Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I'm Tom MacKinnon here at BMO Capital Markets, and I cover insurance, asset managers, and diversified financials, and this afternoon, we're thrilled to have Definity's CEO, Rowan Saunders, joining us for a fireside chat. You all know the drill here. There's a series of Q&A I'll be having with Rowan, and if you've got any questions, feel free to submit them online. Good afternoon, Rowan, and thanks for joining us.
Hi, Tom. Thanks so much for having me.
Super. I want to start maybe just with, we'll go through the lines of business, but starting with personal auto, it's about a little over 40% of your net premiums earned here. Your top-line growth kind of remains upper single digit. It's probably been better historically than the markets. What's driving this better top-line growth? What is Definity bringing to the market that allows for this kind of growth?
Well, thanks for that, Tom. And look, I think that as we ended Q4, actually in all lines of business, with some really great momentum coming into 2025, I think auto's in a very similar position. When I think about the auto business, a couple of things come to mind. Firstly, the environment, which has been a little volatile in the last couple of years, has now stabilized, and it's encouraging to see the loss cost trend stable for a few quarters. And that's important because we like that environment, and it suits us with our models and our platform to grow. When you ask about our growth ahead of the marketplace, there's a couple of things that have been driving that. And the first one is rate. And so we've been in a market which has been pretty conducive to taking prices.
You will know that Definity is always early. We tend to be very proactive and lead the market on pricing. And so if you look at 2024 Q4, our rate was about 10%-11%. So that's pretty helpful in terms of driving revenue. So rate's been strong. In addition to that, we've been winning portfolios. And there's a number of reasons for that, but part of it is the platforms that we have. And I think when you think about the digital platforms and particularly the Vyne platform in the last little while, brokers, if you rate competitive and the market seems to have caught us up on pricing, then we're much easier to deal with. And I think that value proposition helps significantly.
So I think that's a couple of the big drivers of how we've been able to outperform on the top line, which is something that we've been trying to do. And I think as we go forward, we'll start to see probably more balance between rate and unit count growth this year and next.
So if 10%-12% rate hikes, is that what you're getting in 2024? Can you compare that to 2023 and kind of what you might be filing for in the first half of 2025?
Yeah, in 2023, we really started to move the prices up. I think the back half, 2022 and 2023, we were looking at, it varies again by province. I think for most provinces, with the exception of Alberta, where, as you'll recall, there was a cap in place, we've been getting double digits. That now is helpful, Tom, because our written rate and our earned rate has actually converged. We're getting double digit on an earned basis flowing through. I think when we think about 2025, we feel like we're really adequate. We like the portfolio, we like the quality. What that really means is that as we file for rates this year, they are likely to be upper single digit.
And the reason why I say that is because the loss cost trends, which are fairly stable now for a number of quarters, tend to be in that mid-single digit. For us to kind of hold our margin or slightly improve our margin in automobile, what we're looking for is a few more percent of rate than loss cost trends. It's likely to kind of settle in around the upper single digit rate filing. Even very recently, like the last rate filing in Ontario was 7%. I think that gives you an indication.
Great. Now you talk about mid-90s combined ratio target for this business. I remember maybe it was a year or two ago, you were talking about upper-90s. Now it's mid-90s. What's driving that lower? And what would be the biggest risk to your ability to get a mid-90s combined ratio target?
Yeah, I think we have improved guidance. And so overall, from a company level, from mid-90s, we've now guided to sub-90s, the sub-95, that is. And I think that auto is one of those catalysts. Over the last couple of years, you'll have to recall that we had our mature broker distribution business, and then we had Sonnet. And Sonnet was still in a loss-making mode. And so Sonnet was really the reason why we got it to mid to upper. So it was the contributor for the uppers. As that business is now in a different position and has moved from a loss-making to profit-making, that will be helpful to that upper guidance. And our broker business continues to perform well in and around the 95 or better zone. So you put that together, I think that's what led us to change that guidance.
Your question around what would be the risk to that? I mean, quite frankly, I see very low risk to that for a number of reasons, but partly it's we're comfortable with the broker business, how it's performing. We're comfortable that Sonnet is in a much better position. But also the rates that I mentioned earlier has now converged to earned. And so when you think about the impact in 2025, it's already largely set by the rates that we've taken last year that are earning into this year. And again, the written rates that have already been approved. So it's just for 2025, mostly bad working through the system.
