UFG 保險 (UFCS) 2026 年第三季財報電話會議：保費成長與 94.6% 綜合成本率

重點摘要

• UFG Insurance 公布 2026 年第三季綜合成本率為 94.6%，帶動前九個月獲利創歷史新高，股東權益報酬率達 14%。
• 簽單淨保費成長 13%，主要由涵蓋小型企業、中型市場及營造業的核心商業保險業務所帶動。
• 基礎損失率為 57.3%。管理階層表示，該數據相較去年同期微幅上升，主因是相較於表現格外強勁的 2025 年第三季，本季的有利影響因素較少。
• 巨災損失率為 2.4%，高於去年同期的 1.3%。年初至今比率仍維持在 2.9% 的低水準，低於管理階層預估的全年 5%。
• 固定到期日投資收益成長 25%。新購債券殖利率達 5.6%，較投資組合平均水準高出約 100 個基點。
• 市場競爭壓力日益加劇，續保定價漲幅趨於緩和。平均續保費率變動為 2%，其中以財產險面臨的壓力最大。

關鍵財務數據

業務與營運表現

核心商業保險帶動了保費成長，UFG 積極鞏固續保業務、嚴格篩選風險，並透過代理通路拓展新業務。自 2024 年實施更嚴格承保架構以來所承保的業務，目前已佔整體業務組合一半以上；管理階層表示，該部分業務持續達到甚至優於預期。

包括合約再保專案及勞合社資金 (Funds at Lloyd's) 在內的多元分銷通路，貢獻了近 1 億美元的簽單淨保費。管理階層表示，1 月 1 日的續保週期持續支撐業務成長，並推動分銷管道多元化。

特種超額及剩餘保險 (E&S) 業務在財產險與意外險領域均面臨迅速升溫的競爭。UFG 維持謹慎篩選，但新業務仍實現年成長。簽單淨保費略有下滑，主要是由於分出再保費的入帳時點影響了與去年同期的比較基準。

本季保證保險保費較去年同期微幅下滑，但前九個月累計仍維持正向表現。

前期準備金發展整體維持中性。商業車險與財產險出現的有利趨勢，被用來在不確定性較高的領域維持保守的準備金部位。管理階層同時指出，理賠頻率趨勢向好、案均賠款金額持穩但處於高檔，且鉅額損失發生情況符合預期。

固定收益投資組合的平均信用評等為 AA-，存續期間約為 4.5 年。市場利率走高使未實現損失部位擴大至 1.45 億美元，但管理階層表示該組合並未發生減損。約 1 億美元的有限合夥投資則在該季貢獻了 130 萬美元的收益。

管理階層指引

管理階層表示，結合保費規模槓桿與持續的費用控管，約 10% 的保費成長可望帶動費用率降低約 0.5 個百分點；不過，各季度間的進展可能仍不均衡。

該公司對全年的巨災損失率預估維持在 5%，相較之下，2026 年前九個月的實際數字為 2.9%。

在核心商業保險市場維持理性的情況下，UFG 對其成長前景表示信心。管理階層強調，業務成長仍將取決於定價適足性、風險篩選及獲利能力要求。

風險與觀察重點

• 商業保險市場多數領域的定價漲幅正在放緩，且競爭日益加劇。
• 財產險定價面臨的壓力依然最大，意外險定價漲幅亦有所趨緩。超額責任險 (Umbrella) 續保費率漲幅則維持在高個位數百分比區間。
• 隨著業務組合日益反映過去數年所實施的承保調整，承保表現的年增改善幅度可能會趨於溫和。
• 巨災事件發生的頻率幾乎是 2025 年第三季的兩倍，但由於單一事件損失規模較小，限制了對財務的衝擊。
• 市場利率居高不下，使未實現投資損失擴大至 1.45 億美元，並壓低了財報申報之每股淨值。
• 有限合夥投資收益與保證保險保費在各季之間可能出現波動。

