The Progressive Corporation - Earnings Call - Q2 2020

Transcript

Speaker 0

Welcome to the Progressive Corporation Second Quarter Investor Event. The company will not make detailed comments related to quarterly results in addition to those provided in its quarterly report on Form 10 Q and the letter to shareholders, which have been posted to the company's website, and we will use this event to respond to questions. Acting as moderator for the event will be Progressive's Director of Investor Relations, Doug Constantine. At this time, I will turn the event over to Mr. Constantine.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Jason, and good morning. Although our quarterly Investor Relations events typically includes a presentation on a specific portion of our business, we will instead use all of the sixty minutes scheduled for today's event for a question and answer session with members of our leadership team. Questions can only be asked by telephone dial in participants. The dial in instructions may

Speaker 2

be found at

Speaker 1

investors. Progressive dot com slash events. As always, discussions in this event may include forward looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those discussed during today's event. Additional information concerning those risks and uncertainties is available in our 2019 Annual Report on Form 10 ks and our first and second quarter's quarterly report on Form 10 Q, where you will find discussions of the risk factors affecting our business, Safe Harbor statements related to forward looking statements and other discussions of challenges we face.

In particular, note that our quarterly report on Form 10 Q for the first quarter includes discussions of the risks and uncertainties that we face, including specific risk factors arising directly and indirectly from the COVID-nineteen pandemic, and these risks are further referenced in our second quarter ten Q. Before going to our first question from the conference call line, our CEO, Tricia Griffith, will make some introductory comments. Tricia?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Doug. I really wanted to actually introduce you to everyone. I know this is your first IR call and it's in a weird circumstance due to COVID. But I thought I know you've talked to a couple of people over the last month or so, and I've really enjoyed working with you. We have a history of this role being really additive for the person in it as well as Progressive.

As you all know, Julia Hornack took her talents to St. Pete's for Progressive Home. Patrick Brennan was a prior director of investor relations who's now our treasurer, and Matt Downing is our HR Controller. We pride ourselves on movement around the company. We think this is such a good role for Doug.

At this time in his career, it really helps both analysts, investors, Progressive, and individuals. So Doug, could you tell us a little bit about your career?

Speaker 1

Sure. Well, I've had the opportunity to work throughout the organization my eight years at Progressive. Spent five years in commercial lines where I managed five different states and included, stint on steering team, for two of our trucking DMTs. Also, I had an opportunity to work in national accounts where I work with some of our largest agency relationships. And most recently, I've been a progressive personal lines PM where I manage two different states.

Really looking forward to working with many of you on this call, and I'll do my best to fill the huge shoes that Julia has left behind.

Speaker 3

Great. Thanks, Doug. We are thrilled to be working with you, and of course, we do miss Julia, but we're glad to have you here. Jason, we're ready to take the first question.

Speaker 0

Your first question comes from the line of Elyse Greenspan from Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hi. Thank you. Good morning. My first question, I was hoping to get a little bit of a color on, you know, how you're seeing frequency and also severity trending in July. Obviously, the trends in the second quarter were, you know, pretty favorable.

And just as, you know, individuals start going back to work and perhaps, you know, we see a rise in miles driven just due to folks driving for summer vacations, etcetera. Just wondering if you give us a sense of, you know, how the trends are if they started to stabilize, you know, in a direction towards pre COVID levels?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Elise. Good morning. I won't talk about July, but I will talk about when we think about frequency, I'll state that June was lower than the full quarter at about twenty four percent. So we are seeing them stabilize. We still it's very different depending on the state as well.

So you can see vehicle miles traveled go up, and then immediately, if things close down, they go back and forth. So we formed sort of a macroeconomic dashboard where we have a lot of data to look at that and we react to that. And of course, I'll go into severity because the calendar period severity is very distorted by the drop in new features. So the mix difference compared to last year is very distorted, as you see likely with a lot of our competitors. I think I talked about this last quarter with PD.

And remember, we report incurred versus paid, and some of our competitors report paid as well as PCI. Same story on PD incurred, it's the supplements drove PD up about nine points. So when you look at payments from prior quarters that we're paying supplements on that frequency, the supplements are in the numerator. And so those dollars are increased where the incurred accounts are the denominator. And so that's where you'll see the difference.

