Hamilton Insurance Group, Ltd. (HG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Hamilton Insurance Group Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I'd like to turn the call over to Darian Niforatos, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks, operator. Hi, everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings call. Before we begin, please note that certain statements made during this call are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. These risks are provided in our earnings release and SEC filings. We will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release and financial supplement available on our website at investors.hamiltongroup.com. Now I'll introduce the Hamilton executives leading today's call, Pina Albo, Group Chief Executive Officer; and Craig Howie, Group Chief Financial Officer. We are also joined by other members of the Hamilton management team. With that, I'll hand it over to Pina.

Thank you, Darian, and hello, everyone. Let me start by welcoming you to Hamilton Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I'm pleased to report another strong quarter for Hamilton achieved against a backdrop of ongoing geopolitical tensions, social and economic inflation, and an insurance and reinsurance market that remains competitive. Hamilton delivered very solid results in the second quarter with net income of $144 million equal to an annualized return on average equity of 21%. This result was underpinned by a combined ratio of 95%, which includes about $50 million of catastrophe losses, primarily stemming from the Middle East conflict. Strong investment income of $141 million and thoughtful growth in select classes gross premiums written increasing by 17% for the quarter. The results this quarter and indeed over past quarters underscore the strength of Hamilton's strategy, its diversified portfolio and our team's ability to execute and adapt to all market conditions. Switching gears now to the midyear renewals, I won't speak too long about this. As you likely already heard from my peers over the past few days, the market is in transition. The clearest area of pressure continues to be property business where competition remains principally focused on price, while casualty remains more stable with rate increase still being achieved in many lines. business was also competitive in many areas at midyear. That said, given the recent loss activity in the Middle East, we are now seeing opportunities in select insurance classes like marine hole where rates are increasing. We will consider such opportunities thoughtfully and with the benefit of our strong underwriting expertise in specialty classes. For Hamilton, the key takeaways from the midyear renewals are that while competition is robust, pricing still remains attractive across many lines. Contractual improvements in the property cat area introduced in the 2023 market reset remain largely intact and our key client strategy and strong broker relations continue to result in achieving desired signings and access to business we want to see. In this environment, we are focused on preserving margin quality, astute risk selection and supporting clients where we have strong underwriting conviction and broad trading relationships. We are also making strategic use of outwards protection across our portfolio, including the use of our recently launched casualty side car. Against this backdrop, the good news is that our team has experienced trading in this type of market environment knows how to exercise discipline, while at the same time, look for opportunities. Also, having the benefit of both an insurance and reinsurance business and diversification across a broad array of products allows us to be nimble and focus on classes where we continue to get the best risk-adjusted returns. We believe that the benefits of our platform, together with our discerning underwriting approach, will be the key to our continued profitability. Before moving on to our segment review for the quarter, I want to take a moment to discuss the recent developments in Hamilton elect. Before I do that, I want to make sure you understand how Select fits into the Hamilton strategy. We have 2 reporting segments international and Bermuda and 3 underwriting platforms. The International segment houses our Hamilton Global Specialty and Hamilton Select underwriting platforms, which are predominantly specialty insurance, while Hamilton Re sits under our Bermuda segment, which is predominantly reinsurance. Hamilton Global Specialty and Hamilton Re each wrote about $1.4 billion in premium in 2025. Our long-term ambition is for Hamilton Select to become the third leg of our stool, so to speak, alongside our other 2 established underwriting platforms. In May, A.M. Best upgraded Hamilton Select to A from A-, this rating supports this vision and the continued development of our E&S platform. It also aligns with Hamilton's strategy building a diversified global specialty insurance and reinsurance company. We believe that the rating upgrade puts us in an even better position vis-a-vis our broker partners and will therefore result in our seeing additional opportunities in the U.S. specialty insurance market. Now this takes me to something I specifically want to discuss. When we launched Hamilton Select, the company was focused on hard-to-place accounts in the U.S. E&S market, a strategy that leveraged the strength of our team and their strong wholesale distribution relationships. We are now flexing these strengths as well as our proprietary technology to expand our appetite beyond distressed or pure hard-to-place risks. The expanded appetite includes new and additional classes of business, which we will continue to add to over time as well as risks in the lower middle market segment of the U.S. E&S market. We already received submissions that fit this expanded risk profile, so this is a natural evolution of our strategy that will provide our wholesale distribution partners with additional support for their clients. As you can imagine, we are very excited about this development. Moving now on to the segments. Let's look at top line growth this quarter for International and