HCI Group, Inc. (NYSE:HCI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Paresh Patel: Mark, great question. But a couple of things, because we have both homeowners choice and TypTap in the Florida market, part of our agreement and how regulated, like have us operate, homeowners choice doesn’t write voluntary single policies. It only does blocks of business-like takeouts, et cetera. So there isn’t voluntary writing on the homeowners choice side. On the TypTap side, there is, and it just continues along at its own steady pace. And we’re supplementing it with a couple of takeouts at this particular moment in time. Yes?

Mark Hughes: Yes, I understood. The reciprocal exchange you’re talking about, what’s the thinking there? What’s the economic model? How quickly will that get ramped up?

Paresh Patel: Again, so we wanted to kind of get out in front of this because what’s happened is we filed with the OIR for approval and the filing itself makes it somewhat public that we are in the process of doing this. So we want to make sure in a transparency that all shareholders are aware that this is going on. The thesis for the business really is that while there’s a hard market or semi-hard market going on for the residential, personalized residential business. It’s a very, very tough market right now, very hard market for commercial residential. This is like the whole condo buildings and that kind of stuff. So we were presented with an opportunity to enter that line of business and grow at a significant rate. And we’ve spent a few months doing the economics and the math and everything else.

And we think it’s a healthy business for us to enter where we can add value both to our shareholders, but more importantly to the policyholders and the condo owners that will be the policyholders of this company. So it seemed like there was an opportunity to do a win-win solution where everybody’s looking for some alternative. And we are, as we always do, pioneering our way into a new area.

Mark Hughes: And then Mark, I think you’ve talked nationally about a 30% gross loss target. Here you are at a 32%. I wouldn’t say it’s early days, but you’ve gotten pretty close pretty quickly. Is that still the right target or could you perhaps go lower than that?

Mark Harmsworth: Yes, I mean, I think we’ve talked about the 30% a few times. We’ve said that it would take a little bit of time to get there. The loss ratio, it was dropped every quarter now for a number of quarters. I think 30% is still the right target. Could it be a little bit less than that in some quarters? I think it probably could. But I think 30% is I think still probably a comfortable target on a consolidated basis at least for now.

Operator: We now hear from Casey Alexander with Compass Point.

Casey Alexander: Yes, just a little clarification. The condo owner reciprocal exchange, is that being ceded by, is that a part of the 125,000 policies that are being taken down from Citizens that are specific to that market? Are you entering that market with a different distribution scheme distribution channel?

Paresh Patel: Casey, let me answer the question this way, right? Yes. All that’s gone on with the condo owners reciprocal exchange is that we have filed an application with the OIR with the regulators. And it is not included in any of the 125,000 policies that we’ve been approved because we can’t be approved for doing any of those things until the application is approved, yes? So, yes.

Casey Alexander: Got it. So then I’m curious what is the sort of distribution strategy to actually write that business? Is it independent brokers or how do you expect to get in that market once you are approved?