Same thing with BI, it's age in place incurred severity about nine points this quarter. Average age of BIs are up about seven percent, a little bit higher. So we look at the action year trends being about six percent to seven percent. PIP incurred is really reopens on supplements from PIP and it accounts for about 25 points of frequency from again, from prior periods when frequency was normal. Now the oddest one in this quarter is really our collision incurred trend and that is a the severity is negative on that, mainly because when you look at quarter two twenty twenty over quarter two twenty nineteen, the frequency is down about 36%.

And then as we thought about our plan because we had excess capacity in claims, we redeployed many different claims individuals. I think I talked last quarter about giving Ohio 100 members of our claims organization to adjudicate unemployment claims. We've also deployed claims people in our CRM organization as people are trying to kind of get their arms around their bills. We also redeployed about 100 people to our subrogation unit, which means that money is coming in. We have kind of full court press on collecting money when we have liability disputes with our competition.

So that money has come in this quarter because we have 100 extra people actually doing that. So that's really how the severity trends have gone negative this quarter. Frequency in June, we saw it abate a little bit to twenty four percent. We'll watch it closely as things go, and we'll just react accordingly. Thanks, Elise.

Speaker 4

Okay. That's helpful. And then my second question, you know, it seems like, you know, players in the space have, you know, kind of responded differently in terms of rate changes. Right? I mean, we've seen rates slowing, but, obviously, you know, there's a degree of magnitude between the different players.

You know, are you seeing, you know, the difference in rate taking? And, part of that, part of that is impacted right by the rebates, which also depends upon the, you know, different companies. But are you seeing, you know, the rating environment starting to have an impact on your new business trends? Seems like, you know, new business trends, you know, started to rise, you know, in the second quarter kind of from, you know, some of the COVID lows, you know, kind of that we saw at the start of the quarter. So I'm just wondering if the rating environment was having an impact over just more just folks there's just be more shopping going on independent of that?

Speaker 3

Yes. We were seeing more shopping, I think specifically in the direct part of our business. And how we look at rates, when we took the when we had the credits, the $1,000,000,000 credits in April and May, that was sort of a, hey, where this thing happened very quickly, COVID happened very quickly, we wanted to react. And now we're in the mode really we're back to grow as fast as we can at our target profit margins, but we're really trying to leverage what we believe we have, and that's industry leading segmentation. So we are looking across the country, each product manager, state by state, channel by channel, product by product and being much more surgical when we're thinking about our rates.

So as an example, in quarter two, we lowered rates in states that made up about half of our auto premium. And if you want to go from the beginning of COVID, take April through August rates that are in play, we'll have reduced rates in 35 states that make up more than three quarters of our auto premium. That's 35 states, that doesn't mean it's 35 revisions. It could be a few more because maybe we take smaller bites of the apple. I always think about when I think about segmentation and especially increasing rates, unless it's something where we need to react very quickly, I think about my predecessor, Glenn Renwick, who always said, three ones is better than one three.

And so we are very, very surgically looking at each state and trying to determine the best rate to continue our growth and make sure that we also have our target profit margins. Does that help, Elyse?

Speaker 4

Yes. That is helpful. Thank you for the color.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Zaremski from Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Hi, good morning. Thanks. Maybe first, Tricia, you did mention Michigan auto reform in your letter. Maybe you can kind of give us an early preview of kind of how you see it playing out. Directionally, do you expect pricing to fall a lot or direct writers like Progressive maybe in a better position versus the agency writers as you guys can kind of blanket target customers with discount.

Just curious how we should think about that. I know it does move the needle and it's very profitable for Progressive.

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks, Mike. And what I can say is we know it was herculean efforts to get ready for that event, and we were ready. I will tell you and this is, of course, is really early because it went into effect July 2. I can tell you that we are very pleased with the results in terms of growth.

Again, we're going to have to watch this closely because individuals are going to choose to have PIP as it was before and not. So it's a little bit early to tell anything. We'll have a lot more data next quarter. What I can say from just looking at the early results from a growth perspective, we are pleased.

