Hamilton Insurance Group, Ltd. (HG) Q3 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Hamilton Insurance Group earnings conference call. As a reminder, this call is being webcast and will also be available for replay with links on the Hamilton Investor Relations website. I'd now 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. Welcome to Hamilton's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Before I speak about the quarter, I want to express how saddened we are at Hamilton and indeed in Bermuda about the loss of our colleague, Sergio Lottimore, who was our SVP and Head of Specialty Reinsurance at Hamilton Re. Our thoughts are with Sergio's family, his loved ones and all those affected by this tragedy. Many in the industry have reached out with their condolences and prayers, and we wanted to let you know how helpful that has been in the healing process. So thank you. Now on to business. I am again pleased to report a very strong quarter of earnings for Hamilton. We delivered positive results with net income of $81 million and operating income of $180 million, equal to an annualized return on average equity of 11% and an operating annualized return on average equity of 25%. Since our IPO, we have grown book value per share by 83%, an exceptional result by any measure. Our third quarter results reflected a 97.3% combined ratio, including catastrophe losses related to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, which Craig will speak to later, a 6.1% return from the Two Sigma Hamilton Fund and 17% growth in gross premiums written, driven primarily by our Specialty and Casualty classes. Despite the transitioning market and continued geopolitical tensions, Hamilton is still able to deliver solutions, grow and perform. This is a testament to our diversified platform, our team and our ability to manage the cycle as we navigate current dynamic market conditions. Next, I will share our takeaways from the various conferences we attended and our outlook as we get closer to the 1/1 reinsurance renewal season by class of business. Our discussions at Monte Carlo, CIAB, Baden-Baden and WSIA reinforced how strongly our value proposition in insurance and our key client strategy in reinsurance resonate with clients. Starting with reinsurance, our responsiveness, broad product offering, consistency and transparent and open dialogue has helped us earn a place at the table as well as desired signings with our targeted clients. We are proud of what we've accomplished and confident in how we are positioned going into 1/1. On the insurance side, long-standing relationships with our distribution partners and our diverse suite of products, both in Hamilton Global Specialty and Hamilton Select give us reason to look favorably at the future. For Hamilton Global Specialty, the longevity of our underwriting expertise and presence in core lines enables us to grow in profitable areas. For Hamilton Select, in addition to the momentum we are enjoying for our hard-to-place business, the opportunity to grow our footprint in the U.S. E&S market beyond this offering is particularly exciting as we look out ahead. Next, let's break it down by class of business. I'll start with property. As you will have heard, property cat rates have been under pressure. That said, we do not expect price reductions at January 1, 2027, to match those seen at January 1 last year. We are also of the view that rates will remain adequate and terms and conditions largely intact. Based on the conversations we have had to date, we also expect to see some increased demand from certain clients. On the insurance side, large account property D&F business has been under pressure. The smaller accounts are seeing less competition, so rates are holding up better there. Turning to casualty, rates in casualty classes are not uniformly keeping pace with loss cost trends. On the reinsurance side, we, therefore, continue to concentrate our support on clients with the strongest data, pricing, underwriting and claims culture. In insurance, we focus on the pockets that remain attractive. I will provide more detail on this when I go through our segments. Moving to Specialty. As you know, the class has experienced a significant amount of loss activity. Rates in affected areas are, therefore, expected to remain healthy. That said, many view Specialty business as an attractive diversifier, so we expect to see increased interest in this class. Moving on to the segments. Let's take a look at gross premiums written for the quarter for International and Bermuda. International gross premiums written grew to $456 million or 20% over the prior period. By platform, Hamilton Global Specialty gross premiums written were up 20%, driven by Specialty and Casualty classes, including accident and health, professional lines and marine hull with the latter including the benefit of increased rating for war risks in the Middle East. On the other hand, we continued to pull back in areas where pricing, terms and conditions did not meet our hurdles, for example, larger property D&F accounts. Instead, we are focusing on smaller property risks where, as I mentioned, there is less competition. Moving on to Hamilton Select. The business grew 22% this quarter, driven by our new property offering as well as excess casualty and small business, where we achieved attractive rates, terms and conditions. Since market conditions are not uniform across all lines, as we further penetrate the U.S. E&S space, we will be more ambitious in lines that present conditions for profitable growth and moderate our writings in lines where conditions are less favorable. While on the topic of Hamilton Select, as I said earlier, the business is enjoying positive momentum. The recent upgrade of its AM Best financial strength rating to A not only allowed our E&S carrier to grow its hard-to-place book of business, but it is also proving beneficial as we continue the rollout of Hamilton Select's expanded underwriting appetite. As I mentioned on our last call, this includes additional classes of business and lower middle market risks. In this context, Hamilton Select also continued to invest in proprietary technology, wholesale distribution relationships and underwriting talent. We are, therefore, excited about Hamilton Select's prospects and how it will contribute to the diversification and growth of our business. Lastly, in Bermuda, we grew to $363 million or 14% over the prior period. We continue to grow in both our casualty and specialty reinsurance classes. Our growth in casualty continues to be driven by growth on existing business with our key clients. Our growth in specialty reinsurance was driven by financial risks and aviation. On the flip side, we continued to pull back in large account property insurance where the metrics did not meet our return thresholds. Before I turn the call over to Craig, I want to close by reiterating our priorities. First and foremost, we will continue to prioritize underwriting profitability over top line growth even if this means walking away from business. Second, we will continue to be reliable partners for our key clients and distribution partners, which we believe will help enable growth in targeted areas where margins are attractive. And third, we will continue to strengthen our team with exceptional talent and business-enabling technology. Success in this phase of the market cycle requires disciplined, thoughtful and astute risk selection, deep enduring client and broker relationships and a team that is focused on the bottom line. We have all that as well as a portfolio that remains well positioned to deliver solid results and the ability to opportunistically use outwards reinsurance to support profitability. With that, I'll turn the call over to Craig to review the financial results in greater detail.

