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DATE

Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

  • Chief Executive Officer — Vincent Tizzio
  • Chief Financial Officer — Matthew Kirk

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TAKEAWAYS

  • Annualized ROE -- 17% as reported, reflecting continued operating gains.
  • Combined Ratio -- 89.8%, demonstrating underwriting profitability at the consolidated level.
  • Gross Written Premiums -- $3.1 billion, up nearly 11%, driven mainly by growth in short-tail lines now at 60% of the mix.
  • Insurance Segment Gross Written Premiums -- $1.98 billion, up approximately 20% due to core execution, expanded business classes, and SACS activity.
  • Insurance Underwriting Income -- $157 million, up 17% and representing a 0.4% combined ratio improvement to 86.3%.
  • Insurance Portfolio Growth -- Core underwriting recorded low single-digit growth; expanded business classes delivered high single-digit gains; ACS contributed the balance (with 2/3 of ACS premiums in short-tail).
  • Reinsurance Gross Written Premiums -- $1.1 billion, including $180 million in new business (70% in short-tail specialty lines), but down 2% compared to the prior year.
  • Reinsurance Combined Ratio -- 92.7%, accompanied by underwriting income of $30 million and fee income of $20 million.
  • Property Pricing -- Down 13%, but portfolio after compounded multiyear rate increases still meets return objectives, with Cat XL protection attaching at $100 million per event.
  • Liability Rates -- Rose 9%, with 11% growth; U.S. excess casualty writings down 2% but posted a 12% rate increase; primary casualty volume declined 28%, but with a 9% rate increase.
  • Cyber Insurance -- Premiums stable at $6 million in segmental growth and a group-level decrease of 7%; cautious stance maintained, with rates down 6% and total volume well below previous years.
  • Reserve Releases -- $18 million (insurance: $15 million; reinsurance: $3 million), with favorable trends mainly from short-tail lines.
  • Catastrophe Losses -- $48 million, yielding a 3.2% cat loss ratio; approximately one-third related to Middle East conflict.
  • Operating Income -- $257 million, or $3.42 per diluted share, and operating ROE of 18%.
  • G&A Ratio -- 10.7%, down from 11.9%, reflecting expense discipline and previous efficiency investments.
  • Investment Income -- $185 million, comparable to the previous quarter, partially offset by unrealized portfolio losses that pressured book value per share growth.
  • Capital Returned -- $93 million in the quarter ($33 million in dividends, $60 million via buybacks); $53 million remains on 2025's buyback plan and a new $300 million authorization approved.
  • Operating Cash Flow -- $590 million, up from $309 million, highlighting growth and cost management.
  • Funds at Lloyd's Transactions (FAO) -- Roughly $60 million in upfront gross written premium; these structured deals efficiently provide AXIS with exposure to otherwise inaccessible products and geographies.

SUMMARY

AXIS Capital Holdings Limited (AXS +2.50%) emphasized accelerated premium growth anchored in short-tail segments, supported by expanded product offerings and strategic use of third-party capacity structures such as funds at Lloyd's. Management reiterated its disciplined approach to cycle management, highlighting intentional portfolio repositioning to pursue higher-return opportunities while maintaining risk selectivity, especially in casualty and property lines. Strategic investments in technology and AI contributed to improved expense ratios, with operating leverage realized as dollar G&A spending remained flat despite business growth.

  • AI-driven workflow enhancements improved operational processes, with "auto ingestion" reducing submission handling time by over 65% and next-generation underwriting technology decreasing quote cycle times by up to 30%.
  • Third-party capital structures, including FAO transactions and ACS, provided new fee income streams and greater portfolio diversification, with FAO premiums fully booked up front and earning out over time.
  • Reinsurance segment selectively reduced long-tail exposures, with management signaling that reinsurance premiums could be down double digits in 2026 per explicit guidance.
  • Capital deployment priorities remained unchanged, with approximately 50% of earnings retained to support business growth and the remainder available for buybacks or dividends, as market conditions permit.
  • $23 million below-the-line expense recorded for restructuring and leadership transitions, predominantly in reinsurance.
  • Exposure to the Baltimore Bridge loss was addressed as fully reserved, with only reinstatement premiums recognized during the quarter and no loss reserve adjustments required.
  • Middle East conflict accounted for $15 million in provisions, with management maintaining vigilance and close exposure monitoring.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

  • ACS (Access Capacity Solutions): A platform through which AXIS builds innovative, third-party-capital-backed portfolios, enabling efficient risk transfer and fee income generation without major balance sheet impact.
  • FAO (Funds at Lloyd's Transactions): Structured reinsurance or capital support deals providing AXIS with access to Lloyd's specialty risk portfolios via upfront capacity commitments, capping downside to committed lines.
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS): Survey-based metric indicating customer willingness to recommend AXIS, cited as achieving historical highs.
  • Cat XL Protection: Catastrophe excess of loss reinsurance coverage, here attaching at $100 million per event to limit large loss exposures.
  • Reinstatement Premiums: Additional premiums due to a reinstatement of coverage following a covered loss event, as referenced in the Baltimore Bridge context.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Vincent Tizzio: Thank you, Cliff. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Let me begin by welcoming Matt Kirk in his first earnings call at AXIS as our Chief Financial Officer. Matt? We're delighted to have your partnership as we continue to steer access to deliver sustained shareholder value. AXIS is off to a very strong start in 2026 as we continue to build on our positive performance we are realizing significant benefits from enhancements we've made to our operating model and through our continued investments in products, distribution, technology and talent. We entered 2026 well positioned to benefit from all of the actions we've taken in recent years. Our portfolio remediation efforts are largely behind us.

