Jay S. Benet
Analyst · Keith Walsh with Citi
Thanks, Jay. Looking beyond cat losses, I would characterize our second quarter results as strong. As Jay already indicated, underlying underwriting results showed margin improvement in each segment, including expanding margins in Business Insurance, and we continue to see our reserves develop favorably. As for investment results, non-fixed income investment returns were strong this quarter, driven by private equities in real estate, while fixed income investment returns were in line with our expectations, given the low interest rate environment. Other items to note: First, we reduced our debt-to-capital ratio in the quarter as we used holding company cash to repay $250 million of maturing debt. The debt-to-total capital ratio now stands at 22.3%, down from 23.1% at the beginning of the quarter. Second, we modified our cat coverage by modestly reducing our General Cat Treaty and increasing our Northeast coverage. Effective July 1, maximum recovery under our Gen Cat Treaty was reduced to $400 million from $525 million and the attachment point was increased to $1.5 billion. Also effective July 1, we renewed our $600 million Northeast Gen Cat Treaty with the same $2.25 billion attachment point as in the prior-year. And finally, effective June 6, we entered into a 3-year reinsurance agreement with Long Point Re III, a newly formed entity that issued $250 million of cat bonds, providing us with Northeast hurricane coverage on specified lines of business, which is subject to a $2 billion retention. After which, we can recover 50% of covered losses up to $250 million. All of this was accomplished at a cost that was effectively the same as in the prior year. For your convenience, we've shown the structure of our cat coverage on Page 21 of the webcast and a complete description is included on our second quarter 10-Q, which we filed earlier today. And finally, all of our financial strength indicators remain in excellent shape. Given seasonal cash flow patterns and recent cat losses, second quarter operating cash flows remain strong at $451 million, a holding company liquidity of $1.98 billion and all of our capital ratios were at or better than their targeted levels at the end of the quarter. Net unrealized investment gains, which ended the quarter at $4.57 billion before tax, increased by over $200 million in the quarter, and book value per share rose to $64.90, 4% higher than the beginning of the year and 9% higher than a year ago. And as always, we remain fully committed to identifying and returning excess capital to our shareholders. During the quarter, we returned a little over $530 million to our shareholders, with common stock repurchases of $350 million and dividends of $181 million. Brian is now going to talk about our underwriting results.