Brown & Brown - Q3 2023
October 24, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good morning, and welcome to Brown & Brown Incorporated's third quarter earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded. Please note that certain information discussed during this call, including information contained in the slide presentation posted in connection with this call and including answers given in response to your questions, may relate to future results and events or otherwise be forward-looking in nature. Such statements reflect our current views with respect to future events, including those relating to the company's anticipated financial results for the third quarter and are intended to fall within the safe harbor provisions of the securities laws. Actual results or events in the future are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and may differ materially from those currently anticipated or desired, or referenced in any forward-looking statements made as a result of the number of factors.
Such factors include the company's determination as it finalizes its financial results for the third quarter that its financial results differ from the current preliminary unaudited numbers set forth in the press release issued yesterday. Other factors that the company may not have currently identified or quantified are those risks and uncertainties identified from time to time in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Additional discussion of these and other factors affecting the company's business and prospects, as well as additional information regarding forward-looking statements, is contained in the slide presentation posted in connection with this call and the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, there are certain non-GAAP financial measures used in this conference call.
A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measure can be found in the company's earnings press release or in the company's investor presentation for the call on the company's website at www.bbinsurance.com by clicking on Investor Relations and then Calendar of Events. With that said, I would now turn the call over to Powell Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer. You may begin.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Thank you very, very much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q3 2023 earnings call. We delivered an outstanding performance in the third quarter. Our organic growth was just shy of 10%. We expanded our EBITDAC margins by 350 basis points and grew adjusted net income per share by 42%. In addition, we closed the acquisition of Kentro earlier this month. As a reminder, the company operates MGUs in the U.K., U.S., Europe, and other locations, and has a retail broker operation in both the U.K. and Europe. Kentro has great capabilities with a significant focus on financial lines, aviation, and trade credit, in addition to a number of other lines of coverage. We'd like to welcome Colin Thompson and their team to Brown & Brown, and look forward to seeing the business continue to grow over the coming quarters and years.
Now, let's get into our results for the quarter. I'm on slide 4. Our revenues exceeded $1 billion, growing 15.1% in total and 9.6% organically, as compared to the third quarter of 2022. Our adjusted EBITDAC margin expanded 350 basis points to 34.7%, and our adjusted earnings per share grew 42% to $0.72. On the M&A front, we completed 7 acquisitions with estimated annual revenues of $14 million. Also, I'd like to highlight that last week, our board of directors approved a 13% increase in our dividend. We're extremely proud, as this is the 30th consecutive year of dividend increases. We were able to deliver these outstanding results through the relentless dedication of our 16,000+ teammates that create and deliver innovative solutions for our customers.
I'm now on slide number 5. From an economic standpoint, it was similar to the second quarter, and consumers are continuing to spend and drive demand. As a result, the economy remained rather resilient, even with materially higher interest rates, while growth and inflation continued to moderate and return to more normal levels. Many business leaders continue to hire, but remain cautious regarding large investments in their business. While the revenue side of the P&L is generally healthy for many companies, inflation remains the main challenge, as certain costs are still outpacing revenue growth. Specifically, as it relates to the purchasing of insurance, a lot of buyers are exhausted due to the level of rate increases, mainly for property that have occurred for multiple years. Shifting to the insurance marketplace, it remained very challenging for customers with their focus on overall spend.
Many customers have already increased their deductibles and reduced their limits. We're also seeing lenders being more flexible in certain cat-prone areas regarding total purchased limits. Across most lines of coverage, rate increases were fairly consistent with the first half of the year, with admitted markets up 5%-10% and excess and surplus lines markets up 10%-25%. Like previous quarters, there were exceptions outside of these ranges. Two lines of coverage that continued to decline are workers' compensation and professional liability for larger customers. Workers' comp rates declined less than we've seen in previous quarters and were in the range of flat to down 5%. Professional liability rates, including public company, D&O and cyber, were flat to down 15%, or in some instances, down even further.
