On Friday, Hamilton Insurance Group (NYSE:HG) discussed first-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.
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The full earnings call is available at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/576265946
Summary
Hamilton Insurance Group Ltd reported a strong first quarter 2026 with net income of $134 million and an annualized return on equity of 19%.
The company emphasized its disciplined approach to underwriting despite competitive market pricing, focusing on profitability rather than growth for growth's sake.
Gross premiums written increased by 11% to $940 million, with notable growth in casualty reinsurance and specialty lines.
The company launched a new casualty reinsurance sidecar to support targeted growth and provide additional fee income.
Management highlighted their strategy to maintain strong underwriting performance amidst global geopolitical tensions and inflationary pressures.
Investment income totaled $94 million, driven by a 4.3% return from the Two Sigma Hamilton Fund.
Hamilton Insurance Group Ltd declared a $200 million special dividend and repurchased $20 million of shares, reflecting effective capital management.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the first quarter 2026 Hamilton Insurance Group Ltd earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press Star one again. As a reminder, this call is being webcast and will also be available for replay with links on the Hamilton Investor Relations website. I will now hand the conference over to Daryan Niferatos, Head of Investor Relations. Daryan, please proceed.
Daryan Niferatos (Head of Investor Relations)
Thanks Operator. Hi everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings call. Before we begin, please note that certain statements made during this call are forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. These risks are provided in our earnings release and SEC filings. We will also refer to certain non GAAP financial measures which are reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release and financial supplement available on our website at investors.hamiltongroup.com. Now I'll introduce the Hamilton executives leading today's call, Pina Albo, Group Chief Executive Officer and Craig Howey, Group Chief Financial Officer. We are also joined by other members of the Hamilton management team. With that, I'll hand it over to Pina.
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you, Darian and hello everyone. Let me start by welcoming you to Hamilton's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. We're very pleased with our performance this quarter, particularly in the context of a global economic and geopolitical environment that has become more complex and volatile and an insurance market that remains competitive. Pricing across parts of the industry continues to come under pressure, so underwriting discipline takes center stage. In this context, we continue to stay true to our strong culture of cycle management this quarter. Writing the business we wanted to write at pricing in terms that met our return requirements and stepping away from business that did not. We believe that sticking to this disciplined approach will continue to help us produce the kinds of results we have delivered since going public in 2023. On that note, Hamilton delivered very solid results in the first quarter with net income of $134 million, equal to an annualized return on average equity of 19%. This result was underpinned by an attritional loss ratio of 54.5%, strong investment income of $94 million and thoughtful growth with gross premiums written increasing by 11% for the quarter. While this growth was more measured than in prior periods it was selective, targeted and fully aligned with the view we shared with you last quarter. Let me start with a few broader market observations before I walk through our segment results starting with reinsurance renewals as you will have heard, record levels of industry capital, Both traditional and ILS, and manageable cat losses impacted the April 1 renewals which largely involved property cat reinsurance in the Asia Pacific region. While this region does not form a large part of our book, we saw a continuation of the competitive pricing experienced at January 1st with outcomes broadly in line with expectations. Having said that, while pricing levels deteriorated, they were still risk adequate and structures, terms and conditions remained largely intact. Other renewals in the quarter outside of this region were also competitive, but we were satisfied with the book we wrote and the signings we achieved. As for the upcoming mid year renewals, which are largely property driven, given robust capital positions, we expect pricing pressure to be similar to what we experienced so far this year. It is important to note that softening is coming off historic highs, so so we expect margins, particularly in our portfolio, which is largely US driven, to remain above our thresholds in reinsurance. We will continue to execute our strategy of supporting key clients with whom we have a broad trading relationship. That said, in this environment, growth for growth's sake is not the objective, at least not ours. Margin preservation, attachment points and terms and conditions which we expect to remain largely untouched, matter