TWFG Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
March 20, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • TWFG delivered a 18.4% revenue increase in 2024, reaching $203.8 million, with adjusted EBITDA up 44.7% to $45.3 million, underscoring strong organic growth and margin expansion.
  • The company completed its IPO in July 2024, raising $192.9 million in net proceeds to fund acquisitions, geographic expansion and technology investments.
  • In 2024 TWFG added 144 new retail locations across 15 states (now 520 locations in 34 states) and grew total written premium 18.3% year-over-year to $1.5 billion.
  • Fourth-quarter revenue grew 30.8% (20.5% organically) with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 26.8%, boosted by higher contingent commissions and timing of public company costs.
  • For full-year 2025, TWFG targets $235–250 million in revenue, organic growth of 11–16% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 19–21%, driven by disciplined M&A, geographic expansion and tech enhancements.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
TWFG Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning. My name is Didi, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the TWFG Fourth Quarter 2024 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then one one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, 11 again. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay on the company's website. Before we begin, let me remind you that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those discussed. For more information regarding forward-looking statements, please refer to the company's press releases and SEC filings.

Operator

Also, on today's call, our speakers will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe will provide useful information for investors. The company has posted reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed during this call in the tables accompanying the company's earnings press release, located on the investor section of the company's website at www.twfg.com. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Gordy Bunch, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of TWFG. Sir, the floor is yours.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Thank you, Operator.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you taking time to join us today to discuss TWFG's fourth quarter and full year 2024 results. Joining me on the call is Janice Zwinggi, our Chief Financial Officer. After my remarks, Janice will review our financial results in detail, and then we'll open up the call for your questions. I want to start by thanking our employees, agents, clients, and business partners for their ongoing support. TWFG continues to establish itself as one of the fastest-growing independent insurance distribution platforms, with industry-leading organic growth and margin expansion. Our model provides agents with cutting-edge tools, technology, and operational support, ensuring they succeed in an evolving insurance landscape. Before we dive into our 2024 results, I want to briefly acknowledge the January 2025 wildfires that caused significant devastation in parts of Los Angeles.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

These events are a stark reminder of evolving catastrophic risk and its impact on reinsurance pricing. While TWFG does not bear direct balance sheet exposure, we are closely monitoring reinsurance market trends and carrier responses. We remain confident in our ability to adapt to changing conditions, ensuring our agents have access to stable and competitive capacity in key markets. Before diving into our fourth quarter results, I want to highlight TWFG's strong performance in 2024. Total revenue for the year grew by 18.4% to $203.8 million, with organic revenue growth of 14.5%, reflecting both sustained momentum in new business production and strategic expansion efforts. Adjusted EBITDA increased 44.7% to $45.3 million, demonstrating the scalability of our platform and operational efficiencies. 2024 was a transformational year for TWFG. We successfully completed our IPO in July, raising $192.9 million in net proceeds.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

This capital provides us with significant flexibility to accelerate growth through acquisitions, expanding geographically, and investing in technology to enhance agent productivity and client experiences. We have been focused on growing our national footprint, and in 2024, TWFG expanded into 15 new states and added 144 new retail locations, bringing our total to 520 retail locations across 34 states. In addition, our MGA now supports agents across 42 states at year-end. Total written premium for 2024 reached $1.5 billion, an 18.3% increase year over year, reinforcing our ability to drive growth in both our retail and wholesale channels. As we continue to enhance agent productivity through technology and strategic acquisitions, we remain confident in our ability to sustain high levels of organic growth. It is important to note that locations take time to mature and contribute meaningfully to revenue and profitability.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Historically, it takes two to three years for new agencies to reach profitability and longer to realize their full growth potential. We remain committed to supporting our new locations to ensure long-term success. Our M&A strategy continues to be a core part of our growth plan. As we evaluate M&A opportunities, our focus remains on acquiring high-quality agencies that align with our culture and strategic vision. While acquisitions will be a key driver of long-term growth, we are maintaining financial discipline, prioritizing organic expansion, technology investments, and balance sheet flexibility. We remain committed to keeping leverage within a prudent range, ensuring financial strength as we scale. Technology is at the core of TWFG's differentiated approach. Our constant investment in technology, combined with our Agency-in-a-Box model, equips agents with enhanced client engagement tools and management tools.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

