HCI Group Q4 2025 Earnings Report

HCI Group EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $7.25
• Consensus EPS: $4.87
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$2.38
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

HCI Group Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $246.24 million
• Expected Revenue: $232.36 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$13.89 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

HCI Group Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 2/25/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 4:45PM ET

HCI Group (NYSE:HCI) (NYSE: HCI) is a holding company whose principal business is the underwriting and issuance of property and casualty insurance through its insurance subsidiaries. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, the company focuses primarily on personal-line insurance products, writing homeowners, condominium, renters and mobile home policies. HCI Group also offers wind-only and flood coverage in coastal regions across the state, providing tailored solutions to both coastal and non-coastal communities.

The company distributes its insurance products through a network of independent agents and brokers, leveraging local market expertise to assess risk and deliver personalized service. HCI Group’s underwriting teams employ proprietary modeling tools and industry data to evaluate exposure to weather-related events, allowing the company to refine its rate structures and claims-management processes. In addition to personal lines, the company maintains a niche presence in personal liability and umbrella policies, complementing its core homeowners offerings.

Founded in 1979, HCI Group has grown through both organic expansion and strategic acquisitions, including the purchase of Tower Hill Insurance Group in 2018, which expanded its reach into new segments of Florida’s homeowners market. The company’s financial operations are regulated by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, and it maintains reinsurance arrangements with leading global reinsurers to mitigate volatility from catastrophic events.

HCI Group is governed by a board of directors and led by a management team with extensive experience in insurance, risk management and financial services. The company’s executive leadership oversees actuarial analysis, claims administration and regulatory compliance, positioning HCI Group to navigate Florida’s dynamic insurance environment and deliver long-term value to policyholders and shareholders.

HCI Group Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Strong earnings and underwriting — Q4 pre-tax income was $144M ($429M full year) with diluted EPS of $7.25/Q4 and $22.72/year, and a normalized Q4 loss ratio of ~17.5% (combined ratio <45% reported, <60% normalized).
• Positive Sentiment: Robust balance sheet and liquidity — Shareholders' equity exceeded $1B (book value >$80/share, pro forma ~$140 including unrealized gains), consolidated cash >$1.2B, underwriter surplus >$500M and gross leverage only 2.5.
• Positive Sentiment: Exio IPO and strategic tech stake — HCI owns ~82% of Exio (nearly $1.2B stake), which management positions as a competitive advantage for automation and AI-driven distribution/operations.
• Neutral Sentiment: Growth and M&A caution — Management sees acquisition opportunities but warns of a buyer–seller pricing disconnect (2025 may be a peak year) and notes results remain exposed to future hurricane/cat events.
• Positive Sentiment: Shareholder returns and insider alignment — Company announced an $80M share repurchase program (expected to begin imminently) and the CEO personally exercised options to increase ownership.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good afternoon, and welcome to HCI Group's fourth quarter 2025 Earnings Call. My name is Tom, and I will be your conference operator. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Before we begin today's call, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay through March 25, 2026, starting later today. The call is also being broadcast live via webcast and available via webcast replay until February 25, 2027, on the Investor Information section of HCI Group's website at www.hcigroup.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Nat Otis, HCI Group. Nat, please proceed.

[Nat Otis, Director of Investor Relations at HCI Group]

Thank you and good afternoon. Welcome to HCI Group's fourth quarter 2025 Earnings Call. To access today's webcast, please visit the Investor Information section of our corporate website at www.hcigroup.com. Before we begin, I'd like to take the opportunity to remind our listeners that today's presentation and responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as anticipate, estimate, expect, intend, plan, and project, and other similar words and expressions are intended to signify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and conditions, but rather are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Some of these risks and uncertainties are identified in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

[Nat Otis, Director of Investor Relations at HCI Group]

Should any risks or uncertainties develop into actual events, these developments could have materially adverse effects on the company's business, financial conditions, and results of operations. HCI Group disclaims all the obligations to update any forward-looking statements. With that, I will turn the call over to Mark Harmsworth, Chief Financial Officer.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