分析師問答重點

分析師關注焦點集中於競爭狀況、保費成長與費用率。管理階層表示，獲得更多投保申請案源讓 UFG 得以維持嚴格篩選，而強化的定價與客戶帳戶管理流程則對獲利能力形成支撐。該公司認為，儘管競爭加劇，核心商業保險市場仍維持理性。

在承保表現方面，管理階層指出 57.3% 的基礎損失率與 2026 年前兩季水準一致。年增幅度的變化主要是受到 2025 年第三季表現異常亮眼影響，而非當前損失趨勢發生實質轉變。

當被問及業務組合時，管理階層表示 UFG 致力於在五大核心險種中提供全方位的整體帳戶解決方案。業務佔比取決於所承保的目標產業，而非刻意轉向單一險種。

電話會議逐字稿全文

完整財報電話會議逐字稿

管理層陳述

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the United Fire Group Insurance 2026 Third Quarter Conference Call.

[Operator Instructions]

Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tim Borst, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Timothy Borst

Good morning, and thank you for joining this call. Yesterday afternoon, we issued a press release on our results. To find a copy of this document, please visit our website at ufginsurance.com. Press releases and slides are located under the Investors tab. Joining me today on the call are UFG President and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Leidwinger; Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Julie Stephenson; and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Eric Martin. Before I turn the call over to Kevin, a couple of reminders.

First, please note that our presentation today may include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the company, the industry in which we operate and beliefs and assumptions made by management. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statement includes risks and uncertainties and is not a guarantee of future performance. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this presentation is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it is made.

These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations, and the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. The actual results may differ materially due to a variety of factors, which are described in our press release and SEC filings discussed specifically in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K. Also, please note that in our discussion today, we may use some non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are also available in our press release and SEC filings. At this time, I will turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Leidwinger, CEO of UFG Insurance.

Kevin Leidwinger

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. UFG delivered another strong quarter, producing a 94.6% combined ratio and extending the strong operating performance we've delivered throughout 2026. Our third quarter results contributed to record earnings through the first 9 months of the year and a 14% return on equity while reflecting continued execution across the organization.

Over the past several years, we've taken deliberate actions to strengthen UFG by deepening underwriting expertise, expanding capabilities, strengthening agency relationships and improving operational efficiency. Those efforts have created a more focused, disciplined and resilient organization, strengthened the quality of our portfolio and expanded opportunities available to us. Today, we have access to a broader set of profitable growth opportunities that simply were not available to us several years ago, which we believe allow us to continue growing the business while maintaining underwriting discipline.

As market conditions continue to evolve, pricing is moderating and competition is increasing across much of the commercial insurance marketplace. In response, our focus remains on writing business that meets our profitability objectives, maintaining strong relationships and deploying capital where we believe it can generate attractive risk-adjusted returns. Investment income also remains an important contributor to our performance. Our high-quality investment portfolio continues to benefit from a favorable interest rate environment, providing additional earnings strength while maintaining a conservative risk profile that has long characterized UFG's approach to capital management.

As we look ahead, we remain confident in the strength of our business while also remaining realistic about the market environment. Regardless of where we are in the insurance cycle, our priorities remain consistent: disciplined underwriting, profitable growth and prudent capital management. These principles have guided our progress and will continue to inform our decisions in the future. With that, I'll turn the call over to Julie.

Julie Stephenson

Thanks, Kevin. We are pleased with the continued positive momentum in our results as our underwriting team successfully navigate a persistently competitive marketplace. Net written premium increased 13% in the third quarter, driven by continued growth in our core commercial business, which includes small business, middle market and construction. Our underwriters remain disciplined as they defend renewals, sharpen risk selection and maintain strong relationships with our distribution partners to capitalize on new business opportunities afforded to us by our deepened expertise and expanded capabilities. These efforts continue to support healthy new business production, positive rate achievement and steady retention.

The average renewal rate change was 2%, reflective of current market conditions. Property rates remained under the most pressure, and we saw some moderation in casualty rates, including umbrella rates, which remain in the upper single digits. While rate achievement has continued to moderate, we remain comfortable with our pace of growth in the current environment. UFG's disciplined underwriting approach and coordination across pricing and risk selection benefit both new business and renewal portfolios. We continually trim around the edges of our renewal portfolio through the lens of our current underwriting guidelines. New business written under our more stringent underwriting framework since 2024 makes up more than half of the portfolio and continues to meet or exceed our expectations.

