Brown & Brown Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
April 29, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • In Q1, revenues rose 11.6% year‐over‐year to $1.404 billion with 6.5% organic growth, EBITDAC margin expanding 110 bps to 38.1%, and EPS up 13.2% to $1.29.
  • Management completed 13 acquisitions adding about $36 million of annualized revenues, and reports a strong M&A pipeline supported by a robust balance sheet and cash flow.
  • Rates in the catastrophe property market fell 10%–25% in Q1 and are expected to decline 10%–30% in Q2 amid ample capital, creating headwinds for cat property segments.
  • Other lines saw continued rate momentum, with admitted and non‐admitted P&C rates up 2%–7%, excess casualty up 5%–10%, and U.S. employee benefits pricing rising 7%–9%, bolstering premium growth.
  • Executives note a stable but cautious economic backdrop—tariffs, inflation, and interest‐rate uncertainty may temper investment timing, yet broad diversification positions the firm to capture traditional‐level growth.
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Earnings Conference Call
Brown & Brown Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Brown and Brown Inc. First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. Please note that certain information discussed during this call, including information contained in the slide presentation posted in connection with this call and including answers given in response to your question may relate to future results or end events or otherwise before looking in nature. Such statements reflect our current views with respect to future events, including those relating to the company's anticipated financial results for the first quarter and are intended to fall within the safe harbor provisions of the securities laws.

Operator

Actual results or events in the future are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and may differ materially from those currently anticipated or desired or references to any forward looking statements made as a result of a number of factors. Such factors include the company's determination as it finalizes its financial results for the first quarter that its financial results differ from the current preliminary unaudited numbers set forth in the press release issued yesterday, other factors that the company may not have currently identified or quantified, and those risks and uncertainties identified from time to time in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Additional discussion of those and other factors affecting the company's business prospects as well as additional information regarding forward looking statements is contained in the slide presentation posted on posted in connection with this call and in the company's funds with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, there are certain non GAAP financial measures used in this conference call.

Operator

A reconciliation of any GAAP of any non GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures measure can be found in the company's earnings press release or in the investor presentation for this call on the company's website at www.bbinsurance.com by clicking on the investor relations and then calendar of events. With that said, I'll now turn the call over to Powell Brown, president and chief executive officer. You may begin.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Thanks, Kevin. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter earnings call. Once again, our team delivered strong top and bottom line results. I'll provide some high level comments regarding this performance along with updates on in the insurance market and the M and A landscape. Andy will then discuss our financial performance in more detail.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

And lastly, I'll wrap up with some closing thoughts before we open it up to Q and A. So now let's get into the results. I'm on Slide four. For the first quarter, we delivered revenues of $1,400,000,000 growing 11.6% in total and 6.5% organically as compared to the same period in the prior year. Our adjusted EBITDAC margin improved over 100 basis points to 38.1%, and our adjusted earnings per share grew over 13% to $1.29 On the M and A front, we completed 13 acquisitions with estimated annual revenues of $36,000,000 This consistently strong performance is a direct result of the dedication of our team of nearly 18,000 teammates.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

I'm on Slide five. Main topic for the quarter was uncertainty related to tariffs, inflation and interest rates and how they might impact economic expansion. Overall, we did not see buyers of insurance materially change their outlook, but we did see some business leaders shift to being more cautious. Generally, companies are still hiring and investing in their businesses. However, in certain cases, you're seeing some new projects put on hold for a few months due to these uncertainties.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Presently, we would say the level of levels of investment in people and assets are fairly consistent with the past few quarters. We view this as a positive. Overall, the economies in which we operate are relatively stable and business owners remain optimistic, but have a tempered view regarding the level of growth over the coming quarters. From an insurance pricing standpoint, rate increases for most lines continued and were fairly consistent with the prior few quarters. However, they're moderating downward slightly as compared to last year.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

The outliers continue to be auto and casualty that are increasing and cat property continue to soften during the quarter. We'll get into more detail on the cat property in a couple of minutes. Pricing for U. S. Employee Benefits in the first quarter was similar to prior quarters as medical and pharmacy costs remain up 7% to 9%.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

The outlier continues to be pharmacy, which is growing faster than medical. This ongoing upward pressure and complexity of health care continue to drive strong demand for our employee benefits consulting businesses. Rates in the admitted P and C market moderated slightly as compared to last quarter and were up 2% to 7% from most lines versus the prior year. The downward trend for workers' compensation remained in most states, and they were flat to down 5%. For the first quarter, rate increases for non cat property were in the range of flat to up 5%, which is similar to the prior few quarters.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

For casualty, we continue to see rate increases for primary and excess layers. Consistent with the last few quarters, rates for excess casualty increased in the range of 5% to 10%. Placing higher limits or layers continues to be very challenging, both from a pricing perspective and the availability of limits. For professional liability, rates were flat to up 5% as compared to last year. Shifting to the E and S property market.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

