On Friday, Travelers Companies (NYSE:TRV) discussed second-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.
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View the webcast at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/633279027
Watch the full earnings call below:
Summary
Travelers Companies reported a strong second quarter with core income of $2.2 billion, or $10.04 per diluted share, and a core return on equity of 24.9%.
The company achieved underwriting income of $1.7 billion pre-tax and a combined ratio improvement to 83.6%, driven by strong underwriting performance across all segments.
Net written premiums reached $11.5 billion, with notable growth in business insurance and bond and specialty insurance lines.
Travelers returned over $1.5 billion of excess capital to shareholders, including $1.3 billion in share repurchases, and maintained a strong balance sheet.
Strategic investments in technology and AI are contributing to efficiency gains and improved underwriting, supporting long-term profitable growth.
The management reaffirmed their commitment to disciplined underwriting and capital management, emphasizing the importance of maintaining competitive advantages.
Future guidance suggests continued strong premium levels and underlying margins, supported by innovation and investment strategies.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the second quarter results teleconference for Travelers. We ask that you hold all questions until the completion of formal remarks, at which time you will be given instructions for the question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on July 17, 2026. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Abby Goldstein, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.
Ms. Goldstein, you may begin.
Abby Goldstein, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations
Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Travelers’ discussion of our second quarter 2026 results. We released our press release, financial supplement, and webcast presentation earlier this morning. All of these materials can be found on our website at travelers.com under the Investors Section. Speaking today will be Alan Schnitzer, Chairman and CEO; Dan Frey, Chief Financial Officer; and our three segment presidents, Greg Teslowski of Business Insurance, Jeff Klank of Bond and Specialty Insurance, and Michael Klein of Personal Insurance.
They will discuss the financial results of our business and the current market environment. They will refer to the webcast presentation as they go through prepared remarks, and then we will take your questions. Before I turn the call over to Alan, I’d like to draw your attention to the explanatory note included at the end of the webcast presentation. Our presentation today includes forward-looking statements. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statement involves risks and uncertainties and is not a guarantee of future performance.
Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors. These factors are described under forward-looking statements in our earnings press release and in our most recent 10-Q and 10-K filed with the SEC. We do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements. Also, in our remarks or responses to questions, we may mention some non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations are included in our recent earnings press release, financial supplement, and other material available in the Investors section on our website.
And now I’d like to turn the call over to Alan Schnitzer.
Alan Schnitzer, Chairman and CEO
Thank you, Abby. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We’re pleased to report an excellent second quarter and another in a sustained run of successful quarters with very strong underwriting performance across all three segments and a terrific result from our investment portfolio. Our results continue to reflect steady progress on the innovation front as many of the initiatives we’ve shared bear fruit. Everything from product enhancements to the impact of AI on straight-through claims processing.
There’s more of that to come as we continue to invest with discipline and focus on the initiatives that matter most. For the quarter, we earned core income of $2.2 billion or $10.04 per diluted share, generating core return on equity of 24.9%. Over the trailing four quarters, we generated a core return on equity of 24.2%. Underwriting income of $1.7 billion pre-tax was driven by very strong levels of underlying underwriting income and favorable prior year development.
Reported and underlying profitability in the quarter were excellent in all three segments. The combined ratio improved to 83.6%, and the underlying combined ratio improved to 84.1%, driven by a lower underlying loss ratio. Turning to investments, our high-quality investment portfolio continued to perform well. After-tax net investment income increased by 14% to $883 million, driven by strong and reliable returns from our growing fixed income portfolio and a strong result from the non-fixed income portfolio.
Our underwriting and investment results, together with our strong balance sheet, enabled us to return more than $1.5 billion of excess capital to shareholders during the quarter, including $1.3 billion of share repurchases. Even after that return of capital and having made important investments in the business, adjusted book value per share was 16% higher than a year ago. Turning to the top line, we generated net written premiums of $11.5 billion in the quarter.
In business insurance, we grew net written premiums to $6 billion, 5% higher than the prior year quarter. Adjusting for the sale of our Canadian business, we grew in every line other than property, where we continue to be very disciplined about writing national property. Property premiums were higher in both our small commercial and our middle market businesses. Renewal premium change in the segment was 4.8%, with stable renewal premium change of 6.1% in our core middle market business and sequentially higher renewal premium change of 9.4% in our small commercial select business.
