CNA Financial - Earnings Call - Q2 2020
August 3, 2020
Transcript
Speaker 0
Good morning, and welcome to CNA's Discussion of its twenty twenty Second Quarter Financial Results. CNA's second quarter earnings release presentation and financial supplement were released this morning and are available via its website, www.cna.com. Speaking today will be Dino Robusto, CNA's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Paul Miroles, CNA's Chief Financial Officer. Following their prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. Today's call may include forward looking statements and references to non GAAP financial measures.
Any forward looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made during the call. Information concerning those risks is contained in the earnings release and in CNA's most recent SEC filings. In addition, the forward looking statements speak only as of today, Monday, 08/03/2020. CNA expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements made during this call. Regarding non GAAP measures, reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures and other information have been provided in its financial supplement.
This call is being recorded and webcast. During the next week, the call may be accessed on CNA's website. If you're reading the transcript of this call, please note that the transcript may not be reviewed for accuracy, thus it may contain transcription errors that could materially alter the intent of meaning of the statement. With that, I will turn the call over to CNA's Chairman and CEO, Dina Robusto.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Diana. Good morning. It is very good to be with you today, and I hope you and your families are coping well in these unprecedented times. The second quarter has been a challenging one as the pandemic continues to impact the lives of all of us. For CNA, those challenges have been multifaceted and have impacted our underwriting results considerably, as we disclosed in our preannouncement on July 15.
Before Al and I provide more detail on the impacts of COVID-nineteen and other catastrophes in the quarter, I wanted to start by commenting on our underlying business, which performed extremely well in the quarter. Starting with pricing. Rate increases continued to accelerate as we achieved plus 11% in P and C overall, up three points from the first quarter. And the 11% is inclusive of workers' comp, which had slightly negative rates. Importantly, increases were broad based as each business unit achieved higher rates.
In light of our written rate increases over the last four quarters, our earned rate increases are now 7%. They're clearly above our long run loss cost trends of around 4%. But as I have said before, we need to sustain this gap over several more quarters before we would favorably adjust our current accident year selections because we experienced almost full years of rate changes below long run loss cost trends prior to this hardening market. And as I have highlighted on prior calls, we experienced rising severity trends during that period in several product lines like aging services and primary and excess auto liability. In terms of growth, gross written premium ex captives grew 7%, while net written premium growth of 3% includes the international results that are still impacted by our reunderwriting in our London operations.
In The U. S, gross written premium growth ex captives was 8% for the second quarter, consistent with Q1. We achieved this level of growth even though exposure on our renewal business was minus 1% in the quarter versus plus 2% in last year's second quarter, a swing of almost three points due to the economic disruption. The business growth, while modestly up 1% over the prior year quarter, is actually a very good result as we were able to write attention to the same amount of new business as we did last year despite the disruptive events in this year's quarter. We're also able to increase our retention by one point from the first quarter to 83% while we achieved stronger rate increases.
All the efforts we invested in to strengthen our agent and broker relationships over the last few years have been a key driver in our ability to continue to effectively meet their new business needs. The second quarter had often involved responding to shorter time frames on submissions as they dealt with the disruption of converting to a remote work environment and contending with an increasingly hardening market. Our underlying combined ratio in the quarter, when we set aside the various COVID-nineteen impacts, which I will detail shortly, improved by 0.8 points from a year ago. This consists of zero five point improvement in the underlying loss ratio and 0.3 points improvement in the expense ratio. When compared to the first quarter of this year, the expense ratio, excluding the impacts of COVID, is flat.
Now we obviously did have less travel and entertainment expenses, but we also made additional investments in technology as well as operations staff to ensure our servicing capabilities transitioned seamlessly to a remote work environment. After all, it could still be a while before we fully return to a pre COVID office work environment, and we are well prepared for this. Turning to the impact of COVID-nineteen. Our catastrophe losses due to the pandemic were one hundred and eighty two million dollars pretax as we preannounced in mid July. This number reflects our best estimate of ultimate insurance losses, including anticipated legal expenses from events that occurred through the second quarter from which we believe claims will eventually emerge.
