Old Republic International Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 24, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Consolidated pretax operating income rose to $267.5 M in Q2 from $253.8 M a year ago, driven by strong Specialty Insurance results and favorable loss reserve development.
  • Positive Sentiment: Specialty Insurance net premiums earned grew 14.6% YoY, yielding $253.7 M of pretax income with a combined ratio of 90.7% and renewal retention above 85% across all lines.
  • Negative Sentiment: Title Insurance revenues grew 5.2% to $698 M, but pretax income fell to $24.2 M (vs. $46 M) and the combined ratio widened to 99% due to legal settlement costs and reduced favorable reserve development.
  • Positive Sentiment: Net operating income increased 9% to $209 M ($0.83 per share vs. $0.76) and book value per share rose 12.6% to $25.14; the company has returned $571 M in dividends and retains ~$200 M in buyback authorization.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Investment portfolio yields improved with a 4.7% book yield and 5% reinvestment rate, supporting a 2.4% rise in net investment income despite reduced asset base from capital returns.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Old Republic International Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to Old Republic International's Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Joe Calabrese at MWW. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Joe Calabrese
SVP at Financial Relations Board

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Old Republic conference call to discuss second quarter twenty twenty five results. This morning, we distributed a copy of the press release and posted a separate financial supplement. Both of the documents are available on Republic's website at ww.oldrepublic.gov.com. Please be advised that this call may involve forward looking statements as discussed in the press release dated 07/24/2025.

Joe Calabrese
SVP at Financial Relations Board

Assumptions, uncertainties and risks exist that may cause results to differ materially from those set forth in these forward looking statements. For more information on the assumptions, uncertainties and risks, please refer to the forward looking statements discussion in the press release and the company's other SEC filings and the risk factors discussed in the company's most recent Form 10 ks and other recent SEC filings. We may also include references to net income, excluding net investment gains or net operating income, a non GAAP financial measure, in our remarks or in a responses to questions. GAAP reconciliations are included in the press release. Presenting on today's conference call will be Craig Spetty, President and CEO Frank Sadara, Chief Financial Officer and Carolyn Munro, President and CEO of Old Republic's National Title Insurance Group.

Joe Calabrese
SVP at Financial Relations Board

Management will make some opening remarks, and then we'll open the line for your questions. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Craig. Please go ahead, sir.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

All right, Joe. Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our call, and welcome again to our second quarter twenty twenty five earnings discussion. Well, our story of strong growth and strong profitability continued through the second quarter of this year. During the second quarter, we produced $267,500,000 of consolidated pretax operating income, up from $253,800,000 in the second quarter of twenty four.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Our consolidated combined ratio was 93.6 compared to 93.5 in the second quarter of last year. In the specialty insurance, we grew net premiums earned by 14.6% in the second quarter and produced $253,700,000 of pretax operating income. That was up from $202,500,000 in the second quarter last year. The specialty insurance combined ratio was 90.7% in the quarter and that compares to 92.4% in the second quarter of last year. Entitled, despite the continuation of higher mortgage interest rates and a slow real estate market.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

The title insurance folks grew premiums and fees earned by 5.2% compared to the second quarter last year, and they produced $24,200,000 of pretax operating income, down from $46,000,000 in the second quarter last year. And title combined ratio was 99 in the quarter compared to 95.4% in the second quarter of last year. And of course, Carolyn will give us a little more insight into those figures. Our conservative reserving practices continue to produce favorable prior year loss reserve development in both specialty insurance and title insurance. Our balance sheet remains strong, and we continue to invest in our new specialty underwriting subsidiaries as well as in technology and in talent.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

So, with that as opening remarks, I'll now turn the discussion over to Frank. And Frank will then turn things back to me to cover specialty insurance. And then I'll turn things over to Carolyn to cover title insurance, and then we'll open it up to the q and a part. So with that, I hand it to you, Frank.

Frank Sodaro
Frank Sodaro
SVP & CFO at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Thank you, Craig, and good afternoon, everyone. This morning, we reported net operating income of $2.00 $9,000,000 for the quarter compared to $2.00 $2,000,000 last year. On a per share basis, comparable year over year results were $0.83 compared to $0.76 a 9% increase. Net investment income increased 2.4% as a result of higher yields on the bond portfolio, partially offset by lower invested asset base from returning excess capital and then included the $500,000,000 paid as a special dividend during the first quarter of this year. Our average reinvestment rate on corporate bonds during the quarter was 5% compared to the average yield rolling off of about 4%.

