Hamilton Insurance Group, Ltd. Class B Common Shares 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

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Hi everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings call. Before we begin, please note that certain statements made during this call are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. These risks are provided in our earnings release and SEC filings. We will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release and financial supplement, available on our website at investors.hamiltongroup.com. Now I'll introduce the Hamilton executives leading today's call. Pina Albo, Group Chief Executive Officer, and Craig Howie, Group Chief Financial Officer. We are also joined by other members of the Hamilton management team. With that, I'll hand it over to Pina.

Thank you, Darian, and hello, everyone. Let me start by welcoming you to Hamilton's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I'm pleased to report another strong quarter for Hamilton, achieved against a backdrop of ongoing geopolitical tensions, social and economic inflation, and an insurance and reinsurance market that remains competitive. Hamilton delivered very solid results in the second quarter with net income of $144 million, equal to an annualized return on average equity of 21%. This result was underpinned by a combined ratio of 95%, which includes about $50 million of catastrophe losses primarily stemming from the Middle East conflict, strong investment income of $141 million, and thoughtful growth in select classes with gross premiums written increasing by 17% for the quarter.

The results this quarter, and indeed over past quarters, underscore the strength of Hamilton's strategy, its diversified portfolio, and our team's ability to execute and adapt to all market conditions. Switching gears now to the mid-year renewals, I won't speak too long about this. As you likely already heard from my peers over the past few days, the market is in transition. The clearest area of pressure continues to be property business, where competition remains principally focused on price, while casualty remains more stable with rate increase still being achieved in many lines. Specialty business was also competitive in many areas at mid-year. That said, given the recent loss activity in the Middle East, we are now seeing opportunities in select insurance classes like marine hull and cargo where rates are increasing. We will consider such opportunities thoughtfully and with the benefit of our strong underwriting expertise in specialty classes.

For Hamilton, the key takeaways from the mid-year renewals are that while competition is robust, pricing still remains attractive across many lines. Contractual improvements in the property cat area introduced in the 2023 market reset remain largely intact, and our key client strategy and strong broker relations continue to result in achieving desired signings and access to business we want to see. In this environment, we are focused on preserving margin quality, astute risk selection, and supporting clients where we have strong underwriting conviction and broad trading relationships. We are also making strategic use of outwards protection across our portfolio, including the use of our recently launched casualty sidecar. Against this backdrop, the good news is that our team has experience trading in this type of market environment, knows how to exercise discipline while at the same time look for opportunities.

Also, having the benefit of both an insurance and a reinsurance business and diversification across a broad array of products allows us to be nimble and focus on classes where we continue to get the best risk-adjusted returns. We believe that the benefits of our platform, together with our discerning underwriting approach, will be the key to our continued profitability. Before moving on to our segment review for the quarter, I want to take a moment to discuss the recent developments in Hamilton Select. Before I do that, I want to make sure you understand how Select fits into the Hamilton strategy. We have two reporting segments, International and Bermuda, and three underwriting platforms. The International segment houses our Hamilton Global Specialty and Hamilton Select underwriting platforms, which are predominantly specialty insurance, while Hamilton Re sits under our Bermuda segment, which is predominantly reinsurance.

Hamilton Global Specialty and Hamilton Re each wrote about $1.4 billion in premium in 2025. Our long-term ambition is for Hamilton Select to become the third leg of our stool, so to speak, alongside our other two established underwriting platforms. In May, AM Best upgraded Hamilton Select to A from A minus. This rating supports this vision and the continued development of our E&S platform. It also aligns with Hamilton's strategy of building a diversified global specialty insurance and reinsurance company. We believe that the rating upgrade puts us in an even better position vis-a-vis our broker partners and will therefore result in our seeing additional opportunities in the U.S. specialty insurance market. Now, this takes me to something I specifically want to discuss.

