Good morning, and welcome to the AXIS Capital fourth quarter 2015 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Linda Ventresca. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Emily. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm happy to welcome you to our conference call to discuss the financial results for AXIS Capital for the fourth quarter and year-end to December 31st, 2015. Our earnings press release and financial supplement were issued yesterday evening after the market closed. If you would like copies, please visit the investor information section of our website, www.axiscapital.com. We set aside an hour for today's call, which is also available as an audio webcast through the investor information section of our website. A replay of the teleconference will be available by dialing 877-344-7529 in the United States, and the international number, 412-317-0088. The conference code for both replay dial-in numbers is 10078267. With me on today's call are Albert Benchimol, our President and CEO, and Joe Henry , our CFO.
Before I turn the call over to Albert, I will remind everyone that the statements made during this call, including the question and answer session, which are not historical facts, may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Federal Securities Law. Forward-looking statements contained in this presentation include, but are not limited to, information regarding our estimate of losses related to catastrophes, policies, and other loss events, general economic, capital, and credit market conditions, future growth prospects, financial results and capital management initiatives, evaluation of losses and loss reserves, investment strategies, investment portfolio and market performance, impact to the marketplace with respect to changes in pricing models, and our expectations regarding pricing and other market conditions. These are important factors that could cause actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements to differ materially from our results.
Level of activity, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements as are further described in the risk factors set forth in AXIS's most recent report on Form 10-K and our other documents on file with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, this presentation contains information regarding operating income, our consolidated underwriting income, and adjusted group and segment results, which are non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of the U.S. Federal Securities Laws. For a reconciliation of these items to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, please refer to our press release and financial supplement, which can be found on our website. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Albert.
Thank you, Linda, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today. Last night, AXIS reported fourth quarter operating income of $120 million, or $1.23 per diluted share, an annualized operating ROE for the quarter of 9.2%. For the full year, we delivered operating earnings per share of $4.02, ROE of 7.7%. Net income was $6.04 per diluted share. We ended the quarter and year with diluted book value per share of $54.08, an increase of 6.8% over the year. Adjusting for dividends, diluted book value grew 9% over the last 12 months. During the year, we increased our dividend by 21% and returned $447 million to our shareholders through common dividends and share repurchases. This continues a trend that we've established for quite some time.
Over the last five years, we returned to our shareholders 110% of aggregate operating income, including the breakup fee earned from PartnerRe. 2015 was a busy year for AXIS featured many successful initiatives to steer the company towards a future of enhanced profitability and stability. Despite the competitive market environment, noteworthy for its pressure on pricing and overabundance of capital and low interest rates, which affected much of our industry, we made rewarding progress against our objective to be a global leader in specialty risks. I'm extremely pleased that in the face of this challenging year, AXIS emerged stronger, leaner, and more focused.
Joe will walk you through the highlights of the quarter and year, I wanted to begin by sharing with you my perspectives on the full year, as all quarters, including this one, tend to be affected by adjustments up and down, full-year results eliminate some of that noise. Our franchise and market positioning continue to improve. Absent the impact of FX and discontinued operations, we achieved good growth in selected markets. Our efforts and analytics are helping our underwriters target exactly the business we want, even as the markets are increasingly competitive, we are winning desirable business. Importantly, we are executing well on the right initiatives for the current market conditions.
In our insurance segment, which accounts for 56% of our gross written premium and 49% of net premiums earned, we reported a combined ratio of 97.8% for the year as compared to 95.7% in the prior year. The current accident year combined ratio, ex-cat, was essentially flat at 96% compared to 95.6% in the prior year. We achieved that result notwithstanding the fact that we experienced this year a highly unusual frequency of mid-size losses, mostly in the energy lines. Mid-size losses contributed close to seven loss ratio points for the insurance segment this year, twice the average of the prior three years. We are comfortable that our share of the unusual frequency of energy losses this year is in line with our leading presence in the energy market and not a reflection of any change in our underwriting discipline.
When we normalize for the higher frequency of mid-size losses this year, our attritional combined ratio for insurance improved by three points, even while we absorbed close to two points of adverse rate and trend. I'm very proud of this impressive progress achieved by our insurance team. In our reinsurance segment, which accounts for 44% of our gross written premium, but 51% of our net premiums earned, we reported a full year combined ratio of 86% as compared to 81.3% in the prior year. Again, if we look at the current accident year combined ratio ex-cats, that ratio increased almost six points to 95.2% in an increasingly difficult reinsurance market. Importantly, over half of the increase is due to mix. Given the significant declines in pricing for property and catastrophe risks, our writings for these lines are down almost 20% in the year.
The lower percentage of premiums earned represented by property and catastrophe lines with offsetting growth in longer tail lines with higher target combined ratios contributed about three points to the increase of the segment's combined ratio. I feel it important to repeat that this is not an indication of a deterioration in underwriting. It merely reflects that at current terms, we believe it is best to reduce cat business as a percentage of our overall portfolio. The remaining increase in the reinsurance combined ratio reflects more competitive pricing and higher acquisition costs prevalent in reinsurance market, as well as a prudent approach to reserving in a transitioning market.
We've been able to partially offset these negatives by taking underwriting actions to protect the quality and profitability of our book, targeting larger shares of the more attractive treaties, reducing the overall volatility of our reinsurance book, and building a stronger group of strategic capital partners with whom to share our risk and earn attractive fees. Our team is executing well on the appropriate responses to the market range of challenges, all the while getting closer to our clients and getting meaningful shares of their better business as a result of our customer-centric approach. 2015 has been a year of continued progress on our various initiatives, improving the quality of our book of business, growing and enhancing the profitability of our recent initiatives, expense control, and capital efficiency, which have contributed to improvements in 2015 and create more value to our shareholders in 2016 and beyond.
I'll report more of these as well as market conditions and our outlook for 2016 after Joe covers the details of our financial performance. Joe?
Thank you, Albert, and good morning, everyone. During the quarter, we generated good results, which included operating income of $120 million and an annualized operating ROE of 9.2%. Our net income for the quarter was $135 million compared to $164 million in Q4 of 2014. Our results this quarter benefited from a low level of catastrophe and weather-related losses, continued favorable prior year development in our loss reserves, and a decrease in our general administrative expenses. Other factors impacting our results this quarter included an increase in our ex cat and weather current accident year loss ratio, which I will discuss shortly, and an other insurance-related loss of $15 million, which was driven by realized losses and mark-to-market adjustments on our reinsurance weather derivatives portfolio following unseasonably warm weather conditions in Europe.
