Earnings call transcript: W. R. Berkley beats Q3 2025 earnings expectations

W. R. Berkley Corporation (WRB) reported stronger-than-expected earnings for the third quarter of 2025, delivering an earnings per share (EPS) of $1.28, surpassing the forecasted $1.10. Revenue also exceeded expectations, reaching $3.77 billion compared to the anticipated $3.16 billion. According to InvestingPro data, nine analysts have recently revised their earnings expectations upward for the upcoming period, and the company appears undervalued based on Fair Value analysis. Following the announcement, the company’s stock price showed a modest increase in after-hours trading.

Key Takeaways

• W. R. Berkley beat both EPS and revenue forecasts for Q3 2025.
• The company achieved record high net premiums earned of $3.2 billion.
• Stockholders’ equity increased by 16.7% from the start of the year.
• The stock price rose 1.12% in aftermarket trading.

Company Performance

W. R. Berkley demonstrated robust financial performance in Q3 2025, with net income reaching $511 million. The company’s strategic focus on specialty and small account markets, along with investments in technology, have contributed to its strong results. The insurance industry remains volatile, but W. R. Berkley has maintained a competitive edge with its diverse portfolio and ability to adapt to market changes.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $3.77 billion, up from the forecasted $3.16 billion
• Earnings per share: $1.28, exceeding the expected $1.10
• Net premiums earned: $3.2 billion, a record high
• Stockholders’ equity: $9.8 billion, a 16.7% increase from the beginning of the year
• Book value per share growth: 20.7% year-to-date

Earnings vs. Forecast

W. R. Berkley’s EPS of $1.28 surpassed the forecast by 16.36%, while revenue beat expectations by 19.3%. This marks a significant achievement compared to previous quarters, highlighting the company’s strong operational execution and strategic focus.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, W. R. Berkley’s stock price increased by 1.12% in after-hours trading, reaching $74.88. This movement reflects investor confidence in the company’s financial health and growth prospects. The stock remains near its 52-week high of $78.48, with an impressive year-to-date return of 27.88%. Discover more detailed valuation metrics and analyst targets with a InvestingPro subscription, which includes access to comprehensive research reports covering 1,400+ top US stocks.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, W. R. Berkley anticipates a growth range of 4-10%, with continued focus on rate adequacy and investment income growth. The company is preparing for potential macroeconomic challenges and expects further softening in the property catastrophe market at the 1/1 renewal.

Executive Commentary

Rob Berkley, CEO, emphasized the company’s commitment to making "good risk-adjusted returns, not solely to issue insurance policies." He also highlighted the strategic flexibility in returning capital to shareholders, stating, "We have multiple tools to return capital to shareholders."

Risks and Challenges

• The cyclically volatile insurance industry poses ongoing challenges.
• Social inflation continues to impact certain insurance lines.
• The reinsurance market is experiencing pricing pressures, which could affect profitability.
• Potential macroeconomic challenges may impact future growth.
• The property catastrophe market is showing signs of softening, requiring strategic adjustments.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about excess capital management and portfolio pivoting strategies. Executives addressed market competition and pricing dynamics, highlighting resilience in small business segments.

Full transcript - W. R. Berkley Corp (WRB) Q3 2025:

Nicole, Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us and welcome to the W. R. Berkley Corporation Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. This conference call is being recorded. After today’s prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand. If you have dialed into today’s call, please press 9 to raise your hand and 6 to unmute. The speaker’s remarks may contain forward-looking statements. Some of the forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words including, without limitation, believes, expects, or estimates. We caution you that such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by us that the future plans, estimates, or expectations contemplated by us will, in fact, be achieved.

Please refer to our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, and our other filings made with the SEC for a description of the business environment in which we operate and the important factors that may materially affect our results. W. R. Berkley Corporation is not under any obligation and expressly disclaims any such obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Rob Berkley. Please go ahead, sir.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Nicole, thank you very much, and let me echo your warm welcome to our Q3 call. In addition to myself on this end of the phone, we also have Executive Chairman William R. Berkley as well as Chief Financial Officer Rich Baio. We’re going to follow our typical agenda where momentarily I’ll be handing it over to Rich. He’s going to run through some highlights of the quarter. I may follow with a couple of sound bites of my own, and then you will have the three of us at your disposal to try and answer any questions or engage in any discussion that the participants would like to engage in.

Before I hand it over to Rich, let me just, as I oftentimes do, state the obvious, and that is I think the past 90 days is just a continuation of clear evidence that the insurance industry is still a cyclical industry. For whatever the reason may be, some would say fear and greed, the industry continues to seemingly make an art out of self-sabotage when it comes to its own success. That having been said, we as an organization are not completely insulated from that, but we are able to mitigate that quite effectively because of how we, what parts of the market I should say, we focus on, particularly specialty and furthermore small accounts, which a lot of the challenge that continues to percolate and seems to be building momentum, again, we are somewhat protected from. Let me leave it there.

I’m going to hand it over to Rich. He’ll run through some thoughts, and then I will come back and offer a few more of mine. Rich, please.