From a market perspective, we are seeing stabilization in carrier appetites and improvement in loss ratios, which have opened up new opportunities for growth. Carriers are once again accepting new business in areas where capacity had been previously constrained. While this presents an opportunity for growth, we remain mindful of the importance of diversification and maintaining flexibility in our strategy. As Janice will discuss, TWFG delivered a strong financial result for the fourth quarter, highlighted by 30.8% total revenue growth compared to the prior period, 20.5% organic revenue growth driven by increased new business production and higher premium rates, and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 26.8%, reflecting margin expansion from the economies of scale and our efficient operating model. Our Q4 margin outperformance was primarily due to higher contingent commission income and a timing-related delay in certain public company expenses.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

We expect a normalized adjusted EBITDA margin in 2025, reflecting our long-term operating efficiency targets. We continue to focus on scaling our platform while optimizing cost structures to drive sustainable margin expansion over time. Looking ahead, our priorities remain clear. We will continue integrating recent and future acquisitions and supporting the growth of our new locations. We will focus on expanding geographically while enhancing our technology and agent support systems. We will be disciplined in capital allocation as we pursue both organic and acquisition-driven growth. These efforts position TWFG for continued success in 2025 and beyond. Now I'll turn it over to Janice to provide more detail in our financial performance.

Janice Zwinggi
Janice Zwinggi
CFO at TWFG

Thank you, Gordy, and good morning, everyone. We will start with the top line written premium, which increased by $60 million, or 20% over the prior year period, to $361.4 million. Within our primary offerings, insurance services grew $51.3 million, or 20%, and the MGA grew $8.6 million, or 19.2%, over the prior year period. This growth was driven by a combination of new business acceleration and normalized retention levels. During the fourth quarter of 2024, we saw a healthy uptick in written premium, new business growth of 45%, or $27 million over the prior year period, as well as renewal business growth of 14%, or $33 million over the prior year period, within both of our product offerings. We have also maintained steady retention levels of 91% quarter over quarter.

Janice Zwinggi
Janice Zwinggi
CFO at TWFG

Drivers of the growth were primarily due to higher premium rates, written premiums from our 2023 acquisitions rolling into the current year, and new business growth as carriers opened up for new business in regions where they had previously restricted growth. Going to revenues, our total revenues increased $12.2 million, or 30.8%, over the prior year period, to $51.7 million. The increase of 30.8% was mainly due to commission income, representing 18.9% of the total growth, contingent income representing 10% of the growth, and fee income representing 1.9% of the remaining total growth. Commission income increased $7.5 million, or 20.7%, over the prior year period, to $43.7 million, driven by higher premium rates, accelerating new business activity, solid economic growth in our core states, and the rollout of our 2023 book of business acquisitions into the current period.

Janice Zwinggi
Janice Zwinggi
CFO at TWFG

The insurance services offering increased 19% over the prior year period and represented 16.1% of the total increase. The MGA offering saw growth of 29.5% over the prior year period and represented 4.6% of the total growth. Contingent income increased $3.9 million, or 371%, over the prior year period, to $5 million, benefiting from loss ratio improvements late in the year and continued growth in total written premium. Fee income was up $0.8 million, or 39.8%, to $2.8 million, primarily due to higher policy counts and increased new business through our marketing activities, with $0.6 million coming from the TWICO program in our MGA offering. Organic revenues increased $8.8 million, reaching $43.6 million for an organic growth rate of 20.5%, driven by rate increases and strong new business growth. Turning to expenses, there are some key considerations here due to the acquisition of nine of our independent branches.

