Earnings call transcript: Employers Q4 2024 EPS beats, revenue misses

Employers Holdings, Inc. (EIG), a $1.23 billion market cap insurance provider, reported its fourth-quarter 2024 earnings, revealing an EPS of $1.15, surpassing the forecasted $1.07. Revenue fell short at $216.6 million against a projected $224.38 million. Following the earnings release, the company’s stock price rose by 1.33% in after-hours trading, reflecting a cautiously optimistic investor sentiment. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company maintains a strong financial health score of 2.98, rated as "GOOD" by the platform’s comprehensive evaluation system.

Key Takeaways

• EPS exceeded expectations by 7.48%.
• Revenue missed forecasts, coming in at $216.6 million.
• Stock price increased by 1.33% post-earnings.
• Company declared a $0.30 per share dividend for Q1 2025.
• 10th consecutive year of underwriting profit achieved.

Company Performance

Employers Holdings demonstrated robust profitability in Q4 2024, with net premiums earned rising by 14% to $190 million. The company marked its 10th consecutive year of underwriting profit, maintaining a combined ratio of 95.5% for the quarter. Despite revenue shortfalls, the company continues to expand its risk appetite and digital partnerships, generating significant new and renewal premiums.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $216.6 million, below the forecast of $224.38 million.
• Earnings per share: $1.15, exceeding the forecast of $1.07.
• Net investment income: $27 million in Q4.
• Gross premiums written: $176 million in Q4.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Employers Holdings reported an EPS of $1.15, beating the expected $1.07 by 7.48%. However, revenue of $216.6 million fell short of the anticipated $224.38 million, reflecting a mixed performance with strong earnings but weaker revenue generation.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Employers Holdings’ stock price rose by 1.33%, closing at $49.46. This increase indicates a positive, albeit cautious, market response, with investors focusing on the company’s profitability and strategic initiatives despite revenue concerns.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Employers Holdings anticipates an increase in the 2025 accident year loss and LAE ratio but expects to offset this with continued reductions in the expense ratio. The company remains committed to expanding its risk appetite and enhancing digital submission channels.

Executive Commentary

Kathy Antonello, CEO, stated, "We finished the year with the highest levels of written and earned premium, ending in force premium and policies and net investment income in our history." She emphasized the company’s strong capital position, supporting growth and innovation.

Risks and Challenges

• Potential revenue growth challenges as seen in Q4 results.
• Increasing loss pick ratios in the workers’ compensation industry.
• Anticipated rise in loss and LAE ratio for 2025.
• Slowing wage inflation could impact premium growth.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the rationale for the potential increase in the loss ratio and the strategic shift towards mortgage-backed securities. The company clarified its careful selection of risks within higher hazard business groups, aligning with its disciplined underwriting approach.

Full transcript - Employers Holdings Inc (NYSE:EIG) Q4 2024:

Kevin, Conference Call Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Employers Holdings, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question and answer Please be advised today’s conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker today, Lori Brown. Please go ahead.

Lori Brown, Investor Relations, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, and welcome, everyone, to the fourth quarter twenty twenty four earnings call for employers. Today’s call is being recorded and webcast from the Investors section of our website, where a replay will be available following the call. Statements made during this conference call that are not based on historical facts are considered forward looking statements. These statements are made in reliance on the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Although we believe the expectations expressed in our forward looking statements are reasonable, risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to be materially different from our expectations, including the risks set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All remarks made during the call are current only at the time of the call and will not be updated to reflect subsequent developments. The company also uses its website as a means of disclosing material non public information and for complying with disclosure obligations under the SEC’s Regulation FD. Such disclosures will be included in the Investors section of our website. Accordingly, investors should monitor that portion of our website in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings, public conference calls and webcasts.

In our earnings press release and in our remarks or responses to questions, we may use non GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non GAAP measures to our GAAP results are included in our financial supplement as an attachment to our earnings press release, our investor presentation and any other materials available in the Investors section on our website. Now, I’ll turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Kathy Antonello.

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Thank you, Lori. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. On the call with me is Mike Paquette, our retiring Chief Financial Officer, and I would like to welcome Mike Pedraja, our incoming Chief Financial Officer. During the call, we will follow our typical agenda where I will deliver my opening comments and then hand it over to Mike to provide the details on our financials. I’ll close with a few additional thoughts and then we’ll open it up for questions, comments and discussion.