Thanks, Nat. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join our call. As we disclosed in the earnings release, pre-tax income was $144 million in the fourth quarter and $429 million for the full year. Diluted earnings per share were $7.25 for the quarter and $22.72 for the year. Gross premiums earned in the fourth quarter were up 12% from the same quarter last year and were up 14% for the full year. The gross loss ratio in the fourth quarter was 15.6%. While this includes a modest amount of favorable development from prior periods, with that added back, the normalized loss ratio was 17.5% for the fourth quarter and only 20% for the full year.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

For the past three years now, claims and litigation frequency have continued to decline, resulting in a loss ratio that has been lower each successive year, illustrating the positive impacts of the legislative reform, as well as our disciplined underwriting. The combined ratio was less than 45% in the fourth quarter. There is some noise created by the Citizens' assumptions that we did in the fourth quarter. We booked some favorable loss development, as I mentioned, and a few other things. If we adjust for all of this, the normalized combined ratio was less than 60% for the fourth quarter. Let's turn to the balance sheet for a minute. Growth in earnings, combined with prudent capital management, have resulted in a fantastic balance sheet.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

Shareholder equity at the end of the year was over $1 billion and has more than tripled in just two years. Book value per share is now over $80. This does not include any unrealized gains on real estate or on our investment in Exio. If these were to be included, pro forma book value would be about $140 per share. Cash flow continues to be strong. Over the past two years, we've generated more than three-quarters of a billion dollars in cash from operations, and consolidated cash at the end of the year was over $1.2 billion. In terms of holding company liquidity, we have $175 million of liquidity at the HCI level. This does not include the 75 million shares we own of Exio, which now trade publicly.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

In addition to the strong liquidity position at the holding company level, the consolidated surplus in the underwriters has never been stronger. We now have well over half a billion dollars of surplus in the underwriters. The gross leverage ratio is only 2.5, leaving plenty of room for additional growth without the need for new capital. Our strong balance sheet should continue to provide comfort to our policyholders. Our shareholders should take comfort in our efficient use of capital. Our after-tax return on equity over the past three years, a period of time that included three hurricanes, is over 35%. In summary, this has been another fantastic quarter and year for the company. Revenue is growing. The loss ratio and expense ratios are declining. We are generating record cash flows, have minimal debt. We are generating superior returns on capital.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

With that, I'll hand it over to Karin.

[Karin Coleman, Director and COO at HCI Group]

Thank you, Mark. In addition to the impressive financial results that we delivered in the fourth quarter, it is important to remember that in the quarter, HCI also completed the IPO of Exio. We currently own 82% of Exio's outstanding shares, representing an almost $1.2 billion stake in that company. The Exio platform is a tremendous asset for us, placing HCI well in front of the curve as automation and AI integration redefine the insurance industry. In the fourth quarter, we successfully assumed 47,000 policies from Citizens, representing more than $175 million of in-force premiums. For the full year, we assumed 60,000 policies from Citizens. The October assumption gave us the strategic opportunity to prefund growth for 2026, as we now start the year already ahead of 2025 on our in-force premiums.

[Karin Coleman, Director and COO at HCI Group]

On the reinsurance front, we prudently chose not to lock in multiyear rates in recent treaty years or through cat bonds in anticipation of reinsurance market softening. Early indications are this was the right approach. For our June 1 renewal, we continue to work with our reinsurance partners to lock in more favorable terms. Layering in new business before the year begins, and using expense levers to drop more to the bottom line gives us greater flexibility and readies us for future growth. As a reminder, HCI has historically been successful in taking advantage of market instability and dislocation. Following record results in 2025, increased competition and a much smaller number of policies in Citizens may put pressure on other industry participants who are more constrained in growing their businesses.