As we entered the first quarter, we anticipated rates for cat property would decline 10% to 20. With availability capital, rates during the quarter declined a bit faster and were down 10% to 25%. And we saw outliers based on the quality of construction claims experience and new versus renewal business. In some cases, rates were down in excess of 25%. With the decline in rates, some buyers chose to increase their limits or modify deductibles, while others realized the savings.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

These savings also enabled some companies to increase their limits on other lines of coverage. As we've mentioned in the past, buyers will manage their overall insurance spend and focus on the combination of rates, limits and deductibles. On the M and A front, we had another good quarter and acquired 13 great companies with $36,000,000 of annual revenue. From an overall market perspective, competition for high quality businesses remain. Let's go to Slide six and transition to the performance of our three segments.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Retail delivered 4.1% organic growth, which was in line with our expectations and was driven by good performance in all lines of business. As a reminder, we expected the first quarter to be lower than the others this year due to the shifting of renewal dates and timing of certain non recurring businesses. Programs delivered another good quarter with organic growth of 13.6%. This performance was driven by a number of our programs with good new business, retention and exposure unit expansion, as well as claims revenue associated with the 24 hurricanes. Our cat programs or cat property programs grew for the quarter slightly even with the impact from rate decreases.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Wholesale brokerage had a strong quarter with organic revenue growth of 6.7%. This performance was driven by growth across all lines through a combination of net new business and exposure unit increases, with the growth partially offset by the continued downward pressure on open brokerage cat property rates. Now I'll turn it over to Andy to get a more detailed regarding our financial results.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Thanks, Powell. Good morning, everybody. I'm going review our financial results in additional detail. When we refer to EBITDAC, EBITDAC margin, income before income taxes or diluted net income per share, we're referring to those measures on an adjusted basis. The reconciliations of our GAAP to non GAAP financial measures can be found either in the appendix of this presentation or in the press release we issued yesterday.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Over on Slide number seven, we delivered total revenues of $1,404,000,000 growing 11.6% as compared to the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Income before income taxes increased by 17.4 and EBITDAC grew by 14.8%. Our EBITDAC margin was 38.1%, expanding by 110 basis points over the first quarter of the prior year. The higher growth in income before income taxes was due to lower interest expense associated with debt repayments. Our effective tax rate for the quarter increased slightly to 21.8% versus 19.5% in the first quarter of the prior year.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

The increased tax rate was driven by having less benefit associated with vesting of restricted stock awards as compared to the first quarter of last year. As a reminder, most of our restricted shares vest in the first quarter, so we can have variations in our quarterly tax rate depending on the number of shares that vest and the change in share price. Diluted net income per share increased 13.2% to $1.29 Our weighted average shares outstanding increased slightly compared to last year, and we continue to prioritize paying down our floating rate debt as this has a higher impact on the growth of earnings per share. Lastly, our dividends paid per share increased by 15.4% as compared to the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Overall, we are very pleased with the performance for the first quarter.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

We'll move over to Slide number eight. The Retail segment grew total revenues 12.5% with organic growth of 4.1%. The difference between total revenues and organic revenue was driven substantially by acquisition activity over the past year. Our EBITDAC margin expanded by 120 basis points to 37.3% due to managing our expenses and the positive impact of the seasonality of revenue and profit for the Quintest acquisition. Both were partially offset by higher noncash stock based compensation.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

As we mentioned previously, approximately 60% of the revenues for Quintest are recognized in the first quarter. Therefore, we have higher margins in the first quarter and lower margins in the others. This is very similar to the profile for employee benefits in The United States. From a full year perspective, we continue to anticipate Quinn Test to perform within the revenue and EBITDAC ranges that we previously communicated. We're on Slide number nine.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Programs had another strong quarter with total revenues increasing 10.1% and organic growth of 13.6%. In comparison to prior year, our profit sharing contingent commissions decreased about $6,000,000 due to positive adjustments recorded in Q1 of twenty twenty four. Lastly, we recognized approximately $12,000,000 of hurricane claims processing revenue, which is in line with our expectations. Our EBITDAC margin expanded by two twenty basis points to 44.5%, primarily driven by strong organic revenue growth and managing our expenses. We're moving over to Slide number 10.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Our Wholesale Brokerage segment had another strong quarter with total revenues increasing 12% and organic growth of 6.7%. The incremental expansion in total revenues in excess of organic was driven by acquisitions completed in the last twelve months and higher contingent commissions. Our EBITDAC margin decreased by 30 basis points to 32.1 due to higher non cash stock based compensation and the impact of foreign exchange. Isolating these changes, the underlying margin increased year over year due to managing our expenses and higher profit sharing contingent commissions. Lastly, from a cash perspective, we generated approximately $215,000,000 of cash flow from operations, which was an increase of $200,000,000 over the first quarter of twenty twenty four.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