Speaker 1

Okay. So I'll put that in the next quarter. Moving maybe to telematics, we're hearing industry participants talk about an increase of a take up rate. And those industry participants are typically on the agency side. Have you seen any increase in uptake in either direct or agents for your pure telematics programs?

Speaker 3

Yes, Mike, we have. We've seen it actually more on the agency side. So our direct side went up a couple of points, but leveled out. And of course, we already have a high percentage of take rate on our direct side and direct side. And our agency side, yes, it did tick up.

And I think that makes a lot of sense because this is a great time to understand your rating N equals one. And it's up about 12% on the agency side. So overall, about 40% on the direct side, about 12% on the agency side, and so a little bit more than 20% overall.

Speaker 5

And Mike, I would add that we have UBI in our commercial business as well and take rate there is very strong. We're seeing great trends around our for hire segments in terms of their take rate and their renewal rate as well. So we we are broadening our UBI deployment and really pleased with what we're seeing in commercial lines.

Speaker 1

And, Glenn, could you give us the kind of the the recent take up rate like Prisha gave us on personal for commercial?

Speaker 5

We have not provided our take rate on Smart Haul and our commercial business. But I would just tell you, it's exceeded our expectations out of the gate. And the other thing I would mention is that these truckers are required to have the recording devices in their vehicles by federal law. So we don't have the barrier of getting a device into the car or getting an app downloaded. We get the information directly from third party providers of those devices in the trucks.

So it is a pretty good proposition to a trucker who can get a significant discount on a premium, which is a pretty significant premium. So again, would point to those items without pointing to a number and saying we're pretty pleased with the take rate.

Speaker 3

Yes. And I would say, I think John B, a few quarters ago talked about or maybe it was Karen talked about insurance being like the top one of the top three costs for those truckers. I think that is really important. And we've seen trucking increase based on COVID. I will also add, John talked about Smart Haul.

We also have Snapshot Preview, which is available for our business auto and contractors. And although we don't have the data, it gives a same upfront savings and fleet management, but we are encouraging we're encouraged, I should say, with the demand, and we think that'll only increase. And we have that in about 40 states in our agency channel so far.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from the line of David Motemaden from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hi, good morning. Just a question on just the bundled business, the Robinson's. In 10 Q, it sounds like you had some pretty good growth in the Robinsons, particularly in the direct channel, but it also looks like you had some good growth in PIF in the agency channel. Just wondering where we're at in terms of the mix, what percentage of your book is now bundled policies? And where do you expect that to get to?

Speaker 3

Yes. So we're happy with our Robinson growth. The agency channel is up a little bit over 18% and the direct channel is up about 46%. I think our mix there is right around 10%, maybe a little bit lower. Our goal is to continue to have more bundled customers.

And so the goal is to have as many as we can. We want every customer in our book to be able to bundle when they have either a rental or a home, should that be other demographics. So we continue to push hard. You can obviously see it in our advertisement that we talk about protection in home. So our goal is continue to increase our numbers of Robinson's because we know they're stickier and give them reasons to stay based on the products and services that we're able to provide.

Speaker 1

Just Great.

Speaker 5

A little bit on that percentage. So a little higher indirect. We've been at it a little longer in the direct channel, but we've been really pleased with the Robinson growth we've been able to achieve with Progressive Home, but that's behind where the direct channel is today. But if you blend them together, you come to a number a little below 10%.

Speaker 6

Okay. Great. Thank you. And then just my my other question is is just a higher level question on just in terms how you guys are thinking about miles driven and accident frequency. I know there's a lot of uncertainty, but just wondering, you know, what you guys are thinking about.

Will do you think that we'll ever get back to a level of miles driven and accident frequency that we were at pre COVID? And I guess just how are you thinking you'll adjust given, you know, whatever environment you think you think we'll be in?

Speaker 3

Yeah. I'll start, David, by the caveat being, you know, we really don't know because of all the different things that go into it. So schools reopening, cases going up, cases going down, vaccines, unemployment, work from home, all those things. So I'll start with that caveat. I will say with our smart hall data, we did see signs of congestion kind of flattening more recently.

And we're starting to sort of look at data with that. And so we have some initial trends. And again, we're going to have to fine tune these. So these aren't perfect, but we're continuing to understand the measures of congestion, both on our telematics on the commercial side as well as our UBI on the auto side. So I'll give you a quick example.