Our book of business is premium adequate resilient and positioned for targeted profitable growth. We've made strides in widening our global distribution platform to reach new channels, segments and geographies and -- we believe we can further harvest our expanded classes while penetrating attractive markets where access has historically been underrepresented. We've enhanced our customer value propositions and service model earning recognition with our highest Net Promoter Scores since we began recording our surveys. And we've made substantial investments in innovations and operations that are helping fuel the momentum in our performance. I'll now share some of the headline metrics for the quarter.

First, an annualized return on average common equity of 17%, a combined ratio of 89.8% gross written premiums of $3.1 billion, up nearly 11% over the prior year, driven predominantly by growth in attractive short-tail lines with short tail lines now constituting 60% of our overall premiums. Finally, we produced a 10.7% GA ratio in the quarter, driven by efficiency gains and higher earned premium. Let's now move to our segment results, and we'll begin with insurance. It was a strong quarter for our insurance business, highlighted by premium generations of $1.98 billion, underwriting income of $157 million, representing a 17% increase year-over-year and a combined ratio of 86.3%, a 0.4% improvement over the prior year.

Gross written premiums in insurance were up about 20% year-over-year, driven by continued execution in our core business, expanded classes and access capacity solutions capability which we will also refer to as SACS. This growth was reflected across 3 key areas. First, our underlying insurance portfolio demonstrated modest growth. This reflected rate, retention and disciplined underwriting actions across our established businesses and is fully consistent with our return objectives. Second, our expanded business classes contributed high single-digit growth in the quarter. These units are expected to continue to scale our largely short tail and address customer segments in attractive markets.

These include wholesale lower middle market, A&H pet insurance and specialty offerings such as Surety, U.S. marine, specialty E&O, Allied Health to name just a few. The remainder of the growth came from access capacity solutions, which draws on our experience and ability with third-party capital to develop and structure differentiated portfolios at scale. Protecting access downside and creating new sources of revenue. In ACS, 2/3 of the premiums that we booked were in short tail. We go to market through a variety of distribution channels that are broadly split between open brokerage and select delegated businesses.

These structures allow us to access premium adequate business while enhancing our relevance with distribution partners and generating attractive returns and fee income with limited balance sheet volatility. Looking across the broader insurance landscape, we continue to navigate a series of micro markets driven by a changing pricing environment, sustained geopolitical uncertainty and technological disruption. We would observe that while pricing pressure is evident in several lines, terms, conditions, and limits are generally holding, and we are seeing premium adequacy across the vast majority of our business. Our average net policy limits remain largely unchanged and in markets facing the greatest competitive pressure, including property and cyber as 2 notable examples.

As respects geopolitical disruption, certain lines of business have changing demand needs from our buying population, including lines such as marine war, energy and political violence to name 3. In the Middle East, we continue to actively support our customers. While information is continuously developing, we are practicing vigilance and are very closely monitoring our exposures in the region. We are supporting our customers in managing emerging technological risks, including intensifying cyber threats brought on by AI, new data privacy concerns and the interconnected nature of operational and supply chain risks. These unfolding dynamics are creating new exposures and opportunities for us to provide specialty solutions.

Taken together in this transformational risk environment, our customers are seeking tailored solutions to address their evolving needs. And as a specialist leader, AXIS is well positioned. Let me comment now on what we're observing across our lines of business. In property, pricing was down 13% in the quarter. This downward pressure on pricing follows an 8-year period where we've had compounded rates of nearly 80%. On an absolute basis, the business we're putting on our books today continues to meet our underwriting return expectations for the class.

Additionally, we maintain a diversified portfolio with an average net limit in the low single-digit millions that is well balanced in peril and geographic mix and is back by Cat XL protection that attaches at $100 million per event. In liability, rates grew 9% in the quarter, and growth was 11%, and we leaned into opportunistic growth in our international liability businesses, which helps provide diversification from the social inflation phenomenon in the U.S. casualty market and we exhibited a disciplined stance in U.S. casualty. In fact, in U.S.

Excess Casualty, total writings were down 2% with positive rate change of 12% ahead of trend in primary casualty volume was down 28%, with positive rate change of 9%, again, ahead of trend. In professional, we are encouraged with rates turning positive especially across transactional liability and pockets of commercial D&O and financial institutions within our North American businesses. In the quarter, $45 million our growth came from transactional liability, where rates were up 4%. And from E&O, where we are delivering on our risk-adjusted return expectations. Consistent with our past comments, we observed a flattening on the public company D&O market and remain cautious while selectively evaluating opportunities.

Within cyber, consistent with prior quarters, we maintain a cautious underwriting stance as the industry navigates a dynamic market impacted by both the rating environment and the exposure gained by AI. The market remains competitive and rates were down 6% in the quarter. We deployed capacity selectively between our cyber insurance and reinsurance platforms, managing our exposures and steering our capital towards the best returns. In the quarter, at a group level, our growth was down 7%. In our insurance portfolio, we were virtually flat with $6 million in premium growth. Please be reminded that we've been signaling caution with cyber for the past few years.

For context, at year-end 2023, AXIS produced $649 million in cyber insurance production at that time, representing 10.6% of our total insurance portfolio. At year-end 2025, that number was $473 million, representing 6.6% of our portfolio. Nonetheless, if the rate environment and our view of the market improves, we will draw on our skilled team, capital and grow more fulsomely. Stepping back, we're clearly observing varying conditions across our lines of business. We have demonstrated our ability to strongly cycle manage with an approach that is highly responsive to shifts in the environment.