Thus, the charge in the quarter is almost entirely IBNR. The projections are also broad based upon the various legal statutes that have already been put in place through June 30, whether workers' comp presumption or state health care immunity. In addition to the direct COVID-nineteen losses of $182,000,000 we accrued for future audit return premiums based upon the pattern of lower exposures we saw on the policies renewing during the quarter. This accrual adversely impacted our underlying combined ratio for the quarter, but it was offset by improvement in our underlying loss ratio due to favorable frequency in several of our commercial casualty product lines due to the shelter in place policies. As mentioned in our earnings preannouncement, the lower frequency benefit was muted because a substantial portion of our insurance are in essential industries such as health care, construction and manufacturing, which were not subject to shelter in place restrictions and so saw a little frequency reduction.
In addition, in casualty lines like auto and general liability, the potential for a higher severity compels us to be prudent and let this evolve longer before reacting too favorably. Taken together, the combined impact of the reduced net earned premium and the lower frequency of losses decreased our second quarter underlying combined ratio, additional 0.4 points beyond the 0.8 improvement I referenced without the COVID-nineteen impacts to the reported ninety three point four percent. The underlying loss ratio decreased an additional 0.9 points, partially offset by a zero five point increase in the expense ratio from the accrued audit return premiums, reducing the earned premium and a moderate increase in bad debt expense. As we also indicated in our preannouncement, we incurred $61,000,000 of catastrophe losses due to the civil unrest events. In addition, we had $58,000,000 of losses due to the severe weather storms.
On a combined basis, these three categories of catastrophes added 17.5 points to our second quarter loss ratio. Our prior period development in the quarter increased our combined ratio by 1.4 points. This includes the impact of the $50,000,000 of adverse development from recognition of potential losses due primarily to the New York reviver statute that we also preannounced. The estimated losses were developed as part of our annual mass tort review, which we completed in the second quarter. Excluding the mass tort charge, we had favorable prior period development of $25,000,000 Including the impacts of catastrophes and prior period development, the total combined ratio for the quarter was 112.3%.
Moving to investments. The overall portfolio fared well in the second quarter with the unrealized gain position increasing significantly as fixed income markets stabilized. As well, net investment income was strong, driven by real time healthy positions and common stock investments. Our Life and Group segment produced $14,000,000 of core income in the quarter, driven by better than expected persistency experienced. As usual, Al will provide more detail on the investment portfolio and long term care.
Finally, our core income for the second quarter was $99,000,000 or $0.36 per share, and net income was 151,000,000 or $0.55 per share. And with that, I'll turn it over to Al.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Gino, and good morning to everyone. As Gino indicated, I will now provide details of our core results by business segment. Starting with Specialty, the combined ratio was 104.2% this quarter. The combined ratio includes favorable prior period development of 2.9 points and 15 points from catastrophe losses, the latter essentially all due to COVID-nineteen. The favorable prior period development was largely driven by favorable outcomes in professional management liability predominantly for accident years 2017 and 2018.
The underlying combined ratio for Specialty was 92.1% this quarter, 1.1 points of improvement compared to second quarter twenty nineteen. The underlying loss ratio was 59.9% and the expense ratio was 32%. The expense ratio has improved by 1.1 points compared to second quarter twenty nineteen due to both growth in net earned premium and lower expenses. The gross written premium growth ex captives was 7% especially for the quarter and was 4% on a net written premium basis. Rates continue to increase at 12%, up from 9% last quarter.
Retention was 85% this quarter, which was up one point compared to last quarter.
Speaker 1
New business volume was at
Speaker 2
the same level as the prior year's quarter. The combined ratio for commercial was 118.5% this quarter. This is 18.8 points higher than the second quarter twenty nineteen and includes 19 points of catastrophe loss and six points of unfavorable prior period development. The cat losses include 7.7 points due to civil unrest, 5.9 points from weather related events and 5.4 points attributable to COVID-nineteen. As previously disclosed, prior period development included a charge for mass tort, primarily due to New York reviver statute related claims.