far more and that philosophy will guide our underwriting decisions and our portfolio. Moving on to the broader geopolitical environment the ongoing conflict in the Middle east is yet another reminder of the uncertainty embedded in today's risk landscape, which has implications for our industry at a line of business level. Based on what we have observed to date, direct insured losses are concentrated primarily in the specialty insurance classes such as marine hull and political violence, which we write. Losses will continue as long as the conflict does and may also impact reinsurance programs going forward. At this time for Hamilton, our exposure remains manageable as we have always been mindful of the capacity we deploy in that region. The conflict in the Middle east may also have broader ramifications for our industry, namely inflationary pressures. We will continue to monitor this closely and make adjustments as warranted. Moving on to the segments let's take a look at the top line growth this quarter for Bermuda and International. In Bermuda, which renews about one third of its business during the first quarter we wrote $497 million in gross premiums, an increase of 5% over last year. Our most significant driver of growth came from casualty reinsurance. Some of this is attributable to Business Bound in prior quarters, earning through and the rest from business written during the quarter where we had the ability to increase our modest shares on accounts where underlying rates are still attractive as well as some new business, our casualty strategy remains unchanged. We focus on counterparties with a strong underwriting and claims culture who keep meaningful net retentions and with whom we enjoy broad trading relationships. Where those characteristics are not present, we are comfortable passing on the opportunity. I also want to highlight our recently announced casualty reinsurance sidecar which reflects a proactive approach to capital and portfolio management. This structure allows Hamilton to support targeted casualty reinsurance growth while providing us with an additional source of fee income. The sidecar will provide reinsurance capital over a multi year period with ceded premium over the duration of the structure projected to be about $300 million. Craig will discuss this in more detail shortly. Moving on to Property reinsurance in Bermuda, premiums fell compared to the same period last year mainly because of substantial non recurring reinstatement premiums resulting from the California wildfires in the first quarter of 2025. If these reinstatement premiums are excluded, property reinsurance ratings during the quarter would have been largely flat reflecting a disciplined approach in this market. Our specialty reinsurance line grew 2.7%. We grew our financial risk treaty account, both new and renewal business, but pulled back in multi line accounts which were not as attractive on the insurance side of our Bermuda book. We also reduced writings in our large account property D&F book as we were not satisfied with the pricing. Now turning to our international segment which houses Hamilton Global Specialty and Hamilton Select International gross Premiums written grew 20% over the prior period starting with Hamilton Global Specialty gross Premiums written were up 20% driven by specialty and casualty classes, specifically in the core classes such as Accident and Health and MA which benefited from some seasonality in these lines and the continued earnout from from the prior underwriting year. At the same time, we pulled back writings in our property binders and DNF lines where we saw rate reductions we were unwilling to support. Overall, our pricing assessments and underwriting framework continue to indicate that we are comfortable with the margins we are achieving on the business we are writing, but our teams are being more selective in many lines. And finally a few words on Hamilton select, our U.S. eNS platform. This business is all casualty insurance and grew 17% this quarter driven by excess casualty, general casualty and small business where we still see attractive pricing terms and conditions. Growth in professional and medical professional lines on the other hand was was muted given the competitive pricing environment overall for the quarter, Hamilton demonstrated a continued ability to manage the underwriting cycle appropriately. While submission flow remains healthy across many products, we write, we were disciplined in binding only those risks that met our underwriting and pricing requirements. As a result, cross growth varied by class, which we view as the right outcome in the current environment. Stepping back, our message is a simple one. While the market still offers pockets of attractive business, it is one where cycle management is key. In other words, it is not a market where every opportunity should be written, nor one where top line growth alone should be encouraged. This is a market where risk and client selection and the fortitude to walk away will serve as differentiators that ensure underwriting performance. It is a market that plays to Hamilton's thoughtful and disciplined approach and its culture of prioritizing sustainable profitability, strategic growth and thoughtful capital deployment. With that all, turn the call over to Craig to walk through the financial results in more detail.
