Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 2026 Annual Stockholders Meeting of Bowhead Specialty Holdings Inc., our second stockholders meeting as a publicly traded company. My name is Matthew Botein, and I am Chair of the Bowhead Board of Directors. Thank you for your interest and attendance at today's meeting. I'm joined today by the rest of our board of directors, including Stephen Sills, Founder and CEO of Bowhead, Troy van Beek , David Foy, Angela Brock-Kyle, Zhak Cohen, David Holman, Fabian Fondriest, Thomas Baker, Ava Schnidman, and Price Lowenstein. With that, I would also like to introduce Brad Mulcahey, Bowhead's Chief Financial Officer, and Matt Crusey , Bowhead's Secretary and General Counsel, who are both joining me today. Representatives from PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, the company's independent registered public auditing firm, have also joined us today.
They will be available to answer appropriate questions during the comment period following the formal business of the meeting. Also present is James Wright of American Election Services, who will be acting as the Inspector of Elections for today's meeting. The Inspector's principal obligation is to determine and certify the results of voting. I will turn the meeting over to Stephen Sills, Bowhead's Founder and CEO, who will be presiding over today's meeting.
Thank you, Matthew. Hello, I'm Stephen Sills, and I'll preside over the meeting, and Matthew Cuzzi will act as Secretary of the meeting. The order of business for the meeting will be as follows: We will conduct the formal portion of the annual meeting first, as set forth in the notice of annual meeting and the proxy statement. Afterwards, Brad Mulcahey, our Chief Financial Officer, will recap our 2025 results and will take your questions. I'd like to call the meeting to order. The Secretary will now report on the mailing of the notice of the meeting and whether a quorum is present.
I have at this meeting a copy of the notice of the annual meeting, which states the time, place, and purpose of the annual meeting and the affidavit of distribution from Broadridge. The affidavit attests to the fact that either a notice of internet availability of the notice of the meeting, the proxy statement, and the 2025 annual report on Form 10-K to the stockholders, or two, the documents themselves were mailed on or about March 16th, 2026, to all stockholders as of March 3rd, 2026, the record date, which determines those stockholders entitled to vote at the annual meeting. The notice and the affidavit will be incorporated into the minute book of the company as part of the minutes of the meeting.
James Wright of American Election Services has been appointed by the board to act as Inspector of Elections at this meeting and has sworn to the inspector's oath. We will file the oath with the records of the meeting. I have been informed by this Inspector of Elections that proxies have been received for 29,871,370 of the 32,838,035 shares of common stock outstanding on the record date, which represents approximately 90.97% of the total number of outstanding shares. This constitutes a quorum for the meeting today, and we may now carry out the official business of the meeting. Before we begin with the formal business of the meeting, I will review the procedures that will be followed during today's meeting.
After the presentation of the agenda items, Stephen Sills will open the floor for questions and comments. In order to ensure that the business of the meeting proceeds in an orderly fashion, please limit your comments to agenda items being considered. Please keep in mind there will be an opportunity for general questions and comments about our company later in the proceedings. Comments or questions regarding any of the proposals may be submitted through the web portal. Following the closing of the polls, the formal portion of the meeting will be concluded. We will then present the report to the stockholders. After the presentation, the floor will be open for general questions and comments.
We'll now proceed with the formal business of the meeting. There are two items of business on today's agenda. Proposal one: the election of directors. The election of four nominees to our Board of Directors to serve a three-year term until 2029 annual meeting of stockholders. The Board, upon the recommendation of the Compensation, Nominating, and Corporate Governance Committee, has nominated Zhak Cohen, David Foy, David Holman, and Price Lowenstein to serve as its Class 2 directors. No other persons have been nominated in accordance with the company's bylaws, accordingly, the nominations for directors are closed. The second and final item of business is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026.
The board of directors has recommended a vote in favor of this proposal. We'll now proceed to the question and comment period with respect to the items on the agenda. If any stockholders would like to make a comment or submit a question regarding any of the proposals, please submit their comment or question through the web portal now. There are no comments or questions relating to the proposal. We will now proceed to voting on the agenda items. Any shareholder who hasn't yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. I declare the polls open.
The polls will close shortly, so I request that you complete your ballots now. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I now declare the polls for the 2026 Annual Stockholders Meeting closed. I've been advised that the ballots have been tabulated and ask that the Secretary report the preliminary voting results on the proposals.
Based on the preliminary count for the Inspector of Elections, stockholders have elected each of the four director nominees to the board. Two, stockholders have ratified the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2026. The final vote results will be reported shortly on Form 8-K.
That concludes the formal portion of the meeting. The 2026 Bowhead Stockholders Meeting is now adjourned. Before we turn to our presentation, Matt will give you some information about forward-looking statements that are part of the presentation.
I would like to remind you today that through the course of today's presentation, Bowhead's management may make comments that reflect intentions, beliefs, and expectations for the future. As always, these forward-looking statements are subject to certain risk factors, which could cause the actual results to differ materially. These factors are listed in the company's various SEC filings, including the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025. Bowhead management may make references during the presentation to non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measure may be found on the company's website at www.bowheadspecialty.com. As previously stated, after the management presentation, we will open up the floor to questions and comments. With that, I will turn the presentation over to Brad Mulcahey, Bowhead's CFO.
Thanks, Matt. In 2025, Bowhead Specialty delivered strong top and bottom-line performance. We generated adjusted net income of $55.6 million, representing a 30% increase year-over-year. Diluted adjusted earnings per share was $1.65, and adjusted return on average equity was 13.6%. Gross written premium grew 24% to $862.8 million, reflecting consistent growth across all divisions led by casualty, with Baleen contributing $21.4 million for the year. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures is included in our Q4 earnings release, which is available on the website. From an underwriting perspective, our full year 2025 loss ratio was 66.7%, up 2.3 points from 2024, reflecting higher current accident year expectations, portfolio mix, and trend assumptions coming out of our annual reserve review.
Importantly, our reserve review resulted in no aggregate prior accident year development for 2025. Where needed, we reallocated reserves across divisions and accident years to better align with actuarial projections and long-tail development patterns, consistent with our conservative reserving approach. We also made meaningful progress on our operating leverage. The 2025 expense ratio improved to 29.8%, down 1.6 points, driven primarily by lower operating expenses as we scaled in advanced technology initiatives, partially offset by higher acquisition costs from mix and commission dynamics. These factors contributed to a 96.5% combined ratio for the year. On the investment side, pre-tax net investment income increased 44% to $57.8 million. Our portfolio ended the year with a 4.6% book yield, AA average credit quality, and a three-year duration.
Book value per diluted share rose 22% to $13.45, with total equity of $449 million. Looking ahead to 2026, we continue to expect gross written premium growth of around 20%, with contributions from all divisions and continued momentum in casualty, supported by our digital underwriting capabilities. We anticipate a loss ratio in the mid-to-high 60s and an expense ratio below 30%, which together support a combined ratio in the mid-to-high 90s and return on equity in the mid-teens. We will continue to actively manage our reinsurance program with A-rated or better counterparties and expect to modestly extend our portfolio duration towards four years to better match asset and liability duration.
In November, we issued $150 million of 7.75% senior unsecured notes due in 2030. We believe the proceeds position us to meet regulatory capital needs while we continue to assess capital requirements through the year. With that, back to you, Stephen.
That concludes the formal portion of the meeting. The 2026 Bowhead stockholders meeting is now adjourned. Sorry. We'd like to open the floor for your questions and comments. Please note we will attempt to answer as many questions as time allows, but only questions that are germane to the meeting will be addressed. There being no questions, we thank everyone for joining us today. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.
Conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.