurance current accident year combined ratio ex-cat and weather was 84.5%, a 6.8-point improvement from last year, reflecting the combination of rate change and underwriting actions we have taken to strengthen the portfolio. The current accident year loss ratio, ex-cat and weather, decreased by nearly 4 points in the quarter with all lines contributing with positive rate change. We saw the greatest movement in the property lines resulting from both the impact of favorable rate over trend and improved experience driven by the underwriting actions that we have taken. The acquisition cost ratio decreased by 3.2 points in the second quarter compared to 2020. Approximately two-thirds of the decrease is due to changes in business mix. We have written less high-cost property MGA business and more lower-cost professional lines and liability business, where we get a favorable ceding commission. We also had about 1 point of benefit in the quarter due to some timing differences. Now let's move on to the Reinsurance segment. The Reinsurance segment's gross premiums written of $673 million for the second quarter was $6 million lower than the prior year, due to decreases in property and catastrophe lines from nonrenewals. This was partially offset by increases in liability and professional lines driven by favorable market trends. We are comfortable with the reduction in premiums in our property business, as this is establishing a less volatile portfolio as demonstrated by our much lower reported PMLs. During the quarter, the reinsurance current accident year combined ratio ex-cat and weather increased by 0.9 points. This was caused by an increase in the G&A ratio due to a decrease in fees, with both the ex-cat loss ratio and the acquisition cost ratio essentially flat with the prior period. Net investment income was $105 million for the quarter, compared to net investment income of $45 million for the second quarter of 2020. The quarter's exceptional net investment income was primarily attributable to positive returns from our alternative assets, principally the credit funds, real estate funds, and private equity funds. This was partially offset by a decrease in income from fixed maturities attributable to the decreased yields on the portfolio. At quarter-end, the fixed income portfolio had a book yield of 2% and a duration of 3.1 years, and our market yield was 1.4%. Overall, with continued improvement in most operating metrics and positive momentum in our core underwriting book, this was a very strong quarter for AXIS. That summarizes our second quarter results. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Albert.

Thank you, Pete. Let's do a brief overview of market conditions and outlook, and we'll then open the call for questions. We're continuing to see positive rate action across both of our segments. For our Insurance segment, this was the 15th consecutive quarter in which we reported overall rate increases and the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit average rate hikes. This quarter, the average insurance rate increase was a bit over 14%, which is up more than 1 point sequentially from the first quarter of this year and roughly flat with the prior year period. We continue to see a dynamic market responding to loss trends and supply and demand pressures with some lines accelerating their rates of improvements, while others have crested and some exhibiting a deceleration in the pace of rate hikes. Nonetheless, substantially all lines are showing increases at or above loss cost trends. Looking at our insurance segment by region, the North American market is showing the larger average increase of 15%, while London International is up 13%. By class of business, professional lines saw the strongest pricing actions with average rate increases of 20%. This is ahead of both last year's second quarter and this year's first quarter, driven by the rapid escalation in cyber lines. These have delivered accelerated increases in the quarter, which reached more than 40% by June. In other professional lines, London and Canada are stable, averaging close to 20%, while in the U.S. increases are averaging in the low double digits. Liability lines averaged close to 13%. Primary Casualty has remained generally stable at these levels, while the pace of increase in AXIS Casualty is down from its highs. Marine liability remains strong in the high teens. Property rate increases clustered at about 12%. That is only very modestly down from last year's quarter, but sequentially, it's up from the first quarter of this year. Other specialty lines continue to do well in the low to mid-double digits, with renewable energy, where we're a global leader, standing at close to 20%. Aviation is up more than 12%, and several lines within our marine book are up in the mid- to high teens. With all the changes in the dynamic market, conditions remain quite strong, with 97% of our insurance portfolio renewing flat to up and fully 60% of our portfolio by volume, achieving rate increases of 10% or better. Let's move on to reinsurance. We estimate that the overall reinsurance rate change was up about 12% in the second quarter as compared to 11% in the first. By region, the North American market was strongest with averages increasing about 13%, followed by EMEA, LATAM at 12, and Asia at 7. By class of business, liability came in just above 20%, professional lines followed at 15%, and property and cat trailed with averages only in the mid-single digits. Looking at the big renewal since we last spoke, for the June Florida renewals, there continues to be an abundance of capital with heavy competition for the higher layers, all of which pressured pricing. While pricing was reported to be in the plus 5% to 20% range, the higher rate increases were mostly in the harder-to-complete lower layers, most exposed to frequency losses. For AXIS, we've continued to reduce our exposure in Florida as we do not believe that pricing in this market has reached attractive levels. Finally, during the July 1 renewals, which impact approximately 10% of our portfolio, we saw overall rate increases in the 8% range. The July renewals relate mostly to North American accounts where, on average, rate increases were about 10%. Other regions were up in the low to mid-single digits. Specialty lines, including aviation, marine, and A&H, were in the 10% to 15% range. Putting it all together, our combined insurance and reinsurance portfolios are averaging rate increases in the double digits for both the quarter and the year-to-date. While we're seeing pricing increases coming down from their peaks in many lines, others are moving up, which means we still anticipate that positive market conditions will continue, with average price increases in line with or above loss costs into 2022 and likely beyond. As you've heard me say in the past, it's essential that our industry maintains pricing discipline as we face the cumulative impact of several headwinds, including low interest rates, the longer-term impacts of the COVID pandemic, climate change and extreme weather, as well as loss cost inflation. It goes without saying that we shouldn't confuse rate change with rate adequacy. The recent price increases bring industry profitability to a barely acceptable level of rate adequacy after many years of severe price competition and loss cost inflation. The industry has not yet gotten ahead of the curve on loss costs or reserve adequacy and must sustain its discipline, especially in a low interest rate environment. We're doing our part by pricing and reserving on the basis of prudent loss cost trends. Given everything we see, we feel great about our future. We're encouraged by the positive momentum in our performance, and we're capitalizing on favorable market conditions. We're building a stronger, more resilient portfolio that we believe will consistently deliver superior results. We believe that the changes we've made to our company in the last few years have resulted in much stronger market positioning and attractive specialty insurance and global reinsurance markets and a more data-driven collaborative approach to portfolio construction that prioritizes the profitability and stability of our consolidated results. We're building an optimized hybrid underwriter that will deliver attractive returns to our shareholders. We have a strong franchise grounded in the delivery of superior service to our clients and partners in distribution. We have a terrific team, and we continue to recruit great talent. We believe the future looks very bright for AXIS, and we look forward to continuing to keep you updated on our progress. With that, let's please open the line for questions.

