The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TRV) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript January 19, 2024
The Travelers Companies, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $7.01, expectations were $5.04. The Travelers Companies, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Fourth Quarter Results Teleconference for Travelers. We ask that you hold all questions until the completion of formal remarks, at which time you will be given instructions for the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on January 19, 2024. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Abbe Goldstein, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Goldstein, you may begin.
Abbe Goldstein: Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Travelers discussion of our fourth quarter 2023 results. We released our press release, financial supplement, and webcast presentation earlier this morning. All of these materials can be found on our website at travelers.com under the investors section. Speaking today will be Alan Schnitzer, Chairman and CEO; Dan Frey, Chief Financial Officer; and our three segment presidents; Greg Toczydlowski of Business Insurance; Jeff Klenk of Bond & Specialty Insurance; and Michael Klein of Personal Insurance. They will discuss the financial results of our business and the current market environment. They will refer to the webcast presentation as they go through prepared remarks and then we will take your questions.
Before I turn the call over to Alan, I’d like to draw your attention to the explanatory note included at the end of the webcast presentation. Our presentation today includes forward-looking statements. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statement involves risks and uncertainties and is not a guarantee of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors. These factors are described under forward-looking statements in our earnings press release and in our most recent 10-Q and 10-K filed with the SEC. We do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements. Also in our remarks or responses to questions, we may mention some non-GAAP financial measures.
Reconciliations are included in our recent earnings press release, financial supplement and other materials available in the Investors section on our website. And now, I’d like to turn the call over to Alan Schnitzer.
Alan Schnitzer: Thank you, Abbe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are very pleased to report exceptional top and bottom line results for the quarter. Core income earnings per share and return on equity were all record highs, driven by both underwriting and investment results. Our underwriting gains were broad-based in each of our three segments underlying underwriting income was higher and prior year development was favorable. Catastrophe losses were also light. Record underlying underwriting income resulted from net earned premiums of $10 billion, up more than 13% over the prior year quarter and an underlying combined ratio, which improved 5.5 points to a record 85.9%. Looking at our two commercial segments together.
The aggregate BI/BSI underlying combined ratio was an excellent 85.9% for the quarter. The underlying combined ratio in personal insurance was coincidentally also 85.9%, an improvement of more than 10 points year-over-year. In addition, we are pleased to have delivered full year core income of $3.1 billion, generating core return on equity of 11.5%. Notwithstanding elevated industry wide catastrophe losses earlier in the year and a personal lines operating environment that while improving was difficult during the year. Turning to investments. Our high quality investment portfolio continued to perform well, generating after tax net investment income of $645 million for the quarter and $2.4 billion for the year, driven by strong and reliable returns from our growing fixed income portfolio.
Our operating results together with our strong balance sheet enabled us to grow adjusted book value per share by 8% during the year, after making important investments in our business and returning nearly $2 billion of excess capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Turning to the topline. We grew net written premiums by 13% to $10 billion in the quarter. For the year, we grew net written premiums by 14% to more than $40 billion. All three segments contributed to our topline success. In Business Insurance, we grew net written premiums in the quarter by 14% to more than $5 billion. Renewal premium change remained high at 11.8%. Our retention also remained high at 87%. The combination of strong pricing and retention reflects deliberate execution on our part and a disciplined marketplace.
The segment generated $672 million of new business in the quarter, which is a $118 million or about 20% higher than in the prior year quarter. In Bond & Specialty Insurance, net written premiums increased by 7% to $989 million, driven by excellent production in our surety business, where net written premiums were up 9%. Production was also strong in our management liability business. Given the attractive returns, we are very pleased with the strong production results in both of our commercial business segments. In Personal Insurance, top line growth of 13% was driven by higher pricing. Renewal premium change was 21.2% in home and 16.7% in our auto business. Renewal premium change alone contributed more than $2 billion of written premium in this segment over the past year.
