Axis Capital Holders Limited 2026 Q3 Earnings Call

Good morning, and welcome to our third quarter 2026 conference call. Our earnings press release and financial supplement were issued last night. If you would like copies, please visit the investor information section of our website at axiscapital.com. We set aside an hour for today's call, which is also available as an audio webcast on our website. Joining me on today's call are Vince Tizzio, our President and CEO, and Matt Kirk, our CFO. I would like to 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. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions.

Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including the risk factors set forth in the company's most recent report on the Form 10-K or our quarterly report on Form 10-Q and other reports the company files with the SEC. This includes the additional risks identified in the cautionary note regarding the forward-looking statements in our earnings press release issued last night. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. In addition, non-GAAP financial measures may be discussed during this conference call. Reconciliations are included in our press release and financial supplement. With that, I'll turn the call over to Vince.

Thank you, Cliff. Good morning and thank you for joining our third quarter call. Before turning to our results, I'll take a moment to recognize the outstanding efforts of our team. During the quarter, we celebrated AXIS's 25th anniversary, a milestone that underscores both the progress we've made and the strength of the company we are today. AXIS was born as a specialist underwriter, and as we bridge past, present, and future, we continue to lean into our specialist value proposition to address the needs of our customers. This was evident in our third quarter performance. Our guiding metric continues to be growth in diluted book value, and we delivered a 7% increase over the past 12 months, or a 14.4% increase ex AOCI. We produced $2.4 billion in gross premiums written, representing an 11% increase year-over-year, with more than $700 million in new business.

We continue to target short-tail specialty businesses, and short-tail lines represent 56% of our premiums. We generated a combined ratio of 94%. AXIS is well-positioned in the current market. Our ability to identify shifts in the risk landscape and respond early, act decisively, and shape our portfolio ahead of the market is what differentiates AXIS. This enables us to take advantage of dislocations, protect underwriting margins, and deliver attractive returns throughout the cycle. As you've heard me share in past calls, we operate with an ethos of saying what we mean and doing what we say. We commented ahead of the market on the need for vigilance in liability and cyber, and in 2026 have reduced premiums by 8% and 14%, respectively. This was driven predominantly by actions in our reinsurance segment.

Just last quarter, we spoke to deteriorating conditions in property and certain casualty lines within our insurance segment, and we were early to voice those concerns, as now we have seen other market participants have since followed. That discipline works in both directions. Where conditions deteriorate, we act early to protect underwriting margins. Where dislocations create attractive returns, we move decisively to capture opportunities. For example, in marine war and terrorism, AXIS continues to help customers navigate the Iran conflict. We are drawing from a deep expertise and long-standing reputation in the market. Additionally, we continue to see opportunity across our expanded classes, where we are capturing share in markets where AXIS has historically been underrepresented and where margins remain attractive. Finally, through our AXIS Capacity Solutions capability, also known as ACS, we are matching our specialty underwriting knowledge with third-party capital.

This is enabling us to serve clients with greater capacity while generating fee income for AXIS. Over the past three years, we have deliberately repositioned AXIS Re as a boutique specialist, and we have done this while posting profits in the segment for 11 consecutive quarters. We feel great about the direction that AXIS Re is headed in. As respects capital management, we continue to deliver shareholder value through our stock repurchase program. Since the fourth quarter of 2023, we have reduced our share count by approximately 16.6%. We expect to remain opportunistic in repurchasing shares where we believe doing so creates long-term value. Over the past three years, our How We Work program has fundamentally improved the way AXIS operates.

We have established a strengthened operating infrastructure, embedded agile ways of working across the organization, and are increasingly leveraging technology and AI to improve our speed, processes, and drive business outcomes. By example, earlier this year, I spoke with you about our new end-to-end next generation underwriting platform rollout. It was deployed in our lower middle market business. The platform is showing its ability to reduce quote cycle time by up to 70%. In claims, our agentic first notice of loss capability, launched initially within our property business, is accelerating processing while giving us insights, including during catastrophe events. These illustrate a broader shift in how AXIS operates. We're using technology and AI not to simply automate tasks, but to increase underwriting capacity, improve decision-making, compress cycle times, and enable the organization to scale more efficiently.

