Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. 2026 Q3 Earnings Call

Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone.

Today I'm joined by Bryan P. Petrucelli, our Chief Financial Officer, Stuart P. Winston, our Chief Underwriting Officer, Salmaan K. Allibhai, our Chief Analytics and Technology Officer, and Chris Tangard, our Chief Accounting Officer. Before we get into the quarterly results, I want to acknowledge and congratulate our colleague, Bryan P. Petrucelli, on his just-announced retirement next year and his election to the Kinsale board of directors. Bryan has made significant contributions to Kinsale in a variety of roles, but especially as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for the last decade or so. Bryan is not only a financial expert and a sound business manager, but he has great judgment and integrity, and most importantly, he's a quality human being.

We will miss having him on the day-to-day team next year, but know that he will make a great addition to our board, and we are grateful that he will continue contributing to Kinsale in that capacity. I also want to congratulate Chris Tangard, who will become Kinsale's CFO in March of 2027. Chris joined the company from KPMG seven years ago. He has taken on a number of finance roles over the years, including his promotion to Chief Accounting Officer two years ago. As CFO, Chris will continue to build on our current success, and investors will have lots of opportunity to get to know him in the months ahead. In the third quarter 2026, Kinsale's diluted operating earnings per share increased 9.4% over the third quarter of 2025, generating an annualized operating ROE of 25.6% through nine months.

Gross written premium was down 4.8%, and net written premium was down 1.5%. Kinsale's combined ratio was 75.4% for the quarter. E&S market conditions in the third quarter continued to be competitive and largely consistent with conditions in the second quarter. The level of competition and our growth rate continues to vary from one market segment to another, as you can see from the premium by underwriting division exhibit in our Q. I am sorry, we have got a fire alarm going off in the building adjacent to ours. We are going to keep persevering here. The continued intense competition in our Commercial Property division weighed on our growth rate in the quarter. Excluding that one division, our gross written premium was down half a percent.

It is also important to note that even with the drop in gross written premium for the quarter, Kinsale's number of submissions, quotes, and bind orders grew in the mid-single digit range. Essentially, with the competition in the E&S market, our books shifted slightly from larger to smaller accounts. Not only is this shift positive for maintaining best-in-class margins, but it also shows that the Kinsale model works and works well even in the most competitive market we have seen in the last 10 years. Our disciplined underwriting and low-cost business model recognizes the importance of the insurance buyer in every transaction. We deliver competitively priced insurance without compromising our margins, and we continue to grow the business and take market share subject only to a temporary written premium growth slowdown as we shift slightly away from larger transactions and write a slightly smaller average premium.

While Kinsale always prioritizes profit over growth, we are still working very hard to grow the business. The various growth initiatives involve new and enhanced products, appointing new brokers, a robust marketing effort, and improved customer service. Stuart Winston will have some commentary on these topics here in a moment. In this era of artificial intelligence, Kinsale's longstanding strategy of making technology a core competency is allowing us to widen our lead over many competitors.