Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first quarter 2018 Arch Capital Group earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then 0 on your touch-tone telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Before the company gets started with its update, management wants to first remind everyone that certain statements in today's press release and discussed on this call may constitute forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. These statements are based upon management's current assessments and assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied.
For more information on the risks and other factors that may affect future performance, investors should review periodic reports that are filed by the company with the SEC from time to time. Additionally, certain statements contained in the call that are not based on the historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company intends the forward-looking statements in the call to be subject to the safe harbor created thereby. Management also will make reference to some non-GAAP measures of financial performance. The reconciliation to GAAP and definition of operating income can be found in the company's current report on Form 8-K furnished to the SEC yesterday, which contains the company's earnings press release and is available on the company's website. I would now like to introduce your hosts for today's conference, Mr. Marc Grandisson and Mr. Mark Lyons.
Sirs, you may begin.
Thank you, Crystal, and good morning to you all. Overall, our first quarter results were excellent and demonstrate the value of our diversified specialty insurance platforms. Before commenting on market conditions, I would like to review the core tenets that successfully guide us at Arch. Our primary goal is to produce superior risk-adjusted returns in order to drive long-term growth and book value per share while providing customers with quality insurance products. To support this goal, we hold dear a few core principles such as cycle and capital management, as well as being intellectually honest about the probability of achieving the risk-adjusted returns offered by the marketplace. Our shareholders, policyholders, and employees all gain from this approach. Currently, market conditions are stable to slightly improving in the P&C arena. Operating margins expanded slightly in insurance in the first quarter, while the interest rate environment has lifted expected returns.
Despite growth in some niche areas, we remain cautious and do not see a broad-based market turn in the near term given abundant capital across the market. It's important to keep in mind that loss trend is picking up and is, at best, a guess. We will not know for another five years what the recent changes in trend will mean for our P&C businesses. Even though there may appear to be an increase in ROEs, the uncertainty of the impact of inflation as well as some of the negative effects of changes in terms of conditions of late tempers our enthusiasm. In our insurance group underlying the growth in our gross written premium, we continue to de-emphasize some lines such as casualty, excess D&O, and some London market business, all owing to an overly competitive marketplace.
Our insurance growth is coming from travel and small to medium enterprise professional lines. In addition, premiums increased in loss impacted property lines where rates and returns are improving. In reinsurance, our growth in European auto quarter share and excess of loss as well as property is balanced out by decreases in casualty and D&O. As you can see, our insurance and reinsurance operations are in sync as to where capital needs not to be deployed. Lastly, keep in mind that the reported growth in premium was magnified by foreign exchange impacts this quarter to the tune of one-third of growth in both insurance and reinsurance. Turning briefly to capital management, we entered into a loss portfolio transfer on certain discontinued liability lines and program businesses, predominantly from years prior to 2012. We are no stranger to the run-off market, and we value what this product can offer.
The transaction also included reserve development protection above the carried reserves. We did that transaction with two main objectives in mind. First, it will reduce the volatility of future reserve development, narrowing the ultimate payments around the level currently expected. Second, it will enable Nicolas Papadopoulo, who's our new insurance group CEO, and his team to focus on ongoing projects without being distracted from running off a business no longer core to Arch. Mark will further address this and additional capital management actions in his own comments. Turning now to our other specialty segment, mortgage insurance. It was an active quarter in the press to say the least. We had a great quarter, and we are even more convinced that our risk-based pricing framework, RateStar, is the best way to approach this marketplace.
Our new insurance written for the first quarter was $11.4 billion, of which 82% was through our RateStar platform. The pricing outlook was looking fairly stable until recently, when competitors announced a cut to their rate cards. You will remember our comment on last quarter's call that we expected this reaction. Like you, we did not think it would occur this quickly, especially in light of the uncertainty surrounding PMIERs 2.0. We are, as is everyone, currently evaluating the competition's rate cards. We will decide whether to take action soon. Bear in mind that our production from rate card is less than 20% of our NIW. We believe that RateStar will still attract the better risks even after the rate cuts announced by some in the industry are put into effect.
As I mentioned a minute ago, RateStar has proven to be a great way for Arch to enhance risk selection. One example of this is that RateStar steered Arch away from originations in high LTV high DTI products over the last few quarters. Along with single premium products, we purposely remain underweight in these higher risk areas. Our expected returns on all U.S. MI business are still in excess of 15%. Of note, we closed another Bellemeade transaction for the second half of 2017 production at tighter spreads than the one we did in last year's third quarter. Bellemeade structures provide capital market protection for Arch for deterioration in the mortgage markets. Think of it as an aggregate excess of loss cover, attaching excess of a 23% loss ratio. Turning now to Imagine, the Freddie Mac product announced last month.
We believe that this product was an evolution of GSE credit risk transfer and not a revolution. This pilot is still very much in its infancy. We believe it has the potential to do two positive things for us. First, it establishes Arch as a go-to innovator in mortgage insurance. Second, it leverages our underwriting expertise through managing insurance platforms and third-party capital. Imagine targets the discounted singles LPMI product. It is capped at $2.5 billion of NIW, which is projected to be less than 1% of the expected MI industry production in 2018. In addition, this new structure fits our core principle of cycle management and allows us to be a low-cost provider in a highly commoditized business environment. Once you factor in the fees and the expense savings, the expected returns are appropriate relative to the risk that we're assuming.
Last but not least, the new CRT advisory relationship that we have agreed to with Munich Re is yet another example of our ability to leverage our experience and expertise in executing various types of MI risk transfer. On the investment side, we continue to position our portfolio to be flexible and poised to recover quickly from an increase in rates, yet remain liquid enough to allow additional longer-term alternative investments. Our property cat exposures are substantially the same as last quarter with our one-in-250-year peak zone, the Northeast PML, the largest at 6.2% of tangible common equity. Our RDS for our mortgage insurance, driven largely by the U.S. primary exposure, is stable at 16.4% of tangible common equity as a result of the growth in insurance in force and the increase in persistency in U.S. primary MI, largely offset by the new Bellemeade transaction.
We are continuing to refine the RDS for our non-U.S. business. We will report any changes to the current view as they evolve. In closing, book value per share rose to $61.24 at March 31st, as strong operating results were partially offset by the effects of volatility in the financial markets. In summary, a good quarter with some very early positive signs in our P&C operations and a continuing well-performing MI on the back of conservative, proactive capital and investment management. Now I will turn it to Mark.