By example, our discipline is evidenced in recent years by our actions in primary casualty, public D&O and cyber and most recently, by the caution we are exercising in our U.S. casualty and London market property lines. In parallel, we are reallocating capital into attractive markets through our expanded classes which over several years, have grown from a nominal base into 17% of our total insurance portfolio in the first quarter and nearly 2/3 of the business is short tail. Let's now move on to our reinsurance segment. In the quarter, we continued to drive selective growth in our specialty product set with short tail lines growing from 50% to 61% as compared to the prior year period.

We drove $1.1 billion in gross written premiums. This includes $180 million of new business with 70% coming from short-tail specialty lines. We produced a combined ratio of 92.7% and underwriting income of $30 million and fee income of $20 million. Leveraging our deep specialty expertise, we generated healthy growth in targeted lines like A&H and credit and surety where we leaned into strong relationships with existing cedents exhibiting the transactional excellence of our team. Consistent with our comments in past calls, we continue to actively manage the cycle in casualty lines. In the quarter, we reduced writings by over $130 million or 24% as the market remains competitive and risk-adjusted returns are not meeting our expectations. Switching gears.

Within our -- how -- we Work program and specifically in relation to emerging technology and AI, I'll speak briefly to some of the advancements we are making. We have several objectives that ground our AI strategy, create efficiency, enhance productivity and ultimately deliver risk insight to help enable profitable growth. Our AI investments are contributing to expense ratio efficiency by redesigning and streamlining end-to-end workflows. This is shifting routine work for manual processing to technology-enabled task transfer and automation in underwriting and operations. While allowing us to hire purposefully into greater value roles rather than scale headcount broadly. Underpinning our efforts is the advancements we are driving within our operations function.

This includes our early progress in leveraging AI and data and analytics to enhance how submissions are triaged, analyzed and prepared and we focused on identifying opportunities to utilize AI to drive increased automation in how operation supports our underwriting and claims teams while, of course, further reducing manual work. I'll share some of the specific examples of how we're leveraging AI. We're seeing tangible productivity and efficiency gains through 2 examples. First, where we have introduced auto ingestion, the time to clear, register and route submissions to our signed underwriters has improved by over 65% in our initial rollout. Second, we've spoken with you in the past about our end-to-end next-generation underwriting platform. Progress continues.

The platform has proven to reduce quote cycle time by up to 30% in the initial areas where we have deployed the new systems. Within claims, we are progressing in tapping into the promise of AI. By example, we're building new functionality to enable our claims team to utilize a genetic AI to process by way of example, first notice of loss data to improve speed and ensure consistency and accuracy. As respect to our broader AI strategy, we see people at the core of our approach, not only in terms of responsible adoption, but in respect to innovation and imagination, and we are investing in upskilling our teams and recruiting AI-ready talent.

Finally, I'll conclude my opening remarks by pointing to the same key takeaways that I shared with you during my year-end tons. We believe access is built for all seasons. We are positioned for continued profitable growth aligned to our strategic initiatives. We've instilled a disciplined underwriting culture that puts profits ahead of premiums. We've built a global multi-varied distribution platform that is grounded in customer centricity and we've grown a culture that prioritizes both performance and people. With that, I'll now pass the floor to Matt for his comments.

Matthew Kirk: Thank you, Vince, and good morning, everyone. AXIS had a strong first quarter. So let me step you through our results. Our net income available to common shareholders was $247 million, or $3.29 per diluted common share, resulting in an annualized ROE of 17%. Our operating income was $257 million or $3.42 per diluted common share, resulted in an annualized operating ROE of 18%. Starting with our group underwriting highlights. Our gross written premiums of just over $3 billion were up 11% over the prior year quarter driven by accelerated growth initiatives in insurance, which I will detail shortly. On a net basis, premiums were up 9%. As Vince mentioned, but worth repeating, we reported a combined ratio of 89.8%.

Cat losses were $48 million, producing a cat loss ratio of 3.2%. Cat losses were largely driven from extreme winter weather in the U.S. and approximately 1/3 came from losses related to the conflict in the Middle East. We recorded a reserve release of $18 million with $15 million in insurance and $3 million in reinsurance for the quarter. We are maintaining the access philosophy of being deliberate to acknowledge favorable trends while quickly assimilating the adverse. Our release continues to be from short-tail lines. As Vince mentioned, our consolidated G&A ratio for the quarter, including corporate, was 10.7% versus 11.9% a year ago as dollar spend on G&A was essentially flat year-over-year.

We're pleased to have achieved the target level we presented to you 2 years ago. For the full year, we are still targeting 11%, and I would remind you that as we discussed on the fourth quarter call, we will continue to make attractive investments when opportunities arise and reward our high performers. I would note at this juncture, we incurred a below-the-line charge of $23 million for expense and restructuring actions taken during the quarter, largely in reinsurance as well as for the planned departure of 2 members of our senior leadership. Underwriting fees were $23 million, including both insurance-related and other income and offsets the G&A.

Today, this attractive stream of fee income largely stems from our ILS investments, but we expect a growing contribution from ACS. Insurance had a strong all-around quarter with gross written premiums of almost $2 billion, up 20%, driven by several factors. Let me provide you some detail. As Vince discussed, our underlying insurance book grew at low single digits, while expanded products and initiatives accounted for growth in the high single-digit range. Additional growth of approximately 10 points came from our innovations of ACS. You are familiar with the Ryan deal, which is performing as expected. ACS also struck funds at Lloyd's or FA transactions accounting for approximately half of the 10 points.