Excluding mass tort, commercial and prior period development was $2,000,000 favorable with favorable workers' compensation development across multiple accident years prior to 2019, offset by adverse development in property for accident year 2019 and auto liability for accident years 2017 through 2019. The auto development was due to higher severity than expected. The underlying results were very strong for commercial with an underlying combined ratio of 93.5% this quarter, 1.4 points of improvement from second quarter twenty nineteen. The underlying loss ratio was 59% compared to 61.7% and benefited somewhat from lower loss frequency. The expense ratio at 33.9% compares to 32.6% in second quarter twenty nineteen and was adversely impacted by the decrease in estimated audit premiums in the second quarter.
Excluding the COVID-nineteen impacts on favorable claim frequency and additional return premiums, the underlying combined improved by 0.7 points, driven by the loss ratio. Gross written premium growth ex captives was 9% in commercial for the quarter and net was 4%. The rate change of 9% was up one point from the last quarter. Retention was a healthy 83%. New business growth was strong again this quarter at 10% despite the events in the quarter and was again broadly distributed across our target market segments.
The combined ratio for international was 115.3% this quarter compared to 97.5% in the second quarter twenty nineteen. The combined ratio reflects 19.9 points of catastrophe losses for the quarter substantially due to COVID-nineteen. The underlying combined ratio for international was 96.6% this quarter, an improvement of 0.8 points compared to prior year quarter. The underlying loss ratio was 59.9 and the expense ratio was 36.7%. The expense ratio compared to 37.3% at second quarter twenty nineteen and reflects continued improvement in both acquisition and underwriting expense levels.
The gross written premium declined 3% international for the quarter. Net written premium declined 4%. Rate change of 13% was up five points from Q1. Retention was 74% this quarter, which is slightly higher than in 2019 and reflective of the progression of our re underwriting strategy. As Dino indicated, our Life and Group segment produced $14,000,000 of core income in the quarter.
These results were moderately favorable to our expectation and were primarily driven by persistency experience. I will also note that amid the pandemic, we've experienced a decline in new claim frequency, an increase in claim terminations and a slowdown in claimant transitions from home health care to long term care facilities. We would attribute this to policyholders choosing to avoid these facilities where possible at a fear of contracting COVID-nineteen. Given the immature nature of these trends, we did not recognize this favorable morbidity experience in the second quarter As we expect to conclude our annual long term care reserve review in the third quarter, we would intend to evaluate these trends in more detail and address in the context of this process. Our Corporate segment produced a core loss of $11,000,000 in the second quarter.
Pretax net investment income was $534,000,000 in the second quarter compared with $515,000,000 in the prior year quarter. The results reflected favorable returns from our limited partnership and common equity portfolios, which produced pretax income of $84,000,000 compared to $43,000,000 during the same period last year. I should note that the results from our limited partnership investments reflect the current period favorable impact and recovery in value of our real time investments, somewhat offset by negative first quarter returns from our investments on a lagged basis. We would anticipate that these investments on a lagged reporting basis should have a favorable impact on the third quarter income given positive market returns in the second quarter. Pretax net investment income from our fixed income portfolio was $440,000,000 this quarter compared to $465,000,000 in the prior year quarter.
The pretax effective yield on our fixed income holdings was 4.6% for the period. Pretax net investment gains for the quarter were $69,000,000 compared to a loss of $18,000,000 in the prior year quarter. The gain
Speaker 1
was primarily driven by the recovery of the mark to market
Speaker 2
on our non redeemable preferred investments. Our unrealized gain position on our fixed income portfolio stood at $4,400,000,000 up from $2,100,000,000 in first quarter. The change in unrealized during the quarter was driven by the tightening of credit spreads across the market, reflecting the recovery and stabilization of the fixed income markets. Fixed income assets that support our P and C liabilities had an effective duration of four point one years at quarter end, in line with portfolio targets. The effective duration of the fixed income assets that support our Life and Group liabilities was eight point eight years at quarter end.