Frank Sodaro
Frank Sodaro
SVP & CFO at Old Republic International Corporatlion

The total bond portfolio book yield now stands at 4.7% compared to 4.5 at the end of last year. Turning now to loss reserves. Both Specialty Insurance and Title Insurance recognized favorable development in the quarter, leading to a benefit in the consolidated loss ratio of 2.1 percentage points compared to 2.2 points last year. Within Specialty Insurance, workers' comp continued to have strong favorable development and accounted for the majority of the group's total favorable development. Commercial auto owned property also had favorable development, while general liability had unfavorable development.

Frank Sodaro
Frank Sodaro
SVP & CFO at Old Republic International Corporatlion

However, the year to date impact was less than 0.5% on the specialty insurance loss ratio. We ended the quarter with book value per share of $25.14 which inclusive of the regular dividend equated to an increase of just over 12.6% resulting primarily from our strong operating earnings and higher investment valuations. In the quarter, we paid $71,000,000 in regular cash dividends. We did not repurchase any shares during the quarter and our repurchases since the end of the quarter were not material, so that left us with just over $200,000,000 remaining in our current repurchase program. I'll now turn the call back over to Craig for a discussion of specialty insurance.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

All right. Thanks, Frank. So Specialty Insurance net written premiums were up 9% in the second quarter, and that came from strong, renewal retention ratios, rate increases on most lines of coverage and solid new business writings and an increasing level of premium production in our new specialty underwriting subsidiaries. We continue to expand our E and S presence with E and S direct written premiums up 12% so far this year. As mentioned in my opening remarks, in the second quarter, Insurance pretax operating income was $254,000,000 and the combined ratio was 90.7.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

The loss ratio for the second quarter was at 62.5, and that included 2.9 percentage points of favorable prior year loss reserve development compared to 64.3 in the second quarter last year that included 2.5 points of favorable development. The expense ratio was in line with expectation, coming in at 28.2 in the second quarter compared to 28.1% in the second quarter last year. So given these top line and bottom line results, we continue on our journey of profitable growth, within Specialty Insurance. Now to just, dive into the details a little bit more on commercial auto and workers' compensation. Commercial auto net premiums written grew 10% in the second quarter, while the loss ratio came in at 70.3% compared to 72.3% last year.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Rate increases on commercial auto were approximately 14%, which will keep us ahead of the loss severity trend we're observing. Workers' comp net premiums written were 2% lower in the second quarter, while the loss ratio came in at 48.5% compared to 50.7% last year. We saw rates stay relatively flat this quarter, while loss frequency trend continues to decline and loss severity trend remains stable. So here, given the higher wage trend within payroll, which is what we apply our rates to, and given the declining loss frequency trend and stable loss severity trend, we think our rate levels for workers' compensation remain adequate. So going forward, we expect solid growth and profitability to continue in Specialty Insurance throughout the rest of this year, reflecting the success of our specialty strategy and our operational excellence initiatives.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

We also expect to continue to see growing contributions from our newer specialty underwriting subsidiaries. So that's a high level summary for the Specialty Insurance Group, and I'll now turn the discussion over to Carolyn, who will report on our Title Insurance Group. Carolyn?

Carolyn Monroe
Carolyn Monroe
SVP, President & CEO - Old Republic National Title Holding Company & Old Republic National Title Insurance Company at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Thank you, Craig. Title Insurance reported premium and fee revenue for the quarter of $698,000,000 This represents an increase of 5% from the second quarter of last year. Although we are pleased with continued revenue improvement, we've seen very little change in the real estate and mortgage market conditions. Premium from our direct title operations were up 3% from second quarter of twenty twenty four. Our agency produced premiums were up 7% and made up 77% of our revenue during the quarter, up from 76% during the second quarter of last year.