Craig Howey (Group Chief Financial Officer)
Thank you Pina and hello everyone. Hamilton is off to a strong start for 2026 with net income of $134 million or $1.31 per diluted share and an annualized return on average equity of 19%. In the first quarter of 2026, we had operating income of $167 million equal to $1.64 per diluted share, producing an annualized operating return on average equity of 24%. As a reminder, our operating income excludes net realized and unrealized gains and losses on fixed maturity and short term investments and foreign exchange gains and losses, but it does include the results of the Two Sigma Hamilton Fund. These results compare favorably to the first quarter of 2025 where we reported net income of $81 million or $0.77 per diluted share, operating income of $49 million or $0.47 per diluted share, and annualized returns on average equity of 14% for net income and 8% for operating income. Moving on to our underwriting Results for the first quarter of 2026, gross premiums written increased to $940 million and compared to $843 million this time last year, an increase of 11%. Each of our platforms Hamilton Global Specialty, Hamilton select and Hamilton Re pursued thoughtful strategic growth in areas presenting strong returns while pulling back from lines with less attractive risk adjusted returns. To maintain discipline and enhance overall profitability. Hamilton had underwriting income of $58 million for the first quarter, compared to an underwriting loss of $58 million in the first quarter last year. The group combined ratio was 89.8% compared to 111.6% in the first quarter of 2025. In the first quarter, loss ratio improved to 56.9% down 22.3 points from 79.2% in the prior period. The improvement was driven by no catastrophe losses in the quarter compared to about 30 points of catastrophe losses in the first quarter last year, primarily due to the California Wildfires. This was partially offset by a higher attritional loss ratio of 54.5% compared to 51.9% in the prior period. As a reminder, this increase in attritional loss was within expectations given our guidance of 55% expected for the full year of 2026 and after making a change to our large loss threshold that we announced last quarter. We also had unfavorable prior year development of $14 million driven by an increase in reserves for the Baltimore Bridge. The expense ratio increased 0.5 points to 32.9% compared to 32.4% in the first quarter of last year. The increase was driven by higher acquisition costs partially offset by a decrease in other underwriting expenses which included benefits from the Bermuda substance-based tax credit and third party Performance Fee income. Next, I'll go through the first quarter results by segment. Let's start with the International segment which includes our specialty insurance businesses Hamilton Global Specialty and Hamilton select. For the first quarter of 2026, international grew premium to $443 million, up from $370 million, an increase of 20%. This was primarily driven by growth in our specialty and casualty insurance classes. International had underwriting income of $7 million and a combined ratio of 97.5% compared to underwriting income of $1 million and a combined ratio of 99.7% in the first quarter last year. The decrease in the combined ratio is primarily related to no catastrophe losses in the quarter, whereas the first quarter of 2025 had about 12 points driven by the California wildfires. This was partially offset by the current and prior year attritional loss ratios and the expense ratio. The current year attritional loss ratio was 54.9% or 2.8 points higher than the prior period. The increase was anticipated. Given our changing business mix and the large loss threshold change we announced last quarter, we still expect this ratio to be about 54.5% for the full year 2026. The prior year attritional loss ratio was an unfavorable 1.4 points due to the increase in the Baltimore Bridge reserve estimate. The expense ratio increased 2.1 points to 41.2% compared to 39.1% in the first quarter last year. The increase was primarily driven by the acquisition cost ratio due to changing business mix. I will now turn to the Bermuda segment which houses Hamilton Re and Hamilton Re US, the entities that predominantly write reinsurance business. For the first quarter of 2026, Bermuda grew premium to $497 million, up from $473 million, an increase of 5%. The increase was primarily driven by new and existing business and casualty reinsurance classes. Bermuda had underwriting income of $51 million and a combined ratio of 81.8% compared to an underwriting loss of $59 million and a combined ratio of 122.8% in the first quarter last year. The decrease in combined ratio was primarily related to no catastrophe losses in the quarter, whereas the first quarter of 2025 had about 47 points of catastrophe losses related to the California wildfires. The Bermuda segment also saw a decrease in expense ratio partially offset by an increase in the current and prior year attritional loss ratios. The Bermuda current year attritional loss ratio increased 2.1 points to 53.9% in the first compared to 51.8% in the first quarter last year. Similar to my comments in International, this increase was anticipated given our changing business mix and the large loss threshold change we announced last quarter. We still expect the Bermuda current year attritional loss ratio to be about 56% for the full year 2026. The prior year attritional loss ratio was an unfavorable 3.6 points due to an increase in the Baltimore Bridge Reserve estimate. The Bermuda expense ratio decreased by 1.9 points to 24.3% compared to 26.2% in the first quarter of 2025 driven by a decrease in the other underwriting expense ratio related to the Bermuda substance based tax credit and increased third party performance fee income. This was partially offset by the acquisition cost ratio due to a change in business mix. The Bermuda segment results also reflected our new casualty reinsurance sidecar which Pina mentioned in her comments. This sidecar enhances our ability to support casualty reinsurance underwriting through scalable and efficient capital solutions and it