Good morning or good afternoon, and welcome to the Hiscox Ltd Q1 interim management statement. My name is Adam, and I'll be your operator for today. If you'd like to ask a question at the Q&A portion of today's call, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. I will now hand the floor over to Chief Financial Officer, Paul Cooper, to begin. Paul, please go ahead when you are ready.
Great. Thank you and good morning, everyone. I'm Paul Cooper, the Hiscox Group CFO. Thank you for joining our Q1 trading update. While it's the first time that we're reporting our numbers under the new IFRS 17 standard, the structure of our disclosures has not changed. The key areas I'm going to touch on today are growth, loss experience, and investment result. After this, I'll hand over to the call moderator who will open the call for Q&A. Starting with growth. As we told you at our December IFRS 17 teach-in, under the new standard, we have elected to report top-line growth using insurance contract written premiums, or ICWP, as an alternative performance measure. This is not a big change from IFRS 4, as the metric is similar to GWP, with adjustments relating primarily to reinstatement premiums and non-claim dependent commissions.
I'm pleased to report that Q1 for the Group delivered ICWP growth of 7.4% in constant currency, underpinned by an attractive rate environment across all three business segments. Given the favorable rate and underwriting conditions in our big ticket business, we increased our natural catastrophe bet and have deployed organic capital to make the most of the opportunity. Let me cover this first. Hiscox Re & ILS delivered an excellent net insurance contract written premium, or NICWP growth, of 37.6%. We deployed additional organically generated capital as the market hardened materially in the lead up to the January 2023 renewal season, with risk-adjusted rate increases of 45% in property and 26% in specialty. Overall, in Q1, the business achieved an average risk-adjusted rate increase of 41%. Since 2017 rates are up 116%.
At the April renewals, Hiscox Re & ILS took the benefit of the rate increases of some 20% without material change to exposure given our already attractive market share in Japan. As flagged previously, we expect lower ICWP growth, which was more muted at just over 5%. This is mainly due to the market-wide subdued ILS capital appetite and our own ILS fund also saw net outflows of $148 million in the quarter. Hiscox ILS team are actively engaging with investors, so we're ready when demand returns. Looking ahead at June and July renewals, we will assess opportunities on their own merit and will deploy capital in a disciplined manner if favorable conditions persist and with great focus on maintaining the high quality of our book.
I'm equally pleased about growth in our London Market division, where ICWP was up 8.6%, underpinned by the attractive and improving underwriting environment and double-digit top-line growth in major property, marine, and terrorism books. Risk-adjusted rate was up 10% on average in Q1, and cumulatively up 86% since 2017. The hard reinsurance market is driving improving momentum in property, with rates in household and major property up in excess of 20%. Net growth in Q1 is very strong, with NICWP up 21.6%, underpinned by better than expected growth in marine, energy, and specialty, where we retain more on our own balance sheet. With April and June renewals being traditionally busy for property lines of business, the outlook for the first half is positive. It's worth mentioning that rates are softening in casualty lines, particularly in D&O.
While we're pleased with the current momentum in our London Market business, we will maintain underwriting discipline, growing selectively where we see compelling opportunity. Turning to Retail. Adjusting to the impact of FX movements that we have little or no control over, we expect growth to continue to trend towards the middle of the 5%-15% range, and the first quarter represents solid progress, showing improvement from 5.1% at the full year 2022 to 6.5% in Q1, both in constant currency. Our commercial lines business grew 7.8% in constant currency. We continue to push forward with technology initiatives across all three territories and are pleased with how things are progressing. In the U.S., the new platform rollout is now principally complete.
Directed business has been live since June last year and is now embedded. Partnerships is making good progress towards increased usage by partners and agents. In Europe, the rollout of the core technology platform is on track. In the U.K., the launch of our eTrade extranet is receiving positive feedback from brokers. Looking at growth through the market lens, Europe continues strong growth with ICWP up 13% in constant currency, with strong momentum in all five markets. In the U.K., the improving underlying growth is masked as a result of the business reducing exposure to some delegated authority partnerships. The normal course correction to drive profitability. This action has dampened growth by 3.5 percentage points in the first quarter.