Is there any issues with respect to bodily injury claims? Is there any pending court decisions that might drive up potential costs associated with that? How is the loss cost trends with respect to BI trended? And what makes you feel with that backdrop? Do you still feel that this is continuing to be a low risk in terms of your ability to hit your target here?
Yeah, no, I think it's low risk. And I think we have a reputation for being very prudent on our reserving. There's a lot of transformation happening in our claims department, which will simply just improve those kind of capabilities. In terms of your question around bodily injury, we have seen a bit of a tick up in inflation trend there. I mean, most of what we're watching is in Alberta. That's the area where it's most noticeable. And other than that, I think we would be saying it's in that mid-single digit range, which is not dissimilar from the APD the accident, the automobile physical damage side of things. So we've seen that. It looks pretty stable. Claims are settling as we've expected. And we've considered that, Tom, in how we pick our price points and rate filings that are flowing through.
You used to talk about theft as being elevated. Is that not as much of an issue right now? What's driving that? Just better awareness of consumer, better police awareness? Just what's your thoughts with respect to theft, which I think is not as the incidence of theft has gone down to some extent, if I'm wrong, correct me if I'm wrong there.
Yeah, no, I think you are right there, and I mean, I would say that there's good news, bad news. The good news is that the peak of theft claims seems to have happened, and it seems to be stable, and in fact, there's just a very recent industry report that's showing frequency is actually coming down. And we're seeing that in our portfolio as well. So it does seem like the incidence of theft has peaked and is starting to come down, but I would also call out that it's still at a fairly elevated level and well above the pre-pandemic level, so I think there's still a way to go before we can get the theft claims back to the level we expected it to run at on a long-term basis, and a number of things are driving.
I think there's a bunch of pricing actions that have been taking place. There have been high-risk vehicles identified and surcharges put in place. There is risk management activities. People are parking indoors when they can. There are tracking devices that have been put on. But I also think that it depends on the jurisdiction, but the law enforcement certainly has stepped up and been more proactive. And so we as an industry have been quite successful, I think, in raising the political attention. That is good news. And we do need a whole-of-society approach here. I mean, this is about drivers, and it's about government as well to get this back to the pre-pandemic levels, which will be good at reducing the cost of auto insurance. But for now, we think it has stabilized and will come down slightly.
How many points was theft on your loss ratio?
Well, it's moved a lot, but it kind of was in the couple of points, and then it went up two to three times that. So it'll come down just by virtue of how much rate we've applied to it. And on some of the high-risk vehicles, I mean, there's a CAD 1,500 surcharge. So the pricing will bring that rate down, the rate points down. But that's my point. I think it's better than it was a year ago, but still at least double what it was pre-pandemic.
Great. And then when we think about auto insurance, sometimes we think of it as being a bit political. We saw that to some extent in Alberta with rate caps. We've seen it years and years ago in Ontario with mandated rate reductions. So as investors in insurance companies, we always have to be kind of cognizant of the political pulse, if you will, with respect to personal auto. Where do we sit now with respect to your view on that?
You know, I must say the political risk is not something we're too concerned about. A couple of things inform us on that. The first one would be when you think about Definity, our portfolio, 70% of approximately it is in the province of Ontario. So, you know, we like this marketplace. We've got a good government. Even though we have an election coming up, it's not a political or an election issue. We have found that the regulator, FSRA, is very professional, follows actually very sound base rating indications. And so I think it's safe to say it looks good. The government has also been proactive in putting in some of them. They have affected and will continue to affect loss cost trends over the next couple of years. It's giving more choice to consumers. So I believe that will be helpful for maintaining the loss cost trends.
And then you correctly point out, Alberta was a bit of a surprise and a bit of an outlier for that government. As you know, the Sonnet business, we actually exited the marketplace where we had a rate cap lock with us, and we just couldn't see a path to profitability. We weren't the only insurance company to do that. I think the environment has been observed. I think we've seen the government, number one, move in a positive direction. They have decided to implement reforms, essentially moving away from a full tort system to a no-fault system, which I think will be helpful. That's going to take a little bit of time, but I think it's positive. And I think the government's also realized that it just didn't make sense to put a CPI-type cap on rates. And so they have themselves unwound that.
And now, as opposed to, I think it was a 3.7% CPI cap, that's up to 7.5% for good drivers. And they've allowed a 10% increase for all other drivers on new business. And so even that environment is, I think, a little bit better. But I also think it's been observed by other provinces that it really doesn't serve you well to interfere artificially in the market.