Great. Thank you, Mark, and good morning to all. I will make some summary comments for the first quarter of 2018, all on a core basis. As I say every quarter, the term core corresponds to Arch's financial results, excluding Watford Re, whereas the term consolidated includes Watford Re. From a big picture perspective, after-tax operating earnings for the quarter were $235-plus million, which translates to an annualized 11.3% operating return on average common equity and $1.69 per share. Book value per share, as Mark just said, was $61.24 at the end of the quarter, which represents a 0.5% increase from last quarter and 6.2% increase from one year ago, despite a negative total investment return for the quarter. The diversification of our operating platform and within our investment portfolio proved invaluable towards increasing book value per share in a very challenging economic and insurance environment.
Moving on to operations. Four losses recorded in the first quarter from 2018 catastrophic events, net of reinsurance recoverables and reinstatement premiums were $2 million, or 0.2 loss ratio points, compared to 1.2 percentage points in the first quarter of 2017 on the same basis, approximately evenly split between our insurance and reinsurance segments. As for prior period pure net loss reserve development, approximately $52 million, a favorable development of 4.7 loss ratio points was reported in the first quarter compared to 8.3 loss ratio points in the corresponding quarter of 2017. This was led by the reinsurance segment with approximately $37 million favorable, the mortgage segment at approximately $13 million favorable, and the insurance segment contributing $2 million favorable.
The reduction in net favorable pure loss development relative to a year ago was driven by a lower level of reinsurance casualty releases and a lesser amount of U.S. mortgage second lien subrogation recoveries and fewer accident years contributing to U.S. mortgages first lien releases. Net favorable development associated with prior year catastrophic events totaled approximately $12 million this quarter, predominantly driven by releases on Hurricane Harvey. Before I comment on our individual segment results, I'd like to update you on capital management actions we've taken through the first quarter of 2018. As you recall, in the fourth quarter of 2017, we executed roughly $1.4 billion of internal loss portfolio transactions between our U.S. property casualty insurance subsidiaries and our Bermuda operating company. Additionally, effective January 1st of 2018, we canceled all internal property casualty insurance and reinsurance in force quarter share treaties on a cutoff basis.
The net effect of which was to improve the risk-based capital ratios of our relevant U.S. subsidiaries. In future quarters, we will provide updates on any further actions taken, and I will comment on share repurchases later in these comments. On a related topic, as Mark just referenced, it was announced in the latter part of April that Arch Re Limited entered into a transaction with Catalina General Insurance Limited. At inception, approximately $400 million of subject reserves were transferred, accompanied by an approximate $200 million adverse development cover. Catalina will assume all claims handling responsibilities, and the transaction is heavily collateralized to secure Catalina's obligations with a meaningful margin above 100% of all transferred reserves throughout the life of the contract. It should be noted that although this was a transaction between our Bermuda operating company and Catalina, the underlying exposures emanated from the U.S. insurance group.
Moving now more so into operations. The calendar quarter combined ratio on a core basis was 78.8%, identical with the first quarter of 2017, and lower compared to the 82.5% serially for the fourth quarter of 2017. The core accident quarter combined ratio excluding cats improved to 83.2%, compared to 86.1% for 2017's first quarter. The reinsurance segment accident quarter combined ratio excluding cats of 93.4%, showed 420 basis points of improvement compared to the first quarter of 2017's 97.6% combined ratio. This was driven by expense ratio reductions with a corresponding flat accident quarter loss ratio quarter-over-quarter. The reinsurance segment expense ratio benefited from reductions of operating expenses in a dollar cent combined with larger net earned premium base.
In addition, a reduction in federal excise taxes of two and a half million or 90 basis points due to a reduction from the cancellation of certain intercompany property casualty quota share agreements that I've referenced earlier. This benefit will continue to accrue for the remainder of 2018. The insurance segment's accident quarter combined ratio excluding cats was 98.7%, up slightly from the 97.8% in the first quarter of 2017 due to higher acquisition expenses resulting from mix of business changes with also a corresponding flat accident quarter loss ratio. However, on a sequential basis, this quarter's accident quarter combined ratio improved 100 basis points over the fourth quarter of 2017, largely due to a lower level of reported large attritional losses relative to recent quarters. Moving to the mortgage segment.
There, accident quarter combined ratio improved to 43.4% from 50.4% in the first quarter of last year, as net earned premiums remained relatively flat as a percentage of total, being approximately 25%-26% in both quarters. The accident quarter loss ratio of 20.1% in the first quarter of 2018 compares favorably against both the 21.5% ratio in the same quarter of 2017 and the 25% ratio in the fourth quarter of 2017. The expense ratio also improved from the 28.9% in the first quarter of 2017 to 23.3% this quarter, reflecting the benefit of a full year of integration efforts following the acquisition of United Guaranty Corp. However, on a sequential basis, the expense ratio increased to 120 basis points from 22.1%. As we have previously discussed, this is driven by an increase in the amortization of deferred acquisition costs.
Remember that at the closing of the UGC transaction at prior year-end, all deferred acquisition expenses were written off to zero and they are now rebuilding themselves and being amortized into income.
Total investment return for the quarter was a negative 32 basis points on the U.S. dollar basis and a negative 40 basis points on a local currency basis. These returns were impacted by the effects of higher interest rates on investor-grade fixed income securities and the overall equity market decline, partially offset by positive returns on alternative investments and non-investment grade fixed income. The investment duration was 2.6 years at the end of the quarter, down sequentially from 2.83 years at December 31st and down from 3.36 years a year ago in anticipation of rising interest rates. Also during the quarter, fixed income investments, which represent approximately 76% of investable assets, saw a tactical shift away from municipal bonds, which were reduced by 28% in the quarter, and into corporates at AAA-backed asset-backed securities due to improved relative valuations.
During the quarter, the company incurred $111 million of pre-tax net realized losses, primarily as a result of the already referenced index mix shift. Included within that realized loss was $18.4 million of unrealized losses in equities under a new accounting principle that requires recognition in net income of changes in the market value of equities rather than in other comprehensive income. As you know, our investment portfolio continues to be managed on a total return basis and not by component of total return. The corporate effective tax rate in the quarter on pre-tax operating income was 9.9% and reflects the benefit of the lower U.S. tax rate, the geographic mix of our pre-tax income, and the 0.5% benefit from discrete items in the quarter, mostly stock related. As a result, the pure effective tax rate on pre-tax operating income excluding these discrete items, is 10.4%.