And again, these are going to change, but this is kind of how we look at it. So we've got vehicle miles traveled are up, not as up as much as they were this time last year, and obviously losses haven't followed in particular. So we're trying to figure out the delta between those two. And what we have seen from a congestion perspective is that does tell some of the delta. So on the UBI side, on the auto side, we believe that congestion the gap is about one point during morning rush hour and about nearly 2.5 points on afternoon rush hour, which would take into account some of the differences in actually miles driven and accidents because less accidents happen when there's less congestion.

Again, we're just digging into this as we have more and more, and the data changes and is very influenced about what states do depending on their rise or fall in cases.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from the line of Meyer Shields from KBW. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Great. Thanks. Good morning. Tricia, you've talked in the past about how Progressive responds really quickly to frequency. And I was wondering whether there are any constraints.

I mean, obviously, we're seeing frequency swing around a lot more than ever before. And from an internal perspective, are there stability considerations that would minimize the amount of rate change that you would pursue based on frequency?

Speaker 3

Yeah. I was a little bit hard to hear you, but I think what you were asking was, you know, how we would react to frequency from a rate change perspective. I think we take in we take all the data into account. Frequency right now is just so hard it's always hard to predict, but it's even more difficult now with all the different inputs with COVID. Again, I'll go back to our stated goal.

We're going to try to grow as fast as we can. We'll look at all the trends and try to understand surgically by channel, by product, how continue to put our pedal on that growth mode while making sure we have our profit target margins. We never want to grow and just and not also have that profit come with it. So that's an important part. We want to make sure that we have competitive prices and growth.

So it's the predicting frequency is going to be a real challenge challenge for us in the near term just because of all the different inputs that are in a constant state of flux.

Speaker 2

No, that's helpful. I was just wondering whether there is a limit to how much embedded frequency change you'll include in a rate filing just because of how rapidly it could fluctuate.

Speaker 5

I can elaborate a little bit there. So a rate filing, depending upon the size of your state, is going to look at data sometimes going back a year, sometimes going back three years, but you're trying to project the trend going forward because you're trying to price to a point in the future. So you can look backwards, which we do, but ultimately what we're trying to do is price forward. So it's a little tricky at this juncture given the anomalies we're seeing due to COVID. So it's a great question as to how much of that we actually include on a going forward assumption basis versus exclude because we think it's a one off that will not be in place down the road.

So it really depends upon the robustness of the program we're pricing to and our look forward as to what we think we're going to be experiencing when those premiums are in effect, which can be for the next year to two.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thanks. Follow-up question on the homeowner side. I know in the past you talked about correcting maybe the pricing for non cat weather. And obviously weather has been pretty bad this year.

Was hoping you could tell us internally how that progress has or how that's been progressing.

Speaker 3

Yes. I mean, you saw the results. So we're we need to make sure that profit is a big part of what we're thinking about in terms of property. And so as you know, we have our new product four point zero model that we're rolling out. The hail and wind that's happened from a cat perspective has been pretty very high.

What we're concentrating on right now is to continue to have segmentation. So we continue to roll our four point zero product out. In addition, we're making changes to the product, and that includes minimum deductibles and ACVs on roofs because that's where we see, especially in those hail risen states. Underlying ex cats, we feel better about our movement in property. We feel pretty good about it as well the growth.

But again, we want to make sure that we continue to roll out our segmentation. We want to continue to roll out minimum deductibles and more importantly, it easy for people to shop. So we have, property in 45 states now. In 17 of those states, you can buy through a tablet or a phone. So we're pretty excited about our investments in technology around that.

John, do want anything?

Speaker 5

Sure. Yeah. You know, unlike the the, vehicle programs, especially personal auto where we've been getting rates more competitive, we're taking rates up in home. So the segmentation is really important. And I think we've got about 18 states out with our next generation four point o product, which is fantastic.

We're also increasing rates. We've taken them up almost 6% year to date. And, you know, we're obviously not hitting our profitability targets. But you also recognize that if you're looking at cat losses year to date, we changed from the aggregate stop loss agreement that we employed last year, which was essentially a cap on loss plus LAE ratio, to a retention of 375,000,000 of, hail losses. In fact, we've had wind, non named storm, and we've yet to hit that retention level.