When we launched Hamilton Select, the company was focused on hard-to-place accounts in the U.S. E&S market, a strategy that leveraged the strength of our team and their strong wholesale distribution relationships. We are now flexing these strengths as well as our proprietary technology to expand our appetite beyond distressed or pure hard-to-place risks. The expanded appetite includes new and additional classes of business, which we will continue to add to over time, as well as risks in the lower middle market segment of the U.S. E&S market. We already receive submissions that fit this expanded risk profile, this is a natural evolution of our strategy that will provide our wholesale distribution partners with additional support for their clients. As you can imagine, we are very excited about this development. Moving now on to the segments. Let's look at top-line growth this quarter for International and Bermuda.

Starting with the International segment. International gross premiums written grew to $420 million, or 22% over the prior period. By platform, Hamilton Global Specialty gross premiums written were up 22%, driven by specialty and casualty classes, specifically in core classes such as accident and health, which benefited from some seasonality. At the same time, similar to my comments last quarter, we pulled back in our larger commercial D&F property insurance offering, where we increasingly declined business which did not meet our return thresholds. Overall, our pricing assessment and underwriting framework continue to ensure attractive margins on the business we are writing, even as our teams become more selective across many lines. Moving on to Hamilton Select, that platform grew 18% this quarter, driven by excess casualty, excess property, one of the classes of our expansion strategy, and products and contractors where we still see attractive pricing terms and conditions.

We were more selective on medical and professional lines given the competitive pricing environment. Lastly, in Bermuda, we grew to $411 million, or 12% over the prior period. Similar to last quarter, our most significant driver of growth came from casualty reinsurance. A meaningful proportion of this is attributable to business bound in prior quarters, with much of the remainder coming from increases in our relatively modest shares on select accounts with key trading partners. Moving on to property reinsurance in Bermuda, premiums fell compared to the same period last year, primarily due to decreased rates. This was partially offset by better signings on deals with select key clients. Florida-only business is the primary focus of the 6/1 renewal season and as a reminder, this business represents only a modest portion of the Hamilton Re portfolio.

We do, however, write the Florida market on our third-party capital platform, Ada Re. For the 7/1 business, which is more national accounts and within our wheelhouse, while pricing was competitive, it still provided attractive margins and as mentioned, the improved attachment points and terms and conditions from the 2023 market reset remains strong. Our specialty reinsurance line grew primarily due to some business wins in the aviation class, where pricing and conditions were attractive. On the insurance side of our Bermuda business, similar to what we did in Hamilton Global Specialty, we also reduced writings in our large account property D&F book, since pricing in this area continues to come under pressure and the metrics did not meet our return thresholds.

In closing, we continue to focus on the bottom line and deliver strong results, grow selectively in lines where margins are attractive, invest strategically in platforms like Hamilton Select and enabling technology, add strong talent to our team, and respond thoughtfully to this complex market environment. As we saw through the mid-year renewals and across both International and Bermuda, this is not a market where every opportunity should be written. Rather, one where a focus on underwriting margin, risk selection, and strong client and broker relationships will support continued success. With that in mind, we believe our portfolio remains well-positioned to continue to produce solid results. Our teams are exercising the requisite discipline and allocating capital to risks and clients where we have the greatest underwriting conviction. With that broader context in mind, I'll turn the call over to Craig to walk through the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Pina, and hello, everyone. Hamilton had another great quarter of financial results with net income of $144 million, or $1.42 per diluted share, and an annualized return on average equity of 21% in the second quarter of 2026. We had operating income of $158 million, equal to $1.56 per diluted share, producing an annualized operating return on average equity of 23%. These figures compare to net income of $187 million, or $1.79 per diluted share, an annualized return on average equity of 30%, operating income of $162 million, or $1.55 per diluted share, and an annualized operating return on average equity of 26% in the second quarter of 2025. Moving on to our underwriting results. Each of our platforms pursued thoughtful strategic growth in areas presenting the strongest risk-adjusted returns while pulling back from lines where margins were not attractive.