As always, the actual full-year effective tax rate could vary, dependent on the level and location of income or loss, the level and location of catastrophic activity, and varying tax rates in each jurisdiction. On a GAAP basis at March 31st, our total debt to total capital ratio was 18.7%, and total debt plus preferred to total capital was 25.7%, down 70 basis points from year-end 2017, and down a nice even 300 basis points from year-end 2016, when we acquired United Guaranty. This leverage reduction was due to our growth in common equity and the redemption of the remaining $92.6 million of the Series C 6.75% Preferred Shares that took place. Associated with this redemption was a $2.7 million non-operating charge to expense the original issue cost of the remaining Series C, which had been held as additional paid-in capital.
As for share repurchases at the end of the first quarter under a Rule 10b5-1 plan, we implemented our share repurchase program during our closed window period and repurchased nearly 40,000 shares at an aggregate cost of $3.3 million. Additional share repurchases have continued into the second quarter and cumulatively total $80 million, with an average price to March 31st book value of 1.33x. Our remaining authorization, which expires in December of 2019, at the end of March, was $443 million, and considering the share repurchases made through April 30th, now stands at $366.5 million. Also during the quarter, AIG completed the conversion of all their remaining convertible preferred shares issued as part of the UGC acquisition, resulting in the issuance of approximately 5.7 million common shares.
You may recall that these shares were considered common stock equivalents in 2017, so the conversion in the quarter had no impact on earnings per share or book value. Operating cash flow on a core basis increased to $370 million in the first quarter of 2018 compared to $122 million for the same period in 2017, reflecting the growth in premiums written in 2018, a smaller level of operating expenses and UGC transaction costs, and a $52 million tax refund received. With these introductory comments, we are now prepared to take your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press the star then the number one key on your touchtone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. If you are currently using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before asking your question. Again, ladies and gentlemen, that is star one to ask a question. Our first question comes from Kai Pan from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning. My first question is on the MI business that given the competitive pricing cut as well as the new pilot program, what do you think about the return of the business, going forward versus your prior expectations?
The current returns are in excess of about 15%, which we indicated in the past and I still believe it is the case. After we look at the price cuts that were announced by one of the major competitors, and they actually sent around a sheet that explains how they get to, or how they factor in the tax changes, the returns are still in that area, still above 15%, despite those rates. That's what we would expect it to be. Having said all this, not everything is created equally. We're going to be looking very carefully at our RateStar framework and see whether we need to make a few changes, and as well as looking at the rate card changes that took place. It's still a very, very good marketplace overall. The credit quality is still very, very high.
We are not changing fundamentally the level of return, especially risk-adjusted return as it compares to other lines of business we would have in our portfolio.
In fact, I would just add to Marc's comments that we really look at this as a segment, not as just the U.S., which is what our competitors are kind of vertically focused on. Our view of CRT transactions, our other businesses that we have, the fact that we lay off, we have reinsurance structures and deline structures that all are very additive towards the net ROE.
Okay, that's great. My second question is on the P&C side. What's your pricing outlook for June 1 renewals and mid-year renewals? We heard some commentary that pricing actually would not be as strong as January renewals, and do you see the same thing, and how do you position your portfolio?
We went through internationally renewal of the Japanese, for instance, as of April 1st. I'm sure you heard on other calls that pricing was kept at very stable to slightly down or slightly up, depending on the layer or the types of risk. We were expecting sort of that reaction, but the most important piece, I think you're asking is what will the U.S. reinsurance market look like at mid-year. The initial indications are that it's not going to be as good as the rate increases were at January 1. A lot of it is also posturing. It's still pretty early. June 1st and July 1st is a lot of renewals taking place, so people are jousting for positioning and arguing their case as we speak. The early signs are that the price increase is going to somewhat go down.
The second derivative is negative rate change. It might be still a rate change, but it's not going to be as good or as healthy as it was at one one.
Okay, that's great. Last one, well, I was wondering what kind of lunch Dino is ordering for you guys.
I don't know. I think we're going to have a surprise. We're going to have a special delivery after the call, I'm sure.
I'm sure it'll have a French-Canadian-
Bien
accent to it.
All right. Thank you, guys.
One other thing, Kai, on the underlying businesses to which the property cat attaches, we're certainly seeing some uplift in our insurance group, and we believe those uplifts are happening on the quota shares and the XOLs that Arch Re attaches on top of.
Yep.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Elyse Greenspan from Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. To start, a couple questions on mortgage, then I do have a P&C question as well. In terms of mortgage, did you say about how much of its earnings it was in the quarter? Is it still about that 60% level you had provided us with in the past?
I think that's, well, yeah. That's with the allocation of our investment income that we show in the corporate segment. If you allocate that back, I think it's roughly about that. It might be a couple points north.
Okay, perfect. In terms of a lot change in the quarter in terms of the mortgage environment, with Imagine, the CRT deal, and relationship with Munich, as well as the price cuts in the industry. You guys say you still see this business as generating about 15% ROE, but how about do you think about it in terms of the overall earnings? Because obviously some of these different components can either increase or decrease the forward earnings that you can generate from mortgage. Can you kind of help us think through the moving pieces and how the profile has changed with these new developments, whether obviously it's not just this year, but when we're more thinking about the earnings a couple of years out?
It's a very good question. I think that it speaks very well to our ability to pick and choose where we're going to allocate capital, depending on our return characteristics on a CRT, for instance, or if an Imagine, if that pilot program takes off and it becomes bigger, even in the future, that will also allow us to participate there. We also have U.S. Primary MI, as we mentioned, that's also a good lever for us to utilize. The way we look at the MI business is very similar to the way we look at any other business. You have to tell me what the marketplace looks like as we speak, I will tell you how we will be reacting.
Depending on the relative returns between the CRT, the Imagine, or other types of structure of the sort, and/or Primary MI, we'll be allocating capital as we see the returns get better. For instance, this quarter, a great example is we have allocated less capital to the CRT transactions. We saw the spreads tightening to a level that we believe is not as acceptable as we would want, and not meeting our threshold return. It doesn't mean that we need to deploy capital in some other areas to cannibalize the other segments. It's really just a deal-by-deal, area-by-area, looking at transactions, making sure we're maximizing the returns. It's really hard. I guess the short answer is, I do not know until we get to what the market is going to give us in the future.
