Hi, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Kelsey Zhu. I'm the Financial Information Services Analyst at Autonomous. With me on stage today, we have Lee Shavel, who's the CEO of Verisk, and Elizabeth Mann, who's the CFO of Verisk. Thank you so much for joining our conference today.
Thanks, Kelsey. It's great to be here with you.
Lee, I believe it was just officially your three-year Anniversary as CEO of Verisk. Congrats. We want to hear more about sort of the changes you've made in the last three years and how you're thinking about Verisk over the next few years strategically.
Great. Thanks. Yes, last Friday was my Official three-year Anniversary. I have to tell you, I feel a little bit more relaxed than I did when I stepped into the role because it's terrifying when you take on those New Responsibilities. Above all, I'm immensely proud of the Team and what we've accomplished over the last three years because, in multiple ways, it's set a foundation for where we can go from here. To answer your question specifically, I think the things that we're most pleased with is the transition from a Multi-Industry-Oriented Data and Analytics Company to one that has now returned its focus just to the Insurance Industry was something that we had to manage through. Separating the non-Insurance Businesses was the first step of that.
We then also had to demonstrate what were we capable of within this context. In that regard, the ability to redirect Management's Focus and our Capital to making the investments that could add value to our clients and to the industry broadly has been very, very clearly demonstrated from our perspective, probably most significantly with the Core Lines Reimagine effort that we have been rolling out to the industry. The Feedback that we've heard, both Directly from Clients and Indirectly from Clients, has been very positive in terms of the value that they're getting out of it. That has been a demonstration of where we've been able to demonstrate value with that effort. The other element that we cited at the outset was that we wanted to elevate our Strategic Dialogue with our clients.
I think we have met even greater success and faster than we would have anticipated at the outset. I really want to applaud the Organization for embracing this and leaning into supporting that dialogue broadly. What we have encountered was a Real Appetite on the part of our clients to give us feedback in terms of where they felt we could be doing better, which we have worked hard to address, but also think about where the industry is headed and what we can do to support that growth. Clearly, there are substantial Emerging Risks, whether it is increased severe Weather Risk in the form of Wildfires or severe Convective Storms. There are new Regulatory Challenges that the industry is adjusting to.
The demand for our ability to make an investment in a Data Set or an Analytic or a Platform that adds value to the industry is stronger than ever. I think we have a much better Communication Channel with the industry to support that. I think that has been very effective. We have built out, beyond that Senior-Level Dialogue, a very Organized Approach to focusing on our largest and most effective clients and making certain that we are communicating the value that we are and can be delivering to them.
In the second aspect, to kind of move to where are we headed, I think the thing that we're really excited about and have demonstrated to some extent, but I think it is something you'll continue to see development in, is with our Centrality and our Position within the Data Flows for the industry and the functions that they provide, our ability to be an Effective Network for the industry, connecting Insurers and Brokers and Reinsurers and Contractors and Adjusters across multiple product lines, is an opportunity that exists above and beyond the pure Data and Analytics element of what we're doing. We have proven that out in our property estimating solutions. We're demonstrating that in our Anti-Fraud Business as well as in our Extreme Events Business.
I think that represents in a lot of ways the next gear or the next phase of what Verisk can become.
Sounds very exciting. Thanks for sharing. One of the main priorities you mentioned just now is elevating the Strategic Dialogues with clients. I was just wondering, how is that actually happening across different Verticals in Verisk, and what type of benefits are you seeing based on these Strategic Dialogues you're having with clients?
Sure. Thanks, Kelsey. It has to start at some contact point within our clients within the C-Suite. Sometimes it is the CEO. Sometimes it is the President of the North American Underwriting Business, but someone that has at the industry a Broad View and wants to understand and develop the relationship. That is something that I have tried to lead personally with our largest accounts and feel as though we have an active and, in nearly all cases, a very Constructive Dialogue. That needs to then be built out with an organization that follows up on that and is providing a Broad Strategic Overview of where is the relationship, how are we serving them, and where are there other opportunities where we think they can create value, and where do they think we can create value that supports their objectives.