Bermuda. Starting with the International segment. International gross premiums written grew to $420 million or 22% over the prior period. By platform, Hamilton Global Specialty gross premiums written were up 22% driven by specialty and casualty classes, specifically in core classes such as Accident and Health, which benefited from some seasonality. At the same time and similar to my comments last quarter, we pulled back in our larger commercial D&F property insurance offering, where we increasingly decline business, which did not meet our return thresholds. Overall, our pricing assessment and underwriting framework continue to ensure attractive margins on the business we are writing even as our teams become more selective across many lines. Moving on to Hamilton Select. That platform grew 18% this quarter, driven by excess casualty, excess property, one of the classes of our expansion strategy, and products and contractors where we still see attractive pricing terms and conditions. However, we were more selective on medical and professional lines given the competitive pricing environment. Lastly, in Bermuda, we grew to $411 million or 12% over the prior period. Similar to last quarter, our most significant driver of growth came from casualty reinsurance. A meaningful proportion of this is attributable to business bound in prior quarters with much of the remainder coming from increases in our relatively modest shares on select accounts with key trading partners. Moving on to property reinsurance in Bermuda premiums fell compared to the same period last year, primarily due to decreased rates. This was partially offset by better signings on deals with select key clients. Florida-only business is the primary focus of the 61 renewal season. And as a reminder, this business represents only a modest portion of the Hamilton Re portfolio. We do, however, write the Florida market on our third-party capital platform, [indiscernible]. For the 71 business, which is more national accounts and within our wheelhouse, while pricing was competitive it still provided attractive margins. And as mentioned, the improved attachment points and terms and conditions from the 2023 market reset remains strong. Our specialty reinsurance line grew primarily due to some business wins in the aviation class where pricing and conditions were attractive. On the insurance side of our Bermuda business, similar to what we did in Hamilton Global Specialty, we also reduced writings in our large account property D&F book since pricing in this area continues to come under pressure and the metrics did not meet our return thresholds. In closing, we continue to focus on the bottom line and deliver strong results. Growth selectively in line where margins are attractive invest strategically in platforms like Hamilton Select and enabling technology, add strong talent to our team and respond thoughtfully to this complex market environment. Again, as we saw through the midyear renewals and across both international and Bermuda, this is not a market where every opportunity should be written rather one, where a focus on underwriting margin risk selection and strong client and broker relationships will support continued success. With that in mind, we believe our portfolio remains well positioned to continue to produce solid results. Our teams are exercising the requisite discipline and allocating capital to risks and clients where we have the greatest underwriting conviction. With that broader context in mind, I'll turn the call over to Craig to walk through the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Pina, and hello, everyone. Hamilton had another great quarter of financial results with net income of $144 million or $1.42 per diluted share and an annualized return on average equity of 21% in the second quarter of 2026. We had operating income of $158 million, equal to $1.56 a diluted share, producing an annualized operating return on average equity of 23%. These figures compared to net income of $187 million or $1.79 per diluted share and annualized return on average equity of 30%, operating income of $162 million were $1.55 per diluted share and an annualized operating return on average equity of 26% in the second quarter of 2025. Moving on to our underwriting results. Each of our platforms pursued thoughtful strategic growth in areas presenting the strongest risk-adjusted returns while pulling back from lines where margins were not attractive. Our growth remains selective, disciplined, and in line with our expectations of more measured growth, meaning an expectation of low double-digit growth for the full year of 2026. Through the first half of 2026, the group grew top line premium by 14% to $1.8 billion, up from $1.6 billion in the first half last year. Hamilton had an underwriting income of $29 million for the second quarter compared to underwriting income of $67 million in the second quarter last year. The group combined ratio was 95.0%, compared to 86.8% in the second quarter of 2025. In the second quarter, our loss ratio increased to 61.7%, up 8.9 points from 52.8% in the prior period. The increase was primarily driven by $50 million or 8.5 points of catastrophe losses compared to $2 million or 0.3 points of catastrophe losses last year. The majority of the 2026 catastrophe losses came from the Middle East conflict in the amount of $46 million or 7.8 points, we had favorable prior year attritional development of $1 million or 0.1 points in the quarter, driven by specialty and property classes, offset by certain casualty classes, which I'll discuss when I cover the segments. This compares to $3 million or 0.5 points of favorable development in the second quarter last year. The expense ratio decreased 0.7 points to 33.3% compared to 34.0% in the second quarter last year. The decrease was driven by lower other underwriting expenses, which included benefits from the Bermuda substance-based tax credit and third-party performance fee income, partially offset by acquisition costs. Now I'll go through the second quarter results and some year-to-date results by segment. Let's start with the International segment, which includes our specialty insurance businesses, Hamilton