Our book value was also favorably impacted by an increase in unrealized losses on our available-for-sale investment portfolio, which reflected the increase in U.S. interest rates, the widening of credit spreads in non-government bonds, and foreign exchange volatility. Moving into the details of the income statement, our fourth quarter gross premiums written increased by 5%, or 6% after adjusting for foreign exchange movements, with an increase in our Reinsurance segment partially offset by a decrease in our Insurance segment. For the fourth quarter, our Reinsurance segment top line was up $50 million compared to the same period in 2014. The increase was mainly driven by an increase in multiyear contracts written primarily in our liability lines. Our liability lines also benefited from new business and favorable changes to treaty terms. Our Insurance segment reported a decrease in the top line of $12 million.
The segment premiums this quarter were impacted by the profitability enhancement actions we announced during Q3, where, as we discussed with you last quarter, we decided to better align and deploy our resources into areas that provided the most attractive opportunities. This resulted in a reduced focus on certain markets, most notably Australia, and has led to a modest decrease in our insurance top line. In addition, our insurance premiums continue to be impacted by the strength of the U.S. dollar. After adjusting for these two factors, our insurance gross premiums increased by approximately $23 million, driven by new business primarily in our accident and health, credit and political risk, and professional lines. These increases were slightly offset by continuing difficult market conditions in the property markets.
Our net premiums written were up 7%, 8% adjusted for FX in the quarter compared to Q4 2014, reflect variances in the level of gross premiums written, as well as a change in the mix of premiums written between our segments with a higher proportion of premiums written in our Reinsurance segment, which has a much lower ceded ratio. Our net premiums earned decreased by 4% in Q4 2014 compared to the same period last year. Net premium earned decreases 1% on a constant currency basis, primarily reflect reductions in the Reinsurance segment due to lower business written in certain lines of business, most notably catastrophe in recent periods, as well as an increase in the premium ceded reflecting increased catastrophe retrocessional covers.
Insurance net premiums earned net of FX was flat, with the growth in business written in recent periods offset by the increases in the level of our ceded premiums, primarily due to increased reinsurance coverage purchased on our professional lines. Our fourth quarter consolidated current accident year loss ratio increased 3.6 points to 65.2% compared to the same period of last year. During the quarter, we reported $10 million in losses related to catastrophe and weather events, which compared to $21 million of such losses reported in the same period of last year. Our ex-CAT and weather current year loss ratio increased by 4.8 points to 64.2%, with increases noted in both segments. Our reinsurance segment current accident year loss ratio, net of CAT and weather, increased by 6.1 points compared to Q4 2014, primarily due to the changes in the business mix.
As we have reported in prior quarters, we have continued to take actions aimed at reducing the volatility of our book of business, primarily by reducing the level of business written in the catastrophe lines, where industry conditions continue to remain difficult. We have also increased our writings in more stable, longer tail lines of business such as motor and liability, which, while less volatile, do attract a higher loss ratio. Q4 2015 reinsurance results were also impacted by higher losses incurred in the credit and surety lines, which was partially offset by improved quarter-over-quarter loss experience in our property reserving class, which includes our agriculture and engineering business.
The insurance segment current accident year loss ratio, ex CAT and weather, was higher by 3.1 points at 62% compared to the same period in 2014, due to the increased midsize and attritional loss experience in the marine lines, which was driven by an above-average number of large industry events during the year, and the liability lines, as well as the impact of lower rates. These were partially offset by improvements in the loss experience in the credit and political risk and property lines, as well as professional lines, which continue to reflect improvements following efforts aimed at reshaping this book of business. Changes in the business mix also partially offset the increase in the loss ratio. For the full year 2015, the group current accident year loss ratio was 65.6% compared to 63.2% in 2014.
We reported catastrophe and weather-related losses of $100 million compared to $93 million last year. After adjusting for these events, the current accident year loss ratio increased by 2.1 points to 62.9%, primarily due to the change in the business mix, the impact of lower rates, and the increase in marine insurance and credit and surety reinsurance loss experience during the year, partially offset by loss experience improvements in property and other lines across both segments and in the insurance professional lines. Turning to loss reserves established in prior years, our results continue to benefit from net favorable loss reserve development, which aggregated to $77 million during the fourth quarter. Short tail classes in both segments contributed $40 million of this balance, primarily reflecting better than expected loss emergence.
In addition, we continue to give weight to actuarial methods that reflect our favorable experience for liability and professional reinsurance business, which contributed a further $21 million of favorable development for the quarter. Favorable prior year loss development was also reported in the motor and credit and surety reinsurance lines of $9 million and $8 million respectively, and insurance professional lines of $2 million. These favorable loss developments were partially offset by adverse loss development in the insurance liability lines of $3 million, reflecting an increase in the loss reserve for one specific claim, as well as increased loss provisions related to a higher frequency of large auto liability claims. During the fourth quarter of 2015, our acquisition cost ratio increased slightly by one tenth of a point compared to the same period in 2014, driven by increases in the reinsurance segment.
These increases were driven by variance in accruals for loss sensitive features in underlying contracts, primarily due to prior year reserve releases, changes in the mix of business, and higher acquisition costs paid on certain lines of business. Our insurance segment acquisition ratio decreased this quarter compared to the prior year, driven by a federal excise tax adjustment following a change in the application of certain cascading tax rules by the Internal Revenue Service. Higher ceding commissions received and changes in the mix of business, partially offset by higher commission costs in certain lines of business. Our expense ratio in Q4 was 15.2% versus 17.3% a year ago. Our year-to-date expense ratio was 16.2% versus 16.1% a year ago. Focusing solely on dollars, we've reduced expenses by $25 million in the quarter and year-to-date.
We did, however, have some unusual expenses in Q4 2014, such as severance costs, increased IT costs due to sourcing and certain system write-offs, and lease abandonment charges, which made the drop in our expense ratio relative 2014 appear larger than it really was. In addition, expenses in the current period also decreased due to a $7 million and a $13 million reduction in incentive compensation costs in Q4 and year-to-date 2015 respectively, compared to the same periods in 2014, reflecting our 2015 financial performance. As you know, in 2014, we targeted $50 million-$60 million in expense reductions by the end of 2017. So far, we've identified $40 million of that, with $30 million of that to flow through results in 2016 and a further $10 million to come in 2017.
