Universal Insurance Q4 2025 Earnings Report

Universal Insurance EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.17
• Consensus EPS: $1.30
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.87
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Universal Insurance Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $403.57 million
• Expected Revenue: $372.99 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$30.58 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Universal Insurance Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 2/24/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Universal Insurance (NYSE:UVE) Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: UVE) is a property and casualty insurance holding company headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. The company underwrites homeowners and other residential property insurance products to protect against natural catastrophes such as hurricanes, windstorms and fires. It distributes policies primarily through a network of independent agents and brokers, offering coverage for primary residences, secondary homes, condominiums, vacant dwellings and rental properties across its service territory.

In addition to personal lines, Universal provides commercial property and casualty insurance tailored to small businesses and institutional clients. Its commercial offerings include premises liability, dwelling fire, commercial residential and umbrella liability protection. The company employs a risk-management approach that combines participation in the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund with a layered reinsurance program to mitigate exposure to severe weather events.

Since its founding, Universal Insurance Holdings has pursued growth through both organic underwriting expansion and strategic acquisitions of smaller carriers. The company’s headquarters in Jacksonville supports a network of regional offices and service centers throughout Florida, enabling local claims handling, customer service and policy administration. Its leadership team brings deep experience in property and casualty underwriting, distribution channel management and catastrophe risk assessment, positioning the company to navigate the complex regulatory and environmental landscape of coastal insurance markets.

Universal Insurance Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: The company reported an adjusted return on common equity above 46% and adjusted diluted EPS of $2.17 versus $0.25 a year ago, with core revenue of $403.6 million, indicating a materially stronger quarter.
• Positive Sentiment: Underwriting performance improved meaningfully — the net combined ratio fell to 87.5% (down 20.4 points) and the net loss ratio fell to 61.3% (down 21 points), helped by better current accident-year results and the absence of Hurricane Milton.
• Positive Sentiment: Management says its capital position and reserves are the strongest in company history, and it has already placed a substantial portion of the 2026 catastrophe tower while securing multiyear reinsurance capacity for 2027.
• Positive Sentiment: Shareholder returns were boosted with ~210,000 shares repurchased for $6.9 million in the quarter, a new $20 million repurchase authorization through Jan 2028, and a declared quarterly dividend of $0.16 per share.
• Neutral Sentiment: Premiums show modest growth overall (direct written +2.7%, net earned +4.3%) driven by an 18.2% increase outside Florida while Florida declined 3.1%; management views the competitive and regulatory environment as improved but will monitor ongoing rate studies and affordability pressures.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Universal's fourth quarter, 2025 earnings conference call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Arash Soleimani, Chief Strategy Officer.

[Arash Soleimani, Chief Strategy Officer at Universal]

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. Welcome to our quarterly earnings call. On the call with me today are Steve Donaghy, Chief Executive Officer, and Frank Wilcox, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, please note today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. Forward-looking statements involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. For more information, please see the press release on Universal's SEC filings, all of which are available on the Investor section of our website at universalinsuranceholdings.com and on the SEC's website. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP measures is included in the quarterly press release and can also be found on Universal's website at universalinsuranceholdings.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve.

[Steve Donaghy, CEO at Universal]

Thanks, Arash. Good morning, everyone. We had an outstanding quarter with an adjusted return on common equity of over 46%. Results were solid across the board. I'm deeply proud of the progress we made in 2025. We're continuing to see the benefits of Florida's legislative reforms, which have visibly stabilized the market, benefiting all stakeholders. Our capital position is robust. I believe our reserves are the strongest they've been in our history. We are already well underway in negotiating and placing our 2026 reinsurance program, with a substantial portion of our first event catastrophe tower already placed as we stand here today, along with meaningful additional multiyear capacity secured for the 2027 hurricane season. I'll turn it over to Frank to walk through our financial results. Frank?

[Frank Wilcox, CFO at Universal]

Thank you, Steve. Good morning. Adjusted diluted earnings per common share was $2.17, up from adjusted diluted earnings per common share of $0.25 in the prior year quarter. The increase mostly stems from a lower net loss ratio and higher net premiums earned and net investment income. Core revenue of $403.6 million was up 4.4% year-over-year, with growth primarily stemming from higher net premiums earned and net investment income. Direct premiums written were $483.7 million, up 2.7% from the prior year quarter. The increase stems from an 18.2% growth in other states, partially offset by a 3.1% decrease in Florida. Overall growth mostly reflects higher policies in force and inflation adjustments across our multi-state footprint.