Alternative distribution, which includes treaty programs and funds at Lloyd's, contributed nearly $100 million of net written premium in the third quarter. The strong January 1 treaty and funds at Lloyd's renewal cycle continues to fuel growth in the third quarter and demonstrates the value of our diversified distribution platform. Given our broad opportunities and disciplined pricing and exposure management, we believe this business remains well positioned to support prudent growth through varying market cycles.

In Specialty excess and surplus lines, market conditions continue to evolve rapidly with increasing competitive pressure across both property and casualty lines. While we are being exceptionally selective in this market, we saw year-over-year growth in new business and retain those accounts still meeting our risk selection and pricing expectations. Due to timing of ceded reinsurance premiums that caused some noise in our 2025 results, net written premium is down slightly for the quarter. Surety premiums, which can vary from quarter-to-quarter, were down slightly in the third quarter compared to prior year, but remained favorable through the first 9 months.

We remain confident in the quality of the portfolio and the long-term growth prospects of the business as our team adapts to changing conditions.

Turning to profitability. The underlying loss ratio has been fairly steady in the first 3 quarters of 2026. The third quarter underlying loss ratio of 57.3% increased slightly on a year-over-year basis due to lower favorable impacts compared to the exceptional third quarter of 2025. As rate achievement has moderated over the last few quarters, we're experiencing less benefit from rate than we did in 2025. However, we have positioned our portfolio for this type of environment over the past 3 years and continue to benefit from favorable frequency trends and portfolio less susceptible to large losses.

Year-over-year improvement may be more modest as our portfolio has matured and is now fully reflective of the specialized and disciplined underwriting we've employed over the last several years. Further, as we have continually done with our reserves and current accident year, we maintain a conservative position within the actuarial range of estimates. Prior year reserve development was neutral overall in the third quarter. We experienced continued favorable emergence in commercial auto and property. Consistent with our approach in recent years, we redeployed the benefit of favorable emergence to maintain a conservative position in areas subject to greater uncertainty.

The third quarter catastrophe loss ratio of 2.4% was well below both 5- and 10-year historical averages, but higher than the exceptionally low 1.3% experienced a year ago. While third quarter event frequency was nearly twice as high as 2025, more modest severity in 2026 limited the impact on the loss ratio. The ongoing impact of actions taken in recent years to improve our catastrophe risk profile remains evident in our results, with our year-to-date catastrophe loss ratio of 2.9%, trending below our full year estimate of 5%. With that, I will turn the call over to Eric Martin to discuss the remainder of our financial results.

Eric Martin

Thank you, Julie. Starting with investments. Our high-quality portfolio continued to deliver a sustainable increase in net investment income. Earnings from our fixed maturity portfolio grew 25% in the third quarter. Our bond portfolio continues to grow in size as the virtuous cycle of increased investment and underwriting cash flows support profitable growth and increased shareholder returns. I am exceptionally pleased with the execution of our investment strategy in the third quarter.

Our team leveraged the highest market interest rates seen in decades to extend duration a small amount while remaining focused on adding high-quality credits at an average rating of AA- in the quarter.

The overall new purchase yield of 5.6% in the quarter was approximately 100 basis points above the portfolio average, providing strong support for future investment income. Portfolio duration remains at a very prudent level at right around 4.5 years within a high-quality portfolio that has an average credit rating of AA-. The increase in market interest rates in the third quarter was the sole driver of the increase in our unrealized loss position to $145 million. Our fixed income portfolio remains clean with no impairments and the change in our unrealized loss position does not impact income nor investment strategy.

Outside of fixed income, our portfolio of approximately $100 million of limited partnership investments contributed positive income of $1.3 million this quarter. As you know, these results can vary from quarter-to-quarter and income is favorable to 2025 on a year-to-date basis. Turning to the expense ratio. The third quarter result of 34.9% continued the gradual, although occasionally bumpy downward trend by balancing thoughtful investments in the business with the benefit of ongoing efficiencies and business growth.