Janice Zwinggi
Janice Zwinggi
CFO at TWFG

These branches were previously part of our Agency-in-a-Box model but have now been converted into corporate branches, which shifted costs from commission expense to salary and benefits. Commission expense increased $2.9 million, or 11.2%, over the prior year period, to $28.9 million. The increase represents, one, a $5.1 million increase related to the growth of business, offset by a $2.2 million decrease related to the branch conversions, of which $2.1 million shifted to salary and benefits. Total salary and employee benefits increased by $3.8 million, or 97.8%, over the prior year period, to $7.7 million. This was driven by a $2.1 million increase from the branch conversion shift from commission expense, a $0.5 million increase related to the 2023 corporate store asset acquisitions, and a $1.2 million increase from the RSUs issued in conjunction with the IPO.

Janice Zwinggi
Janice Zwinggi
CFO at TWFG

Other administrative expenses increased $2 million, or 69.9%, over the prior year period, to $5 million. This increase was mainly due to public company costs, including professional fees and consulting services, representing $1.2 million, or 40%, of the total increase, and the remaining increase of $0.9 million, or 29.9%, was driven by the continued growth of our business and branch conversions. Amortization and depreciation increased $1.5 million, or 101%, to $3.1 million, driven by amortization of intangibles from branch conversions and the 2023 corporate store asset acquisitions. Net income for the quarter was $8.2 million, a $2.9 million, or 56.3%, increase over the prior year period.

Janice Zwinggi
Janice Zwinggi
CFO at TWFG

On an adjusted basis, net income increased $3.8 million, or 57.2%, over the prior year period, to $10.5 million, including an increase in income of $2.9 million, increase in stock-based compensation of $1.2 million, increase in amortization expense related to acquisitions and branch conversions of $2.9 million, offset by a $3.1 million increase in tax expense on an adjusted net income. EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA were strong at $10.2 million and $13.8 million, respectively, representing growth of 91.7% for adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 26.8% compared to 18.3% in the prior year period. This expansion was driven by overall growth but also benefited from outsized contingent commission and investment income, somewhat offset by the ongoing ramp-up of public company costs, which we expect to normalize over the next few quarters. With that, I will turn it back to Gordy.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Thank you, Janice. Before we open the call for questions, I want to reiterate how proud we are of the progress TWFG has made over the past year. Our strong fourth-quarter performance capped off a transformational year in which we executed on our IPO, expanded into new states, and strengthened our platform through both organic growth and strategic acquisitions. As we move into 2025, we remain focused on executing our strategy, expanding our national footprint, enhancing agent support, and maintaining financial discipline while pursuing both organic and acquisition-driven growth. The investments we are making today are building a strong foundation for long-term success. We began 2025 acquiring two new corporate locations in Ohio and Texas. The new locations are in line with our acquisition expectations for revenue and EBITDA. Our robust pipeline provides us many quality acquisition targets to achieve the remainder of our 2025 M&A goals.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Our M&A models included beginning 2025 with acquiring $3 million of revenue and $700,000 of EBITDA, with an additional $20 million of revenue and $5 million of EBITDA being acquired with a mid-year convention. For the full year 2025, we expect total revenue to be between $235 million and $250 million, with organic revenue growth in the range of 11%-16%. This growth will be driven by our expanding distribution network, deepening carrier relationships, and favorable industry trends. We also anticipate an adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 19%-21%, reflecting our commitment to operational efficiency while continuing to invest in future growth. We are confident in our ability to drive a strong performance in 2025 and beyond, leveraging our scale and deep industry expertise to create long-term value. With that, we'd be happy to take your questions. Operator, please open the line.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Tommy McJoynt of KBW. Your line is open.

Operator

Hi, this is Dean on for Tommy. What kind of EBITDA multiples are you guys seeing in the acquisitions that you have in your pipeline, and how has that competition for those acquisitions trended compared to the prior quarter?