By product, RPC was higher or stable in every line other than property. Excluding the property line, RPC was 7.8% and about flat sequentially. Retention remains very strong at 86%, reflecting deliberate execution on our part and a generally high level of stability in the market. New business was a record $805 million, up 8% over the prior year quarter. As I’ve shared before, pricing, retention, and returns need to be evaluated together. The optimization of that combination, together with new business, creates shareholder value.
Looking at them in concert, these results reflect the exceptional execution of a sound strategy by our experienced field organization. In bond and specialty insurance, we grew net written premiums by 14% to a record $1.2 billion. In our high-quality management liability business, renewal premium change remained steady while retention improved to an excellent 88%. New business was up 8% over the prior year quarter. In our leading surety business, we grew net written premiums by 40%, reflecting our success with large accounts and continued strong production across the portfolio.
In personal insurance, we grew net written premiums. We generated net written premiums of $4.3 billion with solid retention in both auto and homeowners, and higher new business in homeowners. You will hear more shortly from Greg, Jeff, and Michael about our segment results. Before I turn the call over to Dan, I’d like to take a minute to step back from the quarter and talk about what’s behind the sustained period of strong results we’ve delivered.
In short, to the earnings engine we’ve built. There are four components that comprise core underlying underwriting income, net investment income, catastrophe losses, and prior year development. All four have contributed to our success. We’ve shared before the significant increase in underlying underwriting income over the past decade. You can see that on slide 19 of the webcast presentation. That success is in large measure the result of investments we’ve made to our focused innovation strategy to strengthen and extend our broad portfolio of competitive advantages.
Leveraging those advantages, we’ve driven underlying underwriting income higher by growing the top line while at the same time improving underlying margins. You can see the strength of the result and the contribution of underlying underwriting income to return on equity. Looking ahead, we expect to continue generating strong premium levels at attractive underlying margins with the next chapter of our Investment Work, Innovation 2.0, and our growing scale is added tailwinds.
That’s why you’ve heard us describe our strong level of underlying underwriting income as durable. Net investment income is also a growing and reliable contributor to our bottom line. Strong underwriting cash flows and predictable returns from our fixed income portfolio, complemented by positive returns from our alternative investments, have contributed to an investment portfolio that is now more than $100 billion. Net investment income has been a consistently strong contributor to ROE, and new money rates in the fixed income portfolio continue to outpace the embedded yield.
As a reminder, about 95% of our investment portfolio is invested in fixed income, of which 99% is investment grade. Together, our underlying underwriting income and net investment income have grown into a formidable earnings base substantial enough to absorb significant catastrophe losses and still produce leading returns. In each of the last two years, we’ve produced among our highest levels of returns in spite of record levels of catastrophe losses, and our resilience to catastrophes is about more than the size of that earnings base.
As we’ve said before, our share of the industry’s property catastrophe losses over the past decade has been meaningfully lower than our corresponding market share, a direct result of our disciplined risk selection, pricing, and exposure management, all powered by leading data and analytics. Those are the same capabilities that position us to handle the prospect of continued weather volatility. That brings me to the balance sheet and prior year reserve development.
We don’t plan for PYD when we set our reserves. We’re deliberate about taking uncertainties into account, so we’re never counting on favorable development to materialize. Yet it has. We’ve recognized net favorable prior year reserve development in 19 of the last 20 years, totaling $15 billion pre-tax, which speaks to the discipline in our process. We’re confident that our balance sheet is as strong today as ever. The earnings and cash flow this engine generates go well beyond what we can effectively put to work to run and grow the business, and that gives us valuable choices on how to deploy the excess capital.
Our first priority is always to reinvest organically or inorganically, where we can earn attractive returns. When we generate capital beyond those opportunities, we don’t think of it as ours to keep. As responsible stewards, we return it to our shareholders. We’ve done that consistently and with discipline. We’ve raised our dividend every year for more than two decades at a compound annual rate of 8%. And we’ve returned meaningful capital through share repurchases.