also provides Hamilton with an additional source of fee income. Premium sessions to the sidecar began in the first quarter of 2026 and will continue over a multi year period and are expected to total about $300 million. You may have noticed that Bermuda retained about 74% of its gross premium written in the first quarter of 2026 compared to 79% in the first quarter of 2025, reflecting the premium ceded to the sidecar. Now turning to investment income, Total net investment income for the first quarter was $94 million compared to investment income of $167 million in the first quarter of 2025. The fixed income portfolio, short term investments and cash produced a gain of $1 million for the quarter compared to a gain of $64 million in the first quarter of 2025. As a reminder, this result includes the realized and unrealized gains and losses that Hamilton reports through net income as part of our trading investment portfolio. The new money yield was 4.3% on fixed income investments purchased this quarter and the duration of the portfolio is now 3.7 years. The average yield to maturity on this portfolio was 4.5% compared to 4.1% at year end 2025. The Two Sigma Hamilton Fund produced a $93 million net return for the first quarter equal to 4.3% compared to $104 million or 5.5% in the first quarter last year. The Two Sigma Hamilton Fund made up about 38% of our total investments, including cash investments at March 31, 2026. Now turning to capital management As a reminder, we declared a $200 million special dividend in February, which was paid in March. We also repurchased $20 million of shares in the first quarter of 2026. We still have $159 million remaining under our share repurchase authorization. Both the special dividend and the share repurchases reflect our ongoing commitment to active and effective capital management. Next, I have some comments on Our strong balance sheet to Total assets were $9.9 billion at March 31, 2026, up 3% from $9.6 billion at year end 2025. Total investments in cash were $5.9 billion at March 31. Shareholders equity for the group was $2.7 billion at the end of the first quarter. Our book value per share was $27.42 at March 31, 2026, UP 3% from year end 2025 after adjusting for the impact of the $2 per share special dividend we paid in March. In conclusion, we are very pleased with Hamilton's start to the year. Our balance sheet remains strong, our attritional loss ratios are tracking where we expect them to, and we believe we are well positioned to continue delivering attractive returns even as market conditions evolve. Thank you. And with that, we'll open up the call for your questions.
OPERATOR
We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to two questions. If you would like to ask a question, Please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one Again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality if you are muted locally. Please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Christian Getsov with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Christian Getsov (Equity Analyst)
Hi, good morning. My first question is on the PYD. Pina, you laid out the Iran conflict exposure and it sounds like it's manageable, but did you guys seek any development in the quarter itself or either through the CAT line or PYD?
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
Craig, why don't you talk about the pyd and then I can cover Iran or kick off on Iran.
Craig Howey (Group Chief Financial Officer)
Sure. Let's start with the PYD. The PYD was one event, specifically the Baltimore Bridge. It was the Baltimore Bridge. It was $14 million. It was 2.4 points in total. So it was literally one event. But I will provide a little bit more color around the Baltimore Bridge loss which happened in 2024. The industry loss estimate at that point in time was 1 to 3 billion dollars. We had initially posted a conservative reserve at the high end of that range, but after ongoing feedback and specific renewal information during 2025 that indicated an industry loss estimate of $1.5 billion. So we adjusted our reserve down to about a $2 billion industry loss estimate range. However, in light of the new recently announced settlement of that loss, we have taken our reserve back to our original ultimate loss estimate of $38 million. And that increased our prior period development this quarter by $14 million, or 2.4 points. In the first quarter, we did not take into account any potential subrogation on this loss. And as you know, we have a history of overall favorable prior year loss development each and every year since the inception of the company. There was no offset to this prior period development in Q1 since we did not complete any reserve studies in the quarter. You may recall that we do our reserve studies or they're completed in quarters 2, 3 and 4. Over to you, Pina, to talk about Iran.
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, so just briefly on regarding Iran in Q1, the losses were driven by specialty insurance classes which we write in our international segment out of Lloyd's. Of course, those are predominantly political violence and terror covers and marine lines. We continue to provide some selective coverage in that region at appropriate rates. Because we offer our products on an international basis but we're mindful of our total exposure and in fact we're very mindful of the fact that there's some areas in the world that are more prone to conflict than others. So we adjust our risk appetite accordingly and we carry appropriate outwards protection. But in Q1 the losses came from specialty insurance. And Craig, over to you.
Craig Howey (Group Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, just on the Middle east conflict. Our exposures in the first quarter did not meet or exceed our new large loss or catastrophe loss thresholds of $10 million. The exposure, as Pina said, was really related to insurance lines. And as this conflict continues, you know, the loss exposures are expected to continue as well. We would expect to include those losses in our catastrophe loss line going forward consistent with the way we reported our loss estimates for Ukraine.