So if you adjust that, if you assume that we are under the same agreement we had last year, you to a combined ratio that would be would be below a 100, but still well above our target margins there. We are taking actions that Tricia noted and we're also taking rates up.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3

Yeah. And those 18 states on four point zero, I think 16 of them have the mandates that I referred to in terms of MIN deductibles in ACV. So we feel good about where we're going. We need to continue to concentrate on that.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from the line of Greg Peters from Raymond James. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Good morning. My first question is around technology. I know you guys have been innovative with technology, but there's also been some new platforms that have hit the market like Root with usage based insurance and Lemonade and the renters. Can you talk about your competitive position relative to some of these startup companies that are gaining a lot of attention in the marketplace?

Speaker 3

Yes. I feel like we're in a really nice competitive position for a couple of reasons. And we've had usage based insurance for literally decades, and they've come in different forms, and we've continued to evolve as technology has evolved. So we have a lot of data to really understand that variable. And we continue to evolve.

That's the best part. It's not something that we sit still on. So we continue to evolve. I will say that start ups are good competition because they're doing things that consumers want. We've always believed in the ability to rate a driver on their individual driving behavior.

And so I think competition in that aspect is good. I think also where we have the benefit is in acquisition costs. When you're a startup, those acquisitions costs are very expensive. We have a good base of auto customers for renters at home, etcetera, and we're a known brand. So I feel like we're in a great position, and we continue to technology advances in our UBI, and I don't think you'll see that abated.

Speaker 5

I'll just add a little bit to that. The usage based model today that we predominantly employ applies discounts in the personal space basically at the first renewal point. We give a participation discount upfront. Increasingly, we are getting that data upfront. And in commercial lines, we're always getting that data upfront.

That's really the route model. You might recall that, I don't know, five years ago or so, we rolled out what we called snapshot test drive, which was a model similar to route where you get the driving behavior before you price the policy. We are doing that now with third parties that are such as OEMs, such as other app providers. And we are now deploying what we call snapshot road test, which is a model where you download the app. We see your driving behavior.

We employ those discounts at new business similar to our commercial lines model. So I think you'll gradually see a migration to employing the driving data where available upfront, and we think we're very well positioned for that transition. On the property side, I will point out that, you know, we have for a number of years now been the number one provider of homeowners quotes and the number one provider of renters quotes online. And as Tricia mentioned, brand is a big driver in all of the insurance space, and we think it is a key lever to have acquisition costs in a place that are feasible to make money over the long term.

Speaker 7

My follow-up question around your comments on acquisition costs. I realize you have the Snapshot product, the dongle, but then there's also a lower cost alternative of having the app on the phone. Can you talk to us about how the mix has shifted within your auto business from heavily snapshot to more of a blended, where we are in that cycle and where we're going to get to?

Speaker 3

Yes. I think as we introduced the mobile device that has continued to increase, I think it's easier. I think people get it. They can see their information more readily. We still have a fair amount that were on the snapshot dongle.

I think as we continue to look at the model of seeing your information upfront and they were very early on in that and we haven't really even advertised that. We've seen a really high take rate. So I think people I think a couple of things. One, we're trusted brands that understand DBI. Two, the situation with COVID, I think people are going to want to give their data more and more, especially if they're not driving and they're working from home more often.

Speaker 7

Thank you for your answers.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from the line of Yaron Kinar from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Good morning. Maybe a couple more questions on Telematics. First, when you look at the dongle versus the mobile app, do you find that they're equally precise and accurate?

Speaker 3

I think it's the last part. Think it's the I

Speaker 5

think you're asking asking about the accuracy of the data from a dongle versus the mobile app. You're There breaking up a little are differences for sure. Technology, as you can imagine, continues to evolve in the mobile space and pretty quickly. So there are definitely differences, but we are very confident that we can adequately price folks based on the mobile data. And data that is coming directly from vehicles is growing as well.