These savings in 2015 have been partially offset by normal inflationary increases, investments we've made in analytics over the past two years, and resources to support the growth of the organization. We expect to continue to invest in the growth of the franchise during 2016 and believe we will be successful in continuing to leverage our expense base, scaling attractive new initiatives. While we cannot predict exactly where our expense ratio will be in 2016, we expect improvement in the 1% range from the full year 2015 expense ratio. Overall, the company reported underwriting income of $88 million and a combined ratio of 91.6% for the quarter. Net investment income was $79 million for the quarter, an increase of $33 million from the previous quarter, and comparable to the fourth quarter of 2014.
The increase from the third quarter of 2015 was primarily due to the contribution to net investment income from our hedge funds, which benefited from the rally in equity markets in Q4, following the declines experienced in the previous quarter. In the aggregate, the total return on our cash and investment portfolios for the quarter was negative one-tenth of 1%, or flat excluding the impact of foreign exchange. The total returns in the quarter were impacted by the decline in pricing of our fixed maturities as a result of the increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve. As previously discussed with you, during August 2015, we entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement, or an ASR, to repurchase an aggregate of $300 million of our ordinary shares. During August, we initially repurchased 4.1 million of our shares under this agreement.
This ASR agreement has formally terminated on January 15, 2016, with 1.4 million of additional common shares delivered to the company. During December 2015, we announced that effective December 31st, 2015, the share repurchase authorization program was increased to $750 million of the company's common shares, effective through December 31st, 2016. Following the expiration of the ASR agreement, we have reinitiated our share repurchase program and expect to maintain our goal, provided that market and financial conditions remain the same, and we do not identify any attractive investment or growth opportunities of returning at least 100% of our annual operating earnings to our shareholders in the form of common dividends and share repurchases. At February 2nd, 2016, the remaining authorization under the share repurchase program approved by our board of directors was $734 million.
We continue to make strong progress on the strategic goals and expansion opportunities we have discussed with you in prior quarters. The initiatives designed to support profitable growth and enhance shareholder value announced during the third quarter of 2015 have already made an initial small contribution to our results this quarter. However, as a reminder, we do not expect the full benefit of these initiatives to be reflected in our results until later in 2016 and into 2017. We also continue to make progress on the other ongoing expense reduction initiatives and expect to see benefits of these initiatives to start impacting our results in 2016.
Our Lloyd's unit continued to make progress in the London market. During the quarter, we also announced the establishment of an underwriting division in China, which will focus on treaty reinsurance business on the Lloyd's China platform beginning from the first quarter of the current year. We also have recently opened a new representative office in Dubai, which will initially focus on accident and health reinsurance business. During the quarter, we have continued to expand the capabilities of AXIS Ventures, our third-party capital vehicle. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Albert.
Thank you, Joe. Before opening up the call to questions, I'll provide an update on market pricing, our January 1 reinsurance renewal, and a progress report on our four-point profit enhancement plans. As with the rest of the market, we experienced continued pricing pressures in most lines of markets during the year and in the fourth quarter. While the overall average market change for our insurance book of -3% in the fourth quarter is higher than the -1% experienced in the fourth quarter of 2014, it was nevertheless a bit better than the -4% reported for the third quarter of 2015. Consistent with prior quarters, the greatest pressure is in catastrophe-exposed property and London-based global specialty lines. Large accounts are more competitive than smaller risks.
In our U.S. division, the overall average rate of decline was -1%, much better than the -4% experienced in the first three quarters of 2015. The improvement is primarily driven by rate increases in excess casualty, where we are observing pricing corrections associated with the recognition of poor industry results with low attaching auto-related liability. Pricing in U.S. casualty lines was up 6% on average in the quarter, while U.S. property was down 8% due to an abundance of capacity and a lack of catastrophe events. In this market, we continue to grow our casualty business and shift our property business towards smaller accounts in order to achieve a better, more stable attritional experience with lower severity. In our international division, overall rates change was -7% for the quarter, in line with last quarter. The toughest conditions are in global property, energy, and terrorism, with double-digit reductions.
Other lines are more reasonable, with generally low to mid-single-digit reductions. We've taken a number of actions in 2015 in an effort to address challenges in the international marketplace, including winding down our retail insurance operations in Australia, reducing our business volume where necessary, and increasing our writings of smaller, less volatile risks. In our professional lines division, overall rate declined 1%, a bit better than the -2% observed in the third quarter. There was a fairly wide spread of pricing conditions. Aggregate E&O rate change was +3% for the quarter, with higher rate increases driven largely by cyber coverages. D&O lines were down 4%, with primary layers essentially flat, while excess and Side A experienced ongoing declines. Within this overall insurance market environment, we are focusing our energies on lines and markets that remain adequately priced or continuing to deliver price increases, providing opportunities for profitable growth.
This includes accidents and health, capital risk solutions, casualty, and certain targeted professional lines, among others. We're satisfied with our new business production for the quarter, and its quality was consistent with that of our renewals. Moving on to reinsurance. At the January 1 renewals, the trading environment remained competitive as has been widely reported. Multi-year commitments are in great demand, broadly impacting all lines of business. We participated in a number of multi-line transactions where it made sense to do so. Brokers continued pushing for increased coverage and opportunistic buying was on the rise. We observed property and catastrophe pricing declines in the range of 5%-10%, with the U.S. at the lower end of the range and international markets at the upper end. Professional lines and liability exhibited fairly modest reductions with a modest increase in ceding commissions. Credit and surety and motor were essentially flat.
Among the more favorable trends we saw, reinsurers panels are getting smaller in some instances, increased retentions are no longer working for all cedents, and Solvency II-driven purchases introduced opportunities into the mix. These factors, combined with AXIS's customer-centric approach, provided opportunities for us to grow. For the 50% of AXIS Re's 2015 expiring premium renewable in January, excluding agriculture, we grew premium by approximately 7%. We maintained discipline and good relationships ensured continuity. We were able to successfully mitigate some of the price declines through shift of business mix and rigorous risk selection. Most of our growth came from lines of business that experienced very little, if any, margin deterioration, such as motor, where Solvency II constraints increased the opportunity set.