Thank you, Pina, and hello, everyone. Hamilton had another very strong quarter of results with net income of $81 million or $0.81 per diluted share and an annualized return on average equity of 11% in the third quarter of 2026. We had operating income of $180 million equal to $1.78 per diluted share, producing an annualized operating return on average equity of 25%. These figures compare to net income of $136 million or $1.32 per diluted share and annualized return on average equity of 21% operating income of $123 million or $1.20 per diluted share and an annualized operating return on average equity of 19% in the third quarter of 2025. As a reminder, Hamilton's operating income, which is a non-GAAP measure, adjusts net income for the net realized and unrealized results on our fixed income investment portfolio, but not for the results of the Two Sigma Hamilton Fund. Moving on to underwriting results. Hamilton continued to generate meaningful top line premium growth. For the first nine months of 2026, the group grew top line premium by 15% to $2.6 billion, up from $2.3 billion in the first nine months of last year. Hamilton had underwriting income of $16 million for the third quarter compared to underwriting income of $64 million in the third quarter last year. The group combined ratio was 97.3% compared to 87.8% in the third quarter of 2025. In the third quarter, our loss ratio increased to 62.0%, up 8.7 points from 53.3% in the prior period. This was largely due to catastrophe losses, specifically 8.0 prior year loss ratio points from the Ukraine conflict and 1.1 current year loss ratio points from the Middle East conflict. These losses were partially offset by favorable attritional prior year development of 4.6 points, primarily related to specialty lines. In the third quarter, we completed our regularly scheduled specialty reserve deep dive, which resulted in a modest net reserve charge of $12 million on certain specialty lines, comprised of $42 million of estimated specialty losses relating to the Ukraine conflict, partially offset by $30 million of favorable prior year reserve development on other specialty lines. Specific to the Ukraine conflict, the reserve adjustments resulted from additional information we received about reported losses, namely aviation reinsurance and retrocession. This revised loss estimate represents management's best estimate given what we know at this time. The total net reserve adjustment in these specialty lines represents only about 0.3% of our total net loss reserve position, which is a testament to the strength of our overall reserve position. The acquisition expense ratio increased 1.5 points to 25.5% compared to 24% in the third quarter last year due to our changing business mix. Other underwriting expenses continued to decline year-over-year. Next, I'll go through the third 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 nine months of 2026, International grew to $1.3 billion, up from $1.1 billion, an increase of 21%. This was primarily driven by growth in our specialty and casualty classes. In the third quarter, International had underwriting income of $9 million and a combined ratio of 97.1% compared to underwriting income of $12 million and a combined ratio of 95.4% in the third quarter last year. The increase in the combined ratio was primarily related to catastrophe losses of 3.6 points in the quarter, driven by the Middle East conflict for $7 million and the Ukraine conflict for $5 million, partially offset by lower prior year and current year attritional loss ratios and the lower expense ratio. The current year attritional loss ratio was 54.5%, down 0.8 points from the prior period. The prior year attritional loss ratio was a favorable 3.2 points, primarily due to favorable development in specialty lines as part of our specialty deep dive in the third quarter. 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 nine months of 2026, Bermuda grew to $1.3 billion, up from $1.2 billion, an increase of 10%. 