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

The prior quarter, we did not have any acquisitions. 2024 was a pencils-down year for us, so not going to have a trend over prior quarter. We're seeing on the smaller revenue-sized transactions, you're looking at 9x-10x EBITDA. On larger revenue transactions, you're going to see 10x-12x EBITDA range. When you get into the micro-sized producer portfolios, you're now dealing in multiples of revenue rather than EBITDA, and those range between one and a half to three times revenue, which can be a five to seven to nine times EBITDA conversion. Hope that's helpful.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Yeah, very helpful. Thank you. My follow-up. You obviously did a lot of onboarding of new branches in the second half of last year. I was just hoping for an update about how the new business has sort of trended versus your expectations and if there's been any churn in that business as well.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Yeah. I think we mentioned on previous calls, it takes several years for newly onboarded scratch agencies to really hit any meaningful production. They are not really driving any of the results in 2024. They will have a modest contribution in 2025 and more so in 2026. There has not been a lot of churn of the onboarded agents. It takes a while for them to get their footing. There may be some consolidation of agents that are in proximity to each other for efficiencies. They may merge locations and end up being one location instead of three. We see that occurring. As far as it goes right now, it is too early to tell a real trend off of those newly onboarded agents.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike Zaremski of BMO. Your line is open.

Operator

Hey, good morning. This is Charlie. I'm for Mike. My first question is on the organic growth guidance of 11%-16%. Healthy levels, for sure. I guess just a little bit of a wide range, especially since we're almost through the first quarter. Can you kind of talk us through the one or two biggest variables that could cause organic growth to swing in either direction? Thanks.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Sure. I'll point out a couple of variables. First, on private passenger auto, we're seeing a moderation on rate in 2025. There's also the potential that may shift upward given the concerns about the impacts of tariffs on materials and parts for the private passenger auto repair. There could be, if there's any realization of increased loss costs, that could put pressure on carriers to go back to a little more aggressive rate increase, which would swing the organic up. If things stay where they're at right now, we're kind of in that midpoint of the range that we've provided.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Conversely, if there's continuation of historically profitable business and carriers choose to lean into growth, that could end up with a rate decrease, which we're not predicting that to occur, but we have to put that out there as it is a possibility that if carriers sustain their fourth-quarter results and lean into growth, then that could create that circumstance. That's where you get that range. On the property side of the equation, you still have capacity constraints in some geographies. It is starting to soften across a broader part of the United States. Out west, as we're all acutely aware, California still doesn't have stabilization in the property market. That tends to drive more business into the California FAIR Plan, which has less favorable economics. We have secured numerous secondary and tertiary property providers to give our agents access to stable capacity.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

That rating or pricing that California FAIR Plan has could undermine the natural market. Looking for California FAIR Plan to hopefully get some rate discipline and have some rate increases of their own, and that could have another secondary impact. As we get into reinsurance renewal cycles, the six-month and seven-month, we're hearing the moderation and not a great impact expected. As we all know, things happen, and so we're always cautiously optimistic, and that's why we give you the high and the low range of what could impact ultimately rates that then flow into our commission revenues.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Got it. Thank you. On the EBITDA margin guidance, you mentioned the public company costs being pushed out or, I guess, delayed. Was that a push-out? Did you guys push out the costs, or is it just they did not? I guess is there extra costs in the 2025 guidance?

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

If we think through the margin comparisons of 2024 versus 2025, first of all, we were only public for half of the year of 2024. We did not have the full public D&O expense, the increased audit expenses that come post-IPO, and additional legal expenses that are public company related. There is a little bit of a blend. If you look at the full year 2024, and if you were to add some of those expenses on an annualized basis, that would have brought the 2024 margin down to where it is at today. We may be aggressively estimating forward cost in 2025 just to be conservative. We want to make sure that we put out a very thoughtful guidance that is achievable. There could be some margin upside if we overestimated those impacts. That is why there is a variance. That is similar.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