Since we started our share repurchase program, we’ve retired 70% of the shares then outstanding and as a result spread our growing earnings, dividends, and book value across fewer shares, increasing each shareholder’s stake in the earnings power we’ve built just by virtue of our share repurchase program. A shareholder’s percentage ownership of Travelers has increased 9% since the beginning of 2025. The percentage ownership of a shareholder who owned Travelers stock when we began our share repurchase program in 2006 has more than tripled.
As an aside, by returning excess capital to our investors, we give them the ability to allocate their investment dollars as they see fit, including by investing in companies with different growth profiles or capital needs, thereby contributing to the efficiency of the capital markets. The efficient allocation of capital contributes to a stronger economy. To wrap it up, that’s the earnings engine tuned to continue delivering industry-leading returns at industry-low volatility.
And this engine funds its own improvement. The earnings and cash flow we’re generating are what allow us to invest well more than a billion and a half dollars a year, including in focused technology initiatives such as AI to strengthen the very advantages behind these results. It’s a virtuous cycle, and one that scale only makes more powerful. Ultimately, all of this is what allows us to deliver on the promise we make to our customers, serve our 30,000 colleagues in the communities that count on us, and support the distribution partners who represent us.
Operating from this position of considerable strength, we remain highly confident in the outlook for Travelers. With that, I’m pleased to turn the call over to Dan.
Dan Frey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Alan. Travelers delivered $2.2 billion of core income in the second quarter, resulting in quarterly core ROE of 24.9% and a trailing twelve month core return on equity of 24.2%. Second quarter earnings were driven by another very strong quarter of underlying underwriting income which at $1.3 billion after tax marked our eighth consecutive quarter of more than a billion dollars. Net investment income of $883 million after tax and net favorable prior year reserve development of $456 million after tax also contributed to the strong bottom line result.
After tax CAT losses were a little more than $400 million. The all in combined ratio of 83.6% was again excellent. Underlying underwriting income reflects $10.8 billion of earned premium and an underlying combined ratio of 84.1%. Within the underlying combined ratio, the second quarter expense ratio of 29% was slightly higher than in the prior year quarter as underwriting profitability has been stronger than expected. Certain variable expenses have also been higher than expected, for example profit sharing and contingent commissions, and that’s a trade off we’re happy to make even with those higher profit driven variable costs.
We continue to expect the full year expense ratio to be in line with our prior guidance of around 28.5%. We reported net favorable prior year reserve development in all three segments in the second quarter totaling $578 million pre tax. In business insurance, net favorable development of $319 million was driven by workers comp and commercial property in bond and specialty. Net favorable PYD of $75 million was driven by better than expected results in management liability coverages and Fidelity and surety.
Personal insurance recorded net favorable PYD of $184 million with favorability in both home and auto after tax, net investment income increased 14% from the prior year quarter to $883 million. Fixed income NII was higher than in the prior year quarter and in line with our expectations, benefiting from both higher yields and a higher level of invested assets. New money yields at the end of Q2 were about 90 basis points higher than the yield embedded in the portfolio.
Our outlook for fixed income NII by quarter, including earnings from short term securities, is consistent with the guidance we previously provided, expecting approximately $840 million in the third quarter and roughly $870 million in the fourth quarter. And fixed income NII is expected to continue to grow beyond 2026 as the portfolio becomes larger and new money rates continue to be higher than the yield embedded in the portfolio. Net investment income from our alternative investment portfolio was also higher than in the prior year quarter.
Turning to Capital Management, operating cash flows for the quarter of $1.9 billion were again very strong, and over the trailing twelve months, operating cash flows surpassed $11 billion. As interest rates decreased during the quarter, our net unrealized investment loss decreased from $2.4 billion after tax at March 31 to $2 billion after tax at June 30. Adjusted book value per share, which excludes unrealized investment gains and losses, was $168.20 at quarter end, up 16% from a year ago.
Adjusted book value per share also increased 6% from year end. Despite the very strong level of share repurchases in Q1 and Q2, the 14% increase in the quarterly dividend per share, and our continued investments in technology and other strategic initiatives, we returned more than $1.5 billion of capital to shareholders in Q2 with dividends of $266 million and share repurchases of $1.3 billion, leaving us with roughly $3.9 billion remaining under prior board authorizations for share repurchases.