We have built out a Client Strategy Team and a Strategic Account Planning Process on an Annual Basis that allows us to more specifically target what we're trying to accomplish within each of those. Each of my Direct Reports, particularly the Business Unit Leads, are expected to develop their own relationship. In our claims business with a Chief Claims Officer, or in our Underwriting Business with the Chief Underwriting Officer, or Extreme Events with the Chief Risk Officer. Those relationships are then broadening out. The rest of the organization realizes that if there is a New Product Opportunity or Sales Opportunity, we can coordinate across that relationship to make sure that we're communicating the value and the opportunity effectively. That is how we've tried to build it out.
has been complemented by a Third-party Assessment, a Consulting Assessment that looked at our go-to-Market Strategy. Within each of our businesses, how can we Optimize or Improve a variety of either Sales Territories, Pricing Strategies, Incentive Systems to optimize each of those, as well as tie it into the overall Broader Strategy. We are thrilled with the results that we have seen so far, and I think we can continue to extend that deeper and more broadly in the organization.
Got it. That's super helpful. Another theme that I think comes up a lot is Invention. You've certainly mentioned that in your recent Earnings Calls. I've also seen that mentioned a few times in your letter to the Shareholders in the Annual Report. Maybe just talk to us a little bit more about what you mean by Invention and how you're tackling.
Thank you.
Piece.
Kelsey, there can be subtle Semantic Differences between Innovation and Invention . The use of Invention is quite purposeful. There is a Strategic Framework that I am sure more than a few people in the audience have heard. It is called the Seven Powers Foundation. Within that, they talk about the powers that tend to drive significant Value Creation within Enterprises, including things like Scale Power, Network Power, Process Power. After having defined those, one of the statements of the book is that power derives from Invention, creating a new solution for an existing Market Need. It was an important differentiation for us because, as a Product Company, a focus on, and I will use the term Innovation in this context, as being Incremental Change in improving that product, adding a new feature.
If you're innovating, you're kind of inventing, but I'm just creating a distinction where I think a lot of our focus had been on that Innovation Aspect. It's important, how do we continue to add more value in the clients that we've had? Core Lines Reimagine is an example of where we've been able to provide a more Digitized Data Set or Analytic that can be ingested by our clients more effectively, but where can we solve a New Solution for our clients? We have done that effectively in a variety of ways. Sometimes it's within the business unit. Sometimes it's across the business unit where we're tying Underwriting Data and Claims Data to provide a richer Analytic or addressing a New Element.
Or sometimes it's through an acquisition that brings a new Skill Set, as we did with a Low no-Code Policy Management System designed for the Life Insurance Business that we are working to see and evaluate its applicability to the Property and Casualty Insurance Element. That's the way we define it. We have been working with a team of my Direct Reports to identify how have we pursued Invention in the past and what can we do to improve that and expand it and make it more effective within the organization.
Got it. Speaking of Invention and Innovation in general, I think it's important to talk about your GenAI Strategy as well as how you leverage other Advanced Technologies. Maybe just broadly talk to us about how you see the threats and opportunities brought by GenAI and other Advanced Technologies.
Certainly. It has been an important topic and a very popular topic. I'm going to try to put it in the context of its Applicability and Reception within the Insurance Industry. First of all, let's start with GenAI. It is a predictive Analytic and a predictive Artificial Intelligence. I make that point because it is something that creates value by identifying what the most likely outcome is, but it operates within specific parameters that do not provide a definitive response. That is part of its value and its power. We have worked across the enterprise to find applications for it.
Probably the most direct, beyond utilizing it to generate code, is in processing large amounts of Data and Information that is often in an unstructured format to provide summaries that accelerate the capabilities of a Medical Professional or an Insurance Professional rather than spending a lot of time gathering that information and correlating it or integrating it to giving them more usable data faster. That has been a Direct Application. We have developed those applications within each of our Business Units. At last count, I think we've talked about this on our earnings calls, we have over 40 Specific Product Use Cases where we have implemented Generative AI as an Additional Feature. To move beyond the example that I gave you, a lot of what we have provided to Contractors and Adjusters have been Materials Costs and Labor Costs to estimate the cost of a potential Insurance Settlement.