With another strong production — with another year of strong production in each of our segments, we feel very well positioned for the new year. You’ll hear more shortly from Greg, Jeff and Michael about our segment results. Before I turn the call over to Dan, I’d like to take a minute and put our 2023 results into an overtime context with an update to some data we shared previously. A half dozen or so years ago, we laid out a focused innovation strategy, ensure that if we were successful in this execution, we would expect to grow our business at attractive returns. A reflection of our belief that any strategy to achieve industry-leading returns over time requires a strategy to grow over time. The data on Slide 19 of the webcast presentation show the success we’ve achieved.
Starting at the top left corner. In terms of the top line, we’ve grown net written premiums at a compound annual rate of 7% over the past seven years, that’s 2.5 times our rate of growth from 2012 to 2016. The growth rate in each of the past two years was double-digits, the result of a deliberate and tailored strategy, stronger pricing where we need it and a combination of pricing and unit growth where we like the opportunity. In Business Insurance, we’ve added more than $4 billion to our top line over the past two years. The investments we’ve made in capabilities to enhance the franchise value that we offer to our customers and distribution partners have contributed to strong retentions and growth in new business. In Bond & Specialty, we’ve increased net written premiums over that period by about $0.5 billion or 14%.
More than half of that growth has come from a very profitable surety business, where our market leading position has enabled us to benefit from increased demand for bonds with higher contract values and projects resulting from the Federal Infrastructure and Jobs Act and other federal programs. Across both of our commercial segments, since 2021, we have about doubled our E&S writings to around $2.5 billion. That includes organic growth from the E&S business we write in National Property, our North field business and our Lloyd’s business, as well as the impact of more recent strategic efforts, which include our relationships with Fidelis and Corvus. The margins in our E&S business are quite attractive. In Personal Insurance, where margins have not been at target levels in recent periods.
Net written premium growth of $3.4 billion over the past two years has been almost entirely a result of price increases. The PI team has done an excellent job of threading the needle, maintaining a strong customer base while achieving meaningful pricing gains. They’ve also done a great job with private product management. Our advanced peril-by-peril Quantum Auto 2.0 offering now represents more than 60% of the domestic property portfolio. And adoption of our telematics product and teledrive among new customers has been strong. With pricing gains and enhanced product sophistication, the book should contribute to our earnings power going forward as we move to our target returns. Also important is that across all three segments, we’ve grown mostly in products, classes of business and geographies and through distribution partners that we know well, that gives us a lot of confidence in the business we’re adding to the books.
Moving to the right, you can see that while we’ve meaningfully increased our rate of growth, we’ve maintained very strong and consistent underlying profitability. That demonstrates that we’re not growing by underpricing the business or compromising our underwriting discipline. We’ve grown by investing in the products, services and experiences that our customers want to buy and our distribution partners want to sell. We’ve also grown through a lot of great hustle and hard work on the part of our outstanding field organization. One of the clear strategic objectives of our innovation strategy has been to optimize productivity and efficiency. Moving to the top right of the slide, you can see that over the last seven years, we’ve reduced our expense ratio by 3.6 points to just over 28% for 2023, which is more than a 10% reduction relative to our 2012 to 2016 expense ratio of around 32%.
Enhanced operating leverage gives us the flexibility to let the benefit fall to the bottom line and/or invest further in our strategic priorities. Case in point, as you can see on Slide 21, since 2017, we have doubled our investments in strategic technology initiatives. Over that same period, we’ve carefully managed growth in routine but necessary technology expenditures. In other words, over a seven year period, we simultaneously and meaningfully increased our technology spend, improve the strategic mix of that spend, and lowered our expense ratio. The upshot of what we’ve accomplished on the top half of Slide 19 is what you see on the bottom half. On the bottom left, you can see that we’ve increased underlying underwriting income significantly.