Due to our portfolio construction, discipline, and strong relationships with clients and brokers, we believe our price technical ratios increased by only a bit more than a point, but with less portfolio volatility. We estimate that the deterioration of the various lines in which we participate was higher than our point of deterioration for the overall market. Overall, our team did a commendable job in protecting the risk-adjusted profitability of our portfolio. Now I'd like to give you an update on our four-point profit improvement plan we previously discussed with you. You will recall we are targeting a four- to five-point incremental margin improvement in our combined ratio off the 2014 levels by the end of 2017, excluding the impact of rate change.
The 4 pillars are improvements in underwriting to achieve lower and more stable loss ratio, growing our newer initiatives so that they make strong positive contributions to income, eliminating at least $50 million in expenses, and optimizing our capital structure and risk funding alternatives. We made very good progress on each of these 4 goals. As I noted in my introductory remarks, our insurance current accident year loss ratio, ex-cat and mid-sized losses, improved by over 2 points in 2015, even after we absorbed 2 points of adverse rate and trend. We believe that as mid-sized losses revert to historical averages, this trend should be more clearly reflected in our results. This improvement was driven by our underwriters using data and analytics to target better performing business, including smaller, less volatile risks, and take corrective action on underperforming sectors.
We are continuing to embed analytics in our culture, and to drill down deeper and wider into data, both our own data as well as market data. We are confident as we continue to do that, we will continue to deliver improvements in the level of quality of our insurance loss ratio. As to reinsurance, while our ex-cat loss ratio has increased 3.4 points for the year, this was in the face of adverse pricing and a shift in the mix of business to include a greater proportion of long-tailed and less volatile business that improve our overall risk-adjusted return. We are using analytics to better segment and target opportunities and build a more efficient portfolio.
In reinsurance, our use of data and analytics is not limited to our own book. We are increasingly sharing our findings with key clients. This creates a win-win situation where we can help them improve their own results. As a core reinsurer, we benefit from participation in a better book of business. The deterioration of reinsurance pricing we have seen over the past couple of years is affecting every participant in the industry. Through it all, we believe our current book of reinsurance business efficient than it was in 2012. The second pillar of improvement is to bring our newer initiatives to appropriate scale so they can begin to contribute meaningfully to growth and profitability or take corrective action, as we did with our Australian retail operations. In that regard, 2015 was a year of strong progress.
As insurance initiatives, including accidents and health, grew premiums 30% in the aggregate and lowered their aggregate combined ratio by four and a half points. As a result, while new initiatives added over two points to the 2014 year insurance combined ratio, that impact was less than a point in 2015 insurance combined ratio. We believe these initiatives are positioned to be net positive contributor to insurance results in 2016, absent unusual events. As we do this, as Joe noted, we are still investing in new initiatives, opening up new offices, and looking for opportunities to expand the AXIS franchise. As to expenses, we targeted the elimination of $50 million in expenses by the end of 2017.
As we discussed in our last conference call, the actions announced in October to better align our resources to our profitable growth opportunities and enhance operational efficiency should generate annualized savings of $30 million by the end of 2016. In addition, with savings of approximately $11 million resulting from actions initiated late in 2014, as well as an additional $10 million of saving that should come online in 2017, we have identified and put in place savings of $50 million. We remain focused on identifying and delivering on additional saving opportunities to free up resources that we can invest in a more effective and efficient platform, enhance analytic capabilities, and expand our underwriter force to better serve our clients and distributors and accelerate the growth of profitable premium.
Finally, as to capital efficiency, we are increasing our use of attractive reinsurance as evidenced by our increase in ceded premiums, as Joe mentioned earlier. Our efforts to develop a group of strong and aligned strategic capital partners allows us to do more for our clients and provide high quality to our risk partners. To illustrate the point, in 2015, our reinsurance business ceded $105 million of premium, a 17% increase over the prior year. Of that amount, over 70% was ceded to our strategic capital partners. We received fees and profit participations which favorably impacted various components of our income statement. We intend to grow our roster of strategic capital partners and to provide them with a high quality and well-balanced portfolio of risks because it is good for our clients, it is good for our strategic capital partners, and it is good for our shareholders.
We have been responsible and disciplined stewards of capital. In the absence of meaningful opportunities to reinvest our capital at acceptable levels of profitability from 2011 through to 2015, we've returned $2.4 billion to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases. As I noted earlier, that represents 110% of cumulative operating income, inclusive of the PartnerRe breakup fee. As Joe noted, we are back in the market after completion of the $300 million ASR we launched last August. We are committed to further progress along each of these vectors. While we are building our company for long-term success, we also believe strongly that the actions we are pursuing will deliver enhanced profitability in the near term. I remain extremely optimistic about our company as we build an AXIS for the 21st century.
Our mission remains to help our clients manage their risks, to provide creative solutions to address difficult challenges, and to provide outstanding claims management service. AXIS is today more focused and more disciplined than ever. We are providing thoughtful solutions, improving our use of data and analytics to construct our portfolio and adding value to our customers, our strategic capital partners, and shareholders alike. In this transitioning market, quality of relationship, brand, reputation, service and claims management, financial strength, and ratings all influence access to business opportunities. This access to risk, combined with rigorous selection of risk and portfolio constructions, are paramount in extracting the best performance out of a declining market. In these attributes, we believe that AXIS has a strong track record and is well positioned to succeed. With that, I'd like to open up the call for questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question is from Michael Nannizzi of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thanks so much. I guess one question, Albert, just looking at the results and kind of trying to parse the points, maybe starting with reinsurance. Joe gave some reasons as to the change year-over-year, but it sounds like those are changes that are likely going to persist, so mix changes and competitiveness. How should we think about that profitability in that segment, both the loss and the expense side? It looks like ceding commission's probably a little bit higher too. Is it possible for that sort of 99 underlying to revert back to levels that we're more accustomed to seeing in the past? Or should we assume that these changes that you've made and conditions will cause us to remain at around this level?
Well, reinsurance is a cyclical business. I think we've seen periods where the industry delivered high combined ratios and very low combined ratios, and there's no question that currently we're following three years of price declines. I am not of the view that it will stay this way. For one thing, I think as you've heard from ourselves and other people, I think that we're getting close to the point where we're earning our cost of capital, and in some lines of business, we're not even being offered our cost of capital. I think there's an absolute limit to what it is that we can do. I think rather than watch declines in profitability, you will probably see us write less. If other people do that, then that, of course, becomes a market event where we will start to see more improvement.