Okay.
Elyse, I'd just like to go on to your next question, just to also caution, this is a pilot. It's extremely early. We don't even have a lot of visibility yet into how it's going. Which we'll certainly talk about in future quarters. Also just be cognizant that Imagine is towards U.S. MI, whereas the relationship with Munich is more towards the CRT transactions. When you picture Mark's comments about cycle management levers, this creates between using working capital versus risk capital, this innovation that the mortgage guys came up with allows that cycle management to really take effect.
Correct.
Okay, thank you. That's helpful. My last question, in terms of you guys return to buying back stock in the quarter and subsequent to the quarter, can you help us think through your excess capital position, how you would kind of balance other continuing to return capitals with your shares at this kind of 1x-3x book value level? Or if M&A potentially a deal on the P&C side might be something that you would want to conserve capital for. How are you thinking through that decision-making right now?
Yeah, great question. It is kind of an amalgam of a lot of the things that you just mentioned. When we did the 10b5-1, we didn't expect certain things to happen from our competitors that kind of weighed and dampened down on our stock. What we've done historically with that wavy, not quite bright line, three-year payback that we talked about, that's an ingredient into the mixture. A view of the off-balance sheet embedded value helps inform, but doesn't drive some of the decisions. There's other things that we have going on. There's always things in the pipeline that we're entertaining, firstly. Secondly, we still are steadfast towards reducing our financial leverage that emanated from the UGC transaction for a couple of reasons. One, the more we do that, it gives us dry powder for other things in the future.
We've made commitments in the discussions with rating agencies, it's also an aspect of our GSE relationship that it'll be helpful to us as we de-lever. There's a lot of usages for cash, some of which might go towards, depending on what is the highest return and value that we see outside of some of the benefits that might accrue from the de-leveraging.
I would also add that there's a competition on the allocation of capital and how we deploy it. Certainly we felt when we did the 10b5-1 that this was an appropriate relative allocation of capital, and to Mark's point, there was no insight on our part as to what the market, how it developed. We're going to have a board meeting next week, we're going to have all units sitting around and discussing through what projects or what it is they're working on, we're going to have a more detailed discussion next week and determine what we're going to do going forward.
One other thing that I could add is compared if it was three years ago with the volatility of P&C and so forth, we have a lot more clear visibility down the next couple of years of mortgage earnings and the quality and strength of them because of the way it operates with the monthlies and the persistency attached to it and so forth. That also helps inform.
Decisions
our decisions that way.
Correct. Yep.
Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate the color.
Thank you.
Sure.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Amit Kumar from Buckingham Research Group. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning, and congrats on the quarter.
Thank you.
A few quick questions. Just first of all, going back to the opening remarks, I think you mentioned RateStar serves 20% of the business. Is it fair to say that for the competitors it's close to 100% or so, or what is probably the number?
The competitors are not doing any RateStar as far as we're concerned.
Sorry, RateCard.
Sorry. The RateCard, yeah, it's 100% for everyone. We're about 18% RateCard for the production in first quarter of 2018. Yes, that's the answer.
Got it.
Yes.
Got it. That's what I wanted to be sure. Clearly the stock overreacted on the news last month. The second question I had was on the timeline. You mentioned that you're looking at what to do following the pricing discussion. Do we have any idea? I mean, is this going to be disclosed very shortly, or does it take a few months, and then I guess we're heading to the PMIERs capital discussion? I just wanted to be clear on the timing of your decision.
I think it's going to be the way we look at the pricing and the way we deliver products to our clients, having RateStar as well as the RateCard and having, I would add different distribution, community banks and credit union, for instance. We need to be very careful and thoughtful as to how we homogenize, if you will, the way we're delivering the pricing and the product to our clients. Right now, what's happening is there are discussions as we speak, and the discussion started 2 weeks ago in Greensboro about how we're going to juggle or put together in a cohesive way our reactions on the RateCard and what it means for RateStar, if it means anything at all. June 4th or thereabout is the first date that the pricing will be in line for the MGIC, and I believe Genworth as well.
We will have to come to conclusion on the RateCard in shorter order. The RateStar changes may take a little bit longer to implement because, as we have mentioned before, it's over 1.3 million different cells in decision making. It's not as easy as it looks. It's a lot sturdier. Also being as granular as it is, there's probably less impetus to draw very quick conclusions to it. We can let this work itself even as we speak and even after June 4th. We'll definitely be proactive in making that determination. I would fully expect by early June, we'll have a full, total complete picture as to what we're going to do on both RateCard and RateStar, if any.
Got it. That's actually very helpful. The only other question I have is going back to the insurance segment, and if I look at page 12 of the supplement, and you look at the reserve development number. It's very close to sort of in 100%. I'm trying to think, is there something deeper going on in terms of the reserve movement, in terms of certain lines which might be seeing adverse, and hence the net number is just modestly positive? Maybe just help us better understand what's going on, and why is it hovering so close to 100%. Thanks.
Sure. The way the reserves are developing any one quarter, it's haphazard. It could be some negative in one area, some positive in some other area. A quarter change is very hard to pin down. Sometimes you may wait one or two or three quarters before you take action in certain lines of business. You may want to do a catch up on one area. The short answer is the sum total is the sum total, and it's really a result of individual business units, which we have 14 of, where we go through each individual one of them, and we say, "Okay, this one needs a little bit more adverse development because some losses were reported we did not expect.
Some other goes down." It's really just a what you see on our financial result is really the bottom-up approach of our reserving analysis at the individual line level, and it's really a quarterly exercise that you go through. Sometimes you tend to be more proactive in certain areas, because you might think that the trend is going to go against you a little bit further down the road. Some others, you're going to wait and see whether this is only a one-time off thing. I think the short answer to you, unfortunately, there's no real grand design. It's really a bottom-up approach to reserving. I would say that some lines showed us negative or adverse developments. Some showed positive development depending on the quarter.
No, I guess what I was trying to ask is, where does the combined ratio eventually settle based on the performance of this business?
I think our accident year combined ratio that Mark mentioned, 98, 99 is roughly in the range of what we would expect the mix of business to be. Again, I would just caveat that by saying there are some trends happening in the marketplace, some rate changes we see or we hear have happened. Will they find their way to the bottom line over time? Has yet remains to be seen.
I would say, Mark, I think was pretty clear on his prepared comments. The consistency between insurance and reinsurance is where capital is and is not deployed.
