Skyward Specialty Insurance Group - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 delivered record adjusted operating income of $37.3M ($0.90 diluted), net income of $42.1M ($1.01 diluted), and underwriting income of $28.5M; combined ratio was 90.5% with 2.2 pts of cat losses.
• Revenue and EPS beat Wall Street consensus: revenue $328.5M vs $310.9M*, EPS $0.90 vs $0.77*; strength came from underwriting and fixed income NII despite losses in alternatives.
• Growth broad-based: GWP +16.7% YoY to $535.3M, led by Agriculture & Credit (Re)insurance (+103%), A&H (+54%), Specialty Programs (+20%); Global Property declined (-18.5%) amid rapid market softening but >95% account retention.
• Guidance/tone: management reiterated mid-teens full-year growth, expects expense ratio to stay sub-30% but tick up modestly, ETR 21–22% for FY25; reinsurance renewals were orderly with property CAT treaty at $15M first-event retention/$36M cover.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Record profitability: “We had a great start to the year… adjusted operating income of $37.3 million… each metric… best in company history”.
• Diversification wins: A&H and Global Agriculture “were standouts, delivering extraordinary growth” with broad contribution from transactional E&S, surety, and specialty programs.
• Underwriting discipline: Non-cat loss ratio improved to 60.2% (best in company history); expense ratio improved 0.6 pts to 28.1% on scale.

What Went Wrong

• Cat headwinds: Loss ratio up 1.5 pts YoY due to convective storms and California wildfires (2.2 pts cat vs 0.4 pts prior year).
• Global Property pressure: GWP down 18.5% YoY as pricing softened; mitigating actions included writing over longer primary stretches and high retention (>95%).
• Alternatives volatility: $2.1M loss in alternative/strategic investments; management noted this is the driver of NII lumpiness.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Skyward Specialty First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you would need to press star one one on your telephone.

You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Natalie Schoolcraft, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Natalie Schoolcraft (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Today, I am joined by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Robinson, and Chief Financial Officer, Mark Haushill. We will begin the call today with our prepared remarks, and then we will open the lines for questions.

Our comments today may include forward-looking statements, which by their nature involve a number of risk factors and uncertainties which may affect future financial performance. Such risk factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements. These types of factors are discussed in our press release, as well as in our 10-K that was previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Financial schedules containing reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures, along with other supplemental financial schedules, are included as part of our press release and available on our website under the Investor section. With that, I will turn the call over to Andrew. Andrew.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Natalie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We had a great start to the year reporting net income of $42 million and adjusted operating income of $37.3 million, driven by $28.5 million of underwriting income. For the quarter, our adjusted operating income was $0.90 per diluted share.

Each metric I highlighted is the best reported in company history. Our strong growth this quarter of 17% is a direct result of our diversified business portfolio and the strong execution of our Rule Our Niche strategy. In this quarter, our A&H division and our Global Agriculture unit were standouts, delivering extraordinary growth, while Transactional E&S, Surety, and Specialty Programs all contributed nicely to our growth.

In this quarter, we had the widest spread of growth across our divisions that we've experienced as a public company.

We believe the diversity of our portfolio is unique to a company of our size and allows us to rapidly reallocate capital to underwriting units that offer the greatest returns and, importantly, to continue to deliver strong growth in operating income when many others in this market will struggle to do so. I'll talk more about this later in the call. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark to discuss our financial results in greater detail. Mark.

Mark Haushill (CFO)

Thank you, Andrew. We had another strong quarter reporting company-best adjusted operating income of $37.3 million, or $0.90 per diluted share, and net income of $42.1 million, or $1.01 per diluted share. Gross written premiums grew by 17% for the quarter. Agriculture, Accident and Health, Specialty Programs, Transactional E&S, and Surety each contributed meaningfully to growth this quarter.

Net written premiums grew by 20%, and our net retention of 64.1% was up over the prior year of 62.6%, but in line with our full prior year net retention. We added Agriculture and Credit Insurance and Reinsurance as our ninth division. Previously, we consolidated Agriculture with Global Property and Credit with Surety.

While in the quarter, this division accounted for 16% of our gross written premiums, there is significant seasonality to these lines, and we expect that this division will account for 10%-12% of our premiums for the full year. Turning to our underwriting results, our first quarter combined ratio was 90.5% and included 2.2 points of Cat losses, principally from Midwest convective storms and California wildfires.

The non-Cat loss ratio of 60.2% for the quarter improved 0.4 points compared to 2024 and is also the best in company history. For the quarter, we did not recognize any prior year loss development, yet we saw favorable emergence. Our reserve position continues to be strong as IBNR now makes up in excess of 70% of net reserves, up from 69% at December 31st.