And, you know, that's obviously as robust as you can get. So, we're very comfortable between mobile and dongle in terms of ability to price accurately. And like was just discussed, it is a lower cost option and can afford also continuous monitoring. If we if we so chose to do that as well. So little different, but not materially so is the way I would characterize it.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I agree with John. I would say when we look at the the data we get from the dongle also versus the mobile device is a little bit different as well because we're able to understand a handheld versus hand free and not just your tip in addition to, the time of day, miles traveled and hard braking. So we're also getting a little bit more data, but there's a little bit of a difference, but nothing that we're concerned about.

Speaker 8

Got it. And then for the customers who do use UBI, what would they find for the UBI data in the REMS team above pricing?

Speaker 5

We're having a lot of trouble hearing you or understanding. Can you say that one again?

Speaker 8

I'll I'll try. I'm asking for the customers who sign up for UBI, what weighting do you assign the UBI data in the grand scheme of pricing those customers?

Speaker 5

Sure. Sure. Some commentary there. It's very powerful rating variable. However, today, because not everyone takes the snapshot option, we we solve that last in terms of our algorithm.

So we solve for other all the other rating variables because all the customers will be rated on those rating variables, and then we solve secondarily for Snapshot. So even though we see it being our most powerful rating variable, one could surmise that if we solve for it first, it would be an even more powerful rating variable. But again, we don't require everybody to take that option, we solve it last. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 8

It does. But but can you also maybe offer, like, does does it account for, 5%, 50%? How how is it?

Speaker 5

That will vary at the customer level. So Okay. Based on you live and the other demographics of the household, you know, as you can imagine for for more preferred households, it's going to be different than for more nonstandard households, young, old, etcetera, and urban and rural as well. So we don't provide an absolute percentage for you.

Speaker 8

Got it. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Meredith from UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Thanks. Trish, I was hoping, could you talk a little bit about the competitive landscape right now in personal auto? And particularly, as I look at your largest competitor on the direct side, they're offering discounts to kind of new and renewal customers instead of these credits. Do you anticipate that having any impact on your all's ability to kind of grow new business in the near term? Yes.

Speaker 3

I mean, think everybody took a decision when we went through COVID on what to do and no one company had it perfect because the data was ever changing. It was very new. So I feel like GEICO is a great competitor. They took a different stance than we did in terms of taking the two credits in April and May, I feel very comfortable in our ability to continue to grow and especially as the end came to the second quarter. So we've increased our advertising in auto about 12% this quarter.

So that kind of tells you that we are very much in play for new business. We believe times like this where there's disruption is really when we win in the marketplace. And so we're, know, although we hate the fact that this is happening to our country, we believe a lot more people will shop and our goal is to have very competitive rates and great service once you're with us.

Speaker 9

Great. And then my second question is with respect to the Commercial Lines business, you continue to have some adverse reserve development in that area. Is that related to some of the shared economy business? And kind of what is your experience on that business? Is there any changes going on?

Speaker 3

Well, the severity and the development is really has been based on similar topics that we talked about before in terms of increased medical costs in the marketplace, higher attorney reps on newer features and then our mix of business going to for hire trucking, which is a higher severity than business auto contractors. And when you look at the quarter two reserve development in Commercial Lines, about $44,000,000 really came from about four states, those states being big states. And so when you look at our overall year to date development overall, you can see commercial lines is the biggest part of that $116,000,000 at $98,000,000 So we continue to watch that from the commercial lines perspective. Frequency is down as well, but we it's very much like I've talked about in prior quarters with specific states and those variables in terms of medical costs, attorney rep and our mix of business changing.

Speaker 9

So it's not specifically related. It's not necessarily the rideshare type businesses. It's just generally.

Speaker 3

Yes. I mean, TNC, we talked about our TNC and we took our premium down by $29,000,000 this month. So we're definitely seeing less driving. But in terms of sort of the development piece, it really is about higher BI limits and our adjusters reserve going up as well. It's the things we talked about before.

Speaker 9

You. Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Brian.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Tunis from Autonomous Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Hey, thanks. Tricia, I was hoping you could share with us an actual average rate number for the quarter and also through the year so far.

Speaker 3

I don't have it with me, but it's been it's pretty flat, I think, our average written premium. The rate, you mean? A rate of increase?

