American Coastal Insurance Corporation (NASDAQ:ACIC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

American Coastal Insurance Corporation (NASDAQ:ACIC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 29, 2024

American Coastal Insurance Corporation beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.39, expectations were $0.21. ACIC isn't one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Hello, and welcome to the American Coastal Insurance Corporation's 2023 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Karin Daly, Vice President of The Equity Group and American Coastal's Investor Relations Representative. Please go ahead, Karin.

Karin Daly: Thank you, Kevin. And good afternoon, everyone. American Coastal Insurance Corporation has also made this broadcast available on its website at www.amcoastal.com. A replay will be available for approximately 30 days following the call. Additionally, you can find copies of the latest earnings release, and presentations in the Investors section of the company's website. Speaking today will be Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, R. Daniel Peed and President, Bennett Bradford Martz. On behalf of the company, I'd like to note that statements made during this call that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. The company believes these statements are based on reasonable estimates, assumptions and plans.

However, if these estimates, assumptions or plans underlying the forward-looking statements prove inaccurate or if other risk or uncertainties arise, actual results could differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially may be found in the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the Risk Factor section of their most recent annual report on Form 10-K. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and except as required by applicable law, the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Daniel Peed.

Dan, you may begin.

Daniel Peed: Thanks, Karin. Hello, and thank you for joining us on our fourth quarter earnings call. I'm Dan Peed, Chairman and CEO of American Coastal Insurance Corporation. I will provide an overview of results from the fourth quarter and year to date and then turn it over to Brad Martz, who will expand on the financial results. Our core income for the fourth quarter is $17.7 million, which annualized as a 100.6% core return on equity. The core income at December 31st is $89.5 million, which is over a $100 million improvement year-over-year. Net income is primarily attributable to our commercial line segment. The consolidated net loss ratio is 21.2% for the fourth quarter '23 versus 54.3% in the same period in 2022. Consolidated net loss ratio year to date is 22.3%.

The consolidated net expense ratio continues to trend downwards, 45.4% in the fourth quarter and 43.7% year-to-date, down from 50.2% and 56.2%, respectively, last year. The net combined ratio is 66.6% in the fourth quarter and 66.0% year-to-date, down from 104.5% and 106.2% year-over-year, respectively. Personal lines underperformed in the fourth quarter and year-to-date, but the impact is smoothed by the commercial line segment continuing to outperform year-over-year. Pretax earnings attributable to the commercial line segment totaled $27.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to $3.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2022. The commercial line's underlying combined ratio improved 17.5 points to 50.9% in the fourth quarter 2023, from 68.4% in the fourth quarter 2022.

The same improvement holds true year to date, with commercial lines underlying combined ratio improving 13.2 points year-over-year to 53.6% year-to-date for 2023. Earnings also improved as management implemented and achieved its plan for expense reduction in 2023. Policy acquisition, underwriting and general and administrative expenses were all reduced, positively impacting the bottom line. Amcoastal's 2023 results position commercial lines in a solid position going into 2024 and creates opportunities unique to Amcoastal, the largest commercial residential lines rider in Florida behind only citizens, to continue its conservative reinsurance approach, protect its balance sheet and identify opportunities to expand our products to meet the needs of Florida policyholders and create shareholder value.

Moving on to personal lines. This segment experienced a pretax loss of $5.2 million in the fourth quarter 2023, but that compares favorably to a pretax loss of $10.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. We continue confirmatory due diligence with the potential buyer of Interboro and expect to sign definitive documents shortly, the sale of Interboro will unlock capital and generate liquidity to explore diversification opportunities for our business. In all, net income attributable to the company for the year ended December 31st, 2023, was $309.9 million, or $7.11 per diluted share. Our at-the-market offering raised approximately $38 million to date, which, as we have stated, creates capacity for expanding specialty underwriting, especially during these hard market conditions.

As a result of the strong performance of our commercial segment and the improvement in our personal line segment, period-over-period, our book value per common share increased 29.8% from $2.78 at September 30th, 2023, to $3.61 at December 31st, 2023. While competition in the commercial line space is increasing, Amcoastal continues to be a commercial residential leader in Florida because of its well-established reputation, extensive distribution network and underwriting expertise. I expect this unmatched competitive advantage will continue to drive results and deliver value to shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Brad Martz.

A woman in a business suit in an insurance office, analyzing a policy.

Bennett Bradford Martz: Thank you, Dan, and hello. I'm happy to review our financial results and encourage everyone to review the company's press release, earnings and investor presentations, and Forms 10-Q and 10-K, including amendments for more information regarding our performance. We entered 2024 with positive forward momentum in our core business. Underwriting actions taken over the past year, combined with expense reduction and a more favorable external operating environment led ACIC to post record results, Dan highlighted for 2023. While we were pleased with our overall performance in the fourth quarter, pretax earnings included non-recurring charges of roughly $8.4 million, $2 million of which was related to impairment of capitalized software and $6.4 million impacted reinsurance costs.