As we have discussed previously, the proportion of our IBNR to total reserves has increased, while we have also shortened our liability durations and increased the speed of recognition in claims. The expense ratio of 28.1% improved 0.6 points over the prior year quarter and was in line with our expectations of sub-30%.

The business mix shift continued to impact acquisition costs for the quarter but was offset by improvements in our other operating and general expenses ratio, benefiting from scale of our business. We expect our expense ratio to increase somewhat over the remainder of the year, but still targeting sub-30%.

Turning to our investment results, we reported net investment income of $19.3 million in the quarter compared to $18.3 million a year ago. In the first quarter, we put $126 million to work at 6%.

In the first quarter, we found better relative value and structure versus investment-grade corporate credit as credit spreads were near at all-time tight levels. The net investment income from our fixed income portfolio increased to $16.7 million from $12.5 million in the first quarter of 2024, driven by a higher portfolio yield and a significant increase in the invested asset base.

Our embedded yield was 5.2% at March 31st versus 4.7% a year ago and 5.1% at December 31st. We reported a loss of $2.1 million in our alternative and strategic investments portfolio due to the change in the fair value of limited partnership investments. Our financial leverage is modest as we finished the quarter with a low 12% debt-to-capital ratio. Given our undrawn capacity from our revolver and our current leverage, we have ample debt financing flexibility.

Our effective tax rate of 18.2% was 3.5 percentage points lower than the first quarter of 2024, driven by stock-based compensation awards that vest in the first quarter of each year. By the end of 2025, we expect our full-year effective tax rate to be between 21% and 22%.

With respect to the material weakness in IT controls that we reported at year-end, which I'll remind you had no impact on our financial statements, new controls and procedures have been designed and are in the process of being implemented. We expect to remediate the material weakness this year.

Lastly, April 1 is when we renew property reinsurance programs, including our Cat program, Global Property quota share, and property excess of loss. All of these renewals were orderly, and we are satisfied with the terms and structures of these programs.

Our property Cat treaty renewed at the expiring structure, specifically a $15 million first event net retention and $36 million cover. Overall, our property placements provide greater protection at lower costs and/or better terms. Now, I'll turn the call back over to Andrew.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Mark. Our outstanding first quarter performance reflects the strength of our diversified portfolio, our underwriting discipline in light of the softening market across several lines, and our ability to adapt quickly to evolving market conditions. Our Global Agriculture unit and Accident and Health division contributed meaningfully to our growth this quarter.

This is noteworthy since we're intentionally seeking growth in high-return areas that are less exposed to the P&C cycles. Our investment in our agriculture unit has been timely given the changes in the P&C backdrop. We serve markets that have government-subsidized programs, and we've constructed a well-diversified global portfolio.

In specific instances, we've developed unique solutions that are in high demand from our clients, and our results so far are even better than we expected. We are very bullish that we can continue to grow earnings in this business with very attractive returns on capital.

Our Accident and Health division had strong growth in 2024, driven principally by our captive offering to the medical stop-loss market. The first quarter was a continuation of that trend, plus a return to growth in the traditional stop-loss business as a result of the failures of a handful of MGAs due to poor performance.

We had anticipated this given irrational pricing and the market capacity that supports it. Just a reminder that we are not competing against companies focused on large accounts. Our focus is on smaller accounts, generally with 500 lives or less.

That said, the poor performance in the large group market has been a contributor to the improving conditions in the market we serve. Our USP around medical cost management is distinct and is one reason we are winning. Our approach to claims is a second reason we are winning as providers are systematically cost-shifting, which is a trend that will increase given the administration's cutback on healthcare funding.

Our competitors are paying and pursuing as compared to our unique capabilities to negotiate final payment before any cash goes out the door. Of course, our talents in technology are the third reason we're winning. We simply have an outstanding team, and as I've discussed in the past, we have a leadership position in technology, including our use of AI and predictive analytics in risk selection and pricing.

We continue to see a decrease in Global Property premiums, but we are very pleased with the first quarter performance. We had a 95% plus account retention. While the market softened very quickly, we were prepared in our underwriting strategy to deploy our primary layer capacity over longer stretches to defend our position.

This allowed us to keep accounts, maintain a strong risk-adjusted price, while foregoing some premium to maintain underwriting margins. The strength and performance of our Global Property business, where we often lead on the primary layer, was rewarded with a strong renewal of our quota share reinsurance program, including an increase in capacity, which will enable us to go further with the underwriting strategy I just outlined.

Our lead role in writing the primary layer and, when appropriate, leading the market in settling claims, plus our long-standing relationships with the chief risk officers of our insureds, strengthens our ability to weather what is clearly a tougher market. Beyond what I just noted, we had double-digit growth in Transactional E&S, Surety, and Specialty programs.

