Crawford & Co (CRD-A) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning. My name is Carly, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Crawford & Company Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Release Conference Call. In conjunction with this call, a supplementary financial presentation is available on our website at www.crawlco.com under the Investor Relations section. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period. Instructions will follow at that time. Should anyone need assistance at any time during this conference, please press star then zero and an operator will assist you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. Now I would like to introduce Tammy Stevenson, Crawford and Companies General Counsel.

Thank you, Carly. Some of the matters to be discussed in this conference call in the supplementary financial presentation may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may relate to, among other things, our expected future operating results and financial condition, our ability to grow our revenues and reduce our operating earning expenses, expectations regarding our anticipated contributions to our underfunded defined benefit pension plans, collectability of our billed and unbilled accounts receivable, financial results from our recently completed acquisitions, our continued compliance with the financial and other covenants contained in our financing agreements, our long-term capital resource and liquidity requirements, and our ability to pay dividends in the future. The company's actual results achieved in future quarters could differ materially from results that may be implied by such forward looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release revisions to any forward looking statements made in this conference call to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the day of the call or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. In addition, you are reminded that operating results from any historical period are not necessarily indicative of results to be expected for any future periods. For a complete discussion regarding factors which could affect the company's financial performance, please refer to the company's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2025, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly the information under the headings Risk Factors and Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, as well as subsequent company filings with the SEC. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under SEC rules. As required, a reconciliation is provided for those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I would now like to introduce Mr. Rohit Burma, CEO of Crawford and Company.

Thank you, Tammy. Good morning and welcome to our third quarter 2025 earnings call. Joining me today is Bruce Wayne, our Chief Financial Officer, and Tammy Stevenson, our General Counsel. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for your questions. Crawford and Company delivered a solid third quarter with improved operating earnings across three segments and improved margins across all segments reflecting the strength of the diversified business lines. Broadspire and international performed particularly well. Consolidated revenues came in slightly below the prior year due to the continued absence of significant weather and lower U.S. claims activity in North America loss adjusting. Broadspire achieved record quarterly revenue performance with improved margins and international operations delivered record revenue growth with margin expansion across key markets. Consolidated operating earnings improve significantly, up 22% year-over-year, reflecting the strength of our core portfolio and disciplined cost management. This morning, I'll review our segment operations for the third quarter before handing it over to Bruce for a deeper dive into our financial performance. Profit and Company combines global scale with deep expertise to tackle the widest variety of claims anywhere in the world. Operating in over 70 countries, with a team of 10,000 professionals, we have the capability to manage claims of any size or complexity. Each year, we handle billions of dollars in claims, underscoring the confidence that top insurers, corporations, and public entities place in our services. Our expertise, experience, and technical knowledge enable us to deliver solutions across diverse markets while our global footprint allows us to establish and sustain strong relationships with clients navigating increasingly complex risks. This unique combination of scale, skill, and reliability provides a clear competitive advantage in the claims management industry. With over eight decades of experience, Crawford has continually evolved its business model to address the increasingly complex and dynamic claims environment. Our growth trajectory is supported by a set of long-term drivers that position us to create sustainable value. First, severe weather events around the world create opportunities for Crawford's weather-related services. Our scale and expertise enable us to respond quickly and effectively, providing support to carriers when claims are most urgent. We have diversified Crawford's model with a multi-line, multi-geography approach, which allows us to balance performance across economic as well as weather cycles, to create a strong foundation for consistent profitability and long-term value creation. U.S. carriers increasingly seek established, reliable partners and Crawford is well-positioned with our focus on operational excellence, our scale, and our specialized expertise to grow our market share in a fragmented space. across all business segments we continue to expand and deepen relationships with key clients and partners these partnerships enhance cross-segment opportunities generate new business and reinforce our position as a trusted partner for complex claims management solutions globally finally crawford's combination of specialized knowledge and advanced technology platforms strengthens both efficiency and client outcomes. By leveraging proprietary systems, automation, and data analytics, we enhanced service quality and further differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. Turning to our quarterly results, Crawford and Company delivered a solid performance this quarter. Consolidated revenues were slightly lower than the third quarter of 2024, primarily due to reduced U.S. property claims activity. However, operating earnings grew 22% year-over-year, with margin expansion across all four segments demonstrating the benefits of our diversified business model and ongoing initiatives to improve operational efficiency this quarter we saw continued momentum at broadspire which delivered a record quarterly revenue performance contributing meaningfully to revenue and margin growth international operations also had a record quarter expanding both top line results and margin across key segments revenue for north america loss adjusting and platform solutions was impacted by the absence of significant weather events and lower u.s claims activity but our north america loss adjusting business saw strong operating earnings growth thanks to the operational efficiency and solid performance from the u.s global technical services business non-gap eps was 32 cents for both crda and crdb and the company paid a quarterly dividend of seven and a half cents per share in the third quarter we added 29 million dollars in new business reflecting the continued strength of our pipeline and the depth of our client relationships this takes our total new business added in the year to 78 million dollars our strong balance sheet and liquidity remain key strengths providing the foundation for our continued investment in growth initiatives. The leverage ratio remains low at 1.64 times EBITDA, reflecting disciplined capital management and cash flow generation. We have a disciplined approach to capital deployment with focus on long-term growth through strategic initiatives including targeted M&A, ACWA hires to expand capabilities, and ongoing capital expenditures. We remain committed to returning capital to shareholders. In addition to the dividend, we opportunistically repurchased shares. In the third quarter, we repurchased over 275,000 shares of CRDA and CRDB. And subsequent to the close of the quarter, our Board of Directors authorized the addition of 2 million shares of common stock to the stock repurchase program and extended the program termination date to December 31, 2027. With that, let me turn the call over to Bruce for a deeper look at our segment Operational and Financial Performance.

