Universal Insurance Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:UVE) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call July 26, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Arash Soleimani - Chief Strategy Officer
Stephen Donaghy - CEO
Frank Wilcox - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Paul Newsome - Piper Sandler

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Universal Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Arash Soleimani, Chief Strategy Officer.

Arash Soleimani

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. Welcome to our quarterly earnings call. On the call with me today are Steve Donaghy, Chief Executive Officer; and Frank Wilcox, Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, please note today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. Forward-looking statements involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. For more information, please see the press release and Universal's SEC filings, all of which are available on the Investors section of our website at universalinsuranceholdings.com and on the SEC's website.

A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP measures is included in the quarterly press release and can also be found on Universal's website at universalinsuranceholdings.com.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve.

Stephen Donaghy

Thank you, Arash. Good morning, everyone. In the quarter, we delivered a solid 30.5% annualized adjusted return on common equity and 35.6% adjusted diluted earnings per share growth year-over-year. Results were driven by strong underwriting performance, and we continue to see encouraging claims and litigation trends. Florida policies in force increased sequentially for the second quarter in a row and overall policies in force increased year-over-year for the first time since 2021.

As we mentioned previously, we completed the placement of our 2024-2025 reinsurance renewal for our insurance entities. We're very pleased with the outcome of the program and the support we received from our long-standing reinsurance partners and from new partners as well. Importantly, despite having substantially more demand for private market reinsurance, following the expirations of the Reinsurance to Assist Policyholders layer and our catastrophe bond, the overall cost of our program was only up modestly.

I'll turn it over to Frank to walk through our financial results. Frank?

Frank Wilcox

Thanks, Steve. Good morning. Adjusted diluted earnings per common share was $1.18, up from $0.87 in the prior year quarter. The increase mostly stems from higher underwriting and net investment income. Core revenue of $379.2 million, was up 12.5% year-over-year with growth primarily stemming from higher net premiums earned and net investment income, partially offset by lower commission revenue.