Slides fourteen and fifteen of the earnings presentation will provide you with additional details of the investment results and the composition of our investment portfolio. Our balance sheet continues to be extremely strong. At quarter end, shareholders' equity was $11,600,000,000 or $42.91 per share, reflective of the increase in our unrealized gain position during the quarter. Shareholders' equity, excluding accumulated other comprehensive income, was $11,500,000,000 or $42.34 per share. We continue to maintain a conservative capital structure with a low leverage ratio and a well balanced debt maturity schedule.
At quarter end, all of our capital adequacy and credit metrics remain above target levels supporting our credit ratings. In the second quarter, operating cash flow was $438,000,000 In addition to our positive operating cash flow, we continue to maintain liquidity in the form of cash and short term investments and have sufficient liquidity holdings to meet obligations and withstand significant business variability. And we are pleased to announce our regular quarterly dividend of $0.37 per share. With that, I will turn it back to Dino.
Speaker 1
Thanks, Al. Before we move to the question and answer portion of the call, I want to provide some perspective on the hardening market landscape. Clearly, the unprecedented events of the second quarter hurt our underwriting results overall. However, the good news from our engagement in the quarter is that I am even more bullish that the hardening market conditions will persist well into 2021. All of the dynamics that have been broadly expressed by industry participants, namely an even lower interest rate environment, several years of pricing below long run loss cost trends, social inflation, elevated catastrophe losses and, of course, the impacts of this unprecedented pandemic are currently well appreciated by the brokers as evidenced by their articulation of the dynamics in their quarterly calls, which means that insurers are being effectively educated in the need for higher pricing.
And we see evidence of that through our conversations with our insurers. These hard market conditions, similar to only a few historically, will enable us to drive for the needed improvements in policy terms and conditions, achieve stronger pricing across the portfolio and secure more high quality new business. Our second quarter execution, evidence that we are well positioned to take full advantage of the hard market, and I could not be more proud of all the CNA employees for all their efforts during these unprecedented times. And with that, we'll be glad to take your questions.
Speaker 0
We will take our first question from Josh Shanker with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Speaker 3
Yes, thank you. Hope you all are doing well. Tough times, tough times. But can you talk a little bit about the expense ratio? You mentioned no T and E spending.
I mean, you're not a big T and E company. I know you're very focused on expenses. But there really wasn't any loss expense ratio improvement compared to 1Q 'twenty and in 2Q 'nineteen. Can you talk about how premiums are factoring into that? What you think the impact of T and E savings was and how we should think about that going forward?
Speaker 1
Josh, I'll start in the if I want to add any comments. Yes, as I mentioned, it didn't move from the first quarter. And some of it, as you point out, a function of the denominator earned premium. But with the strong written premium that we've had in the
Speaker 2
last few quarters, we anticipate the earned premium
Speaker 1
to catch up. And so that will help going forward. And as I said, we did invest a little extra in making sure that we could handle all of this servicing from a remote environment, some technology, some additional operations staff, and that also elevated the numerator. But the so if you look at it against the first quarter at about 33%, 33.1%, I think in and around 33% is the run rate, give or take, a point up or point down based on how earned premium plays out, probably a run rate to think about, Josh, going forward.
Speaker 3
Okay. And then two, you talked about how there were some lines like construction that were not impacted by the COVID and others. If I'm looking at paid to incurred ratio in the 60s, which is obviously phenomenally low, can you talk about the idea that maybe there were some claims that have yet to be that were delayed in terms of filing, and so you're putting some extra IBNR there? Can you talk about if there's any issues of paying claims? It does seem to me with a pay to incurred ratio in the 60s that there maybe should have been lower incurred I don't know, that's a shockingly low number.
Can we talk about, I guess, paid trends and what the impacts of COVID are on paid trends and why it's temporary?
Speaker 1
Okay. So Josh, let me and then, Al, you can jump in. Let me just get to the point about COVID claims and filings. As we indicated, the vast majority of the charge was clearly IBNR. So and as I indicated, a good portion of it, we have it for the health care area.