Our overall progress is underpinned by the reputation we earn from our brokers and customers. I'm pleased to note in our most recent broker survey, AXIS was once again recognized with top-quartile net promoter scores and leadership as a specialty insurer. Moreover, we were ranked ahead of the market for our underwriting knowledge, alignment with our customers, strategy, and brand recognition. Let's now move to our segment results, and we'll begin with insurance. We're pleased with the growth and profitability of our insurance business. Highlights during the quarter include $1.9 billion in premiums, a 13% increase year over year, $630 million of new premiums written, underwriting income of $104 million, and a 92 combined ratio, and current accident year ex-CAT combined of 87.2. Our global distribution platform has enabled us to drive differentiated, profitable growth across our portfolio. I'll unpack the 13% growth in more detail.

ACS led the way, contributing 7%. Our expanded classes contributed 5%, and our core insurance book generated the remaining balance. Notably, we again observed increasing contributions from our retail classes in North America, which delivered 16% growth year over year. We are also continuing to see healthy submission flow, including a 15% year-over-year increase in North America. Our London market business performed very well in the quarter. A top 10 syndicate at Lloyd's, we're leveraging our scale and relevance and leaning into our lead position across multiple lines, including marine, A&H, and credit and political risk, to name several. Let's now unpack market conditions within insurance. As I've discussed previously, we operate across a series of micro markets, each with their own set of risk characteristics, but with an overarching theme of increasing competition across most lines.

Against this backdrop, we remain an underwriting-led and bottom-line-focused company with premium adequacy, portfolio construction, and specialty expertise as guiding principles in our decision-making. We are balancing active cycle management with the selective pursuit of dislocations where our specialty expertise gives us an advantage. I'll provide observations across several lines of businesses. In property, growth continued to moderate and was 11% in the quarter. Rates declined 10%, and we were down 15% in E&S, specifically. We are being increasingly selective in property, particularly in segments where pricing is no longer rational. Notwithstanding the softer conditions, we have stayed true to the fundamentals that guide our approach. We maintain a well-constructed property book with an average net limits that remain in the low single-digit millions, a balanced mix of perils and geographies, and a CAT XOL protection that attaches at $100 million per event.

In liability, where rates increased 8% in the quarter, broadly keeping pace with loss trend, we deliberately reduced exposures where pricing did not meet our expectations. In U.S. excess casualty, even with rate increases of 10%, we are maintaining a disciplined stance. Retention on our renewal business was steady, but we did not grow new premiums within the line. In our dedicated U.S. excess casualty lower middle market unit, we grew 23% as business remained premium adequate. In primary casualty, rates rose 10%. Similar to U.S. excess casualty, we maintained a cautious position on new premiums while our renewal business was stable. In professional, growth was 16%, consistent with last quarter, with a rate increase of 3%. E&O remained a key driver, with meaningful contributions from expanded classes, including allied health and environmental. Our growth in professional was also supported by our RAC Re partnership.

Within cyber, we maintained a highly selective approach. Rates were down 4%, while premiums were up $7 million, with growth concentrated in targeted large account business. As previously reported, our underwriting strategy in cyber is selective and being executed with great discipline amidst a risk landscape that has been escalated by AI. Let's now turn to reinsurance, where the repositioning of the portfolio continues to produce tangible results. In the third quarter, premiums increased 4% to nearly $450 million, with specialty short-tail lines representing 57%. We delivered more than $70 million in new business, of which 60% was short tail. We generated a 92.4 combined ratio. We continued to lean into our specialty lines while maintaining a highly selective stance in liability and professional. In closing, AXIS has the right strategy, capabilities, and talent to succeed in a changing market.

We have a resilient and diversified portfolio, robust global distribution platform, and deep customer relationships grounded in trust. We will act decisively and have the expertise to identify market dislocations that create new profitable growth opportunities, the discipline to reduce exposures when returns do not meet our standards, and the financial strength to invest in our business while returning capital to our shareholders. With that, I'll now pass the floor to Matt for his comments.