Jim Williamson: Sure, Brian. Thanks for the question. Just to maybe reinforce some of the points Juan made, which I think are spot on. We have seen really terrific results from the most recent renewals, including April. And you would certainly have expected, given how much rate the market took last year, that more underwriters are going to be interested in writing the business. And while that’s true, we’ve also seen just a floor under the discipline that people are applying to this market, which is what’s sustaining terms and conditions, keeping risk-adjusted rate on the upward trajectory, which is resulting in the economics that we find so attractive. The other thing to keep in mind is we’re still experiencing elevated losses around the world.
And while we had a terrific Q1 cat result, the fact is cats remain elevated, whether it’s weather, earthquake, man-made disasters, et cetera, those things are happening, and I think that’s keeping a focus on the discipline that the market is pursuing. And then the other factor to keep an eye on is we see some really strong increasing demand from some of our best clients. And given Everest’s position as a preferred and lead market, we have opportunities to deploy incremental capacity at really attractive rates. And I think that’s happening both at the major renewals but also between those renewals. And there’s a lot more in that pipeline that I think will help to sustain the market. And so our perspective is, as we roll into the rest of 2024 with Florida renewal in June, and then the 7/1 renewal, primarily driven by Australia, we expect discipline to be maintained, risk-adjusted economics should be terrific.
And then I would further say that our expectation remains that, that will continue into 2025.
Brian Meredith : That’s really helpful. And then I just wanted to pivot back to the insurance underlying, call it loss ratio just quickly here. I know that last year, you had some Med Stop Loss one-offs. So year-over-year, it looks like about 150 basis points up year-over-year. But I’m just curious, how much of maybe that conservatism you’ve built in is due to perhaps financial lines and workers’ comp? I know you gave us a rate of 12x financial lines and comp. I’m curious, was that your — you put everything all in. And if that is one of the contributing factors to the year-over-year increase?
Mark Kociancic: Yes. Brian, it’s Mark. I don’t think it is. I think workers’ comp is broadly stable in the last few years. So that’s not driving it. You are right, we had 100 — roughly 150 basis points of delta last year because of A&H. There is a bit of mix that drove the delta from last year down to something that was sub-63% attritional loss ratio. But I’d say our run rate is more in the 63% to 64% range. And I think what you’re seeing here is just a mix of business that is skewed a bit more to longer-tail casualty, and we’re keeping those loss picks at a healthy level, a prudent level on our side.
Brian Meredith : Do you have the all-in number for kind of what rate looked like in the first quarter when you include financial and comp?
Juan Andrade: Yes, that would be about a little bit over 7%.
Operator: Our next question is coming from Michael Zaremski from BMO.
Michael Zaremski: Follow-up on the primary insurance pricing. I think you might have answered part of this, but so the rates have accelerated in social inflation, I guess, associated lines and the [indiscernible] in property, I think, is how — what kept the kind of the math flat at 12. On the social inflationary lines, do you feel that there’s still kind of momentum in the marketplace potentially as the year progresses? Or is kind of the jump up into the low to mid-teens, is that a kind of — is that a very healthy level to kind of protect against what looks like to be an inching higher of social inflationary trends?
Juan Andrade: Yes, Mike, this is Juan. So let me give you a little bit of perspective, and I think you can break it down sort of into different lines. If I look at, for example, commercial auto liability, we have seen essentially rate trend up over, frankly, the last 5 quarters or so with a pretty consistent basis. General liability has done the same for about the last 4 quarters, umbrella in excess for about the last 3 quarters, right? So that gives you a sense that this is — it’s a trend, right? It’s not a fluke, per se, just 1 quarter over the other. And look, I think the issues in the industry are well known. It’s something that, obviously, we have discussed with all of you, competitors have discussed with all of you. So I would expect that, that continues through the rest of 2024.
Again, it’s 4 to 5 quarters, depending on the line of business that you continue to see that momentum. When I look at property, there’s certainly been a bit more capacity that’s come in, particularly into the E&S market, and we saw that in the first quarter. But the pricing is still good and it’s still significantly adequate in an excess of loss trend. So we still feel very good about the property business on the primary side of things as well.
Michael Zaremski: Okay. Got it. An encouraging trend on the liability side, given what we’re seeing. I believe my follow-up in the prepared remarks, I think, Jim Williamson said that property cat grew by 24%, I believe. Is that — I feel like when we’re looking at the disclosure in the earnings release, we see a much lower number for cat XOL? Am I thinking about something incorrectly?
Jim Williamson: Yes, Mike, this is Jim. Yes, the — an earlier question was about the fact that we had printed a lower cat growth number. You would have seen about a 4% growth number on cat XOL. And what I had indicated is that’s really the impact of the recognition of written premium flowing through the first quarter financials, which included a renewal last year, the June 23 renewal where we actually chose to step back a bit on Florida because of the stringent — our own stringent financial underwriting approach. And so now that’s kind of flowing into the financials. What I further commented on is that at the January 1 renewal, we grew our property cat XOL business by 24% for the renewal at really terrific risk-adjusted economics. And then further said, we did also very well at the April renewal, growing about 11% overall, we grew our North America property business at 4/1 by 76%. And so just outstanding growth rates, and you’ll see that show up in future quarters.
Operator: Our next question comes from Josh Shanker from Bank of America.
Josh Shanker : It’s a lot of property questions. So on the big pro rata growth, can you talk about what that means for your exposures and how that affects your capital utilization?