You didn't ask, but I'll volunteer. Our EBITDA margin for 2024 was benefited by an outsized 2024 contingent revenue that came in, largely due to the fourth-quarter performance, which most of the public companies reported as their best fourth quarter as far as anybody can remember. We did benefit by that. We're not using the full repeated EBITDA for 2025. If loss ratios from our large trading partners stay where they ended the year and where they're currently at, there could be EBITDA upside on the contingent revenue again in 2025. We felt it was a little bit too early in the year to try to bake that into guidance. As we get through the year, if we start seeing that the trend line continues, then we may update the guidance as it becomes clearer to us, and that could provide us EBITDA margin upside.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

The other piece of our equation, and I know it's not a question yet, but I'll preempt it, on the M&A guidance or the M&A we put out in the earnings release. When we talk about the early year, we did close the two transactions at the beginning of January 1st. We have LOIs that are signed and are looking for some second-quarter closings that would get us ahead of the actual model. The base model of $20 million of additional revenue acquired and $5 million of additional EBITDA acquired, the mid-year convention meant that we were closing those transactions on June 30. In 2025's guidance, that's only showing $10 million of revenue and $2.5 million of acquired EBITDA addition to the current forward forecast.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

I know we're going to get a lot of questions about M&A, but I just wanted to put it out there that the forward guidance did not include the full annualized $20 million of acquired revenue and $5 million of EBITDA. It was half of that in the 2025 guidance. We do have a robust pipeline that gives us confidence in what we put out in guidance being achieved. There are several potential transactions in our pipeline that would put us into significantly exceeding that guidance. Our culture is to provide guidance in what we believe is achievable and in line of sight. We didn't want to give you the burden of the bush versus the burden of the hand view.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

We will update as things materialize, but there is additional margin upside on the M&A coming in at a faster pace or in larger sizes than what we currently put into the model.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Thank you. That was super helpful. If I could just sneak in one more on the contingent outlook or contingent commission outlook, are those all based on all-in loss ratios or underlying loss ratios, I guess, as we think about that for 2025?

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

With the number of markets we deal with, there's no one answer on how contingencies are calculated. Many of them are on a portfolio-wide basis. Some of those are isolated to, I'll just say, one particular national market is the entire country with the exclusion of California. It has its own separate calculation from the rest of the country. Some carriers have down to the actual location level incentives and bonuses, which then isolate their portfolio, and then the result comes from how that individual portfolio achieved for the full calendar year. We do have some fixed-based bonus opportunities where it's more driven by revenue growth or PIF count growth, retention metrics that can give you kickers, and being in certain bands within their organization of size.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

I know that's not the clearest answer, but when it comes to variable comp contingencies, they really run the gamut of metrics, which makes it very hard to estimate with any accuracy. We do get a much clearer line of sight to what we expect when you get through the third quarter. Usually, the larger markets in October provide us with lock-in options if we are what we consider to be in the money. That means that our loss ratio and growth metrics are achieving a bonus through the first nine months. We then have the optionality of locking in that bonus metric for a discounted contingency. We do take a haircut on the ultimate payout for that guaranteeing the outcome. That does not become clear until we get into October and sometimes early November before the carriers provide us that information.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Thanks, Gordy.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

To give you a little bit more flavor, 2024 came in at 0.59% of premium as far as the contingent received. Right now, in our forecast, we're using 0.45%. If we were just to use the same metric from 2024, that would drop down to our bottom line and our EBITDA margin projections would be higher. Again, we prefer to be conservative until we have more definitive information that shows that as the future outcome.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Meredith of UBS. Your line is open.

Brian Meredith
Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS

Yeah. Thanks. A couple of ones here for you, Gordy. First one, is it possible to give us what Agency-in-a-box kind of written premium growth would have looked like maybe fourth quarter 2024 if we adjust for the ones that became corporate branches? Just to kind of get a kind of decent organic written premium growth run rate there.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

I believe Janice might be able to parse that out for you.