Regarding Cat-exposed property, it remained the most challenging line of business, as carriers are generally not increasing their capacity. We're also seeing underwriters continue to push for higher insured values due to inflation and increased replacement costs. During the quarter, the placements for personal lines in California, Florida, and Texas remained very difficult, with policies continuing to move into state-sponsored plans or the E&S space. We are well-positioned to help our customers due to the breadth of our carrier relationships and the multiple solutions we're able to deliver. This doesn't mean we can solve all issues, but it has helped drive additional growth for our personal line businesses. Regarding the M&A market for the quarter, the level of deals, primarily from financial backers, continued to slow, and we generally saw fewer bidders for businesses. From a valuation standpoint, they have come down slightly.
However, good businesses still trade at premium multiples. We remained active and acquired 7 great companies for the quarter, which brings us to a total of 20 year to date. Overall, we're extremely pleased with the success of our M&A efforts in North America and Europe. We're in a strong position to identify and acquire high-quality companies that fit culturally and make sense financially. I'm now on slide number 6. Our retail segment had another great quarter and delivered organic growth of 8%. This growth, both domestically and internationally, was driven by strong new business, good retention, and continued rate increases. We are winning a lot of new business by leveraging our collective capabilities and creating innovative solutions for our customers that are searching for ways to manage their cost of insurance.
Our program segment delivered another outstanding quarter with organic growth of 12%, driven by strong new business, good retention, and continued rate increases, especially cat property. Almost all of the programs grew nicely again this quarter. Wholesale brokerage delivered a great quarter with organic growth over 13%, driven by domestic and international, strong new business, good retention, as well as rate increases for most lines. Our brokerage, delegated authority, and personal lines businesses all performed well during the quarter, while professional liability continued to be under pressure due to the decline in rates mentioned earlier. Organic revenue in our services segment was approximately 3% with the growth driven by an increase in claims processing revenue for certain businesses. Now, with that, I'll turn it back over to Andy for more details regarding our financial results.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
All right. Thank you, Powell. Good morning, everyone. I'll review our consolidated financial results on an adjusted basis, which for the third quarter, exclude the change in estimated earn-out payables, one-time acquisition and integration costs associated with GRP, BDB, and Orchid, gains and losses on business divestitures, and the impact of foreign currency translation. We believe isolating these above items provides a better reflection of the performance of the business and enhanced comparability. The reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures, including these adjusted amounts to the most closely comparable GAAP amounts, can be found either in the appendix of this presentation or in the press release issued yesterday. We're over on slide 7. On an adjusted basis, total revenues were nearly $1.1 billion for the quarter, growing 14.2% as compared to the third quarter of the prior year.
Income before income taxes increased by 40.7%, and EBITDA grew by 27%. Our EBITDA margin was 34.7%, increasing 350 basis points as compared to the third quarter of 2022. The margin increase was driven primarily by leveraging our cost base in connection with strong organic growth, as well as higher contingent commissions, increased interest income, and minimal claims costs for our captives. The higher growth in income before income taxes was driven by depreciation, amortization, and interest expense growing slower than total revenues. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 25.5%, which is in line with our expectations and compares to 26.1% in the third quarter of last year. Our adjusted diluted net income per share increased by 42% from last year to $0.71.
Our weighted average share count increased approximately 1%, as we are directing more of our capital towards reducing our debt. Lastly, our dividends paid increased nearly 12% as compared to the third quarter of 2022. Overall, the performance by our team for the quarter was outstanding. We're over on slide number 8. The retail segment grew almost 10%, driven primarily by strong organic growth of 8% and acquisitions completed in the last year. Adjusted EBITDA grew slightly faster than revenues, and our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 28.6%. This expansion was driven by leveraging our expense base along with strong organic revenue growth, but it was partially offset by the impact of higher non-cash stock-based compensation and slightly lower profit-sharing contingent commissions. We're over on slide number 9.
National Programs had another outstanding quarter, with adjusted total revenues growing 20.1% and organic growth of 12.1%. The incremental growth in excess of organic growth was driven almost entirely by an increase in our contingent commissions that were impacted negatively in the prior year related to Hurricane Ian. Our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded over 11% due to the level of organic growth and leveraging our expense base, higher profit sharing contingent commissions, and lower claims cost in the current year within our captives due to a quieter storm season as compared to the third quarter of 2022.