Thank you, Rohit. Profit operates through our four core segments that represent the global reach of our business. North America loss adjusting, which includes our loss adjusting operations in the U.S. and Canada, accounted for 24 percent of third quarter 2025 revenues. International operations, covering all service lines outside North America, contributed 35 percent of quarterly revenues. And Broadspire, our U.S.-based third-party administration business, represented 32 percent of quarterly revenues. Platform solutions, which includes contractor connection, networks, and subrogation services, accounted for 9 percent of revenues. In North America law suggesting, revenue decreased 2.9 percent year-over-year, primarily reflecting lower significant weather and property claim activity in the U.S. Despite the revenue headwind, operating earnings increased 28% compared to the prior year, driven by strong performance in our GTS business and improvements in our Canadian operations. Operating margins expanded 215 basis points, reflecting both the next shift towards higher margin services and ongoing operational efficiencies. North America loss adjusting continues to attract top-tier insurance adjusting talent. a key competitive advantage in delivering expertise and high-quality service to our clients. With our current visibility, we expect the lower claims activity to persist through the fourth quarter of 2025. However, we anticipate a return to more typical claims activity over the coming 12 to 18 months. International operations showed continued momentum with revenue growth of 6.7% and operating earnings increasing 45% year-over-year. Improvements were driven by a combination of weather-related claims in Australia and Asia and new client wins, demonstrating the segment's ability to capture opportunities across key regions including the UK, Europe, Asia and Australia. Operating margins expanded 174 basis points, reflecting disciplined execution, efficient operations and strong pricing. We're pleased with the continued progress in our international business as we capitalize on our recognition as a trusted partner capable of delivering expertise and consistent results for insurers and corporations worldwide. We anticipate some moderation in the fourth quarter related to the absence of one-time benefits we realized in the fourth quarter of 2024, but the underlying long-term trajectory of the business remains strong. Broadspire delivered record quarterly revenues of $103.4 million in the third quarter, reflecting year-over-year growth of 4.4%. Operating earnings increased 8.1%, and operating margins expanded 51 basis points, reflecting the segment's scale, efficiency, and consistent execution. Client retention remained strong at 93.5%, underscoring the trust and long-term relationships Broadspire has built across its customer base, and our new business pipeline is robust. These results reflect Broadspire's growing leadership position in the TPA market and its critical role in Crawford's growth strategy. Platform Solutions experienced a challenging quarter, with revenues down 36% year-over-year due to ongoing weather-related declines in the CAT and contractor connection business lines. Operating earnings decreased 33% compared to the prior year, although operating margins improved by 47 basis points, reflecting our progress in managing cost and improving efficiencies. On this slide, you can see the decline in storm activity which continues to impact results for our North America loss adjusting and platform solutions segments. In the third quarter, storm activity was down 35% year over year, contributing to a 16% percent decline in weather-related revenue. At the same time, our non-weather business delivered revenue growth of 