American Coastal Insurance Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 5, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Negative Sentiment: Soft market conditions continued to pressure results: Gross written premiums declined 5.3% year over year, core income fell to $16.5 million, and the combined ratio increased to 74.3%. Full-year revenue guidance was reduced to $300 million-$320 million, with pricing pressure expected to persist into 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: American Coastal lowered its first-event hurricane retention from $49 million to $23.5 million effective August 1, at an estimated cost of $8.4 million. Management said the move reduces catastrophe risk and improves the reliability of earnings and cash flows while maintaining unchanged full-year earnings guidance of $85 million-$100 million.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company repurchased nearly 1.4 million shares during the quarter and increased its remaining buyback authorization to approximately $30.6 million. Management also indicated that a special dividend remains likely if profitability and excess capital support it.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Policies in force and total insured value increased roughly 3%-4% year over year, with second-quarter account retention around 85%, supporting the company’s claim that it is maintaining or growing its Florida commercial residential market leadership. However, average premiums are declining as competition intensifies.
  • Negative Sentiment: The multifamily and assisted-living expansion remains below expectations because the company lacks an AM Best rating, resulting in lost business and midterm cancellations. American Coastal expects to address the constraint through ACES Specialty or fronting arrangements, potentially enabling broader writing activity late in the fourth quarter.
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Earnings Conference Call
American Coastal Insurance Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the American Coastal Insurance Corporation Q2 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Bennett Bradford Martz, President and CEO. Brad, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you. On behalf of the company, I'd like to note that statements made during this call that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. For more information regarding these statements, please note the language on slide two of our earnings presentation. During the second quarter of 2026, American Coastal continued to maintain its market leadership position in Florida commercial residential property insurance, also experienced continued downward rate pressure, causing gross premiums written to decrease roughly 5% compared to the same period a year ago. Some minor non-hurricane catastrophe losses incurred of approximately $3.1 million also impacted comparability with the prior year, given the lack of any such losses in 2025. Despite top and bottom line compression year-over-year, our underlying combined ratio of 68.7% was very respectable, as was the 26.6% Return on Equity in the current quarter.

Speaker 1

During the open window, trading window that is, in the second quarter, the company repurchased nearly 1.4 million shares of its common stock, bringing the year-to-date total shares repurchased to just over $1.8 million. I'm happy to announce that the board of directors has increased our authority to buy back up to roughly $30.6 million worth of our common stock in the future. Our earnings presentation was revamped this quarter with the intent to improve the messaging around what makes ACIC special. I strongly encourage anyone looking to learn more about our company to read that document each period, along with our other filings. As disclosed on page nine of our earnings presentation, we recently seized an opportunity to reduce our first event hurricane retention from $49 million to only $23.5 million before income tax, effective August 1st.

Speaker 1

The outlook for hurricanes making landfall in Florida this year, along with continued softening of reinsurance pricing, allowed us to mitigate downside risks from potential hurricanes this year. This change is further evidence that ACIC is continuously monitoring the market and always on the lookout for opportunities to improve our risk-adjusted performance. For the sake of clarity, our reinsurance strategy is to buy more protection when pricing is cost-effective and retain more risk on our balance sheet when it's not. Our second and third event retentions remain unchanged at $25 million and $2 million respectively. We are confident to state that American Coastal should remain profitable this year, even with three full retentions. Lowering American Coastal's potential risk from hurricanes improves the overall quality and reliability of our earnings and cash flows.

Speaker 1

Accordingly, our earnings guidance for the full year currently remains unchanged at $85 million-$100 million, inclusive of net average annual losses expected from catastrophes. Actual earnings before income tax could be higher or lower, depending on actual catastrophe frequency and/or severity. Conversely, our guidance for total revenue is being revised downward to between $300 million and $320 million, given the trajectory of the current pricing environment. Without any significant hurricane losses or other surprises this year, we believe that rates, deductibles, and policy acquisition costs will likely remain under pressure into 2027. This is likely to be partially offset by lower reinsurance costs. We remain committed to writing new business and looking for intelligent ways to grow. ACIC will continue to prioritize underwriting profitability as our primary strategic objective.