I think with regards to what we've discussed earlier, is the fact that when I look at our book of business, and I look at our individual lines of business, I do not see deterioration in each of our lines of business that you see in our portfolio. What do I mean by that? The reality is that when you look at the ex-CAT ratio, there's a flaw in the formula because it keeps all of the CAT premium, then it eliminates the CAT losses. Which means that if you have a very high CAT component in your portfolio, you're always going to have a low ex-CAT loss portfolio, then you take the excuse that it was a bad CAT year, we should ignore it and go back and look at the ex-CAT loss.
The truth is that what we are doing right now is creating a more balanced book, a more capital efficient book. We are protecting the returns on risk, the returns on capital in a way that are much stronger than what you see in the reported combined ratios. I think over time, again, you will see your pricing on CAT improve. If not, then we will write less of it. I think we will take the right actions to ensure that our capital is profitably utilized. I am not the only CEO to be saying that we think we've reached pretty much the floor of what we can tolerate in many lines. If we don't see changes, we'll simply write less of it.
Got it.
Mike, it's Joe again.
Yep. Go ahead.
Go ahead. Why don't you ask your question first, then I'll come back.
Sure. It sounds like just absent a change in the market, in terms of you changing, everyone changing tolerance for lack of profitability goes down. Absent a change in the market, there isn't something one-timey, there isn't something about this quarter that we should think that this is not indicative of where this business is currently running. Is that fair?
I think where it's priced today is where it's priced today. I think that we, however, will continue to look for ways to optimize the profitability and the efficiency of the portfolio by making judicious changes in the mix of business, looking at different ways of structuring, and frankly, differentiating ourselves and demonstrating to our clients and our partners that we're adding value and that we need to be adequately compensated for that value.
I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead, Joe.
Yeah. Let me just jump in here. There's about a point in our reinsurance segment combined ratio related to loss sensitive features. This is hard for you to see, but basically because we release reserves from prior years, and you note that we've had $75 million worth of prior year releases in the quarter. That actually increases our commissions and in some cases, ceded premiums due to the fact that we have loss sensitive features on a lot of our credit and our motor reinsurance agreements. I would say there's some unusual, if you will, acquisition cost impacts due to the release of prior year reserves due to these loss sensitive features. I just want to point that out.
Got it. Sorry, Albert, just to follow up there. If you're reducing exposure to property CAT, which even with deteriorating pricing is still probably on a notional basis among sort of the more profitable business, and you're replacing with long tail casualty business that's maybe more stable but carries a higher loss ratio, how does that mix shift provide a tailwind to margins from here?
I think the issue that we're looking at, which is not reflected in current quarters, is that in the last couple of years, we've had very favorable CAT activity. Our view is that when we look at the composition of our portfolio, we need to take a look at it in terms of the expected CAT results. I think that if you look at the expected CAT results, I believe that we've made the right decisions of reducing the CAT exposure in our portfolio. The value of this strategy, as I've said before, really needs to be viewed in the context of multiple quarters and years that include CAT results, so that you can see whether or not we've delivered a more profitable, more balanced book of business.
I continue to be of the view that when we look at the reduced volatility, the enhanced diversification, that from a return on risk perspective, from a return on capital perspective, our book of business today is better than it was in 2012.
Got it. Just one last one on the expense ratio in insurance. Joe, what was the impact of that tax item? Just trying to get an idea of sort of what the normalized profitability looked like in 4Q. Thanks.
Yeah. It was $8 million for the group, $7 million to insurance, and $1 million to reinsurance.
Got it. Great. Thank you.
Our next question is from Amit Kumar of Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Thanks, and good morning. Just maybe a quick follow-up to Michael's question on the discussion of losses. If I understand this correctly, the additional investors losses in both segments, that was more a function of changes in business mix, external events, and hence, no corrective actions are needed specifically in the AXIS book. Did I understand that correctly, or I missed the point there?
No, I think that there are really two different issues, if you would. In fact, one of the benefits of being at AXIS is we have both insurance and reinsurance, we have the ability to hop back and forth. I think with regard to insurance, and we should look at the two issues. Insurance, we discussed with you earlier the fact that we believe that there are significant improvements that we can make in our underwriting. In that case, we talked about a number of corrective actions in our underwriting, including using data and analytics to better target risks and identify sub-performing classes that we could exit. We talked about bringing our businesses, our new initiatives to scale. In that area, we've seen progress in all of those.
As we've discussed with you, we think that that progress has been masked in 2015 by the highly unusual frequency of energy losses in 2015. We believe that with a more normalized loss experience that is more consistent with history, that result would have been more evident in 2015. Our expectation is twofold. One is that the actions that we're taking in insurance, we will continue to take, and they will deliver further progress in the underwriting loss ratios for our insurance business. Secondly, even with the way the book is today, if we return to a more normalized mid-size loss environment, we should see enhanced profitability. That is the insurance action plan. It's an action plan that we've been dedicated to, and that given some of the metrics that I've just discussed with you, certainly are delivering very encouraging results.
The issue with the reinsurance book is different. We always believed that our reinsurance book was very attractive, very well underwritten, and very well constructed. We did not believe that our reinsurance book required, quote, "corrective action." The issue with our reinsurance book is simply making sure that we respond in an intelligent way to what is a difficult market for reinsurance. What we are facing in reinsurance is a significant increase in available capital. We're seeing strong pricing competition, and frankly, some irresponsible behaviors by some participants in the market. In that environment, what we are doing in the reinsurance book is making sure that we position ourselves to defend our best relationship and our best business, and changing the mix of business as we can to make sure that on a return on risk perspective, we continue to protect the profitability of that business.
I think when we talk about whether we need or don't need corrective action, I think that does not reflect the specific conditions of each of our two businesses and the appropriate actions that each of our two businesses are taking to optimize their profitability. As I mentioned at the end, I remain optimistic that we are as well positioned as anybody in this industry, and that we have a real tailwind of momentum in terms of improving this organization given the work that we've been doing over the last few years.
I will add that with all of the dislocations happening in the industry which I don't need to name, but that you are very well aware of, we are actually in a better position because we've gone through our reviews, we've gone through our book of business, we've gone through the way we approach our portfolios, and we know where we want to be, we know what we're doing, and we're very comfortable that we are going to be an island of stability in an industry that is really going severe dislocation.