We've utilized AI trained upon past claims to make recommendations to a claims Professional or an Adjuster on questions that they should be asking to more accurately predict the nature of that cost or that claim. That is an example. The one thing that we've done is we've tried to share effectively information on Generative AI Applications across the organization. We had a GenAI Day a couple of months ago where all of our Chief Analytics Officers and Data Officers within the organization came together to review their use cases. We find that that sharing activity is incredibly valuable. We engage with our clients to demonstrate what we've been able to do because our function, I think, is defined by one of the investors we met with earlier today.
He said, "Lee, would it be fair to consider Verisk in some ways the Research and Development arm for the Insurance Industry?" I think that was a very Accurate Assessment. Our ability to develop that in a much more efficient way for the industry is a means to do that. That is the way we're thinking about Generative AI. I also want to put in context, and I've challenged our Technology Team to say, "We can't ignore other Developing Technologies that we think might have relevance to the Insurance Industry." If we're focused on Analytical Outcomes, we also need to make sure that we're not ignoring those Connectivity or those Network Opportunities where we can create value or other emerging technologies like Cognitive Artificial Intelligence Models that produce more determinative outcomes in Underwriting Scenarios or Risk Assessment Scenarios.
We continue to look broadly across the technology and particularly the AI Environment to find where we can create the most value for the industry.
Got it. And just out of curiosity, is GenAI an important part of your Strategic Dialogues with clients? Because when I think about the Insurance Industry, maybe Advanced Technology isn't the first thing that comes to mind. So maybe just talk us through your thinking behind your investment there.
Yeah. I would say it is a topic of Interest and Exploration. I wouldn't say that it is the most important element of our Strategic Dialogue with clients. One Industry Participant explained to me or offered the perspective, "Look, if you're an Insurance Underwriter, your job is to think about everything that could go potentially wrong within that risk." There tends to be an orientation more towards what are the bad things that could happen relative to the good things that could happen. I think it characterizes Technology Adoption across the industry. One of the positives is that I think as we see generational change within the Insurance Industry management, we're seeing more receptivity to technology, and that's accelerated our dialogue with a lot of clients.
It is a component, but I think the more important component is, regardless of the technology, how can we leverage data or platforms to find more efficiencies so that we can do what we're doing better, faster, and less expensively than we have in the past?
Got it. Super helpful. One of the things that consistently impressed me about Verisk is that it is one of the most consistent growth deliverers within info services. I think Verisk in general grows within a tight band of 5%-9%. Even in a Market Downturn during the GFC, during COVID, I think your Insurance Business still delivered 5% growth. Maybe just talk to us a little bit more about what makes Verisk so defensive that it's able to deliver 5% revenue growth in the market downturn.
Great. Kelsey, it's a great opportunity for me to bring Elizabeth into the conversation as she articulates it from a financial perspective.
Thanks a bunch for the question, Kelsey, and thanks for having us here. Yes, it is one of the things that we are very proud of at Verisk, the consistency and predictability of that revenue growth. I think it comes from two factors. First of all, the Insurance Industry itself is a fairly stable End Market. It is a necessary product for Individuals and Businesses and for the Society as a whole. We are working already in a fairly stable End Market, but more importantly, the core of our products are really tremendously important to our clients. For some of our products, it would be almost impossible for them to do business, at least nearly as efficiently without our Data and Analytics.
That and the fact that we have long-term contracts with them enable us to maintain that consistency even during a year of COVID or the great Financial Crisis.
Got it. It is a fairly stable End Market, but it does go through cycles. Maybe this is a great opportunity for us to talk about where we are in that P&C Insurance Industry Cycle. As we eventually transition from Hard to Soft Markets, how are you thinking about the impact of that on your ability to raise prices, ability to Cross-Sell Initiatives, and so on?
Yeah, happy to talk about that. Yes, you're right. The Insurance Industry does go through cycles of varying Premium Growth. We are now several years into sort of a Hard Market for the Insurance Industry, meaning Premium Growth has been relatively high.