Carolyn Monroe
Carolyn Monroe
SVP, President & CEO - Old Republic National Title Holding Company & Old Republic National Title Insurance Company at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Commercial premiums increased this quarter and were 23% of our earned premiums compared to 21% in second quarter of last year. Investment income was also up this quarter, nearly 12% compared to second quarter of twenty twenty four. Our overall loss ratio increased to 2.9% this quarter compared to 2.3% in the second quarter of last year. Although prior policy years continued to develop favorably, the amount of favorable development in the second quarter of this year was less than the second quarter of twenty twenty four. Our pretax operating income this quarter was $24,000,000 compared to $46,000,000 in the second quarter of last year.

Carolyn Monroe
Carolyn Monroe
SVP, President & CEO - Old Republic National Title Holding Company & Old Republic National Title Insurance Company at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Our expense ratio was 96.1% compared to 93.1 in the second quarter of twenty twenty four. Cost from the settlement of a legal matter was the primary driver of this increase. Our combined ratio increased to 99% this quarter compared to 95.4% in the second quarter of last year. During the quarter, we continued progressing with the advancement of digital transaction tools solutions for our directs and our title agents through our strategic partnerships. We remain focused on the importance of providing our agents and employees with the innovative technological solutions required to maintain a competitive edge. These include our internal systems such as our remittance, policy assurance, and rate engines to work seamlessly with all the closing and production platforms. And I'll now turn it back to Craig.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Okay. Thanks, Carolyn. So profitable growth continues in Specialty Insurance. And in Title Insurance, we remain focused on profitability in a very challenging marketplace. As noted in the financial supplement, annualized operating return on beginning equity improved to an annualized rate of 14.6% compared to an annualized rate of 12.1% in the second quarter last year, which is reflective of our thoughtful management of capital.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

So that concludes our prepared remarks, and we'll now open up the discussion to Q and A, where either I'll answer your questions or I'll ask Frank or Carolyn to help me out.

Operator

Our first question comes from Gregory Peters from Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

C. Gregory Peters
C. Gregory Peters
MD - Insurance at Raymond James

Good afternoon, everyone.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Hi, Greg.

C. Gregory Peters
C. Gregory Peters
MD - Insurance at Raymond James

In your comments, Craig, you talked about retention across your specialty property casualty business. Can you give us a little more detail about how retention is moving across different lines of business?

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Sure, Greg. Be happy to. So, we do look at our renewal retention, metrics, by line of business and by each one of our 17 different subsidiary, companies. And, I can tell you that, regardless of the line of business or the subsidiary, We are experiencing renewal retentions north of, 85%, pretty much across the board. And, you know, we think that is is attributable to our value proposition where whereby, we're not selling, price.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

We're we're selling service. We're selling long term commitment to these market segments, selling our specialty expertise in underwriting, customer service, risk control, claims handling. And, so long and short of it is we think we have sticky renewal retention ratios given our, again, our value proposition and the kind of clients and distribution partners we work with that are focused on the long term and not those, not those distribution partners that, as we the the so called spreadsheeting of price and going with low price, that's not the type of customer that that would go after. We and and, therefore, as I say, across all lines of business, across all subsidiaries, very strong renewal retention ratios.

C. Gregory Peters
C. Gregory Peters
MD - Insurance at Raymond James

Yeah. That the reason for the question is there's a lot of commentary on the other calls that have happened so far about competition, pockets in certain areas. And one of the the themes that has emerged in the first half of this year is increasing competition in the larger account business. And it's more property than probably where you play. But maybe you could segue and just talk a little bit about how your business at at, Older Public Risk Management is showing because I know that targets the larger account, larger corporate market.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Yeah. Thanks thanks for that that question, Greg. And I agree with your your, comments. I think, one of the things that does differentiate us, even on property for us, we had a slight uptick in our overall property, rate increase this quarter because the property we're writing is is not the large account catastrophic exposed types of properties. You know, we're writing, property that is often packaged along with the other lines of business.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And and, yes, some some some of our property has catastrophic exposure, and and we buy catastrophic reinsurance to protect us on that. But, we're not a a big writer of of property cat where I think a lot of our peers are, have pretty decent sized portfolios. So we don't have that dynamic, that others are experiencing. And, you know, overall, I think our, the competition that we're seeing elsewhere is, nothing nothing that I would say is a dramatic change from what we've seen earlier. Again, back to our value proposition and the kind of clients that that we're seeking.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