Got it. That's helpful. Maybe the next question is for Joe. In terms of the reserve release in the reinsurance segment, I think you talked about methodology. Can you just expand on that or maybe give more color on the lines or time periods where those releases came from?
Yeah. Amit, first of all, it's just about all lines of business. As I mentioned, a lot of it is on the property and short-tail lines, it really releases across all lines of business and almost across all accident years. Clearly, the emphasis is on the earlier years. We've just seen very positive development both on all lines of business and virtually all accident years.
Got it.
I think you mentioned that the longer tail are pre-2010 type of releases. To the extent that we've released any reserves in the years post-2010, they've essentially been associated to the shorter tail lines where we've now seen enough maturity.
Got it. Just final question on the buyback. You obviously talked about returning 100% of earnings, and you have a meaningful buyback. How should we think about the timing of that buyback? Is that more front-end loaded for 2016? Any thoughts on that, or is it more following the past patterns? How should we think about that? Thanks.
Yeah, no, it would not be front-end loaded, Amit. As you know, we look at this on a quarter-by-quarter basis. We're committed to returning our operating earnings and more than our operating earnings if, again, we do not identify anything that makes sense from a bolt-on type acquisition or, frankly, opportunities in the business itself.
Got it. Thanks.
Just to add to that, we have been subsequent to the expiration of the ASR buying back shares through a 10b5-1. We're in the market.
Got it. Okay, thanks. Thanks for the answers.
Our next question is from Cliff Gallant of Nomura. Please go ahead.
All right. Thank you. I had a question about your PMLs. It sounded like you were talking about reducing risk, and it seems like your cat and property exposure is down. When I compare the disclosure we saw last night on your PMLs versus three months ago, it appears that on a Southeast hurricane or for a California earthquake, particularly on the high end of the one in 250 event, that the exposure is up. It looks like it is up about 15%. Could you talk about why that is?
Sure. I think the simplest way to say is we have got to look at gross and net. I think what you find is that when you compare this to 1/1/2015, you will find that they are still down. In fact, on a growth basis, we are writing less. The very simple fact is that we had a level of protection that expired on 1/1, which we have not yet renewed. You will notice there was a reduction in the PMLs between the 1/1 date and the end of the first quarter last year. We are currently reviewing our various options to buy additional cat protection for our book, we have not finished our deliberations on exactly what approach we will take. This is simply the fact that we are between the expiration of one level of coverage and the replacement.
We felt that we could afford to do that since, as you pointed out, much of that exposure is a typical U.S. hurricane exposure that will not really come online until the second quarter. We believe that we have a window of opportunity, just like we did last year, to visit all of the options that we have, and we will make a decision and then we will act on it.
Okay. Thank you. Actually, as a follow-up, you mentioned growth in your cyber lines of insurance, and I was curious as to if you could talk a little bit about what exactly is being covered in that. Is that more of a data breach type of protection?
We have different kinds of protections that we provide, and they're really meant to meet the needs of our target clients. Most of our book of business is aimed at small to mid-market accounts who are looking to respond to data breaches and address any kind of corrective action. We do have some exposure, but not a lot of exposure that relates to third-party liability in the event of those. That tends to be more in the larger account crowd. The AXIS Pro division, which offers our cyber policies, is essentially a small to mid-market account division.
Okay. Thank you, Albert.
Thank you.
Our next question is from Kai Pan of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. First question on your outlook for the margin improvement, 400 to 500 basis points, 100 basis points through 2017. I just want to clarify that margin is based on the underlying margin that the xCAT and the reserve release. Is that right?
Oh, yeah. It certainly is xCAT and reserve releases. I think that at the end of the day, we believed when we made that statement that there were significant actions that we could do to improve the underlying profitability of the book. As I mentioned to you earlier, we're already seeing a significant amount of that. In fact, you could argue that if we had normalized mid-size losses, we would have seen a 400 basis point improvement in the insurance loss ratio just in 2015 to show you the power of what we've been doing in terms of improvement. We will continue to do that.
I think overall, part of our long-term profitability, of course, is to make sure that as we continue to improve our attritional losses, that we don't take unreasonable catastrophe exposure so that all of the progress on the attritional losses is wasted and offset by excessive cat losses. We want to make sure that the attritional loss ratio is steadier and lower, and we want to make sure that our exposure to the volatile cat lines and volatile cat risks are appropriate for our portfolio and at an appropriate level of volatility, not an excessive level of volatility.
That's great. You also mentioned that the target is excluding any pricing pressure. I just wonder, given that we'll continue to see on the pricing side, do you see part of that the improvement will be offset by continued pricing pressure?
Well, I think it is. The reason we differentiated it is we didn't want to talk about pricing improvements that could be helped simply by the markets or areas that we don't have full control over, which is the pricing. What we can do is determine what risks we write. What we can do is determine how to appropriately price our risks and our overall portfolio composition. It's important for us to make sure that we do that. Again, using the insurance results as an example, we've had 400 basis points of improvement in the loss ratio given normalized mid-size losses, but we only showed two points because we absorbed two points of losses.
Yes, of course, to the extent that rate and trend continues to be adverse, it would offset some of that benefit, we at least have the opportunity to have our own improvements based on what we do, no matter what happens in the market.
Great. The second question on energy, I mean, getting a lot of attention in the market these days. Could you tell us a little more detail about both on your investment portfolio side as well as your underwriting exposure to the energy sector?
Well, we do have a large presence in the energy area. We write all forms of energy, whether it's onshore or offshore or renewable energy. As you know, it is an industry that has significant properties at risk, and we have been a leading participant in that line of business for a long time. It's also true that the industry has seen a significant amount of additional losses this year. Our share of the losses is not inconsistent with our share of the market, so we are not disturbed by that. Again, as I've mentioned, whether you go back three years, five years, 10 years, energy has been a very attractive line for us and will continue to do so.
I will say that we expect the growth in our energy underwriting, that our premiums will come down a little bit because we fully expect that as with the price of oil these days, there are many fewer construction projects and new construction projects. We would expect that one of the components to demand for energy, which is construction projects, would probably come down. We expect, however, that we will see growth in our renewable energy division as that picks up the slack, as that starts to move on. We have been, I believe, very good participants in the energy markets. I believe that we have a recognized and differentiated expertise in energy lines, upstream and downstream, and I think we will continue to be a leader in that area. The next question is with regard to investments. Joe, you may want to talk about that.
