Old Republic Q1 underwriting income rises 19%, specialty NPW up 9.9%

By Michael Loney

April 24 - (The Insurer) - U.S. specialty insurer Old Republic has reported an earnings beat for the first quarter, including a 0.6 percentage point improvement in its combined ratio to 93.7%.

Chicago-based Old Republic’s net operating income increased by 9.2% in the first quarter to $201.7 million, compared with $184.7 million in the same period of last year.

Net operating income per diluted share of $0.81 beat the $0.74 consensus estimate of five analysts as per MarketWatch, and was up from $0.67 in the first quarter of 2024.

Underwriting income increased by 19.0% to $99.8 million in this year’s first quarter, from $83.8 million a year ago.

The consolidated combined ratio of 93.7% was a 0.6 point improvement from the 94.3% recorded in the first quarter of last year.

This included favourable loss reserve development of 2.6 points, compared to 2.3 points in the prior-year period.

Old Republic’s consolidated net premiums and fees earned increased by 12.1% to $1.84 billion. This included a 13.0% increase in specialty to $1.24 billion, a 10.9% increase in title insurance to $605.1 million, and a 58.8% decrease in corporate and other to $2.2 million.

Specialty premium growth was most pronounced within commercial auto, property, general liability and, to a lesser extent, workers' compensation.

Canadian coverages, along with public D&O and transactional risk premiums, declined in the quarter, largely because of market and economic conditions. Commercial auto, general liability and property continued to achieve strong rate increases, while rates declined in public D&O, workers' compensation and aviation, Old Republic said.

The specialty insurance segment’s net premiums written increased 9.9% to $1.27 billion in the first quarter while its combined ratio improved to 89.8%, compared with 90.3% in the prior-year period.

Old Republic said that its specialty Q1 2025 loss ratio reflected higher levels of favourable prior year loss reserve development coming predominately from workers' compensation, commercial auto and property coverages.