Rich Baio, Chief Financial Officer, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Great. Thanks, Rob. Appreciate it. Good evening, everyone. Third quarter results were excellent with a return on beginning-of-year equity of 24.3%, reflecting an increase over the prior year’s quarter of almost 40% in net income, $511 million or $1.28 per share. Operating income increased 12% over the same period to $440 million or $1.10 per share, with a return on beginning-of-year equity of 21%. Further growth in underwriting and net investment income drove the strong performance, combined with net investment gains. Pre-tax quarterly underwriting income increased 8.2% to $287 million. Calendar year combined ratio was 90.9%, and the current accident year combined ratio ex-cats was 88.4%. CAT losses represented 2.5 loss ratio points or $79 million compared with the prior year of 3.3 loss ratio points or $98 million.

Current accident year loss ratio ex-cats for the current quarter was 59.9%, reflecting an increase over the prior year attributable to business mix, however, comparable to the second quarter of 2025. Drilling down further, the insurance segment’s quarterly accident year loss ratio ex-cats was relatively consistent with the first half of 2025 at 60.9%, bringing the accident year combined ratio before CATs to 89.3%. Reinsurance and monoline excess segment’s accident year loss ratio ex-cats was 52.6%, with a strong accident year combined ratio before CATs of 82.4%. Moving to our top line, quarterly net premiums earned continue to benefit from written growth, reaching another record of more than $3.2 billion. Growth in net premiums written were $3.8 billion and $3.2 billion, respectively. Net premiums written grew in all lines of business in both segments. The comparable third quarter expense ratios were 28.5%.

In addition to benefits from the growing net premiums earned on our expense ratio, several of our recent startup operating units are gaining scale and contributing favorably to the expense ratio. Technology enhancements are also contributing to operational efficiencies. Our pre-tax quarterly net investment income grew to $351 million, driven by an increase in our core portfolio of 9.4%. As a reminder, 2024 did benefit from heightened Argentine inflation-linked income, and excluding such income from both periods would increase the core portfolio growth to 14.6% quarter over quarter. The fixed maturity portfolio had a book yield of 4.8%. We do expect investment income from our fixed maturity portfolio to grow in the foreseeable future due to strong operating cash flow of almost $2.6 billion on a year-to-date basis and new money rates comfortably above the roll-off of existing securities.

The duration of our fixed maturity portfolio, including cash and cash equivalents, increased to 2.9 years in the third quarter, while strengthening our AA-minus credit quality of our portfolio. Stockholders’ equity reached a record of $9.8 billion, increasing 16.7% from the beginning of the year, driven by strong earnings and improvement of $428 million in our after-tax unrealized investment losses and currency translation losses, as well as capital returned of $362 million through ordinary and special dividends and share repurchases. As of September 30, our after-tax unrealized investment losses, including stockholders’ equity, decreased to $177 million, and our financial leverage has improved to historic low levels of 22.5%. We’ve continued to generate significant capital. The company proactively refinanced its debt when interest rates were historically low, resulting in a low cost of capital and adding permanence to our capital structure with our nearest scheduled maturity in 2037.

Our liquidity remains strong, with almost $2.4 billion of cash and cash equivalents to invest. Book value per share before dividends and share repurchases grew 20.7% year to date and 5.8% on a quarter-to-date basis. Rob, with that, I’ll turn it back to you.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Okay. Rich, thank you very much. Maybe just a couple of quick sound bites from me that perhaps will invite a bit of conversation later on. Starting out with some observations regarding the market. The reinsurance marketplace, clearly the property market, particularly property CAT, you know, that bloom is off the rose. From our perspective, there’s still margin in the business. We’ll see how long that lasts. It’s without a doubt eroding. To that end, you can feel the growing groundswell, quite frankly, it’s palpable around 1/1 and the appetite that’s going to be coming from the reinsurance market. We’ll have to see what 1/1 holds. As far as the liability side, again, from our perspective, and we’ve expressed this in the past, we’ve been a bit frustrated on the reinsurance marketplace, drawing a line in the sand and demonstrating some discipline.

It would seem as though that reinsurers are dissatisfied with the underlying rate increases that their students are achieving. From our perspective, we think that there should be opportunity to push a little harder. That having been said, obviously, it enures to our benefit as a buyer of reinsurance. Flipping over to the insurance side, per the comment earlier, from our perspective, and again, using a very broad brush here, larger equals more competition, smaller equals less competition, which certainly bodes well for us. On the property front, highlighting that clearly the world of shared and layered, as we talked about, give or take 90 days ago, is where the competition is heating up the greatest. It is also pronounced just in E&S in general.

That having been said, from our perspective, clearly the small admitted space, as well as select parts of the homeowners market, continue to offer attractive opportunities. Not different from what we’ve expressed in the past as well. The world of professional liability is very much a mixed bag. On one hand, you have D&O that continues to erode, although at a slower rate from where it had been, and the E&O market, generally speaking, is choppy. One of the brighter places, and by the way, it needs every drop of it and then some, would be the world of HPL as an example or hospital professional. As far as workers’ compensation goes, Main Street comp, from our perspective, consistent with what we’ve shared with you in the past, tends to be particularly competitive.

We have talked and talked and talked about California and certainly some of the challenges that market faces, and happy to see the rate action coming through. A lot of that indigestion is coming about as a result of cumulative trauma and litigation stemming from that. GL, it would seem, at least from our perspective, for the moment, one’s able to keep up with the trend. Auto has been on again and off again. I think it was the first quarter where we expressed a view that there were some green shoots. In the second quarter, it was a little less encouraging, and quite frankly, it remains pretty choppy. A bit of a puzzle to me, and I believe colleagues, because there is no product line that has been more exposed to social inflation in our opinions than Auto, but we’ll have to see what happens with that.