From 2012 to 2019, underlying underwriting income averaged $1.3 billion. In 2020, we crossed the $2 billion mark and 2023 marks the first time that we’ve exceeded $3 billion. We’ve taken our underlying underwriting income to a meaningfully higher level. We’ve also significantly increased our cash flow from operations to more than $7.5 billion in 2023. The fourth consecutive year it’s been more than $6 billion and more than double our average cash flow from operations in the earlier part of the last decade. Cash flow isn’t a metric that we or our industry talk a lot about, but it’s important. It’s what gives us the ability to make important investments in our business, return excess capital to shareholders and grow the investment portfolio. We’ve grown our investment portfolio significantly to nearly $93 billion.
As we continue to reinvest our fixed income portfolio at higher rates, this is a highly reliable lever of earnings and value creation. To sum it up through a well-executed strategy, we’ve more than doubled our rate of growth, sustained strong underlying underwriting margins and meaningfully lowered our expense ratio. That has resulted in record levels of underlying underwriting income, cash flow and invested assets. Ultimately, of course, one number that brings everything together is adjusted book value per share. On Slide 20, you can see that we have steadily increased adjusted book value per share each year since 2006 at a compound annual rate of 7.5%. The effective management of our capital complements that result. We’ve increased our capital base to support the profitable growth of our business.
At the same time, we’ve been disciplined about returning excess capital to shareholders. Over this period, we’ve increased our dividend at a compound annual rate of more than 8% and returned more than $40 billion to our shareholders through share repurchases at an average price of about $74 per share. These results, together with our track record of strong returns and low volatility demonstrate the strength of our business and the success of our overtime strategy. Looking ahead, we’re very confident about how we’re positioned for 2024 and beyond. The fundamentals across our business are in excellent shape. We’re confident that we’re focused on the right strategic priorities and that with demonstrated success in execution, there’s plenty more opportunity ahead of us.
And with that, I’m pleased to turn the call over to Dan.
Dan Frey: Thank you, Alan. Core income for the fourth quarter was $1.6 billion, and core return on equity was 24%, both all-time record quarterly results. We’re pleased to have once again generated record levels of earned premium this quarter and an excellent underlying combined ratio of 85.9%, a 5.5 point improvement from last year’s quarter. The combination of premium growth and underlying margin improvement led to underlying underwriting income of $1.1 billion after tax, up $511 million or 89% from the prior year quarter. The underlying combined ratio improved from the prior year in all three segments. The expense ratio for the fourth quarter improved by 0.5 point from last year’s quarter to 27.4%, once again, reflecting the benefits of our focus on productivity and efficiency, coupled with strong top line growth.
The full year expense ratio of 28.1% was our best ever. As Alan mentioned, our focus is on operating leverage. And looking ahead to 2024, we’re comfortable with the annual expense ratio in the range of 28% to 28.5% for now. Our fourth quarter results include a modest $125 million of pre-tax catastrophe losses with no individually significant events impacting our book of business. Turning to prior year reserve development. We had total net favorable development of $132 million pre-tax, with all three segments contributing. In Business Insurance, net favorable PYD of $56 million was driven by favorability in workers’ comp that was partially offset by adverse development in umbrella and general liability. Even after the reserve charge, the returns in both umbrella and GL remain very attractive.
In Bond & Specialty, net favorable PYD of $36 million was driven by better than expected results in both surety and management liability. Personal Insurance had $40 million of net favorable PYD driven by homeowners and other. After tax net investment income of $645 million was up 21% from the prior year quarter. Fixed maturity NII was again higher than the prior year quarter, reflecting both the benefit of higher average yields and the significant growth in our portfolio of invested assets. Returns in the non-fixed income portfolio were also higher than in the prior year quarter. In terms of our outlook for fixed income NII for 2024, including earnings from short-term securities, we expect approximately $2.6 billion after tax, beginning with approximately $630 million in the first quarter and growing to approximately $675 million in the fourth quarter.