Christian Getsov (Equity Analyst)
Got it, thank you. And then for my second question, could you maybe elaborate on your appetite for Florida renewals? It sounds like pricing is going to be down mid double digits kind of similar to 1:1 but that there has been a lot of like tort reform which is probably providing a benefit on loss trends. So how are you guys thinking about growth there? Just given like the expected price dynamics currently?
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
Yep, I'll take that person. So the upcoming 6:1 renewals are largely Florida driven and the 7:1 renewals are largely national accounts. Regarding the Florida only market, this is not a big part of our portfolio and I don't expect that to change at this upcoming 6:1. We do however use our ADA Re, our third party capital arm to service Florida renewals and that will be the vehicle that we use to address Florida this renewal as well. Or predominantly our focus is on key clients at the 7:1 renewals and these are clients with whom we enjoy broad trading relationships. So across classes we expect pricing at mid year to be more of the same. But we also expect the terms, conditions and attachment points to largely hold. And just as a reminder here, the pricing again as I said earlier, comes off historic highs. You know, after the market reset that where pricing went up materially. So even with some pricing pressure at 7:1 we expect the rates on the accounts that we renew to be more than adequate.
Christian Getsov (Equity Analyst)
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Cohen with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Daniel Cohen (Equity Analyst)
Hey morning. My first question is maybe just on an update on Hamilton select. You know, 17% still a really strong, you know, result there. Just wondering, is it really the only weak spot you're seeing and in your book is just professional lines and then maybe Also just checking in on, you know, if there's an update to the smaller to midsize ENS property rollout that you're all looking into. Thank you.
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
Sure, I'll take that. Yeah. We're really, really pleased with the continued development of our Hamilton select platform. As we said, our growth was predominantly in casualty lines. So excess casualty, the general casualty products and contractors, small business there. We're seeing still very healthy terms, conditions and pricing where we wrote less business in select were again, as I said, medical and professional lines because we just didn't like the pricing that we were seeing. Our property launch just got started, so that's a Q2 update to give you. But I think what we can say in general about property in the ENS market is on the large accounts, the shared and layered business. We don't write that in select, but we see that in the group on that business. And as I said in the call, we are seeing pricing pressure and we've reduced our book as a result. If we just don't see it beat our threshold, we will not write it on the smaller to midsize property business, which we also write in Hamilton Global Specialty. And we'll focus on in Select. We're seeing there the rates are still holding up, so we'll have more to report on our Q2 property launch at select in Q2.
Daniel Cohen (Equity Analyst)
Okay, thanks. And then maybe just a follow up on reserves. Is there anything with the review process that's changed there? Just given I know you've always had the property casualty specialty by quarter, but last one Q, there was some favorability and now it sounds like maybe nothing moved ex Baltimore. So has anything changed there or am I just misinterpreting something? Thank you.
Craig Howey (Group Chief Financial Officer)
Good question. Nothing has really changed. We still do our casualty reserve study or complete our casualty reserve studies in the second quarter, specialty in the third quarter and property in the fourth quarter. And we really don't expect to see much in the first quarter after going through the full study at year end and going through and comparing with our outside actuarial views at year end. So we really don't expect to see much in the first quarter. As I said, the only thing that we saw this first quarter was new information that we got about the settlement for the Baltimore Bridge. And that's the reason we took that prior period development.
Daniel Cohen (Equity Analyst)
And then was there anything in the prior year quarter that that was unusual? I guess just when we look at, you know, the favorability last year.
Craig Howey (Group Chief Financial Officer)
Daniel. Yeah, sorry. Daniel. The only thing I would say is, you know, we are quick to react to information, new information that we see. So if something happens in it within a quarter, that' outside of our reserve studies, we would be quick to react to that, but that would have to be new and additional information to react.
Daniel Cohen (Equity Analyst)
Okay, that makes sense. And then maybe just on the third party fee income in Bermuda, you know, is there an update on what the quarterly run rate should be following the sidecar, or is that still kind of the same expectation?
Craig Howey (Group Chief Financial Officer)
No. So I'll share with you. We have two components to that. Fee income. We still have performance fee income from Ada Re, which is our ILS property CAT platform. That favorable development from lower catastrophe losses last year still continues to come through this year. That is tracked as a contra expense in our other underwriting expenses. And then you mentioned the new casualty sidecar. That fee income will come through as profit commissions and those profit commissions received will offset the acquisition cost ratio. And that's similar to the way that we treat other profit commissions today as well.