It will have a reducing impact as the year progresses and the underlying momentum in the business begins to drive headline growth. In USDPD, accelerating growth in the direct business was partially offset by the expected slower momentum in partnerships as our new technology is being embedded. As a result, ICWP grew 6.8% at the lower end of the 5%-15% range, as previously guided. The sustained positive momentum in the direct business reinforces our confidence in the outlook for the rest of the USDPD business. The combination of continued acceleration in the digital direct business and improving momentum in digital partnerships is expected to drive USDPD growth towards the middle of the 5%-15% range in 2023. Moving on to loss experience.
Despite a number of natural catastrophes such as earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, convective storms in the US Midwest, and floods and cyclones in New Zealand, the total net loss reserved for these events, as well as the non-natural cat losses for the group, are in line with our expectations. Just over a year on from the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, our estimated exposure remains unchanged at $48 million, with the majority of the loss estimates still IBNR. Our current pricing and reserving assumptions incorporate expected inflation, which is a multiple of experience seen in the book historically. The increased premiums being collected through rate and indexation are keeping pace with our view of expected inflation. Finally, I would like to make a couple of comments on the investment result.
I'm pleased to see that the unrealized losses in 2022 are now unwinding as our bond portfolios mature. This means we saw an investment result of $98.1 million in the first quarter, compared to a loss of $119.4 million a year ago. At the same time, we're achieving an investment yield of 5.1%, a significant improvement on 2.4% only 12 months ago. While the first quarter saw significant market turbulence, principally as a result of turmoil in the banking sector, I'm pleased with the fact that our investment portfolio saw no material deterioration. In summary, the first quarter saw us deliver against our promises.
Re & ILS and London Market continue to thrive in very favorable market conditions, growing top line and materially increasing net retained premium as we deploy our own capital to make the most of the opportunity. For our retail businesses, growth momentum in the U.K. and U.S. is accelerating in line with expectations. Europe continues to deliver strong double-digit increases. Loss experience is within our expectation. Our pricing is keeping pace with inflation. The group remains well capitalized on both a regulatory and ratings basis, with continued strong capital generation and high levels of liquidity. We will deploy capital where we see attractive growth opportunities into each of the business units in line with our strategy. All this, in combination with the improved investment result, means the outlook is positive. I will now hand over to the operator to open the floor for Q&A.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question today, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your headset is fully plugged in and unmuted locally. That's star followed by one to ask a question. Our first question today comes from Will Hardcastle at UBS. Will, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking the call. First question. I guess, can you just walk us through some of the growth and net premium growth dynamics, please? I see there's the 22% premium growth in London Market, well in excess of the headline 9% gross growth. How do you expect this, the gap or the relationship of these to develop through the year? Just following up, I guess within US retail, it appears that the non-USDPD growth is below that of the headline rate increase. What's the driver of this, and how should we expect this to develop or impact profitability? Moving away from premiums, you mentioned that June and July renewals have every potential to be extremely attractive. Can you talk us through where you see some of the greatest opportunity to arise at this stage?
Is it just in the reinsurance division, or could some of this come through London Market and DNF type lines? I guess it's just a question about your thinking on exposure there. Will it likely be April, similar to your April renewals, where you moved up the layers or not? Thanks.
Great. Thanks, Will. Talking about the growth to net, first of all, I think it's important to note, and what we've said is, you know, the hard markets that we're experiencing are very favorable, particularly in Re & ILS, and to some degree, certainly in property in London Market, and also we've seen good conditions in marine and energy. What that means, if I take London Market first, we've seen top line growth of 8.6%, as you said. The net written is actually very strong at 21%. Really the factor of that is two things. One is property. We're seeing good rates in London Market in excess of 20%, and we have taken that.
For marine and energy, the other aspect that plays out is that actually we're seeing double-digit growth in marine and energy, but on a net basis, actually we have less quota share reinsurance, and therefore the growth for marine and energy is more pronounced. You can sort of, looking forward for London Market, certainly the opportunity within property remains very attractive, I would say.Turning to US Retail, this is very much, you know, in line with what we've said at the year-end and in line with guidance. We've got nearly 600,000 customers in the US Retail space. As a reminder, we refocused the US Retail traded business at the first half of last year away from those clients that have larger revenues.
It's very much a focus of the underwriters in the field in the US now to get on the front foot and grow that business. They have done that with the 1.7% growth in Q1. For the US DPD business, it is very much a continuation of what we said at the year-end. We're very pleased with the progress of the direct-to-commercial business, the US DPD. We're seeing very strong new business growth. As a reminder, we put that business on the new platform in June of last year, very much it is driving sort of business as usual growth. All of the signs are very positive from the way that the system is behaving in terms of conversion, in terms of the amount of transactions that are completed online and the outlook for that growth.