Turning to Reinsurance, page 18 of the webcast presentation includes some highlights. First, we replaced our expiring CAT bond in May with a new CAT bond, increasing the bond size from $575 million to $750 million and decreasing the retention slightly. Second, on July 1st we renewed our Northeast Property CAT XOL Treaty, which continues to provide $1 billion of occurrence coverage above the attachment point of $2.75 billion. It’s also worth noting that we chose not to renew the personal lines Cat XOL treaty we had purchased in 2024 and 2025.
Recall that when we renewed our general corporate cat treaty at January 1st this year, we decreased the attachment point from $4 billion to $3 billion, and the efficiency of that All Perils Enterprise Wide program was a more attractive way of getting the reinsurance coverage we wanted. In summary, our second quarter results once again demonstrated significant and durable underwriting earnings, power, steadily increasing net investment income from our growing investment portfolio and attractive returns across our well diversified book of business.
And now for a discussion of results in business insurance. I’ll turn the call over to Greg.
Greg Teslowski (President of Business Insurance)
Thanks Dan. Business insurance had a terrific second quarter in terms of both top and bottom line results. Segment income of $1.2 billion was a second quarter record, reflecting strong underlying underwriting income and favorable prior year reserve development. We delivered an underlying combined ratio of 88.2%, a second quarter record. The improvement in the underlying loss ratio reflects favorable loss experience, including favorable experience consistent with the kind of investments we make in areas like predictive models, risk selection, products, technology, claim and risk control.
This gives us confidence that we’re investing effectively. Turning to the top line, our net written premiums reached a new quarterly record of $6 billion excluding the impact of the sale of our Canadian business. In the first quarter we grew segment net written premiums by 5%, led by 7% growth in our middle market business and 4% growth in our select business. National property premium declined as we maintain our deliberate and disciplined underwriting standards, passing on business where price and terms don’t align with our view of the risk.
Turning to production across the segment renewal Premium change was 4.8% excluding the property line, RPC was 7.8% and about flat. Sequentially retention remained very strong at 86% reflecting our continued focus on retaining our high quality book of business. New business was strong at $805 million, reaching a new quarterly record. The strength of these results reflects our ongoing commitment to investing in products, underwriting, precision and the capabilities we are building for our field, organization and distribution partners.
As for the individual businesses in select renewal, premium change increased sequentially to a strong 9.4% for the quarter, new business of $153 million was solid. These results underscore our continued investment in products and the industry leading experience we deliver to our agents and brokers. BOP 2.0 remains a key contributor to with industry leading segmentation embedded in the product continuing to support profitable growth, we are encouraged by the new capabilities we are piloting within Travis, our digital platform with recently developed AI advancements that make submission uploads seamless through advanced data extraction, rapid pre fill of submission information and the application of sophisticated underwriting rules that generate quotes in seconds, improving the speed and ease of doing business for our distribution partners and for us in middle market. Renewal premium change remained steady at 6.1% while retention of 89% remained at historically high levels. New business in middle market of more than $500 million reached an all time high this quarter, up 17% from prior year levels driven by our strong value proposition.
To sum up, business insurance had a terrific second quarter in terms of both financial results and execution. We continue to grow our high quality book while investing in differentiating capabilities that position us for long term profitable growth. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Jeff.
Michael Klein (President of Personal Insurance)
Thank you Greg and good morning everyone. We’re pleased to report that bond and specialty posted another strong quarter on both the top and bottom lines. We generated segment income of $234 million and an excellent combined ratio of 82.8%. Turning to the top line, we grew net written premiums by a terrific 14% in the quarter to a record $1.2 billion. In our high quality domestic management liability business, retention ticked up a point from the first quarter to 88% while renewal premium change remained consistent.
Our outstanding field team continues to achieve rate gains where appropriate through segmented and data driven pricing initiatives. And we are very pleased with the 8% increase in new business reflecting the value that our distribution partners and customers place on our products and services to our market leading surety business. We’re also very pleased to have grown net written premiums by 40% from the prior year quarter to a record level. The exceptional production this quarter spanned across our high credit quality portfolio and included a small number of large projects and increased bonding for data center development.