Please note that our first question today will come from Brian Meredith with UBS. Please go ahead.

I got a couple here for you, Albert. The first one, let's talk a little bit about cyber. Perhaps one, can you remind us kind of the size of your cyber book gross and net basis? And then on the cyber book, I appreciate that you're getting some substantial rate increases. What's going on with terms and conditions and kind of contract structure to perhaps mitigate some of the loss activity?

Yes. So I think with regards to the changes in terms and conditions, we are one of the leaders in cyber globally. We have been on top of this since the beginning of last year. Since that time, we have noticed that there were significant model changes and increases in ransomware attacks. The view of aggregation and systemic risk in cyber has really started to increase. Since last summer, we started to make significant amendments to our risk appetite and to the portfolio construction. Among the things that we did were reduce our limits, increase deductibles, and set up much more stringent underwriting criteria, including stronger vetting of insured cyber defense capabilities. We've also increased the services and support we provide our insurers to make sure they're better prepared to defend against breaches and respond post-breach event. As you also know, we reported this last quarter, we also purchased more reinsurance to protect ourselves through the transition period. The good news is there are other leaders in the industry that are acting with us, creating a consistent effort, which makes these actions easier to implement because everyone is looking at it that way. So as a result, we are seeing significantly less exposures because our more stringent underwriting criteria are affecting it. To give you a sense, notwithstanding the fact that our cyber submissions are up meaningfully year-over-year, our quote count is actually down by almost half year-over-year. We've reduced limits and specific classes of business. Pricing is going up. As of the second quarter, it's essentially a 100 combined ratio business. The problem with cyber isn't so much the profitability of the current business, but given the views around aggregation, it requires more capital to support it. Therefore, you need to make more profits to support that capital. We need to continue to adjust the pricing to ensure that this line of business delivers adequate profitability to support the capital we need to put behind it. But we are big believers in the long-term attractiveness of cyber because our society needs it.

Got you. And anything as far as the size of the book?

Sure. We have approximately $300 million gross, and we've got a quota share of 65% against it. We've got some excess of loss against that, so basically, it's less than $150 million net all in. We think it's very well contained for the size of our balance sheet and everything that we're doing.

And then the second question, if I look at your underlying loss ratio in your insurance business, it's been running, let's call it, roughly 52% for the last six months. Is that a decent run rate right now, considering where we are with earned rate versus trend?

Brian.

Go ahead, Pete.

This is Pete. I would say yes, that's right where we expected it to be. The step to 55% last year was what we expected and we told you we thought that would come down by 200 to 300 basis points given the rates we already put on the books in the second half of 2020. I think the $52 million is a pretty good run rate.

Last question, just with respect to kind of capital management here. If I look at your stock, it still trades below book value, your financial leverage is definitely coming down. It's not quite at 25%, but coming down. Is there any visibility into maybe when you would be willing to start repurchasing your shares?