In terms of the partnerships business, that is very much now firmly in the embedded stage. What we are seeing is we have taken on, since the start of the year now, 17 new partnerships. That's after pausing onboarding any new partners for 2 years. We're in excess of 91% of new businesses on the of partnerships, is on the new platform. You know, very much that trajectory you'll see is after the the sort of guidance that we set up towards the lower end of the 5%-15% range of US DPD. At 6.8%, we expect that to trend towards the middle of the 5%-15% range for the full year, absolutely in line with guidance. You mentioned profitability.
Again, just as a, you know, we've said that the retail business will, we expect to perform within the 90%-95% range. That obviously remains unchanged. If I look forward for the Re & ILS book, just to comment on that, we're very pleased with the net growth of 37%. You know, again, it's important to bear in mind that we have a hybrid model for our Re & ILS business where we can write on our own balance sheet or write on and using others' capital, either through ILS funds or quota share. It just so happens, and you'll be aware of this market dynamic, that at the moment we're not seeing any meaningful influx of alternative capital come back into the Re & ILS space.
The consequence of that, you see the top line for us a bit more muted, but certainly on the net basis we are growing exposure. As per 1/1, we've deployed capital into that space, and we think the 37% growth on a net basis is very healthy, and the rating environment is very positive at 41%. If I look at 1/4, you'll recall that we have a good market share in Japan and we took rates of 20% at 1/4 and didn't grow exposure because we were comfortable with our position there. Looking ahead to 1/6 and 1/7, you know, the market environment remains attractive.
What I would say, though, is that we have a number of high-quality cedents, and what I would expect for sort of the 1/6, 1/7 renewals is that we would look to add premium with those high-quality cedents as opposed to add to the volume of those cedents in any meaningful way.
That's great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Andrew Ritchie from Autonomous. Andrew, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Good morning. A couple of questions on Retail, first of all. Could you just clarify, I'm a bit confused on UK Retail because you talk about commercial growth was 7%, the overall growth in constant currency was 1%. You talk about, I think, the delegated authority partnership ending. I'm assuming the shrinkage is in Retail or personal lines, I guess. Could you just clarify if that's the case? Because I thought we went through some reunderwriting on that last year. It sounds like there's another load of reunderwriting. It implies quite a lot of shrinkage if the commercial book, which is most of it, is growing at 7%. Just clarify what's going on there would be helpful.
A quick one on US retail pricing, which I think you put in the statement at +9%, which is actually an acceleration from last year, which was a bit surprising 'cause your US retail business doesn't have a lot of property in it, and the professional lines pricing is not doing a lot. Just, is that what's happening? Do you actually see an acceleration in US retail pricing? And the final question, it's a sort of just conceptual question. I think if we think about exposure, property cat exposure, and I'm thinking, by the way, across re and London Market. I think in aggregate, whilst you've grown in net, there still isn't a huge amount of sort of growth in exposure.
I mean, because obviously we have very strong rate increases in property, and there's also been some shifting in layers. Could you just clarify how we think about year-to-date exposure growth, thinking of both London Market and Re in cat? Thanks.
Yeah, sure. Okay. Let me, let me just, take each of those in hand. Dealing with U.K., the underlying momentum for the U.K. is strong and positive. You're right to highlight we're pleased with the 7% growth in commercial. APC actually has returned to growth as part of that, so that's a positive outcome. Just on delegated authority, the reason we called that out is it is a drag on the U.K. growth in the first quarter, but it is just part of normal course correction that we'd undertake. It's important to note that, you know, we'll be finished with that. Business is sort of outside of underwriting appetite.
It will be, you know, marginally accretive from a profit perspective, and you'll see growth return for the U.K. or strengthen from that momentum perspective into the second half of the year. The thing to add around... We continue to invest in growth for the U.K., so there's several dynamics to mention. One is that we are investing in underwriters in APC to grow that business further. The second is, you know, we've talked about it in the statement, but we're pleased with the deployment of further eTrade with brokers. We talked about it at year-end. We've got a significant number of brokers signed up to that, and the outlook is positive, although it will take time to obviously get some traction, as would be expected.