These are one-one on incepting annual renewable transactions where we provide capacity to other syndicates at Lloyd's in a capital-efficient manner, we are gaining exposure to products, geographies and distributions that would not have been easily accessible to Access, adding to our portfolio diversification. Finally, ACS included the strategic use of reinsurance vehicles. These transactions enable us to align interest with our key distribution partners to expand our gross insurance lines, earn fee income while managing our net appetite and exposures through sessions to third-party vehicles. In the first quarter, we employed this capability primarily in the premium adequate property classes.

Our net written premium growth of 24% was higher than our growth due to the number of factors, which will normalize as we progress through the year. These include the business, which is kept net a change in our quota share for pet and some year-over-year quarterly timing distortions. Our underlying loss ratio in insurance was 53.3% and a point higher than the prior quarter and in line with our forecast in the fourth quarter. We have not changed the range of our expectation for the year. Turning to Reinsurance.

Gross written premiums were down 2%, and -- we grew 20% in short tail lines led by credit and surety, which we do not expect in future quarters, although we will remain actively engaged in evaluating new opportunities. Long-tail lines were down 24% and as continue to have a cautious stance in these areas. The cycle management in long tail lines will persist as we progress through the year, and I will echo our fourth quarter comment that we expect reinsurance premiums could be down double digits in 2026. The reinsurance combined ratio was 92.7% for the quarter and in line with our expectations. Stepping back, what you are seeing this year is active portfolio repositioning at work.

We are intentionally leaning further into insurance and being more selective in reinsurance. We are using third-party structures and vehicles to enhance our relevancy to clients and distribution partners to sustain top line momentum, protect our net exposure and generate fee income. This is disciplined cycle management in action. We are making these move deliberately and decisively, and we remain confident in our ability to manage through the cycle profitably. Turning to investments in capital. Investment income was $185 million, similar to the level of the fourth quarter as our book yield remained largely flat.

From a total from a total portfolio return perspective, much of this was offset by unrealized losses in the period, a result of market fluctuations in rate and spreads and a headwind to book value per share growth in the quarter. We remain in a very strong financial position, allowing us to return capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, while prioritizing organic growth opportunities. During the quarter, we returned $93 million to shareholders through dividends of $33 million and share repurchases of $60 million. At quarter's end, $53 million remained on our 2025 $400 million authorization. And during the quarter, management presented and the Board approved an additional $300 million authorization.

Our operating cash flow in the quarter was a strong $590 million, up from $309 million a year ago, a reflection of our premium growth and expense discipline. I'm pleased to start my tenure at Access on such a strong foot. We will remain focused on managing our exposures to bring consistent and predictable earnings to shareholders. I look forward to working with you to create shareholder value for us all. Now we'd be happy to answer your questions.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And today's first question comes from Andrew Kligerman with TD Cowen.

Andrew Kligerman: First question is around reserve development. It looks like you had a favorable development of $15 million in insurance, $3 million in reinsurance. Some of your competitors have reported some unfavorable developments in the 21 to 24 underwriting years. Could you give any color on the developments from '21 to '24 and how that's playing out?

Matthew Kirk: Andrew, Matt, thanks for the question. I think overall, we're comfortable with our loss reserve position. I mentioned our philosophy that we are going to be slow to recognize good news and very deliberate when we have concerned. So let me just talk about the -- in the quarter, $8 million, almost all came from short-tail lines. I wouldn't get into the years right now, predominantly on the insurance side with a few million on reinsurance.

Vincent Tizzio: Andrew, this is Vince. Just to come over the top. We have discussed with you and Pete and I over the last several years. The actions that led ultimately to the reserve charge that we took back in December of '23. The assumption sets that we put forward, the exhaustive list of considerations that we had shared with you have continuously served us well.

In our quarterly reviews, the number of tools that we've attached both from additional claims insights, enhanced actuarial insights remain ongoing and give us comfort -- that is not to say that we've taken our eye with any passing relief, which is to say we've demonstrated a cautious underwriting stance in the casualty classes generally and across both platforms. We've spoken often about our caution in reinsurance, and you've seen that reflected in the rate of growth, which has actually not occurred. And you've seen that deliberately here on the insurance platform were in the quarter, both of our casualty platforms in the U.S. were downsized. So we have caution, but we're comfortable with our picks.

And we're going to maintain an active stance in managing our reserve position.

Andrew Kligerman: Great. And my follow-up, Vince, in your remarks, you mentioned that property pricing was down 13%, but the stuff that you did -- I'm sorry, not Yes, I think it was pricing down 13%, and it met your -- but what you wrote met your return expectations. And it sounds like some of your ACS business through Lloyd's was property as well. So I'm wondering, could you talk a little bit about your return expectations in the property business that you've written in insurance, including the ACF stuff?

Vincent Tizzio: Andrew, I'll take the liberty to expand my answer more broadly as well if you permit me, which is we have indicated over the past several years, a mid-teens return on equity expectation in our portfolio. You know directly from our Investor Day, we grounded ourselves in measuring effectiveness and success against diluted book value per share growth. And so as you know, we're an underwriting led organization. We will not grow for growth's sake. We acknowledge and we certainly are witnessing the repricing of the property market, but you're speaking to AXIS.