That's a function of the rates and relative to loss trends. There's absolute returns, and then what are the market conditions doing? Is it helping or hurting that absolute return? That's how capital gets deployed, that's how the business mix shifts. If that's successful in the shift, it could have an even more beneficial impact.
I would even add, to add more complexities to this, if you have the same book of business this year that you renew at a 2.75 five-year treasury versus last year, 1.8, you could have a very similar accident year combined ratio, but a higher return on equity. Just to add this to the mix, if it's not complicated enough for you.
Yes. No, fair point, we'll probably get more color later today on that. I will stop here. Thanks for the answers and good luck for the future.
Thanks, Amit.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Josh Shanker from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Good morning, everybody, or maybe it's already noon there. The travel accident health business, is that growth based on the company getting in place the right infrastructure to be able to handle that business? Or is that business seeing a difference in terms of its profitability, which makes you more hungry for it? I guess third on that, where is that business coming from? Is the pie getting bigger, or are you taking that from competitors?
I'm trying to get the answer. It's coming from, we have a couple of programs that we won over the last 24 months, which helped us. We had the relationships that we had developed for a long time internationally as well as in the U.S. It's really growing with new relationships. One of them is actually growing, is the large reason why we've grown in travel over the last 12 months. The first question, yes, we have an integrated model. We have claims, we have pricing, we have portal. We also have RoamRight, as you know. We have business to consumer banks with business to business as well, which would be more wholesale or retail through a retail network, actually.
A little bit like having a pro, not a program, but sort of a relationship with a couple of producers to really be their go-to market in that segment. In terms of returns, this is not a very super high margin business. I think you'll see other people talk about it in terms of combined ratio. In terms of capital usage, it's very effective in terms of capital usage. We are trying to get into that segment. It's also very sticky, as you know, as you might expect, Josh. If you get the relationship going with the pipe and work with the product development with the guys who sell the product, it could be beneficial for a long time. This has been going on for at least four or five years, our growth.
That's very thorough. On the UGC 2014 to 2016 premium, I've been sort of guessing that the decay on older accident years lose about 20% of its premium annually. I don't know if that's right. Maybe how much of a net premium written growth tailwind is the UGC quota share years going into the past giving you?
Yeah. Josh, I'd say you're in the ballpark. I think you're a little heavy on the degree of decay.
Yeah. A bit lower.
Okay. Thank you.
Yep.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeffrey Dunn from Dowling & Partners. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning.
Morning, Jeff.
Like yourselves, it seems like a number of the MIs continue to evaluate the recent BPMI monthly changes. There's in the commentary.
Jeff, I'm sorry, we can't hear you.
Yeah.
Is that any better?
Much better. Thanks.
Again, like yourselves, it looks like a number of the MIs are evaluating the recent BPMI monthly changes. In some of the commentary, it suggests maybe there is some evolution going on in terms of how some companies are thinking about approaching pricing. What are your thoughts on the competitive environment if the industry started shifting to your approach where the rate card was available for the lenders that want it, but they shift to more granular or even black box pricing for those that are looking for that?
In a way, for us, it's music to our ears. It means that our model is the right model. If you start having a 75 cell, you develop now a multiple of 200, 300 cells as we see some of our guys developing, try to refine, try to rebuild, if you will, the risk-based pricing within the rate card phenomenon. You are going to start multiplying these cells very dramatically. It might create the same issues that I think the large banks, for instance, who are set that they are not really willing to entertain at this point, which is the ability to cater to all these various permutations of pricing. As much as people are fighting RateStar, it seems like it's evolving into that direction. To us, it's a little bit music to our ears.
It sort of confirms that our model. A couple of our competitors made comments as such over the last week or so, that this is probably a more longer-term beneficial. There'll be some disruptions in the short-term. I think that is probably your point that you're trying to make, and I think, yes, that is possible. We do believe that the more you multiply the number of cells, the more complexities you introduce in the delivery and pricing of the product at the loan origination, but desk level, so.
I would just add on the boring side of it, but an important operational aspect is the response time of something this complicated to return to the lenders in the manner in which they expect it and kind of shields it from that. The response time has to be fast. There was a major investment that the guys did in that regard. It's just important to have the eight-ninths of the iceberg under the water as the one-ninth that you see above the water.
Yeah.
you've had an interesting approach on some of the innovations that are effectively introducing a capital-light model with your Bellemeade deals with the MRT, the Munich CRT. Do you view your capital allocations independently of all those, or do you view the return on a segment basis where maybe those capital-light opportunities give you more leeway on the capital-heavy opportunities?
to us, for reasons that are, there's a unit that's called MI, which is a global MI company, so their bonus plan and calculation of their performance is based on the overall segment's result. they can fish in the broader MI market, whether it's insurance, CRTs, utilizing more Bellemeade transactions if they so choose, if it makes sense from a return perspective. It could diversify away in different areas around the world. at the end, they're all internally making sure that they're optimizing the returns. we really are looking at it, Jeff, from a totality at the unit level and making sure that they Having said all this, we have self-imposed guidance. There's so much capital willing to expose from the shareholders' perspective to MI. But within the confines of that constraint, they have a vested interest in maximizing optimizing the returns.
We look at it holistically, if you will.
Which we don't view any differently than how the reinsurance group does it and how the insurance group does it.
That's right.
Okay, thanks.
Thanks, Jeff.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jay Cohen from Bank of America. Your line is open.
Yeah, just maybe a small question on the MI. With the amortization of DAC now being part of the expenses, can you give us a sense of where you think the expense ratio will end up by the end of this year?
Well, one other ingredient that I didn't put in the prepared remarks was that there was some bonus catch-ups. This is highly profitable. To the extent that a bonus throughout the year was underaccrued and had to be made whole with the more recent year-end calculations, that gets reflected in the first quarter. That's what happened. I mean, not only the profitability of the business, but the excellent execution on the integration that they've done all filters into that. Roughly, it's going to be marginally better, and it could be lumpy on 2Q, 3Q, 4Q. I would say on the balance of the nine months, it's going to be marginally better.
Got it. That's helpful. Thanks, Mark.
Sure. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Meyer Shields from KBW. Your line is open.
Thanks. I think we've had a couple of quarters now where you've been more cautious or sounded more cautious on loss trends. I was hoping you could dig a little bit more into what's driving the increased conservatism, if that's the right way of phrasing it.