As it relates to organic growth for the fourth quarter of this year, please keep in mind that in the fourth quarter of 2022, we highlighted a nonrecurring incentive bonus of $7 million and also recorded $8 million of claims processing revenue associated with Hurricane Ian. Moving over to slide 10. Our wholesale segment delivered another strong quarter, with adjusted total revenue growth of 17.7% and organic growth of 13.4%. The incremental growth in excess of organic growth were driven by higher profit sharing, contingent commissions and acquisitions completed in the past 12 months. Our adjusted EBITDAC margin expanded 110 basis points at 37%, due to a combination of leveraging our expense base with good organic growth and higher profit sharing contingent commissions, but was partially offset by the impact of higher non-cash stock-based compensation.
On slide 11, the services segment delivered organic growth of 3.2%, with a slight decline in adjusted EBITDAC margin due to one-time expenses for certain businesses as well as the impact of inflation. A few other comments concerning cash generation, capital allocation, and outlook for the remainder of the year. From a cash perspective, we generated $704 million of cash flow from operations for the first nine months of this year and had another strong third quarter, growing our year-to-date cash flow from operations by $104 million, or 17%. Our year-to-date ratio of cash flow from operations as a percentage of total revenues remains strong year-over-year at approximately 22%. As we mentioned previously, post the acquisitions of GRP, BDB, and Orchid, we remain committed to delevering.
In the third quarter, we further reduced our outstanding debt by approximately $100 million. At the end of the third quarter, we are already within our stated target gross debt to EBITDA ratio of zero-3 times. Based on current interest rates, we would expect our investment income and interest expense in the fourth quarter to be similar to what we recognized in the third quarter. Regarding profitability, we had previously provided guidance that our full year expectations for adjusted EBITDAC margins would be up slightly compared to 2022. Based on our strong financial performance for the first nine months, as well as higher investment income and profit-sharing contingent commissions, we now expect our margins for the full year will be up at least 100 basis points.
In summary, we continue to be in a strong position and generate industry-leading cash conversion ratios, which enable us to invest in our company, delever, and acquire businesses. With that, let me turn it back over to Powell for closing comments.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Thanks, Andy. Great report. The impact of inflation and increases in interest rates on our customers and the consumer are the key areas we're monitoring, as these will drive the rate of economic expansion and investment. Like previous quarters, we expect business leaders to remain cautious regarding how much they will invest over the coming quarters. As we noted earlier, the consumer is still spending, and most of our customers are growing their businesses. From an insurance standpoint, we believe rate increases will remain relatively consistent through the end of the year. That means customers are going to remain highly focused on managing their insurance spend by either decreasing limits, increasing deductibles, and in certain cases, opting for loss limits. Many of our customers have already done one or more of these items.
Regarding our carrier partners, they continue to be focused on diversifying their portfolios and reducing volatility in their earnings. This is evident through cat capacity management and disciplined underwriting. As a highly diversified global insurance platform, we have delivered very good underwriting results. By continuing to provide our carrier partners with access to distinct customer segments, we believe we're well positioned to maintain and possibly grow our capacity with these important partners. We feel great about our business as our team is executing and delivering at a very high level. We're making the right investments for the long term and remain focused on hiring and retaining the best teammates. As we continue to do this, we are able to leverage our collective capabilities to retain our existing customers and win more new business.
In summary, we're very pleased with our results through the first nine months of the year, delivering organic growth of 11%, Adjusted EBITDAC margin expansion of 170 basis points, and adjusted earnings per share growth of 25%. We are well positioned and have great momentum as we head into the final quarter of the year. With that, we'll turn it back over and open the lines for Q&A.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. To ask a question, you'll need to press star one, one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press star one, one again. Please wait for your name to be announced. Due to time constraints, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Again, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, until all have had a chance to ask a question, after which we'll be able to answer any additional questions from you as time permits. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our first question, please. And our first question will come from the line of Michael Zaremski with BMO. Your line is now open.