3.4 percent, highlighting the resilience of our diversified model and the ability to partially mitigate volatility in weather-dependent segments. The reduced frequency of U.S. property claims continues to reflect market dynamics, including affordability considerations and higher deductibles. As the broader insurance market stabilizes, we expect weather-related claims activity to return to more typical levels over the next 12 to 18 months. Meanwhile, the strength of our non-weather businesses, including Broadspire and International Operations, continues to provide steady revenue and earnings support, demonstrating the value of our multi-line, multi-geography model. Now for a look at our consolidated results. In the 2025 third quarter, company-wide revenues before reimbursements were $322.2 million, a decrease of 2.2% compared to the prior year period. Foreign exchange rates increased revenues before reimbursements by $3.4 million, or 1.1%. GAAP net income attributable to shareholders totaled $12.4 million, compared to $9.5 million in the same period of 2024. GAAP diluted EPS in the 2025 third quarter was $0.25 for both CRDA and CRDB, an increase from $0.19 for both share classes in the 2024 period. On a non-GAAP basis, diluted EPS was $0.32 for both CRDA and CRDB, increasing from $0.22 for both share classes in the prior year period. The company's non-GAAP operating earnings totaled $26.6 million in the 2025 third quarter or 8.3% of revenues compared to $21.8 million or 6.6% of revenues in the prior year period. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $36.3 million in the 2025 third quarter or 11.3% of revenues increasing from 29.6 million were 9% of revenues in the 2024 quarter. The company's cash and cash equivalent as of September 30, 2025 totaled 68.8 million compared to 55.4 million at December 31, 2024. Total receivables were 263.3 million as of September 30, 2025, down 9.8 million from the 2024 year-round. The company's total debt outstanding as of September 30, 2025 totaled $218.1 million, consistent with total debt outstanding as of September 30, 2024. Net debt was $149.3 million as of September 30, 2025, while our U.S. pension liability was $20.4 million, reflecting a funded ratio of 93.1 percent. We made no discretionary contributions to our U.S. defined benefit pension plan during the third quarter of 2025 and we do not intend to make contributions through the remainder of the year. Operating cash flow through the third quarter of 2025 was 51.7 million with free cash flow of 24.1 million. This compares to 11.1 million in operating cash flow last year with free cash flow of negative 18.4 million. The significant improvement in operating and free cash flow in the 2025 year-to-date period was primarily due to improved earnings and improvement in working capital levels. Unallocated corporate costs were 5.9 million in the 2025 third quarter compared to cost of 7 million in the 2024 period. The decrease was due to lower professional fees and non-recurring items partially offset by higher self-insured medical costs. During the 2025 third quarter, non-service pension costs were $2.4 million, consistent with the same period of 2024. We recognized pre-tax continued earn-out cost of less than $100,000 in the 2025 third quarter compared to a credit of $2.1 million in the 2024 period. During the third quarter of 2025, the company repurchased approximately 275,000 shares of CRDA and CRDB. As Roeth mentioned, we are increasing our share repurchase authorization with the addition of 2 million shares. As a result, approximately 2.8 million shares are eligible to be repurchased under our 2021 share repurchase authorization. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Roeth for concluding remarks.