The last point, and I think this is true of the U.K., but I think it applies to the broader point about the retail business, is we continue to invest and grow the marketing spend to grow the business. That's taking two forms. One is the sort of direct marketing, so we'll continue to do that to grow volume. The other thing is we're investing in the brand again. You know, again, that will have a longer term benefit, certainly in terms of retention and attracting new business and growing marketing efficiency. I'd say that. Then just the U.S. retail perspective, that's really a function of the new system for DPD.
What we're seeing is, you know, we can just be much more flexible with the new system driving rate. There is some an element of sort of class specific growth. You're right, Andrew, we don't write any meaningful property in the US, but what I would say is cyber and allied health continue to drive the DPD GL rates. There's a bit of mix effect where we think we can, and have done, is taken rate, which contributes to that 9%. I think the sort of last point around the property cat exposure. I think we were very clear at the start of the year-end results. We have absolutely grown exposure.
You know, as a reminder, 1/1, you know, our 1/1 renewals, net written premium was up 49%. You know, the read across under IFRS 17 is that equivalent number is 37%. The two dynamics is we are absolutely growing exposure there and have done. The important point, and you've commented on it, is that we've also taken advantage of the hard market conditions. In that, what we've done is essentially. The dynamic that is playing out is cedents are having retentions or increasing their retentions. Also what we're doing is terms and conditions have tightened and we've moved up either layers or programs. What that essentially means is, you know, the premium dynamics change. Clearly, the rates remain very favorable across the programs.
What it'll mean in general is that we've moved away from the sort of attritional activity, which is more at the sort of working layers, lower levels. You can see that certainly, in the chart that we showed back at year-end, that shows our exposure growing, and that's reflective of our 1 in 100, 1 in 250, losses. The P&Ls are up, certainly a lot more, versus prior year. The sort of 1 in 5, 1 in 10-year trend line has remained pretty flat. You know, that's reflective of the conditions that I've just explained.
Okay, great. Thanks very much.
The next question is from Freya Kong from Bank of America. Freya, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, Paul. Thanks for taking my questions. Could you comment a little about the retention that you're seeing in the US retail business? Rates are up 9%, but overall growth was 4%. How competitive is the DPD marketplace in terms of pricing? Generally, how is the SME market holding up in the US, given broader concerns about the economy? Next question is, the risk-adjusted rates you're seeing in big ticket lines is very strong, 41% in Re & ILS, 10% in London Market. What's the earn through or incremental improvement we should expect to see in the combined ratios? Thanks.
Great. Thank you. So you know, the US SME market remains good and healthy, I'd say, from a growth perspective. Just as a reminder, you know, the way that we see it is, you know, the retail traded book, so the sort of more traditional market is, and remains competitive. We've got a market leading product set from a traded perspective. We feel that we can compete there. As I said, the two dynamics that will drive that growth further is one, the underwriters very much being on the front foot with growth, but also the sort of level of marketing that we're driving into the retail business in the U.S. in particular. On DPD, the long-term structural growth dynamics remain very compelling. You know, the
We've estimated there's something like $32 million customers out there. You know, as I said, you know, on a US DPD basis, we're in excess of $0.5 million. You get a sense of the market size that we can go after. You know, it remains fragmented, underserved, and there's a societal shift to buying insurance online. We think, you know, with the re-platforming, the technology advantage, the brand, and the underwriting expertise that we have, that we're very well positioned for growth. The longer term structural pro-growth prospects for the US DPD market. You know, guidance remains unchanged for that trending towards the middle of the 5%-15% range. With regards to retention and rate for the US, retention remains good and strong and healthy.
As I said, you know, we're able to, with the underwriting insight that we have, drive the rate that we've obtained. We're pleased with the US performance and the trajectory that that has. From a combined ratio, turning to the big ticket business, you're right. We're very pleased with the outcome for Q1. You're right. ReILS at 41%, London Market up at 10. Within that, sort of within the London Market, the property, certainly for household and major property, are up in excess of 20%. How does that translate? Well, you know, to give a guide, what we said is in a mean expected year, we'd expect, and we delivered on that for the last year, full year results. London Market are mid-80s combined.