Page 22 of the webcast presentation provides information about our January 1 catastrophe reinsurance renewal. Our long standing CAT XOL Treaty continues to provide coverage for both single CAT events and the aggregation of losses from multiple CAT events. And we’ve increased the amount of total coverage for 2024. Despite the growth in our property book, our attachment point remains steady, and the per occurrence loss deductible is unchanged at $100 million. For 2024, we have placed coverage for $3.5 billion of the $4.5 billion layer above the $3.5 billion attachment point. We’re pleased to have obtained the extra protection in light of the recent inflationary impact on insured values. With context, we’ve never hit this treaty. Nonetheless, this is prudent, affordable balance sheet protection for tail events.
The cost of the additional reinsurance will be largely offset by the strong renewal pricing we continue to achieve on our direct written property premiums resulting in only a de minimis impact on the underlying combined ratio. On a financial modeling note, let me turn your attention to Slide 23 of the webcast presentation. As we enter 2024, we thought it would be helpful to once again highlight the seasonality of our CAT losses over the prior decade. As shown in the data, the second quarter has regularly and noticeably been our largest CAT quarter. CAT losses in the second quarter have been, on average, more than three combined ratio points higher than in any other quarter and the second quarter has been our largest CAT quarter in seven of the past 10 years.
Also of interest for 2024, in light of continued strong pricing and terms in the E&S and reinsurance markets, we are pleased to share that we have renewed the 20% quota share with Fidelis. The renewal includes the same loss ratio cap we had for 2023. The written premium volume, which will again be included as part of international within the Business Insurance segment is not expected to be material to the segment. but should have a modestly favorable impact on the underlying combined ratio for 2024 as it earns in. Turning to capital management. Operating cash flows for the quarter of $2.1 billion were again very strong, and we ended the quarter with holding company liquidity of approximately $1.5 billion. As you may have seen, S&P issued their updated capital model, and we now expect that the result of the new model will be a modest improvement in their assessment of our capital metrics.
Interest rates decreased and spreads narrowed during the quarter. And as a result, our net unrealized investment loss decreased from $6.5 billion after tax at September 30 to $3.1 billion after tax at year end. As we’ve discussed previously, the changes in unrealized investment gains and losses generally do not impact how we manage our investment portfolio. We generally hold fixed income investments to maturity, the quality of our fixed income portfolio remains very high and changes in unrealized gains and losses have a little impact on our cash flows, statutory surplus or regulatory capital requirements. Adjusted book value per share, which excludes net unrealized investment gains and losses, was $122.90 at year end, up 8% from a year ago.
We returned $298 million of capital to our shareholders this quarter, comprising share repurchases of $66 million and dividends of $232 million. We have approximately $6 billion of capacity remaining under the share repurchase authorization from our Board of Directors. Thinking about share repurchases in 2024, while there is no change in our capital management philosophy, we will factor in the need for increased capital in light of our top line growth as well as the $435 million we just deployed to complete the Corvus acquisition. Currently, we expect repurchases in the first quarter of somewhere around $250 million. Recapping our results for 2023. Core income was $3.1 billion, and core ROE was 11.5%. We delivered our highest ever levels of written premium, earned premium, underlying underwriting income and cash flow from operations.
In addition, we ended the year with our all-time high in adjusted book value per share and with our largest investment portfolio ever. We’ve never been better positioned for the year ahead. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to Greg for a discussion of Business Insurance.
Gregory Toczydlowski: Thanks, Dan. Business Insurance had another strong quarter, rounding on a terrific year in terms of financial results, execution in the marketplace and progress on our strategic initiatives. Last year at this time, I indicated that we were firing on all cylinders, and that certainly remains the case today. Segment income for the quarter was $957 million, our highest quarter ever and up well over $200 million from the prior year quarter, driven by higher underlying underwriting income and net investment income as well as lower catastrophes. The all-in combined ratio of 86.5% was a great result, and we’re once again particularly pleased with our exceptional underlying combined ratio of 86.8% and an all-time best result.