It's grown high single digits for the past several years, really starting in about 2021 or 2022. That has been in some ways a tailwind for growth for us, as many of our relationships with our customers are based on the premise that our business will grow as their business grows. There can be a premium Linkage or a premium Input into our Pricing Conversation. That has been a benefit to us over the last several years.
I think one of the most important points is that we have been also continuing to emphasize the value that we're delivering to our clients and making sure that the benefits that they're seeing are not just tied to the premium, but the value that they're driving and the increased efficiency that they're driving in other places by using our Core Products, not to mention the additional products that we can continue to sell to them. That is how we are building our business for the long term to continue to grow with our clients. The history will show that we did continue to deliver that growth in both Hard Cycles and Softer Cycles in the Insurance Industry historically. That is our goal to continue to do that.
If I can add to that, Kelsey, the Insurance Cycle is something that we have been through, a Hard Market, Soft Market Cycle. The factor that in Hard Markets, there is more of a tendency to focus on Revenue Growth within that from our clients. They want to optimize that. We tend to shift to finding ways that they can underwrite more business more effectively, price the risk effectively. In a Softer Market, when they are feeling more Profit Pressure, the focus shifts to how can we operate more efficiently. There is typically a shift in where their focus is. The good news is that we support them on both sides of that equation. That will enable us to be able to change the dialogue around the product sets that we have to offer them.
Regardless of the cycle, and to your point, if you look at that consistent Growth Rate within that range, another element that is so stable is that the growth reflects, while at some level, overall industry growth, but the primary driver has been the increasing adoption of Data and Technology over time by the industry to make them more efficient and better at what they do. We've often talked about that our revenues relative to overall industry net written premium are on the 35-40 basis point level. That has grown, and we expect that to continue to grow as the industry becomes more digitized and is utilizing more technology across a broad range of their functions from Underwriting, Claims, and Risk Management.
Got it. I think one of the main events that happened earlier this year is the California Wildfires. I am just curious to get your perspective on, are you seeing any major impact or disruption to the Insurance Industry? Are carriers exiting the State or consolidating or reducing their exposure to the State? What do you think the overall impact is on Verisk?
First, I would say the overall impact on Verisk is negligible with regard to that event in terms of any near-term negative consequences. One, because in our property estimating Solution Business, where we have seen some Weather Sensitivity when there is a significant Hurricane or severe Convective Storm that causes damage to homes, it's typically Partial Damage. That generates Repair Claim Activity. That's where we get involved. If there's a high volume of those, it will tend to have a positive impact on that. Wildfires tend to be complete loss scenarios. In that scenario, the Insurance Company is just validating and paying out the claim. I think that's generally been the case. Specific to the business itself, there's not an impact.
However, I do think that the California Wildfires have been an important Learning Point for the industry and for the State on the growing level of Risk that Geographies are facing. It certainly made painfully and tragically real the consequences of Concentrated Development in areas with changing Risk Parameters and the importance for Local Governments to be thinking about what Mitigation Strategies they can deploy. This is not a question of the Pacific Palisades Fire Department capabilities. No Fire Department is designed or any system is designed to handle a fire of that intensity and that breadth. What is well-suited to helping mitigate that are building codes that recognize the protections that are necessary to limit Wildfire spread. We have a Wildfire Model. It was one of the first to be submitted to the California Department of Insurance.
We have scientists that are on the ground, Structural Engineers that have been evaluating the Wildfires to determine what we have learned about it. We have learned a couple of things. 80% of the homes that were built of non-Combustible Materials survived. 80% of the homes that were not built or that were built of Combustible Materials were completely destroyed. Fencing was a Critical Factor because it served as both a propagation of the fires as well as a typically very Dry and Inflammable Fuel Source that, because of its Linear Nature, tends to expand it. We are integrating those into our models, but also many investors may not be aware. We also have a building code effectiveness survey that is used by the industry. Making certain that we are identifying where communities can improve their building code effectiveness to Mitigate loss is a benefit to individuals.