Transactional E&S remains a vibrant division and is a true surplus lines writer of property and liability. Our book is somewhat less exposed to the E&S light risks that flow back and forth between the admitted and non-admitted market. Nonetheless, there are no shortage of instances of irresponsible behavior we observe in our market, in particular from fronted programs and certain MGAs.

In surety, we are very mindful of both the potential economic slowdown and reduced federal funding, including that flowing to states and munis.

We did observe a reduction in bonding activity for federal contractors, but on the other hand, our SBA activity continues to be strong. Overall, Q1 bid bond requests were up 19% from the prior year. Notwithstanding my comments on the federal contracts, the demand in Q1 was robust.

In programs, our growth was originated by those program managers where we have an ownership position, which is roughly 75% of our total programs division. This ownership is a further measure of alignment in addition to the underwriting performance compensation structures we employ when we delegate authority.

Professional Lines was down slightly given softening conditions in the lines we target. Irresponsible competition is coming from a number of sources, but again, fronted programs and certain MGAs seem to work on economics that is distinct from the rest of the industry.

It will only be a matter of time before the irresponsible fronts in these MGAs and professional and transactional E&S and the capacity that supports those programs recognize the financial outcomes of their actions. Until then, we'll keep our powder dry.

Lastly, Construction and Energy solutions were somewhat impacted by our intentional actions in Commercial Auto and a selective approach on other casualty. That said, we continue to find attractive new business opportunities in both areas.

Turning to operational metrics, we saw some improvements compared to the fourth quarter. On renewal pricing, we were consistent with our prior quarter at mid-single digits plus pure rate. Retention improved to roughly 80% for the quarter, driven by business mix and the wrap-up of actions on Commercial Auto. Lastly, we continue to see strong submission growth, which was in the mid-teens this quarter and over 20% in Transactional E&S.

Altogether, our lower earnings volatility, consistent earnings growth, our strong underwriting results, and strong returns on equity are direct outflow of the Skyward Team's excellent execution of our Rule Our Niche strategy. We remain confident we'll continue to generate top quartile returns at all parts of the market cycle. I'd now like to turn the call back over to the operator to open it up for Q&A. Operator.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. The first question comes from Alex Scott with Barclays. Your line is open.

Alex Scott (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance)

Hey, good morning. First, what I had for you is on the growth opportunities you're seeing in agriculture and credit insurance in particular. Maybe if you could just give us a little more color and texture to what you're doing there and how it's driving such great growth.

Mark Haushill (CFO)

Yeah, thanks, Alex, and thanks for the question. First on ag, I do not know if I want to say too much more in this instance beyond what I said in the preparatory remarks. What I will highlight, we hired just a fantastic industry veteran, James Tran, to lead our entry into it.

We had sort of the basic premise that we wanted to have a global portfolio because we want to be well-diversified. We did not want to add volatility to our business. I just think that he has brought that capability. I think we are probably active in probably eight or nine different countries at this point.

What we have seen is just some great opportunities where we have been able to press down. They are not the same opportunities year to year, but James and his team have done an excellent job.

I think we feel very good about how we're approaching those markets, the position that we built quickly, and the portfolio that we have. I think just our general sense is that we have a line of sight for that to continue, quite honestly, already with some very substantial treaty opportunities that are lined up for Q3.

With credit, it's quite a diversified approach. We started with a focus on mortgage. Obviously, it's a relatively quiet time in mortgage. We're in insurance for Fannie and Freddie. We're reinsurers for the PMIs. The fellow that we hired, JP Latour, to lead that effort has also brought us into participating on a reinsurance basis in trade credit and other areas of credit insurance.

I think today we're probably being a little bit more defensive than we were last year just simply because of the uncertain economic backdrop.

In this quarter, that really wasn't a particularly meaningful contributor to the growth that you saw in that reporting division.

Alex Scott (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance)

Got it. That's all helpful. For the next one, I wanted to see if you could talk a little bit about the environment and just tariffs in general and how you're thinking about the loss cost trend across your businesses. I mean, you guys are in a lot of niche areas, so it's not always easy for us on the outside to kind of tell how some of these things would funnel their way into your loss cost trend.

Mark Haushill (CFO)

Yeah, great question, Alex. You're right with how you framed it. There's a lot about the specifics of our business that probably makes unpacking it a little bit more difficult. Overall, I think we're still in the view that the loss cost trend in our portfolio in total is somewhere in the 5-6% range.