The underlying loss ratio improved by almost 2.5 points from the prior year quarter, with the drivers of the improvement, including the benefit of earned pricing a mix shift to the property line and an impact from non-CAT weather that was modestly favorable to both the prior year and our expectations. The expense ratio remained excellent at 28.8%. Net written premiums for the quarter were up 14% from the prior year to a fourth quarter record of $5 billion, benefiting from high retention, strong renewal premium change and increase in new business levels. As Alan mentioned, given the attractive margins in this segment, we’re very pleased with this growth. Turning to domestic production for the quarter. Renewal premium change was once again historically high at 11.8%, with renewal rate change of 7.4% and continued strong growth and exposure.
Renewal rate change increased from the third quarter in select and middle market, however, ticked down at the segment level, driven almost entirely by a lower mix of national property written premium in the fourth quarter as compared to the third quarter. Retention remained excellent at 87% and new business of $672 million was the strongest fourth quarter we’ve ever produced. We’re thrilled with these production results and our field superior execution in the marketplace. In terms of pricing, we’re pleased to be able to sustain strong levels of renewal premium change to address the persistent environmental headwinds. As for renewal rate change, during the quarter, we achieved meaningful renewal rate increases in all lines other than workers’ comp.
The property, umbrella and auto lines led the way. Renewal rate change in each of the casualty lines was comparable or better than the third quarter. And given our high quality book as well as several years of meaningful price increases and improvements in terms and conditions, we’re very pleased to continue to produce historically strong retention levels. As for the individual businesses, in select, renewal premium change remained strong at 11.9%, up more than 1.5 point (ph) from the third quarter driven by renewal rate change, which increased to 4.1% for the quarter. Even with strong pricing, retention remained very strong at 85%. New business was up $49 million from the prior year quarter driven in large part by the continued success of our BOP 2.0 product.
In middle market, renewal premium change of 10.4% and retention of 90% remained historically strong. New business of $348 million was an all-time best fourth quarter result. As we close out 2023, let me provide a little color on full year results before turning the call over to Jeff. Segment income was nearly $2.6 billion, an exceptional result. The underlying combined ratio of 88.9%, top line of $20.4 billion renewal premium change, retention and new business premiums were all record results. These results are a direct reflection of our successful execution of our thoughtful and deliberate strategies. And while delivering these financial and production results, we’ve also continued to invest in strategic capabilities that will enhance our many competitive advantages.
For example, during the year, we continued to advance our data and analytics capabilities by leveraging evolving technologies, including AI, and new data sources to help us manage the portfolio and equip our frontline underwriters with data and insights to better enable our risk selection, underwriting and pricing. In addition, we continued to advance our already state-of-the-art product and service capabilities by continuing to roll out our BOP 2.0 product, which is now live in all but a couple of states, as well as our new commercial auto product, which is now live in 14 states. Both products deliver industry-leading segmentation and user experiences. In addition, we continue to make progress on developing other industry leading user experience capabilities to make it easier and more efficient for our distribution partners and customers to do business with us.
In particular, in our middle market business, we advanced our capabilities around digitizing the underwriting transaction for our agents and brokers. In our Small Commercial business, we continued to roll out our new front end rate quote and issue interface platform to make it faster and easier for our agents to write business with us, while maintaining all the underwriting discipline and specialization behind the scenes. And finally, we continued to improve our operating leverage through our relentless focus on productivity and efficiency. We’re proud of these extraordinary results in the best-in-class team that produce them. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Jeff.
Jeffrey Klenk: Thanks, Greg. Fund & Specialty ended a strong 2023 with a terrific quarter on both the top and bottom lines. Segment income was $240 million, up 9% from the prior year quarter. delivered very strong underlying underwriting income and an outstanding underlying combined ratio of 80.6%. Turning to the top line. We grew net written premiums by 7% in the quarter. In our high quality domestic management liability business, we again delivered excellent retention of 90%, in line with the prior year quarter, while continuing to achieve positive renewal premium change. New business was up driven by a new domestic cyber capacity agreement with Corvus. Surety net written premiums increased 9%, reflecting continued strong demand for surety bonds.