I think, well, we're looking at trend. I'm an actuary by training. I'm a recovering actuary, I like to say. If you look back at loss trend historically, it's a historical phenomenon, right? You have not developed data to try to make an adjustment for what you think the overall CPI and unfortunately, the insurance trend and inflation typically lags CPI pickup. To the extent that we've seen some inflation pick over the last two, three years, it will not find its way to the projection of loss trend for a little while. We've had a combination of things, right? Audit premium on most of our segments that are auditable pretty much we're always up on the upside. There's more activity in the industry. Whatever you think you're pricing and whatever's happening in the industry, there's always been a mismatch. It's ongoing.
It's subsiding a little bit, we've had sort of a pickup in activity in the broad economy in the U.S. The more there's activity, the more there's friction, the more I believe there is a possibility that a loss trend could go and develop adversely against you. It's probably more of a prudent phenomenon. I think that the problem that we have in our business, mostly casualty, is that you're pricing on a forward-looking, looking back at loss trend. I think we've had undue benign loss experience over the last eight or nine years. I think it's largely as a result of the economy slowing down so much as a result of the Great Financial Crisis. We're not saying it's going to go crazy.
We're just saying that the likelihood of this being above what we believe, what we are coming out of our actual model, I think is more likely than not. We tend to be a more prudent When we factor in the loss trend. Mark, anything else?
Yeah, I would just kind of echo where Mark again said where capital isn't going, where it's being allocated, on D&O and say, to excess casualty. There's loss trend in the actuarial arithmetic, and then there's trend not explained by actuarial arithmetic. D&O, for example, is incredibly lumpy year to year, as there's no real projection about it. Let alone if you have a primary excess book. On casualty excess, actuarial arithmetic never works. Never works. It's always terms and conditions that really drive it. When we say loss trend, we're also recognizing the slippage in terms and conditions.
Correct.
Okay. That's very helpful. I guess a second unrelated question. At AFA, I think we talked a little bit more about, I'm trying to think of the right word to phrase it, pursuing individual opportunities in the insurance segment a little bit more rapidly than in the past. I was hoping you could update us on how those opportunities are bubbling up.
Well, there's always possibilities around. I'm not here to tell you what we're going to do next month. I don't think it's fair on a call of that nature, Meyer. I think our comments at AFA also had to do with, we're also going to be a bit more proactive in reacting to either adverse or positive reactions. For instance, property was a great example, right? Property rates increased a little bit, I think Nicolas took it upon himself when he took over in October. He said, listen, even though the rates, as I was saying in the third or fourth quarter, you need rates of 30%-40% to really start pushing the envelope and make a significant commitment in capital to property. We still had some rate increases, Nicolas said, well, we need to be a bit more proactive in positioning ourselves in that marketplace.
I think that would've been not necessarily the way a traditional insurance company would think all the time. I think we're trying to bring, which is more of an opportunistic way of thinking, which I think is brought upon largely as a result of Nicolas' bent on what he's done so well on the reinsurance. Our insurance group has taken up to it like fish in water.
Okay, perfect. Thanks so much.
Thanks, Meyer.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ian Gutterman from Balyasny. Your line is open.
Thank you. Mark, I was thinking of going to the front of the queue this time, but some traditions are too good to change.
I agree.
You are still not last, unfortunately.
I would have taken it personally, Ian, so thank you.
You can always hang up and redial in to be last.
Exactly. My timing's a little off, I guess. I had one follow-up real quick on Meyer's question before I get to my main questions, is maybe as much of an observation as a question. Mark, how is it that some of these lines where we're seeing adverse development every year, most of the companies seem to pick them to a 65 every year in mid to long tail casualty?
Boy, asking the question is a very deep question. I think that if you overlay what happened, and we were on the receiving end of this, and Mark can attest to that as well when he was running insurance. When you were looking at results in 2012, 2013, 2014, pricing of ongoing business or looking at the results of the years, you would look at 2008, 2009, 2010, and even 2005, 2006, you would have lesser development than the actuaries were indicating. When you do a loss reserve analysis, pretty much everything comes down below the expectation. This has been going on for a while. Actuaries or loss reserve specialists lose a little bit of their credibility after a while because it's kind of hard to deviate from anchoring yourself at a long-term level.
It's very hard for people reserving to think that this is really a 30% loss ratio, and it's also the same way, very difficult to say it's not running 65, it's running 80.
Right.
Since we're looking back, you look back after five or six years, if you are an actuary right now, or if you look at the loss reserve development, and you say, well, I think it's really a 75, these are the same people who were saying it should be booked at 65, 68, five or six years ago, and things have developed to be 56, 57, 58. There's a little bit of a mismatch. It's not easy for people to reconcile the way the reserving is made. Most people, and I think we can be guilty of it ourselves as well, people tend to think of insurance as being not cycle affected, but there is such a thing as cycle affected. It's not a linear plus or minus two or three points, especially if you're a specialty insurance companies like ourselves.
Many moving parts, it's really hard to pin it down, and you have history as a guide, and the loss ratio around the long term expected varies wildly, unfortunately or fortunately. I like it because it creates opportunities for us in the future because people keep on booking 65% and 66%. When it turns out to be 85, 88, they have to recognize it. We'll be able to seize the opportunity of people de-emphasizing that line of business precisely. It's going to take a while. It's going to take a while.
Yeah. Agree, and that's helpful. It's how I remember things from the early days when we were first meeting on the island when you guys were being formed. It feels like a similar story. My main couple questions, one on the mortgages. I get obviously the advantage of having RateStar versus the card when other people are cutting rates. How should I think about, and I'll try to come up with an example. It's probably not the best one, but you can hopefully get the spirit of it. If there's a sell under RateStar that maybe was priced, tended to, because you looked at it in a better way, maybe it was a 20% discount to most people's rate card, and maybe you had, I don't know, a 50% hit rate or something on that sell.
If everyone else was cutting rates Does that hit rate go from 50% to 25%, even if you don't change anything? Even though you're not using the rate card, do you become less competitive and need to maybe reconsider some of your pricing in the RateStar cells?
Yeah. We've been thinking about this, and I think the best way is, let me try to make an analogy from property cat exposure. Most of our analysts are P&C people. Let's think about two types of risk. Hurricane in Florida and California quake. If you think about writing a line of business or pricing, you price yourself at 20 online for a layer in Florida attaching a $10 billion market loss for the overall event. This 20% is the current pricing.
Right.