It's a benefit to those Municipalities and to Insurance Companies. That's one very Physical Dimension. The other important learning here is that, and you were asking the questions about insurers leaving the State, California up until recently did not allow the use of Forward-Looking Models as a basis for Pricing Increases. Insurers could only look to Historical Levels for pricing, and there was the Natural Resistance to those Pricing Increases in spite of, from our perspective, clearly increasing Risk within those markets. We think California has taken a step in the right direction, but a lot of Insurers had been reducing their exposure because of those increasing Risks and, importantly, their inability to get appropriate pricing for that Risk. We have seen, I think, some settlements with some of the carriers or resolution of those pricing issues within California.
I think it's a lesson to certainly California and the rest of the country that we need robust Markets where insurers can receive adequate premiums to cover risks in a rapidly evolving environment with increased building and increased exposures.
Does the wildfire have a significant impact on the Industry's Profitability? In general, just how are you thinking through the increase or decrease in Profitability for carriers and how that affects Verisk?
Certainly, if you look at the recent Earnings Announcements, almost all of the carriers, certainly those that have significant Homeowners exposure, have taken some level of hit relative to the California wildfires. The great thing about the industry is that it learns, it adjusts, it makes adjustments in pricing, and it is designed to absorb those. There is a near-term impact, but the industry has demonstrated the resilience and the ability to absorb this. It will have an impact on Homeowners' Property Rates within these areas as new information is factored in. I certainly do not think that this represents a Material Risk to the Insurance Industry broadly or even within California, provided that the California Insurance Market learns from it and adapts and continues to attract more capital into that Marketplace. Consequently, as I said at the outset, we do not see a long-term negative impact.
We do think that it is an opportunity for us in the products that we offer, whether it's the Wildfire Models or the Building Code or Community Risk Assessment that we have to engage more actively with both Regulators and Municipalities to help them manage the Risk and to, frankly, support the Economic Growth that is represented by the Housing Markets within each of those Municipalities.
Got it. Super helpful. I think Verisk is such an important partner for Insurance Carriers in terms of Data and Analytic Services. Just curious to get your perspective on what are some of the new and emerging areas in Insurance Data Analytics that carriers are really investing into today and how is Verisk positioned within those new Growth Verticals?
Certainly. Great question. One area that I'd focus on, there are a number of opportunities that come to mind. One is the desire to manage their Portfolio of Rsks more actively. If we think traditionally, our focus has been providing Data and Analytics to the Chief Underwriting Officer in Underwriting a Risk, providing Loss Costs, providing Standardized Policies to serve as a basis for those, Underwriting Rules that direct that element. That is a very specific function. Once that Risk is on the books, we historically would not have been involved in it. One thing that we've observed through our conversations with clients is a more Active Management through a variety of Reinsurance or Retrocession or Active Sale of Portfolios of Risks to manage that. That becomes the province of the Chief Risk Officer.
One of our opportunities is building a more Active Dialogue with the Portfolio Risk Manager. The interesting connection is that Reinsurers, who we have served for a long time, manage very complex Portfolios of Risk. We have been working to adapt the technology and the platforms that our Reinsurers use across millions of specific Property Locations to the needs of a Chief Risk Officer. A lot of the investment that we're making in a product that you've heard us talk about called Synergy Studio is designed to provide that broader Enterprise Portfolio Risk, not just to the Reinsurers, but to the Insurers as a component of that. That's an example of where we're looking to serve a different functionality within the Insurance Industry.
The other element that we're excited about and have had great success with in the U.K. has been a more Digital Connection between the Broker or the Agent and the Underwriter within the Specialty Market. We have talked about our Whitespace Platform, which provides a common platform for a Broker and an Underwriter to define Customized Forms for Individual Business that automates the ability for an Underwriter to take a submission from a Broker, identify, is all of the information that I need there? Does it meet our risk parameters before it goes to an Underwriter to evaluate? Is this something that we want to Underwrite? The follow-on building of a syndicate to support that Risk. We have had great success with that in the U.K.
Given that the value that both brokers and carriers have realized from that, the ability to bring that to a broader Global Application within the U.S. is another area that we think has a lot of promise for us.