Page 6 of our earnings presentation provides some additional color on the charge related to reinsurance, which is actually a good thing, because it will reduce reinsurance costs over time. The reinsurance charge occurred from a voluntary commutation to the 2023 core catastrophe reinsurance program in exchange for a no claims bonus. The $6.4 million incurred in Q4 will be offset by $14.4 million of cost savings over the remaining treating period from January 1st to May 31st, 2024. The net economic benefit to ACIC is approximately $8 million after accounting for the upfront costs incurred in Q4 and the savings expected in Q1 and Q2 of 2024, which are net of costs we incurred to replace the cat limit commuted. A big driver of improvement in the pretax earnings in our combined ratio in the current quarter was the lack of any meaningful catastrophe losses.

Catastrophe losses were just $277,000 this quarter, compared to $18.9 million in the same period last year. We continued to see favorable prior year reserve development with $629,000 in the current quarter and feel good about our overall lost reserves at year end. Excluding catastrophe losses and prior year reserve development, our underlying combined ratio improved over 15 points to 67.2% in the current period and was 65% for the full year. We previously stated that our target for the underlying combined ratio in 2023 was 65%, so we're obviously pleased with hitting this goal. Page 7 of our earnings presentation breaks down our results by segment with $27.9 million of pre-tax profit from commercial lines, reduced by a $5.2 million loss from personal lines and $3.2 million of expense at the whole company, which is primarily interest expense.

This brought our year-to-date pre-tax profit in commercial lines to over $118 million with a combined ratio of 53.7%. As Dan mentioned, ACIC continues to work towards finalizing definitive agreements to sell Interboro, and we still expect to get that done this year. But completing the sale is now more likely to occur towards the end of 2024. That means personal lines will continue to be a minor drag on overall results this year. However, we did receive regulatory approval in New York for a 12.6% rate increase, effective February 6th for new business and March 15th for renewal business, with an annualized expected impact of $5.9 million. So that is obviously expected to help improve personal line's results in the current period. Page 8 of our earnings presentation provides balance sheet highlights, including stockholders' equity increasing 40% to $168.8 million or $3.61 a share.

Unrealized losses on our bond portfolio, $17.1 million or $0.36 share indicated an underlying book value of approximately $3.97. Cash and invested assets totaled $369 million with total assets of just under $1.1 billion. As Dan mentioned, our previously announced at-the-market or ATM program delivered a nice boost to our unrestricted liquidity and our overall capitalization during the quarter. As of year-end, ACIC issued and sold approximately $3.4 million new shares, raising $26.8 million net of selling expenses. Subsequent to year-end, the company sold another one million shares, raising another $11.4 million net of expenses. The ATM has now raised more capital than we originally anticipated, but the dilutive impact was in line with our original expectations.

Accordingly, the ATM has now been paused and American Coastal is not anticipating additional sales of its common stock under the ATM program at this time. The big question everyone wants to know is what are we going to do with the $38.2 million raised from the ATM inception to date. And as we've stated previously, we see a tremendous opportunity to grow our net earned premiums over time by retaining more of our direct underwriting results. We've deployed some of this capital to our captive already to support our January 1st AOP CAT reinsurance program, and our excess per risk reinsurance program that was placed at February 1st, on layers with a modeled expected return on capital well in excess of 50%. However, most of the proceeds are being reserved for our much bigger core catastrophe renewal at June 1st of this year.

It's premature to comment on our upcoming core catastrophe renewal at June 1st, but we are hard at work on it and can point to the very successful reinsurance renewals at 1/1 and 2/1 as good evidence that we expect to see significant improvements in pricing and overall protection at June 1st, this year relative to the program expiring at May 31st. Page 9 of our earnings presentation summarizes our current view of the underwriting environment. Market conditions remain very favorable for achieving underwriting profitability and above average risk-adjusted returns on capital in the near term. To capitalize on this, we will look to supplement our anticipated organic growth this year by also exploring takeout and assumption opportunities. We believe assuming business from other carriers, such as citizens that meet our underwriting criteria, make sense in the current environment and could potentially offset any potential competitive pressures as the market cycle evolves.

Pages 10 and 11 of our earnings presentation provide some additional color on pricing and valuation trends in our commercial residential business. We ended 2023 with premiums up 28% and exposures down 18% year-over-year, rate levels are moderating, but remain very healthy relative to current exposures, loss and expense trends. Even with direct written premiums flattening out, we are confident in our ability to grow net earned premiums in 2024 which is truly what will drive our bottom line this year. And finally, we would like to give a huge thank you to our partners at AmRisc for their exceptional contributions to our success in 2023 and also offer our sincere congratulations to both the buyer and the seller of AmRisc's parent company. American Coastal continues to enjoy a very strong and exclusive relationship with AmRisc in the Florida admitted commercial residential space and we do not expect any significant changes to our business because of AmRisc ownership change in the foreseeable future.

With that operator, please open the line for questions.

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