The fourth quarter contributed nicely to a very successful year for employers. We finished the year with the highest levels of written and earned premium, ending in force premium and policies and net investment income in our history. We achieved solid growth in new and renewal premium throughout 2024, which was offset by lower final audit premiums and endorsements. Our gross written premiums, excluding both final audit premiums and the change in audit accruals, increased 3% in the fourth quarter and 6% for the full year with all major distribution channels contributing to the growth. Our investment performance was also a boost to our revenue throughout 2024 with strong net investment income and net unrealized gains from our common stock and other investments.

From an underwriting standpoint, our year end full reserve study led to the recognition of $9,000,000 of net favorable prior year loss reserve development from our voluntary business. That action coupled with meaningfully lower underwriting expenses yielded a combined ratio of 95.5 excluding the LPT for the fourth quarter. For the full year, we had a combined ratio of 98.6% excluding the LPT, which represents our tenth straight year of achieving an underwriting profit in our long tail line of business. I’m particularly pleased with the reductions we achieved throughout the year in our underwriting and general and administrative expense ratio. That ratio for the fourth quarter was 23.2% versus 24.6% a year ago and was 23.5% for the full year versus 24.9 a year ago.

The decreases were primarily the result of cost savings achieved through the Cerity integration plan that we executed in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. And we remain laser focused on achieving further reductions to that ratio going forward. As you’re aware, we do not provide specific guidance. But in light of the ongoing competitive rate environment for workers’ compensation, we currently anticipate increasing our 2025 accident year loss and LAE ratio for voluntary business. The increase is consistent with both our prudent reserving philosophy and the current trend in the workers’ compensation industry.

We expect this to mitigate the impact of our continued focus on reducing the expense ratio. Finally, I want to thank our talented and dedicated employees for all they achieved in 2024. They are our most valued asset and have successfully positioned the company for even better results in the coming years. With that, Mike will now provide a deeper dive into our 2024 financial results and I’ll return to provide my closing remarks. Mike?

Mike Paquette, Retiring Chief Financial Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Thank you, Kathy. Gross premiums written were $176,000,000 for the fourth quarter and $776,000,000 for the full year with both being highly consistent with the premium levels that we wrote a year ago. In each period, higher new and renewal premiums were offset by lower final audit premiums and endorsements. Net premiums earned were $190,000,000 for the quarter and $750,000,000 for the year, representing increases of 14% respectively. Our fourth quarter and full year loss in LAE ratios excluding the impact of the LPT were 59.561.6% respectively versus 50.257.2% respectively a year ago.

The increases in each period were the result of lower favorable prior year loss reserve development and a slightly higher current accident year loss in LAE estimate. We recognized $9,000,000 and $18,000,000 of favorable prior year loss reserve development during the fourth quarter and full year on our voluntary business, respectively, versus $25,000,000 and $45,000,000 respectively a year ago. Throughout 2024, we continued to settle claims on an accelerated basis to both mitigate our overall tail risk and generate additional reserve salvage. As mentioned in our earnings release, within the 2024 periods presented, we refined our presentation of certain expenses associated with our involuntary premium. This revision, which was immaterial, had the effect of reducing both our fourth quarter and full year 2024 commission expense ratios by approximately 0.3 percentage points and increasing our respective underwriting and general administrative expense ratios by the same amount.

This revision had no effect on our total underwriting expenses or net income. Our fourth quarter and full year commission expense ratios were 12.813.5% respectively versus 1413.9% respectively a year ago. The decrease in our commission expense ratio for the quarter was primarily due to a non recurring adjustment to our commission expenses, which serve to reduce this ratio by approximately 0.6 percentage points as well as the previously mentioned involuntary premium refinement. Our commission expense ratio for the full year was highly consistent with that a year ago when considering the involuntary premium refinement. Our fourth quarter and full year underwriting and general administrative expense ratios were 23.223.5% respectively versus 24.624.9% respectively a year ago.

The decreases in each period were primarily related to lower professional fees and information technology expenses resulting from our Cerity integration plan that we executed in the fourth quarter of last year, partially offset by higher bad debt expense and the involuntary premium refinement. Net investment income for the fourth quarter was $27,000,000 versus $26,000,000 a year ago. The increase was due to higher bond yields, partially offset by a lower average investment balance as measured by amortized costs. Our net investment income for the full year was $107,000,000 which was highly consistent with that of a year ago. Note that the net investment income in 2023 benefited from our former Federal Home Loan Bank leveraged investment strategy, which we unwound in the fourth quarter of last year.