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 lower reinstatement premiums and pressure on rates. In the third quarter, Bermuda had underwriting income of $7 million and a combined ratio of 97.7% compared to underwriting income of $52 million and a combined ratio of 80.7% in the third quarter last year. The increase in the combined ratio was driven by the loss ratio due to 15.1 points or $43 million of prior year catastrophe losses in the quarter related to the Ukraine conflict. Also an increase in the current year attritional loss ratio and the expense ratio, partially offset by the favorable prior year attritional loss ratio. The Bermuda current year attritional loss ratio increased 5.2 points to 60.8% in the third quarter due to one large loss, which impacted our specialty and property classes compared to 55.6% in the third quarter last year. The prior year attritional loss ratio was a favorable 6.1 points, primarily due to favorable development on specialty lines as part of our specialty deep dive this quarter. The Bermuda expense ratio increased by 0.7 points to 27.9% compared to 27.2% in the third quarter of 2025, driven by an increase in the acquisition expense ratio due to a change in business mix. This was partially offset by the other underwriting expense ratio due to the Bermuda substance-based tax credit and an increase in net premiums earned. Now turning to investment income. Total net investment income for the third quarter was $88 million compared to net investment income of $98 million in the third quarter of 2025. The fixed income portfolio, short-term investments and cash produced a loss of $56 million for the quarter compared to a gain of $43 million in the third quarter of 2025. As a reminder, this includes the realized and unrealized gains and losses that Hamilton reports through net income given the way we classify our fixed income investment portfolio as a trading portfolio. This is why you see the change in interest rates that impact our fixed income portfolio in our income statement. As of September 30, the key metrics for the fixed income portfolio were as follows, the average yield to maturity on this portfolio was 5.6% compared to 4.1% at year-end 2025. The duration was 3.8 years, and the new money yield was 5.1% on investments purchased in the third quarter. The new money yield and the yield to maturity on this portfolio will provide tailwinds for investment income. The Two Sigma Hamilton Fund produced a net return of $145 million or 6.1% for the third quarter of 2026 and a net return of $353 million or 16.3% on a year-to-date basis. The Two Sigma Hamilton Fund made up about 39% of our total investments plus cash investments at September 30, 2026. Now turning to capital management. Starting with share repurchases. During the third quarter of 2026, we've repurchased $3 million of shares, which brings our total repurchases for the year to $45 million. Our pace of repurchases was slower this quarter, largely due to prudent positioning during wind season. We still have $134 million remaining under our share repurchase authorization. Both the share repurchases and the special dividend, which we paid in March, reflect our ongoing commitment to active and effective capital management. We will continue to evaluate our capital position with the full year evaluation being the most important to our capital management plans. Next, I have some comments on our strong balance sheet. Total assets were $10.8 billion at September 30, 2026, up 13% from $9.6 billion at year-end 2025. Total investments in cash were $6.4 billion at September 30, and shareholders' equity for the group was $2.9 billion at the end of the third quarter. Our book value per share ended the quarter at $29.80. Our book value per share after adjusting for accumulated dividends was $31.80 at September 30, up 12% from year-end 2025. Thank you. And with that, we'll open up the call for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Elyse Greenspan with Wells Fargo.