You know, an example where perhaps we have seen competition and we pulled back a little bit as I've talked about the last few quarters, public company D and L in our, subsidiary that does write a fair amount of that business, we've been, pulling back. And, rate increase rates, decreases on public d and l have looks like they're they're starting to flatten out, still a little negative, but we've been encouraging our, underwriters there to to, maintain rate. And, if that means top line is is down like it was last year on public d and l, that's perfectly fine. So, you know, we're not immune to the competition, but, I think there are some differences in in our business model as well as the lines of business that we're in. And in risk management, just had a a forty year risk management client into our corporate headquarters here a couple of days ago and had a nice conversation with them.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And and, you know, on that business, as you know, Greg, we're we're serve it's all about service, and that's why that business is so sticky for us. And that's why we have forty year relationships with a lot of the the big clients. They retain a lot of their risk themselves, so they're not looking to us for risk transfer. They're they're looking to us for service. And we have large deductibles or they have captives that we seed most of the premium back to.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And, again, there too, that requires a relationship and long term focus. There's a lot of collateral at stake there. And, so when we collateralize, we have those, obligations collateralized by the client. Again, it has to be a a relationship, and, and we have very strong long term relationships in our large account risk management, business for sure. And we continue to add new clients based on a lot of, there's a lot of discussion, as you know, from attending RIMs or other events among the risk managers of large companies, and we have, a top tier reputation.

C. Gregory Peters
C. Gregory Peters
MD - Insurance at Raymond James

Yes. Thanks for that that, additional information. I guess I'll just ask one other question. I'll pivot to the title business. One of the things that's popped up in the second quarter was the issue around what's happening with title insurance rates in Texas.

C. Gregory Peters
C. Gregory Peters
MD - Insurance at Raymond James

And there's a rate decrease that's being implemented. And just curious about how what your views on that are? Do you anticipate that that's going to spread to other states? Or how does that impact your operations? And just give us a broader sense of how you see the market reacting to that.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Caroline, I'll I'll I'll start off. You and I have had discussions about this. And, you know, every state is very different. Texas is unique in in, promulgating, specific rates. And other states, we file rates.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And, Carolyn has, I know, been working closely with her team to look take a a very careful look at our rates and make sure we have adequate rates in every state. And, our assessment, I think, thus far Caroline, you correct me if I if I'm wrong, but I think our assessment such far so far is that the promulgated rate in Texas is still an adequate rate, but, I'll let you talk more about that, Carolyn.

Carolyn Monroe
Carolyn Monroe
SVP, President & CEO - Old Republic National Title Holding Company & Old Republic National Title Insurance Company at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Yeah. Also, Greg, if I'm not mistaken, right now that rate decrease has not gone into effect because it's been challenged. And the last I checked, the challenge was held up in the court, and, I think they're trying to come to maybe a more reasonable settlement than what was initially proposed. So that has not taken effect yet. But, you know, when when they generally, in the promulgated states like Texas, New Mexico, and Florida, you know, the they they look at prior year history and kind of determine if if it's an adequate rate.

Carolyn Monroe
Carolyn Monroe
SVP, President & CEO - Old Republic National Title Holding Company & Old Republic National Title Insurance Company at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And we have a lot of input on on determining that as well, our state, associations do. So I would think whatever we come up with will be an adequate way to, still service the industry.

C. Gregory Peters
C. Gregory Peters
MD - Insurance at Raymond James

Okay. Thanks for the answer.

Operator

We'll go next to Paul Newsome from Piper Sandler.

Paul Newsome
Paul Newsome
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

One, maybe to revisit to capital management. There was no stock repurchase in the last quarter, sounds like not to date. Why not? And how do you think about your own capital position at the moment?