Thank you, Bruce. Crawford delivered a solid third quarter with strong earnings improvement as a diversified model continues to provide stability to weather and market fluctuations we remain focused on investing in long-term growth while returning capital to shareholders and our balance sheet and low leverage ratio provide us the financial flexibility to explore opportunities while maintaining our commitment to the dividend and share repurchase programs as bruce mentioned in looking forward the close of this year we expect the continued absence of significant weather events and lower U.S. claims activity to impact results. We anticipate that fourth quarter 2025 revenue will not repeat the $30 million revenue lift we saw in the last year's fourth quarter from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which will make for a difficult comparison of Q4 2025 to Q4 2024. Moving forward, we remain focused on the elements of our business that we can control, achieving operational efficiency, delivering quality customer service, winning new clients, and expanding our business with existing customers. We remain committed to creating long-term value through a balanced approach to investment, cost discipline, and returning capital to shareholders. Thank you for your time today. Carly, please open the call for questions.

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, hit the pound key. If you're using a speakerphone, stick up your handbook before asking your question. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Mark Hughes with Truist.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Hey, good morning, Mark.

Good morning, Mark.

The North American loss-adjusting margin seems like it's pretty strong with the top-line decline. how much of that was a mixed shift you talked about the GTS in Canada I know you've been pursuing more long-term operational efficiencies how sticky is that better margin there Mark if you if you think about the business as you rightly pointed out it really has three component parts to it we've got in the US are our large and complex business which we call our global technical technical services, we have our field operations business, and then obviously Canada.

Our large and complex business continues to do well. As a matter of fact, on a full year basis, that business is growing. And if you look at on a year-to-date basis as well, that North America loss adjusting has a slight growth, about 1% for the full year. The weakness that we're seeing is in our smaller size, or I would say residential claims activity, and depending on the quarter, that can have a strong bearing. So typically in Q3, we have higher residential claims activity that's coming from both severe convective storms as well as hurricanes. We did not see that, as a result of which the mix was more towards the large and complex side, and you saw a better margin. We continue to grow our large and complex side. Like I said, it's grown this year already, despite the no real weather activity. So we believe that as that business continues to grow and takes a bigger hold in the portfolio, we should see a continued improvement in the margin. We're seeing the margins in that business stick, in fact, to some extent getting better, for our large and complex, that is.

Yeah, very good. You had made an interesting point last quarter about higher insurance costs, higher deductibles, fear about insurance companies raising rates if consumers report a claim that that was depressing some of these residential claims like you might have assumed in 3Q. Any update on that point?

Yeah, I think, Mark, what we're seeing is sort of a duality where you're seeing the commercial lines, the rate adequacy is starting to get passed to the customers. You're actually seeing rate declines that are going to customers on the commercial side and we believe that claims activity there has resumed to normal other than of course the lack of activity from weather. On the residential side we still don't see that being passed on to the consumer. I don't know how your property insurance looks like but my home insurance just continues to go up and really it's starting to turn more into cat cover. Historically if you look at insurance markets once the carriers achieve rate adequacy one of the carriers does go out and starts to discount and then eventually the market follows so our belief still is as Bruce mentioned in his remarks that in 12 to 18 months, we should start to see the deductibles come down and normal claims activity resume. But we have not seen that happen yet, despite a view that the property market has achieved rate adequacy.

Yeah. The international margin was also up. Was that just the incremental flow through from weather claims?

Was there a GTS impact there? international as you know has been an important push for us from from both growth as well as profitability perspective at the main focus being on profitability there was definitely weather in Q3 we saw weather in in Australia we saw weather in in UK and then we have seen weather in Europe in earlier part of the year that is still sort of flowing through the flowing through the system again our target is to get international to a 10% margin in the in the medium to long term and that is the journey we're on as we've shared with you before we will see probably quarterly fluctuations because of weather and other cyclicality reasons

in our business but our trend is to keep moving international up yeah and then any more you can say about the business pipeline and broadspire is this your sales initiative is there just a a little more movement in the market. What is contributing to that?

You know, we had actually seen a slowdown in the RFP activity in the Q2. We've kind of seen that pick back up in Q3. As you know, the sales cycles on this business are long, but we've been growing at a nice clip. I think this quarter we reported almost 4% growth. I think for the full year we're still looking at, or I should say year-to-date, the nine months we're looking at somewhere around that 3% to 4% as well. that's the kind of growth that we expect to continue seeing on an organic basis. But margins are healthy. Margins improved this quarter. I think you'll recall that last quarter we had a discussion about a slight drop in margins. It was about 50 or 70 basis points, I think. And we had said that, you know, that's within the realm of tolerance. So we continue to invest in that business. We believe there is still a strong trajectory for that business and expect that business to continue growing as the months and quarters go by.

Appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

Your next question comes from the line of Kevin Steinke with Barrington Research.

Great. Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning, Kevin. Hi, Kevin.

I wanted to start off continuing the discussion on the insurance affordability. It sounds like you're not seeing that in your international markets. It's just kind of a U.S. specific only at this point. Is that correct?

We believe that. It is a phenomenon that we are seeing more in the U.S. market. We did see that in the international markets, but they recovered far more quickly than what we've seen in the U.S.