Global Specialty and Hamilton Select. For the first half of 2026, International grew top line premium to $863 million, up from $715 million, an increase of 21%. As Pena mentioned, this was primarily driven by growth in our casualty and specialty classes. In the second quarter, International had underwriting income of $9 million and a combined ratio of 97.0%, compared to underwriting income of $27 million and a combined ratio of 89.3% in the second quarter last year. The increase in the combined ratio was primarily related to catastrophe losses of $34 million or 11.1 points in the quarter, driven by the Middle East conflict partially offset by the lower current year and prior year attritional loss ratios and the lower expense ratio. The current year attritional loss ratio was 51.1%, down 0.8 points from the prior period. We still expect this ratio to be about 54.5% for the full year 2026. The prior year attritional loss ratio was a favorable 4.6 points due to favorable development in the specialty, property, and casualty classes. The expense ratio decreased 0.6 points to 39.4%, compared to 40.0% in the second quarter last year. The decrease was primarily driven by premium growth, partially offset by lower third-party fee income. I will now turn to the Bermuda segment, which houses Hamilton Re and Hamilton Re U.S., the entities that predominantly write reinsurance business. For the first half of 2026, Bermuda grew top line premium to $908 million, up from $841 million, an increase of 8%. The increase was primarily driven by growth in casualty and specialty reinsurance classes, partially offset by a decrease in property reinsurance and property insurance classes as a result of pressure on rates. In the second quarter, Bermuda had underwriting income of $20 million and a combined ratio of 93.0%. We compared to underwriting income of $40 million and a combined ratio of 84.3% in the second quarter last year. The increase in the combined ratio was driven by $16 million or 5.8 points of catastrophe losses in the quarter, mainly due to the Middle East conflict and unfavorable prior year attritional losses partially offset by the lower expense ratio. The Bermuda current year attritional loss ratio increased 1.5 points to 55.7% in the second quarter compared to 54.2% in the second quarter last year. This increase was within our expectations, given the changing business mix towards casualty reinsurance classes. The prior year attritional loss ratio was an unfavorable 4.6 points due to unfavorable development on certain casualty classes. In the second quarter, we completed our regularly scheduled casualty deep dive, which resulted in a modest reserve charge of $16 million on certain casualty lines. This represents only about 0.8% of our net casualty reserves and about 0.5% of our total net reserve position. To be clear, we completed our casualty reserve reviews and strengthened our reserves based on our own review and not because of any third-party review. Our actions are consistent with our reserving philosophy of being quick to react to adverse development indications or trends and slow to release reserves until we have more certainty. As a reminder, we'll complete our specialty class reserve reviews in the third quarter and our property class reserve reviews in the fourth quarter. Historically, we've shown overall favorable reserve development each and every year since the inception of the company. The Bermuda expense ratio decreased by 1.1 points to 26.9% compared to 28.0% in the second quarter of 2025, driven by a decrease in other underwriting expenses, which included benefits from the Bermuda substance-based tax credit and increased third-party performance fee income, partially offset by the acquisition cost ratio due to a change in business mix. Now turning to investment income. Total investment income for the second quarter was $141 million compared to investment income of $149 million in the second quarter of 2025. The fixed income portfolio short-term investments and cash produced a gain of $26 million for the quarter compared to a gain of $62 million in the second quarter of 2025. As a reminder, this includes the realized and unrealized gains and losses that Hamilton reports through net income as part of our trading investment portfolio. The key metrics of the fixed income portfolio were as follows: an average yield to maturity of 4.7% compared to 4.1% at year-end 2025, a duration of 4.0 years, and a new money yield of 4.6% on investments purchased in the second quarter. The 2 Sigma Hamilton Fund produced a net return of $115 million or 5.1% for the second quarter, compared to $87 million or 4.4% in the second quarter last year. The 2 segment Hamilton fund made up about 39% of our total investments, including cash investments at June 30, 2026. Now turning to capital management. During the second quarter of 2026, we repurchased $22 million worth of shares, which brings our total repurchases for the year to $42 million we still have $137 million remaining under our share repurchase authorization. Both the share repurchases and the special dividend, which we paid in March, reflect our ongoing commitment for active and effective capital management. Next, I'd like to comment on our strong balance sheet. Total assets were $10.3 billion at June 30, 2026, up 7% from $9.6 billion at year-end 2025. Total investments in cash were $6.1 billion at June 30. Shareholders' equity for the group was $2.9 billion at the end of the second quarter. Our book value per share ended the quarter at $28.91, our book value per share after adjusting for accumulated dividends was $30.91 at June 30, up 8.5% from year-end 2025. In conclusion, we're very pleased with Hamilton's results through the first half of 2026. Our balance sheet remains strong. Our investment returns have been exceptional, and our attritional loss ratios are tracking as expected. Overall, we believe we are well positioned to continue delivering attractive returns with a combined ratio in the low to mid-90s and with a return on equity percentage in the teens. Both of these numbers estimated on average throughout the cycle. Thank you. And with that, we'll open up the call for your questions.