Michael Zaremski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, great. Good morning. Thinking about the commentary on the great margins this quarter and year to date and kind of the lift to the outlook. I guess, Andy, when we—when you gave color on the kind of the pluses and minuses. Is it fair that the, you know, that the only kind of things that might be unusual on a forward-looking basis could be the low costs for the captives and maybe kind of organic growth has exceeded your expectations? Just trying to level set, kind of to make sure we kind of understand if you feel like there was some one-time items we should be thinking about.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah. Good morning, Mike. As it relates to the third quarter, no, we didn't have any distinct kind of one-time items that we called out. Pertaining to the fourth quarter, the main items were the ones that we highlighted, which were the incentive bonus and the claims revenue associated with Ian. We've still got fourth quarter yet to go, so we're still in storm season right now, so don't know actually how everything will play out. But those will be part of two of the bigger ones. And then, again, depending upon how storm season ultimately finalizes itself, as well as we still got the back end of the year. Remember, on our captives that they also take a quarter share on some of our West Coast earthquake programs.
So that's the only kind of... Those are the unknowns that could, that could pop up, but we feel good about kind of where we are heading in the fourth quarter.
Michael Zaremski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. And maybe pivoting to organic growth more broadly. You know, so the you know outlook is in the near term for rate increases to remain constant. Powell, you talked about kind of carriers still pushing through higher insured values, which I think comes to on the exposure side. Can you kind of talk about if you have a forward-looking view of whether there's a decel in exposure at all, as kind of nominal inflation looks to be deceling a bit? Or do you... Is there this kind of still higher than historical level of exposure kind of running through the system, which is benefiting your growth?
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Well, Mike, as you know, we don't give forward-looking organic growth guidance. Historically speaking, we've said that our business is two-thirds exposure units and one-third rate. In certain areas of the business, particularly in coastal communities, rates might have a slightly higher impact. But as it relates to the question specifically on exposure units, we have not seen anything that would indicate a slowdown in those exposure units in the near term yet, but we remain ever vigilant as we kind of watch. But as Andy and I both said, we do see people being more cautious in terms of their willingness to make large capital investments in the business. I think they're pausing on a lot of those. So from a standpoint of lift in exposure units there, we're not seeing that as much.
As it relates to sales of product or, you know, construction revenues or whatever, it seems to be continuing as usual.
Michael Zaremski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Hughes with Truist Securities. Your line is now open.
Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Paul, you mentioned maybe prospects for a little more capacity from carriers for next year. I think you've described that as a restraint in 2023, but your organic has obviously been very good with the reinsurers probably doing pretty well this year. Do you think there's more opportunity for faster growth when we think about some of these coastal programs or these states like Texas and California, that have had problems getting capacity?
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
I would caution you about saying faster growth. I think the way I would look at it is, there's capacity, but the capacity is at a price. And so, as I said earlier, carriers are very careful about managing their cat capacity. We view it as a positive if we can maintain our capacity that we currently have, and in some instances, if somebody wants to modify their, their distribution to us, i.e., modify down, we believe that we can fill most of that with other carriers that want to participate in our facilities or, wholesale or in retail. But I would caution you, Mark, on trying to draw a parallel that, you know, we've got a whole bunch of new capacity that's going to bring a whole bunch of new growth with that.
I don't want you to. Please do not misinterpret our statements that way. I would say that we feel good about the indications that we've been given from our carrier partners about maintaining what we have. And as it relates to stuff that they want to modify their participation on, we feel good about replacing that.
Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Understood. And then I think you had mentioned construction. Are you seeing anything, any changes in construction? The next job is always important. Any kind of a slowdown there?
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
... So Mark, I would tell you that inventory seems to be okay, still okay. But, but that's, you know, usually a 9-12-month outlook. I can't comment beyond that, but there just seems to be a lot of activity, and, so that's positive.
Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Very good. Thank you.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Uh-huh.
Operator (participant)
Thank you.
Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Ward with Citi. Your line is now open. Michael Ward, your line-
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Hello?
Operator (participant)
Is now open.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Michael, we cannot hear you.