AXIS has had over nearly 80% of compounded rate improvement over the last several years against a portfolio that has about 40% ex cat in its overall makeup. A low single million dollar limit profile and the ability with the support of our reinsurers, importantly to note, a $100 million per event cover. So we're not living in a different reality. We are acknowledging that the order of returns is coming down. But at this point in time, it still meets our risk-adjusted returns. And I would just, as I said before, take the liberty to expand a bit, the growth that you're witnessing from AXIS is very much aligned to the fourth quarter remarks that Pete and I shared.

And I'll remind you as you've been with us throughout this journey. Some years ago, 3 years ago, specifically, we signaled a transformation effort. This transformation effort was first focused on our balance sheet, bringing strength to our capital position, the reserve charge, the LPT, the additional actuarial insights, building capabilities in our claims and operations, bringing new talent and yes, expanding and creating new propositions, admittedly with very low start points. If you were to look at the North American build-out that Mike and his team have executed against our start points in classes like environmental, Allied Health, E&O generally. They are rather small businesses that are growing. And so their order of percentages feel substantial.

But I'll remind you and all of our investors importantly, that our start point is coming from a very strong place in terms of mix. Our premium adequacy guidelines are explicit our underwriting tools and the provision of tiering and many others, the coordination between claims, actuarial is very strong. And so I take the liberty of expanding my answer to your direct question on property, but I'm happy to take additional questions.

Operator: And the next question comes from Rob Koh with Goldman Sachs.

Robert Cox: So AXIS is generating really strong growth in the core franchise. And I think the company has a relatively substantial position in Lloyd's relative to peers. So I'm just curious what made the funds at Lloyd's opportunity so attractive at this time? And if we should be thinking about this as an opportunistic trade to capture healthy margins for 2026? Or will this be a more sustainable part of the portfolio going forward?

Matthew Kirk: Rob, it's Matt. Let me cover that. First, not everyone is familiar with these type of transactions. Here in this case, we provide capacity in a structured format more like pro rata reinsurance to syndicate at Lloyd's. These are one-one deals and they would not be repeated in the quarter. So you're seeing most of our premium, if not all, written upfront, roughly about $60 million, and that will earn across this year and next. I think what's important is these are sale transactions where AXIS is gaining exposure to products and geographies that we would not other easily be accessible to access. These products are niche specialty lines that require specialty underwriting expertise.

Now we think these lines of business, these cytokines that we're supporting provide attractive profitability and they're really an efficient use of capital. What makes it a little unique on these transactions that our downside is capped to our committed lines, and that's pretty modest compared to our premium. So overall, something new to access. I would say we're really selective. We did a handful of these transactions in the quarter. Those won't be available to us until this time next year, should we choose. They are in the industry and relatively standard, but we view this as just another mechanism to be able to tap into specialty expertise.

Vincent Tizzio: And Rob, this is Vince. Just coming over the top with a couple of comments. Firstly, AXIS enjoys an outperform designation in our Lloyd's syndicate. We have a number of leading propositions. We also, in our global market business report our global businesses through global markets. And so in terms of sizing, we are a confident and a strong site Lloyd's market participant. And as Matt detailed, this is just one of the strategic capabilities that we leaned into in the first quarter in support of our global strategy, but with a lot of help from our active capacity teammates.

Robert Cox: That's very helpful. And I just want to follow up on the underlying loss ratio. So it picked up 100 basis points in the quarter, which was in line with comments for 2026 expectations. How should we think about some of this new business coming on from funds at Lloyd's, but also the -- and how might that affect the underlying loss ratio going forward?

Matthew Kirk: Yes. I would say the point a good barometer. We did guide that in Q4, and that's what we're seeing. And it will be around that for the year, and we will guide if that's different. But that's what we're seeing. Ryan Specialty, which is -- we signed up for last year, that was well within our estimations when we came up at that point. And this fall deals, these are no different, right? We are not taking different loss picks or different expectations. They need to meet our pricing hurdles. So I would say these should not change or would not change our overall estimation of where we're headed with our loss ratio.

Vincent Tizzio: And if -- Rob, if you look at the core components of the growth, of course, our core portfolio and our expanded classes, that's nearly 10-odd percent of the growth in the quarter. 6-odd percent of it short tail. We have a very good composite of what our loss ratio performance is -- we have the analytics to support that, the integrated underwriting model between claims and actuarial gives us confidence around that. But I think Matt is exactly right. I think what we guided to in the fourth quarter is where we'll end up at the end of 2026. In insurance ex cat.

Operator: And our next question comes from Elyse Greenspan with Wells Fargo.

Elyse Greenspan: My first question is just on the premium growth, I guess, away from ACS. So within insurance, I think you were guiding mid- to high single digits. I think it came in at high single digits, maybe even a little bit above. So how do you see, I guess, the core growth trending during the year relative to your prior guidance?

Matthew Kirk: Elyse, it's Matt. I don't think we're going to change anything. We guided on our underlying portfolio to low single digits, and that's what we're seeing. And we said our expanded lines would take us to high single digits. So at least no change to that. I think what we've highlighted is the ACS capability, which we also said would take us into the double digits, and that's still the case. And obviously, we have the FAO transactions, which is new this quarter, so we wanted to give guidance on that. But on the underlying, no changes.

Vincent Tizzio: Elyse, obviously, I agree with Matt. And we reserve, of course, the ability to come back in the course of the year. If we see massive changes against our assumption sets, not only in rate, but also the widening of terms and conditions. -- or expectations on limit grant we find unreasonable. You have seen and we have evidence to you and others an ability to reshape our portfolios comprehensively, thoughtfully and with a high degree of execution -- and I don't need to recount for you the number of portfolios that we've reshaped over the last 3 years. But I think that's exactly right.