We will now [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Tommy McJoynt with KBW.

The first one here in passable quarters, you've given us some nice helpful metrics on guidance for the full year across various metrics on a segment level, attritional loss ratios and then consolidated. Have any of those changed this quarter with what you've seen year-to-date.

Tommy, it's Craig. Thanks for the question. The guidance that we had given for those attritional loss ratios has remained the same. As you heard me say in my prepared remarks, the international ratio remains at 54.5% the group ratio is at 55% and the Bermuda ratio is at 56%. Those ratios stay the same as far as what I said in my prepared remarks as well. We expect to be able to run the book in the low to mid-90s on a combined ratio on average throughout the cycle. And that's where we are as well. The other piece that you asked about was growth. We still expect to be able to grow this book in the low double-digit range. As you know, we've grown this book in the past a compound annual growth rate over the past 5 years of over 22%. Right now, we stand on a year-to-date basis is at about 14%. So we do expect to be in the low double-digit range.

And then zooming in on the casualty book within the Bermuda segment, in the first half of the year, is still seeing very strong growth there on gross premiums growing 29% in the first half. As you look out to the back half of the year, do you think there is some opportunity for deceleration simply from [indiscernible] in the second half of last year? And then just broadly speaking, you did take a modest reserve charge, but it still sounds like you still see plenty of opportunity for attractive returns to deploy into Casualty Re. Is that the case?

Why don't I kick off here and then you can talk about the reserves, Craig. So let me start with the growth this quarter. As I said in my prepared remarks, part of that growth was business bound in prior quarters with another part of it being the increases on those small shares that we've talked about the last little while, on select clients. Now these are clients that are what we're getting robust information, where we have faith in their underwriting and their claims abilities and also client's keeping significant net participations on their deals. Those are the clients that we are supporting with small increases on those small shares. The casualty rate environment in general is buoyed by concerns about economic and social inflation those drivers continue in the current market environment. So we believe that the conditions on casualty insurance will continue with rate increases because of those drivers remaining intact. Craig?