[Karin Coleman, Director and COO at HCI Group]

In this environment, we see many opportunities for strategic acquisitions but must remain patient as pricing rationalizes. As we also continue to look at new markets to enter, where our experience, expertise, and cutting-edge technology differentiate us from the competition. For example, we continue to monitor California's efforts to reform the insurance industry, since we see similarities in that market to the one we have successfully operated in for many years. As a reminder, HCI Group has navigated through years of market uncertainty, the highest state litigation propensity in the nation, regulatory challenges related to Citizens' depopulations, and competition from below-market rates, not to mention the high-risk weather environment in Florida. As we wait for things to materialize, we are taking the opportunity to invest in ourselves. We are finalizing and expect to announce a new $80 million share repurchase program in the coming days.

[Karin Coleman, Director and COO at HCI Group]

We view this as an internal M&A because where else can we buy a company that trades at our discount with a return on equity consistently above 30%? With that, let me turn it over to Paresh for some final thoughts.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Thanks, Karin. You've heard the numbers, as you can see, 2025 was another phenomenal year for HCI. These numbers are not there by accident. They are the result of careful planning and execution, more importantly, they are sustainable over time, we believe we can build off of them. As Karin mentioned, the assumptions we did late in the year last year set us up to continue to grow in 2026, there are also a number of other opportunities for us to accelerate that growth. The future looks bright. We can grow organically. We can grow by acquiring books. We can grow into new markets. We have done this consistently over a long period of time. In the meantime, we are investing in ourselves through the share buyback program that Karin discussed. Why are we doing this?

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

We feel this is a great opportunity to invest in a company with a superior ROE at a significant discount. On a personal note, I am also doing that personally by exercising, as recorded yesterday, I exercised a number of stock options because I want to increase my ownership in this great company. In closing, this was another impressive year for HCI, and I have said before that the best is yet to come, and I'm saying it again, the best is yet to come for HCI. With that, we will open for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you wish to join the queue to ask a question at this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We do ask, if listening on speakerphone today, that you pick up your handset while asking your question to provide optimal sound quality. Once again, that'll be star one on your keypad to join the queue to ask a question.

[Operator]

Our first question will come from Mark Hughes from Truist Securities. Mark, your line is live. Please proceed.

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

Yeah, thank you. Good afternoon. What, how do you see pricing shaking out over the next year? Obviously, these are some pretty strong results. What is that going to mean for your rate filings?

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Yeah, Mark, it's Paresh. Yes, look, it's a very competitive environment. The results speak for themselves. I think we'd already indicated in previous quarters that, you know, rate increases are a thing of the past, right? Now, it's just about maintaining rates and/or some easing of rates. You know, what we would tell you is that all of that has been utterly predictable for almost a year at this point. All that will play itself out, as already anticipated by us. What we're looking at is how to go up in much bigger increments than this, right? All of that stuff is actually noise, and I say that in the context of, I think if you look back over the last three years, it's been years since we actually changed rates upwards, right?

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

We've been doing everything we've been doing at a very steady rate. We hope to do that in 2026 and beyond. Putting it simply, I think we sell a great product at a fair price.

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

Very good. When you say some easing, how do you think that shakes out across the book? I don't know if you could throw any numbers or ranges at that.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

I think we have previously disclosed that Homeowners Choice, starting January, had already, like, reduced rates by 3.5%, right? Go ahead, Mark.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

Mark, that's only on the Homeowners Choice book, and, I mean, I don't think.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

In Florida.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

In Florida, I don't think that's really going to have a big impact on the average revenue per policy or any, you know, metrics like that on a consolidated.

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

Any risk that you have to refund any of this to policyholders, any excess profits, anything like that?

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

No, because I think... Look, this is an interesting world we find ourselves in. Three years ago, the concern was: Will anybody even survive in Florida? We were busily saying, "Don't worry, we got this." Three years later, everybody seems to think that the sun will shine forevermore, and there will never be any more hurricanes, right? Both extremes, I think, are a little bit overstated. All these conversations about growth, rates, all these things, can change on a dime, you know, with one hurricane. This has happened before, and it will probably happen again. We know this. This is why we have always been measured in our approach and will continue to do so that way.