Yeah, thanks. I want to move then to personal property, just under 30% of the net premium earned. I think the guide is here for upper single-digit growth in top line here. Historically, again, you're doing better than the market in this regard. What is it that's driving that? Is it just better penetration in the broker market through Vyne, maybe Sonnet helping as you've rounded out that bundling aspect of it? Tell us what you think is your winning formula here for being able to have really good top-line growth in personal property.
Yeah, I think there's two drivers there. The first one, again, is rate. This is a firm marketplace. Because of the nat- environment, Nat-Cat environment, the last couple of years, we've been in a firm market. I actually think that market is getting firmer, so from firm to hard. That helps a lot when you could put significant price increases into your portfolio. And quite frankly, Tom, we could have grown much quicker than we have. And the reason that we haven't is that we've been really leaning into optimizing the portfolio with a view to avoiding being overexposed in what we define as high-Cat zone models. And so over the last 18 months, we've actually been reducing our exposure in certain targeted areas that we think have a high propensity for Nat-Cat events and writing new business in other more favorable areas.
And so, effectively churning the portfolio a bit. We do win portfolios. And I think that, again, goes back to a very similar comment I made on Vyne, just the ease of business for brokers to lift and shift portfolios. And so I think as we go forward, it's a combination of both. We will continue to get very strong price movement. We will increasingly get unit count growth. And we think that we'll return to more portfolio growth than we saw last year. Last year was really all about average written premiums going up and not unit count growth. And that's because the new business wins were really replaced by lapses in more cat-exposed business. And actually, I feel very good about that.
I'm very pleased with the team because if you think about our performance last year and a record Nat-Cat year, we really did outperform the industry on that Nat-Cat event with our Nat-Cat market share. We had about 50% of our Nat-Cat share of those cats.
What are the areas that you would be avoiding then if you're culling back some of that portfolio in certain areas? Is it Alberta to some extent, kind of more hailstorm activity there? I mean, the one thing about it is this is a pretty volatile market when it comes to cats. And you probably might pull out of some area and then you find out that you've doubled down in the, I don't know, in the eastern provinces, and then they got hit again. So yeah, just thoughts with respect to how your mix is changing by geography to be able to avoid what could potentially be higher cat losses.
Yeah, what I think we would say there is that firstly, there are some macro strategies that we've employed. And so if you take the province of Alberta, which has historically been one that is heavily exposed to Nat-Cat events, we are deliberately underweight there. So sometimes we'll take a position where if you look at the city of Calgary, southern Alberta, I mean, it's historically known for cat events. And so when you think about last summer, it really shouldn't be a surprise to anybody that was a major hail event and weather event. And so we were underweight there by design. We have accumulation management tools to reduce our exposure. We offer product design to ensure we get the right price and deflect certain business away from us. So there's a combination of strategy and underlying tactics.
And I think that's a good example of a province where we are underweight and we will remain underweight to it. As you said, it's not quite as simple as that because weather patterns are changing. And I think that what we've done is we've invested heavily in this modeling capabilities. And we look at a number of things, which include the propensity for claims, the serviceability. So how remote is it? How expensive will it be to replace a shingle? We look at topography, a number of, let's call them modeling inputs that I think help us be much more granular and therefore manage accumulation.
It's not that we don't have business in exposed zones, but when we look at our natural market share and we look down to a specific, very discrete block of homes or territory, we want to make sure that we don't have half the homes on the street. And so that's the kind of the accumulation management that we have in place. So I think there are definitely lots of areas to grow. For us, I think you can't just say, do we think climate change is going to happen and therefore don't write property insurance. If you look at last year, so this is historic, CAD 9 billion of Nat-Cat events three times the year before, which we also thought was somewhat elevated. We still produced a 96% combined ratio in our personal property portfolio. So there is absolutely a way to be profitable and to do that.
In fact, we are now pricing that product that we think it'll, in most years, run in the low 90s as we go forward. We updated our models. We've been more conservative. We've used more recent periods with these big Nat Cats. We've moved our probabilities up. So I think that there's still a lot of opportunity for us to grow. As I said last year, when we think about upper single-digit growth, it was really all rate. I think as we go into 2025 and 2026, it's going to be a bit more balanced between still very strong rate, but also unit count growth.
Yeah, that's good. We'll move to commercial lines, which is almost 30% of the net premium earned here. This has been one that you've been growing. Your growth has been very impressive, like solid double-digit, low teens at times. I think if I look at your track record since just prior to your demutualization and then thereafter, you've really stepped up your game in commercial lines and in specialty. What do you attribute this really good growth to that you've had? Is there anything with respect to your product? Is it just expanded broker reach? Has Vyne been helping? What's been driving that? And you still talk about double-digit growth in this business going forward, which is quite impressive.