That was the third consecutive year of being in the 80s. This is of course under IFRS 4. The ReILS was low 80s, 81%. With the rate increases, on a mean expected year, you can expect certainly margin increase to improve for London Market and, you know, somewhat more positive for ReILS, but healthy on both counts.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Darryl Tong from RBC. Darryl, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning, Paul. A few questions, please. The first one is just on large losses. I hear you say that it's within expectations in your budget, but could you maybe give the sense of the relative shares from the main events? Say, for example, was it highest from the earthquake and lowest from the U.S.? Second question is just on cyber. Could you maybe comment on the claims experience in the quarter on your own book and also maybe for the market? Thirdly, just going back to the mid-year renewals, could you maybe comment on how much appetite you have for US cats, and maybe Florida in particular? Thanks.
Yeah. Great. Thank you. You know, the key points about losses that we wanted to highlight is Q1 has been an active quarter for nat cat. You've seen earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. You've seen cyclones and floods in New Zealand. Also there has been convective storms in the US Midwest. What we are keen to point out is, you know, when you add all of that up, it's within expectations for Q1. Also from a non-natural cat loss perspective across the group, again, also within expectations. For cyber, I mean, it's interesting, we're not seeing any sort of meaningful uptick in cyber losses on our own book. I think generally for the market, it's been a reasonably benign couple of years, I would say, for cyber losses.
My understanding, you know, I think in sort of the press and market reports is that ransomware losses are picking up. But for the sort of Hiscox book, and we write across all three of our business units, so reinsurance, London Market, and retail, we've not seen any meaningful uptick in ransomware losses at Q1. For the mid-year outlook for the major renewals, so 1/6, 1/7. I'll just repeat the comment that I made. You know, the market conditions remain extremely favorable. We've got a number of high-quality cedents, and we'd be looking to grow premium with those high-quality cedents. We wouldn't be looking to add meaningfully to the number of cedents that we have across those renewal periods.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Kamran Hossain from JP Morgan. Kamran , your line is open. Please go ahead. Hi, Kamran , can you check you're not muted locally, please?
Hiya. morning. a couple of questions from me. The first one is just on actually, both in reinsurance... Hi, can you hear me?
Yeah, I can Kamran. Hi.
Can you hear me?
Yes, I heard reinsurer.
Can you hear me?
We appear to
Got it. Okay, cool. Okay, awesome. 2 questions. Okay. Based on reinsurance. The first one-
Kamran , we can't hear you. You faded out. I don't know, operator, if we can fix this. If not, go to a different question and come back to Kamran .
Kamran , if you can re-queue, we'll move on for now. Next question comes from-
Thank you.
Tryfonas Spyrou from Berenberg. Tryfonas , your line is now open.
Oh, hi. Hi, Paul. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first one is on the D&O. I think you began growing this book, I think in the second half of last year. Would you be able to give some color as to what the size of your D&O book now, and what is your appetite here goi ng forward? It feels like you're saying that some parts of this market are still attractive, despite rates coming off quite strongly in the last 2, 3 months. Any comments would be appreciated. The second one is on ILS and your AUM. I think they were down $0.1 billion during the quarter. Decided lower appetite from third-party capital being the key driver.
Would you be able to comment as to what the trading activity has been from Q1 to date? It looks like there was some pickup in activity there for the industry after March, given rates remain very attractive. I was wondering if you have any, if there's been any increase in appetite on your end as well, Q1?
Thank you. D&O, I have to say I'm pleased with this, that the underwriters have spent a lot of time developing that book into a high quality balanced portfolio for the D&O class. You said about absolute size. As a useful guide, we don't sort of quote on individual lines of business, but if you go to the year-end results and have a look at the casualty split, it's pretty meaningful element of that casualty split that we've disclosed in the year-end, to give you a sense of size. It's high quality. You're right. Rates were down 11%. I would point out that that book is well rated. Since 2017, the cumulative rate increases are now at 180%.
We're happy with where that book is. I think the outlook is more a case of taking sort of the foot off the accelerator, given where pricing has gone to. It's very much a question of maintain. I think what you can see sort of as an outlook for that business would be exposure to sort of would be flat to down for the rest of the year. I think from an ILS perspective, you know, I think, you know, I repeat my comments that I said earlier on. You know, the market remains, I think, in a state of flux with capital and third-party capital, you know, not coming in in any meaningful way. Of course, there's been some influx around cat bonds, which is a slightly different dynamic.
For sort of the key ILS funds, that are collateralized, what you're seeing is, you know, I think two dynamics play out. One is, that, you know, the third-party capital stroke ILS capital wants some proof points. They've had, you know, five years across the market of, cat activity. You know, the reminder, 2022 was another year of, in excess of $100 billion of insured losses. They want to see that, play out. I think that means that you've got to get round to the next set of results in March or April, for that set so to see how the cat season has played out and how that's reflected in, the various reinsurance markets results.
Of course, what that will mean is, you know, the meaningful renewal period of 1/1 would be sort of missed by that capital. Therefore, we remain positive about the market environment, given that general lack of capacity, both from the traditional market and the ILS market, into 2023 and 2024. I think that's one dynamic playing out. The other aspect, of course, is that risk-free rates have gone up. You know, the ILS capital or investors have, you know, now some meaningful other opportunities in other asset classes where they can get a decent return in the more traditional sort of investment markets. I think that dynamic continues. You know, what I would say is we remain very engaged with our with the ILS market.
As and when that capital chooses to come in, I think we're very well-positioned, given our underwriting ecosystem and our ability to match risk and originate risk and match that to capital. I think we're well positioned for the ILS market, given the optionality our Re & ILS platform provides.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from Kamran Hossain from JP Morgan. Kamran, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Okay. Hopefully you can hear me this time.
Yep.
Perfect. Okay. The first question or both questions on reinsurance. I guess just thinking about how the cats played out in Q1. When I think about, like, the nature of some of the losses within individual markets, clearly Turkey peak in that market, so you probably have some on the market does, but the convective storms will be secondary. How has your moving up the layers kind of affected maybe where the losses have hit you or not? Just interested in kind of, you know, views on that. I know it's only one quarter, but just interested in that. The second question, I think I'm gonna have another kind of go at the question that Freya asked on kind of how margins might improve. Clearly, you know, you low 80s reinsurance combined ratio.
Last year you had the second biggest nat cat of all time, or kind of there or thereabouts. Risk-adjusted rate of 41. you know, is it unreasonable to assume at some point that you get to the combined ratios you saw in reinsurance in, like, 2013-2015? You know, given the rate environment, given the terms and conditions, given the structures. Thanks.
Yeah. Yeah. Great. Look, I mean, I think, turning to the first question, you know, the point remains the same, Kamran, which is, you know, for the reinsurance market and what we're seeing for cedents is retentions are higher. You know, we've moved up the layers in general and have moved higher up towers and therefore further away from attritional activity. You can read into that, where you've got more attritional losses of the type you've mentioned, how that would play out from a profitability perspective. The second point, again, I think it's important to bear in mind, yes, it was a busy period in 2022, and we did deliver very pleasing combined ratios at the mid-80s and low 80s for London Market and Re & ILS.
We think that that was a real mean year for our book. You can read into that, you know, given the rates that we've taken both in property and London Market and the 41% you mentioned in Re & ILS, that, you know, we can see margin accretion on both of those books of business in a mean year. Returning back to the sort of early, you know, what did you say, 2013, 2014.
Yeah.
Of course, it's a difficult, it's a difficult read across because of, you know, A, the position of the book, but also the degree to which that was, you know, cat free or not. If there was cat activity, whether those losses were, you know, North American International or the nature of it. I think it's hard to make a read across. Obviously, if it's a, you know, benign year, then that accretes even further to sort of margin.
That's great. Thanks very much, Paul.
The next question comes from Puneet Pandya from Citi. Puneet, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. It's just one question for me. In the London Market business, does the anticipate negative growth in casualty produce an impediment to growth in lines such as property and specialty due to any diversification constraints?
None at all. I think the point to be aware of is we're a meaningful player in Lloyd's. We have a meaningful position. We have a very balanced portfolio that we've spent a lot of time developing across the business. We've always said we will grow selectively where the rating environment is strongest. At Q1 and indeed for 2022, we've done that. At the moment, the property classes are very attractive given the rates of +20 that I mentioned earlier. Marine and energy, you know, again, the outlook's positive. I think that growth will more than offset the sort of casualty. You know, based on our current outlook, we'll more than offset the what's happening around casualty.
Thank you.
The next question comes in from Faizan Lakhani from HSBC. Farzan, your line is open. Please go ahead. Hello, Farzan, can I check you're not muted locally?
Hi, can you hear me now?