This improvement was due to incremental taxes of approximately $120,000,000 paid in the first quarter of twenty twenty four, which were deferred from 2023. In addition, we continue to manage our working capital and expand our margins during the quarter. As previously noted, we deferred the payment of approximately $90,000,000 of federal income taxes for the third and fourth quarters of $24,000,000 related to IRS tax relief associated with the prior year hurricanes. These taxes will be paid in the second quarter of this year and will impact our cash flow conversion. With that, let me turn it back over to Powell for closing comments.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Thanks, Andy. Great report. From an economic standpoint, we believe the main driver of expansion over the coming quarters will be the outcome of inflation, tariffs and changes in interest rates. Leaders, as you know, can generally deal with most changes. But until there's a resolution regarding the extent and breadth of tariffs and inflation, companies will more than likely have a cautious bias.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

This does not mean that we think leaders have a negative outlook, rather they may change the level of investment over the coming quarters with some quarters higher or lower than prior quarters. We continue to believe there's a positive backdrop for economic expansion and growth is moderating back to more traditional levels. From a pricing standpoint, other than cat property, we do not expect any material changes in rates for admitted and non admitted lines. For cat property, we believe rates will continue to decrease in the second quarter and could be down in the range of 10% to 30% due to the availability of capital. One of the topics that still needs to be resolved is the impact of the wildfires on the standard market for property coverage in California.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

On the M and A front, we continue to feel good. We have a strong pipeline, both domestically and internationally, and are building relationships with many firms. As we've spoken about, cultural alignment is the most critical factor to the success of acquisitions at Brown and Brown. We have a strong balance sheet, outstanding cash flow conversion and access to additional capital when we need it. We're in a great position as a company.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Our team continues to execute at a high level. Each of our divisions are performing well and have good momentum heading into the second quarter. There'll probably be some ups and downs in the economic outlook, but with our broad diversification across geographies, customer size, lines of coverage and capabilities, we're well positioned to capture the opportunities that are on the horizon. As we've said before, we are a solutions provider and during times of volatility, being a great partner for our customers is critical to helping them manage uncertainty. We believe the second quarter will be a good one for the Brown and Brown team.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

With that, let's turn it back to Kevin and open it up for Q and A.

Operator

Thank If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star one one again. And we also ask that you limit yourself to one question, but feel free to jump back in the queue for any follow ups. We will pause for a moment while we compile our q and a roster. Our first question comes from Mark Hughes with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes
Analyst at Truist Securities

Yes, thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Andy, the Quintas impact on the retail margin and this timing shift in organic also in retail, any specific numbers you might be able to share with us about what the effect was in the first quarter and then kind of what that means for the balance of the year?

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

So morning, Mark. Is think if you if you utilize the guidance that we provided before on Quinn test, about 60% of those revenues came in the first quarter. So again, think about the margin again has a pretty similar profile to what employee benefits does in the first quarter. So it's just naturally going to be higher. So that will pull that will serve as a bit of a drag in the out quarters for retail.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

But on a full year basis, it will work out, it should be right in line with where we were thinking originally on the Quintess acquisition that's in there. And then the other piece you'd ask about was just kind of the shifting of renewals and some of the onetime business. As we mentioned before, we anticipated that the first quarter would be about 1% below the other quarters. The first quarter for retail was pretty much right on exactly what we thought it was going to be. So we continue to have good confidence in the out quarters for the year, kind of tied back to the comments that we made earlier about just economic backdrop and where buyers are right now. So feel real good about the business.

Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes
Analyst at Truist Securities

Very good. And then what do you anticipate for earned premium in the captives this year?

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

It will probably be up a little bit over last year on it, Mark. The piece is I think you, you picked up on it in your research notes, and, know, we talked about this in a couple of previous calls, is we're writing up to a specific amount of premium, and that's our way of capitating the risk profile inside of them. And we pretty much hit that in the first quarter. We've been kind of climbing that over the past few years. So we would not anticipate much incremental organic growth in the following quarters in the captives.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Now that might move around a little bit depending upon what happens with cap property pricing back and forth, but we wouldn't anticipate anything material plus or minus versus last year, second through the fourth quarter.

Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes
Analyst at Truist Securities

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Mike Zaremski with BMO. Your line is open.

Michael Zaremski
Michael Zaremski
Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Hey. Good morning. Thanks.

Michael Zaremski
Michael Zaremski
Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Thanks for all the color on, kind of, property rates and, especially cat exposed, you know, there's plenty of capacity there. I guess, you know, is it looks like if we try to dissect some of the programs organic growth, there does seem to be a downwards impact, which could be coming from cap property pricing being down. Is it as we think about the rest of the year or just is it fair to kind of put in a bit of headwind from downwards property pricing? Especially, think Brown is a bit overweight Florida versus Pierce.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Yeah. Good morning, Mike. It's Andy here. Let's see if we can kinda put this into a few buckets because we wouldn't want anybody to think that the downward trend is all associated with cat property. That would that would not be a good or a proper conclusion.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Remember the things that we've talked about over kind of the the past year that's helped fuel the growth in programs. We've talked about our lender placed business has been performing really well with winning new business as well as we've had customers acquiring portfolios. And we've had just we've had outstanding growth over the past few years. Still expecting good growth this year but not probably at the same level. Mark asked earlier about the captives and so I think we've mentioned there again that has helped fuel organic growth that will start to level itself out in 2025 for the business.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