Yeah, I mean, let me say that I'm delighted with the team. And I think we've got a top-notch group of individuals that are really outperforming the marketplace. And there's a number of things there. So firstly, over the last number of years, we have broadened our appetite. And Definity, the old Economical, was much more of an SME-type player. And we really opened the total addressable marketplace and built capabilities in SME, in mid-market, and then in large and specialty. We've attracted a lot of top talent from across the industry because in commercial lines, it's really important to have a decentralized operating model, have great trading underwriters in the field. And I think, Tom, when we think about the SME market, Vyne, small commercial, has really been very helpful.
And so that is a proposition for brokers where they can bind up to 50% online themselves in our system. It's very quick. It's very easy. And that is much less of a kind of a price-sensitive segment. And so that's been a good growth area for us. And I think we'll be for some time to come. In middle market, we focus on certain verticals and segments where we bring unique capabilities and products. And then in specialty, where we've had really 20+% growth for a couple of years, that looks like that's going to continue because we're still well under our natural market share. And so we've built some strong teams. They are participating on program subscription business. And so sometimes you're only on for 5% or 10%. You build confidence and trust with the risk manager, and you take more leading positions over time.
We're exposed to the sharing economy, which has been a really good growth segment, so for us, I think that it's really the trading capabilities in the mid and specialty and the technology on the SME side that have helped us differentiate. I do think we've got tremendous support from our broker partners. We're one of the few companies in commercial lines that I think would be described as a one-stop shop from the largest, most complicated business to small business owners' policies, and we've invested heavily in kind of trading relationships, and so that, I think, helps a lot. The other point I would add is that when you look at our growth, and so we were delighted to end last year at a 13% growth rate, a lot of that is still price, and so there is about 50% price and about 50% unit count growth.
So we believe we're taking share. But a significant part of that growth actually is rate. And we don't think that that's going to vary much in the next year or so. We still think the market's pretty firm and quite conducive to this level of growth. Really, what it boils down for us is that we believe we've built a capacity and a platform to grow at about twice the rate of the industry. And so even if the industry slows a little bit because you don't need as much rate to cover the cost inflation trends, we're still very comfortable that we can deliver twice that rate. And we think that'll still put us into the 10% or so range for year.
You know, we hear about the large employer market or the large case market there in commercial lines probably getting some smaller rate increases. But SME still stays relatively firm. When does that kind of trickle down? I assume with some of the larger commercial lines market, it's kind of a bit more broker controlled, and maybe they don't want you to kind of jam that rate through them. But why doesn't that kind of spin down into the SME group? Or when do you see that happening?
I'm not so sure that it necessarily will happen, Tom. And I think there are a couple of reasons there. One would be the market participants are different. And so I think that when you look at, there's a lot of international and global players that play in the large corporate specialty business. And I think when you think about the SME market, it is more concentrated among a few large domestic players. So I think that's one point. Those domestic players also write personal property and personal automobile. And in the last little while, there have been cost pressures on those lines. And so you manage your portfolio by segment, but also in aggregate to deliver your overall ROE targets.
I think that the other point to call out is that while we are seeing some more competition on the large and complex commercial, we shouldn't forget that we're several years now into a pretty firm-to-hard market cycle. And there often is a significant amount of margin in some of those accounts. And so when there's more competition and there's even a small price decrease or not much of a price increase, it really doesn't mean that combined ratio is not at your technical price. It still may be at or above your technical price. So I think that's what we're seeing. But for certainly a couple of quarters now, there has not been an indication that, let's call it contagion, that there'll be contagion and more competition moving downhill. The smaller business, particularly brokers and customers, want quick speed and easy access.
I mean, after pushing through double-digit rate increases for several years, wouldn't the customers just opt for less coverage? Is that a risk?
Typically, you don't see that in the smaller and middle market, but you do see it in the larger business, and I think that one of the things to watch would be in the really big complicated business, there's greater self-insured retentions. There are even captives that are put in place, and there's a bit of an arbitrage. I think when the really sophisticated large commercial corporate customers think the market's very efficient and they can find a better price, they know their risk better than actually underwriters know their risk.