With what we see today, we like the words that we guided in the fourth quarter, prevailing at the end of the first quarter of this year.

Elyse Greenspan: And then my second question is on capital. Buybacks did slow in the quarter. Obviously, growth did pick up, but how are you balancing, I guess, your view on growth versus potential share repurchases from here?

Matthew Kirk: Yes, Elyse, great. And as you know, I'm passionate about capital allocation. You hit it with 1 of your comments there. We are still growing -- we're comfortably growing and our capital is going to first support that. From a share repurchase perspective, let me just reframe we came up off 2025 with a really great opportunity to do some block trades returning $888 million. That was somewhat unusual. I would say our returns will normalize this year, but let me just call out in the 2025 repurchase program, we have capacity left that we're using now. We also management brought to the Board and received authorization for another $300 million.

And I would say the $60 million that you've seen in the Q1, I would not assign that to be a run rate we're going to be opportunistic, and you could see that tick up through the year. Finally, and this is just my personal view, where we're trading, I think, is a really great value opportunity to repurchase shares. And so it's something that we're going to obviously lean into once we first support our organic growth.

Operator: The next question is from Roland Mayor with RBC.

Rowland Mayor: Just to quickly follow up on Elyse's question on buybacks. Was there anything that restricted buybacks in January I was a bit surprised to see that month close to 0. I guess, Matt, you commented on not to run rate, but what February and March run rate would be a better way to think about it?

Vincent Tizzio: Roland, I'm going to start and ask Matt to come up to the top look, if you think about our prepared remarks, we're navigating the company in fairly turbulent environments in all manners of what that word can note. We're going to continue to execute with the stated buyback strategy that we've had, opportunistic. Matt and I have brought a more strategic focus to the order of opportunism. And I think if you were to look for a run rate I think there's a pretty clear sign that we wouldn't have gone to our Board for authorization. If we had conviction that we were fully valued or thought that we couldn't sustain the profitable growth journey that we've been on.

But we're going to remain disciplined. We're going to remain opportunistic, but we're also going to be mindful of all the different levers that we've been pulling. And I think when Matt detailed what we did in 2025, it's a pretty good barometer of looking at how we can execute, how we can mobilize -- and yes, of course, I agree that it was outsized. Matt, I apologize. Go ahead.

Matthew Kirk: No, no, nothing more to add, Roland. I think we hit it right there. So stay tuned, and we'll remain opportunistic.

Rowland Mayor: I appreciate that. I just wanted to pivot to the credit and surety reinsurance growth. It was up 50% year-over-year, and that sounded like several years of really strong growth there. Where is it growing now? And can you talk maybe a bit about the exposure in that business?

Vincent Tizzio: That's a great performing business for AXIS. It's historical, as you know. We have incredible teammates that have been leading that business. They are well tenured. Here, we simply grew shares with existing cedents. This was structured transactions that we are very adept at. The good news is they come from cedents that we know that we have historical loss experience and portfolio experience with. So we're very comfortable. I would not look at what they produced in the first quarter as the run rate for the full year. This is an outsized level of growth in the quarter. This group will continue to grow in 2026, but simply not at this order of magnitude.

Operator: The next question is from Josh Shanker with Bank of America.

Joshua Shanker: Hope you're having a good day. I want to comment the questions on capital return a little bit differently. In the budget for 2026, -- how much capital are you thinking you're going to need to deploy into the business in order to support the growth?

Matthew Kirk: Yes. I mean, tough to give really good tight guidance there. But I'd say round numbers, let's just call that about 50% supporting our growth.

Joshua Shanker: 50% of earnings generated this year will be needed to support the growth you're going to generate?

Matthew Kirk: Yes. I mean we don't -- that's broadly in line. Yes.

Joshua Shanker: And looking out into the like you do have most your plans, Obviously, we don't know what market conditions are going to be 1 year from now. But with your partners, you have commitments that are not just on a 1-year basis. Depending on market conditions, does that mean we should think over a 3-year period, normally, you're going to need to be putting about 50% of what you're generating into within a range, 30% to 70%, whatever, but into the business that -- or in 2027, can it be that you're not going to grow anymore and you might be able to return 100% of capital?

Vincent Tizzio: Josh, it's -- I'd love to be more explicit for you. This is Vince. Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to. The number of factors that are accounted for our capital strategy, you can only imagine. And so when you think about '26 and you think about our capital position, we're using a lot of our extra capital to grow the business. You've seen where we're growing it, how we're growing it. We have capital that's being allocated to our -- how -- we work investments in orders of technology and other set capabilities -- what I think Matt said is a good benchmark for '26.

I don't think we want to get into the 3-year plan and all of the component parts we can unfold more of that as the year shows itself. But we're going to remain agile. We're going to remain shareholder focused and most importantly, bottom line focused.

Operator: And the next question comes from Charlie Lederer with BMO Capital Markets.

Charles Lederer: So the operating leverage in insurance came through in the G&A ratio in a big way this quarter. Wondering if we just look at the absolute dollars there was flattish. Given some of the AI initiatives that you laid out, Vince, I'm assuming there's some increased tax spending. Just wondering what's offsetting that, if that's correct or if there's some other moving pieces in there?

Matthew Kirk: Yes. Look, it's Matt. I think it's a good question. We are pleased with where the expense ratio came in 10.7%, and we're guiding again 11% for the year. You're absolutely right, expenses year-over-year is relatively flat, and that does call in and shows the benefit of all the investments we've made in technology, including AI and where we're able to write a lot more high-quality business on the same expense base. So we've talked about it, and Vince has been talking about this for a couple of years, investing in our people, investing in our technology. We've been pounding that saying this is going to come through in our operational efficiency, and we're seeing it.