Our fixed maturities currently have a duration of 4.5 and an average credit quality of A plus Our weighted average ending book yield was 4.5, which is up from 4.3% a year ago. Net realized and unrealized losses on investments through the income statement were less than $1,000,000 for the quarter versus net gains of $12,000,000 a year ago. For the full year, our net realized and unrealized gains were $24,000,000 versus $23,000,000 experienced a year ago. Our interest in financing expenses were both down sharply in the fourth quarter and the full year versus those of a year ago. The decreases in each period were due to the repayment of our Federal Home Loan Bank advances during the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three as previously mentioned.

Income tax for the quarter was $6,000,000 and an 18% effective tax rate versus $13,000,000 or a 22% effective tax rate a year ago. The effective tax rates in each period reflect applicable income tax benefits and exclusions associated with tax advantaged investment income, LPT adjustments, pre privatization loss and LAE reserve adjustments and deferred gain amortization. Our income tax expense for the full year was $28,000,000 a 19% effective tax rate versus $30,000,000 or an effective tax rate of 20% a year ago. Our book value per share including the deferred gain of $47.35 increased by 10.6% during 2024 and our adjusted book value per share of $50.71 increased by 9.8% during 2024, each including dividends declared. These measures were favorably impacted by $24,000,000 of net after tax unrealized gains arising from our equity securities and other investments.

During the fourth quarter, we repurchased 10,000,000 of our common stock at an average price of $51.2 per share. And since year end, we bought a further $11,000,000 of our stock at an average price of $49.38 per share. Our remaining share repurchase authorization currently stands at $18,700,000 Earlier this week, our Board of Directors declared a first quarter twenty twenty five regular quarterly dividend of $0.3 per share. This dividend is payable on March 19 to shareholders of record as of March 5. And now I’ll turn the call back to Kathy.

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Thank you, Mike. We met our capital management objectives in 2024 by returning $72,000,000 to our stockholders through share repurchases and regular quarterly dividends. Our success and opportunistically repurchasing our shares throughout 2024 allowed us to meet these objectives in the best possible way, thereby improving several of our current and future key metrics without the need to declare any special dividends. Beyond our financial results, we recently announced that A. Invest upgraded the financial strength ratings of each of our insurance companies to A.

This upgrade reinforces our ability to provide reliable, trusted, high quality coverage to small businesses across the nation. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2025, we will continue to vigorously pursue profitable growth opportunities by focusing on disciplined underwriting and claims management, cultivating and maintaining strong long term relationships with both traditional and specialty insurance agencies, thoughtfully expanding our appetite to new risk segments, further developing important alternative distribution channels and offering insurance solutions directly to customers. We are confident that our strong capital position will support both our growth and innovation initiatives and we look forward to the year ahead. And with that, Kevin, we will now take questions.

Kevin, Conference Call Operator: Our first question comes from Mark Hughes with Truist. Your line is open.

Mark Hughes, Analyst, Truist: Yes. Thank you. Good morning.

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Good morning, Mark.

Mark Hughes, Analyst, Truist: Kathy, can you give a sense of the magnitude of the change in the loss pick for a current accident year? And then you’ve been holding steady at 64 for a while and a lot of the same dynamics seemingly have been at play, the lower loss costs, the medical inflation, etcetera. Why now? What do you see in the marketplace that motivates you to increase the loss pay?

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Yes. So, Mark, our current accident year loss and LAE ratio is determined annually by our actuaries. And they consider the pricing environment of each of our states and the growth prospects that we have in those states. They also look at the trends and frequency and severity and any initiatives that we might be implementing within the year that we feel could impact our results. I would say that our philosophy or our approach has not changed.

We generally like to choose a ratio at the beginning of the year and that’s based on the current environment and we like to leave it there until there’s a compelling reason to change it. As you said, our prudent reserving philosophy and the continued competitive rate environment led us to select a 2024 accident year loss in LE ratio of 64%. That was slightly higher than what we chose for 2023, which was 63.3% and that has been consistent for a while. We have the same loss pick in 2022. When I mentioned that we do expect to increase our accident year loss and LAE ratio in 2025, The primary drivers there are some higher actuarial trend selections.