You have an excess of $60 billion quake exposure in California, and that current pricing is 10%. RateStar might say that the current pricing for Florida, I should be getting 22%, but the rate card is saying 20. I'm going to not necessarily win a lot of that business. At the same time, because of inefficiencies in the overall card, I can tell you that our RateStar pricing for that California risk, which is much higher, much less likely to be hit, is 10% when the rate card is 13%. Right now, what I'm going to be doing is focusing more of my capital on the one that is at 10%. Two things will be evident to you, is that I'm having a lower rate than the average, the person that writes the thing in Florida.
That's why for us, the average rate is a very misleading way to think about it. Now, the rate card is 20 in Florida and it's 13 in California. Next year, somebody cuts the rate card by 10%. That 20 goes to 18, that 13 goes to 11 and change. What am I going to be able to write next year? My RateStar hasn't changed. I'm still at 10 in California and I'm still at 23 in Florida. What's going to happen? I'm going to get even less of the Florida business and presumably the same, or if not, a bit more of the business in California. That's sort of what RateStar does for us. Does that make sense to you, Ian?
That makes perfect sense. I totally agree with that. I was trying to think if there were sort of cells in the middle where you would have gone from maybe something that was a 20 and you were a 19 and you were getting business and now you're over it, now you're 19 versus 18.
Yeah.
I don't know how big of a book that is. Maybe that's just on the margin. It's not that big a deal.
Yeah. Well, to your point, I made one extreme example about two different risks.
Sure.
You're right, there's a lot between the spectrum that goes. That we have David Gansberg's team, Alan and John Gaines spending an amazing amount of time dynamically connecting with clients and looking at production on a daily basis and try to figure out what will work. RateStar is sort of a floor of sort, and we sort of put the pricing that we think will sell in the marketplace that give us a return, obviously. We're not trying to leave money on the table, but we're trying to be competitive and take the best risk, as in the example I just mentioned. There's a lot more going on, and you're quite right. I mean, there's 1 million, 3 cells, 17-ish different. It's a very arduous process.
Yeah.
Mark, do you want to add something?
I would just say, you probably heard some of the other questions. Jeff Dunn talked about what if others have RateStars and have.
Well, that's true.
fine pricing. I think your question is a lot more relevant.
Okay.
I think right now it's like they have a old buckshot musket and they're trying to hit an ant.
Yeah
Where they need a scalpel.
Yeah.
Over time, I think your question is going to have a lot more relevance.
Yeah. Got it. If I could just ask quickly on the Catalina transaction, just can you give a little color on what U.S. lines of business were in there? I guess I don't really think of you guys having a runoff book, so I'm a little confused of what exactly you mean.
Sure
What went into this transaction.
Sure. Well, actually, we kind of view this as our third action because some of these programs, as we talked about, we took terminated. We talked about in past calls, in past years, of terminating programs, and you're stuck with the runoff. We terminated because we didn't like the results, or we didn't like the emergence of claims or the underlying coverage that allowed that to happen. Similarly, on the specialty casualty runoff, it's predominantly old New York labor law issues, California residential contractor business, where you think you're done in 10 years, but then they do repairs and the clock starts over again, and those kinds of things. That's really it. There's no ongoing customer continuity issues, things of that nature.
Given that those decisions were made, and I think they were the correct ones, and then we still wound up, you'd see it in our 10-Ks, still having some issues with it. We said, looking across the board on capital management, let's just try to solve it once and for all.
Okay. Even though it was backdated to 1/1, since the deal was written in April, is any financial impact going to show up in Q2, or has it already all been accounted for in Q1?
Well, what you wind up happening, it's going to be Q2.
Okay.
Remember, ultimately, there's a difference between statutory and GAAP. If the adverse development cover is ever hit, Lord knows if it will be, but it gives us sleep insurance. To the extent that it is, statutory, you get 100% of the recoverable immediately. On a GAAP basis, it's kind of amortized in. Think of it similar to the Berkshire AIG-
Exactly
ADC, and the way that works.
We don't expect much change in quarter two, not much impact.
Okay, good. That's what I was curious about. Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Sure.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ryan Tunis from Autonomous Research. Your line is open.
Hey, thanks. I guess just following up on the ADC. Could you give us some idea of the amount of adverse development, I guess, maybe that you took last year, you've taken in the past few years on the lines that were subject to that?
I do not have that on my fingertips. I can tell you this. On programs for the last couple of years, I believe the majority of the adverse was associated with these terminated programs. I think that's the best color I can give you.
It's the same on a casualty. If there were any adverse developments, the same on the specialty casualty book as Mark referred to. Yes.
That's a pretty good slice of adverse, I think, from looking at the 10-K, right? Now that's the lack of a headwind going forward.
Yes, that's correct.
Okay. Then I had a couple bigger picture ones, I guess, on the MI conversation. I guess the first one is the whole discussion about mid-teens ROEs. At what return level would you guys proactively start writing less?
I think that you've seen it as we speak. I think we have a threshold risk-adjusted. Like I said, not everything else is created equally. You saw some changes already in the two quarters where first we de-emphasized singles for a little while because we don't think the returns are there. It was low teens. It's now unfortunately going a little bit below 10%, which is not acceptable to us. It's also portfolio thinking, right? You got to think about it, Ryan, in terms of portfolios. Not every transaction is. These could be accretive, they could bring diversification credit even within the portfolio U.S. MI.
Having said all this, you heard about the singles and the two other riskier areas that we've looked at, the high LTVs and the high DTIs, we have tended to go away because those returns went below the threshold that what we have embedded in RateSTAR. For now, we don't see any reason to start thinking about other than these three areas I mentioned in terms of riskiness. I think it's a very ongoing on a quarterly basis, on a weekly basis, actually, just reviewing what pricing is out there and what kind of risk is going on. The other thing that I would tell you is now with everything else being equal, different products could come at some point down the road in the future. We'll be reacting to it when we see it. That's the best I can tell you.
Ryan, I'd just add that Mark referenced it in his PML discussion. He talked about the property cat, and he talked about the RDS, which I'll emphasize again, we're the only one with an RDS. That is an important heavy board focus and executive management focus over a 16.4% of tangible. It could be a combination of things. It could be a combination of front end, which we think we sculpt pretty well through RateSTAR, and it's a risk management tool on the front end. Because of, I think, the excellent way the MI group has integrated their front-end pricing, the back end, the RDS on the risk management side, they all inform each other. They're all in an integrated basis. If Bellemeade on that programmatic session winds up becoming too expensive or you can't sell it out, what does that tell you?