And we feel good about our landing coming in around 11%. Vince, do you want to add anything?

Vincent Tizzio: Charlie, I think that Matt covered it. The only thing I would say is we acknowledge the 1.3 point difference in GA in the Insurance segment in 1Q. But we're continuing to invest. You should not really mistake the language we shared with Yaron last year in the fourth quarter, we are not going to forsake investments in people, capability buildings in our claims organizations, operations, certainly, the body of work that Ana is now leading as our COO. We're going to continue to invest. We're going to make certain that the business cases can be justified and that Matt will certainly run point on that.

But I would look at us more as an 11% GA company at the end of this year.

Charles Lederer: And then on the net to gross written premium ratios we saw some fairly larger moves in both insurance even when excluding sale and in reinsurance. Can you break those down and some of this permanent or is there some other onetime noise in there.

Matthew Kirk: Yes. There's a lot of noise. And I think you're going to see, particularly on insurance, the trend reversed to normalize. But let me just call out. What you're seeing in Q1 is our net written premium growth was 24% and higher than the 20% on gross, and that is somewhat unusual. Two things in the quarter. The FAO transactions, as you said, come net to us, so we have no reinsurance on that. That's roughly 2 points and we did retain more of our A&H business that relates to our pet business, reducing that quota share. So that's 2 items in the quarter.

We also have some noise year-over-year -- last year, in Q2, we reduced our quota shares on excess and LMM and that really is falling through and is not comparable to this first quarter this year. So that is some year-over-year noise. You're going to get to the end of the year, and this will reverse and you'll see that pattern reverse completely. On the reinsurance side, you're absolutely right. You're seeing large decreases in net written roughly 13 points, that compares to our gross down 2 points.

That's quite intentional where we've guided that we're focused on reducing our sessions in GLPL -- and we're also -- I'm sorry, reducing our writings in GLPL and we've also increased our sessions to our third-party capital providers. So that trend will continue throughout the rest of the year.

Charles Lederer: And if I could just squeeze 1 last 1 in. We saw some industry loss estimates for the Baltimore Bridge get from a few years ago. move up this year. Are you guys fully reserved there? And how should we think about that?

Matthew Kirk: Yes, it is a tragedy. So let me just give you a quick answer and then maybe allow me a few minutes to talk about it a little further. So in the quarter, we didn't have to move our loss reserves. We were conservatively picked, and we did have a small amount of reinstatements that we're going to need to pay. I think the broader point here is when I was thinking about coming to Access and speaking events he told us our reserves are conservatively test -- and then in my first 4 or 5 months here, are working with our actuarial team, I've seen that in action.

And this is a perfect case where we really did not have any movements in our loss reserves. The increase in the expected industry loss was not a surprise to us, and it shows again that when it comes to loss picks, we're going to be conservative and really mine the books and only take good news when we have we're sure on it. So just overall, no movements in Baltimore bridge other than reinstatement premiums that we're pleased to report.

Operator: And our next question comes from Andre Giselle with Mizuho.

Unknown Analyst: Are Andre representing on Kinar here. My first question is about top line growth in insurance. There is some investment concerns surrounding the accelerated top line growth in insurance in the face of some market softening and MGA competition. how would you address those concerns over the long-term profitability of new added business?

Vincent Tizzio: Andre, Vince. Again, we place bottom line ahead of top line. I would encourage you to look at where we grew. If you look at our core business, that grew sub-5%. Our expanded classes, which we've detailed for you over the last couple of years, grew some 7-odd percent, almost 7.5%, 7%, excuse me, and the balance came from ACS, where Matt really detailed the alignment of economic interests that we assure ourselves. I want to conclude by saying we will not grow for the sake of growing.

We will grow guided by our 2 principles of diluted book value per share growth for the company but in our risk to risk business, achieving risk-adjusted returns that meet our hurdle rates, which we've detailed. And in part, this is exactly why I said to Elyse, if we think the market turns in a particular way that starts to prevent that -- we will sum in the same coverage we have over the many years in reshaping our portfolio.

But the combination of investments that we've taken over the last 3 years gives us confidence at the moment that we can continue to grow our expanded classes have moderate to nominal growth in our core portfolio and selective growth in our ACS portfolio.

Operator: And the next question comes from Meyer Shields with KBW.

Unknown Analyst: Can you hear me?

Vincent Tizzio: No. No, we can, Meyer. Can you kindly restate what you were saying?

Unknown Analyst: This is Scott on for Meyer. My question is on your prepared remarks on cyber insurance. You talked about remaining cautious and you've pulled back cyber exposure over the last couple of quarters and years. growth did pick up this quarter. So I'm wondering are you seeing more adequate pricing even though rates are down. And then kind of follow-up to that with recent developments in AI, such as opcos model. Does that change how you guys have approached Reading Cyber in terms of terms and conditions? And then do you think there's going to be a shift in the industry overall?

Vincent Tizzio: I didn't catch your first name. So I apologize, but I would acknowledge that $6 million of growth in the insurance segment is relatively flat when you think about the scale of the business. So we have a very cautious eye. And in the aggregate, our company downsized our cyber writings and you accurately accounted for the sizing of the business over the last couple of years. with specific reference to the impact of Mythos and Anthropic. For us, it is another example of the humility that we take to this class, how vulnerability in the security protocols of companies are facing yet another challenge, another challenge.

Mythos makes the challenge more difficult as it's been well chronicled than a number of the articles that have been written, the ability for the perpetration of identifying the vulnerabilities without massive human capital now done through the AI tool exacerbates and makes more difficult in our judgment, the middle market and the small commercial concern.

You may recall from prior calls, AXIS and its underwriting focus has steered its attention to the large account segment, betting on the hygiene standards that we bring generally to the underwriting process of cyber in reliance on the financial wherewithal to have the said tools and capabilities that meet this emerging exposure that is only being deepened by anthropics tool provided the threat actors become in the possession of it and are able to weaponize it. Equally, we have a partnership with Alpha Secure. We're a proud supporter of our partnership there. We have a financial interest in that organization as well. They are helping us prosecute our middle market strategy.

Importantly, they have the said capabilities at risk diagnosis that extend beyond the underwriting process at the renewals. So we have surveillance abilities throughout the policy period. Net-net, Axis has a cautious view -- you could see that materially in the downsizing of our reinsurance cyber portfolio. You can see that largely in our insurance portfolio, I would not characterize $6 million as meaningful growth. And I would also point to we're cautioned broadly around the risk/reward. So to answer the end part of your question, we think this class should be repriced.

We think there's enough ingredients in the loss environment -- there's enough reason for caution to be extended, limits management to be extended, all the ingredients that we think at AXIS were executing. Hopefully, that addresses your question.

Unknown Analyst: Yes. Great. And then my second question is on the Middle East conflict. Matt talked about how about 1/3 of cat losses came stemming from the Middle East conflict. Has the conflict provided any opportunities in terms of rate increases for the lines affected? Or is it those the conflict kind of caused you guys to be cautious with those risks?

Vincent Tizzio: I would say modest, but I would feel remiss if I didn't congratulate my underwriting teams out of London that have been completely all over it, and they're very noted practitioners in the marketplace, and I would reason with you globally. So I'm very proud of how they have been navigating very uncertain times. So we've had selective and modest writings since the war was announced. We remain very interactive with our third-party consultants for vision on the ground in terms of our risk profile. We know exactly where our exposures are. We put up a provision of $15 million thoughtfully. We do expect, as time proceeds, some increase in that number.

We don't think it's outsized with the available information we have today. But we're very encouraged by what we've been analyzing, reviewing, and we think that what we've picked is a proper measurement. Matt, if you want to come over the top?

Matthew Kirk: Yes. I would just say this was great for me to see the exposure management team at work. I mean the moment this conflict picked up our team mobilized. We have a great understanding of our limits our exposures. We came up with the $15 million based upon that, based upon notices we've received based upon advisers we have on the ground. And so $15 million is a round number. Could it increase, as Vince said, Sure, it could, but we feel very comfortable as we have a great understanding of our limited exposures.

Operator: And the next question comes from Andrew Anderson with Jefferies.

Unknown Analyst: This is Charlie on for Andrew. So my first question is just on insurance. How sensitive is the loss ratio there to further deterioration in property pricing? And how does that compare to how you guys are thinking about loss trend and reserve adequacy on the long tail side.

Vincent Tizzio: So Charlie, this is Vince. How sensitive. I'm not sure how to answer that other than to say, we know the collars of orders of rate change that would change our view of risk and our underlying loss ratio assumption. I'm not going to stipulate to what that is exactly. But I think it's the right question that would give confidence to our investors that we're not looking at the achievement of the gross line indifferent to both our loss picks, the mix of the business that's coming in or our net retention. And so will we, at an appropriate time, signal should rate deterioration extend beyond a point of tolerance most assuredly. How will you see that reflected?

You'll see it as you've seen it in other classes, Charlie, by way of memory, primary casualty, public D&O, delegated cyber, we will begin to reshape those portfolios quickly and with earnestness. Hopefully, that gives you help on the question.

Unknown Analyst: Yes. Yes, for sure. And then just a quick follow-up kind of along that line. It looks like the paid to incurred kind of dropped a little bit relative to where it was trending in the past few quarters. Is there anything -- I mean, would you guys attribute that mostly to like timing or cat experience versus how much of that reflects changes in underlying claims development patterns.

Vincent Tizzio: I think we're going to tag team this. Let me go ahead, Matt.

Matthew Kirk: Yes. So look, we're well aware of the attention that this data point gets. And we'll say the same thing now when the time that the ratio is trending lower as we did when it was trending higher. It's 1 data point of many that we look at our portfolio and held by itself, it's not a good metric. So you're seeing it improve on insurance. You're seeing it on improved on reinsurance. That's good news, but it will continue to be volatile. And we, as an organization, look at a number of metrics to manage and understand these relationships. So I'll just leave there Vince anything to add.

Vincent Tizzio: I think you covered it right. We've unpacked reasons why we think that ratio by itself is not very indicative of much. I think you've fashioned the reason for that. There's lots of reasons it could move. But we're comfortable with where it is balanced against our other indices, which we've outlined in the past that have really involved claims expectancy, reserve adequacy and many other factors, but I'll leave it there, Charlie.

Operator: And this concludes today's question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Vince Tizzio, CEO, for any closing remarks.

Vincent Tizzio: Thank you, operator. Thank you all for your time and your questions today. We appreciate it. I want to extend sincere appreciation to all of our AXIS colleagues for their earnest effort, our shareholders and customers for your belief and conviction in our company -- we earn your trust each day with confidence and responsibility. We look forward to reporting our progress at the 2Q mark and look forward to chatting with all of you in the interim. Thank you.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.