[Frank Wilcox, CFO at Universal]

Direct premiums earned of $538 million were up 3.6% year-over-year, reflecting direct premiums written growth over the past 12 months. Net premiums earned were $363.4 million, up 4.3% from the prior year quarter. The increase is primarily attributable to higher direct premiums earned and a lower ceded premium ratio. The net combined ratio was 87.5%, down 20.4 points compared to the prior year quarter. The decrease reflects a lower net loss ratio, slightly offset by a higher net expense ratio. The net loss ratio was 61.3%, down 21 points compared to the prior year quarter. The decrease reflects better current accident year results and the inclusion of Hurricane Milton in the prior year quarter.

[Frank Wilcox, CFO at Universal]

The net expense ratio was 26.2%, up 0.6 points from 25.6% in the prior year quarter. The increase was primarily driven by higher other operating costs. During the fourth quarter, the company repurchased approximately 210,000 shares at an aggregate cost of $6.9 million. On January 7, 2026, the company announced a new share repurchase program, under which the company may repurchase up to $20 million of its outstanding shares of common stock through January 8, 2028. On February 4, 2026, the board of directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.16 per common share, payable on March 13, 2026, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 6, 2026.

[Frank Wilcox, CFO at Universal]

With that, I'd like to ask the operator to open the line for questions.

[Operator]

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 the line of Paul Newsome from Piper Sandler.

[Paul Newsome, Managing Director at Piper Sandler]

Good morning. Congratulations on the quarter. Was hoping you could give us a little bit more thoughts on the competitive advantage, pardon me, competitive environment today. We hear just a ton about price declines and, you know, increased folks in the market. How do you see it from your perspective?

[Steve Donaghy, CEO at Universal]

Hey, Paul, good morning and thank you. This is Steve. You know, we see the competitive environment very favorable to Universal at this point. Our relationship with our agency force. You know, the rates that we've implemented are favorable, and I think we're just seeing a whole lot of positive uptick in markets that we've opened due to analyzing our internal profitability model. We're opening more markets. We have more business coming in across those markets, and I feel good about the business. As you know, it's always a constant analization of markets that are favorable versus non-favorable, closing certain markets, opening certain markets. We feel good about the business in Florida in particular, and have seen very positive things as a result.

[Paul Newsome, Managing Director at Piper Sandler]

Do you have any thoughts on sort of the regulatory environment? We hear a lot about the issues with affordability and, you know, whether or not the insurance industry will be asked to essentially kind of give back profits or something like that. Any exposure or thoughts on that topic?

[Steve Donaghy, CEO at Universal]

You know, I would add that without the actions taken by the State of Florida and Governor DeSantis, the industry would not be in the position we're in today, not just Universal. Without action, monies would continue to be going to third parties that weren't impacted by a claim. That wasn't good for anyone. I think as we continue and you've seen, we've had modest declines in 2024 and 2025. We kick off our actuarial study on rate for 2026 at the end of March. We'll continue to do the right thing. A decrease in rate does not always result in a decrease in earnings.

[Steve Donaghy, CEO at Universal]

As a result of the favorable legislation and the less severity and frequency that we're seeing, and you compile that with potential reductions in reinsurance and expenses, it's a very favorable environment right now, and we look forward to continuing to return funds to insurers as a result of that. I would also add, too, our retention, Paul, has never been better, so we're in a very, very good place.

[Paul Newsome, Managing Director at Piper Sandler]

Great. Appreciate the help. Thank you.

[Steve Donaghy, CEO at Universal]

Thanks, Paul.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Steve Donaghy, Chief Executive Officer, for closing remarks.

[Steve Donaghy, CEO at Universal]

Thank you. I'd like to thank all of our associates, consumers, our agency force, and stakeholders for their continued support of Universal. Thank you, and have a great day.

[Operator]

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

Participants

Analysts

• Arash Soleimani, Chief Strategy Officer at Universal
• Frank Wilcox, CFO at Universal
• Paul Newsome, Managing Director at Piper Sandler
• Steve Donaghy, CEO at Universal