More importantly, on a year-to-date basis, the 2026 expense ratio is 0.7 of a point lower than 2025, primarily driven by the increase in premium volume relative to staffing costs as efficiency and productivity improve across the enterprise. Third quarter net income and non-GAAP adjusted operating income were $1.34 per diluted share. Adjusted book value per share, which excludes the impact of unrealized investment losses, increased to $40.94 while reported book value per common share was $36.51 as a result of higher interest rates that widened the unrealized loss position.

From a capital management perspective, during the third quarter, we declared and paid a $0.20 per share cash dividend to shareholders of record as of September 4, 2026. This concludes our prepared remarks. I will now have the operator open the line for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

The first question today comes from Paul Newsome with Piper Sandler.

分析師問答

Jon Paul Newsome

Maybe just a little bit more color on the competitive environment and your thoughts on the outlook for premium growth given the current environment plus the renewal rate situation. And I guess as maybe addendum to that question, do you need to get a certain level of premium growth to pull the expense ratio down further? Because it looks like the expense ratio was pretty flat in the quarter. And obviously, it still remains high relative to some of your peers.

Julie Stephenson

Paul, it's Julie. I'll address the first part of your question. I mean we're certainly not immune to the forces impacting the market, but we feel good about the tools we have in place to manage it. I think for us, the market, at least for our core businesses is still rational in our view. So we think our approach that we have worked so hard on over the past few years is paying off for us.

As we've mentioned, our distribution partners are really appreciating our enhanced capabilities and our expertise, and they're just giving us access to more deals that we haven't seen before. So that allows us to be really discerning in our risk selection. And then you compound that with the pricing rigor and the account management rigor that we put in place over time to protect profitability, we feel good about our growth prospects and as long as the market remains rational. Eric, do you want to take that?

Eric Martin

Yes. And thanks, Paul. On the expense ratio side, we're making good progress, although every quarter, as we mentioned, it can be a little bit bumpy. But as you look on a year-to-date basis relative to last year, we're down 0.7 point. As we grow at around 10% rate, we think that we can see the expense ratio coming down 0.5 point or so. And some of that is due to premium leverage, but there's also actions we can take on expenses to continue to manage that as we go through various cycles here.

Operator

The next question comes from Matthew Erdner with JonesTrading.

Matthew Erdner

I'd like to touch on kind of the underlying loss ratio a little bit. You mentioned a little lower favorable impacts. Could you just kind of quantify that there and what your expectations are going forward?

Julie Stephenson

I start by just talking about how pleased we are with the quarter's underlying loss ratio. As we said, it's consistent with the first 2 quarters of 2026. It gives us a position of strength to navigate the market. And the details beneath it are our large loss activity was well within our expectations. We still had positive rate earning through. And our frequency trends remain favorable and our severity trends, while elevated, remain stable. So on the surface, there may appear to be that modest deterioration from Q3 to Q3, but the third quarter of '25 was exceptional for us across those categories. So I think the way we look at it is that we had a really great quarter in '25 and a really great quarter now in Q3 of '26.

Matthew Erdner

Yes, that's great. And then can we just talk a little bit about mix shift and how you guys are kind of looking across the different lines, where you're kind of seeing the most, I guess, traction, so to speak?

Julie Stephenson

Yes. I mean as we aspire to be a total account solution provider. So in our core businesses, we're interested in writing a balanced portfolio across the 5 core lines. And that line of business mix is dependent on the industry that we're underwriting for. So we certainly pay attention to mix, but we aspire to provide all 5 lines for the customers that we write.

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Kevin Leidwinger for any closing remarks.

Kevin Leidwinger

We are pleased with our third quarter results and our performance through the first 9 months of 2026, but even more confident in the strength of our business. As market conditions continue to evolve, we remain focused on the same priorities that have guided our progress to date, disciplined underwriting, profitable growth and prudent capital management. We appreciate your interest in UFG and look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.