Operator (participant)
Mr. Ward, are you on mute? I'll go to the next person. One moment, please.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah. Yeah, Norma, just put him back in the queue, we'll come back around.
Operator (participant)
Our next first question comes from the line of C. Gregory Peters with Raymond James. Your line is now open.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Hello, Gregory?
Operator (participant)
Mr. Peters, your line is now open.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Right.
Operator (participant)
All right, Mr. Peters? All right, I'll go to the next one.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
The next one, so.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from the line of Rob Cox with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
Rob Cox (VP of Equity Research)
Hey, can you guys hear me?
Operator (participant)
Yes.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Oh, we can hear you.
Operator (participant)
Yeah.
Rob Cox (VP of Equity Research)
Awesome. So maybe my first question on organic growth. I mean, just in the context of Brown doing significantly more property cat in the second quarter and growth typically being slower in the back half of the year, could you talk about what drove the more resilient than expected organic growth in the quarter, maybe specifically for both retail and then wholesale?
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Sure. We're just writing more net new business. I mean, I'm not trying to be funny, Rob, but we're executing really well, and we are you know, maintaining our existing customer relationships, and we are picking up a lot of new customers. That's that's both, on both sides, well and retail.
Rob Cox (VP of Equity Research)
That's great. Thank you. And then maybe just a high-level follow-up on expenses, not necessarily related to this quarter in particular, but if we zone in on the retail segment, can you just walk us through the expense line items that are seeing kind of the most inflationary pressure here in this environment?
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Sure.
Rob Cox (VP of Equity Research)
And what line items are doing okay?
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah. Hey, good morning, Rob, it's Andy here. I think the areas where we probably continue to be challenged, by the way, we've always been challenged in this space, is around just the cost of talent. And that's not been just a COVID issue. If you need good talent, which we do, and like everybody else, talent is expensive. We are seeing some moderation in the level of inflation and the increases in comparison to volumes from a year ago, but you still see some of those pressures that are out there. But we work our way through those. And then, you know, we've got through most of the T&E headwinds. It doesn't mean that hotels and airlines aren't expensive. They are, you've probably been out flying lately or staying somewhere.
It's still pretty expensive, but it feels like we've got through most of those headwinds in comparison to where we were a year ago on that front. And then we mentioned in the commentary about, you know, stock compensation, that that's a headwind year-over-year for the business, both in retail as well as wholesale. That's not a bad thing at all. So keep in mind that the way that those plans are structured is, you know, they're driven off of how well we perform on organic and earnings per share. So the cost that we're taking through the current year is also reflective of the strong performance that we've had over the last couple of years. So we think that's a really good indicator.
Rob Cox (VP of Equity Research)
Thanks. Appreciate the color.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
No, thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Elise Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.
Elyse Greenspan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Hi, thanks. Good morning. My question was on retail. I know you guys had called out dealer services, right? That was a headwind second half of last year and the first part of this year. It seems, given the, you know, strong results you guys saw this quarter, then maybe that dissipated. Is that correct, or was there, you know, any impact of dealer services in the quarter?
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Yeah. So good morning, Elise. So as you remember, we indicated that the headwind was kind of going to neutralize in the second half of the year relative to dealer services, and we did see that sort of neutralize in Q3. So, we are very pleased with the overall business and even in dealer services. It's just, you know, getting inventory for our dealer customers. But I would tell you that that was a positive for us compared to, you know, prior quarters this year, yes.
Elyse Greenspan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
... Thanks. And then, you know, on the margin update, right, you guys have seen, you know, good amounts of margin improvement, I think 170 basis points so far this year. Is the Q4 contraction just a function of any, the one-off revenue you guys had last year within programs, the $7 million and the $8 million that you called out? Or, I know you don't typically guide on a one-quarter basis, but I'm just trying to understand if there's anything else in the Q4 that you're highlighting.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
No, those are the big items, Elise, that are in there.
Elyse Greenspan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Okay. And then one last one. You guys pointed to, you know, it seems like a still competitive M&A environment, but it sounds like financial sponsors, I think you guys said, interest is maybe waning a little bit. You know, what are you guys seeing on, on the M&A side in terms of the pipeline, and multiples on transactions as well?