So let me give you an example of how we look at it and how we looked at it, in particular, with agent services. We've got, relatively speaking, a small number of claim notices. However, we also have access to the public information about deaths that have occurred in aging services facilities around The United States. We can map it against our own insurers. And what we then do is sort of use our experience and our expertise to try to figure out, well, how many of those might turn into claim notices and what might then be potential claims that emerge from that and our legal costs and indemnity dollars.
And so it is, as you suggested, mostly IBNR, and we estimate relatively low claims notices and filings. And then we took our estimates from there based on our experience, based on what we saw from what we have in exposure, what we saw from some of the external information. I'm not sure, Al, if you wanted to add anything else. I just clarify before I answer?
Speaker 0
One last
Speaker 3
question I'm sorry, Jeff. The non COVID claims during COVID. Even if I take all the COVID claims and I back them out, we're still in, I guess, the low to mid-70s in paid to incurred. I'm wondering payment patterns of claims in general, not necessarily COVID claims, but the impact of COVID on claims payment and on, I guess, how you think about incurred losses. It's a very, very low quarter even for non COVID claims.
Speaker 2
I can jump in here, Josh, real quick. Would say we're not seeing anything extraordinary in terms of on claim payments. I think there's probably a bit of a timing effect, and you're seeing a little of that from a paid to incurred perspective as well as it's showing up a bit in our operating cash flow. But we believe that that will balance out with some timing.
Speaker 3
Okay. And if I can sneak one more. Can you help me a little bit on shadow adjustments in long term care? It's a little complicated, just a little teach in and it jumped up a bit in the quarter and how to think about that?
Speaker 2
Yes. So just a reminder, Josh, and this is Al, that in the Life and Group segment, the shadow reserve is intended to largely parallel the movement in unrealized. And the concept there is that given that you've got investments in the Life
Speaker 1
and Group
Speaker 2
that we purchased with book yield higher than prevailing rates or unrealized goes up, And it's essentially protecting against, to the extent you sold those investments and that book yield went away, that it could lead to a reserve event. So what you'll see in the quarter really is that the change in unrealized in our Life and Group segment pretty much kind of was in lockstep with the change in the shadow reserve.
Speaker 3
All right. I'll try and track that myself. Thank you for the answers.
Speaker 0
We will now take our next question from Meyer Shields with KBW. Please go ahead.
Speaker 4
Thanks. Good morning all. Dito, in the prepared comments, you talked about a loss trend of around 4%. And that seems, I want to say, about one percent point higher than prior commentary. And I was hoping you could explain, first of all, what's driving the difference?
And second of all, is that an active year 2020 issue? Or is that now embedded in prior year reserves as well?
Speaker 1
Okay. Meyer, that's an important question, actually. So if you look at our long run loss cost trends all up and we include the affinity programs, then actually, it's closer to what we have suggested in the past at about 3.5%, potentially slightly less than 3.5%. The 4% that I quoted is excluding the Affinity programs, and I wanted to clarify that. So that is the difference because, as we've indicated before, if you look at our long run loss cost streams for Affinity programs, it's very low.
Does that help?
Speaker 4
It does, yes. I'm curious on
Speaker 1
a related note. Is the Affinity program subject to social inflation? A lot of the Affinity program are individual practitioners. As I've indicated before, there's nurse practitioners, there's dentists, but there's physiotherapists, etcetera. And as from and there's literally hundreds of thousands of these policies for individual practitioners.
And so you just don't see it. You don't see it there. And also on some of these individual practitioners, there are also excess over any other underlying policy. So because of the nature of a lot of individual, there's really not and there's no medical cost in the nonmedical part of the sort of professional E and O book also. So the architectural engineer, etcetera.
Okay.
Speaker 4
Okay. I'm sorry, didn't cut you off.
Speaker 1
No, no, no. Was just going say because you have also in the Affinity programs, have architects and engineers, right, where you don't have any other medical costs. So that's why it's much lower. And don't really think it's impacted by social inflation like the rest of our health care portfolio.
Speaker 4
Okay. That is very helpful.
Speaker 1
And then one final question.
Speaker 4
Was just hoping you could update us broadly on what you're seeing in what you're seeing and what you're booking in terms of surety because that's generally seen as an economically sensitive line.