And then cat property is a component. It did grow during the quarter for us. Not at the same levels that we've seen over the past few years, but we did still have good growth in there through the submissions and everything that that we've received in the business. And then the other piece to keep in mind in the back end of the year is we're not sure what's gonna happen with the hurricane season. So remember, we had a significant amount of claims revenue in in the fourth quarter.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

We do not budget for kind of known storms. We just use kind of a ten year average. So depending upon what happens and if it's a relatively calm season in the back end of the year, I think it's probably realistically, at least we would think realistic that the organic growth in the fourth quarter programs could be around zero because of very tough comp with all the flood claim revenue. Okay?

Michael Zaremski
Michael Zaremski
Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Okay. Thanks, Andy, for unpacking that. My follow-up would be on probably the retail segment. If I think about the commentary on employee benefits and some upwards pressure on inflation there, is that did that come through in the retail organic this quarter? And maybe you can size up how much seasonality there is, I think, in 1Q versus the rest of the year in terms of mix of benefits being higher, I believe, in 1Q?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

So remember, that's a revenue recognition issue, Mike. And so it's sort of front loaded that Andy sort of referred to. So when I say that, that makes the assumption if, you know, your thought process that all of those accounts are either on commission, not a per head per month or a fee. So most of our business is on commission, but I just wanna clarify that that in some of the smaller business or fully insured, it's going to be there's going to be on a per head per month that we get paid. And on our larger business, many times those are on fees.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

As it relates to the organic growth in retail, we were very pleased with the organic growth in retail, particularly in light of what we said at the end of Q4 and in our remarks about some shifting of some things and some nonrecurring revenue. So And we anticipate it to be a little bit higher later in the year. And so we felt good about it and continue to feel good about it.

Michael Zaremski
Michael Zaremski
Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Okay. Thank you.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Gregory Peters with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Gregory Peters
Gregory Peters
Managing Director - Equity Research at Raymond James Financial

Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning. Powell, in your closing comments, you talked about growth returning to a more normal level. And I'm reminded of a comment you used to make about the impact or weighting of economic growth versus the impact from rate increases. And I think in the last couple of years, you seem to and I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but you seem to indicate that you're getting a little bit heavier weighting from rate increases versus economic versus the traditional averages.

Gregory Peters
Gregory Peters
Managing Director - Equity Research at Raymond James Financial

Maybe you can update us because, you know, in the slide presentation, there's a couple slides there where you talk about property cat being down affecting having an offset on organic. And you talk about the other rate environment. So just can you provide us some updated perspective on how you're thinking about that?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Sure. Good morning, Greg. So first of all, what Greg is referring to is historically, I would say that our business is two thirds to three quarters exposure unit, and the remaining would be rate. That's how I've always sort of said that. And we've alluded to the fact that with a transition, particularly in cat property, but it could be in some heavy casualty lines into unusual umbrellas and other things, it has gone up or had a little bit higher impact on rate in the growth.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

So that's the first thing. The second thing that I'd like to clarify for everybody is, I find it very interesting how you all are surprised by the rate decreases in cat property. I would have said, I thought this was gonna happen a year ago. And so cat property historically goes up faster than you anticipate, and it comes down faster than you anticipate. And so it's it's all about the availability of limits out there, whether it be through a traditional insurance company or through a MGA or some combination thereof.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

So I think, from a standpoint of our retail business, but it affects the whole business, we are writing a lot of new business, Greg. And our, you know, our goal is to get the best program. That's the most competitive program with the most comprehensive price comprehensive coverage for our customers. And so today, I do believe that what if you believe what I just said, which I do, is the that it would go back more closer to the two thirds, one third, or three quarters, one quarter. But I usually use two thirds, one third.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

And, again, as I said, I believe that if you talk to people, just the the person on the street, they have a little bit more negative view of the economy than people that run and own businesses. I believe that depending on the industry that you're in, depending on, you know, your supply chain, some of these other things, your view is slightly different and maybe more moderated. So we feel good about retail. And as I said, that's long winded answer on two thirds, one third.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Hey, Greg. The other thing to to keep in mind, and and we've mentioned this a bunch over the over the past few years is our diversification. And, again, if you if you go way back in history, yes, we were probably much more weighted to Florida and potentially capped property. But with the the industries that that we serve, the lines of coverage, geographies across the business, the cap property, you know, can have a movement maybe on offices in certain locations. But the ability to have a material impact on our numbers across the board is much less than what it was years ago.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

And that's all been done with kind of purpose for the stretch on how we diversify the organization.

Gregory Peters
Gregory Peters
Managing Director - Equity Research at Raymond James Financial

Great. The moderator's instructions said one question, but everyone seems to be asking a follow-up. So I just slip in my follow-up, which would be, can you talk about the outlook for the flood business? You know, the federal gov it's a federal government program. And, you know, FEMA, I I it's unclear.