The outside world is having a different view of mortgage credit risk, and therefore our net could go up more, even though the front end hasn't reacted yet. It's a combination of all those factors that Andrew Rippert and his team take into account.
Got it. I guess my follow-up is just, I'm sure you guys have thought about this some, but just trying to think about the floor on pricing with MI in general. I guess the analog I'm thinking of is the fact that property cat used to be a mid-teens ROE business, and you had alternative capital and capital-light models, and that just feels sort of familiar here. All of a sudden you got several years where all you're talking about is negative pricing, and all of a sudden you're back to pre-Katrina levels. That's obviously not been very much fun. I'm hoping maybe you guys can talk me off the ledge a little bit on that analog.
Is there anything that, I guess, in terms of the structure of the market or anything like that makes this, you think, less susceptible, I guess, lower cost capital entering or over time competitors accepting sub 10% ROEs?
Unlike property cat, you've written business for the last five years at a rate level that is pretty healthy, and that business continues producing returns and results for you as we go forward. On the basis and on the backs of, I would argue, very healthy increase in house prices. We have LTVs. Our current LTV is not an origination, but current LTV in our portfolio way south of 80. It's way south of 80 overall. It's pretty healthy. A lot of equities, a lot of collateral in front of us. We're actually, we still have wind in our sails, if you will. Now if we play the tape going forward, the rates are probably two to two and a half times what they were pre-crisis. There's been a significant amount of price increase.
I'm not even talking about the types of product. The property cat is a 12-month commitment. It's a lot easier to change price. You could change price on the fly for the whole 100% of your portfolio every single year. On mortgage, you always have this portfolio as it unwinds through time. If I overlay this healthy house prices index, lack of products, the bad products that took place in mid-2000 have really created a lot of the issues. I look at a borrower FICO that's as high as it's ever gotten. There's a lot of room to give over time, the question that you're asking, which we're not really asking ourselves because we're going to live it together with our unit.
It's going to take a while to erode that huge increase in quality and pricing that we went through after the crisis of 2009. News of our death are greatly exaggerated, if you will. It's going to take a little while before we get to a threshold of being too dangerous for us to stick around, if you will. It will come. I just don't know when.
Yeah. Ryan, one other thing, back to your analogy. This is longer duration, right? I mean, on property cat, capital comes in because pretty quickly you can know how to exit. If longer tailed liability streams was that comfortable for alternative capital, there'd be tons of casualty vehicles out there's not. This has, a mortgage, as you know, has a lot of duration outflow and duration inflows that are very interest rate and macroeconomically sensitive. I think that's quite a ways off. I'd open that window and get back in the room.
All right. That's helpful. Thanks, guys.
Great.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Zaremski from Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Thanks. I'll try to be fast, given it's past lunch hour. Could you elaborate on what type of economics Arch receives from running Imagine?
We're not in a position to do those. I mean, we have strong NDAs, and there's a lot of communications that we need to keep to ourselves. The returns are comparable to what we would get in a general business sense after we factor in our managing and operating and risk management and bring oversight to the deal.
Okay. Maybe we can follow up that in a future quarter.
Yeah.
Can you remind me, staying on MI, have combined ratios from the rate card generated business been materially different from RateStar business?
That is one great question, the answer is no as of yet, right? We believe that the risk-adjusted pricing framework that RateStar gives us is going to be tremendous in a more of a stress scenario. We have had some localized stress scenarios, but we haven't really gone through that exercise of analyzing it. I think if you look at a loss ratio, when the wind doesn't blow or when the quake doesn't shake, everybody has a zero loss ratio. We're sort of in this relatively benign claims environment, and it's really hard to see it.
That's probably one of our biggest frustrations, I guess, as managers at Arch, is that the fact that we're looking at the way we look at cat pricing and the way we, for instance, and the way we structure our portfolio, when there are no losses, we don't look very good because we looked at we should have done more. The way we think about it, and we talk about it internally all the time, is we're very honest about analyzing the underlying economics and risk characteristics, fully recognizing that we could be wrong for a while. MI is pretty much like a cat line of business in a lot of ways. The short answer is no, we haven't done it. We don't expect it to be much of a difference on reported loss ratio.
Okay. That's helpful. Lastly, a follow-up to Josh's question earlier on travel and A&H, given it continues to grow at a nice clip. It felt like you guys were alluding to it being driven by a few relationships. I'm just kind of curious, if that's correct, are these relationships sticky, longer term in nature, or will this be kind of a line that's classic Arch, which will ebb and flow over time depending on the return profile? I know it's a short tail liability, but is the distribution stickier?
We believe it is stickier. These are smaller items. There's more connectivity to the pricing, claims adjustment. Because a lot of the travel is claims adjustment, right? You need to be able to pay the person that cannot go to their place or repatriate some of them. There's a lot of stuff you need to be able to do. We believe it is stickier. Having said this, everything is sticker, but in the long run, everybody's dead, right? In the long run, everything is variable on the cost, if you remember your microeconomics. At some point, if the pricing gets too out of whack, I'm sure everything is fixable. It's relatively sticky in the short term, short to medium term.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We do have a follow-up from Jay Cohen from Bank of America. Your line is open.
Yeah, sorry to delay lunch further.
Yeah, you couldn't get enough.
I know, right? On Catalina, can you talk about the assets that get transferred over? I'm trying to get a sense of the impact on investment income.
Well, tell you what, let me answer the question more broadly than you asked it because I know you're trying to update your model, right? Look at it this way. We did an LPT at year end, which was a bullet. I mean, a quota share has quarterly cash payments, right? With border loads. This is a bullet cash payment to our Bermuda operating company. We did the cancellation of the quota shares, which brings UPR back on shore with associated cash transfer. Then there's the Catalina, which in the scale of things is not large. It's effectively close to a wash between the investment income that you might guess onshore, offshore because of all those flows back and forth. Catalina, the reason I did that, of the three, Catalina ranks third in size compared to the LPT first, the UPR cancellation second, Catalina third.
Thanks for the clarification, Mark. Appreciate it.
Sure.
Thanks, Jay.
Thank you. I am showing no further questions from our phone lines. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Marc Grandisson for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much, everyone. Happy quarter, and on to lunch now. We'll see you next quarter. Thanks.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.