As far as our portfolio goes, and we can get into it later, we are reducing exposure. We’re taking a lot of rate, and quite frankly, our top line is growing considerably less than our rate. Over to Umbrella, again, not without its challenges for the marketplace. Clearly, the smaller end of town has been the better place to be. In addition to that, the indigestion that the Umbrella line has experienced disproportionately has been impacted by Auto. Rich covered our quarter in some detail, so maybe just a couple of quick observations on that front from me. Top line up 5.5%. Rate ex-comp coming in at 7.6%. Different folks can interpret that in whatever the way they wish to, but from my perspective, it highlights the concept or the idea that this is an organization that is focused on rate adequacy.

To that end, we are very attuned to the fact that we are in business to make good risk-adjusted returns, not solely to issue insurance policies. You would have seen some on the insurance front growth in the short tail lines. Just to call a couple of pieces out, what’s really driving that, because you may be scratching your head saying, "How do I reconcile this, what he was just babbling about as far as the property line and competition?" There are really two pieces that are driving that. One is our personal lines effort and Berkley One, that being the private client personal lines where there is great opportunity and we continue to lean into that. In addition to that, our accident and health business continues to prosper as well. You would have also perhaps taken note of the growth in the workers’ comp line.

That, not dissimilar to what we’ve talked about in the past, is really driven by specialty comp. Some of it tends to be higher hazard and so on and so forth. It is not Main Street comp. The growth under the reinsurance banner, really as far as the property piece goes, that’s just us getting our last bites at the apple before the apple starts to rot. We have a view as to rate adequacy, and we have no problem drawing a line in the sand as we have demonstrated in the past. As far as the excess line, where the growth is coming from, is primarily excess comp. Rich covers the loss ratio, the expense ratio. As far as the CAT goes, that was really just SCS that gave us a little bit of noise there.

The expenses, again, continue to be benefiting from our focus around automation, as Rich highlighted. Please understand, we continue to make investments. On occasion, with the expense ratio, you will see us having to take half a step back in order to take multiple steps forward. Flipping over to the investment portfolio, I’m not going to completely pile on what Rich has already covered, but I would just flag that the duration did nudge out to 2.9 years, and we feel as though we have a fair amount of runway before us. As Rich highlighted, the strength of the cash flow continues to build the size of the portfolio. In addition to that, we see the book yield continuing to go up from here.

Just as a point of reference, the domestic book yield for the quarter was 4.6%, and our new money rate is, give or take, right about 5%. Growth in the portfolio, higher new money equals runway ahead. By and large, it was a pretty solid quarter. It wasn’t just because the wind didn’t blow and the earth didn’t shake in a consequential way. It’s because this is the trajectory that we’re on, and it would take a lot to take us off that path. When the day is all done, the underwriting opportunity continues to unfold. The discipline remains in place to ensure that margin is there. Our other economic engine, being the investment portfolio, again, has much opportunity ahead of itself. Let me pause there. Nicole, we are going to turn back to you. Please, if we could open it up for questions. Thank you very much.

Nicole, Conference Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand now. If you have dialed into today’s call, please press 9 to raise your hand and 6 to unmute. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Alex Scott with Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hey, Alex. Good afternoon.

I think I got this unmuted correctly. Let me know if you can’t hear me.

Yeah, we can hear you. We get stuck on mute all the time, but you’re coming through.

Perfect.

A couple of times a day.

All right. I’ll jump into it then. I first wanted to ask you about how you’re thinking about the capital position of the company and just hearing a little bit more restraint in terms of what you’re willing to grow into. Still getting some decent growth, what would your plans be for the additional capital flexibility that would give you, and what would the pecking order look like?

A couple of comments. If you were to take the rating agents, some of the rating agency models, I don’t know if it’s all of them, but certainly several of them, and you ran us through their sausage maker, it would tell you that we have significant headroom to the tune of 10 digits as far as excess capital. Loads of flexibility there. In addition to that, as you pointed out in your own words, we are generating capital more quickly than we are able to consume it. Obviously, as we’ve discussed in the past, we want to make sure we got plenty of wiggle room. That having been said, we’re also equally conscious of the fact that the capital does not belong to us. It belongs to the shareholders.

To the extent that we are not able to utilize it effectively, we should be thinking about returning it to the shareholders. We have multiple tools to do that, and we have not been shy about utilizing them. Rich flagged the balance sheet, in particular, the capital structure. Not in a rush to do anything as far as the debt or related securities, and that would really leave us with two options, that being dividends and repurchase. Again, we are open and regularly thinking about that question. Let me pause there. That was probably a lot of babble without a specific answer that you’re looking for, but I’m probably not going to be able to give you a specific answer.

It just so happens that my boss is here, and he spends a lot of time thinking about capital and excess capital, particularly as our, by a wide margin, largest shareholder.

William R. Berkley, Executive Chairman, W. R. Berkley Corporation: We spend a lot of time thinking about it. There will be opportune times to buy back stock. We’ve been a very effective utilizer of that tool, and we’ve bought back a lot of stock over the years. It’s because we’re not impatient. We wait. The opportunity comes. We continue to do that. In the meantime, we feel that special dividends is a way to let the shareholders know we work for them. That opportunity to buy back shares can come at any time. We’ll keep plenty of powder available so we can seize those opportunities. We don’t think it’s there right at the moment.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Got it. Thanks for the question, Alex. Nicole, was there another question out there?