They tend to take more net retentions and even put more into their own captives. So that is something that I think we would watch and keep an eye out for, but when you think about Definity's particularly, over 80% of our business is not in that space. It's in the middle and small marketplace. And so our exposure, should that marketplace get even more competitive, is really fairly limited.
You don't see the SMEs really responding in terms of getting less insurance or any of that kind of coverage just to offset some of these higher rate increases.
We have not. No, we really haven't seen that. And even in a bit of a period that was very tough on SME business, if you go back to the COVID years, with the exception of some heavily exposed sectors, that wasn't really a feature of what we witnessed.
You know, we hear about social inflation south of the border, just kind of code word, I guess, for increased litigation associated with claims. That sort of sparked some adverse development in casualty lines. Are you seeing any of that with respect to your commercial business? I'm sure you've got questions about social inflation and how it's going to kind of move north. Has it? And what are you seeing in that regard?
I think the quick answer is no, we're not seeing it, and we don't see it even in the Canadian industry. With respect to Definity, the first thing I would say is we really have very limited exposure to that. And why I say that is that in our commercial portfolio, general liability is where you would get that potential exposure. And it's about 13% of our total portfolio. So number one, we're not a big casualty underwriter. Number two would be most of our casualty is in the SME-type business. We don't really write high-exposed U.S.-exposed lines. So I think that's the main point, is that even if this did come to Canada, we would really not be heavily exposed. The second point would be that we aren't seeing the level of social inflation legal awards than you do see in the U.S.
I think there's a number of reasons for that. There's a cultural reason. Litigation philosophy is different in Canada. You don't get those jumbo-sized awards or nuclear verdicts, as they call them, that we do here in Canada. We're always keeping an eye out for new trends, litigation trends, legislative changes, but that's not really something we see, Tom.
Yeah, I mean, you can see that even just drives across the border, and it's hurt in an accident, give us a call, advertising all over. I think the no-fault's been a good thing with respect to that regard. Just a question here about with the burden of increasing pricing, this might apply to both personal and commercial lines. Are you seeing any changes in payment patterns? I think most people pay monthly anyways on the personal side, but if there's any annuals, extended monthly. And I think what you do, even if they do move from annual to monthly, it's just not one-twelfth the premium as well. So any thoughts as to how to answer that question?
Yeah. No, we're really not seeing any changes. I mean, bad debts for an insurance company is really a very, very tiny thing. And no changes, really. No changes.
And then, going to move into Sonnet here. I mean, it was a big part of the story at the demutualization, insurance in about seven seconds without any broker involvement. You've changed, I guess, a bit of the algorithm here now. And I think the story was you would grow into profitability. Alberta slowed that down a bit, but now you've got the scale that you're breaking even in this business now. What's the outlook for when you say you're, I guess you're breaking even? That's kind of meaning that the underwriting profit is moving into the positive territory on that.
Let's say if this probably has some influence in terms of how much of your business would flow into Sonnet, and how much do you see it flowing into Sonnet three years from now, say? And then what incremental lift does that have to your overall combined ratio and maybe your overall ROE, if you were to hit that kind of target that, I just described to you?
Certainly helpful. I think that firstly, I would say we're very pleased that we're able to achieve break-even and, in fact, an underwriting profit in the fourth quarter of this year and expect the business now to have moved from loss-making to profit-making. And we think that's what's going to happen going forward. And look, it has been quite a journey. We talked about it from the IPO onwards. I think this has been a very difficult model to get to size and to scale. We do think that when we look around the world for a truly digital model, there's ourselves and one other that at the same time has broken even. So it's not a common thing. But I think that creates a moat. I think we've learned a lot. We've got some really good intellectual property advantage out of this now.
And I think that the turning point is there. The main point I would make, I think, for our investors is that we're pretty well comfortable with the loss ratios. So that now means that was the tough piece. And now we are comfortable that the loss ratio is on a pretty good spot, there or thereabouts. We're happy to build and scale the business. We know that it will be profitable. So really, it becomes about a scale game now and getting that expense ratio down. That's a much easier challenge for an operator of an insurance company than the loss ratio. We think the model is good. We think consumers are increasingly interested in buying digital insurance. That's going to be favorable for us.
And I think that when you ask about where can this go, I would say we've had to tighten the appetite in the short term to drive the path to profitability. It's actually been slightly contracting. What we will then see is really kind of more very kind of flatter growth in the first couple of quarters of 2025 with a move back up to growth in the second half of the year and onwards. I think it'll be the second half and onwards before we back into the double-digit growth range. Then we think if we're still very happy with the quality of business at that stage, we could put the pedal down and grow it. This is clearly, in our minds, a billion-dollar business. As such, as we move in that direction, this will add a lot of value to the company.