My first question was on buyback. So I just wanted to go back to -- I know you mentioned that buybacks slowed in the quarter because of wind season. I just wanted to just talk to that a little bit more. And then just get a sense, did you guys return to buyback in October? Can you give us a sense of what you bought back in the Q4? And was there anything else blackouts or the Q3 was just essentially slow down during wind season and pick back up now in the fourth quarter?

Elyse, this is Craig. Thanks for the question. Yes, we bought back $3 million in the quarter. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we got another $2 million, so to date. What I would tell you is we also have repurchased about $45 million year-to-date. And if you remember, we also paid a $200 million dividend in the first quarter. We have the flexibility and the ability to do both this year, meaning buybacks and a special dividend. And together, as I mentioned, we've returned about 9% of our beginning of the year shareholders' equity so far this year. So we have a good track record of being good stewards of capital. And if we see strong business opportunities, we will deploy our capital there. For example, we've been able to grow our premium at double-digit levels for every year since 2017, including 17% this quarter and 15% on a year-to-date basis. But otherwise, we'll continue to return some of that excess capital to shareholders, and that will be in the form of buybacks, and we will also consider special dividends as well. But we were just a little bit more cautious during season.

And then my second question, I guess, is maybe kind of on the underlying loss ratio, right? So in reinsurance, can you quantify how big the large losses in the quarter -- sorry, that's in Bermuda, right? And then in international, right, you said was there any Middle East marine breach premiums that impacted the underlying loss ratio there in the quarter? I guess I'm just trying to get a sense of like one-offs in like both segments and -- is there any change? I know you guys have typically spoken about, right, like a mid-50s underlying loss ratio for the group and you've given color by international and Bermuda. Would there be any change to kind of run rate expectations there?

Elyse, I will definitely answer your question. The large loss that I referred to in Bermuda was the Ras Laffan loss, a large energy market loss with an industry loss estimate of $1.7 billion. Our group loss for that event was $17 million. We reserved that loss at a full limit. But your question was specifically about Bermuda. $13 million of the $17 million was in Bermuda. So that related to about 4.5 points. If you remove that from the attritional loss ratio that we posted or reported in Bermuda, we're right back down to a 56% loss ratio, which is what we had guided to for the Bermuda segment.

Elyse, just you also mentioned Middle East breach premium. So just I'll add to that. We do write several lines relevant to the exposures in the Middle East, War & Terr, Marine Hull, Cargo. All of these lines have seen some healthy rate uplift given, of course, the ongoing nature of this conflict. This has contributed to some growth in the quarter, but it's not the majority of the growth in the quarter that we've had. While the rates are attractive for these lines, we are being very thoughtful in how much we are deploying, again, because of the ongoing nature of the conflict.

And so Craig, one last one. Does like kind of a mid-50s underlying loss ratio feel like the right level for the group at the moment as well?

Possibly.

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

I guess just dovetailing on that, I guess I know the answer, but the acquisition expense ratio trend as you kind of remix, should we be continuing to trend that? And as you just said, no change though to the kind of underlying overall company underlying loss ratio guidance, right?

Thanks, Mike. Yes. To be clear, yes, no change in the guidance that we had originally given earlier this year. As Elyse said, mid-50s, we gave guidance of 55% for the group, 54.5% for international and 56% for Bermuda. So no change in that guidance for this year. And as you mentioned, the acquisition expenses, that also changes with business mix as well. But even this quarter, I guess what you're really trying -- what you would really see as well is we had favorable loss reserve development on our specialty deep dive for $30 million of favorable development. So what you'll also see is profit commissions coming through as you would expect.

Got it. Okay. Maybe I'm moving to Hamilton Select's continued excellent growth. Some peers that play in the smaller E&S space have just talked about competition there continuing to increase on the margin as new entrants and existing players kind of add capacity there. Obviously, you guys are small in the scheme of things. But just curious as we kind of think about the glide path rate of growth in the future, are you seeing anything -- any competitive dynamic changes there quarter-over-quarter that are notable?

Sure, I'll take that. Yes, of course, the E&S space continues to be an attractive space in the market, but we feel that we've got our value proposition is very well understood. And given the strength of our underwriting bench and the addition of a new distribution head, we are playing a much bigger role with -- both in the hard-to-play space, but also as we roll out our expansion strategy. So we feel good about our prospects. And as a matter of fact, if I look at the submission intake that we're seeing, it's constantly going up, and we're servicing more and more of this business.