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Sure, Paul. I'll be happy to talk about that. So as Frank mentioned in his opening comments, as a reminder, we had a $2 special dividend that we just paid in the first quarter. And, that was on top of the, large amount of share repurchases that we've made last year and in the preceding few years. So we closely look at both tools in our tool chest, special dividends as well as share repurchases.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And we're also very mindful of where the market price is relative to our, our book value when we make share repurchases, decisions. So, you know, that the higher the market prices to book, the the less we're going to be, excited about share repurchases. And and on the other hand, the lower the the market prices is to book, the more excited we get about share repurchases. And then, to manage capital, we're cognizant of ROE. You know, as I mentioned in my opening comments, We're very thoughtful about capital management.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And while we think we carry probably, more capital than some of our peers, we want to maintain a strong balance sheet and and be prepared for the unforeseen, unforeseen and we want to continue to invest be able to invest in new opportunities. So, we're conservative in the amount of capital we carry, but we're also very cognizant of ROE and we don't want to carry too much capital. And that was primarily what led us to the decision that on top of all the share repurchases, we also issued a special dividend in the first quarter because we were carrying far too much capital. So we'll use both tools, and we'll look at both options and take into consideration what has the best benefit to shareholders. And then we present that to our board with a recommendation from management and proceed accordingly.

Paul Newsome
Paul Newsome
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Second question, maybe a little bit more commentary on the investment outlook, obviously, combination of cash flow and new money yields. Where do you think the longer term trend here, at least the intermediate trend is for investment?

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Well, I'd be happy to start it off. And if you I think Frank might have addressed it in our opening comments, but if you compare where our new money rates are are coming in on our fixed income portfolio vis a vis our, average yield on our on our portfolio, that's getting pretty tight. So, I think that, there there can't be a a big expectation that that, that's going to improve dramatically. Incrementally, maybe There still might be a little room comparing those differences between new money and our existing yield, but no big dramatic. And Frank, please feel free to correct me if you see it differently or do you have anything to add?

Frank Sodaro
Frank Sodaro
SVP & CFO at Old Republic International Corporatlion

No. I would just say the biggest component now is as we've returned so much capital, our base is so much lower. From a yield perspective, that's right. It's tightening up. I would expect there to be improvements, all things being equal, but no longer are the would I expect that 10 to 15% higher that we had somewhere along the the mid single digits is probably what I would say, all things being equal.

Paul Newsome
Paul Newsome
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Appreciate it. Nice to be able to put Frank in a hot seat.

Frank Sodaro
Frank Sodaro
SVP & CFO at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Okay. Appreciate that, Paul.

Operator

The next question will come from Evan Tindell, Byron Capital.

Evan Tindell
Co-Founder & CIO at Bireme Capital

Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Hi. Hi, Evan. My hi.

Evan Tindell
Co-Founder & CIO at Bireme Capital

My question is on the the specialty insurance segment. I mean, you guys have pretty consistently now been posting combined ratios, like, around ninety, ninety one. And, obviously, you guys guide to 90 to 95 over the full cycle. And I'm just wondering, has has anything like, given how consistently you've kind of outperformed or almost outperformed that that range, can you talk about, like has anything fundamentally changed in terms of the the mix of your business or how how well you guys are executing that might allow you to kind of tighten or lower that range in terms of guidance on the combined ratio for the full cycle? Or do you guys still expect that to go back up to 95 at some point?

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Right. Well, you know, let me first just say a comment that I made earlier about, the complexion of our portfolio and the fact that we're not writing, large catastrophic property business per se vis a vis our peers. Again, we have some some of that exposure. But when you write a large amount of of catastrophic property, you can post some pretty decent combined ratios in good quarters and then you post some fairly awful combined ratios in quarters where there is a catastrophic event. So I think our combined ratio, given our casualty focused business, is going to be in that range of 90% to 95%.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

We have written, a little bit more property and short tail businesses. As you can tell in the supplement, you can see growth rate in property has been a little bit stronger as as we, improve our footprint with our inland marine, new specialty subsidiary, our new E and S specialty subsidiary. They're able to to write, property in conjunction with other coverages. And, so we we've grown it, but, it's still not a a huge area for us. So given our predominantly casualty focused, business, given our conservative loss reserving approaches, that 90 to 95 is still a a good target and and one that, you know, if you were able to parse out the the property catastrophic, portions of our competitors combined ratio and strip out, the other drivers of lower combined ratio, lines of business, I think, you know, that's that's a pretty respectable target and, difficult to achieve a much lower target, on the lines the lines we write, particularly given the proportions of our lines of business.

Evan Tindell
Co-Founder & CIO at Bireme Capital

Okay. Great. Thank you. One other question. Obviously, there's been, you know, AI is the the talk of the town in in various industries.