Mm-hmm.
Hi there. Yes.
Hi.
Sorry, my first question is on the delegated authority book. I didn't really see a comment last year on that book. I just want to understand how long will that drag persist on that book on growth, and are there any other pockets where you'll probably be doing similar sort of work going forward? The second is on again, on retail. You mentioned that your renewal achieved double-digit growth. Does that mean that new business was sort of flagging and therefore competitiveness is significantly hampered this quarter? Maybe I misunderstood, but it appears the dynamics in broker look weaker than DPD. Should we think about brokers writing below the 5%-15% going forward? My final question is just any sort of commentary in terms of rates versus inflation. Are you achieving rates above inflation across your three portfolios? Thank you.
Let's take the last one first. In terms of inflation, again, you'll recall that we have performed an extensive exercise both at the first half of last year and the second half of 2022, and the monitoring remains extensive across the book for signs of inflation. We did increase, as you'll know, our expectations of inflation given, you know, the claims are a lagging indicator. you know, in some classes they were a multiple of the historical expectations. again, just as a reminder, the CPI numbers that you've seen, you know, put out by governments, et cetera, don't have a read across necessary into claims inflation.
It's interesting to note that the U.K. is suffering from high food inflation at the moment, and that doesn't have an obvious read across into claims. Taking that alongside, you know, the rates that we've been getting across the group actually, alongside the indexation that we have and some of the rates that are geared to inflationary factors being we rate on wages or we'll rate on turnover, that combination means that we are confident that we are pricing premium in line with or in excess of inflation.
Mm.
That's that question. If you, if you go back to the U.K. delegated authority, look, you know, what we would say is we're an underwriting shop very much focused on profitability. You should always expect a degree of course correction in any of the books. I think it's, you know, we're not the sort of beta play that just sort of grows without sort of focus on specific classes and specific niches of business. Really just going back to the delegated authority, this is just part of, you know, it's non-core, you know, it's part of our usual course correction. You will see. As I said, we called it out because it is a 3.5 points growth drag on the U.K. That will finish, Faizan, to your question, in the first half of this year.
The second half, you know, we anticipate that the growth will accelerate. The momentum, as I said, is good underlying in the U.K. both on the sort of commercial side of things and also with APC, and that's why we're investing in investing in underwriters on the APC side of things. I think your second point about retail. Yeah, we're very happy with the renewals. I think, you know, if I just go back to, you know, if you step back and look through the dynamics of the retail book, you know, the things that I would mention, it's important to note the U.K. we've talked about, you know, the outlook's strong.
If you look at the EU, you know, we've achieved double digits growth, and the signs are very positive in all five of our markets. For EU, this isn't sort of idiosyncratic growth in any one market. This is strong across all five. Then you turn to the US, and the US is nuanced because of what we told you both last year and into the year-end results this year, which is, you know, retail traded. It is very much about getting the underwriters back on the front foot. They are very engaged. They're moving from a dialogue with their brokers at the first half of last year, where it was really the narrative was around repositioning and saying no to the larger clients that had revenues over $100 million.
Now this is saying we are very much on the front foot for growth. The other aspect for DPD, as I said, without sort of going over all of the detail, is just, you know, the first quarter performance for DPD, 6.8%, is very much in terms of what we said we'd do, and the acceleration into the middle of that 5%-15% range continues. We will continue to, as I said, right across, the outlook for retail is positive, and that's why, you know, as a reminder, we grew our marketing spend in the region of 10%-15%... Sorry, 10%-20% last year. That trend and that investment in marketing will continue in 2023.
Sorry, just to clarify then, on broker, will you be growing at the midpoint of the 5%-15% going forward? 'Cause that's what I'm unclear of.
Do you mean that? Yeah. Well, it comes across to, you've got to look at the individual components of the book. We don't have guidance, we don't provide guidance by segment.
Right. Okay.
You've got the geographies and the trends that I've mentioned.
Great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Nick Johnson from Numis. Nick, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Hi, Paul. I've just got one question on retail growth. Just wondered how policy count is tracking because it looks like a lot of the premium growth is price and exposure indexing. There's a lot of noise in the numbers. Just wondering if you could talk a bit about what the underlying growth rate is in terms of policy count in the U.K., Europe and U.S. Just would be helpful to get a sense for the real growth in the re-retail business. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Nick. Retail customers are up. We now have more than one and a half million retail customers. We're pleased with that. You know, just to go back, building on the comments I made in the previous question. It is very much a case of continuing to invest in marketing to drive growth further. That 10%-20% will continue to drive customer numbers up.