So we’re pleased to have once again delivered terrific top and bottom line results this quarter, capping off a year during which we generated record segment income and net written premium. Finally, we’re pleased that earlier this month, we closed our previously announced acquisition of Corvus Insurance. Corvus is an industry leading cyber insurance managing general underwriter, powered by proprietary technology. Corvus has developed cutting edge capabilities, including digitally integrated cyber sales, underwriting, service and support, sophisticated underwriting algorithms and advanced vulnerability scanning. Corvus also brings deep cyber underwriting and risk management expertise, and we’re pleased to welcome them to the Travelers family.
This acquisition affords us the opportunity to write Corvus’ profitable book of business which will be reflected as new business in our production results over the course of 2024. And now I’ll turn the call over to Michael.
Michael Klein: Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. I’m pleased to share that Personal Insurance generated $520 million of fourth quarter segment income, strong results and a significant improvement compared to the prior year quarter, due to higher underlying underwriting income and lower catastrophe losses. The underlying combined ratio of 85.9% improved over 10 points compared to the prior year quarter, reflecting improvements in both automobile and homeowners and other. Net written premiums grew 13%, driven by continued elevated levels of renewal premium change in both auto and home bringing full year net written premiums to a record of nearly $16 billion. In automobile, the fourth quarter combined ratio was 103.6%, the underlying combined ratio of 102.7% improved nearly 8 points compared to the prior year quarter.
This improvement was driven by the benefit of higher earned pricing. To a lesser extent, it also benefited from the year-over-year impact of a modest favorable re-estimation of prior quarters in the current year compared to a modest unfavorable re-estimation in the prior year quarter. In Homeowners and Other, the fourth quarter combined ratio of 70.8% improved by over 28 points, reflecting catastrophe losses that were favorable to both the prior year quarter and our expectations and an improved underlying combined ratio. The underlying combined ratio improved 12.5 points, primarily due to non-catastrophe weather-related losses that were favorable to both the prior year and our expectations and the impact of earned pricing. Turning to production.
Our results demonstrate our continued disciplined execution of rate and non-rate actions to improve profitability and manage growth. In domestic automobile retention remained consistent. Renewal premium change of 16.7% remains strong and as expected, moderated from the third quarter of 2023 and as the majority of our book reached rate adequacy on a written basis. We expect renewal premium change to remain in the mid-teens through the first half of 2024 as we continue to assess the environment and seek rate on a state-by-state basis as appropriate. We’re pleased to note that auto new business increased relative to the prior year quarter, as we tempered our non-rate actions in states where we’ve achieved written rate adequacy. We will continue to evaluate our non-rate measures as more states reach adequacy throughout 2024.
In Homeowners and Other, retention remained consistent even as renewal premium change reached a record level at 21.2%, primarily driven by higher renewal rate change. As we noted last quarter, we expect homeowners’ renewal premium change to moderate to low double-digits in 2024. We will continue to see great increases in response to elevated loss levels. But at the same time, our automatic increase in limit factors will return to more normal levels, reflecting the progress we’ve made on aligning insured values with replacement costs. Our continued efforts to manage new business flow and thoughtfully deploy capacity in the face of market dislocation drove the year-over-year decline in homeowners new business and policies enforced during the quarter.
We anticipate this trend will continue as we take further actions to improve profitability and manage growth in property. In 2023, we made notable progress on improving the underlying fundamentals of our business and are moving towards our goal of delivering target returns. While the environment remains dynamic, we’re confident we’re on a path to generating leading returns in Personal Insurance and growing profitably over time. Now I’ll turn the call back over to Abbe.
Abbe Goldstein: Thanks very much. We’re happy to open up for your questions.
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