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Tracy Banquigley with Wolfe Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, Tracy. Good afternoon. Tracy?

Tracy, a reminder to kindly unmute yourself.

Tracy, are you there?

Hello, can you hear me now?

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: We can hear you now, Tracy.

Great, thank you.

Sorry for the confusion with the new platform.

Okay.

I’m sure it was a brilliant question. I ask all my best ones when I’m stuck on mute too.

That’s okay. I want to go back to your comments about your excess capital position. It’s my observation that this is an industry-wide phenomenon. Are you worried that the industry is sitting on too much capital and your competitors are so used to growth coming off a hard market, it’s going to be hard for them to take their foot off the pedal? I’m just curious of your thoughts. What catalysts can you envision that could turn pricing around given the supply-demand equation?

Maybe a couple of comments there. We took ex-comp and we back out comp because presumably that’s sort of keeping up through wage inflation. We took 7.6 points of rate in the quarter. As far as our ability to keep getting rate and keeping up with the trend, we feel pretty good about that. That having been said, as far as excess capital, some of our peers have a lot of excess capital, some of them don’t. We’re really just focused on what we’re doing, and we’re focused on our value proposition to the marketplace every day. If at some point it means that we have irrational competitors that drive parts of the market to unattractive places, as we’ve demonstrated in the past, so be it. We’ll shrink the business.

As I, in a clumsy way, was trying to allude to in my comments earlier, given the breadth of our offering or how many different parts of the market we participate in and how the marketplace has decoupled as far as where product lines are in the cycle, that positions us as an organization to be more resilient when it comes to growth. When the day is all done, people may become more aggressive. We’ve seen some version of the movie in the past, and you and others have seen how we respond. As I suggested earlier, we’re focused on making good risk-adjusted returns. If we can’t do it, so be it. We’ll let the business shrink.

Got it. I want to go back to your auto comments. Since your growth was flattish, can you just unpack how much exposure you’re reducing, balanced by the pricing you’re seeing there?

I don’t think we break out that detail. I will double-check with Karen. If we do provide that to the world, I can assure you she will follow up with you tomorrow. What I can say is I wouldn’t have made the comment I made earlier if it was just rounding. It’s meaningful. There are some market participants, particularly those with delegated authority, that don’t seem to get where loss costs are. That will end in tears eventually, and we will have an opportunity.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks for the question.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Elyse Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hi, Elyse. Good afternoon.

Hi, thanks. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you. Thank you.

Okay. Perfect. My first question, I guess, is just on Mitsumi Sumitomo. I know we have not seen a regulatory filing hit indicating that they’ve hit a 5%.

Yeah, I’ve noticed that too.

In the company.

Yeah.

Do they have to file when they hit 5%, or is there any update? I know you guys are coming up with some process.

My understanding is yes. I am not an SEC attorney, so full disclosure, that having been said, my understanding is they get to 5%, they need to file, and every, you know, X amount of shares that they buy beyond that, they will have to do follow-on filings. I do not believe there is any reason for them not to have to comply with what everyone else does. As we also mentioned in the past, in an effort to ensure that we are not handicapped in our ability to participate in the market, we have no information beyond what you have as far as where they stand in their process.

Thanks. My second question, you know, you guys saw kind of stable rate price in the quarter. Growth slowed, right, mostly due to commercial auto, a little bit other liability. It feels like that’s a trade-off, right, Rob, you guys are willing to make. I know last quarter you said we’re kind of in this 8% to 10% growth world. This was a little bit lighter. Does it feel like we’re in a little bit lighter growth world as you guys, you know, look to keep as much price in the portfolio as you can?

From my perspective, the answer is, Elyse, that we have major parts of the marketplace that are in some period of transition. Some are eroding and will likely erode further. Some are healthy, and others are somewhere between the bookends, perhaps going through some stage of fits and starts. Our opinion is you will likely see it needing to firm from here, commercial auto being an example of that. It is these periods of time of transition which make it really, really hard to predict what the opportunity will be over the next 90 days. Once upon a time, we tried to give guidance because we were trying to be helpful. I’m not sure if that proved to be the case or not, but that was the intent around what the growth opportunity is.

I do believe that there’s still opportunity for us to grow and grow at a healthy rate from here. As you pointed out, thank you for flagging, we are not going to compromise our underwriting and particularly rate integrity in order to juice the top line. That sort of highlights what we’ve talked about on occasion in the past. That’s because we have a sense of ownership, obligation, and responsibility to the capital we manage. We get rewarded. Our colleagues throughout the organization get rewarded not just monetarily, but emotionally based on delivering good risk-adjusted returns coming out of the underwriting in part, as opposed to an NGU where, you know what, it’s just about how many widgets you can roll off the assembly line today.

Thank you.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Rob Cox with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hey, Rob. Good afternoon.

Hey, good afternoon. For my first question, I just wanted to ask about the catastrophe losses in the insurance segment. It just looks like it was more in line with the average ratio, CAT loss ratio we’ve seen for the last couple of years, whereas some peers are reporting lower CATs. I know you called out SES. Is there any particular geography or large loss to call out there, or is this just a result of growth in short tail lines recently?