Okay, thanks. And you talked about the broadspire margin there. You had a nice ramp up sequentially. And yeah, you talked about last quarter kind of the bandwidth that you would expect those margins to remain in. But, you know, I'm just wondering if there's anything specific that helped the margin sequentially in the third quarter versus second quarter, you know, if that was just more revenue ramping up or if there were any, you know, cost items to call out there.

Not really, Kevin. I think we had mentioned that we always try to hire for broadspine in advance so that as the clients are coming on, we know when the clients are coming on. So sometimes, you know, they straddle quarter boundaries. So we will see that we've taken the cost on a little bit sooner than what the revenue is coming in just because of the straddling over those boundaries. We're not, we feel very good about the Broadspire business and we believe that, you know, we will continue to see growth. I think the margin will remain in this band because we still believe there is room for investment in that business from a technology perspective. We believe that AI can be a major enabler in that business rather than a disruptor for us and we are identifying opportunities where we can deploy AI. So in the short term, we might see some more capital expense going into that business and or some more investment going in that business. But longer term, I think it should just continue to help the margins and make it an important contributor to profitability for the company.

OK, good. I thought it was interesting or somewhat impressive that the last couple quarters, particularly this quarter, with the significant decline in platform solutions revenue related to weather events and insurance affordability, despite that revenue decline, you actually improve the margin year over year for platform solutions. So can you kind of talk about how you were able to accomplish that?

You know, some of that, as we've talked about before, is a little bit of a mixed shift. We've got, as you know, that there are really three predominant businesses in there. We've got a catastrophe business, our subrogation business, which goes by the name of Praxis, and our contractor connection business. The catastrophe business is, as the name suggests, is to serve clients during the times of catastrophe. that usually creates big revenue, but the margin profile on that is not the same as the margin profile in the other two businesses. So when there's a mixed shift, we tend to see the margin improve because of the mixed shift. But ideally, we would like to see this business grow, and we believe that as normal claims reporting patterns resume and normal weather patterns resume, we will start to see this business come back up.

Okay, great. Bruce, you had called out for international related to the fourth quarter, some one-time benefits in the year-ago quarter. I have in my notes here that you had a one-time tax benefit that helped you in the year-ago quarter on the margin and international, but is there anything else that we should be aware of there?

Yeah, the tax benefit is one item. Last year, at the end of the year, we had some pretty significant revenue in our Middle East business related to floods that had occurred earlier in the year. We also had some higher revenues in Asia, particularly in Taiwan, related to some earthquake claims and had some flooding losses in Latin America. So, you know, those kind of four items, when you bunch in the tax benefit, kind of equally contributed to the outperformance in last year's fourth quarter.

We just don't expect that to repeat, notwithstanding the fact that we still expect the, you know, international results, you know, trajectory to remain strong. and but it's just not going to be the same early result as we had last year okay understood that's that's helpful and in relation to the increase in that the share repurchase authorization maybe just you know talk about how active you expect to be there and kind of the rationale you see for continuing to repurchase shares.

Sure. So, you know, we think of our shares as trading well below their intrinsic value, and it's recognized by the board as well. We have kind of an open market share repurchase plan that we execute on, you know, kind of given the trading volumes that we have. You don't see, you know, hugely significant amounts that are being repurchased in this last quarter it was 275,000 shares and in the absence of any large blocks or significant changes in the trading volume that's probably about the level that you would that you would see again kind of depending on the on the price as well where we're disciplined buyers we're not buyers at any price to the extent there are blocks that come up we would certainly be interested in and looking at those to the extent that they're that our stocks trading you know significantly below what our assessment of intrinsic value is so you know I think it it's it's something that you'll continue to see us active in through the end of 27 based on the current authorization okay good that's helpful I appreciate you taking the questions I will turn it back over thanks okay thank you Kevin Carly if you have to see if there are any other questions again if you would like to ask a question press star 1 on your telephone keypad there are no further questions at this time i will now turn the call back over to mr verma

for any closing remarks thank you carly and a big thank you to all our employees clients and shareholders for your continued commitment to crawford and company we look forward to seeing you next quarter thank you and god bless thank you for participating in today's crawford and Company Conference Call.

This call will be available for replay beginning at 1130 a.m. Eastern Time today through 1159 p.m. Eastern Time on November 11th, 2025. The conference ID number for the replay is 350-6432-POUND. The number to dial for the replay is 1-800-770-2030. Thank you. You may now disconnect.