Speaker 1
Yes. Actually, well, just to remind you, Meyer, of our portfolio, it's valid, right, between above fifty-fifty of a contract surety, the larger contract surety business. But then we also have that smaller commercial bond operation. Both of them actually have continued to perform very well. Now when you look at COVID, and we included it in our overall charge, and what we're seeing there is you could have some potential bankruptcies of some of the smaller contractors based on the pressure they experienced in the second quarter.
But overall, against the total IBNR charge, it was very small for Assurity. So far, both ends both operations continue to perform well.
Speaker 4
We
Speaker 0
will now take our next question from Gary Ransom with Dowling and Partners. Please go ahead.
Speaker 5
Yes, good morning. I wanted to dig in a little deeper on the overall trends and pricing. And we know we knew ahead of time There's been inadequate for a long time. There was social inflation.
We have lower interest rates. And now we throw in COVID, which isn't quite as clear or consistent of a force across the lines of business. And I just wondered if you could help us understand or give your thoughts on where you think COVID has accelerated the rate impact the most and where it might have tempered those trends?
Speaker 1
Gary, it's Dino. I think it's a little bit like the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. I mean I think the uncertainty around COVID just impacted overall view that we're going to need a hardening market probably faster and longer. And I think in certain areas, clearly more than others, when we think about health care for us, we have been getting significant rate increases. And in the quarter, particular on professional liability for aging services, our rate increase was 40 points.
But what's interesting is also our retention went up a little bit. So and what that's we can see that others are starting to react more like we have been reacting for the last couple of years. So I do think there's some direct causality there. And just in general, I think it adds uncertainty. There's nothing to lead me to believe that post COVID social inflation isn't going to continue to do what it was doing.
And the question is, does COVID exacerbate social inflation? And I think we just need to let time tell us more. But it's added just a sense, a level of uncertainty that I think has put additional pressure. And clearly, in certain places, as I indicated, like in health care for our portfolio.
Speaker 4
Thank you
Speaker 5
for that. That's helpful. I also just wanted to ask about workers' comp. Actually, maybe the question is more about what can happen in the future on COVID. So we have certain things that you might not have been able to reserve for, like a workers' comp presumption change and maybe there's other things that can happen in professional liability lines later.
Could you just help us understand what you think might are the things that could happen in the future that might trigger some additional COVID costs?
Speaker 1
Yes. Okay. Let me start with comp because interestingly, Gary, when it was back in March and the first sort of thought and reaction, and I believe I mentioned it also on the first quarter call, saw less of this being an issue for workers' comp, again, a function of not having the first responders and frontline health care providers. But then presumption, notwithstanding the fact that it does have some guardrails, there is as of June 30, which is all we could go by at the time, we have 15 states with presumption and five of them with a very broad definition of employees. And you can sense that presumption is something of interest in potentially other states.
And so we can only take the 15 states when we chose our IBNR effective of June 30, which is what we did. And I guess one can say if you end up with a lot more states with presumption, you can be faced probably with some more. It's hard to say because it's not an exact science, the amount we put in for the 15 states, if you look at the amount we have already paid, it's actually very small. And the averages on severity, Gary, are in line with what the work comp rating bureau has been saying. They're down about forty percent.
Why? Because the COVID cases are usually mild and no hospitalization. So you look at the claims count, we took a number based on the presumption. If it's conservative, if it plays out to be conservative, then even if you have some additional states with presumption, it might subsume it. So it's hard to know exactly.
I give you the same thought on Aging Services. As I was saying before, when answering Josh's question or part of his question, we look at the claim notices we had received, and it's relatively limited. So what we did was because there's reliable external information on deaths that occur in various communities and we can map our agent services facilities. We then took all of those even though we didn't have claim notices, and we made a decision about what might turn into claim notices and what then might emerge as payments or even legal costs. So here, now if you have a tremendous second wave, well, potentially, you're going to be faced with more.
If you have a moderate increase, same point I made on workers' comp. You may the number we took, it's not an exact science, may subsume that increase. We tried to be conservative based on the information we had as of June 30, but I think those are the kinds of dynamics that can play out, if that helps.