The drag was several combined Ratio points, and even in the last couple of years, there's a couple of points of Operating ROE just on this line of business, and so as we now turn the calendar and take losses into profits, I think that is going to help us in our trajectory to improving the Operating ROE, and that was one of the big levers that we talked about at our Investor Day, but I would say the drag is no longer with us. It's behind us. It is profitable. We know now the model can work, and it'll take a couple of quarters to really get that momentum back up as you fire up your marketing engines and branding.
How do you avoid channel conflicts with respect to Sonnet and the brokers? And as a follow-up, you look in the U.K. where aggregators are the real big distribution mechanism, and they've kind of disrupted the distribution marketplace there. If we look to the U.S., it's probably more direct instead of broker. And yet in Canada, we've been able to sort of keep a broker model going fairly well. And so what do you attribute the ability, or how do you avoid the channel conflict? And how do you see distribution evolving in Canada?
I think on the channel conflict for us, I think there's a couple of things we did, and we're very close working with our brokers on this one. And the first one was around branding. I think if you have a separate brand for your broker channel as you do for your direct channel, that's really important because brokers would not want to see that the same product through the same company gets sold cheaper through another channel. And that was one of the important things about Sonnet versus Definity. I think the other part that we did with our broker partners is they could see that we weren't favoring one channel over the others. I mean, we made massive investments building our Vyne, and we had broker councils actually working with us. We designed the system not from our lens, but from their lens.
And all of that, they're really the beneficiary of. So I think that brokers say, "Look, in an ideal world, we'd love you to not be multi-channel, but we understand that's the way of the future. And there are different customer groups that are favoring direct than broker. But don't leave us behind. Invest in us and make sure that we've got a competitive product to sell," which is exactly what we've done, is really the main way that I think you can manage that broker channel. Then you can perceive conflict. I think when it comes to the evolution, look, the broker channel has been losing share consistently over the last decade. And why is it? It may only seem to be a point or so a year? I mean, if you stack that up over 10 years, it is 10 points.
I think that there's still some room to run on that, but I don't think that we will ever get to a stage where there's a group of consumers who won't value the need and the advice of a broker. So today, more than 50% of personal insurance is, in fact, distributed by direct writers as opposed to the independent broker channel. I think there's a few more points that will happen over the next number of years, and then that should kind of stabilize. I think there's definitely a place for growth. We believe that heavily, one, because we have a product in Vyne and a big business there that is doing well. Also, as you know, we believe in the distribution channel. We've actually invested heavily into vertical distribution, and we see that channel doing well as well.
So I think for us, we see Sonnet taking its share, being disruptive more against the direct writers than against the intermediated channel, and Sonnet is a digital disruptor. I mean, this is one of the, you talked about the aggregators in the U.K. We really don't have that in any meaningful way in Canada. There aren't as many direct companies to aggregate as there are in some of the marketplaces, but I would say Sonnet is a disruptor in the marketplace, and one of the areas where we've had great example and success with that is in the affinity segment, where the way we approach groups and affinities is different from the traditional contracts and direct mail fees to associations. We find them online. We do guerrilla marketing, and we are disrupting that marketplace.
Yeah, that's right. In the affinity market, you had success there in your previous company as well, developing that marketplace. So I'm going to turn to always when you talk about Definity with investors, the elephant in the room is always the demutualization regulatory moratorium, four-year moratorium here ending in November of 2025. So, you know, I guess that begs the question, where do you see Definity in the next, say, six months to a year with that backdrop? Your just thoughts there.
Well, look. I mean, I think that you referred to that moratorium and the production period, and I think that we would think it's premature for us to be focused on that as an organization. It's something that's late this year, and it could be a distraction if we did focus on it. And the other part that I would point out is that, look, any steps in that direction are actually not even legally permitted for the better part of the year. So we're really just focused on building the business and dealing with what's ahead of us. And if you step back, the whole reason for why Definity Economical went through demutualization to become a public company was to build a leading Canadian P&C company. And we've been public now for a little over three years.