I would tell you that it’s two things. One, it is a bit of frequency with very modest severity. Number two, as you pointed out, look, we, the property market in particular, it’s been a pretty good run. We have leaned into it because we like the risk-adjusted returns that were available. As a result of that, we got a little bit more exposure. I would caution you not to read too deeply into it.

Okay, great. That makes sense. Just to follow up on homeowners, sounds like there’s still some opportunity there. Can you talk about how, you know, Berkley One has performed compared to your expectations and, you know, where you’re growing? Is it in states with more CAT exposure or less CAT exposure? Any context would help.

I think buy-in, first off, I think Berkley One has proven to be a great success. It basically started, it was started from scratch with a small team of people that made it happen. Today, it is comfortably more than a $500 million business and growing at a healthy pace. No, we are not leaning into California or anything akin to that. I would tell you we have a certain group of states that we’re in, and we are just going deeper. This is not just an idea to try and go into every last nook and cranny. We’re going where our colleagues believe the opportunity is and where we feel as though we have a value proposition that we can deliver consistently, day in and day out. No, the growth there isn’t because California became the flavor of the day for us.

We do not participate in the California market.

Thanks, Rob.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Tunis with Cantor. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hey, Ryan. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you. Yep, good afternoon.

Perfect. Hey, good afternoon. I guess just a question on the casualty side, just low single-digit growth and other liability, less than I expect. I’m just curious, are you starting to see more competition in some of those lines, or is there something else that’s kind of causing that D-cell? I think there’s a couple of things. One, we have a view on rate. Is there a bit of competition? Yeah, there’s a bit of competition, but it’s also how we’re pivoting the portfolio at this moment in time.

Got it. I guess I was a little bit surprised that Berkley One and A&H could move the needle that much in short tail lines. Could you just give us some idea? Again, I don’t know how big those lines are. Could you give us some idea of how much of that short tail lines line item is non-commercial property, if that makes sense?

I don’t have a specific number here. If it’s okay with you, Ryan, let me ask Rich or Karen to follow up with you. I don’t have it at my fingertips, and I don’t want to, but it’s consequential, obviously, hence the comment earlier.

Understood. Thanks.

Thanks for the question.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brian Meredith with UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hey, Brian. Good afternoon. Brian, you there?

Nicole, Conference Operator: Brian, a reminder to kindly unmute yourself.

All right. Now you can hear me?

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Thanks, Ed.

Yes, you’re coming through. Thanks, Brian. Awesome. Two questions. First one, big picture. Maybe this is kind of for you as well as the Chairman. I recall, you know, Bill saying that one of his biggest regrets from the last hard market was starting to pull back too early, when there was still healthy margin in the business. Is that a debate that’s going on right now? How are we, how are you thinking about that?

You know, Brian, it’s funny. I recall that comment from the Chairman usually at about 7:45 A.M. every morning, at least five days a week. I’m going to yield the floor to him.

William R. Berkley, Executive Chairman, W. R. Berkley Corporation: I think it’s always, you look at your business and you say, "Our price is going to go down more, but they’re at the bottom. How much margin do you have? And where is the current accident you’re going to come out?" Because you’ve had a lot of years of substantial price increases. As all of us know, this is a business where you don’t know the ultimate margin for several years after you’ve written the business. In that case, which was 1986, give or take, we had much more margin than we were reporting. We didn’t realize it, and we cut back too soon. There are two pieces to this puzzle. Are you being pessimistic as to the margin you’re presenting because you haven’t appropriately reflected the price increases? The second question is, where have prices changed and what’s happening with the loss ratio?

That is the issues you face. It was different in 1986 than it is today. There’s more litigation. There are more lawyers who are incentivized to bring about litigation. That’s a tougher decision. I would say that you can still grow. There are still opportunities. You don’t have to run away at this moment. It will come at some point in time. We would guess it’s not here quite yet, but it is going to evolve to that point. It may be shorter duration because of all kinds of other things than last time because when those losses happen, they can happen all of a sudden.

Interesting. Thank you.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Brian, thanks for the question and highlighting the genetic flaw that runs through the family. Did you have a second question?

Yeah, my second question, Rob. I know you chatted a little bit about the first quarter and you didn’t see much on.

Brian here?

Yeah, I’m still here. Can you hear me?

Yes.

There I should stop.

Please go ahead.

Okay, good. Question on tariffs. Are you seeing anything yet in your loss picks?

We are preparing for it, but we’re not seeing anything particularly consequential yet. We are certainly preparing for it in all the product lines, as you’d expect, that are more exposed, highlighting, obviously, property and APD.

Great, thank you.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Kligerman with TD Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Okay. Good evening. My first question is around loss development. It looks like really net nothing, but wondering if you could talk about if you had some releases in one area, some adverse in another area. Any color on that you could share would be appreciated.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: It was basically incremental between the two segments. To your point, it was almost a push. As you can appreciate, there’s a lot of moving pieces; that’s where it ultimately ended up coming out to. As far as additional detail, I don’t know if we publish it. It’ll be in our queue, I guess, Andrew. We just don’t have it all in front of us right now.

Anything off top of mind in casualty that stuck out? Was there adverse there, or?

I don’t have the numbers in front of me. I think we’re, as I suggested earlier, we’re paying close attention to the auto liability line, and we’re mindful of what that could mean for the umbrella line.

