The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Tricia Griffith: Yes. Sure, Mike. I’ll let Jim Haas talk a little bit more about that. But we think competition across the board, whether it’s with the OEs or with insure-techs is great. We also feel like when we have partnerships like Jim talked about, it’s really important and it benefits most importantly the consumers. So Jim, do you want to add any color to that?

Jim Haas: Sure. Mike, you are right. We obviously pay for the data eventually goes to the automakers, is a way for them to monetize that. They are putting all those hardware in the car that costs money. This is a way for them to get some return on that. Some OEMs are going to want to get an insurance, as we’ve seen, some might not. And so this is a different way for them to get value-add out of that data from us.

Operator: Our next question comes from David Motemaden with Evercore ISI. David, you have the floor.

David Motemaden: Hi. Thanks. Good morning. Tricia, I believe in August you told us that, you thought auto PIF growth in the next couple of years would be difficult to match the 70% type of PIF growth you guys saw in the six years, since the start of the last hard market in 2016. Just wondering if we could get an update on your thoughts on that front, just given the challenges in the marketplace that some of your peers are seeing, some of the losses they have reported and just how you are feeling with your rates and what you are seeing on the new apps? Just wondering how you — do you still feel that way just on the type of growth that you think we could see over the next five to six years?

Tricia Griffith: Thanks, David. I will tell you I feel a lot more bullish than I felt about four or five months ago. We went through reacting to severity trends that frankly we’ve never seen before. I can’t predict what PIF growth will be because we — there’s a lot of environmental things going on, and what I’ve learned over the last three years is to anticipate that there’s going to be things that we haven’t prepared for, whether it’s the used car prices, inflation, frequency, driving behavior, pandemic. That said, I believe we’re in a really great position as we sit. So, we said, we were going to start to take rate. I think, we foreshadowed that late €˜21. It took some time into 2022 to obviously start to earn into the book.

We do feel good, but we’re always watching what’s happening and there’s been kind of an ever-evolving changing. So on the private passenger auto side, as you know, we took 13.5 points last year. We still have about 3 points of that to earn in, in this calendar year. And just for some color, we took 1.5 points in January. So, we continue to look at trends, and the future — and the future trends and the rate need — that we need now to match rate to risk. But that said, and John Sauerland added this on to the first question from Mike and that is what –we’re in such a good position now because we have — there’s a lot of shopping out there, a lot of prospects out there because our competitors have been now raising rates. So, they’re catching up just and sometimes exceeding us.

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