And just maybe sneak one last one in. Made a number of comments about casualty. You talked about in some instances, maybe rates not keeping up with trend. But overall, you guys are playing offense there. Are you -- the data you guys are seeing, are you seeing any kind of improvement in the pace of casualty loss cost trend or the slope maybe kind of flattening, anything notable there?

I'm going to speak to casualty insurance and reinsurance separately. So on the insurance side, the majority of our business on the insurance side is casualty and specialty classes. And there, on the casualty side, we take a very close look at trend and focus our attention on lines where we feel that the trend is -- and rates are still picking pace with trend. And we're backing away from lines that were it's not the case. For example, in Select, we stopped writing medical professional business due to persistent unacceptable pricing and terms. So we are going to continue to do that on the insurance side, focus on the lines where we're seeing attractive rating environment in terms and conditions. On the reinsurance side, I think it's really important to note that we really only started writing casualty reinsurance from the end of 2022. So we have a lot of -- we have limited involvement to prior years that have proven to be a little bit of a problem for others. We started leaning in when others with that poor experience were backing away when rates were going up and with the benefit of our AM Best upgrade. We did not take all comers that came our way for casualty reinsurance. We concentrated our capacity on key clients with whom we have a broad trading relationship across multiple lines, and we took very small shares of their large programs. While we enjoyed some nice targeted growth up to now in the casualty reinsurance lines, I think on a go-forward basis, you're going to see a much more tempered growth in Casualty Re. It will just be like on the margin, an uptick in our smaller shares on these targeted clients. But you should rest assured that we're being very careful in monitoring this class overall in insurance and reinsurance.

Your next question comes from the line of Tommy McJoynt with KBW.

The business mix change has been pretty pronounced when you look at the year-to-date growth trends in casualty and specialty versus the contraction in property. And you spent a little time earlier talking about the impacts on the attritional loss ratio and higher acquisition expense ratio. But what about the impact on the lower cat ratio? Do you guys have an early indication for where you think we should be thinking about the cat ratio next year given the mix shift change?

Well, Tommy, thanks for the question. We continue to write property catastrophe business. It's just less pronounced as the overall mix of business has changed. But essentially, we have a cat loss ratio of roughly 6% to 7% in our plan for the year.

And then when we look at the year-to-date results and the Two Sigma Hamilton Fund, really strong returns there. Can you remind me, do the outsized returns that you guys have in that portfolio stay with Two Sigma? Or is there an opportunity for you guys to pull out capital and do something else with it, whether it be return to shareholders in a onetime way or invest organically into the new business?

Yes, Tommy, for Two Sigma, we have an investment management agreement with them where we can take funds out should we want to or need to take funds out of the fund right now. Those funds have been returning pretty good returns for us, those excess returns. I think you heard me say in my prepared remarks that we had a 6.1% return in the quarter and a 16.3% year-to-date. The fund itself has historically outperformed in a volatile market, and that's the case this year as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Heimermann with Citi.

A couple of questions. First one was just with respect to Hamilton Select and growing wholesale relationships as part of the strategic plan there. I'm curious how technology and just AI evolution is changing what wholesale partners might be looking for in a carrier partner and how you feel like you fit in this changing landscape?

Sure. Thanks for that question. I'll take that. I think you're right. The things that are most important to our wholesale broking partners are ease of doing business and responsiveness, and we are basically delivering on both fronts. On the first side, and it's something I mentioned in the past, we have a house developed AI-assisted intake and smart queue technology. What this does is basically inject the information, get it to the top of the underwriters' queue and float those risks to the top of the queue with brokers and on risk that we've had the best chance of success, so we can respond very quickly to those brokers, and that is being very well received. In addition, we're advancing digital connectivity with these brokers. That means a very ease of transmission of business back and forth and communications. And as we continue to do that, we're enhancing our underwriting platform. So we're working very strong in select on our technology investments to make sure that we are servicing these wholesale brokers as they deserve to be served.

How do you feel like your capabilities stack up relative to maybe the incumbent landscape?

We feel very strongly about what we've built and what we've delivered. And quite frankly, what we're hearing from brokers is exactly that. The turnaround time that we're giving to them, the ease of doing business with them, that is a very strong feedback that we're getting from the broker community. So we feel we're neck and neck, if not in certain instances, above -- ahead of the pack.