By and large, we've tried to limit the amount of exposure we have in what we see as being the high inflation exposed bodily injury categories and casualty and liability. I think one of the things that we make sure that we do is we're keeping our limits short. Much of what we do in excess is written over our own primary. From a casualty perspective, we're trying to keep it in check as much as we can.

On the property side, there's probably a few different pieces to it. I think from an inflation related to tariffs, we probably have some in APD. Certainly, on the global property side, reconstruction costs are going to go up. I think on the flip side, much of what we have inside of our E&S portfolio is a cash value. I think it's less inflation exposed.

As I've mentioned in the past, as materials go up, we benefit from that unsurety because effectively you're getting a bond that's increasing in size without sort of a proportionate loss cost increase. We have some countermeasures that are beneficial in our book. I think the other thing I'd say to you, Alex, is that a little bit surprises because we've listened to the questions that have come in prior calls.

While for us, we're certainly not ignoring the tariffs question, it's clearly on our thinking. We just think that there are so many other things that are going on in the economy to pay attention to that our leaders have started to prepare themselves and are monitoring, whether it be cost shifting in healthcare going on. I think certainly tariffs might impact the cost of drugs and particularly coming from other countries.

I will say that the reduction in federal funds that are flowing downstream to states and to munis is probably going to lead to a reduction in capital projects and some cost shifting going on. We're watching sort of the credit environment. We're watching obviously safety on job sites and so forth because you're going to have probably a reduction in oversight at OSHA.

If we have a softer economy, sort of the maintenance and attention to safety might come under pressure. We are looking at all these things. You layer on top of it potential economy that as it gets a little bit tougher, you start to see instances of moral hazard emerging.

When we think about the environment, we are thinking about all those things. I have to sort of hand it to the leaders of our organization. They have done an excellent job of sort of outlining which of those things are potentially impactful to each of their businesses and how it is that we are preparing ourselves from a countermeasure's perspective.

I would widen the conversation and say, "That's the dialogue." I think we are probably about as well prepared as anybody can be given the uncertainty that we are seeing right now.

Alex Scott (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance)

Got it. Thank you.

Mark Haushill (CFO)

You're welcome.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Matt Carletti with Citizens. Your line is open.

Matt Carletti (Managing Director and Senior Insurance and InsurTech Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning.

Matt Carletti (Managing Director and Senior Insurance and InsurTech Analyst)

Andrew, you talked a bit in your opening comments about some of the extraordinary growth you saw in crop and A&H. If I recall, kind of last year, there was definitely some, for lack of a better term, kind of seasonality to the growth rate across the year.

I was hoping maybe you could just touch on that, how much kind of frame Q1 within kind of your expectations for the rest of the year and how much of that might be helped or hindered by some of the opportunities that are specific to kind of Q1 timeframe.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Thanks, Matt. I appreciate the question because it does give us a chance to talk a little about this. Last year, I think you'll remember, we grew at 20% for the full year. First quarter was a high growth quarter. Second quarter was a lower growth quarter. Third and fourth quarters were, again, high growth quarters. There is definitely seasonality.

I'll highlight a few of the items that are particularly important today. The January 1 renewals in A&H is a monster renewal. It tends to make up over 50% of the annual written premium. If you're going to capture a market opportunity, that's the moment in time that you're going to capture it.

It kind of amplifies what you see in terms of growth overall. You saw that here, as I mentioned, sort of the backdrop and the reasons why.

On the flip side, it's a lower sort of renewal quarter in the second quarter. Conversely, global property, the second quarter is the largest quarter for the year. In the sort of go back two years, you'll see that it was an incredibly large growth quarter in global property. Last year, we were down a little bit, I think 6% or 7%.

Of course, this year, we're in a tougher market. I wouldn't be surprised if global property shrinks a bit. When we do look at it all together, the second quarter is for us going to be a lower growth quarter. The third quarter will be a higher growth quarter. The fourth quarter is really determined on what sort of the end of the year competition looks like as folks are trying to close out their plans.

I'll go back to what I said when we gave guidance last quarter. We guided to a mid-teens growth number. We did that last year as well. We got into mid-teens last year. We delivered 20. This year, we got into mid-teens again. I feel confident, notwithstanding some of the uncertainty in the economic backdrop, that we're well positioned to deliver that and probably be at a rather distinctive level of growth for the year given our portfolio.

Matt Carletti (Managing Director and Senior Insurance and InsurTech Analyst)

Great. That's super helpful. Thank you. If I could ask one more, just on reserves, I think, Mark, you commented that there was obviously you did not release anything during the quarter, but that there was favorable emergence behind the scenes and walked us through some of the other numbers. Could you just give a little color on kind of what areas of the book you're seeing that favorable emergence?

