The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:HIG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Stephanie Bush: Sure. Good morning. So, in small commercial, what I would share is that it is very strong and stable, which I really believe is a testament to our entire business model. And I’ve shared these comments before in other forums. Everything that we do across the entire business model really lives into three key principles. Being easy to do business with, being accurate when we provide that pricing and that overall experience and then being consistent, particularly when you come from a renewal perspective. We have been consistently, particularly in the BOP and the auto lines been taking rate, measured rate over an extended period of time. And so, we continue to build confidence with our agents and our small business owner.

So, I would expect that you would still continue to see healthy and strong retention in small commercial. When I go over to the personal lines space and I’ll start with auto, you know, as we all know, the market is €“ there’s a bit of disruption going on. And as you can see in our results, we’ve been very stable. We have been taking rate for 12 quarters straight and will continue to take rate. And so, it gives us confidence in terms of our overall offering. We’re continuing to step up the rate changes that Chris and Beth referenced in their prepared comments. But overall, I would expect personal lines to be somewhat stable potentially a very modest decline in auto this year in 2023, but overall stable.

Chris Swift: Mo, what would you add?

Mo Tooker: Yes. I’d echo many of Stephanie’s small commercial . I think we feel really good about both the middle and large commercial and the global specialty books in terms of the quality of what we have. And as such, the retention will play an important role in our strategies. We are watching closely as Chris has talked about. We’re watching closely the workers’ comp and the public E&O. We feel really good about the quality of those books, but there’s a little bit more pressure there. So, I think retention and rate is a little bit more tactical there. But again, we feel great about the quality of both books and we’ll protect them.

Greg Peters: Thanks for that detail. Just as a follow-up and I know you addressed it in your opening comments and Stephanie just mentioned it again, but and I’m looking at your guidance for personal lines for 2023 of 100.5 to 102.5. And then I’m looking at what happened in auto, particularly in the combined ratio really spiking up in the fourth quarter. I know there’s rate coming, is it your sense that we’re, sort of beginning to approach, sort of like the peak or trough profitability for auto in the next couple of quarters or do you expect it to remain at these elevated levels as we see in the fourth quarter?

Mo Tooker: Yes. What I would say, Greg, is that at least the first half of the year, I think you’re going to see an elevation, maybe a modest decline from where we are today. Remember, we have about five points of seasonality and sort of the auto results this quarter. So €“ but if you leave a look at the full-year, auto results of 101, 102, yes, it’s got some improvement to do. We’re focused on it, but I think that improvement will accelerate in the second half of the year to the point where we could actually see margin improvement during the fourth quarter. But we’re going to have to execute hard on rate plans, work with all our government relations and regulator friends to get those approved, which we know how to do, but it’s a €“ there’s a magnitude of volume of activity that does need to happen.

Greg Peters: Right. Makes sense. Thanks for the answers.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Elyse Greenspan from Wells Fargo. Elyse your line is now open.