I think we would feel we've made tremendous progress over that period of time, and we think about the fact we've grown business, our revenue by CAD 1.2 billion plus dollars organically. We were the number eight carrier in Canada. We're now the number six, all done organically. We've got significant combined operating ratio outperformance to the industry. We have generated these digital tools that are driving our productivity down, bringing the expense ratio down. We have deployed about CAD 800 million in capital successfully to build the top 10 broker, and I can go on. But I think where we feel is that we've earned the right to keep creating value for our shareholders. I think we also feel very privileged to have several large shareholders who support our vision for the future. So, I mean, I think that's our background. That's what we focus on building.
When you ask what will we look like over the next little while, our objective has been to be a top five carrier. We think that in the next couple of years, that is going to become a reality, and by the way, when we achieve a top five position, we'll set a new goal of top three position for the company. I think we're comfortable. This organic growth rate of twice the growth rate of the industry is going to continue. We believe we will be able to be successful in making a sizable acquisition. We are confident, very confident that that Operating ROE, what we talked about at our Investor Day, is happening. That can get us right up to almost the teens, and then an M&A will put us comfortably into the teens as we go there. We keep focusing on building a great diversified earnings stream.
If you think about even last year, 60% of our operating net income came from net investment income and distribution income. So that's really high-quality earnings. And I would say the team's really up for it and really excited about what the next couple of years look like.
You mentioned acquisition. I mean, you've been spending money in terms of acquiring brokers, but I think you've said you wanted to get manufacturing. Sometimes you can't be that picky. You've got to take maybe something as it comes, and I think you've mentioned you want to really like to get more commercial lines since it'd be a little bit more profitable, I guess, in your perspective, but it's sort of hard in insurance land to buy something and just only buy this part of the business here. You have to acquire a few things along with it. You've got this financial capacity, I think, is CAD 1.75 billion, so if we look in the landscape, if we look at the Canadian industry, maybe you can just refresh us what you're looking for in terms of manufacturing and how you see that helping your ROE.
Hey, debt costs are a little bit higher right now. Servicing debt at CAD 1.75 billion in that financial capacity, which is largely excess debt capacity. You want to make this a creative. Yeah. How would you kind of deal with that word salad I just threw at you?
Yeah. No. Look, I think that when we think about the path forward, we do believe that we have essentially built a business and a platform that can support a much bigger business than we are. You talked about commercial lines as being one of the focus areas, and we really do like that. I think that you've seen us invest heavily into distribution. There, by the way, is a big channel and a big pipeline ahead there. So I think that we've given some guidance that we started out at CAD 500 million. We then got to CAD 1 billion fast, and we thought we get to CAD 1.5 billion next couple of years. I think we should be able to do that or better. So that is still something we're interested in. But our attention really is on the carrier side of things.
We would like a commercial acquisition for a number of reasons. One, you need talent to grow your commercial business. You need more product. And we've got great support from our broker channels. I mean, the brokers in Canada want some national champions that are committed and stable in the Canadian marketplace. And so that, I think, will be very helpful to us. And we do think we'll be very accretive as well, cross-selling products, etc. On the other hand, we built Vyne, which is a platform that can handle a much bigger business. And so, understandably, there may be opportunities that come with more than just commercial lines, which would be fine because we think there's significant synergies for us on a platform like that. You would think about the natural ability to service that business. And if you think about Vyne, we actually don't have any underwriters.
This is a fully digital system. We've got portfolio managers. We've got actuaries. We've got AI teams in the background, but this system is fully automated. So you can just imagine that it's really helpful and does create significant synergies when you put a large block of business on that. So I think that, Tom, to us is partly why we've gone public. It's why we've invested so heavily in this big infrastructure, and our thesis is the world is getting a little bit more complicated, and you came out of COVID, where it was easier to make good returns. People weren't driving. Commercial was in a very firm position. Nat Cats were more normal, and if you now look ahead, I mean, the world could be seen as a bit trickier. There is a bit more uncertainty geopolitically.
You have some parts of the commercial market getting a little softer or more competitive, as we talked about. You've got Nat Cats that have been pretty meaningful. Reinsurers have absolutely asked people to take their retention levels up, and they've charged much more brokers. Back to the conversation we had about Sonnet, want to maintain their market share. Their expectations of the customer and the user interface has got much more demanding. And if you don't have a modern technology stack, which is very expensive, it's difficult to meet that. And all of these things, I think, support our thesis that consolidation, which has been a feature of the Canadian market, will continue in the next couple of years.
Speaking about the geopolitical risks, tariffs, how would that kind of impact your business?
