Skyward Specialty Insurance Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKWD) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 21, 2024 10:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Natalie Schoolcraft - Head, IR
Andrew Robinson - CEO
Mark Haushill - EVP & CFO
Conference Call Participants
Matthew Carletti - Citizens JMP Securities
Mark Hughes - Truist Securities
Andrew Anderson - Jefferies
Meyer Shields - KBW
Bill Carcache - Wolfe Research
Paul Newsome - Piper Sandler
Operator
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Skyward's Specialty Insurance Group fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Natalie Schoolcraft, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Natalie Schoolcraft
Thank you, Shannon. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Today, I am joined by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Robinson, and Chief Financial Officer, Mark Haushill. We'll begin the call today with our prepared remarks, and then we will open the lines for questions.
Our comments today may include forward-looking statements, which, by their nature, involve a number of risk factors and uncertainties, which may affect future financial performance. Such risk factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements.
These types of factors are discussed in our press release as well as our 10-K that was previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Financial schedules containing reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures, along with other supplemental financial information are included as part of our press release and available on our website, skywardinsurance.com, under the Investors section.
With that, I will turn the call over to Andrew. Andrew?
Andrew Robinson
Thank you, Natalie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We closed out 2023 strong reporting adjusted operating income of $0.61 per diluted share. Gross written premiums grew 21% in the quarter and our combined ratio of 90.7% for the quarter included less than half a point of cat losses. While it was a quiet cat quarter for the industry, we continue to be at the low end of our peer group, even though over 25% of our business is property.
Operationally, rate, retention and submission flow in the quarter continued to be strong. I will talk more about this later in the call. Altogether, the execution of our Rule Our Niche strategy continues to be excellent and our aim to deliver top quartile financial returns is visible in our growth, underwriting profitability, shareholder returns, and balance sheet strength.