And as I mentioned, the ongoing competitive rate environment. What I would say is we do see also improvement in our expense ratio, but that will be mitigated to some extent by the change in the loss in LAE ratio that we’re expecting. I’d just also add that the change that we are expecting will be directionally consistent with the work comp industry, which has been increasing the current accident year loss pick for several years and we’ve been coming in below that.

Mark Hughes, Analyst, Truist: Understood. Is one to think the 70 basis point uptick in 2024, is that a good starting point to think about 2025?

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Because we don’t give guidance, I can’t give you any indication at this point as to how high it will be, except for the fact that we do expect our decrease in the expense ratio to be an offset and a mitigating impact.

Mark Hughes, Analyst, Truist: To be will it fully offset, do you think or just partially offset or no specifics at this point?

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: No specifics at this point, but we expect the offset to be meaningful.

Mark Hughes, Analyst, Truist: Yes. And then you said the higher actuarial trend selection, that phrase carries a lot of weight. Can you maybe say what trends are driving that frequency severity, medical

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: mix? Yes. So when we look at frequency and we always do that based on our on level premium, our lost time claim frequency have continued to trend downward over the last several years. We do not expect that trend to change. When we adjust for the change in wages, our overall claims severity values have really held fairly steady in the most recent years and they remain generally speaking below the pre pandemic levels.

And that’s been driven by lower medical severity. Indemnity severity, I would say is trending about the same as wage inflation. And up to this point, medical inflation and the economic data has remained relatively mild, especially when you look at it in relation to other sectors like energy or housing or food. So that’s good news. So the pressure is really just coming from a little bit more conservatism and what we’re seeing broadly in the industry.

I will add that the accident year loss and LAE ratio pick for 2023 that we saw coming out of last year’s state of the line was a 69. I’m not suggesting that that’s what we are collecting in any way, shape or form, but I’m just saying that we have been well below the industry for many, many years.

Mark Hughes, Analyst, Truist: The wage inflation that you might have seen in earlier years, I think ended up being beneficial since medical inflation was benign. It was essentially a kind of a I won’t say hidden, but an extra amount of premium that might have offset any kind of inflation and any trends around severity. I guess maybe the fact that you’re not seeing as much wage inflation, is that then put a little more pressure on the current accident year? Is that a does that make sense or is it off base?

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: No, I mean that does make sense. I’ll tell you, when I look at the BLS numbers, as of December, the annual change in employment and hourly wages was 5.3% for all sectors and 5.5% for leisure and hospitality, which is where we have a big concentration. Those numbers compared to 6.18.1% a year ago. So it’s that reduction in the acceleration of employment and wages that’s impacting our book of business and it’s impacting it by decreasing the audit pickups and the audit accrual that we have and that’s putting a bit of pressure on our net written premium. So you’re spot on that some of the it’s really the reduction in the acceleration of employment and wages that we’re seeing that’s putting pressure on the net written premium.

There’s still very strong increases, but not to the extent that we saw coming out of COVID.

Mark Hughes, Analyst, Truist: Yes. And then maybe just one final question. The you’ve been talking about expansion in your appetite that’s helped drive the top line. How should we think about that going into 2025?

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Yes. We are going to continue to expand our appetite and we’re actually accelerating our effort there because it has been a very successful program for us. That segment of business is operating at a loss in LEE ratio that’s very similar, if not slightly better than our traditional target classes. It’s really contributing to our overall growth. In the fourth quarter, just to give you some numbers, the appetite expansion classes generated $35,000,000 or 20% of our new and renewal premium.

The other area that we’re focused on is what I’ve mentioned in the past is this continued shift towards API utilization for submissions, quotes and binds. That’s coming through digital agents and digital marketplaces. So we’ve we’re focusing our efforts on increasing those digital partnerships. So we’ll see quite a bit of that going on in 2025 too.

Mark Hughes, Analyst, Truist: Thank you very much.

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Thank you, Omar.

Kevin, Conference Call Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Bob Farnam with J. D. Montgomery Scott. Your line is open.

Bob Farnam, Analyst, J.D. Montgomery Scott: Yes. Hi there. Good morning. Mike, a question for you. It looks like you maybe transitioned a bunch of your investments into mortgage backed securities during the quarter.