Speaker 10

Average written Correct. Correct.

Speaker 3

Oh, between 12%?

Speaker 5

Minus 1%. A little over minus one Per personal auto.

Speaker 3

Yes, personal Commercial

Speaker 5

up a little over 2% and property I mentioned was almost 6%.

Speaker 3

Yes. Sorry.

Speaker 9

Perfect. Thanks. And then

Speaker 10

my follow-up is, I guess, looking through the 10 Q, indirect, you've got quotes up, but conversion rates down. I'm curious how you guys are interpreting. It sounds like you guys are being proactive in terms of making your rates more competitive. How are you interpreting your lower conversion rates? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. I mean, I think that when we look at we also want to add in new apps there. So our new apps and direct are also up. In conversion, we had some increased ad spend as well. I think conversion was down about 2% with quotes up 6%.

It's the data is ever changing because we do believe more people are shopping. But we like I said, we spent more in the direct to auto, and we feel comfortable with our new app being up at 4% on the direct side and especially increasing towards the latter part of the quarter.

Speaker 5

And as Tricia noted, we are taking targeted rate decreases. So we have product managers generally who are managing a state or two, and they are very focused on where they sit competitively or watching conversion in their markets. And they're taking targeted cuts largely at this juncture where we think we should be more competitive and have room to take the rate again on a longer term basis.

Speaker 3

And again, I'll reiterate for the majority of the states, the 35 states where we're taking targeted rate decreases, They're small bites of the apple to kind of see what happens. Some states needed deeper decreases, but we're really looking at, like John said, the average is between 1.5% to 2% decreases. We're looking at all the data that could be changing. And what we know from the past and what we've always talked about with rate changes overall is our customers want stable rates. Obviously that can't always happen when you need to get rate like we do in the homeowners product, but that's really our goal here to understand the data as it changes and just be lockstep with what's needed to be competitive and grow.

Speaker 10

Thanks for the answers.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Phillips from Morgan Stanley. Line is open.

Speaker 2

Hey, Trish, I'm just curious on your thoughts on given the maybe the longer term implications of the pandemic and stay at home and online shopping on how that might change the mix longer term of agency versus direct and maybe, I guess, what used to be agency customers may be more willing to become a direct customer?

Speaker 3

Yes. It's hard to say, Mike. I think that we're obviously seeing more now and the recovery is faster in the direct business on both personal auto and commercial auto. I think about it almost like I would have never bought groceries online before because I go to my little suburban town grocery store where I see my friends and it's comfortable. Well, now I'm doing that.

I see where people, one, because it is a lot of these customers, a lot of these agents I should say are small businesses. And so they're reacting to get themselves set up and socially distant and some people might not be as comfortable coming in. So I do think it's definitely changing now. I think it depends on how long this goes and how comfortable people are. But it does show, I think especially on the commercial side that people are getting and the majority of our business, by the way, in commercial has been through the agency channel.

People are more comfortable buying small business insurance, on the direct side. So we have seen it change. I can't commit that it will be a long term change, but I do think it could in having people be much more comfortable buying insurance across the board in the direct channel.

Speaker 2

Okay, thanks. And then separately on the bundled product topic that's talked about a lot by many companies. Can you say if you've been approached more by other insurance companies, monoline companies, have you been approached more today than in the past to partner with them to offer a home or to offer auto when they offer auto?

Speaker 3

Yes. I think we're approached a lot in terms of that. And on our in our HomeQuote Explorer and our BusinessQuote Explorer, we work with a lot of different companies on affiliated partnerships to sell our home to our auto customers through not just Progressive Home, but many different carriers and the same thing on commercial side. So yes, we obviously want to we want to care about the values of those companies, the brand of those companies to make sure when we partner that we feel good about it. And we always want to expand those if we think it'll be better for our customers to be able to bundle their auto even if auto and home even if it's not with us.

So yes, think we're approached very regularly.

Speaker 8

Okay. Thanks.

Speaker 0

Your next question comes from the line of Yaron Kinar from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Just one follow-up. I hope you can hear me better. I think in the June results, you say you were positively surprised by the renewal auto applications and lower policy cancellations. Can you maybe now that you have a month of hindsight, can you maybe talk about what happened there?