Got it. Super helpful. Let's talk about some of the product categories that Verisk has. I would say the bread and butter is really the Forms, Rules, Loss Costs Business. You have been talking about the Core Lines Reimagine Program for a couple of years now. Just curious to hear an update on where we are in that Core Lines Reimagine Program. What kind of benefits are you seeing currently? Has that already helped you increase Customer Retention or help with your Pricing Conversations?
Excellent. I'm going to turn that over to Elizabeth to address.
Yeah. Thanks very much. Core Lines Reimagine is our Investment Program in Forms, Rules, and Loss Costs, which is our largest business and our business that goes back to the ISO Contributory Database that provides those Loss Costs and Policy Language to the carriers. It has been a five-year program. We are about three, three-plus years into it now. We are well on the way of kind of customers seeing and experiencing the benefit of it. One important thing to know about this program, it is not kind of one change from the old to the new. It is a series of a number of different modules that is improving both the Data and the Insights that are available to customers, making the data that they get more current and more frequent updates and really providing insights and not just kind of data. All of those things have been invested in.
We've invested in the Core Platform where they can access it. Last year, we introduced 20 New Modules. We talk about these kind of one by one or we highlight certain ones of them on our Earnings Call. Yes, it absolutely has improved not just retention, definitely helped on the pricing side as customers really see and experience the value and the efficiency they get from better working with our content. It also has improved actually Data Contribution to us as customers have seen the values of some of the products that have come out. They've come to us and looked to contribute more data. We view it as really enriching and enhancing not just our core business, but even enhancing that network element that Lee has talked about.
Got it. One question I've always had on forms, rules, loss costs is obviously Verisk has very strong market positioning in this product. As I think through my other coverage companies and how they've really raised prices when they have very strong market positioning in certain products, comparing to some of the other companies, I would say Verisk's price hikes in forms, rules, loss costs have been more modest. Just curious, why haven't you raised more prices in Forms, Rules, Loss Costs, especially in a Hard Market Environment?
Yeah, I think it's fair to say we could be more aggressive on pricing and we choose not to hit the maximum on the aggressiveness scale. Part of that is we really view it as a long-term relationship with the industry and we are building to grow with them for the long term and the sustainability. In a way, this actually connects back to your earlier question on the consistency of our revenue growth. In a way that cuts both ways, the consistency and stability of our price increases have enabled us to continue to grow through many softer cycles, whether in the Insurance Industry or Macroeconomically. Part of that is part of the understanding in the industry that it is a more consistent and continuous growing relationship.
Got it. Extreme Event Solutions, which is one of the fastest growing areas for Verisk. Lee, I think you mentioned the Verisk Synergy Studio and asked and answered to an early part of the questions. Just curious to hear your thoughts around the changes you're making with Verisk Synergy Studio and why this is a key area of investment for Verisk overall.
Sure. It's actually an opportunity, Kelsey, which I appreciate to go back to the core value element and the Growth Opportunity for Extreme Events. One thing that we heard from clients was what was most important to them was that the scientific rigor and the quality of our underlying Models, whether it was a Hurricane Model in the U.S. or a Wildfire Model or a Typhoon Model in Asia, our clients really value our ability to bring the best Scientific, Engineering, predictive Expertise to that Model. That was one of the learnings that we got out of our go-to-market evaluation where we had outreach to clients to understand what they valued and how they thought about our relationship and our product. It's important to emphasize that while we are investing in expanding that, we need to make certain that we're maintaining leadership in model quality first.
There is a natural expansion opportunity for us in new Perils and new Geographies. That needs to be founded on not rushing out as many models as possible, but making certain that we're bringing our best expertise to build that model so that our clients rely on it. That is the starting point. The corollary is in our Core Lines Reimagine product, we need to make certain that data quality is the starting point and data currency that Elizabeth talked to. How do we make sure that we're expanding that data set, making it more relevant and more current? The models are the equivalent in Extreme Events.