Mark Haushill (CFO)

Sure. Just a little bit of background. Look, we just finished year-end, right, where we did our ground up. In the first quarter, what we rely on is our A/E. In the quarter, accident years 2020 and after emerged favorably, specifically, Matt, in property, surety, and professional liability.

The occurrence liability lines also developed or emerged favorably for the same accident years, while we had a little bit of increase in the prior accident years, meaning 2019 and prior. All in, Matt, we saw favorable emergence across the company, but we did not recognize that.

We have talked a lot about here, how we look at reserves relative to indicated seasonality and magnitude. Once the accident years we feel like are mature, they will converge. All in, Matt, it was favorable emergence in the quarter.

Our book versus indicated, the margin is increased relative to where it was at the end of the year. Does that help?

Matt Carletti (Managing Director and Senior Insurance and InsurTech Analyst)

That's perfect. Thanks for the color. Appreciate it.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Matt.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Meyer Shields with KBW. Your line is open.

Meyer Shields (Managing Director for Property and Casualty Insurance Sector)

Great. Thanks so much. Andrew, one last tariff question, if I can. I understand that it's maybe not the most pressing issue, but in terms of the global agriculture book, does it face the same challenges as domestic crop insurance does if crop prices fall? How should we think about that risk more broadly?

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

I mean, you know that here in the U.S., the federal program is effectively a price and yield program. There is obviously some exposure relative to price if consumption due to exports becomes an issue. Similarly, although it is very crop specific, whether imports might create greater demand domestically.

What I would say to you is that of what we have written so far this year, our U.S. business is about 40% of our portfolio. This goes back to my point of being well diversified. I think that we have taken measures to protect ourselves. I will also say to you, Meyer, that we have reserved very conservatively. I would say well above what we would expect the ultimates to be. I feel like even under sort of a stress situation, that we are pretty well protected.

Meyer Shields (Managing Director for Property and Casualty Insurance Sector)

Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. I apologize if I missed this, but is the first quarter acquisition expense ratio a good proxy for the rest of the year? I know you talked about other expenses coming back maybe later in the year.

Mark Haushill (CFO)

Yeah, Meyer, maybe I didn't do a good job. Yeah, I think it's a pretty good proxy. Look, I'm expecting it to tick up a little bit. Yeah, I would look at the first quarter as a pretty good proxy, yeah.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Meyer, the thing that you can imagine is that there's a really wide spread, right? Unsurprisingly, most of our wholesale-driven businesses, Transactional E&S, our Marine unit, which sits in there, our Professional lines business, all that is relatively high acquisition cost. Obviously, Surety is off the chart.

Surety, in fact, depending on what class, could be, can be as much as 40%. On the other hand, we have some quite low acquisition cost businesses. Part of this is just where we're seeing the growth. I think I'd echo Mark maybe a little bit more conservatively. I personally, given how I sort of see the sort of the earn-through and the opportunities that are in front of us, I think that we will see acquisition costs tick up here over the coming few quarters.

I believe we'll also make some progress, continued progress on our controllable OUE. In aggregate, it's probably likely that we're going to go up from kind of that low 28 number, partly due just to the mix of business. Also, we're going to continue to invest in our business because we continue to believe there's good opportunities.

Meyer Shields (Managing Director for Property and Casualty Insurance Sector)

Okay. That's very helpful. And Mark is for sure me, not you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Gregory Peters with Raymond James.

Gregory Peters (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance Coverage)

Hi, Andrew and Mark.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Hey, Greg.

Mark Haushill (CFO)

Good morning.

Gregory Peters (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance Coverage)

Andrew, in your comments, you spoke about the submission growth and the retention. All submissions are not necessarily created equal, right? Some of the other companies in the public market have reported some volatility around their submissions. Maybe you could give us some texture about what you are seeing in the submissions. Are they all interesting opportunities? Are you still turning away a big chunk of them? Any color there would be helpful.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, that's a great question. I'll see if I can sort of parse it out. Let me start with the big one that a lot of folks focus on, which is within our E&S area, where I highlighted that in this quarter, we were above 20%, and I would actually say materially above 20%.

I think that there's still a very good flow. I will say that the competition for the business is increasing. I wouldn't distinguish by saying we're seeing more submission activity that doesn't fit as compared to prior quarters as much as we're seeing more competition on the things that are flowing. I will tell you that we really are a true surplus lines writer.

A lot of the stuff that we're writing is less exposed. But boy, occasionally you see some pretty crazy behavior out there.

Sometimes you see a lot more activity than otherwise you might see. Good submission activity, and I do not think there is a difference in terms of the quality. Within a couple of other areas, for example, in Industry Solutions, that submission activity is kind of running around 10%. I think that we are pretty focused in terms of our distribution.