Got it. Rob, just your commentary throughout this call, I’m just trying to put numbers around it a little bit. First quarter, the market seemed very different, and you rightly thought you could grow double-digit this year. Last quarter, you were thinking maybe 8% to 12%. Should I be thinking now we’ve kind of migrated more into the kind of mid-single-digit zone, just given what you’ve said about rates, etc.? You know.

It could very well be the case, Andrew. I think really what I was trying to articulate earlier is you got a lot of pieces of the broader marketplace that are in some kind of flux, and we are going to respond to that. Is it possible that next quarter we could grow 4%? Yeah. Is it possible next quarter we could grow 10%? Yeah, absolutely. I can’t speak with the level of confidence I’d like to, and perhaps you would like me to, just because of my comment earlier about big chunks of the marketplace being in notable flux.

That’s.

Proving some eroding.

That’s very fair. If I could just sneak a quick one in. When you talk about Berkley’s business being at the small end of the spectrum type accounts, any way to size that? I know you even brought a team in from, I think they were at Hamilton or Kinsale, in the small end. Any way to size the small end of the spectrum at W. R. Berkley in the insurance business?

Obviously, some of the business we write, one way to quantify it would be limits, as far as giving one a sense of scale of accounts that you write. It is not the only one, but certainly one would be. If you look at the policies that we write, some of them, like workers’ comp, you have a statutory exposure, so you can’t have a limit on it. If you take the stuff out of the pie that has statutory limits like comp, and you look at what does that leave you with as far as a limits profile, I was told by a colleague earlier today that between 85% and 90%, approximately, of our policies have a limit of $2.5 million or less.

Very helpful.

I don’t know, you know, hopefully that gives you some sense or direction.

Definitely, thanks a lot.

Thank you. You know, Andrew, just one other comment. Even though it’s smaller account size, it tends to be very specialized in nature. I would encourage you not to confuse size with commodity.

Got it.

Thanks for the question.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mark Hughes with Truist Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hello, Mark. Good afternoon.

Hey, Rob. How are you?

Thank you. I hope you’re well.

I am. Thank you. A quick follow-up on the other liability. You said that you were pivoting the portfolio. I wonder if you could expand on that point. Is there something you’re seeing in the loss development trends, perhaps, that makes you want to pivot around other liability?

There are countless different variables, and it could include just appetite based on just general exposure. It can be based on state, and it certainly can be based on attachment point. Those would be a couple of examples or variables that can lead to the pivot.

You talked about how commercial auto had been volatile lately. When you see this pivot, is that something that probably persists depending on which variables are driving it? Is that something that is?

I would not read too deeply into one quarter, would be my comment.

Very good. Thank you.

Thanks for the question.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of David Motemaden with Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: David, good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Rob. Can you guys hear me?

Yep, we can. Thank you.

Okay. Great. Just had another follow-up just on the other liability line. You had mentioned there are some pockets of competition picking up there. I was wondering if you could elaborate. Is that more primary casualty? Is it more excess or umbrella? E&S, more large account, admitted? Any sort of color on that would be helpful.

There are certain exposures that we’ve examined, and given how we see the legal environment, we’ve adjusted our appetite. That comes through both in the exposure itself, as well as, in some cases, how we think about attachment point and certainly how we think about jurisdiction of exposure.

Got it. Okay. That sounds like across both primary GL and umbrella. It sounds like sort of a book-wide comment. Is that correct?

Correct. Those changes are well underway, and I don’t think that you should assume that this is necessarily a perfect indicator for what to expect going forward because a lot of that change has been affected.

Got it. Okay, that’s helpful. Maybe, just on workers’ comp, you sort of mentioned it a little bit in your prepared remarks, but pretty good growth this quarter, also this year to date as well. Could you remind me how much of the book is that you guys would say is specialty or high hazard versus how much of it is Main Street, just so I can sort of think about the moving pieces underneath that 9% growth this quarter?

What I’d like to do, if you don’t mind, David, is, A, I got to make sure that that’s detail that we provide. To the extent it is, if you don’t mind, Karen, I’ll follow up with you first thing tomorrow. I just don’t want to inadvertently color outside the lines.

Got it. Thank you.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mike Zaremski with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Good afternoon, Mike.

Hi, Jens. My first question is broad, focusing on the E&S market specifically. At least the data points we see are the deceleration, the increased competitiveness, and the growth in the E&S market. You mentioned it too in your prepared remarks, is coming more so from the pricing side of the growth equation, whereas policies in force are continuing to grow at a double-digit pace. I’m just curious, from your perspective, if to the extent pricing continues to moderate, would it be normal for the policy growth to also kind of start moving back into the primary market? Are you seeing any trends there? It feels like the policy growth is really what’s supporting ultimately a lot of the still healthy growth in E&S.

A couple of things there. One, I think when we talk about E&S, one needs to draw the distinction between the property lines and other, other being professional and certainly casualty. Long story short, a lot of the growth that we have seen over the past couple of years within E&S has been disproportionately driven by property. We’ve shared the observation in the past that when the property market gets hard, oftentimes it tends to spike, and then it comes back down at somewhat of a precipitous rate. As opposed to the liability market, when it starts to harden, it tends to oftentimes be a bit more of a gradual ascent, and it has more staying power. We, as an organization within the commercial lines, particularly specialty and more specifically E&S, are much more of a liability player than we are a property player.