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

Mark, when we think about the net premiums earned, the $226 million this quarter, is that a good starting point when we think about 2026, or is there anything unusual or one time in that number?

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

I mean, a couple of ways to think about that, Mark. Karin mentioned the assumptions that we did in Q4. Those were done in the middle of the quarter, I think October 21st. You don't have a full quarter's worth of premium in Q4. I think of the $45 million, roughly, per quarter, I think about $35 made its way into Q4. That's one way to think of it. Gross premiums earned in Q1 should be higher than Q4 because you've got the full 90 days on those assumptions. The other way to think about it is, you know, really, your starting point is gross premiums in force, which, you know, they're up about 11%-12% over the end of last year.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

You know, if you're going back and comparing to the year before, Q1 is going to be higher than Q1 last year, and so on. Those are sort of the two ways to think about that, if that helps.

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

It does. How about any observations about weather in the quarter? I think, you know, talking high teens gross loss ratio, is that also, if the top line is stable, or, you know, from a pricing perspective, yeah, the wind could blow, but is there something about that gross loss ratio that might go higher or lower in the subsequent quarters?

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

I mean, it was a loss ratio, the normalized loss ratio in Q4, I think I said, was 17.5%. It was a fairly quiet quarter in terms of weather. You know, I wouldn't think of this as a weather story. You know, I think I mentioned in my comments that the loss ratio has continued to come down over the last three years. Some quarters you have weather, some quarters you don't have weather. If you look at the 10 accident quarters since the legislative reforms sort of, you know, fully kicked in, and you look at those in total, our average loss ratio during that period, ex cat, is about 20%.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

You know, we think of ourselves as sort of range-bound around between 20% and 25%, but we've been at the lower end of that for a while, and actually, 5 of the last 10 accident quarters have been lower than 20%. You know, why is the loss ratio lower in Q4 this year than Q4 last year? It's not really weather. Whether you look at X weather or with weather, you're going to come up with the same thing. You know, you always have quarters where you have a little bit more weather, less weather, but Q4 was not a abnormal sort of quarter in that respect. A little bit less weather, this is not a weather story.

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

Okay. If I could sneak one more in, Paresh, you mentioned the potential to acquire books, you know, have a little more of a step function with your growth, perhaps might have to wait for pricing to come in line. I mean, with the, is it just prohibitive to pay at this point, given the profitability in the state, or are there deals potentially to be done even now?

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Hey, Mark, before I get to that, I was just going to add something to the things that Mark just said about the loss ratio and everything else. I think what Mark is now alluding to is that the comment about that I made earlier about our numbers that we're now posting up seem very sustainable, right? For an extended period of time. Things have been dialed in so well in the book that we have, that it sort of starts becoming very predictable, very consistent, et cetera, because we've kept a very stable portfolio. That's it's not about just the numbers we put up. It's giving us confidence about the coming quarters, right? Which is also very important because, you know, we've lived in lots of times where things every quarter was uncertain, we have that going for us.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

In terms of growth and acquisitions or whatever, I think there are opportunities out there. Obviously, there's a negotiated transaction between the buyer and the seller. Fundamentally, I think the biggest thing that's there in a bid ask spread right now is that the sellers think that 2025 was an average year, and the buyers probably want to average 2025 over the last four years and get to a different number. That'll get sorted out in the next few months, as you know, is 2025 repeatable? That'll set what the prices would be in terms of any purchases, et cetera, that might occur. Does that help?

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

It does. Thank you.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Mm-hmm.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to join queue to ask a question at this time, you may press star one on your telephone keypad. Once again, that'll be star one on your telephone keypad at this time, if you wish to join queue to ask a question. Your next question today is coming from Matt Carletti from Citizens. Matt, your line is live. Please proceed.

[Matthew Carletti, Managing Director at JMP Securities, a Citizens Company]

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon. Paresh, I actually want to follow up. Hey, how's it going? I want to follow up on actually both of Mark's questions. If I could start with the kind of the pricing question and kind of understanding, you know, the answer you gave and some of the comments in the opening about, you know, reinsurance pricing and kind of what we're hearing in the market in terms of, you know, potential magnitude of savings. Would it be safe to kind of view it as margins are unlikely to have downward pressure on them when you put those together, and that's not out of the question, that they could actually improve?