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
So Elise, I would tell you that, the way we describe it is, in the past, there might have been, let's say, two handfuls of, you know, early participants in looking at a business that have financial backing. Whereas now there might be a handful. That doesn't mean that there are none. It just means it's not as many people that are from that segment of the space, number one, and part of that is obviously due to increased interest rates and their capacity to put their money to work. Having said that, we have not seen an enormous downward pressure on multiples. I would tell you that it's, you know, on roughly there might be a quarter to a half a turn down, but on good businesses, people are they're still very competitive for good businesses.
So, we are just out there looking all the time. We are very pleased with the acquisitions we've made this year. And we're... You know, when and why someone sells, it's different for every transaction. But we think that there are lots of opportunities that will present themselves in the next 1, 2, and 3 years, and beyond. But, I think there continues to be good opportunities for us, and we really like our position, and we like, and to your question specifically, the inventory is good. But remember, it's always good, and it'll and but we're very pleased because it's still good.
Elyse Greenspan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Thank you.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Thank you, Elise.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Meyer Shields with KBW. Your line is now open.
Meyer Shields (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Great, thanks. Good morning. Am I coming through?
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Yep, you're coming through.
Meyer Shields (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, fantastic. So two really quick questions. First, in the national programs slide, this is slide nine, you mentioned higher profit sharing, or let me say it differently, improved loss development on Hurricane Ian. Was there any favorable development on the exposure, or is this just a much better quarter than last year because of last year's issues?
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Good morning, Meyer. Yeah, it's a combination of two things. So if you recall, in the third quarter of last year, since Ian hit on the 28th of September, right? We had recorded what we thought the development would be at that stage. And if you recall, in the fourth quarter, we had made some true ups. The development was not as extensive as was originally estimated. We made a few more of those kind of throughout the year. But now we're kind of back to where, at least, from everything we're seeing and hearing from our carrier partners, that we're in a pretty good place on loss development. They've got through most of the claims that are out there that we were on.
Meyer Shields (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, but to the extent that you had a little bit of exposure, there's no change in sort of that, I'll call it underwriting loss?
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
No, no. If anything, it's actually improved to the betterment.
Meyer Shields (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, perfect. Second question, just trying to understand the process. One theme we've seen this year is a lot of catastrophe-closed property move from the standard markets to E&S. When you look at that segment of the marketplace or that phenomenon, is that a one-year transition, or should we expect to see that sort of directional move continue in 2024, maybe beyond?
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Sure. So I think that there fundamentally is a continued transition of certain types of business, not specifically and limited to Cat property, that are rotating into the ENS market. So I think we're going to continue to see that into 2024 and 2025. That said, is there a time in the future where some of that business that rotates out might come back into the standard market? And the answer is yes, I believe that to be the case.
But we've got to have a couple of years of, you know, good loss experience for the carriers, because I think sometimes, there are certain businesses that are, because of location, they may be put into a box, and if you looked at them on a one-off basis, they might not necessarily need to move to ENS or all of it to ENS. So I think there's a continued trend towards it, but I also think that in a couple of years, there could be some slight rotation back.
Meyer Shields (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, that's perfect. Thank you so much.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Thanks.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please.... Our next question comes from the line of Mark Hughes with Truist Securities. Your line is now open.
Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah, thanks. Employee benefits seems like the pricing rates are up pretty substantially, and I know in the past, you've talked about how Q1 organic is benefited from employee benefits momentum. Could there be a little bit more this year because of pricing in that market?
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
When you say this year, are you talking about in Q4 or in-
Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
No, I'm thinking Q1 this coming year.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Oh, well, again, we're not giving. We don't give growth guidance on lines of business, just like we don't give organic growth. But we're very pleased with the way our employee benefits line of business is growing, and we continue to invest in the capabilities, and we are writing lots of new business across the platform.
Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah, I mean, Mark, if your question's about, you know, rates on the EB space, no, we're not seeing any fundamental changes in the rate increases in the EB business. They continue to be pretty robust, as we've been talking about for a number of quarters. It is different if you're on a fully funded versus a self-funded plan. The pharmacy is probably the biggest topic that everybody's talking about today because of all the specialty drugs that are out there.
Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Thanks, Mark.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Hey, Norma, can we do, we had a couple of people that didn't get in earlier. Can we, get them back in the queue, please?
Operator (participant)
Yes, thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of C. Gregory Peters with Raymond James. Your line is now open. Mr. Peters, your line is now open. Are you muted?
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Hey, Norma, can you check and see if he's muted by chance on your end?
Operator (participant)
Not on my end. I'm checking. He's open. Mr. Peters, are you muted?
Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
He's not there.
Operator (participant)
Okay, I'll go to the next person.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
All right. We'll, we'll get him back around.
Operator (participant)
One moment for our next question, comes from the line of Scott Heleniak with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Scott Heleniak (Equity Analyst)
Yeah, good morning. The first question I had was just on the services segment. You had better growth there than you had in a while, the 3%, and you'd mentioned in there there's a benefit from some claims processing revenue. Was that sort of one time? It just kinda trying to figure out, is this something where you think you can get sustainable organic growth in this unit, or was there anything kind of one time in that that you called out the claims processing revenue for that unit?
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah. Hi, good morning, it's Andy. That was really driven off of we've expanded some customer relationships there, as well as we've won some new relationships in that business. That's what's driving the, the new claims. The way that we really think about the services business is the actual transaction is one time in nature, but the relationships are recurring in nature for us, and that's really what we try to focus on.
Scott Heleniak (Equity Analyst)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
And it's that business in general, that segment. It's, you can't forecast by individual quarters very well. You quite often have to look at averages just because the way items kind of flow back and forth. But no, we were real pleased with the performance for the third quarter.
Scott Heleniak (Equity Analyst)
Got it. That makes sense. Yeah, the other question I had was just on, you mentioned in the script, you were at your zero-three times debt leverage target now. So does that. Should I take that to mean that we shouldn't expect additional debt reduction over the next few quarters? Is that largely over, or is there more left?
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
No.
Scott Heleniak (Equity Analyst)
Or is that still to be determined?
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
You shouldn't assume that. No.
Scott Heleniak (Equity Analyst)
Okay.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
No. Mike, if you look back historically, you know, we will increase our leverage modestly at times when we have, you know, incrementally higher... Oh, I'm sorry, Scott, sorry about that. You'll end up, you know, we'll have... We'll take our leverage up a little bit when we have, you know, higher levels of larger acquisitions. And if you look at it, we delever on the back end at a pretty rapid pace. The organization itself will normally delever anywhere from a quarter to a half, sometimes three-quarters of a turn during the year. And that, that's really driven off of just normal maturities that we have and then growth in the business.
But if you go back over time, we'll run somewhere in kind of a two.two-two.four on a gross to EBITDA ratio, and we're in our range and probably continue to moderate down. That doesn't mean, though, that we won't take it back up at some point if we find a really good acquisition for the organization. But generally, we're going to have a pretty conservative balance sheet.
Scott Heleniak (Equity Analyst)
Okay, thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Ward. One moment for your line to be open. Michael Ward, your line is now open. Michael, your line is open.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
All right. We seem to have two-
Operator (participant)
All right.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Two folks are having some technical difficulties today. All right, Norma, do we have anybody else in queue?
Operator (participant)
I see no other callers, but ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, to ask a question, that's star one one.
Andrew Watts (EVP, CFO and Treasurer)
Okay. We'll give Mike and Greg, if they're in queue, just a second, and if not, we'll go ahead and we'll call the caller. We can always do a follow-up with them.
Operator (participant)
Okay. Again, ladies and gentlemen, that's star one one to ask your question. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'll go ahead and turn the call back over to you, Mr. Brown, for closing remarks.
J. Powell Brown (President and CEO)
Thank you all very much. We're very pleased with the quarter and equally excited about going into Q4. Look forward to talking to everybody in January. Have a great day. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.