Having established that, then how do we build on that to tie those models together and apply them across a portfolio of exposures so that a Rrisk Manager or a Reinsurer can have a much more sophisticated and integrated way to evaluate that Portfolio of Risk? It involves millions of data points because of the very complex and distributed portfolios that they are managing. That transition, because of their reliance and understanding of our approach to risk, is something that has to be managed very carefully and very gradually. That is why the rollout has a very clearly defined plan of what our clients can expect when it is going to occur. It is a rollout that begins in 2026. We are describing what we can accomplish with Verisk Synergy Studio and got a great reception at our Verisk Insurance Conference recently in Orlando. High degree of interest.
What I heard repeatedly from clients is make certain that you go through that transition carefully because if you do not, it is going to be very disruptive to us. We are excited about the opportunity. We do not want to get investors too excited about it because it is a gradual process, but one that we think is going to be immensely additive to the value that we are able to provide and our ability to expand a network element within our servicing of that community.
Got it. Super helpful. I think thinking about new growth factors, Marketing, Life Insurance, and International Business, in your last investor day, you did outline targets to achieve double-digit growth in those areas. Maybe just give us an update on how you're stacking up against that Investor Day target.
I'm going to a natural thing for Elizabeth to address, but one of the things that we established at Investor Day was, in addition to Insurance focused and elevating the Strategic Dialogue, a focus on delivering results. Your question goes directly to that. Overall, we're really happy with the progress we've made. I think we have across the enterprise, we have outperformed kind of the midpoints of all of those targets, whether it's Revenue Growth or EBITDA Growth or Margin. Of course, it's a mix of businesses and you're always going to have varied results. Across the board, you don't expect perfection, but we've had more successes than challenges on that.
Yeah. With that intro, I think we've been open about the fact that our marketing business has had some headwinds over those couple of years. In the early part of that three-year cycle, the Insurance Industry was still experiencing Profitability Challenges and had cut back on marketing spend to address that. We're now more in an environment where the Insurance Business is ramping back up on marketing and that the Insurance Component of that business is doing well. It was a business that we had acquired through acquisition. Not all of their customers are Insurance Customers and those segments are still experiencing marketing headwinds. That business has not achieved the goal that we set. The other two areas that you highlighted, our life Insurance Business continues to achieve those goals, to do very well.
We highlighted at the investor day, this was a great example of an acquisition that we found surfing the life Insurance Industry. It's a SaaS platform for Policy Administration Workflow in the life Insurance Industry. As a small startup, when we acquired it, it was growing kind of mid-single digits despite having a great product. They were having a hard time making headway with the very long-term focused life Insurance Players who were having a hard time committing a mission-critical platform to a small Venture-backed Company. Given the Verisk name and the Verisk strength supporting it, we've had a very strong rate of customer adoption and continue to deliver well in that double-digit range. Our international businesses have continued to scale across the portfolio.
Our claims businesses that we've acquired, a number of businesses in Germany and are integrating into an end-to-end claims Management Workflow, has grown double digits on an organic basis, building on those acquisitions. Our specialty business solutions business facing the London market and driven by the strength of that network business with the Whitespace Platform has also continued to deliver strongly on that objective.
Maybe to kind of wanted to provide that specific review as you had asked about, Kelsey, it's also a good opportunity to think about the layers of contribution to growth within our business. Start at the base level of those core established products where you have at a base level, basic Economic Growth or growth in Net Written Premium that provides a consistent base. We are, as with Core Lines Reimagine, investing in improving the value that our clients extract from that. We've heard that clearly from them. That provides a lift. I think the combination of those activities are probably 3-5%, I think when we've talked about the components of the growth.
The ability to expand the number of products that has been, I think, accelerated by a higher level of Client Engagement typically adds another 1-2% to that element as we're able to expand the uptake of our clients. The third element is 1-2% that comes from these higher growth businesses that are generally double-digit growers, but they're smaller proportionally, but that higher growth adds an incremental 1-2% to the Overall Growth Rate. It is the combination of all of those, but we're starting from a very solid base from our position, demonstrating enhanced value that we're capturing through pricing and looking for those penetration opportunities where our sponsorship and our investment can accelerate the growth.
Super helpful. I think speaking of the International Business, your recent acquisitions have been mostly outside of the U.S. Just curious to hear more about your broader international strategy and how M&A really fits into that whole picture.