Craig, I'm just curious, as we -- given obviously, the last quarter, the interest rate environment changed pretty dramatically across the yield curve. Curious whether or not -- well, I guess I just love your thoughts on how to think about any potential ceiling in your asset duration just from a risk management ALM perspective?

Thanks for the question, Matt. So I would say it's really more about matching the asset and the liability durations. And so as our book changes and our business mix changes, we have some longer tail lines. That's the reason that you've seen our asset duration tick up a little bit. We're now at 3.8 years. But that's the whole goal is to try to make sure that you're matching and maybe even staying on the lower end. But right now, that's where we are. We're slightly below where our liability duration is, keep it that way as well.

I guess that's helpful in terms of explaining kind of where we are relative to what's happening in the liability portfolio. I guess -- and there's -- so there's no tactical kind of increase in the duration yet. What would you need to see for that to potentially happen?

Well, we -- again, we continue to monitor where our liabilities and our reserves are to determine where we think the right appropriate asset duration is for the portfolio. You may have heard me say in our prepared remarks, we're now at yield to maturity in that portfolio of 5.6%. Our new money yield is now over 5% just for the fixed income portfolio, not for an alternative investment portfolio. And those will be tailwinds for us and this industry as we move forward.

And then the last one I just had was -- just on Ukraine, it's been the gift that the aviation loss has been the gift that keeps on giving to the industry. I'm curious whether or not -- is there any color you can give in terms of just like the limits that are left exposed within the company from your perspective? Or are the trees just so varied and that that's not a relevant way to think about any lingering risk on that estimate?

No. What I would say, Matt, is when we took a look at this during our deep dive, we looked at all exposures in full, meaning we looked at war on land. We looked at political risk. We looked at marine. We looked at trade credit and we looked at aviation. And yes, the movement was driven by the aviation reinsurance and retro. Certainly, that's the part which has the most uncertainty. And it's also the part where we have the longest reporting lag time. And then on the retro side, it's even a further lag from there. So that's what we took a look at this quarter. I don't think it's appropriate to talk about overall limits and things like that. What I think is probably more appropriate to talk about is that after looking at the full list of all those exposures, we put up what we think is management's best estimate for the information that we have at this point in time.

Your next question comes from the line of Bob Huang with Morgan Stanley.

Just want to follow up on that, the business mix part also the asset duration part. So is it fair -- I know you kind of talked about it. Is it fair to say that there is a business mix shift going on at the moment, given where property pricing is, given all the commentaries you've made thus far? And then is that shift going to maybe like change the way you're thinking about asset and liability duration going forward? I think you answered it, sorry, but you can just give a little bit more color on that.

Bob, to answer your question, yes, there is a shift going on. We have changed our business mix over the past couple of years to be in Bermuda Segment. We're writing more specialty and more casualty and less property for sure. And on the international side, you're seeing that we wrote more specialty business and also less property business. So the duration of our liabilities will also change over time as well. So that's the reason that you've seen the asset duration change over time as well. Before we used to be at about 3.1 years, 3.2 years, we're now at about 3.8 years for asset duration.

So in that case, is it then fair to say that as the business shift is happening, like even if your loss ratio could potentially be higher. But the reality is that you are likely to invest in higher duration assets. So consequently, the total return profile of these businesses are not actually lower. So even if loss ratio were to incrementally inch higher, your overall ROE is actually accretive. Is that the right way to think about it as this business mix shift is happening?

I think that is a good way to look at this because we are writing where we get the best risk-adjusted returns on the business, and that's where we want to allocate our capital. We lean in when it's the time to lean in. For example, we leaned in on property when that market was strong. And now we're leaning out on the property when we don't see where there's pressure on rates.

And apologies, if I can just squeeze one last one in, is that I might have missed this, but like I know that you only bought back about $3 million worth of stock, but is there a share count on that or no?

I don't have a share count off the top of my head, about 70,000 shares, somewhere in that range.

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Scott with Barclays.

As I was listening to the comments you're making about 1/1 and potentially being a little bit better than '26. Can you just talk about what's giving you optimism? I think you've been one of the only companies that's been willing to like sort of express that view relative to last year. And I just want to understand the underlying drivers of that.