I just kind of want to know what your thought process

Mike Paquette, Retiring Chief Financial Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: was there? Sure. What you’ll see when we file our 10 ks is that we increased our letter of credit issued by about $100,000,000 through the Federal Home Loan Bank and we use that to satisfy deposit requirements in California, which permitted us to liberate some of the lower yielding assets that we had on deposit with California. And we sold those in the quarter and recognized a small realized loss on those of just over $2,000,000 But what that allowed us to do is to go along with residential mortgage backed securities that were yielding near 6%, a pretty big increase over what we were getting with these deposits. With the Federal Home Loan Bank, we only have to pay a 15 basis point letter of credit fee.

So that will have a little bit of an uplift in our net investment income for next year. Those trades were accomplished in December. So you’re not seeing that in the net investment income that we printed for the quarter and the year.

Bob Farnam, Analyst, J.D. Montgomery Scott: So it sounds like the differential between your kind of your book yield and your new money yield is expanded or it should expand the next year. Is that right when you talk about that?

Mike Paquette, Retiring Chief Financial Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Well, we show that the ending the $4,500,000 is the ending as of December 31, but some of that increase from the prior period is a result of that trade.

Bob Farnam, Analyst, J.D. Montgomery Scott: Okay. All right. And my second question, I’m not sure if you’re going to have the data available, but I wanted to talk about kind of the increase in the higher hazard groups, the kind of percentage of in force. Now for years that was kind of low single digits. I think in 2022 it went to the higher single digits.

In 2023 it may have been in the mid teens. I just kind of want to have an idea of where you see that maybe in 2024. I know that probably will come in the 10 ks, but I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about that right now. And my feeling is, are the what are the claims trends for the higher hazard business? Is it longer tail?

Is it just kind of maybe describe what types of risks you’re taking on the books there and how that might impact profitability?

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Yes. So our shift into some of the higher hazard groups has been that is all tied well, not all, but some of that has been tied to the appetite expansion effort. And that’s been a very thoughtful expansion and we have intentionally moved into some of those higher hazard groups. While the class codes that we are writing may be in the higher hazard groups, we’re selecting risks that are in the lower hazard range of those hazard groups. Another cause of that shift was from a change that NCCI made about three or four years ago now now that remapped hazard groups.

So some of the classes that we have been in for years shifted upwards into higher hazard groups. So it’s a combination of those two things that’s caused that shift over time. I can’t tell you exactly what numbers, where we’ll land on the percentage in all of the hazard groups or where we’re ultimately headed, except that we are being very cautious when we expand into those and we’re looking to cherry pick the best risks and not change who we are as a carrier in terms of our risk appetite.

Bob Farnam, Analyst, J.D. Montgomery Scott: Yes. That was kind of just the question because I know you’ve always been known as kind of the low hazard workers’ comp writer. So as you continue to write more in the higher hazard groups, it might change if that might change your actual kind of company identity there, but it doesn’t sound like it’s still a huge portion of your overall target profile?

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: No, not a huge portion.

Mike Paquette, Retiring Chief Financial Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: So, Bob, what I can add is in the last couple of quarters, we’ve been hovering between kind of 91% to 92% in categories A through E, and that’s been pretty consistent for the last couple of quarters.

Mark Hughes, Analyst, Truist: Okay.

Bob Farnam, Analyst, J.D. Montgomery Scott: All right. Thanks. That’s good color. One last question for you. Just the $9,000,000 or so of favorable development, was that related to any particular accident years or is it old stuff or new stuff or what?

Mike Paquette, Retiring Chief Financial Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: It was predominantly in accident years 2020 and prior. And you’ll see that when the 10 K comes out and we file our statutory. So you will see a little bit of strengthening in 2023 and 2021, but we’ll address that in the K and it’s some large losses that we experienced in those years. But you’ll see it all very soon and happy to have a conversation with you once that’s published.

Bob Farnam, Analyst, J.D. Montgomery Scott: Okay, very good. Thanks for the answers.

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Thank you.

Kevin, Conference Call Operator: I’m not showing any further questions at this time. I’d like to turn the call back over to Kathy Antonella for any closing remarks.

Kathy Antonello, Chief Executive Officer, Employers Holdings, Inc.: Okay. Thank you, Kevin. And thank you all for joining us this morning. I look forward to meeting with you again in April.

Kevin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s presentation. You may

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