Yes, Brian, that's something that we will continue to look at. Probably will not do anything in the near term. Obviously, we're in the middle of wind season. But when we get towards the end of the year, especially with our PMLs coming down so much, we'll take a look at what we really think we want. We'll take a view of it probably in December. At that time, we'll make any announcements. You're right. I'm happy the leverage ratio is coming down. We want to get it to that 20-25% range, and that day is coming down nicely. But I really want to wait until the end of the year before we really do anything there.

If there's one comment that I would add, obviously, if we have the opportunity to grow our book of business at double-digit returns, we're also going to want to take advantage of that too.

Our next question will come from Meyer Shields with KBW. Please go ahead.

Let me start with one quick follow-up. Can you talk about what's going on with reinsurance costs on the cyber book?

I'm sorry, you broke up. Are you asking about what's going on with reinsurance on the cyber book?

In other words, the cost to buy reinsurance because you've protected yourselves very thoroughly. I'm just wondering what the trends are in the cost of that protection?

We have a January 1 renewal. We have some time to work on it. Obviously, our quota share partners will enjoy the benefit of the very significant pricing increases that we're obtaining on the book. We're confident that we'll be able to renew it. But that's a January 1 renewal, and we'll have to deal with that in the second half of the year.

Can you share any thoughts on how much of the increasing potential Maximum Loss for European windstorm might be affected by the German flood?

Yes, the short answer is not that much. The reason is that what you're getting is the 50 million to 100, to 250 PMLs. These are really affected more by year one and ten, one in twenty, one in thirty kind of areas. It's a little early because, as you know, these are not very well-modeled losses for our customers, and there are very specific local concentrations that we have to work through. I assure you that if this turns out to be any kind of a material loss, you'd hear from us. But right now, we're just following it.

Okay. That's helpful. Then a final question. The decrease in investment income from fixed maturities was a lot sharper than I would have expected. I recognize administrative were down, but it seems to have moved faster. Can you talk us through what's going on there? What's going on there?

Yes. I think, Meyer, this is Pete. Actually, when I look at it, it's down the way it's down sequentially given that we're about a 3-year duration and kind of new money yields are at about 1.4%, and the book was at 2.1%. The decrease of middle single digits was kind of what I expected in the quarter. So I don't think there's anything unusual going on there other than the fact that yields are just really low right now for new money.

Our next question will come from Phil Stefano with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Yes. Looking at the reinsurance book and you focus on the cat and property in particular, the gross was down, but the net was up, and I was hoping you could help us to square that against the nice decline that we've seen in PMLs and how that's been able to trend versus the net book being up?

Yes. I think the most important part is that there's been a huge amount of work made in the construction of the portfolio. The greater efficiency of the portfolio getting rid of the bulky exposures is very important and I think more balanced and geographically with regard to the portfolio, all of which helped drive the PMLs down. Of what we're keeping in terms of the PML, it's not just a cat that goes to retro. Although we've reduced sessions, we've also reduced retrocessions in other lines. Where we are today, we're seeding to our third-party capital partners over 50% of our cat book, and that is the largest percentage we've ever shared with our third-party capital partners.

And Pete, I think you had said in your prepared remarks, the insurance acquisition expense ratio had a slight benefit from timing issues. Can you provide a little more color on what that was or what happened there?

Phil, it was a number of things, but it was things like true-ups for profit commissions that ran through some ceding commissions that got booked. So all in all, they added up to about one point. When I think about what's the right look at what that acquisition cost ratio should be long-term, I look more at the year-to-date number of about 18% as a good proxy. It was a number of small things that we kind of got cleaned up in the quarter.

Our next question will come from Elyse Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

My first question is about the pricing environment. Albert, you seem optimistic about it, but you mentioned that some lines are experiencing loss trends. For those lines where pricing has aligned with the trend, do you expect the prices to remain stable? You also indicated that you believe pricing will stay at or above the loss trend as we move into 2022. Specifically, for the lines that have received a significant rate increase and are now closer to the trend, do you anticipate that they will remain stable as we approach the end of this year and enter 2022?

I'm not anywhere near as bullish as I'd like to be. I ultimately believe that we need to maintain strong pricing. I think we're already seeing in a number of areas where the pricing is off its highs. The rate of change is off its high, but pricing is still going up. If you think about us through the first half of this year being at a 13% average and loss costs being more in the low to mid-single digits, that is a long way down. I believe there's a journey down over the next several quarters, but I feel very strongly that the industry is not yet in control of its loss cost trends. Given the low interest rates, I think that we're going to continue to see discipline for pricing ahead of loss costs. While levels may start to gradually come down from where they are, at some point, they may remain at double-digit increases for a while, but eventually will transition to single-digit. As long as we have an opportunity to sustain pricing that at or ahead of loss costs, we can continue to improve the profitability of our book, and I feel confident that we will have those opportunities for several quarters to come.