Did we catch a bit of the property wave? Yeah. That having been said, the lion’s share of our E&S participation on a net basis happens to be the liability lines. When I think about this market unfolding, and I think we’ve expressed this view in the past, I think property has, barring the unforeseen event, and it would have to be very unforeseen, the bloom is off the rose. I think you’re seeing the retro market starting to erode, that will waterfall down into the property catastrophe market. Certainly, you’re going to see that have a continued pressure on E&S property. We, as an organization, will be impacted by that, but it will be far less than our peers because of our weighting towards the liability lines.

I think social inflation continues to be an issue, and you are going to see the opportunity within the E&S space become more and more weighted towards the liability lines, particularly casualty. I think professional is a bit of a mixed bag.

Okay. That’s helpful. My follow-up, Rob, is back to the earlier comments on the rating agency capital models and their sausage maker throwing out, you know, perhaps a 10-digit excess capital number. In my words, maybe we’ll make it a billion, divide that by our shareholders’ equity. That’s, you know, whatever, 10%. Is that 10% a much higher level than historically? Do we care about the rating agency capital model or do you manage two different models? Thanks.

The answer is we care about everything, but we don’t run the business for the rating agencies. We are conscious of those data points. The math you did, I’m not going to comment on whether that’s right or wrong. I just was trying to articulate the point that we have a lot of cushion, and we will figure out how to deal with the surplus and what we believe is the most sensible and economic way to return excess to the owners that it belongs to. I think if you look at our capital ratios over an extended period of time, there is no moment in time that I recall that we, from a ratio perspective, have had the amount of headroom that we have today.

Thank you.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Anderson with Jefferies. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hi, Andrew.

Good afternoon. Just looking at the investment portfolio, I think I heard you say 4.6% on the domestic yield book, so maybe some pressure on the Argentina side. I was wondering if you could just comment on that.

Yeah, Argentina’s come off a little bit from the peak. If you throw Argentina in there, it brings it up to 4.8%. What we were really trying to articulate is the lion’s share of the portfolio is, no surprise, domestic highly rated bonds, call it strong AA minus. Again, the duration is sitting at 2.9. Really, the highlight that we were trying to flag was if you compare 4.6% to 5%, there’s opportunity for improvement from here.

Okay. Great. Just looking at the expense ratio and then the corporate expense at the consolidated level, it seems like that number is lower than what the year to date or the first half was. I guess are we still pushing the expenses into?

The expense ratio is what?

I’m just looking at the expense ratio and then looking at the corporate expense, and it looks like that’s a little bit lower relative to our first half. I guess are you pushing some expenses into the segment, and where are we with that?

Rich is just not paying on the holding company anymore. Rich.

Rich Baio, Chief Financial Officer, W. R. Berkley Corporation: It’s a couple of things. It’s one, as you pointed out, we have had some of our startup operating units move out of our corporate expenses. They’ve gotten to scale and move into the underwriting expenses. The second item is with regards to in the first half of the year, you might remember we had also paid a special dividend. For accounting purposes, the vested but mandatorily deferred RSUs, the dividends on that wind up getting characterized as compensation expense. That’s the driver.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: As far as the first piece goes, those businesses that Rich referred to that, once they get to a certain maturity, we move them out. They are moved out, but they are dilutive to the expense ratio. Hopefully, they will continue to scale, and that will get some relief there.

Okay, thank you.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Josh Shanker with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

William R. Berkley, Executive Chairman, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Thank you.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hi, Josh. Good afternoon.

Good evening to you all.

Good evening.

William R. Berkley, Executive Chairman, W. R. Berkley Corporation: As I’m listening to the 2Q conference call commentaries from some brokers, from your peers, there was a commentary that the E&S property markets were very, very weak, and that contributed to their weakness. Stay tuned for 3Q, which is a low property quarter, everything’s rosy in the other lines of business, and we won’t see that same headwind. When you began your prepared remarks with the word self-sabotage, I got very, very concerned.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Okay, I got to upset you. You know.

William R. Berkley, Executive Chairman, W. R. Berkley Corporation: The self-sabotage sounds like an extreme thing. We’re all guilty of it from time to time, but hopefully in modest amounts. What is the takeaway, I guess, on pricing right now compared to three months ago? Is it along the same track, or did you see a real step down compared to three months ago?

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: What part of the market are we talking about, Josh? I just want to make sure I’m following.

William R. Berkley, Executive Chairman, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Your book relative to the marketplace. When you look at your book, is the

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Our overall book, I think, was essentially flat. Obviously, there are a lot of moving pieces. As far as the rate increase goes, I think we were at 7.6%, and we were, give or take, at a similar level last time. Did we get there exactly the same way? Absolutely not. Ultimately, I think that by and large, it’s in a similar place. The parts of the market that at this moment in time are under the greatest pressure, again, in our mind, you’re going to see it with property catastrophe, and that likely will not become particularly visible until 1/1. In the meantime, you certainly are seeing it in E&S property. While we are not a big player in that space, we’re certainly an observer and a modest participant. That’s how it looks to us. Again, why is our rate where it is?

Because we’re a modest participant in the part of the market that’s under the greatest pressure right now. It doesn’t mean we’re insulated completely, as suggested earlier, but we have, again, a pretty broad offering. We only have a toe in that pool.

William R. Berkley, Executive Chairman, W. R. Berkley Corporation: There are different ways to compete for business. In this environment, are you seeing carriers offer to increase commissions to distributors in order to get a larger share of their business?

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: I think that’s chapter two. We’re still in chapter one.