Yeah. With regard to the International Strategy, it's been something that we've been pleased with, the growth levels that we've been able to achieve. It's been consistently a double-digit grower for us. It's largely been developed at the outset in building a base through acquisitions because developing access and understanding that Local Insurance Market Structure is more challenging to develop. Verisk emerged from an industry utility that was formed by that industry. It's hard to achieve that de novo within those markets and certainly for a Foreign Company that is entering that market. Our approach has been looking for businesses that we think have very similar characteristics, strong growth rates, delivering value to the clients, and bringing Local Market knowledge.
I think our position in the U.K. has been a function of putting, building, and learning from businesses that we've acquired there, finding connectivity between a number of them and building a more substantial presence. I think acquisitions will continue to be a component, but to which we add our own internal investment in those companies to expand their capabilities or accelerate their penetration or integrating even some of our data sets and expertise into what we're doing.
Got it. I think we talked about a lot of exciting new products, investment areas, so on and so forth. In general, I just want to get your thoughts around how do you really balance Margin Expansion versus Investment or Reinvestment into the business?
Yeah. We think about that balance very frequently between efficiency and Margin Expansion versus Investment and long-term growth. We have just completed a cycle, a commitment. So we made in 2021, we made a commitment to expand the margins by 300-500 basis points, and we just achieved that and finished that in 2024. We expanded margins by well over 100 basis points per year. That goes to show, I think, the efficiency potential of the core business. Having achieved that target, we continue to see operating leverage in the core business, but we do not necessarily feel the priority to expand margins at that significant rate of over 100 basis points per year.
We think we can continue to deliver Margin Expansion, but maybe at a slightly less rate than that in order to provide more capability to reinvest in the core business and continue to extend the long-term sustainability of that Growth Rate. I'd like to add, even when we were expanding margins 100 basis points a year, we were also funding significant investments in the business. All of the Core Lines Reimagine that we talked about was funded in that time. A lot of the work on Verisk Synergy Studio was, so we were funding investment even during that time through self-funding of it. We think we can continue to do that and maintain operating leverage and invest in long-term sustainability.
One Metaphor that I like to use is all companies are to some extent Economic Engines. Certainly we feel that way about Verisk. The Economic Engine is your ability to generate Profitability. Margin is certainly one way to evaluate that. It might be the tachometer for most companies. Return on Invested Capital is another way to manage that energy or that Economic Energy. Our focus then is how do we then apply that energy to speed and distance? You can apply it to acceleration. You can apply it to kind of sustaining that. I think we recognize that while margin is an important barometer of the health of our business, it also represents our ability to invest in sustaining and accelerating that growth over time.
The reason I use that analogy is that operating leverage will continue to express itself in margin strength. We have to make the decision in how we are going to apply that into, I think, what we think is most determinative of our value creation over time, which is sustaining and compounding Revenue and Profitability Growth over the course of time. That is certainly what has gotten us to this point. We think it continues to be a very relevant formula for our ongoing value creation.
Got it. I know we're running out of time. Maybe just one last question from me on Capital Allocation. Maybe talk about your thoughts around the different priorities between the M&As, the share buybacks, the dividends, debt prepayments, things like that.
Yeah. Our top priority is always where can we generate the strongest return on Invested Capital within the business. If we're talking about capital, it's about returns. We have received a lot of support from our investors on organic investment because we generate extremely high returns on capital when we find those opportunities. We want to press the organization to continue to look for ways to build that. Again, the dynamic is we make an investment in that Data Analytic or platform, and we can leverage it across an industry. The second element is where can we generate a good return through an acquisition that we can enhance value by accelerating its adoption or improving its efficiency or capability within that. You have seen us make a couple of small acquisitions.
We are looking for areas where we can do that, and it is additive to the overall business. If those returns are not available to us in either case, we have also demonstrated that we will return that capital to Shareholders in the form of share repurchases or dividends. We try to balance our dividend growth against efficient Capital Returns.
Got it. Thank you so much for sharing with us today. Really helpful. Really appreciate all of your insights. Thank you everyone for joining us today.
Thank you.
Thank you.