And then, Albert, in terms of loss trend, it seems like from what we've been hearing from other players that inflation and social inflation have not been so bad if things have been slow to reopen post-COVID. What are you seeing on the loss trend side? And do you have any concerns just regarding inflationary expectations?

Yes. Everyone knows that unexpected inflation is not a friend of the industry. Of course, you get a problem on your bond portfolios because they tend to go down in value, but you can also face reserve development. I've been following the debate going on recently. My perspective is it's the difference between price index-related inflation and social inflation. Right now, price-index-related inflation is a manageable issue for the industry. We can reset values for the exposure for insured values annually. The impact of inflation on property values, payrolls, revenues is captured. For claims, claim handlers evaluate the cost of adjusting a claim based on the current context, allowing us to capture those costs properly. We have a loss cost trend analysis as part of our annual planning process. Less of an issue, I believe, is manageable. In our case, we feel good about that. On the other hand, social inflation is a different situation and a concern for the industry. Social inflation includes factors where politicians, regulators, or courts are redefining wordings in favor of claimants, increased propensity to sue, new causes of action, and ultimately larger awards. These can lead to adverse development in professional lines and liability lines, which can take years to become evident. I think the strong pricing we've seen over the last 12 to 18 months in these lines results from that concern. What matters to me is that what we've seen up until now is only barely getting to where we need to be. The impacts of social inflation will continue to be a clear and present danger in the industry for some time. It is critical that we maintain pricing discipline and price ahead of loss costs. At AXIS, we're ensuring that we price and reserve based on prudent losses. We've reduced our limits, which provide good defense against inflation and managed our attachment points. We believe we're addressing it, but it's an industry-wide issue.

That's helpful, Albert. One last one. You guys lowered your PMLs a good amount this quarter. I know one of your targets for this year was to get your cat load down by about 2 to 3 points relative to the recent average excluding COVID. Does this put you within that range? Does it put you better than where you expected? It looks like a good level of decline that we saw across some of your peak PMLs this quarter?

Yes, it's a meaningful level of decline, and it's exactly what we were planning on doing. I feel really proud of the team, and we're delivering on all the goals we set for the team. These are appropriate levels of PMLs. I've also mentioned that as an organization, we'd like to bring our balance of property and cat closer to 20% of our overall net retained premium. We're not quite there yet, but we aim to achieve that through growth of other lines. We're entering the 2021 wind season in the best position we’ve ever had as a company, exactly where we wanted to be.

And our next question will come from Josh Shanker with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Just an outstanding quarter in insurance. There's no doubt about it. When I think about, Albert, you are a great student of history. Looking at an 84.5% underlying combined ratio with a lot of rate that has yet to be earned behind that, how sustainable do you think margins can be in a diverse book of insurance business that can produce those kinds of underwriting results?

Thank you, Josh, for your compliment. The other thing that I would say is the reinsurance result wasn’t bad either. But let's get to your point, there is nothing unusual or special about the combined ratio we delivered in insurance this year. It's exactly what we expected based on the work we've done in this book for many years, the runoff of discontinued businesses, and the changes in risk appetite. There's nothing unusual. I have no reason to believe anything other than as we earn the higher rates we have written in the last 12 months and continue to improve our portfolio, there will be more progress to come.

Josh, this is Pete. I'll just add that while an 84.5 current accident year combined ratio excluding cat is great, I think a long-term run rate might be just about one point higher than that, which is still excellent for us given the improvements we've made over the last couple of years.

When you think back to the cycle from 2001 through the '04, '05 accident year, those initial picks turned out to be very conservative, leading to a lot of favorable development. There was a huge amount of change in terms and conditions, and insurers like yourselves weren't necessarily willing to take better margins until evidence of claims trends came through. Some changes in terms and conditions have happened in this cycle, but it's not as revolutionary as it was 20 years ago. You're making your best picks, but how do you think about conservatism and the potential that your 2019 through 2020 accident picks are overstated, given past trends and hard market cycles?

I won't guess how overstated they might be, but I will say the following. We're assuming a higher, more technical loss trend in our reserving. We're booking our reserves to reflect ongoing uncertainty around loss trends. We’re not fully reflecting all pricing in our loss ratios right now and we are not giving any credit to portfolio construction in our year-over-year loss ratio changes. We believe there is prudence in our loss ratios and that there may be an opportunity, but I would be hesitant to project any more than that.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Albert Benchimol for any closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everybody, for participating in our call. Before we wrap, I need to express my continued appreciation to our AXIS colleagues across the world for the work they do every day to make AXIS a stronger company. This is a great quarter, resulting from many years of hard work. This is the ninth consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvement that we're delivering, and this is really thanks to the hard work and engagement of our team. I want to thank them, and to all of you, we look forward to continuing to update you on our progress. Thank you very much. Operator, this ends our call.

Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time, and have a great day.