Yeah, Kai, it's not material. Our investment team actually has been de-emphasizing energy as a class in the investment portfolio for a while. At the end of the year, it's about $250 million.
That's in alternative investments or in bond portfolio?
No, it's more in the bond portfolio.
Okay, great. Lastly, if I may, to follow up on the buyback. Looks like authorization remaining $734 million is much bigger than your earnings for the past few years. I just wonder, is that upper limits or is that you plan to fully execute on that?
I find the authorization is really an administrative issue because our board is very responsive and shares our commitment to good capital stewardship. We increase the authorization whenever we see that it's been used up. I wouldn't take the $750 as a strategic number that once we do $750, we stop. That hasn't been our case. We've updated our authorization at least three times since I've been here. As we continue to buy back stock, when we need more authorization, we will get it.
Thank you so much for all the answers.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Our next question is from Meyer Shields of KBW. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. Albert, I guess this is an underwriting question. Is it just a coincidence that the same year that energy prices and projects plummeted, you saw an increase in mid-size losses?
It is, in my mind, a total coincidence. I mean, we could go back and take a look at some of the events that have happened, and they are truly fortuitous, and we feel comfortable that they are not a reflection of the underlying economics. I will bring up that in energy, we deal very much with some very large buyers who have significant primary exposure to the losses before we kick in. We're talking about our clients losing $ hundreds of millions before we kick in. We're comfortable that there is a strong alignment of interest between ourselves and our energy clients. Obviously, we are monitoring it. To date, we haven't seen anything to that effect.
I will tell you that over time, we have absolutely monitored the behaviors of our clients. To the extent that we've ever noticed that a client was reducing maintenance and CapEx and so on and so forth, we would discontinue them. I can tell you that I have personally seen a number of cases where we've non-renewed large accounts where we started to have concerns that maintenance and CapEx was being reduced.
Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful. When you talk about moving to smaller casualty-focused accounts, does that require a material change in distribution strategy? In other words, do you have the right network for that now, or does that require a lot of effort and expense in 2016?
That's an excellent question. In fact, we do have access to multiple sources of premium, and here I'm speaking on our insurance side. It's true that if you look at the retail operations of the large top three, they of course do a lot of large accounts. Even the large top three have increasingly been focusing on expanding their mid-market distribution capabilities, and we're taking advantage of that. Also means that we are working more with smaller brokers who tend to be more regional and more specialized in the middle market so that we can access that. You know, in our insurance business, we have a very strong E&S franchise. We're one of the leading E&S writers in the United States, and that business comes from E&S brokers who do tend to give us both small and large accounts.
We also have access through our program division to MGAs and MGUs that provide opportunities for select smaller portfolios. We continue to use multiple sources of distribution. In fact, I think you know this, a little over a year ago, we added a new division in our insurance area, which is really about distribution management, broker and distribution relationships. We've had some very good early response to these efforts and we are clearly monitoring that we are increasing our access to small and mid-size accounts. When we monitor the percentage of our premium and the percentage of our policies that are coming from smaller and mid-size accounts, we're seeing progress there. We've got divisions that do only that. As I was mentioning earlier, our AXIS Pro division only does small and mid-market.
In our E&S division, we do a fair number of small accounts, too.
Meyer, it's Joe, I'd just add two things to that. We have reengineered certain of our operations. Albert just mentioned AXIS Pro. Some of the things we've done there have increased productivity of our underwriters by 30%. In addition to that, we've made some significant IT investments, which will enable us to handle smaller and mid-size accounts more effectively as well. I think we're well-positioned from an underwriting standpoint and well-positioned from an operational standpoint to handle it.
Thanks, Joe.
Okay. That's very thorough. Thank you very much.
Our next question is from Brian Meredith of UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. A couple of questions here for you. Albert, I'm just curious. If I look back over the last couple of years since you announced your target, the 400 basis points, the rate pressure looks like it's probably costing you two to three points on your loss ratios to date. Is that a fair assumption?
I'd say that's about a couple of points. I'd say a tad under a couple of points to date. Again, when I look at our book, I think that we're probably in line with the rest of the industry. I don't believe that there is anything unique in what we're doing. I think what we have, again, is the fact that we now have a running start and real momentum in digging into our portfolio and looking for ways to optimize it, even in the declining rate environment.
Got you. Good. The next question, I'm just curious. If I look at your reinsurance division, you talked about reducing your cat exposure there. Is there some way that we can kind of quantify that as we look at kind of projecting out a cat load or something we can think about?
Obviously, I think we do disclose the property and cat writings.
You can always put in a target ratio against those numbers. What I will say is that when I look at our historical average cat loss over the last 15 years, we've made a commitment that we would reduce our average cat loss load over time, and that continues to be an important component of our efforts. The reason for that, again, is I think we have an outstanding group of underwriters who do a very good job of servicing clients on a daily basis and building good portfolios. What I don't want to see all that progress negated by an excessive market share of cat losses. We've said all along, we're very happy to have industry average volatility. I think that's the business we're in, and we should do that.
We will make sure that we do not have excessive volatility versus the industry.
Okay, great. Last quick question here. I'm just curious, the mid-size loss activity that you experienced this year, is there anything you can do from a reinsurance perspective to mitigate that? Or do you think it's just not worth doing it?
Look, we can certainly ex post facto create a reinsurance program that would have provided cover for that. The issue that I would make to you is that we do not believe that that is an economically good idea because, as I've mentioned before, even if you take a look at the last 5 years, the last 10 years of results, including every single loss that we've had, including the losses we've had this year, this still remains a very attractive line of business. It's a line of business that generally gives you good results, but every once in a while, you may have a bad quarter or, in the case of 2015, a bad year. That is a good example of the kind of volatility that I'm very happy to take because it's the right call to make over an extended period of time.
The net risk that we are keeping delivers very attractive results to us. That's just the nature of our industry, that every once in a while you're going to have a bad year in a line of business. For the moment, we don't see anything in the energy line that causes us to believe that we need a different risk mitigation, a different risk management profile. Obviously, if we see losses continuing to stay at a high level, we will revisit that. For the moment, we are taking the position that this is just a very unusual frequency of losses, and we're obviously monitoring to see if it goes back to a normal level or not.
Got you. Thanks. Last question, just quickly, as you move more into some of the more casualty lines, and the mix shifts that way, longer tail, what are your thoughts on interest rates and how are you thinking of the kind of return on capital for those lines versus the property lines?