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Yes, I think I would, we would conclude that, yeah. Clearly, the reinsurance rates are softening as well. As you go through this, how much margin pressure there will be is, you know, I don't think is as great as people fear.

[Matthew Carletti, Managing Director at JMP Securities, a Citizens Company]

Yeah, that makes sense. If I can just follow up with a M&A question. When we think about, you know, potential M&A that you might, you know, look at, should we be thinking kind of Florida homeowners, or should we be thinking more broadly than that it could be maybe A, outside of Florida or B, something more than homeowners?

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Yeah. Actually, Matt, I'm going to throw you a curve ball on that question, right?

[Matthew Carletti, Managing Director at JMP Securities, a Citizens Company]

Okay.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

In Mark's prepared comments, he talked about, you know, when you factor in our Exio holdings and real estate holdings, stuff that sort of gets occasionally overlooked, book value-

[Matthew Carletti, Managing Director at JMP Securities, a Citizens Company]

Mm-hmm.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

- is $140. The insurance operations is at $80, right? We've created $60 a book value by doing non-insurance things, so to speak. Yeah?

[Matthew Carletti, Managing Director at JMP Securities, a Citizens Company]

Yeah. Yeah, very fair.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

And-

[Matthew Carletti, Managing Director at JMP Securities, a Citizens Company]

Yeah.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Yeah. When you're looking at M&A, just to provide clarity to everybody as to how we're thinking about this, I really need to tell everybody forward-looking statements, this is my aspirations. What we've done over the years is we always look at wherever we are and say, how do we get three times bigger or three times the size, right? Ultimately, what we're talking about is how do we triple the share price from here? Because clearly, earnings call, we're trying to do right by our shareholders, the people who trust us with their investments. We are sitting here looking at it and saying, "How do we triple our share price from here?" Because that is.

[Matthew Carletti, Managing Director at JMP Securities, a Citizens Company]

Mm-hmm.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

management is getting paid to do. That doesn't translate into we raised rates 3%, or we wrote one new policy or whatever. You got to be now thinking about bigger moves up, and that's what we're doing, and that's where we see the opportunity, because we have a solid base from which to start of. Mark said $1 billion in shareholder equity, no debt, right? Karen's talking about how well the operations are running. You know, trying to improve that incrementally almost seems like a, you know, kind of like hitting a single when you should be thinking of home runs, and that's what we're trying to do. I can, you know, in terms of what we're trying to do, in terms of M&A or anything else, in any kind of growth.

[Matthew Carletti, Managing Director at JMP Securities, a Citizens Company]

Got it. That's very helpful. I appreciate the color. Thank you.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Mm-hmm.

[Operator]

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Michael Phillips from Oppenheimer. Michael, your line is live. Please proceed.

[Michael Phillips, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thank you. Good evening. First question would be, apologies if I missed this. I don't think I did, but can you give the gross written premium numbers this quarter and last year, 4Q, without Citizens?

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

Without Citizens? Yeah, it's Mark, just give me a second. You're looking for gross premiums earned without Citizens?

[Michael Phillips, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

I would prefer written, if you have that, not earned.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

I don't think I've got it in front of me.

[Michael Phillips, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Okay, we can follow up.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

We've got actually, hang on a second. We've got gross written premiums in Q4 were $333 million. I don't have the Citizens number here. I apologize.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

We'll get back to you on it, yeah?

[Michael Phillips, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Yeah. No worries. Thanks. I'll follow up. Thanks. Paresh, you think, I just want to make sure I heard you correctly. You, an earlier question, you were talking about buyers and sellers and the kind of disconnect, I think you said sellers think 2025 was an average year. If you said that's confusing to me, given that there was no cats. Is that what you think you're hearing from sellers, or did I hear that wrong?