Yes. Tommy, I know you asked about the reserve review outcome during the quarter. And it was pretty modest. It was only about $16 million. And I have to say 1/3 of that, about $5 million came from additional information on 1 loss from the year 2018 and about 2/3 of that review came from the years 2022 and 2023. And I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the outcome of the deep dive into our casualty reserves given the current market environment, including inflation, including economic inflation and social inflation, this charge was pretty modest, $16 million on a $5 billion gross book of loss reserves is a pretty most charge. It tells me that we feel pretty good about where we are today with our loss picks -- it also shows me that our over runoff and discontinued lines of business from the past continue to hold pretty steady. And it shows me that the latest years where we took action and we increased our loss picks 2024, 2025, and 2026 continue to hold. And this is pretty consistent with our reserve philosophy as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Elyse Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

My first question is on Hamilton Select. It's been growing fast and becoming the third stool of the company. If you could just give us, I guess, longer-term kind of use of just growth in premiums there? And would there be any thoughts on spinning that off at some point?

Let me kick off on a high level on just the expansion strategy, and I'll pass the baton to Craig from there. again, as I said in the prepared remarks, this is really just a natural evolution of the strategy, which is now buoyed by the recent A.M. Best upgrade. We've got such an incredibly strong team and that have such strong distribution relationships in the market that we already started seeing this type of business and it just aligns perfectly all the stars can together with the upgrade, with our expansion strategy and the business coming to us for us to announce this at this time. It's a launch -- a soft launch in April with the property product -- this product is a focus on small to midsized risks, while we're not seeing the kind of pressure pricing pressure we're seeing in other areas. And we're going to continue to add to those over time. We do expect this to be a thoughtful growth, the same way we've grown the rest of our business. We will -- you won't see too much growth on the expansion in 2026. You'll see some, but we're currently hiring team leads in place and then the remaining underwriters. So you'll probably see more growth on the expansion strategy into 2027. Craig, do you want to take it from here?

Yes. The only thing I would say, Elyse, on top of that was select this quarter, grew over 18%.

And then at least to your specific question on whether we intend to spin it off, we see Select as an incredibly strategic part of our platform and it adds to the diversification of our business and I think makes Hamilton Group a very attractive proposition.

And then my second question is just on the ongoing events in the Middle East. Can you just give us a sense of whether you expect losses in future quarters? And then how much of a contribution was just, I guess, was the Middle East opportunities to just your premium growth in the second quarter?

All right. So why don't I kick off on this one. stating the obvious here, I know, but this is an ongoing and very dynamic situation. The good news is that we have very strong underwriting expertise in the areas or in the lines of business that are affected by this conflict, that political violence, marine energy. As a matter of fact, our underwriting expertise in certain of these classes is so recognize that we actually hold the pen on behalf of other balance sheets in the market. So we are very confident about our ability to continue to thoughtfully and judiciously underwrite risks at this time. We are seeing significantly improved pricing terms and conditions in the marine lines and the political violence lines. Again, we're not betting the bank here, but we are going to very thoughtfully and carefully underwrite risks and take advantage of this market opportunity. I think it's important for you to know that we do manage exposures to these kinds of events across our group very carefully. And we also ensure that we have outwards protection in place for across all lines of business, including those that are affected by this event.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Zaremski with BMO Capital Markets.

Maybe just back to the Hamilton Select commentary, the exciting commentary about the upgrade from A.M. Best. Is there a way for you to maybe just at a high level, frame kind of like how much bigger your TAM is? Or I don't know if TAM is the right way to think about it. But just obviously, you talked about a lot of competition in property, which is 1 of your new just went online. So we understand that. But just curious kind of -- does this kind of meaningfully expand the TAM that when we think about kind of the outer year growth once we're through this property cycle that really would kind of bend to growth trend line upwards.