Speaker 5
Yes, that is very helpful. I appreciate it, Dino.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thanks, Jerry.
Speaker 0
Our next question comes from Jeff Schmitz with William Blair. Please go ahead.
Speaker 6
Hi, good morning. You mention what rate increases were 9% overall in the commercial book. Did you mention what that was without workers' comp? I presume workers' comp is still negative. Yes.
Speaker 1
Yes. It's about a negative one so that the overall of the 11,000,000 included the negative 1,000,000 So that's sort of its impact on the commercial. So it was up pretty much over the first quarter.
Speaker 6
Okay. Then commercial
Speaker 1
Probably a little over 10, sorry. A little over 10, right, because of the nine and the minus one. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Speaker 6
Okay. Yes. Just looking at policyholder retention in the commercial segment trending down a fair amount. I mean it looks to be particularly middle market. Obviously, you're getting a lot more rate there, but the market overall is too.
Could you speak to that and why that's trending down as much as it is?
Speaker 1
Yes. That's a good question because let me just look at the number. And really the market, obviously, we're able to get rate. And obviously, we're also able to retain the accounts even with strong rates. But in middle market, in our manufacturing segment specifically, we decided that we needed to re underwrite a couple of few SIC codes within the manufacturing.
And so that's just a decision we made to re underwrite some the segments within manufacturing of middle market. And that's all that is. In the absence of that, you can get the rate and you can get the increase in retention.
Speaker 6
Okay. And then looking at the international book, where do you stand in that re underwriting process? Obviously, rates now are up in the almost mid When should we expect that growth to turn positive? Yes.
Speaker 1
That's a great question. As I've been commenting on prior calls, the reunderwriting substantially over by the end of the third quarter. So I think going into 2021, we expect to be able to turn positive growth on the international. And the good news is if you look at the underlying loss ratio in the quarter, you look at the underlying loss ratio in the first half, so it's a trend now more in line with the rest of our portfolio. So a long process, but it's had the effect, and we expect to see positive growth in 2021.
Speaker 6
Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you.
Speaker 0
And we will now take a follow-up question from Josh Shanker with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Speaker 3
Thank you for taking follow ups. Two quick ones. One, I mean, one is not too quick, yes, what do you think is the state of the reserve situation for the industry right now in P and C? We really haven't seen that much unfavorable development in the face of social inflation. Is this waiting to come?
Speaker 1
Josh, I don't think I'm qualified. I can tell how we feel about our portfolio. And we've been transparent in the quarters to talk about what we have seen, what we saw in severity trends. We talk about when we raise our long run loss cost trends in certain lines even multiple times like Aging Services. And I think I'd have to leave it at just commenting on C and A.
Speaker 3
Okay. All right, I guess. And then one other question about Lowe's has been buying in a lot of stock. I think we've spoken in the past about how part of the reason for the stock being floating is remuneration of employees through shares. Is there any impact of this ongoing buy in of the stock on how you guys think about your capital situation and whatnot?
Speaker 1
I don't know, Al, if you want to make any comments. And also, Josh, you get an opportunity to talk to Louis, too, after this.
Speaker 2
Josh, this is Al. No, I wouldn't say there's any significant impact. Obviously, there was a bit of buying there. And as well, obviously, we had some activity just refilling our treasury stock, but not significant impact on our overall capital management strategy.
Speaker 3
All right. That makes sense. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 2
And Josh, just one quick follow-up on your question on paid to incurred. So for the quarter, our overall paid to incurred, and you'll see this obviously in our file documents, was about 78%, and that was 81% on commercial. So a bit different there. And again, kind of there's certainly some lines of yes, 7881% for commercial. And obviously, there's some variability across different lines, right, because we have some longer tailed and shorter tailed begin, but nothing really extraordinary.
Speaker 3
Okay, very good. Thank you.
Speaker 0
As there are no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the call back to our host, Dino Robusta, for any additional or closing remarks.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you, everyone, and thanks for listening in and your questions, and we look forward to talking to you again in the quarter. Thank you.
Speaker 0
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.