I'll take that one. I don't think we're the only company expressing this view. I think that others of our larger peers are also of the view that we're going to see some pressure on 1/1 given the light cat year that we've had this year, but that we don't expect pricing to diminish as much as it did in the past renewal. Part of the reason for that is that the market -- the traditional market is acting rather quite disciplined and for some time has been acting disciplined. We also would note again that we believe that terms, conditions and retention levels and attachment points will likely remain intact. So while pricing is coming down, we still think it will be adequate. There'll just be less premium out there. So that's on the property side. On the casualty side of business Casualty Re, we're just going to focus on those key clients with strong underwriting and claims and rating capabilities, the ones that keep a significant net retention so that they also have skin in the game. We think that commissions there will remain largely flat. On the Specialty Re side, if I look out to 1/1, there's a number of lines of business in specialty, and it's been pretty attractive class with some attractive profitability, performed well. But at the same time, we've seen a number of losses in the recent past. So that should drive rates up in the affected classes. Having said that, as I said, I think in the script, is that there's a lot of interest in specialty as a diversifier. But all in all, as we look out to 1/1, the value proposition that we bring to our clients, to the market, that clarity of appetite, that responsiveness and especially for our key clients, that broad offering, we still think there's a market out here that -- where we can still make money.

And I guess just in the context of the environment you're expecting, any way to help us think through what you could achieve in terms of deployment and growth?

Craig, do you want to start with that, and then I'll fill in some.

Sure. Alex, we still expect to have low double-digit growth in premium for the full year. As a reminder, we've had double-digit premium growth each and every year since 2017. We understand that we started from a lower base compared to some of our peers. But at the end of the day, we've established an underwriting culture that will be reflected over time as we consider where and when to grow our book at the best risk-adjusted returns, as I said, and we're going to allocate capital appropriately. But this is not a game of top line growth. It's really about bottom line profit.

Yes. And I just pop into that. So again, we won't be seeing as much growth. I think we messaged to you this year would not be like the past. But at the same time, as we look out ahead, we do see still some continued pockets of growth that are attractive. On the reinsurance side, I think there, our key client strategy that's resonating so well, that ability to be more meaningful to a client across multiple classes. And then with that, to be able to inch up your shares over time, that is one area on reinsurance where we see prospects in the future. On our Hamilton Global Specialty platform, we have a track record of introducing some new lines. We just did one recently on the high net worth side, so we see some opportunity there. And particularly as we look at Hamilton Select with the continued rollout of its expansion strategy and the benefit of the technology that we're developing in-house and how that technology is performing, there, I think in percentage terms where you're going to see the most growth. But that will be targeted to lines where we see attractive risk-adjusted returns.

Your last question comes from the line of Matt Carletti with Citizens Bank.

Craig, I just wanted to circle back to the Ukraine aviation, if I could. Maybe a different angle, just looking to kind of understand it a little better. The charge took in the quarter, is it more of the reporting lag related to kind of RE and retro maybe related to some of the less claims that feel a little more developed or finalized and it's working through the system? Or is it more like new information? There was some actions, some court action on the operator side even during Q3 that came to light. Any color would be helpful.

Thanks, Matt. Yes, there was a high court ruling last year, and just that ruling clarified that the liability would be on war risk policies, not all risk policies with respect to aviation. Until recently, we had only seen few actual reported claims since this ruling. And you have to remember that we write aviation reinsurance and retro. We don't write aviation insurance. So the information is reported on a lag to reinsurers and even a further lag to the retro market. The information flow that comes through the chain gets constrained a little bit because of confidentiality agreements and NDAs and other settlements. Essentially, at the beginning of this year, we still had over 70% of our original loss estimate as IBNR. And this event was viewed a little bit more closely this quarter because it was our aviation lines that fell into our specialty reserve deep dive. But that's the reason that we had to take into account this additional information and extrapolate it across our portfolio.

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Pina Albo for closing remarks.

Thank you, everybody, for joining us today and also for your questions. Again, we delivered a very strong quarter again, and we're positioned well for the future. We look forward to speaking to you with our next quarter results. Thank you.

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