Gregory Peters
Gregory Peters
Managing Director - Equity Research at Raymond James Financial

It sits inside of FEMA, so it's unclear what's gonna happen with the flood program. And I'm just curious about your perspectives given all the changing dynamics happening in Washington, DC.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

So, Greg, let's let's look at a historical perspective of flood and then put that kind of an overlay, the current environment. So as you probably know, the flood program has not been reauthorized for an extended period of time, meaning something like a five year traditional reauthorization or something in a long time. So basically, they have been reauthorizing for shorter periods of time because they can't get the full reauthorization through. And so I use that as a backdrop to say this. We believe that the flood program is a critical program in The United States for homeowners.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

And I believe the government and everything that we hear would lead us to feel that way. That said, I think the likelihood of having a longer term reauthorization in the next year to several years is probably lower because it just seems to be getting kicked down the kicked the can down the road. And that's what our team says, and we're very close to the people involved in Washington. But as you know, we write about a third of all the right run flood premiums in The United States. And so that's kind of how we feel about it.

Gregory Peters
Gregory Peters
Managing Director - Equity Research at Raymond James Financial

Got it. Thanks for the answers.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Yeah. Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Josh Shanker with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Joshua Shanker
Managing Director & Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Yeah.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Hey, Josh.

Joshua Shanker
Managing Director & Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Just take my question. Good morning to everybody. How are you doing?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Good morning.

Joshua Shanker
Managing Director & Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Good. Good. You know what? We people wanna focus on on cat, and I just have a more general question about the state of Florida. It seems like after August, a lot of the lawyers lost a lot of revenue and a lot of different kinds of risk.

Joshua Shanker
Managing Director & Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Is the cost of risk going down in the state of Florida broadly, and what impact should we have on on Florida pricing broadly compared to the national economy over the next couple of years? Should Florida growth be lower than the rest of the country?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Okay. So interesting question, Josh. First of all, is the cost of risk going down in the state of Florida? And I would I have to temper this statement. If you are on cat property and it went really high, your cost of risk is coming down.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

K? I'm talking about the rate on that. However, the overall cost of risk in the sense that what a person is paying to insure the similar property, I e, let's say, their home, is actually going up still because you have increased cost of construction. So you have insurance to value and insurance increased cost of construction issues. So somebody's home might have been, let's say, on a replacement cost that I'll make this up, $200 a square foot.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

And in the event that there is a loss, it will cost them $300 a square foot to replace that house in like kinder quality. So that's number one. Number two, if you think about it, particularly in certain areas of the state, this is more pronounced. But if you go to Southeast Florida, there are a number of uninsured motorists on the highways. And so the cost of liability insurance and physical damage for the auto, whether it's personal or commercial, continues to go up.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

And it is highlighted by these very large awards that the that the plaintiff's bar usually highlights. But that's there are a lot of fairly large awards, and so you have to keep that in mind. As it relates to growth in the state of Florida, what's happening, in my opinion, is this. Florida used to be a very inexpensive place to live, relatively speaking, other than barring South Florida beating Southwest And Southeast Florida. Today, there has been an escalation in home prices and land values, so it's not as inexpensive as it once was. And so it's a transitionary market, and there are more and more people that are coming here that are fleeing high tax states like the state that you live in. And they're coming here, and they think it's wonderful. So we believe that there's gonna be continued growth in the economy in Florida in the near to intermediate and long term.

Joshua Shanker
Managing Director & Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

And what about the price of liability, court costs, legal fees, you know, the on the on the on the casualty side of the coin? Is there any change going on there?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Yeah. So the answer to the question is, I think if if we'll make it very simple. I think that even with the tort reform that has occurred and that seems to point in the right direction, that is overshadowed by the size and frequency of larger settlements. And so it's a very difficult push pull environment. And I would say that there's more push on rates up than pull on rates down due to reform.

Joshua Shanker
Managing Director & Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Okay. The good answers. Thank you very much, and I appreciate the color.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Thanks, Josh. Yep.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Meyer Shields with KBW. Your line is open.

Meyer Shields
Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Great. Thanks so much, and good morning. I was hoping, Morgan, first, that you could clarify. Think, Andy, you mentioned that there's a that without flood revenues in the fourth quarter, organic would be zero. Is that if there are no flood revenues, or is that at the ten year average?

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

No. So, let's see. Again, reclarify on that one is if there is minimal, flood claim revenue in the fourth quarter, then the organic is probably closer to zero.

Meyer Shields
Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Oh, okay. But that's worse than what you're budgeting using the average?

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

That is yeah. If you pull it down on the averages, it won't be, too far off there if you use a ten year average.

