Accelerant NYSE: ARX reported stronger-than-expected first-quarter 2026 results, with management pointing to continued growth in its specialty insurance platform, expanding third-party insurer participation and increased use of artificial intelligence across underwriting and internal operations.
Chairman and CEO Jeff Radke said the company exceeded the midpoint of its quarterly guidance for Exchange Written Premium, Third-Party Premium and Adjusted EBITDA. He described the quarter as “fantastic” and said momentum remained strong across the Accelerant Risk Exchange.
Accelerant reported Exchange Written Premium of $1.14 billion in the first quarter, up 16% from the prior-year period. Radke said growth would have been 22% excluding a “large premium low-margin member” that the company terminated at the end of the second quarter of last year.
The company also added 16 new managing general agent, or MGA, members during the quarter, bringing total member MGAs to 296. Radke said the additions came across the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and the European Union, with specialty coverage areas ranging from management liability to captives.
Accelerant Highlights Data and AI Strategy
Radke emphasized Accelerant’s proprietary data capabilities, saying the company added 22 million rows of data and 4,000 incremental risk attributes during the quarter. He said Accelerant now has 156 million rows of information across more than 62,000 unique risk attributes.
“Our mantra from the very beginning of Accelerant has been no data left behind,” Radke said, citing exposure characteristics, price per exposure, policy provisions, geospatial information, public sentiment vectors and environmental features as examples of data the company captures and ingests.
Radke said the company uses that data in a “closed loop AI native system” to improve underwriting decisions. He said Accelerant’s position in the insurance value chain allows it to connect underwriting, submission and exposure data with claims outcomes, enabling models to be updated in short cycles.
He also said AI is improving internal productivity, including within Accelerant’s product and technology engineering teams. According to Radke, AI has helped generate a productivity lift of more than 24% among engineers. He said the company is developing beta solutions that may reduce reliance on, or replace, some third-party software systems used in insurance and reinsurance administration.
In response to an analyst question, Radke said AI is central to Accelerant’s ambition to become a “$20 billion platform,” adding that the larger opportunity is accelerating key internal processes and capturing more of the specialty insurance market.
Risk Exchange Metrics Show Growth in Third-Party Participation
Head of Strategy Ryan Schiller said Accelerant ended the quarter with 96 risk capital partners and 18 third-party insurers. Third-party written premium totaled $462 million in the quarter, compared with $184 million in the first quarter of last year.
Accelerant said 41% of Exchange Written Premium went to third-party insurers in the first quarter, up from 19% in the same period last year and 30% for full-year 2025. Radke said the company’s medium-term goal is for third-party insurers to represent two-thirds of total Exchange Written Premium.
Schiller also said Accelerant continued to reduce its concentration with Hadron. Hadron accounted for 41% of third-party premiums in the first quarter, down from 67% in the first quarter of 2025. Management expects Hadron to decline further to 35% to 40% of third-party premium for full-year 2026, including less than one-third in the fourth quarter.
On the supply side, Schiller said existing members accounted for more than 90% of Exchange Written Premium growth in the quarter. He said growth was driven by higher premium volume on existing insurance products and incremental products offered through the exchange. Existing members have added more than 100 products to the Accelerant Risk Exchange over the past year.
Schiller said rate was not a significant driver of growth, contributing just 1% during the quarter. He said Accelerant’s book is not catastrophe-exposed and is focused on low-limit, low-premium specialty policies in the commercial small and midsize enterprise market. He noted that 95% of policies have less than $10,000 in annual premium.
Financial Results and Segment Performance
CFO Linda Huber, participating in her first Accelerant earnings call, said total revenue rose 54% year over year to $273 million. Operating revenue, excluding realized and unrealized investment gains and losses, increased 57%.
Accelerant reported pre-tax income of $2 million and a GAAP net after-tax loss of $4 million. Adjusted net income was $38 million. Huber said the largest driver of the difference between GAAP and adjusted net income was share-based compensation expense, including approximately $8 million tied to acceleration of certain awards related to the CFO transition.
Adjusted EBITDA was $66 million in the quarter, compared with $39 million in the prior-year period. Huber said fee-based operating revenue and Adjusted EBITDA, defined as consolidated results excluding the underwriting segment, grew 52% and 112%, respectively.
- Exchange services: Operating revenue was $100 million, up 41% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $67 million, with a 67% margin.
- MGA operations: Operating revenue was $54 million, up 10% year over year. Huber said growth would have been in the high teens after adjusting for timing between quarters. Adjusted EBITDA was $17 million, with a 31% margin.
- Underwriting: Operating revenue was $149 million, and Adjusted EBITDA was $7 million.
The company’s gross loss ratio was 52.1% in the first quarter, up 80 basis points from full-year 2025, primarily due to seasonal differences in business mix. During the question-and-answer session, Radke said Accelerant expects its 2026 loss ratio to remain in the low 50s and said the company feels comfortable with longer-term sustainability based on its data, technology and focus on small business risks.
Buybacks, Cash and 2026 Outlook
Accelerant had approximately $450 million of unrestricted cash and investments outside its insurance companies as of March 31. Huber said the company repurchased 828,000 Class A shares for $11 million during the first quarter at a weighted average price of $13.11 per share. She added that Accelerant repurchased another $52 million of shares so far in the second quarter.
Within its insurance entities, Accelerant had approximately $630 million of capital at quarter-end. Huber said the company expects minimal capital contributions to those entities during 2026 as it continues to grow with third-party insurers.
Accelerant issued second-quarter guidance for Exchange Written Premium of $1.27 billion to $1.32 billion, third-party direct written premium of $580 million to $620 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $60 million to $66 million.
For full-year 2026, the company now expects Exchange Written Premium of at least $5.2 billion, third-party direct written premium of at least $2.3 billion and Adjusted EBITDA of at least $285 million. That includes fee-based, or non-underwriting, Adjusted EBITDA of at least $276 million.
Huber also said Accelerant participated in capital transactions involving an investment in a third-party claims administration business in late April. The company sold a portion of its interest and generated $52 million of cash proceeds. It expects to recognize realized and unrealized gains totaling $55 million in the second quarter, though Huber said the transaction will be excluded from non-GAAP metrics.
Radke closed the call by welcoming newly elected independent board members David Talach and Simon Wainwright. He said Accelerant remains focused on becoming “the rails on which specialty insurance runs” by connecting MGA members with diversified risk capital and using data, analytics and increasingly autonomous underwriting tools.
About Accelerant NYSE: ARX
Aeroflex Holding Corp. (Aeroflex Holding) is a provider of radio frequency (RF) and microwave integrated circuits, components and systems used in the design, development and maintenance of wireless communication systems. The Company's solutions include microelectronic components and test and measurement equipment used by companies in the space, avionics and defense; commercial wireless communications, and medical and other markets. Its products include a range of RF, microwave and millimeter wave microelectronic components, integrated circuits (ICs), and analog and mixed-signal devices.
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