The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. (THG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to The Hanover Insurance Group's Annual Meeting of Shareholders. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Cynthia Egan to commence the meeting.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. My name is Cynthia Egan, and I am Chair of the company's Board of Directors. Thank you for your participation in the meeting this morning. With me is Jack Roche, President and Chief Executive Officer and a Director of the company. As Chair, I will serve as presiding officer and lead the formal part of our meeting this morning. After we have concluded the formal part of the meeting, Jack will provide a brief presentation, and we will have an opportunity for questions and comments. For the benefit of interested listeners, we are transmitting the audio portion of the meeting and the accompanying slide presentation through a live webcast posted on our website. At this time, I call the meeting to order. In addition to Jack and me, the other directors and director nominee in attendance are Francisco Aristeguieta, Kevin Bradicich, Theo Bunting, Jane Carlin, Paul Condrin, Bill Donnell, Kathy Lane, Joe Ramrath and Betsy Ward. I ask that the Board members and nominees please stand together to be recognized as a group. Thank you. The company's tabulation agent, Mediant Communications, has delivered an affidavit of mailing establishing that notice of this meeting was duly given. The notice, along with the proxy statement for the meeting were made available to shareholders on March 27, 2025. A copy of the notice of meeting and the affidavit of mailing will be filed with the minutes of this meeting. All shareholders of record at the close of business on March 20, 2025, are entitled to vote at this meeting. A representative from Mediant is here today and has been appointed Inspector of Elections. The inspector has informed me that the company has received valid proxies representing a majority of the outstanding shares. Accordingly, a quorum is present. The Board has proposed 3 items for consideration, discussion and voting, all of which are set forth in the company's proxy statement. They are as follows: number one, election of directors, Kevin J. Bradicich, Theodore H. Bunting Jr., William E. Donnell, Joseph R. Ramrath and John C. Roche have each been nominated to serve for a 1-year term. The second item is the advisory vote on executive compensation. And the third item is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm of the company for 2025. At this time, I would ask for a motion with respect to each of the proposals. Thank you. Representatives of PricewaterhouseCoopers are also attending today's meeting and will be available for questions during the discussion period. I would now like to open the floor for discussion by shareholders of these specific proposals before the meeting. Following any discussion, we will distribute ballots to any shareholders who wish to vote in person. If you are a shareholder of record as of March 20, 2025, and you have a question regarding these proposals, please raise your hand to be recognized. Then please state your name and indicate whether you are a shareholder or you hold a valid proxy before asking your question. If you have questions or comments about matters other than these proposals or wish to propose other matters, time will be allowed in just a few moments. Seeing that there is no further discussion regarding these proposals, which were set forth in the company's proxy statement, then I declare that the polls are now open for receipt of votes by ballot. If you are either a shareholder of record or hold a valid proxy and you want to change your vote or vote for the first time, then please raise your hand and one of the ushers will provide you with a ballot. Seeing none, I then declare the polls are closed for voting. Please allow us just a moment to determine the voting results. I have been informed by the inspector that each of the nominees for election to the Board of Directors has been duly elected, and all other proposals have been approved by the requisite shareholder vote. Now before we close the formal part of the meeting and move to management's presentation and session for questions, is there any other business to properly come before the meeting? Again, there will be time for questions in just a few moments. I see that there are none. Before closing out the formal meeting, I would like to take a moment to note that Chuck Cronin, Hanover's long-time Corporate Secretary, has announced that he will be retiring in early January 2026. Chuck has served as the company's Corporate Secretary for almost 30 years and during that time, provided excellent support and advice to the Board and the company on a myriad of issues, including corporate governance, data privacy and protection, capital and transactional matters. On a personal level, I know that I speak for the entire Board and management when I say that his advice and counsel will be deeply missed along with his collegiality and professionalism. Chuck, thank you for everything. Since there is no further business on the agenda, the formal portion of the meeting is adjourned, and we will now turn to management presentation followed by questions or comments. So at this time, I would like to introduce Jack Roche, our President and CEO of The Hanover. Jack?

Thank you, Cynthia, and welcome, everyone. I'm excited to update you on The Hanover Insurance Group. Today, I will share an update on our company's progress, competitive position, growth momentum and unique culture. I'll reflect on our recent financial performance and highlight the steps we are taking to execute on our winning strategy. We accomplished a tremendous amount during the year, including the outstanding execution of our margin recapture and catastrophe mitigation plans and the further diversification of our earnings base with strong operating income and return on equity. At the same time, we made strong advancements in our industry-leading claims response and execution, our expansion of our product and service capabilities, our execution of portfolio management and pricing plans, our implementation of critical technology initiatives and the evolution of our inclusive culture. I am very proud of all the team has accomplished over the last year, demonstrating great resilience in the face of significant challenges and advancing our company to the next level. And I am more confident than ever we have what it takes to be the premier property and casualty franchise in the independent agency channel. 2024 proved to be a challenging year for our industry with persistent property inflation, geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty, more frequent natural catastrophes, increased signs of legal system abuse and more. Despite these challenges, our company persevered. Our strong financial performance for the year is a reflection of our distinctive strategy, our disciplined approach to risk selection, pricing and financial and exposure management as well as the commitment of our team. For the year, we delivered operating income of $485.9 million, our highest to date. record net return on equity of 16.1%, record operating return on equity of 15.8% and 88.4% ex-cat combined ratio, representing a 2.9 point improvement over the prior year and $6.1 billion in net premiums written. We grew our net investment income to $372.6 million, up 12.2% year-over-year and increased our book value per share by 14.9% during the year to $79.18. At the same time, we continue to increase shareholder dividends, boosting our quarterly dividend by 5.9% in December, making 20 years of annual increases and highlighting our Board's confidence in our plan, our team and our prospects. The positive momentum we established last year has continued into 2025. Net premiums written increase of 3.9% over the first quarter of last year, renewal price increases of 13.1% in Personal Lines, 11.1% in Core Commercial and 8.4% in Specialty. We further improved underwriting performance as evidenced by our ex-cat combined ratio of 87.8% and our 94.1% combined ratio all in, and net investment income of $106.1 million, up 18.3% from the prior year quarter. With a proven strategy, a strong financial foundation and an improved competitive position, we continue to advance efforts in 2024 to diversify our earnings base and to deliver more balanced contributions from our 3 key business segments. In the face of unprecedented market dynamics, we remain focused on our vision, investing heavily in the key tenets of our strategy, distinctive agency partnerships, specialized products and capabilities and a customer-driven approach. Our agent distribution strategy played a critical role in our success in 2024 as we leverage the consultative approach of our agents to help our customers understand the need for price increases and changes in terms and conditions while also conveying the benefits of risk prevention and mitigation tools. As a result, our relationships with our agent partners continue to grow stronger. During 2024, we increased the number of agents who write more than 2 lines of business and more than $5 million in net premiums written with us. In addition to more fully leveraging our distribution capability, we delivered on our commitment to invest in tools and technology that make it easier for our agents and customers to do business with us with faster quoting and greater customization, making our company even more relevant to our agent partners and customers. We expanded our market-leading quote and issue platform, TAP Sales, which is now available across our Personal, Small Commercial and Specialty segments. We introduced new functionality like customer texting capabilities and claims status tracking, and we invested in capabilities that improve employee productivity, automation and operational efficiency. Each of our businesses performed well in 2024, executing on their plans to minimize the catastrophe exposures, enhance their margins and position their teams to deliver strong, sustainable profitability. Our Specialty business once again turned in an impressive performance, delivering another year of excellent underwriting results while continuing to invest in people and technology, enhancing capabilities and further strengthening our competitive position. Our specialty team posted strong premium growth in our most profitable lines, including excess and surplus lines, industrial property, health care and marine. This business represents a robust and profitable growth engine for us and with positive momentum building in the fourth quarter and expected to continue. Our Core Commercial business also delivered strong results in 2024, driven by our successful Small Commercial growth strategy and our margin improvement focus in middle market. As we look to the future, we remain committed to striking a balance between thoughtful growth and profitability in this business. With the progress made in 2024, our Core Commercial business is well positioned to continue to deliver solid growth, and our strong pricing and reserve position sets us up to better navigate social inflation and legal system abuse pressures in casualty lines going forward. And it was a transformative year for our Personal Lines business as we strengthen our position as a leader in the total account market by repositioning profitability and enhancing our earnings resiliency. This business made very significant year-over-year gains and generated outstanding improvement on an ex-cat basis through successful execution of our margin recapture plan. At the same time, the team implemented critical price increases and underwriting actions across its book to reduce our exposures to catastrophes. As a result, our Personal Lines business is well positioned to drive profitable growth going forward, leveraging its market leadership and preferred account products. As our business evolves, we are committed to sustaining our strong corporate culture, a culture that is based on trust and respect that attracts outstanding professionals that brings our care values of collaboration, accountability, respect and empowerment to life and one that creates an environment where our employees can make a difference in our business and in our communities. These efforts have not gone unnoticed. Over the past year, our organization was recognized as a Best Place to Work and trusted and responsible company by Time, U.S. News & World Report, Forbes and Newsweek. We also continued to invest in our employees, offering career growth and development opportunities, coaching, mentorship and leading leadership programs with a focus on inclusion and employee engagement. Similarly, we maintained our commitment to being an environmentally conscious organization and to help build strong, vibrant communities, finding ways to enable and support employee volunteerism while making contributions that address a wide range of community needs. These efforts have brought positive momentum to our organization as we strive to attract and retain the talented team required to drive sustainable, profitable growth in an evolving market. I am proud to say that once again, our employees and our company came together in our annual employee giving campaign, contributing more than $1.5 million to benefit hundreds of nonprofit organizations and countless individuals and families across the country. We also came together in many other ways throughout the year, providing financial, in-kind and volunteer support for public education, after-school programs, shelters, food pantries, health and safety, community building and much more. Throughout the year, our employees and our company demonstrated great market insight and resiliency, truly rising to the occasion and positioning our company for success in a dynamic and rapidly changing world. With the strength of our franchise, the depth and experience of our team and the effectiveness of our proven strategy, we believe we have what it takes to succeed. The progress we have made positions us to build on our strong foundation and capitalize on emerging opportunities that grow our business. As we look ahead, we have every confidence that we have what it takes to advance our company to the next level, delivering value for our shareholders, our agents, our customers, our employees and all of our stakeholders. Thank you very much. So with that, we'll see if there's anyone in the room that has any questions.

Good morning. My name is [ Dave Manjan ]. I represent Carpenter Union Pension Funds that hold shares in the company. I just want to say that it must be springtime because I'm at the annual meeting here in Hanover, and I'm glad to be here. Thank you for your warm welcome. Just so you know the Carpenters Union about 15 years ago, we spent a lot of energy, and we're highly engaged. We did the most shareholder proposals around the majority vote standard. We're happy that that's basically where the market is right now. Over the last couple of years, we've looked at the post-election process. We've done some proposals around that. And so today's question is related to that process. The company has in place a bylaw provision that addresses the situation when an incumbent director nominee is not reelected under the majority vote standard in uncontested elections. Under the operation of Delaware Corporate Law, an unelected director continues as a holdover director and is required to tender his or her resignation to the Board for consideration. The Board, therefore, is empowered to accept or reject that resignation. So given that the vote against a director nominee is not simply an advisory vote, right? It has a legal effect. My question is, doesn't the bylaw providing the Board that final say on the status of an uncontested -- I'm sorry, on an unelected incumbent director undermine the voting rights of shareholders? Now with that question being said, I just wanted to be clear that we support the Board. This is more of a long-term corporate governance issue that we're looking in the market in general and would love to hear from the company about that.

David, thank you for your attendance every year and also thank you for your thoughtful question. And also thank you for the Carpenters Union being a longtime shareholder with Hanover. We appreciate your support. As you might imagine, we take governance very seriously and particularly when we are looking at our Board, ensuring that everyone around that table and any nominee is both qualified and able to serve full on. But what I would like to do is have Joe Ramrath, our Chair of the Nom and Gov Committee to give further detail, more specific detail on how we deal with your specific topic. So Joe, if I could turn it over to you?

David, thank you for being here, as Cynthia said, and we really appreciate the opportunity to engage with our shareholders on important matters of corporate governance. The situation where a director remains on the Board after not having received 50% of the vote of the shareholders is obviously a serious one and one that would require the serious attention of both the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee and the Board of Directors as a whole. In terms of how we think about we would deal with that kind of situation, the bylaws would require that the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee kind of gather relevant facts, kind of understand what the reasons are for the situation and make a recommendation to the Board of Directors. The committee would consider all relevant facts that could include reaching out to individual shareholders and make sure that we understand why there has been this negative vote. As I know you're aware, in this environment, some shareholders are expressing dissatisfaction with corporate policies by voting against individual members of a committee or the Chairperson of that committee and may not reflect an adverse decision about the individual director. And so we would want to make sure that we understood what was really driving the vote. In terms of -- as Cynthia mentioned, whenever we ask a person or allow a person to serve on the Board of Directors of this company, we do so cognizant of both the skills and experiences of the individual and the needs of the Board and the company. We also take into consideration the performance of individual directors. We have a fairly robust process. Whenever we put a name in front of the shareholders to be elected to our Board, we have a process that we go through where we consider the performance of that individual director. So certainly, the results of all of that would be taken into consideration by the committee. After the committee considers the entire situation, we would make a recommendation to the full Board and then the full Board itself would have to deliberate on this situation and consider whether to accept or reject the resignation of the individual director or take some other matter that tries to respond to whatever might be the underlying reasons for the adverse vote. So I hope that answers your question.

As always, I really appreciate the thoughtful response. Yes, for us, this post-election process, we're going to be focusing on a number of years. I definitely look forward to continuing these conversations. I appreciate all the time and energy and the thoughtful response that I got. And it certainly does answer my question for now. And I just want to congratulate you on this year's performance. We're very happy to be long term. shareholders.

Yes, we appreciate it. Any time that there's an opportunity that you'd like to engage with us further on this matter or any matter, we'd be happy to speak with you at that. Thank you.

Any other questions? All right. Well, I would just like to say, Jack, thank you for your tremendous leadership. On behalf of the Board and shareholders, our gratitude. And I'd also like to express gratitude to management and to every associate of The Hanover. 2024 was a solid, solid year in the face of many headwinds that had come and continue to come. But you are delivering day in and day out. You're working hard, you're working smart and you're creating value and advancing the company. So thank you very, very much.

That concludes the program.

Thank you for joining, everyone. With the meeting concluded. You may now disconnect.