Ryan Specialty Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:RYAN) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Zaremski: Okay. That does help. And just sticking to margins, just want to — curious are there any other things changing on the margin, no pun intended, kind of like on commission rates, or, I don’t know, just wage inflation we should be thinking about that would change versus 3 to 6 months ago that we should be contemplating as well?

Jeremiah Bickham: Nothing on commission rates. Those are stable. Great question. On wage inflation, we’re not immune to it because there are plenty of folks here running around on salaries, but the majority of our comp expense is commission based and so doesn’t get impacted by wage inflation the same way. So yes, it has an impact on us. I’m sure you’ve heard everyone talking about it, but it’s not — that alone wouldn’t have the same margin impact that is worthy of as many references as we’ve made to what’s happening in our comp margin. Right now, it’s the sheer number of hires that we made last year on the production side.

Michael Zaremski: Okay. Great. And lastly, just you gave us some good commentary about flows into the E&S marketplace, but you also talked about there being even some appetite constraints within the E&S marketplace. But just curious, anything you’ve seen, any stats you want to talk about that you’ve seen in July, if you’re seeing any change in acceleration or deceleration in flows over the past month?

Timothy Turner: No, it’s been quite steady. The flow has been measurable and increased in many lines, some deceleration as we talked about in public D&O and widely noted in cyber, but so many other lines, not just cat property, but many casualty lines continue to harden. And so the flow into the channel and our ability to capture it continues to get strength stronger, and we feel we’re converting a higher percentage of that business and we’ve been building our bench for years to win as much of that business as we can. It’s working out very well.

Michael Zaremski: Tim, what casualty lines are there? Are they more kind of large account or small accounts? And I promise that’s my last follow-up.

Timothy Turner: No problem. It’s a combination of small commercial, certainly in our binding authorities and our MGUs, but it’s larger brokerage business as well, large habitational schedules in the casualty side continue to pour into our channel. Residential construction, New York construction to name a few, transportation, as we’ve mentioned. Health care, nursing homes, assisted living, certain social and different types of health care. Sports and entertainment continue to be a very difficult line where they need our help, consumer products. And maybe lastly, public entity, real demand for property and casualty solutions in the specialty side across the whole public entity sector.

Operator: The next question we have is from Rob Cox of Goldman Sachs.

Robert Cox: So I noticed the adjusted compensation margin was down a good bit year-over-year despite the talent investments, but the adjusted G&A ratio was higher than the first quarter when it’s seasonally lower. So I would have thought that would be a little bit lower. I think as the first quarter, if I recall correctly, was your toughest comp with respect to travel and entertainment. So is there any additional color you can provide there?

Jeremiah Bickham: Yes. A little bit of that — or I shouldn’t say a little — some of that is T&E. And then another bit of that is professional services that increased significantly this quarter relative to prior quarters related to a new revenue stream that just requires additional professional services. Over time that may waterbed into comp if we decide to in-house some of those. But for right now, they’re through professional services.