Speaker 1

I'd like to now turn it over to our CFO, Lana Castle, for more specifics on our financial results. Lana?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Brad, and hello. I'll provide the financial update, but encourage everyone to review the company's press release, earnings and investor presentations, and Form 10-Q for more information regarding our performance. As reflected on page seven of the earnings presentation, American Coastal demonstrated another strong quarter with net income of $21.9 million. Core income was $16.5 million, a decrease of $10.3 million driven by softening market conditions and one-time benefits in the prior year totaling $4.2 million. Gross written premiums are down 5.3% from 2025, with $22.5 million of assumed E&S premium offsetting decreases in our direct premiums. Our combined ratio was 74.3%, an increase of 13.7 points from 2025, but in line with our expectations as we navigate the soft market cycle. Our non-GAAP underlying combined ratio, which excludes current year catastrophe losses and prior year development

Speaker 2

was 68.7% compared to 62.2% in the prior year. We continue to demonstrate underwriting discipline through the market cycle. Page 16 shows balance sheet highlights. Cash and investments increased $2.3 million, inclusive of our previously declared special dividends of $0.75 per share, or $36.6 million. The company's liquidity position remains strong. Stockholders' equity increased $23.2 million or 7.3% to $340.8 million, driven by our underwriting results. Book Value Per Share is $7.21, a 10.7% increase from year-end 2025. This concludes our prepared remarks. We'll now open the floor for questions.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. The first question comes from the line of Mitchell Rubin with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hey, good afternoon. This is Mitch on for Greg. On the first event retention buydown, I appreciated the rationale you provided. What did it cost? With the new authorization in place, how does the lower retention factor into capital return for the rest of the year?

Speaker 1

Hi, Mitch. Thanks for your question. This is Brad. The cost was approximately $8.4 million. About $4 million of that will be expense to ceded earn this year from August to December, and the remainder as ceded earn from January through May 31st. We'll spread that cost over the 10-month period. I think it factors favorably into the prospect for a special dividend. Obviously, we've stated that if we're profitable and earning sufficient returns on capital and we feel like we have excess capital, the prospect for a special dividend remains good. Considering we've been profitable all 18 years of our operations since our inception in 2007, with this year expecting to be the 19th consecutive year of underwriting profitability, this should help guarantee a special dividend is declared. How big is undetermined at this time.

Speaker 3

Thanks for the color on that. For my second question, this quarter had around $767,000 of unfavorable reserve development. Could you provide any color on where that showed up and whether it's an area that could be recurring?

Speaker 1

We don't believe it's recurring. It really all stemmed from a single claim from the 2019 accident year. It was one of our last remaining sinkhole losses that just slightly was above or beyond our Excess Per Risk Reinsurance coverage. Unfortunately, the net result was a slight impact to adverse reserve development. Aside from that, the quarter was in line with all other periods, and I fully expect we'll have favorable development for the full year. Nothing to worry about with reserves.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

The next line of question comes from the line of Dalton Willett with Shamis Capital Partners. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, Brad. How are you doing? Just a quick question on some of the market share dynamics. Comparing the same quarter last year, it looks like policy count is slightly up. Can you talk a little bit about where you're at with market share gains or losses and how you guys are thinking about that dynamic?

Speaker 1

Hi, Dalton. Sure. Yeah, you are correct. Policies in force and total insured value in force as of June 30th 2026, they were both up roughly between 3% and 4% year-over-year. We're maintaining the exposure base. That is not the problem. Account retention improved over the first quarter. It was right around 85% for the second quarter. It very much right where we want it to be, and we've been actively writing new business to help fill in the gaps. We still see attractive opportunities in the market. Our technical model price is still above historical levels on most of the risks we see. We're being cautious, definitely more cautious, but it's all about premium retention right now. We don't control the market forces and dynamics. All we can do is try and build the best risk portfolio around those dynamics.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we're maintaining or maybe even growing our market leadership position.

Speaker 4

Great

Speaker 1

Feel good about that. I don't feel good about the decline in average premium, but that's going to go up and down over time.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about the $30 million, roughly, contribution from the new E&S venture with the ACES co-participation and what you guys are seeing there, and if you're still thinking $70 million-$80 million for the whole year 2026?

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's going fine. This was probably a little bit behind expectations, I don't believe for the full year, when we said what we thought, that $70 million would encompass a full 12 months. If you're thinking calendar year, it's probably going to be closer to $50 million for the full year, somewhere along those lines. For the first 12 months, we would expect it to be somewhere between $60 million and $70 million. Could be more, could be less. AmRisc is working extremely hard to find quality risks to utilize that capacity, and they're doing a good job. They're fighting the same fight we're fighting with rate decreases and erosion of other terms and conditions, but they're disciplined underwriters, too. We've got a lot of trust and faith in them.

Speaker 1

The revenue will be very important to help offset weakness in our core condominium book of business. The reality is our mind is always on the bottom line, not the top line. Like I said at the intro, we'd love to grow and find attractive opportunities to grow, but we're only going to do so if we can earn an acceptable return on capital.

Speaker 4

Fantastic. Last one, if I can. Next year you guys have the senior notes coming due. I know there's been talk of refinancing. You may not need to keep all of that. Can you talk a little bit about how much of that you might plan on refinancing, and then from debt to capital ratio, say if you only kept $50 million of that, you would be nicely below your 20%-25% debt to capital target. Is that kind of the plan to get there from here?