William R. Berkley, Executive Chairman, W. R. Berkley Corporation: We’re still in chapter one. Okay, that’s it for me.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Thank you. Thanks, Josh.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Meyer Shields with KBW.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: All right, Meyer, how are you?

I am well. How are you doing? I’m hoping I’m coming through.

Good, thanks.

Yep.

I can hear you. Thank you.

Great. A couple of quick questions. One, going back to the pivoting comment, you mentioned the legal environment. Has your overall view of casualty loss trends changed over the past three to six months?

No.

Okay. Perfect. I know the numbers are small, but I’m looking at most interest rates sort of declining in the quarter and an extending duration. I’m wondering, what is it that you’re seeing that makes now the right time for that duration extension?

I think just to frame it, we went from 2.8 to 2.9, and there’s a little bit of rounding in there. I would encourage you not to read too deeply into it. You know, obviously, we try to be opportunistic at any moment in time as far as putting the money out. That luxury of opportunism is not as comfortable as it was in the past as short-term rates are coming down. That will put more pressure on the organization to put money to work. Again, going from 2.8 to 2.9, I would caution you not to read too deeply into it. I’d like to go back to the first question for a moment, if I may. Our general view around loss cost trend in the environment is consistent.

Our view about particular niches within the marketplace, we are constantly examining and reexamining, and that can instruct our appetite at a more granular level. It’s not all on or all off.

Right. Understood. Thank you very much.

Sure. Thanks for the questions.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Bob Jian-Huang with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hello. Good evening.

Rich Baio, Chief Financial Officer, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hey.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Good evening. How are you guys?

Rich Baio, Chief Financial Officer, W. R. Berkley Corporation: We’re well. You’re well too?

Yeah, we’re doing well. This is just more of a follow-up. Previously, you talked about that because the varying lines of business are decoupling from a pricing perspective, you can essentially turn on and turn off growth. Can you maybe help us to understand how quickly you can turn that growth, say, the 4% or the 10% you were referring to earlier? Just maybe help us understand the mechanics of it. Is it just simply just saying, "Okay, we’re going to stop doing business here"? I’m trying to understand how you’re thinking about growth and managing the ability to go in and out of a market.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: I think ultimately, it’s really just about market conditions. We are consistently in the marketplace at a rate level with terms and conditions that we find to be appropriate. The market may move away from us. When we were talking about how we were pivoting with some of the other liability, it’s not necessarily that we just washed our hands of it, but we have a view on rate, we have a view on attachment, and we have a view on terms and conditions. Perhaps the market doesn’t find it palatable. Perhaps the market can find someone else who’s willing to do it. It’s not that we abandon a market. It’s that our appetite and how we’re willing to approach it can adjust based on the data and the information that we see and how we process that. That’s our ability to do that. We can do it very quickly.

Got it. No, that’s very helpful.

We rely on our colleagues with the expertise in various niches to decide how and when to pivot.

Okay. No, that’s very helpful. Thank you for that. Very last one. In terms of the market competition, you kind of talked about a decent amount of businesses in the smaller market side of it. Now, if we do go into a more challenging macroeconomic environment, are you perhaps concerned about the small and medium enterprise tend to be more exposed to macroeconomic conditions? Consequently, that could potentially play into your core market. Just curious how you think about that.

The answer is no. While we’re conscious of it, and certainly the health and well-being of our clients is a priority for us, if you use COVID as a data point, actually, we were able to navigate through that. We’re pleased with how our clients fared and our ability to continue to support them.

Okay. No, thank you. That’s very helpful. Thank you very much.

Thank you for the question. Have a good evening.

Nicole, Conference Operator: Your final question comes from the line of Wes Carmichael with Autonomous Research. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Good evening, Wes. Wes, are you there?

Nicole, Conference Operator: Wes, a reminder to kindly unmute yourself.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Hey, can you hear me? Yep, we can hear you. Thank you.

Great. Just one question, coming back, Rob, to your comments around property and property catastrophe reinsurance. You mentioned the rotting of the apple or at least impending rotting of the apple. I just wanted to get your view, curious your view, because it seems like there’s a lot of rhetoric that property is still rate adequate. Do you think we’re really there where things could start to turn at 1/1, or is that going to take more time?

I think it depends on what the feeding frenzy is like at 1/1. Everyone needs to assess how much margin they think is in the business. Obviously, rates went up dramatically. Attachment points shifted significantly, so on and so forth. While, nine months ago, we saw a softening, and I think the expectation is given the performance, it’s likely there’ll be further softening at 1/1 for this coming year. We’ll have to see how aggressive the market is. We have a view as to how much margin is in the business and where and at what point we shift our posture from an offensive one to a defensive one. That’s just the reality of a cyclical business.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you for the question.

Nicole, Conference Operator: The final question.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: All right, Nicole, was there anyone else, or have we covered it?

Nicole, Conference Operator: We’ve covered it. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Rob Berkley for closing remarks.

Rob Berkley, CEO, W. R. Berkley Corporation: Okay. Nicole, thank you very much for your assistance in hosting. Thank you all to the participants for your interest in the organization. As hopefully is quite evident, we had a very strong quarter. Equally, if not more importantly, the table is set for a good balance of the year, and in all likelihood, a very strong 2026. Thank you for dialing in, and we look forward to speaking with you in about 90 days. Bye-bye.

Nicole, Conference Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

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