Certainly, I think we face the same issues that everybody else does, which is that low interest rates have not been beneficial to the insurance industry. We certainly would like to see that improve. I think that some of the casualty pricing has responded by, since we can't make as much money on the investments, we've had to make more money on the underwriting. In fact, casualty lines in recent years have actually delivered very good underwriting profits. In the old days, the industry was happy to write casualty at substantially above 100 because they would make their return on the investment income. To the extent that we don't have that anymore, we've seen pricing improve. Even at these low interest rates, we're very satisfied with our casualty book that we are making some very good returns.
The ROEs on casualty, frankly, are amongst some of the best that we have in our book.
Yeah.
That is not preventing us from writing good casualty business today.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question is from Vinay Misquith of Sterne Agee. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you. First is on the reinsurance business. The accident year combined ratio ex cats 99% for the fourth quarter. We shouldn't be looking at that as a run rate for the future, correct? Shouldn't we be looking at it more on a portfolio basis?
I think you should look at it from a portfolio basis, and you should look at it again on an annual basis, because reinsurance by definition tends to be a little bit more volatile. As Joe mentioned, we did have a couple of large losses in the fourth quarter, so you'll have that. When you look at that 99, I remind you of two things. One is there are some large losses in there, and two is the comment that Joe made, which is that there's over a point of acquisition expense, which is really tied to the prior year releases. If you really want to take a look at the true underlying profitability of that book of business, you're going to have to reduce the acquisition expense ratio by over a point.
The other thing that I would say to you is that we have not changed our level of prudence with regards to initial reserving. I'm actually quite comfortable that the level of prudence in our book of business is such that it would assume trends that are worse than we are seeing in the industry today. If we're doing our job right I believe that it's more likely than not that these loss ratios that we're putting up will prove very resilient.
Oh, sure. That's helpful. The second question was on share repurchases. My sense was this year you guys did about $300 million, if I'm correct. That seems to be sort of in line with earnings, and you received the breakup fee. I'm just curious why there were more share repurchases not done this year.
Yeah. Vinay, it's Joe. Under the terms of the ASR, we were precluded from buying more than that. It was strictly more a contractual issue than anything else. Frankly, prior to instigating the ASR, we didn't want to be active buying back because we basically were negotiating against ourselves. I'll just say, just to give you an indication, we bought back about 328,000 shares since the ASR has expired just in the last couple of weeks.
Sure. The fact that you guys got about $280 million more last year than your earnings, shouldn't we be expecting that sort of gets returned back to shareholders, too?
I go back to the statement I made earlier. If you go back to the last five years, we've already given back 110%. The breakup fee. We are active in the market. There is a limit to what we can do on a daily basis. We have to maintain an orderly market for our shares. We will continue to be in the market buying as much as is reasonably available to us. I think it's a question of execution, Vinay. I think if we were to stop, this might be a conversation worth having. We started immediately upon the termination of the ASR, and we're already in the market. There is a limit to how much we can buy back without affecting the price of the shares, and as Joe says, competing against ourselves.
Sure. Fair enough. Thank you.
We have come to our schedule for the call. Our last question will come from Ryan Burns of Janney.
Great.
Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for squeezing me in here. Just had some questions on the reinsurance book, going back to that. Again, from remixing the underwriting this year, it was kind of a three-point headwind to the underlying combined ratio. Is the remixing done? Again, I'm just trying to figure out should that be a pressure again, heading into 2016? If it is, would it be the similar type level?
Well, I don't think so. Look, we start with a statement that every renewal is an opportunity to create the best portfolio that we can. I think we have to let our underwriters build the best portfolio that they can at every point in time. The truth is, we already are writing a lot less property cat than we were before. I think that when you think about where we are, as a percentage of overall portfolio, I think that to the extent that the business remains at current levels, then we think it would make sense to sustain the kind of exposures to cat that we have right now. If pricing improves, we may take more. Certainly, if pricing is less, then we will have to write less of that because it'll be the right decision at the time.
I'm sorry that I can't give you a more definitive answer. I can tell you that I'm very satisfied with the mix of business that we have. I am not looking to proactively reduce the mix of cat in our portfolio. We do have to respond appropriately to conditions in the market.
Okay, great. Thanks. I just have one last one from me. The weather derivative book seems to be adding a level of volatility to your earnings. I'm just wondering if you're comfortable with that level of volatility, and maybe just get your thoughts on that. Obviously, it was a very warm winter so far.
I think one of the issues with that is that, yes, because it's a book that tends to have a lot of derivatives, then the mark-to-markets on those things do add volatility. If you don't mind, Ryan, I'd like to maybe just take a step back and talk philosophically about it. At AXIS, we have no problem with individually volatile lines. That's what we do. Our job is to absorb the volatility from our clients, and our job is to then take all of those volatile lines and create a less volatile portfolio through a diversification. At any point in time, we're going to find a line of business somewhere that pops. What matters to me is not that a line pops. It's that the portfolio is well-constructed and balanced.
You have a situation where the conditions this year were so warm that you had significantly less winter storms in Europe and so on. We had favorable experience in terms of European cats, and we had some unfavorable experience with regards to the weather portfolio. I view that as the nature of our business. At AXIS, we recognize that our job is to assume volatility on behalf of our clients, and that's something that we are willing to do. The book of business that we write in weather is one that does have some inherent volatility. If you look at what happened last year, we had the same situation in the fourth quarter of 2014, where we had a warm winter, and then we made back a lot of that in the first quarter of 2015. There is some quarterly volatility.
What we experienced in the fourth quarter is literally what our modelers are telling us is a three sigma event. There are going to be situations where we have losses of that type, but we still think that weather is increasingly being seen by a number of businesses, governments, and different entities as a real risk to their enterprise. We think that over time, it's going to be an important line of business, and we are building a strong franchise in that area.
Ryan, it's Joe. The only thing I'll add is that this is commensurate with our share of the market. This is not unusual. The market is experiencing a pretty big loss in this area, and this is commensurate with our market share.
Okay, thanks. Thanks, guys.
Okay. Thank you everybody, and I really appreciate your interest in the questions. For that reason, I'm sorry that we extended beyond our usual hour. Obviously, if you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to us through Linda. If so, thank you, and we look forward to speaking with you over the quarter through our various meetings and on our next conference call. Have a good day.
This conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.