Meyer Shields
Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Okay. That's very helpful. Second question, with regard to cat property, I guess a key question I'm hearing a lot is, are we seeing signs of any standard insurers or admitted insurers coming back in sort of cutting out the wholesale brokerage entirely for cat property?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Well, generally speaking, the answer is no. And so here's here's what I would I'll give you a an example. If you have a property in Miami, and it's if it's I'm gonna I'm gonna flip it around, Myers, so you can see this example. If it's in a standard market and the rate is, let's say, 60¢, I just made that up, and the standard market wants a 10% increase, a five to 10% increase on that property, the the lowest rate they might get on that same property in the E and S market is a buck. Having said that, very few standard markets would write if they've grandfathered that property in.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

So what I'm saying is is if you have a if it's at a buck and they don't wanna write it in the standard market, they're not coming back in at a buck. So they have there's some old grandfathered standard market business that permeates in Southeast Florida, in particular. That's not exclusively. It could be other places. But the answer is no. We're not seeing that right yet.

Meyer Shields
Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you so much.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Mhmm.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Andrew Anderson with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Charlie Rodgers
Charlie Rodgers
Equity Research Associate at Jefferies

Hi, everybody. Good morning. This is Charlie on for Andrew. I just have one question, and it was on lender placed business, which I know you guys touched on a little bit earlier on the call. But was there any incremental either benefit or headwind from lender placed insurance in one q twenty five within programs?

Charlie Rodgers
Charlie Rodgers
Equity Research Associate at Jefferies

I think previously, you guys may have mentioned that there was going to be, like, more of a return to a regular seasonal cadence there, but I guess any color would be helpful.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Hi. Good morning, Charlie. It's Andy here. No. There are no headwinds year over year to the business.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

It just didn't grow at the same pace that it did a year ago. And and just we wanna make sure we clarify. The growth that we're seeing in the business is due to us winning new accounts or customers buying portfolios. The actual lender placed ratio is not materially changing, which that's always to us a good indicator to the health of the economy. That means people are still in a good financial position that they're able to pay their insurance. So just wanna make sure that we clarify that.

Charlie Rodgers
Charlie Rodgers
Equity Research Associate at Jefferies

Okay. Yeah. And then I guess just on the seasonality there, just no material changes, I guess, it sounds like?

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

No. That one that business doesn't really have a seasonality to it, Charlie, just because they're, again, it primarily is placing coverage on on homeowners, and that's just kind of throughout the entire year. Where you'll get different seasonality is when we bring on a new account is, you know, you'll have a bump of multiple months of revenue through a transition when you've gotta get letters back out to the to the homeowners. So that's the only thing that really causes we wouldn't call that seasonality. That's just you're onboarding a new account.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

You'll pick up an extra two or three months of revenue. And then when you make a lap, you lose it on comparability, but that's just kinda how the business works in there.

Charlie Rodgers
Charlie Rodgers
Equity Research Associate at Jefferies

Okay. Got it. Well, appreciate the color. Thanks, guys.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Yeah. Thank you. Mhmm.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Brian Meredith with UBS. Your line is open.

Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS Securities LLC

Yes, thanks. A couple of them here for you. First one, know there's some legislation actually in Florida trying to turn back some of the reforms that happened. I'm not sure if you got any updates on where that is. And do you think that may reverse the course of kind of the pricing pressure that we're seeing right now?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

The answer to the question is, we know that there is not a lot of interest in the state senate or in the governor's office to have proposed legislation as written implemented.

Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS Securities LLC

Good. That's helpful. Thanks. And then second question, I was just wondering, MGA business. I'm just curious, right now it appears that carriers have a lot of demand and appetite for MGA type business.

Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS Securities LLC

I'm curious what your outlook is for the MGA business. Do you think that is continuing here for a while? Or do you think maybe we start to see some of that slow at some point from a carrier appetite perspective, particularly with some of the big rate reductions we're seeing in, call it, E and S property and stuff?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Yeah. So I think let's back up, Brad, and and talk about why there is that interest in the MGA business. I think it's a combination of things. Number one, the carriers believe it's a way for them to get large chunks of premium potentially if someone moves a program to them. So there's an appeal of that in terms of trying to grow their business.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

That's number one. Number two, the quality of the underwriting in a number of the MGAs is quite good. And so the the days you know, if you go back fifteen years ago, the carriers viewed the underwriting or MGA space as a little bit like the Wild West. And they were cowboys and maybe not as detailed or the data was not as good. And today, the carriers don't support cowboys.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

They actually cut them off. And so, you know, you have to have a system, a process that works. You've gotta show good results over time. You you know, they it's more of a true partnership. So do I think there will be a decreased interest in MGAs from carriers in the near to intermediate term?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

No. I think it would be the As it relates to pressure on rates, depending on the line of business, I think that they will mirror the market. And in some instances, more pronounced on the market. And it just depends, because if you've got a casualty program for liability on law enforcement officials, that could have upward pressure versus cat property versus an automobile program versus a contractor program. So it it's very program specific.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

And as it relates to us, you know, we feel really good about our MGA, MGU business because it's so diversified. People recognize go ahead. Sorry, Brad.

Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS Securities LLC

No. That was that would keep keep going. Sorry.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

No. I mean, I just think the carriers recognize quality, and they wanna associate with people that can actually bring them quality business and have an appropriate partnership over a long period of time.

Brian Meredith
Managing Director at UBS Securities LLC

Makes sense. Thank you.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Thanks, Brian.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next Our next question comes from Elyse Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Elyse Greenspan
Elyse Greenspan
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

Hi, thanks. Good morning. My first question is just on the margin outlook. I know last year you guys last quarter, sorry, you guys said you were looking for margins to be roughly flat in '25 versus '24. I was just hoping you can comment where how Q1 shook out relative to expectations.

Elyse Greenspan
Elyse Greenspan
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

I know there were some pushes and pulls with the segments, the Quinta seasonality, etcetera. And what's your current view for your full year margin and how that might have changed over the last three months?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

So good morning, Elise. And it hasn't changed. It's exactly what we described in the q four call. It would be a little bit higher in q one, which was met our expectations. And you have the expense more loaded in Q2, Q3, and Q4 in Quintest, as an example.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

But we don't have a modification. And quite honestly, we are very pleased with our margin. And so, yeah, we feel good about it. And I hope you do, actually.

Elyse Greenspan
Elyse Greenspan
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

Yes. Thanks. And then my second question is on just retail, right? You guys had guided to the Q1 being about 1% lower than the full year, which based on the prepared commentary, it sounds like it was in line with expectations. Obviously, as you pointed out, there's just some uncertainty with tariffs, etcetera, right now.

Elyse Greenspan
Elyse Greenspan
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

Just based on how you see everything developing, it sounds like you guys still think, right, the full year could be around 5%, maybe a little bit above given what you had highlighted with the q one. I was hoping you could just expand upon that as well, Powell.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Okay, Elise. So let's let's go back to we're very consistent at Brown and Brown. You you may not like the consistency, but we're consistent. And we say it's a low to mid single digit organic growth business. And so we have not changed our position on the growth guidance, even though we really don't give growth guidance.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

We had to give you that in Q1. We are very pleased with the way retail is performing because of the breadth of our capabilities and our market relationships. And I find it interesting, Elise, if I may take a moment, that there are some people out there that thought 6.5% organic growth was not that good a quarter. And I'm surprised because we think it's a good quarter. And if you think about historically, which what people are saying is there's a movement back to more traditional organic growth levels.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

And as you've seen by the other firms that you cover, it seems to be occurring. I I think it's an interesting perspective. And so, you know, depending on who you are, and in your case, you you didn't see it exactly the way we did this quarter, but we feel good. Not only about retail, but about wholesale and programs. And we also feel good about the rest of the year.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

Yeah. Elise, if you would is morning. It's Andy here. If you if you go back to our prepared comments, the thing that we said inside of there is we're not seeing the buyers of insurance materially change their level of investments, at this stage. Doesn't mean that things can't go positive or or negative on that one, but, we still feel good with the backdrop right now and continue honestly, from where we were three months ago to now, we're not materially changing our our outlook. Okay.

Elyse Greenspan
Elyse Greenspan
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

That's helpful. Thanks. Thanks, both. Thanks.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

No. Thank you.

Elyse Greenspan
Elyse Greenspan
Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities

Thank you, both.

Operator

Okay. One moment one moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Mark Hughes with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes
Analyst at Truist Securities

Yeah. Thanks. Just a couple of quick ones on property. I think your non cat property pricing description was flat at 5%. I think that's pretty consistent with four q.

Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes
Analyst at Truist Securities

Do you think is non cat property at a pretty good equilibrium? Do you think it stays at this level?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

I think, Mark, that's hard to tell right now. And the reason I say that is, although there's not as much chaos in that segment right now, that assumes that we have maybe a light hurricane season. If we have a active hurricane season where there's landfall and significant damage, I do believe that that definitely impacts standard market pricing. The other thing is let's not lose sight of there are other areas that are dealing with things that maybe we don't talk as much about, I. E, hailstorms and tornadoes in places where deductibles are changing very significantly.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

And just I know it's obvious, but the wildfire exposure and just fires in general. And so you have all these dynamics that are going on at once. And so the long winded answer of saying, hard to say. I think it's probably pretty good right now, but we are gonna wait and see relative to the storms this year. And those are across all segments, wind, hail, tornadoes, fire, etcetera.

Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes
Analyst at Truist Securities

Very good. And then on the cat property, in your experience, you talked about how it runs up and then it runs back down. Would it usually be kind of a one and done? You get that down 30 or what have you, and that tends to stabilize? Or do you you think that's a multi year process?

Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes
Analyst at Truist Securities

You you get a decrease this year and then, you know, maybe decreases next next year as well. What would your experience then?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

So let's back up and say that this particular period of time has been different than in the past. So historically, I would think that it would go up for one or two years, and then come down for one or two years, or a little more. And then it would sort of kinda do its thing. In this case, we went up for an extended period of time. Let's say it was five years.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

And the pricing, as you know, typically is never exactly perfect. So those cat prices, if you looked at them, actuarially are probably a little higher in some cases than they should be. And as a result, there's going to be downward pressure this year. And then the question is, what happens if there's a storm or not? If there is not an active storm season, we will see additional pressure next year.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

If there is a storm, then that changes that statement. But I don't believe that it will go down as rapidly for as many years as it has gone up. That is an important distinction. Because there is some level of discipline, I just don't know where that floor is. And so it's a very interesting time, and it's opportunistic.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

And once again, it depends on the hurricane season, which, by the way, starts in just over a month.

Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes
Analyst at Truist Securities

Very helpful. Thank you.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Thanks, Mark. We're gonna have two more questions, if we can.

Mark Hughes
Mark Hughes
Analyst at Truist Securities

One moment.

Operator

Our next question comes from Alex Scott with Barclays. Your line is open.

Alex Scott
Alex Scott
Equity Research Analyst at Barclays

Hey, good morning. The question I had for you is on this dynamic between some of the large end of the market pricing trends we're seeing versus, I'd say, more stable or still increasing. It's the small to medium end of the market. Was just interested in your perspective on that. From your viewpoint, what's driving, I'd say, what's seemingly like one of the bigger divergences that we've seen there?

Alex Scott
Alex Scott
Equity Research Analyst at Barclays

And, you know, what how how would you characterize Brown's sort of exposure to those, you know, trends over the next couple years if they persist?

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Okay. So we, as as I like to describe our firm, we are a truly middle and upper middle market business. That is the vast majority. We have a good SME book, and we do have some very large accounts too. And we're very strategic about how we work with those customers.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

So, Alex, what I think you're referring to is this. Let's paint the backdrop. Number one, the most competitive environment on a rate standpoint per unit typically is in the largest accounts. And as a result, the large account space historically has not made much money for the insurance carriers. These are broad generalizations.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Conversely, on the lower end, the SME and the middle market has been more profitable because the rates if you look at the rate of a similar business in the very large account space and one in a smaller unit or smaller business, that rate is gonna be a little bit higher. And the performance on those accounts historically has been substantially better. So the carriers write, and want to write that very profitable business. So having said that, remember, the very large accounts in many instances are on fees. So it's not driven by commissions where small, medium, and upper middle market accounts are typically on commissions.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

So if you were gonna paint that picture, and we'll just compare it to cat property. If you get paid a commission on something that pays a hundred thousand dollars, and this year it's 70,000, then your revenue goes down. Conversely, if they pay $7,000,000, and it goes from 7 to 6, your fee very at many instances stays the same, so your revenue is generally the same. Did that answer your question, Alex?

Alex Scott
Alex Scott
Equity Research Analyst at Barclays

Yep. That's very helpful. Yes. My other questions were answered. So thank you.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Thank you, Alex. We'll take one more.

Operator

One moment. Our next question comes from Meyer Shields with KBW. Your line is open.

Meyer Shields
Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Good. Thanks so much for fitting me in. I just wanted to check-in, now that this is becoming more relevant, whether you're seeing a difference in economic growth expectations from clients outside of The US as you are domestically.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

I think there's more questions about growth overseas than we find here in The United States. That's a very broad statement, but I think it it would be moderated slightly. And I think it depends on where you are.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

My we're not yeah. We're not seeing anything that is like this material change Yeah. In Outlook. I think back to Elise's comment. And you know, said in the markets in which we participate.

Andrew Watts
Andrew Watts
EVP, CFO & Treasurer at Brown & Brown

I mean, in Europe we're primarily in you know England and Netherlands and Ireland are the major markets for us. And the backdrop there is still good. Mhmm. Doesn't mean there's not some pockets here and there, but there's pockets everywhere. There's pockets up in Canada, etcetera. So but no no changes materially on that front.

Meyer Shields
Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Thank you. Okay. Go ahead, Kevin.

Operator

Now I was just gonna turn the call back to you, pal, so you can go ahead with your closing remarks.

Powell Brown
Powell Brown
President & CEO at Brown & Brown

Yep. Thank you all very much. As we said, I think we had a really we feel we had a really good quarter and are excited about q two and beyond. Hope you all have a wonderful day, and thank you for your time. Bye.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect, and have a wonderful day.

Executives
    • Powell Brown
      Powell Brown
      President & CEO
    • Andrew Watts
      Andrew Watts
      EVP, CFO & Treasurer
Analysts
    • Mark Hughes
      Analyst at Truist Securities
    • Michael Zaremski
      Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
    • Gregory Peters
      Managing Director - Equity Research at Raymond James Financial
    • Joshua Shanker
      Managing Director & Equity Analyst at Bank of America Securities
    • Meyer Shields
      Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)
    • Charlie Rodgers
      Equity Research Associate at Jefferies
    • Brian Meredith
      Managing Director at UBS Securities LLC
    • Elyse Greenspan
      Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities
    • Alex Scott
      Equity Research Analyst at Barclays
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