I think the main message on that for certainly Definity, but I think for our industry as a whole would be that it's very manageable and clearly not something that we would like to see happen and not good for Canada, but I point out a couple of things. One is Definity is a Canadian-only company. We don't have direct U.S. exposures. I think the second part is that we have proven to be a very resilient industry and business, so if you think about should we go into a recession, we are somewhat recession-proof as a company and as an industry. Should we go into a period with significant inflation, which may happen, we've also just proven a strong track record of managing through a hyperinflationary period.
And I think the third thing for us would be you referred earlier to a strong balance sheet and the excess capital we've got. We come into an uncertain environment in a very good position. We've got a strong balance sheet. We've got diversified earnings. We've got very capital generative. We've got a high-quality investment portfolio. So I think we feel very good about it. For sure, there are some exposed parts of the insurance cycle. Mostly automobile would be the one that if there were significant tariffs that came across, it could affect a part of that business, not all of it. Many of the claims are injury claims or labor claims, but there could be some segments that could be impacted. Of course, there are mitigants against that. You could look at alternative parts, as we've done before. There's pricing. You price the product annually.
So, at the end of the day, Tom, I think it's something that our teams continue to work on and continue to refresh their models on. We definitely feel it's very manageable, and we wouldn't expect it to change our guidance to the market.
Right. And it's been great times to be in an insurance company here in the market. The fundamentals are very strong. And investors are always asking, what are the signs that maybe this favorable insurance cycle is going to start to turn? You've been in this business for a while. I mean, what would you tell investors to look for? Would it be like, look at the underlying loss ratio, look at interest rates, look at unfavorable prior year development? What is it that investors should look for that could possibly signal that maybe this cycle is starting to turn?
Look, I think that many of the financial metrics are really kind of in the rearview mirror. We publish them after the fact. And so I think listening to the analyst calls, you get some rich insight into what's happening. And I think the main indicator you're trying to get your head around is pricing versus loss trend. And is pricing still meeting and exceeding the loss cost trend? And I think in commercial lines, you could look at retention rates. So how competitive is the market? Is it knocking your retention rates down? And one of the things that, Tom, we look at internally each and every month is the composition of your revenue growth. And so if you look at rate and unit count, is it 80/20?
I guess is 80% coming from price and 20% from unit count, which really means a kind of pretty firm marketplace, hard market. Is it 50/50, which is a good, healthy marketplace? Or are you only getting 20% from rate and most of it from unit count, which to me indicates the market's rolling over? So I think that's something that I look at all the time with our teams, which would give you a good indication. I think in personal lines, it's the same concept as your pricing ahead of your loss costs or not. But there are some external things you could look at. For example, FSRA filings in Ontario, what's happening? Are companies taking rate? And FSRA publishes those filings. So you can see, are they going up or are they actually coming down? And to me, those would be a couple underlying metrics that I think would be very important to indicate the direction of the trajectory of the market.
Thanks for that, Rowan. I don't know if there's anything else that you wanted to add here in kind of closing about the outlook for Definity here over the next several quarters or anything that we may not have covered?
I think we've covered a lot of ground today, Tom. But I mean, I think maybe my closing comments and one that I think maybe came through on the call is, look, there's a great sense of confidence and momentum in the business. We ended last year, which was a difficult year for the industry, with really good growth, double-digit growth. We ended the year with a sub-95 combined ratio. That sub-95 combined ratio included historic Nat Cats, which were at least a couple of points more than we expected. It also included Sonnet, other than the fourth quarter, in a loss position. So I think that that momentum is looking very good for us. All of our lines of business seem to be having decent market conditions. A couple of years ago, we consciously tried to diversify the earnings. You saw us make investments in that distribution channel.
As I mentioned, net investment income and distributions now 60%, so there's much less volatility in our combined ratio going forward. I think that we did really well on the reinsurance renewals. If we had a CAD 100 million loss in 2025 versus 2024, we're taking on no more exposure than we would have done before. That's a very good, unique position to be in in the marketplace going forward, and then I go back to what we said at the Investor Day, where we demonstrated the breadth and strength of the team and the business capabilities, but that operating ROE walk, and I think that would be the one area where we had those three organic levers of Sonnet, operating expense, and claims transformation. All three of those are really on track. In fact, they're ahead of where we would have actually expected them to be. And so I think that kind of sense of confidence going into 2025 is how we enter the year. So that would be it for me.
Thanks for that. Thanks, everyone, for joining. This will conclude the Fireside Chat. A special thanks to Rowan Saunders here for his participation and sharing with us the Definity story. Thanks again, everyone.
Thank you all.