Evan Tindell
Co-Founder & CIO at Bireme Capital

And I'm just curious how you, how you guys are are playing with or implementing AI at this point. If you think it can, you know, maybe make the underwriting process more efficient or help you guys cut costs or otherwise your otherwise impact your your business over the next, you know, three to five years.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Sure.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

I'd be happy to, to talk about that. So we are very much involved as an executive team here and with our subsidiary companies at exploring all of the the AI, tools that are available and ones that we might wanna consider building ourselves. We just, announced that we, hired, an AI leader, at the corporate holding company level that can help lead our, Steve Cross. He is, leading our AI efforts, and it's hard to to to talk about AI without talking about data analytics because you really need the data analytics to go hand in hand with the AI to put the AI to work for you. And when we talk, as I commented in our my opening comments, we're making investments in technology.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

We're making a concerted effort to retire our legacy IT debt. That's the first step. You've got to have in order to to have data analytics and then in order to, in turn from there, leverage the what's available in AI, you've gotta have, modern technology in place. So we are investing in technology. We're retiring our legacy technology debt.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

We're investing in data analytics here too. A couple of years ago, at the corporate level, we hired a data and analytics expert, and, that expert, works with our John Giangelo, works with our, our subsidiary companies on data analytics and we've built out that team so that we have those that data and analytics available. And then Steve Cross and his team can set on top of that what's available from from, the AI perspective. And we think of it as an executive team in two ways, either for the most part AI will help you make better decisions or it will help you be more efficient. So we have numerous AI projects we're exploring. And one of the first categories is, is this an AI project that's going to help us with efficiency? Or is this an AI project that's going to help us with better decision making? And we have several pilots in place, several that are, helping us right now with better decision making, better efficiencies, and we have numerous in the pipeline. And again, we're we're building the data and analytics for that to sit on top of, and then the data and analytics sits on top of, modern IT technology, which is what we're investing in.

Evan Tindell
Co-Founder & CIO at Bireme Capital

Awesome. Thank you. And, actually, maybe maybe one more if there's if there's, there's time. On the on the title insurance business, do you guys think do you think that you need to see, mortgage rates fall before you you start to see combined ratios getting back into the, you know, 96, 95 or or below range? Or do you think you can improve margins in the in kinda in the current kind of housing environment?

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

I'll kick it off, Caroline, and then let you add what you think. We are not satisfied with a a combined ratio in title above 95. We realized that in a tight market like we're in now with high interest rates, a very slow real estate market, that we're gonna be at the top end of that range. And Caroline and I have had this many discussions, and we're working very hard to bring our combined ratio down. Assuming the same environment that exists today, we should be performing at a 95 combined ratio.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

So, there are things, that we're doing to to look at, where we're spending money. And I think an example of that is our decision to discontinue our focus on providing a closing platform because there's other, partners and vendors that can provide very good closing platforms that our technology works well with. We don't need to be the ones providing the closing platform. So that's an example of we're looking to make sure we're being as efficient as possible. We're our hope for this year was that we would get below that 95 mark.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Carolyn still has and her team still have aspirations to bring that down. We had the, litigation expense we talked about earlier that drove up our combined ratio a couple points this quarter. But last year, we finished at 97. This year, you know, it it could could be in that range, but our aspiration is to get it below 95. Caroline, is there anything you would add to that?

Carolyn Monroe
Carolyn Monroe
SVP, President & CEO - Old Republic National Title Holding Company & Old Republic National Title Insurance Company at Old Republic International Corporatlion

No. Just that, you know, absent of any kind of an increase in the market, we just continue to look inward to see what we could be doing, at a more efficient level that will help us save money. We never stopped doing that. But given the fact that, you know, we have to understand that this market we have right now might be what we have. So we we've just gotta figure out what we could be doing different.

Carolyn Monroe
Carolyn Monroe
SVP, President & CEO - Old Republic National Title Holding Company & Old Republic National Title Insurance Company at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And so we're honestly looking at that every day. So we don't just depend on the market to get better. We depend on what we're doing as well.

Evan Tindell
Co-Founder & CIO at Bireme Capital

Thanks, Caroline.