What led to the surprise?

Speaker 3

Well, we're happy with the retention. I think obviously during the COVID period through May 15, for the most part, there were moratoriums on any cancellations and we had leniency going into play. And so we knew at some point our customers on both the commercial side and the auto side would either have a big bill coming due or need our help to really kind of get through what could be a big hump and kind of get on course for their future payments for auto. So we had a process, a really very detailed process in both our CRM organization on the commercial side and the auto side to personalize those things when our customers called in knowing that they would have what we call kind of big bills coming up and how we could help them to get through that payment plans, forgiveness, etcetera. And we were really happy to say that through that plan that we started in May 15 and has wrapped up more recently on the private passenger auto side, we were able to salvage over 50% of those people that might have canceled.

And maybe they would have canceled because because they were shopping anyway, maybe they would have canceled because of finances related to COVID. But we were just happy that we were able to personalize that process and have those individuals maintain their coverage with Progressive.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Jason? Your next question comes from the line of Mike Zaremski from Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Speaker 3

Hey, thanks. Can you hear me? Yes.

Speaker 1

Okay, great. Just a follow-up question, you know, kind of along the lines of, thinking, starting to think about whether there's any kind of secular trends post COVID. Anything you guys are seeing, on the efficiency side, it's, LAE or expense ratio directly that you think might be done differently, maybe consumer preference too that can lead to some kind of benefits for progressive or just broadly the industry going forward?

Speaker 3

Well, I think efficiency, I automatically go to claims, which is the big organization is really our product once it happens. And it can be you got to balance it with accuracy. So we've been testing photo estimates and video estimates from our customers for quite a long time. And this really this fast forwarded it because we weren't going to body shops. And so we have a much larger amount much larger percentage of our auto claims going through what I would call photo method of inspection.

Some of it is from our customers giving it themselves and they may or may not get it repaired. I would say that's about 25%. And after COVID, post COVID, it's been about 55% coming from our network body shops. And so of course, you want to balance that efficiency of reps not having the windshield time or going out with accuracy. And so as we're starting to kind of come through the first wave of this, we are seeing some accuracy trends that we want to be able to have our people eventually side of car.

So although it's not as efficient because they're going out, we think it's more accurate. So as an example, recently, we a lot of our managed repair reps that go to non network body shops to do the estimates really want to be able to get out there. It's when you have a really hard hit and coming I was a claims adjuster, so you have a really hard hit, doing it from a photo or video are really tough because underneath that sheet metal there could be a lot of damage and you can see a little bit, but you can't really get there. So that causes more supplements, which of course is inefficient. So we've just recently talked to our managed repair reps because they've been asking, can we go back out?

We have given them all the materials they need to be safe, whether it's masks or gloves and both. It's completely voluntary. So if you do not feel like you want to go out, that is no problem. We don't we our first protection is our employees. But they're going out some of the non network shops to do the estimates by the car.

And we think that'll be a good balance of the efficiency with the accuracy. And of course, we've had it set up where the cars outside, no one's with them, etcetera. So we're really protected. And if they go to a body shop and they see the people aren't wearing masks, we ask them to turn around. So I think we'll learn more about the efficiency of how many estimates post COVID can we do with technology.

And we're always testing technology and artificial intelligence to understand that we have so many years of millions and millions of photos, could we ultimately have very simple estimates actually almost right themselves. And so we've been testing that for a while. Again, hope I'm answering the question, but it really is a balance of accuracy and efficiency. We're having a lot of learnings from COVID, which is you always want to take advantage of something that's not good to say, what did we learn from that and how will we come out better and more efficient. And overall, we have goals for LAE and NAER.

During this time, it's just so much noise in the data because of excess capacity at this juncture and etcetera. But you know, we care deeply about efficiency and care deeply about our cost structure because we know that in order to have competitive costs, we have to have we have to be very competitive on the expense side.

Speaker 1

That appears to have been our final question, so that concludes our event. Jason, I'll hand the call back over to you for the closing scripts.

Speaker 0

That concludes Progressive Corporation's second quarter investor event. Information about a replay of the event will be available on the Investor Relations section of Progressive's website for the next year. You may now disconnect.