Speaker 1

Yes, it is. We still believe a 20% debt to capital ratio, 20% or less I should say, is appropriate for a company with our earnings power and risk profile. Depending on interest rates, we're exploring traditional bank debt. We're exploring the bond market. We're exploring all avenues and would expect to get a refinance done within the next six to 12 months. We would prefer to have this put to bed and taken care of prior to next hurricane season, to mitigate any risk of storms impacting our ability to refinance. Our current plan is to cut the debt in half. The current outlook is to reduce the outstanding long-term debt from $150 million to $75 million. We've got the cash on hand today to do that.

Speaker 4

Awesome. Thank you so much for taking my call and congrats on another strong quarter.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Matt Dowd with Tieton Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you. It is Tieton Capital Management. I did want to ask the multifamily apartment initiative that you folks have rolled out, how has that developed relative to your expectations, and help me understand how the competitive landscape has been for that new focus area.

Speaker 1

Certainly. Happy to do so. The apartment multifamily and Assisted Living Facility is definitely on the disappointing side. We are currently running into challenges by not having an AM Best rating. We plan to solve for that through the formation of ACES Specialty, which we have already commenced discussions with AM Best about getting that rated this year once it's fully capitalized and licensed. Secondarily, we're also evaluating various fronting relationships, including the structure we already have in place with Fortegra to potentially give Skyway access to AM Best-rated paper of sufficient quality and size to access that risk. The brokers love American Coastal. We've been told that over and over. There's nothing wrong with our product, nothing wrong with our company, but the lenders have strict security requirements around the AM Best rating.

Speaker 1

Unfortunately, we've lost some business to midterm cancellations because of that, and that has slowed down the quoting and binding activity in apartments. We're kind of in a holding pattern at the moment, but we have enormous opportunity in front of us once we solve that constraint, which we're actively working on and hope to have a solution operational during the tail end of the fourth quarter to start writing both apartments and ALFs, as well as other classes of commercial property that are also more rating sensitive inside and outside of Florida after hurricane season. That's our plan.

Speaker 5

Once you do have the lack of the rating cured and have the solution in place, Brad, would you expect that it should be that there is a good amount of business that you should be able to write at reasonable rates? Like you said, the brokers like your product, do you believe that we'll see some business later on fairly quickly after that then?

Speaker 1

There's enormous opportunity out there. We definitely feel, and have been told by multiple parties that the opportunity is there. Competition is definitely there as well. That has not helped matters, that there's excess capacity in the marketplace, and the incumbents are fighting hard to retain those policies. We have a strategy and feel like we can gain a lot more traction with the E&S AM Best rated paper at Skyway's disposal.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks, Brad.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Akshay Tanna, private investor. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi, Brad, team. My question's on the treasury shares. I see the treasury shares increased. That's mainly because of the buybacks. I was wondering if you have plans to cancel them or maybe help us understand why you keep them.

Speaker 1

Yes, that is the plan. As I stated at the beginning, we have reloaded our capacity and increased it now. We're still going to be on the lookout for additional opportunities to repurchase stock and cancel the shares to reduce the overall share count, which obviously doesn't necessarily have an immediate effect for all shareholders. It really just benefits sellers. Certainly reducing some of the share count suggests we believe in our business. We're heavily weighted on insider ownership here, and increasing our concentration investment in the stock is just something we feel compelled to do when you're trading at 5 times trailing. We're happy to do it. The limitation is going to be the average daily trending volume. It just takes a little bit of time to deploy that capacity.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thanks. I know we've discussed about the premiums coming down. Competition intensifying as well. As I look at the Florida commercial residential property market share that gets shared, I'm looking at a couple of companies that have increased market share. Like Slide is one. I'm just curious on the long-term threats to the earning power of the core business. Can you maybe talk a little bit more about it?

Speaker 1

I can't comment on what other companies are doing. I can just tell you that you can measure market share a number of different ways, whether you do it based on total insured value, policy count, premium, et cetera. We feel like we're still the largest writer of it. We're in great position. We're, again, defending our book of business. We're only losing what we want to lose, where we want to lose it. The stuff we want to keep, we're keeping. Retention is right where we want it. Account retention, that is. That being said, there's obviously challenges on the premium side because of increased interest and competition. We're mindful of that. We know how to manage the cycle. We've seen this before. If we have to shrink the book because pricing becomes irrational, we will. That's not the expectation at the moment.

Speaker 1

We're still in a very good position and many periods away from being at pricing levels where we would have to consider that, meaning ceding market share. I don't see that as a near-term problem. Could be a longer-term problem, depending on how long this part of the cycle lasts. For right now, we're still actively writing and finding new business opportunities as well. We're winning new business. Retention's where we want it. That's what we're focused on.

Speaker 6

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

As a friendly reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions at this time. This concludes today's call. Thank you for your-

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