Hippo Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HIPO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

A lot of that is employee reductions, which is a combination of slightly lower volumes and HHIP in terms of business that we’re writing on our own program as opposed to third-party business. But we are also benefiting from the investments that we’ve made in the past. It is now possible for our business teams to be able to start at $50 million to $70 million. It’s now possible for our business teams to make many of the rate filings and changes because of tools that our engineering teams have built. We are very pleased with the progress that we’ve made, building our teams in Poland. We think of them as a core part of our development efforts going forward. They’re doing a great job. And as we shift away from the need to build more features and other things in the short-term and into the platform, we expect to save significant dollars there.

I think we’re also doing the other things that you might expect, thinking about vendor costs and facilities expense and the positive information and data that we’re using for underwriting. So it’s a broad-based program of action that are designed to help speed the path to profitability. And we feel very excited and confident that we are making that turn here and so.

Tommy McJoynt: Got it. Thanks for the thorough response. My second question is somewhat following us up on the previous question, thinking about the Hippo Home Insurance Program and the expectations for that to decline next year. Obviously, the pause takes time to be reopened. Can you envision a scenario where that business shrinks for an extended period and just becomes generally a smaller piece of the franchise value? At the same time, while growth remains ongoing in the Insurance-as-a-Service and on the Services side, is that a scenario that you can envision?

Stewart Ellis: I think I would frame it slightly differently. Tommy, I think what I would say is, as Rick mentioned earlier, we are open to writing new business where we think we can do so without losing money or without high levels of volatility. So we need to have rate adequacy. It needs to be something that is not adding to the overall volatility of the portfolio. That’s going to get easier over time as more of the rate filings that we have put in place are rolled out and as more of the terms and condition changes, raising deductibles and that sort of thing work their way into the system. Again, I don’t think we’re alone in making these changes. So I think what we’re more likely to see is a temporary slowdown and kind of shrinking in the Hippo Home Insurance Program, while we reassess our underwriting appetite and our risk appetite.

While the other pieces of our business continue to grow quickly, our objective of helping our customers protect their homes has not changed. And we think that we can assist them in making themselves more attractive to either our carrier or third-party carriers through the home care services that we’re offering and by being a differentiated agency in the market.

Operator: Our next question comes from Alex Scott with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Alex Scott: Hi, good afternoon, everyone. First question I had is if you can help us think through what this will do to the trajectory of overall revenue. I’m just thinking through the Services segment and agency less risk, but also less revenue per dollar premiums in that model. Is that going to cause overall revenue growth to significantly slow? And could you help us think through what that looks like?