Brian Meredith
Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS

I mean, I can wait on that. That's fine. You got it?

Janice Zwinggi
Janice Zwinggi
CFO at TWFG

Yeah. For the quarter, Agency-in-a-Box was 18.4% growth.

Brian Meredith
Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS

Perfect.

Janice Zwinggi
Janice Zwinggi
CFO at TWFG

Without branch, that's excluding branch conversions.

Brian Meredith
Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS

Perfect. That's what I'm looking for. Thank you. The second one, Gordy, you talked a little bit about California. What about Florida? We're hearing that business is being transferred out of Citizens. Is that going to be a potential tailwind for you all in 2025 as this stuff goes from Citizens into the regular market?

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Florida is an opportunity for expansion for us. We have been intentionally small in Florida. Pre-AOB litigation legislation reform, Florida was a very volatile state. We're dealing with repetitive and numerous insolvencies. The stability there just didn't exist. Post-AOB legislation, the frequency of claims and litigated filing on homeowners' losses substantially shrunk. We are starting to see, to your point, citizen takeout startup markets. We are looking out east for opportunities in Florida now where in the past we had been avoiding the state. I do think that's an opportunity.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

On the downsides, I saw legislation filed in Florida, I think earlier this week, where they're trying to put back in some litigation rights for consumers, which I'm not sure if that'll go through, given that they've only been living underneath the new rules that is softening the market, benefiting consumers for the last really year and a half, two years. We are looking out at Florida. There's a number of different opportunities for us in that space. Our MGA side could look at programs, could look at partnering with some of these new reciprocal takeouts or even stock company takeouts for distribution and underwriting. I do think Florida does have potential upside for TWFG in 2025. Nothing that's materialized yet, but we are certainly open now to Florida where in the past we had been avoiding them.

Brian Meredith
Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS

Gotcha. That's great. I think you briefly mentioned your comments. Maybe you can talk a little bit about the MGA opportunity in California post the fires, kind of how you're thinking about that.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

That's an evolution. I think it really is coming down to the wildfire exposures, confidence in wildfire models, reinsurance support around the new modeling that's being created. We've been fortunate to partner with others that have already created surplus lines, homeowners' capacity. I don't know that we're going to be looking at rolling out a program in California, given that we've had a number of strategic partners initiate their own. They've already gotten the paper. They've already gotten the reinsurance, and they're already underway writing. If we feel like capacity is going to get constrained, then we might look at creating a product that wraps around the California FAIR Plan. I mentioned earlier, California FAIR Plan is becoming like Florida Citizens and Louisiana Citizens in their hardest markets where they're writing a disproportionate amount of the business.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

I don't know if California plans to initiate rate changes within the California FAIR Plan, but that undermines the natural marketplace, which makes it harder to create a viable program if your competition's the state. We do have good, viable national markets that are still taking in new business. We do have secondary and tertiary markets that are supporting the peripheral of those risks in high-hazard places, low-hazard places, and across a broad spectrum of coverage A sizes. At this point, we're okay, but we do have that muscle to flex if necessary to come in with a market. We do need to have more competent wildfire modeling tools to entice in the reinsurers and the paper to enter that marketplace.

Brian Meredith
Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS

Great. Thank you.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Yep.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Pablo Singzon of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Operator

Hey, guys. This is Judson on for Pablo. I thought maybe just we could first drill back down on the agency growth. I know you guys mentioned that the new agencies weren't exactly driving any results in 2024. I guess first, maybe could you clarify if you mean from a premium perspective or profitability? If it's the latter, what the contribution may be from first-year agencies is in 2024 to premiums? Thanks.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Good question. I don't have contributions of premium from the newly onboarded agents on hand. I can provide that to you and Pablo on our subsequent one-on-one. I would put it back to not significant. When you onboard a new agency that has no existing premium, they're starting from scratch. They're going through an onboarding process. In 2024, if you recall, a disproportionate number of these agencies came from a singular carrier that had been prior captive that allowed them to contract with us. They had a foot in two camps. Part of their portfolio was being non-renewed, and the other part of their portfolio was being retained by their incumbent market. The timing of those non-renewals was not equal across all the geography we expanded into. Some of those states that we onboarded have not yet started their non-renewal process.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