Daniel Cohen (Equity Analyst)
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from the line of Patrick Marshall with Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Patrick Marshall (Equity Analyst)
Hi, good morning. First question, how worried should we be about the knock on effects of the accelerating property rate declines with regard to property premium RE estimates and mid year renewal pricing?
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, thank you. I'll take that. It's a quick answer. We don't expect to see any material adjustments from that. It's still a very profitable line for us.
Patrick Marshall (Equity Analyst)
Okay. And then are there any material MGA relationships that would potentially impact volume if rate trends persist?
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
I'll take that too, Patrick. Thanks. You know, just, just by way of context, we do bind a percentage of our business, predominantly in Hamilton Global Specialty, via what you'd call coverholders or MGA's. Right. This is a common method of acquisition in the Lloyd's market. The majority of our relationships are however long standing ones where, you know, tried and tested relationships. None of our MGA relationships are of a size or have parameters that would expect us to, you know, to expect any kind of outsized premium adjustments. And we have a pretty tight oversight and control and governance mechanism for these relationships. So I hope that answers your question.
Patrick Marshall (Equity Analyst)
Yeah. Thank you. One last one, if I could sneak it in. Would the rapid deterioration in fundamentals in certain markets potentially make inorganic growth more difficult to contemplate at this time,
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
at this stage in the market? As I said in the call, it is a differentiated market. We are still seeing opportunity across a number of classes that we write and we will continue to focus our efforts on those classes where Risk adjusted returns are still attractive and where returns do not meet our threshold, then we will reduce our ratings in those class. So it's really not a one size fits all market. It's differentiated. And I think that's where our underwriters shine with risk selection, with appropriate capital deployment. So we feel comfortable in this market and navigating this market now.
Patrick Marshall (Equity Analyst)
Yeah, my question was more oriented towards. Sorry, maybe I didn't say clearly. Inorganic growth.
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
Inorganic growth, sorry. Yes. So again, I think while we are still. Are you asking about our inorganic growth ambitions or others? Just to clarify, I'd say.
Patrick Marshall (Equity Analyst)
I'd say yours. But I'd be interested if you had a broader thought on, on broader industry or inorganic growth. I'd welcome that as well.
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
Fair enough. So you mean broader inorganic growth. You have seen that already during the course of 2025. I think markets that are struggling to find growth in their portfolio may continue to look for inorganic growth opportunities during the course of 2026. That would not be unheard of. And as for us, we did do one acquisition at least in my tenure at Hamilton. And, and that was, you know, a game changer for us. Our bar for inorganic is incredibly high and it will continue to stay high. We still feel very comfortable about our inorganic, about our organic opportunities.
Patrick Marshall (Equity Analyst)
Okay, thank you so much.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from the line of Tommy McJoint with KBW. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Tommy McJoint (Equity Analyst)
Hi, good morning. The increased mix of the casualty business has driven the acquisition cost ratio higher on a year over year basis. Is the level that we're at in the first quarter a good run rate to use going forward or could there be a further uptick in that acquisition cost ratio to the extent that casualty continues to grow faster than property?
Craig Howey (Group Chief Financial Officer)
Hi, Tommy, this is Craig. Appreciate the question. You know, I would say the majority of this is change in business mix. Okay, so let's go through the two segments. If you look at Bermuda, Bermuda writes about one third of its book. In the first quarter we wrote more specialty and casualty business and less property, for example. Although, if you look, although it appears as if the acquisition expense ratio is higher year over year, first quarter to first quarter. If you look at where it was at the fourth quarter of 2025, it's, it's right in line with where we, we would expect for this business mix. And we really don't expect the business mix to change very much from, from here on the Bermuda side. On international, we wrote more specialty business this period compared to the period last year. For example, as Pina Said we wrote more accident and health business, almost double what we did a year ago and that carries a higher acquisition expense ratio or commission ratio. Similarly, we wrote less property, you know, which again would have a lower cost ratio. So again it's based on business mix. That's what's really driving the acquisition expense ratio. Similar to the loss ratios that, that we said before. You know, each line has its own loss ratio. We have a separate loss pick for that line. Acquisition expenses are the same way. The metrics where we see where we can potentially benefit would be an improvement in our other underwriting expense ratio, something that we've been able to do every year since 2019.