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

No. Look, I think you've listened to enough earnings calls over the last, just this week, from enough insurance companies, that everybody had a very good 2025. For whatever reason, everybody's had a great 2025. I'd say whatever reason, we know the reasons, but you get the idea. The question is: Is 2025 repeatable for the next five years, or is it a peak earnings year, and then things will go down a little bit? Unless you have a plan that how you grow from here to a bigger number, you get to, you know, you get into some of these conversations. Having said all of that, I'm not... You know, it's just life. This is how things work. This is how it worked, in 2014 as well.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Everybody thought 2014, which in that decade turned out to be a peak year, was a repeatable year every year thereafter, right? The idea about that is, and you just hit on the key item, right, is 2025 is repeatable, assuming that there will be no more hurricanes. We find that hard to model into our numbers, right? Consequently, you know, that's the disconnect between buyers and sellers.

[Michael Phillips, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Okay. Yeah, thank you. Maybe just a quick numbers question for Mark on the expense ratio numbers. I'm looking at net expense ratios. We're down pretty hard in the quarter. I guess I want to get some clarification on that. I know there's some choppiness by quarter, certainly in the G&A expense. Any commentary on how to think about just the overall net expense ratio from here?

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

Yeah. You're comparing Q3-Q4, right?

[Michael Phillips, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Well, not just Q3, but, you know.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

Yeah.

[Michael Phillips, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

1Q, 2Q, 3Q.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

Yeah. I mean, the expense ratio was lower in Q4 than it was in some of the previous quarters, and that's just sort of related to the way to the accounting related to bonuses in Q4. We paid a considerable portion of the bonuses in restricted shares, which gets expensed over a three or four-year period rather than in the current year. The expense ratio was lower in Q4, and if you look at what the expense ratio was, whether you're doing it gross or net, in the second and third quarter, that's probably a better estimate of what you would see in going forward.

[Michael Phillips, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Okay. Yeah, I was looking at net, Mark, but thank you. That helps. Okay, cool. That's all I had. Appreciate it. Congrats.

[Mark Harmsworth, CFO at HCI Group]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, if anyone wishes to join the queue to ask a question at this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Once again, that'll be star one on your keypad at this time, if you wish to join queue to ask a question. Our next question is a follow-up from Mark Hughes, from Truist Securities. Mark, your line is live. Please proceed.

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

Yeah, thank you. What do you think the timing will be on the $80 million buyback?

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

I think it's probably, you know, obviously subject to various little regulatory requirements or whatever, but it could be as early as next week or the week after.

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

Okay. For approval, or, would you assume you could execute on that pretty quickly?

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Yeah. Mark, okay, let's go to the details of some of this stuff. Because of all of these things and us also trying to be shareholder-friendly, we wanted to make sure everybody knew about it before, you know, as opposed to just a press release dropping in the, in the middle of the week or whatever. We want to make sure we discuss it in the earnings call, and in reality, we have to instigate it during an open window. The open window will probably start for us probably mid-next week. It's roughly in that kind of timeframe that we actually have to instigate it.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

That's what, you know, what holds all these things up, because we have to make sure we do it at the right time with, you know, making sure all of our shareholders are amply informed, yeah, before it starts.

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

Yeah.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

That's why it's next week.

[Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

Mm-hmm.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Paresh Patel, who has a few closing remarks.

[Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO at HCI Group]

On behalf of the entire management team, I would like to thank our shareholders, employees, agents, and most importantly, our policyholders, for their continued support as we embark on the next phase of our growth. Thank you. We look forward to keeping you informed in the future.

[Operator]

At this time, this concludes our call. You may now disconnect. Thank you once again for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Karin Coleman, Director and COO
• Mark Harmsworth, CFO
• Nat Otis, Director of Investor Relations
• Paresh Patel, Chairman and CEO

Analysts

• Mark Hughes, Equity Analyst at Truist Securities
• Matthew Carletti, Managing Director at JMP Securities, a Citizens Company
• Michael Phillips, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer