Slide Insurance Q1 Earnings Call Highlights

Slide Insurance NASDAQ: SLDE reported record quarterly results to start 2026, driven by premium growth, improved underwriting metrics, and continued capital returns, according to management’s comments on the company’s first-quarter earnings call.

Quarterly growth and profitability

Chairman and CEO Bruce Lucas said Slide opened the year with “another quarter of strong execution,” pointing to renewals, expanded voluntary sales, and continued assumptions of policies from Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. The company grew gross written premiums 49% year-over-year to $414.8 million and increased net income 51% to $139.5 million, which Lucas described as “another new quarterly record.”

Lucas said first-quarter return on equity was 12.5% (and 50% on an annualized basis). He also highlighted underwriting performance, noting Slide’s combined ratio improved to 55.5% from 58.9% in the year-ago quarter.

Chief Financial Officer Anastasios Omiridis said diluted earnings per share were $1.02 and attributed the quarter’s performance to post-IPO scale benefits. He added that the company’s growth in gross written premiums was driven by a 46% year-over-year increase in policies in force to 508,928, supported by voluntary new business, renewals of previously assumed Citizens policies, and additional Citizens acquisitions.

Citizens takeouts and shifting mix toward voluntary growth

Omiridis said Slide assumed $92.3 million in annualized gross premiums during the quarter, representing 28,783 policies from Citizens. Lucas described the company as selective in pursuing Citizens assumptions in 2026, emphasizing that Slide is “focused on profitability” and “certainly not reliant on Citizens this year.”

In response to questions about how the company can continue to find attractive Citizens opportunities amid a more competitive environment, Lucas said takeout economics vary by carrier depending on portfolio fit and reinsurance effects. He also cited Slide’s underwriting approach, including what he described as a $6 trillion total insured value underwriting set and use of its ProCat tool to estimate forward reinsurance costs.

When asked which channel would be the larger contributor to new business growth in 2026, Lucas said the answer is voluntary business “for sure.”

Underwriting drivers and expense trends

Omiridis said net losses and loss adjustment expenses rose to $111.1 million from $83.8 million a year earlier, while the accident year loss ratio improved to 28.4% from 34.2%. He said policy acquisition and other underwriting expenses increased to $44.1 million, which he attributed to increased renewal policies from prior-year assumed Citizens policies, resulting in higher policy acquisition costs in 2026.

General and administrative expense increased to $46.2 million from $41.4 million, which Omiridis said was “primarily due to higher staffing levels to support our growth.” He said Slide’s overall expense ratio declined to 25.1% from 27.4%, contributing to the combined ratio improvement.

In the Q&A, Lucas told analysts the quarter included “some cat” from relatively minor events, and he said there was no prior-year development (PYD). “The earnings number that we posted is 100% a quarterly function with no PYD in it,” Lucas said.

Reinsurance tower size and catastrophe retention philosophy

Lucas said the company was in the final stages of completing its 2026 reinsurance program and expected to complete the reinsurance tower within “the next one to two weeks.” He noted that risk-adjusted rate decreases in Florida reinsurance have been “substantial,” but said he would not disclose the magnitude while negotiations continue across the market.

On tower size, Lucas said Slide increased its first-event reinsurance tower by roughly $1 billion versus 2025. Later, responding to analyst questions, he said the first-event tower is approximately $3.5 billion of first-event coverage and that, on an apples-to-apples basis, the company’s scaling has kept risk profile proportionally similar to last year as the book grew.

Asked how reinsurance pricing savings would translate into loss ratio improvement, Lucas said Slide has no external quota share and therefore reinsurance pricing should not impact the underlying loss ratio. “A decrease in reinsurance pricing is good for the Florida market and Florida cedents,” Lucas said, adding that reinsurance remains the company’s “single largest expense.”

On earnings sensitivity to catastrophe events, Lucas said an event like Hurricane Hermine would have “virtually zero impact” to earnings, while a stronger storm could have a larger effect. While noting the company was still finalizing its first-event retention, Lucas said Slide has “consistently capped our retention to no more than 25% of pre-tax earnings” and that even with a full-event retention he would expect pre-tax earnings to decline by about 25% for the year. He also said Slide spreads retention across layers through what he referred to as “co-par,” and that it “does like to step down retentions on event two” and “does buy third event cover,” which he called rare in Florida.

Capital returns, cash levels, and 2026 guidance

Lucas said Slide completed a $120 million share repurchase program during the quarter, and that the board authorized a new $125 million repurchase program in late March. He said Slide repurchased approximately 7.7 million shares in the quarter at a weighted average price of $17.75. Lucas added that since initiating buybacks, Slide has repurchased approximately 13.3 million shares at an average price of $17.30, and said the company has returned $239 million to shareholders and reduced IPO dilution from 13% to 3%.

Omiridis provided updated figures, saying that as of the date of the call Slide had repurchased an additional 3 million shares for $53.8 million at an average price of $17.95. He said that since inception the company repurchased 13.3 million shares for $230.9 million at an average price of $17.30.

On liquidity, Omiridis said that as of March 31, 2026, Slide had $1.2 billion in cash and cash equivalents and $720 million in total invested assets, with the portfolio allocated across corporate bonds, municipal bonds, U.S. government bonds, and asset-backed securities and other.

In response to questions about why cash remained high, Lucas said profitability has exceeded internal projections and cash has been building, giving the company flexibility to both grow and return capital. He said Slide is “reinvesting those cash proceeds into higher yielding assets,” while also arguing that “nothing’s a higher yield than just the underwriting” given the company’s combined ratio.

Omiridis reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance previously issued in February, calling for:

• Gross written premiums of $1.85 billion to $1.95 billion
• Net income of $455 million to $470 million

He said topline growth is expected to come primarily from organic expansion, including double-digit increases in policies in force and premium outside Florida, supplemented by selective Florida opportunities that meet targeted returns.

Looking to geographic expansion, Lucas said South Carolina produced “robust voluntary sales” in the quarter and highlighted California as a near-term launch. He told analysts Slide’s California launch was “imminent,” with distribution partners already in place, and said the company sees an opportunity to grow topline in 2026 by “$50 million-$100 million just in California, if not more.” He also said New York and New Jersey appear “very accretive” due to what he described as capacity shortfalls and potential reinsurance synergies as Slide scales in the Northeast.

Slide said it expects to file its Form 10-Q after the market closes on April 30, 2026.

About Slide Insurance NASDAQ: SLDE

Launched in 2021, we are a technology enabled, fast-growing, coastal specialty insurer. We focus on profitable underwriting of single family and condominium policies in the property and casualty (“P&C”) industry in coastal states along the Atlantic seaboard through our insurance subsidiary, Slide Insurance Company (“SIC”). We utilize our differentiated technology and data-driven approach to focus on market opportunities that are underserved by other insurance companies. We acquire policies both from inorganic block acquisitions and subsequent renewals, as well as new business sales through a combination of independent agents and our direct-to-consumer(“DTC”) channel, through which we sell our insurance products directly to end consumers, without the use of retailers, brokers, agents or other intermediaries.

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