Quite honestly, we tend to know the books reasonably well. Unless it is new business to those brokers, it might be accounts that we have competed on in the past, have not won, and we want to compete again this year. I think that is pretty steady. I gave my commentary on surety, where we do not include bid bonds in our submission activity, but bid bonds are the best early indicator.

The numbers of 19% up over the prior year is a pretty good indicator that there's still a strong flow that's going to follow. I would just say to you, as it relates to other parts of our business, Global Property, A&H, the numbers are not big enough to make a difference.

One highlight for you is that just to give you a sense for how strong we're hitting in A&H, our RFP submission count for A&H was up 59% year-over-year, which speaks entirely to what a compelling proposition we've built in that market. We have a lot of distributors, trading partners who want to do more business with us. We're seeing that in the RFP submission count.

Gregory Peters (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance Coverage)

Interesting detail. In one of the other answers, or I guess it was in your commentary, when you're talking about the surety business, you talked about the government-related work, the federal contractors and stuff. Can you give us a sense of or size that component? How much of your business is government-related versus private contractors?

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. The government portion, and I won't get these numbers exact, but the $150 million plus, excluding anything tied to the SBA, is about, I don't know, probably $20 million of our book. We have a couple of distributors who are really sort of focused on that part of the market.

Otherwise, the business is either business that is private or public-private together or public works. That runs the gamut, states, munis, etc. I highlighted the federal sort of piece because it was the one piece in the first quarter that stood out. In fact, it's probably the only piece where we saw an outcome that was less than what we'd expected.

Gregory Peters (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance Coverage)

Got it. Okay. If I could just slip in one follow-up question on the program business. You emphasized that you have an ownership position. It feels like in the marketplace, there's growing interest in the program market, or at least a lot of other companies are talking about that.

Can you give us just a reminder, a refresher on how you approach new programs and the due diligence process, etc., and how you're thinking about that market over the next couple of years?

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, Greg, thank you. That is a great question. Let me just start. I think probably most folks are aware that the program world has meaningfully outgrown the rest of the commercial market. There is a whole bunch of reasons. There is obviously a great deal of private equity and private equity consolidation, a huge amount of money behind it.

I will say that there are some fantastic MGAs, program administrators out there. I would like to think that we want to partner with those guys. Our strategy around that world is the same as our strategy with everything that we do that we manufacture, which is we are looking to rule our niche.

If we can partner with somebody who has capabilities that we can't replicate on our own, whether they be owing to some technology or product or expertise or distribution relationship or whatever the case may be, and we see them as having a view on how to build a really competitive position, and we can partner with them the right way, that's the sort of profile for success.

If you go down sort of our roster of program partnerships, they check the box on those items. I will highlight a couple of other things for you that are really important. As I mentioned, we have material investments. That is a further mechanism for alignment. We try to ensure that the mechanisms that we use for compensating the program administrators align as much as possible to our own internal measures for how it is that we compensate underwriters.

That's a critical component. I'll highlight a couple of other things that are really important. We are very intentional about ensuring that, at a minimum, the data flow that we are receiving is as close to equal to the data flow that we have for our internally managed businesses.

If we want to ask and answer a question on, "Hey, we want to look at a particular risk factor in terms of the frequency developed over the first six months as compared to every prior accident year, can we answer that question?" We should be able to answer that question as we could with any internally managed, internally underwritten business. Whether it be data, as a minimum, it has to be equal, but oftentimes we're exchanging technology and other things.

The last point I would make that's really important is I would argue that in many classes in our industry, it is absolutely impossible to perform at an equivalent level to a competent full-stack insurer that has the claims.

There are instances, for example, we have a brown water, green water marine program with a great program administrator. The claims expertise around that is very specific. Who does the claims is sort of singularly focused on that area of expertise. It's really hard in a GL class or a PL class to believe that they're going to do it anywhere near as well as we can. In every instance where we can do the claims, we do. That's a huge difference in terms of how we approach it.

There is bifurcation between underwriting and claims and the belief that you can deliver excellent results with those things sort of operating independently inside different organizations, particularly if those organizations are kind of like the larger TPAs, is absolutely just that's a proposition that I just do not believe in and do not support. We tend to sort of operate our specialty programs business accordingly.

Gregory Peters (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance Coverage)

That's great detail. Thanks for the answers.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

You're welcome.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Andrew Kligerman with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Andrew Kligerman (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst for Insurance Sector)

Good morning. Global Ag, terrific growth. I'm kind of would like to get a little more color on where you're participating in the reinsurance markets. Is it more quota share, excessive loss? Is some of it catastrophic in nature? What countries outside of the U.S. are really big for you? Just trying to get a little color around what you like there and the kind of returns, whatever you could share.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, thanks, Andrew. Thanks for the question. I'll share. This is an area where I'm normally very open and transparent as an area. I'm going to be I actually listened to another company's call, and a similar question was asked. That particular CEO was not answering the question fully. I might not answer your question fully because I think there's more you want to say.