For the most part, those newly onboarded agencies have not contributed much yet. Those earlier states that had already started a non-renewal process have made more progress in being productive, if that's beneficial.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Yep. Thank you very much. I guess just second, CapEx was a little bit elevated. I guess maybe could you just talk about what exactly you all were investing into in the fourth quarter and how 2024's results in that line item might compare to what you think of as run rate capital investment into the business going forward?

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Sure. The largest part of the CapEx for 2024 was relocation into our new facilities. We had been located in the same office for 20 years. If you go back and look at our prior CapEx, we did not have a lot because we had been in the same-aged facility for so long. We moved our home office in the fourth quarter. That CapEx was tied to that, the new facilities, new technology, new infrastructure to support us as a public company going forward. We have some CapEx in 2025 that is the expansion of our facilities in the Philippines, allowing us to onboard additional virtual assistants to help our retail agencies control labor costs within their environment and provide overflow support, also back office support in the Philippines. Our current facility in the Philippines is at capacity, which is great. That means we have strong demand for those services.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

We will have a little bit of CapEx for the Philippines expansion. We will have some CapEx in 2025 going into technology. We do know there are several initiatives we have around automation. There will be some CapEx looking at developing in those tools, the integration with several different workflow optimizations that we can achieve through some technology investment. I would put it at probably less than what you saw in the fourth quarter for the full year 2025.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We have a follow-up from Mike Zaremski of BMO. Your line is open.

Operator

Hey. This is Charlie on for Mike again. I just have one quick question. As far as the new agents kind of consolidating a little bit, how long do you see that taking to get resolved over time? Thanks.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

I think we'll have that pretty well ironed out through 2025. What occurs is with the mass onboarding we had last year, these producers and agents from that one carrier all endeavored to try to own their own separate location or operate their own separate location. The ones that were smaller in scale are now realizing that it's more efficient for them to partner with one of their peers and consolidate. We saw a little bit of that in 2024. I would anticipate seeing more of that in 2025. Beyond that calendar year, I do not think that would be a continuation. Most of the folks that are starting to hit a stride and getting their foundation or their feet on solid foundation, they'll stay in their own individual locations.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Just as a reminder, the number of locations is not something that we look at as a metric. If you go back multiple calendar years, our double-digit organic growth was achieved with the same store count we had for almost three years straight. We are going to continually have out of our existing Agency-in-a-Box stores, agents retire, those portfolios consolidate into other existing Agency-in-a-Box stores. You may see some fluctuation in total store count, but the portfolios are all remaining with the company, and it does not change our outlook on the organic growth going forward.

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to Gordy Bunch for closing remarks.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Thank you, Didi, and thank you all for participating in today's call. I just want to recap. We had an inflection point in our business last year. Really can't say enough about the team that helped us not just get through the IPO, which is a task into itself, but also to sustain our trajectory of growth in a historic period of time for this organization. I appreciate all of my executive team, all of our managers, all of our agents, all of our producers that work within our agencies, all of our CSRs, all the admins that are answering the phones, and all of our carriers that have come alongside us to partner to allow us to have this opportunity to help in insurance distribution in a way that didn't exist a quarter of a century ago when we created the company. I am extremely proud of the results.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

Look forward to following up with those that had follow-up questions and invite you to our we have our annual meeting. Remind me the date for the annual meeting. We haven't put that out yet. May 20th.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

28th.

Gordy Bunch
Gordy Bunch
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at TWFG

May 28th is our annual meeting. It's going to be virtual this year. We'll provide details in the future, but for anybody who wanted to mark their calendars, that's when you tend to have our annual meeting. I appreciate everybody's interest and look forward to a great 2025. That's all I have.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.

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