Tommy McJoint (Equity Analyst)
Thanks. And then thinking about property reinsurance ratings in the second and the third quarter, can you talk a little bit about your account mix in terms of whether a lot of the counterparties you're negotiating with were loss affected accounts last year? Non loss affected. The business that you're writing, how typically high up in the tower or is it lower layer? Maybe just give us some metrics around that that can help us think about the ability to write and grow property reinsurance. And then the upcoming renewals again, the
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
upcoming renewals are the six ones and seven ones again on the six ones, which is largely Florida there. I do not see us changing our appetite on Florida domestic covers. That is more the realm of our eight Idris. So our, our sidecar which would participate in those classes in terms of the seven ones which are the national account business there, you know, it's, it's, it's across the board. We will look very, we will look across layers and you know, and support our clients where it makes sense for us, where we're seeing appropriate risk adjusted returns. And also in the context of the broad trading relationship that we have, we're not chasing lower layers, we're not chasing aggregate covers. So we're trying to keep true to our underwriting which is, you know, broad based across key clients in layers that we, where we enjoy the pricing that is still more than risk adequate.
Tommy McJoint (Equity Analyst)
Thank you.
OPERATOR
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question or rejoin the queue, please press star1 to raise your hand. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Carletti with Citizens. Your line is open.
Matt Carletti (Equity Analyst)
Thanks. Good morning. Most of my questions asked and answered. I just have a numbers follow up. Pina, I think you said in Bermuda property growth would have basically been flat X reinstatement. So I just want to make sure. I'm kind of lining it up right in the, in the supplement is that
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
about $30 million is what we're talking about in terms of what the reinstatements were in the year ago period. You want to, you want to. If property re was flat this quarter. Quarter. Craig, do you want to.
Craig Howey (Group Chief Financial Officer)
I can give, I can give you those numbers, Matt. The reinstatement premium, the reinstatement premium for Bermuda, and it's, it's essentially property anyway, was $26 million. So the, the growth in Bermuda x reinstatement premiums would have been 11% instead of 5%, but property growth x reinstatement premiums would have been minus 2%.
Matt Carletti (Equity Analyst)
Got it. That's exactly what I was looking for. Super helpful. Thank you very much.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from the line of Christian Getsov with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Christian Getsov (Equity Analyst)
Hi, thank you for taking my follow up. I just had a two stigma question. Can you just remind us the reporting cadence of that? Is it live as in like whatever the Q2 results are is what the return is? Just, I'm just thinking about the equity drawdown in the Q1, if there's ramifications for the two sigma returns in the second half or in the Q2.
Craig Howey (Group Chief Financial Officer)
So Hershin, as you know, we, we are now the Two Sigma results on a quarterly basis with no lag, just like the rest of our portfolio. And so, you know, our monthly results, even that that we receive, we don't have the monthly results for April at this point in time. As you know, Two Sigma's historically outperformed in a volatile market. You saw that already in the first quarter. I know that's history. But you know, with a 13% annualized net return since the inception of the fund in 2014, we feel like we still have a very good relationship with, with our Two Sigma partnership.
Christian Getsov (Equity Analyst)
And then just one more, I guess on the so it sounds like Property Cat like there's going to be maybe lower growth opportunities just given the pricing dynamics. So how should we kind of think about buybacks as we kind of get to the second half as your is, your shares continue to trade on attractive valuation, could we see a more elevated level or how should we think about maybe even the use of another special dividend later on in the year?
Craig Howey (Group Chief Financial Officer)
You know, look, Christian, I'm sorry. Thank you for the question. You know, first of all, the special dividend was really an active and effective way for us to return capital quickly to our shareholders. And as you know, we bought back $20 million of shares in the first quarter. We had the flexibility and the ability to do both of those, meaning both dividends and buybacks. We have a track record of being good stewards of capital and quite frankly, if we see strong business opportunities, we're going to deploy our capital there. For example, we've been able to grow our premium each and every year at double digit levels each and every year since 2017. Otherwise, what we'll do is we'll continue to return some of that excess capital to shareholders, and that could be through a special dividend or buybacks throughout the rest of the year. We have $159 million remaining on our share repurchase authorization and we plan to use that to buy back shares as we see that being still accretive.
Christian Getsov (Equity Analyst)
Thank you.
OPERATOR
There are no further questions and we have reached the end of the Q and A session. I will now turn the call back to Pina Albo for closing remarks.
Pina Albo (Group Chief Executive Officer)
So maybe just to wrap up here, we are very pleased with our performance this quarter and remain confident in our strategy, in the talent we have, and in our positioning going forward. We want to thank you all for your continued interest and support of the company and look forward to speaking to you again soon.
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