That said, look, to just list the countries, and this would not be a complete list. It would include, in addition to the U.S., Canada, Brazil, China, India, Thailand would be a handful. Are there others I'm missing? Those are major ones. It would include both crop as well as dairy livestock. We actually, I think, have a couple of things in aquaculture, believe it or not. It really runs the gamut.

I'd say probably 90% of our exposure is quota share. I don't think that there's much more than I can say about it other than, as I referenced in my commentary, at least in a couple of instances, we have product that we believe nobody else offers in the marketplace, which is part of the reason that we're winning.

As I said, I don't want to go too much further, but this is one of the places where if you bring in one of the best people out there and we surround them with sort of the right kind of capabilities, you can do something special. I think it's showing up in our results.

Andrew Kligerman (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst for Insurance Sector)

That was actually very helpful. The next question is around the global property. I see your gross written premium came off about 18.5%, but the retention was very good. I think you called that out in your remarks.

Maybe, Andrew, could you talk a little bit about the pricing environment, maybe any color on where rates are going and maybe into kind of subcategories of the global property, regional, whatever? Yeah, again, same thing. Whatever you can share there would be of interest.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, no, I'd be happy to share quite a bit. Also, thank you for that question. First off, we're writing Global 1000 accounts. We're writing accounts with very, very, very large schedules. As I mentioned, we're writing the primary layer. What that means is we're writing the layer that sits right above their deductible self-insured retention, which will oftentimes run in the tens of millions of dollars.

During sort of a hard market period, we might write, for example, a share of the primary $100 million. As I mentioned in the remarks, one of the things that we're doing is we're writing over larger stretches. We might be writing over $200 million-$250 million.

The way that we've been able to do that is I think that there is a greater abundance of, in addition to we have a very large line that we work with, with quota share support. That line, by the way, got even larger by a full third as a result of our 4/1 renewal.

Prior to that, we were using that full line and then augmenting it with, I think, what's been a relatively abundant Fac market to provide something that is a really substantive primary layer cover. What I'd say to you is in terms of pricing, it's a little bit hard because you're stretching over longer stretches and so forth, but it's definitely down kind of high single digits.

That said, the way that sort of the risk-adjusted pricing runs through for us, we are pretty darn confident that in combination with where we use Fac and so forth, that our risk-adjusted pricing or effectively our expected net underwriting margin probably is a lot less than the reduction in pure rate.

Andrew Kligerman (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst for Insurance Sector)

I see. That is an area that still.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

I will say our results have been so damn good that this is the reason that we were able to not only increase our capacity by a full third, we had a very significant increase in participants who support us. I'm actually, we're so well positioned against this market right now.

I'm really, really pleased where we are in what is clearly a very, very sort of rapidly changing rate environment. I think our proposition is one that's rather unique just simply because of the line size that we can bring.

Andrew Kligerman (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst for Insurance Sector)

It sounds like you really like your returns in that business. Is there a risk that pricing comes off a lot more sharply in the next year or two, or do you think it could stabilize?

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

It's come off really fast. I mean, we were tracing it. Last year, this quarter, no, second quarter last year, I think we were down about 7%. That's where we really started to see things kind of level and maybe come off a bit. The third quarter is a very quiet quarter for the global property market. The fourth quarter is quite an active quarter.

Fourth quarter, things came off. It felt like just things just the bottom dropped out here in the first quarter. Listen, I don't know. It's one of these things where we like our position. I think we rode the market up as the market presented. The fact that we have over 95% account retention tells you that of the 100-plus accounts that make up that book, it's really sticky stuff.

I feel like we're going to continue to generate a good underwriting return under most sort of backdrops. That compares, Andrew, I'll remind you that when the cat markets were going crazy 18 months, 2 years ago, and we expressly said, "We're not going to just go right into the cat markets because that stuff's going to come off."

I was listening to the commentary of one of our competitors on their earnings call saying, "Well, the market's gotten soft really quickly, and we're losing accounts." Of course, that's capacity swapping in that market. We don't want to be in that place. We want to be in a place that we can be durable even as the market softens. I think global property is a really good example of that.

I think that even if the market softens, yeah, could our business be when it peaked out at 250, could it go down to 150? Sure. My guess is that we will find a way to make a good underwriting profit, and we will find a way to maintain a decent position with a good portion of that 100-plus accounts that we do business with.