The 1.5 million retail customers, what's the change sort of year-on-year on that?
We've not split that up, Nick. They're up-.
Okay.
You know, the volume is good.
Okay. That's great. Thanks a lot.
The next question comes from Anthony Yang from Goldman Sachs. Anthony, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Hi, Paul. Actually, just 3 short questions from me. Firstly is on cyber premiums. Maybe could you give us a big comment on the market dynamics in the cyber insurance given the new policy wordings on war in the London Market? The 2nd question is on the inflation load, that $55 million added. Can I ask how much of that is used year to date? The last question is, just on coming back to Hiscox Retail. Can I ask, is it reasonable to assume the net insurance contract premium growth rate is similar in magnitude to the growth written premium growth? Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, you know, there's modest amounts. I'll deal with the last question first. There's modest amounts of reinsurance on the retail. Directionally, you can take the growth dynamics being consistent for growth and net. You know, I think if you look at the inflation, you know, it was a precautionary best estimate. You know, I'd just revert back to what I said earlier around our approach to that. You know, at year end, we had the $55 million. We saw no reason to change that, and that was only sort of six, eight weeks ago when we made that announcement. You can take from that how good the $55 number. I would remind you that it is a precautionary best estimate that we did.
We aren't seeing any meaningful inflation in our in our claims coming through. In Cyber, it's important to note that we write Cyber on all three business units. You know, if I deal with Cyber reinsurance, capacity remains reasonably constrained. I would say the Cyber reinsurance market there, so as a whole, has tight capacity. We write Cyber in our retail books. We talked about that being an overall positive to the rate change that you're seeing across the book, particularly in the U.S. In terms of the London Market, you know, again, it's a modest amount in terms of the overall $1.7 billion controlled premium. The Cyber war exclusion with attribution that you've mentioned is a recent addition. It only came in at 1/4.
I think there's been a degree of noise and a lot of journalists have written about that dynamic. I think the market's sort of working through a solution for that. Overall, it's, you know, it's a modest amount of premium in terms of the overall London Market. We don't see a significant amount of adverse impact from that.
Thank you.
Our final question today comes from Abid Hussain from Panmure Gordon. Abid, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Oh, hello. Hi there. Thanks for taking my question. I think, I've only got one left, actually. Most of them been asked. It's a high level question really on the big ticket line items. The rate increases that you're seeing are decent, are very strong in fact. I'm just wondering what's holding you back from adding more volume on the gross level. I appreciate you are growing on the, on the net, basis. On the gross side, however, is there a sort of philosophy in terms of maintaining a balance across the segments, between the classes, or is it more capital driven, or both? Just any color around that, please.
Yeah. You said rates are very strong. We'd agree with you. We've signposted for where those lines of business are attractive. We've driven what I would say is very attractive rates. I think the important point is to focus much more on the net written premiums than the gross for the reasons I explained before. You know, you've got a different dynamic on marine and energy where there's double-digit top line growth. Net growth is higher because we're retaining more with less quota share reinsurance. Re & ILS, you know, the differential is very meaningful.
Thirty-seven percent up on a net basis versus the growth of 5% because of that interaction between, you know, our hybrid model of third party capital, versus writing much more on our own account. Capital has not been a problem, you know. Nearly 200% BFSR. You know, we've got, you know, the firepower to take, you know, to take rate and write exposure into this market. The strategy, as a reminder, is to make, you know, write a balanced portfolio, and that's indeed what we're doing. Both on the London Market business, where we've got a very diversified book. We will continue to take advantage. Not take advantage. I would say we will continue to grow in those lines of business where rates are attractive. It's, you know, in. Similarly, where they are less attractive, we'll be more measured.
Reinsurance at the moment, the outlook is strong, as I've said. We want to make sure that we maintain an overall balanced portfolio. Underpinning all of this is continue to drive the retail business in the middle of that 5%-15% range.
Good point. Thanks.
This concludes today's Q&A session. I'll now hand the call back over to CFO Paul Cooper. Any concluding remarks?
Well, none. Just thank you for participating, and thank you as always for your questions. Have a good day. Thank you.
This concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your lines.