International General Insurance Holdings Ltd. Ordinary Share 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Welcome to today's conference call. Today, we'll be discussing financial results for the second quarter and first half of 2026. You will have seen the press release we issued after the market closed yesterday. If you'd like a copy of it's on our website at www.iginsure.com. We've also posted a supplementary investor presentation, which can be found on our website in the investor section on the main landing page. On today's call, our Executive Chairman of IGI, Wasef Jabsheh, President and CEO, Waleed Jabsheh, and Chief Financial Officer, Pervez Rizvi. As always, Wasef will begin the call with some high-level comments before handing over to Waleed to talk through the key drivers of our results for the second quarter and first half and finish up with our views on market conditions and our outlook for the remainder of the year.

At that point, we'll open the call up for Q&A. I'll just cover some customary safe harbor language to start with. Our speakers' remarks may contain forward-looking statements. Some of the forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words. We caution you that such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by us that the future plans, estimate, or expectations contemplated by us will in fact be achieved. These 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 out in the company's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31st, 2025, the company's reports on Form 6-K and other filings with the SEC, as well as our results press release issued last evening.

We undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. During this call, we will use certain non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of these measures to the nearest GAAP measure, please see our earnings release, which has been filed with the SEC and, like I said, is available on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to our Executive Chairman, Wasef Jabsheh.

Waleed? Thank you, Wasef. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today.

I'm also extremely pleased with our performance in Q2 and the first half of the year. In the face of sizable losses in one of our core regions, increasingly competitive market conditions, and continued global uncertainty, our results clearly show that IGI is a strong, resilient, and stable organization that can manage and mitigate volatility while continuing to execute our strategy and deliver excellent value for our stakeholders. The events of the first half of the year were unusual, not only because of the scale of the war-related losses, but because it affected Middle Eastern countries that had generally been viewed as comparatively safe from this type of conflict-related impact.

As Wasef noted, for IGI, the war losses in aggregate for the first six months of the year represent what's possibly the largest net loss event in IGI's history. In many ways, this was a real-life stress test of our strategy, of our underwriting model, of our risk management, of our balance sheet, and I'm very pleased, though not really surprised, that we performed so well, and as our model and strategy was designed to perform. I would just like to make a few points before moving on to some of the specifics of the results for Q2 and H1. First, as we've already noted, the Middle East war-related losses in aggregate are looking like they'll be the largest single event loss in IGI's almost 25-year history now. We recorded net war losses in Q2 of almost $14 million, and for the first half, roughly $39 million.

That's both direct and indirect losses. These losses predominantly are in our PV book. We mentioned in Q1 of an indirect loss in our energy portfolio. These are war-related physical damage and business interruption losses and predominantly stem from our exposures in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and to a lesser extent, Oman. As a reminder, this should be fairly obvious, we don't have any exposures in countries that are sanctioned. The Middle East remains an important region for us, served by our operations in both Amman and Dubai. As you're all aware, IGI originated in Jordan, and the largest of our nine offices is in Amman, with almost 300 of our people and much of our operational support headquartered here. It's where both Wasef and I are speaking to you from today.

That said, this is the first time we've experienced major war losses in the Middle East, and I'm proud that we were able to support our clients in the region. Consistent with our disciplined approach, we've used the insights gained from these events to further reduce PV line sizes and exposures. On the flip side, as I said on last quarter's call, we've also taken advantage of the price correction in the Middle East to write new business at significantly improved pricing. Secondly, our ability to absorb shock losses was clearly demonstrated in the second quarter and half year financial results that we're discussing today. As I said at the outset, IGI today is a much larger, much stronger, more resilient, and more stable company than even five years ago.

Again, to be able to record one of, if not the single largest loss in our history in the first six months of the year, while hosting a 92% combined ratio, a $42.5 million profit, and returning over $72 million in capital to shareholders, really speaks for itself. Lastly, as we say this on most of these calls, we all know our business is very cyclical, but our view of success is never based on a quarter-to-quarter basis or even on a year-over-year basis. The market's constantly changing, but our philosophy and our values remain the same. Success for us, we've said many times in the past, is determined by long-term, multi-year, or over-the-cycle performance with some short-term volatility, which is the nature of our business and is innately expected in our business as well.

I'll talk more about specific market opportunities and our entry into the Indian market just a little bit later during the call. Turning specifically to the results of Q2 and H1 of the year, I'll focus on a few key points and the drivers behind the numbers. GWP was $201.7 million for Q2 and just under $400 million for the first half. This represents a 7.4% and 1.2% increase over the same periods from last year. This primarily reflects the impact of around $10 million in new Indian business written subsequent to us securing registration approval in June to open our office in Gift City in India. As I said, I'll say a few more words about that in a moment.