Andrew Kligerman (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst for Insurance Sector)

That's great. Thanks for the insights.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Mark Hughes with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance)

Yeah. Thank you. Good morning.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning.

Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance)

Anything on the loss pick when we think about subsequent quarters? You've talked about some of those growth dynamics, and that's very helpful. When we think about the accident year loss pick, is this a good place to go, or will that move around a little bit?

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

I will let Mark jump in. I think that probably as opposed to the prior years, in select circumstances for this accident year, our loss picks, we started to reflect some of the performance that we were seeing, meaning in specific circumstances, we adjusted down. Some circumstances, we adjusted up.

Yeah, look, I mean, I think that setting aside kind of the earn-through on mix, it was a good quarter for us. It was our best ex-cat accident year loss result that we have ever had. I think it is a good reference point. I want to encourage anybody to take down their models. We think that kind of the overall guidance that we gave at the beginning of the year is probably the right guidance.

Yeah, I think that you won't see a lot of volatility in our accident year loss results as you haven't seen a lot of volatility in our accident year loss results in the 12 quarters that we've been public. I think that's right.

Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance)

Yeah, very good. Andrew, key part of your strategy has been to hire new people, bring them on, they build out their books, and that supports your overall top-line growth. How is that climate now? Your ability to hire, your appetite for hiring? Is this the right time in the cycle to be doing that? Just some perspective would be great.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

It's a great question. I think that what we are doing, Mark, is that we're evaluating our hiring plans based on what we're seeing in the performance of our business. If we're performing according to expectations and we don't see things moving to yellow in the markets, we're proceeding.

In other instances, we're unquestionably slowing down. There are a couple of things that we're working on that are strategic. They tend to be combining the expertise of our organization as it stands today with technology to potentially go after an adjacent part of the market. Those investments and the resourcing around them are going to continue because they're strategic for us.

I think if you ask, "Hey, there's a particular region in surety that we've been looking to fill," and if we have a candidate, we would say, "How are we performing? Do we have confidence?

Do we want to make that kind of commitment right now? That kind of conversation repeats itself every day in our organization. I think as opposed to a year and two years ago, I think we were just sort of pedal to the metal because we had confidence across the board. Now we're just making sure that we're not making decisions on resources that we're going to regret at a later point.

Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance)

Yeah. Okay. Mark, do you have the cash flow number in the quarter? I think you said you put $126 million to work at 6%. But if you looked at the cash from operations, do you happen to have that number?

Mark Haushill (CFO)

I'm pretty sure it's right at $100 million, Mark, but I'll confirm it. I'm pretty sure.

Mark Hughes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Insurance)

Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Mark.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Michael Phillips with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning, Mike. Hello.

Michael Phillips (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Sorry, are you having—can you hear me okay?

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

We can hear you now. Yeah, for sure.

Michael Phillips (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. You hit the phone. Sector data, you recap that accident year basis for, I think, for the recent four or so accident years. When I look at—and Andrew, this is kind of around, I guess, your commentary on commercial auto recently, pretty cautionary comments.

When I look at the accident year loss pick for commercial auto, it's down 6-7 points in the recent accident year 2024. I assume that's just maybe because of repositioning that you've done. Just any comments you can make there on that pick for commercial auto? Thank you.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. I think it's three simple things. One is, to your point, it's absolutely about mix. We're down to a book where we really were very satisfied with the mix. Obviously, we've driven a lot of price in, as has everybody. No surprise there.

The thing I would absolutely unequivocally point you to is please do look at our frequency. If you look at the 2024 year as of 12 months, the frequency is down by over 50% as compared to only five years earlier. You will see at every period of seasoning—so 12 months for 2024, 24 months for 2023, etc., etc.—the frequency is way, way, way down.

That frequency is really a key driver, obviously, against an increasing severity backdrop that is flowing through into our loss picks.

Michael Phillips (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. I saw that. Appreciate that. Totally random question, but when we see lumpiness in the alts and strategic investments row, I know your strategic investments is more on the private insurance base. Is that lumpiness? I assume the lumpiness is more from the alts and not the latter. Just kind of want to check on that.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. It is the alts. And it's the old opportunistic fixed income portfolio, the Arena-managed portfolio that is down to 5% of our total investments at this point. That's the driver of the volatility.

Michael Phillips (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much.

Andrew Robinson (Chairman and CEO)

You're welcome.

Operator (participant)

I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Natalie Schoolcraft for closing remarks.

Natalie Schoolcraft (VP of Investor Relations)

Thanks, everyone, for your questions, for participating in our conference call, and for your continued interest in and support of Skyward Specialty. I am available after the call to answer any additional questions that you may have. We look forward to speaking with you again on our second quarter earnings call. Thank you and have a wonderful day.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.