Operator

And we'll take a follow-up from Gregory Peters from Raymond James.

C. Gregory Peters
C. Gregory Peters
MD - Insurance at Raymond James

Hey. Real quick. If we go to the supplement on page two, I wanted to just give us what's going on inside the the small line home and auto warranty? That seems to be growing quite nicely. And and then, the other question I have is just on the new business initiatives. Cyber, I think, is one of those initiatives. And not hearing great things about the pricing conditions in that market.

C. Gregory Peters
C. Gregory Peters
MD - Insurance at Raymond James

So maybe you could talk about those two areas. Thank you.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Sure, Greg. I'd be happy to talk about both of those. So on home and auto warranty, the majority of the growth that you see there is, really all the growth that you see there is auto warranty. We have entered into, several new relationships with key partners, and, we expect to continue to have the auto warranty business grow. The home warranty business is not, is not growing.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

It's, very dependent on the real estate cycle. Those warranties that we write are typically sold in conjunction with, a a property purchase, a new home purchase. So, you know, the real estate market interest rates have not helped our home warranty subsidiary, grow. But, you know, that'll change just like in title. We know things will will turn at some point.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

But it's, you know, that's why we're diversified. And even in home and auto warranty, that's why, okay, let's the real estate market is tough right now. Let's focus on on, building some new, relationships that can help us grow our auto warranty business. So that's that's what's going on there. You know, on the on the cyber front, one of our new, subsidiaries is Cyber Indeed.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And I'm I've met with that team. And one of the things I said to them is, given that you're a start up, the way that we handle start ups is there's no incentive to put premiums on the books, in the short term. You know, we even even variable compensation. Will, on a new start up, we'll just say, listen. That's gonna be fixed for three years, because we know it's gonna take time to grow.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

We don't want you to grow too fast. We don't want you to grow into a market that's too competitive. We wanna give you time. We focus on where our our definition of success is ten years out. And when we look back, you know, how does it look?

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Not not the first three years. So in cyber, everything we hear from that team is that rates have come down over the last couple of years, but there is, I think, consensus indication that rates are are at least flattening out. And, you know, I've read this morning, from others that, there's indications of greater pricing discipline, greater underwriting discipline in the cyber arena. So the discussion we've had with our cyber team is, listen, Focus on building out your team. We know you're gonna be an expense load for the next couple two to three years.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Take your time. Build it right. Wait for the market to to to turn and and for their for you to be certain that there's price adequacy in the marketplace. And then, so actually, the timing feels pretty good to us because if they wanted to write a lot of cyber today, they could.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

They're building it out. We don't expect to write premiums until probably beginning of next year, and even then, we'll go slow. And but we'll be ready. And, there's no incentive for them to put any premiums on the book books until the timing's right. And meantime, they're just focused on building out that operation.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And, they have their sleeves rolled up and working day and night to to get it built so that when the market is right, we'll be there for it.

C. Gregory Peters
C. Gregory Peters
MD - Insurance at Raymond James

Makes sense. Thanks for the answers.

Operator

At this time, there appear to be no further questions. I'd like to hand the call back to management for any additional or closing remarks.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

Okay. Well, we appreciate all the questions and engagement. Sometimes our August conference call is a little slower given people are on vacations and enjoying summer. So we wish everyone the best. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

Craig Smiddy
Craig Smiddy
President, CEO & Director at Old Republic International Corporatlion

And again, appreciate your interest in Old Republic. And we'll be back next quarter to let you know how things are going. So and by the way, there's the siren in the background if Greg Peters is still listening. So all right. Thank you very much.

Operator

And everyone, that does conclude today's conference. We would like to thank you all for your participation today. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Craig Smiddy
      Craig Smiddy
      President, CEO & Director
    • Frank Sodaro
      Frank Sodaro
      SVP & CFO
    • Carolyn Monroe
      Carolyn Monroe
      SVP, President & CEO - Old Republic National Title Holding Company & Old Republic National Title Insurance Company
Analysts
    • Joe Calabrese
      SVP at Financial Relations Board
    • C. Gregory Peters
      MD - Insurance at Raymond James
    • Paul Newsome
      MD & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies
    • Evan Tindell
      Co-Founder & CIO at Bireme Capital
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