We are pleased that our outstanding team’s efforts to build the right customer relationships and our investments to support the long term success of our portfolio of premier contractors generated such terrific production in this profitable business. So Bond and specialty insurance delivered strong profitability and excellent growth in the quarter while continuing to make strategic investments in our competitive advantages including in our market leading team and important technology and artificial intelligence capabilities to improve risk selection and efficiency.
And with that, I’ll turn the call over to Michael. Thanks Jeff. Good morning everyone. I’m pleased to share that in personal insurance we delivered segment income of $827 million for the second quarter. Strong underlying underwriting income, modest catastrophe losses, and favorable prior year reserve development contributed to this excellent bottom line result. The combined ratio was an outstanding 79.5% in the quarter and the underlying combined ratio of 77.3% once again demonstrated strong profitability in both automobile and homeowners.
Other net written premiums for the segment were $4.3 billion as retention remained solid while pricing moderated reflecting strong profitability. New business in homeowners was higher year over year in automobile bottom line results continue to be very strong. The second quarter combined ratio was 82.8% reflecting a 4.5 point benefit from favorable prior year reserve development and a strong underlying combined ratio of 85.8%. The underlying combined ratio improved just over 3 points compared to the prior year.
This strong result was driven by favorable loss experience across coverages, including about a two point benefit from the re-estimation of the prior quarter. In the current year, these benefits were partially offset by the impact of lower earned pricing reflective of our strong profitability in homeowners and other. The second quarter combined ratio was an excellent 76.7% reflecting modest catastrophe losses and very strong underlying underwriting income.
The underlying combined ratio of 70.1% was comparable to a strong prior year quarter. We’re pleased that our property results continue to demonstrate the benefit of our disciplined approach to optimizing our risk return profile through effective management of our appetite, business mix, pricing terms, and conditions. Turning to production, we continue to make progress toward our objective of delivering profitable growth over time. In Automobile, retention of 82% was consistent with recent periods.
Renewal premium change was flat as we continue to incorporate improved profitability in our pricing. New business levels in auto remain healthy and we continue to be pleased with the high-quality profile of the business we’re writing in. Homeowners and other retention was strong at 85%. Renewal premium change of 6.6% continued to moderate as intended given improved profitability and our successful efforts to align insured values with replacement costs.
We’re pleased with the increase in both new business premium and the number of new business policies compared to the prior year. As we broadened our targeted efforts to deploy property capacity, we continue to execute a range of initiatives designed to generate growth in both auto and property, adjusting rate levels to reflect strong profitability, enhancing product and pricing segmentation, refining eligibility restrictions, and pursuing new agent appointments and book consolidation opportunities.
This quarter’s results underscore the strong fundamentals across both auto and home, the product of deliberate disciplined actions over the past few years to improve profitability, manage volatility, and position our portfolio for the long term. We also continue to invest in capabilities to deliver value to our customers and distribution partners by digitizing the insurance journey, modernizing our infrastructure, and simplifying our approach. We remain confident that our disciplined approach to performing today and investing for tomorrow will generate profitable growth over time.
And with that, I’ll turn the call back over to Abby.
Abby Goldstein, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations
Thanks Michael. We’re ready to open up for Q and A.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your questions, simply press Star one. Again, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up to allow everyone an opportunity to ask a question. We’ll take our first question from Mike Zyrmski at BMO.
Mike Zyrmski (Equity Analyst)
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First one is just on the competitive dynamics in business insurance. Maybe specifically on the select account sandbox. Maybe you can kind of talk about why pricing appears to be bucking the downwards trend line that the medium and larger accounts are experiencing. Is this, you know, you think more traveler specific due to, due to things you’re doing or you think it’s reflective of the broader environment.
Greg Teslowski (President of Business Insurance)
Morning Mike, this is Greg. Well first there’s, there’s no strategic shift underneath the select book that really is a function of the rate filings that get approved on a state by state basis from quarter to quarter. So that can just fluctuate. That’s really, that’s what’s underneath that.
Mike Zyrmski (Equity Analyst)
That’s helpful. I think maybe we focus a little too much or at least I’m a little guilty of focusing a little too much on property. Just my final follow up is in terms of just the excellent profit margins pretty much across the board. Any prior quarter adjustments that impacted the action year loss ratio that we should be just be considering and I could stand.
OPERATOR
We’ll move next to Gregory Peters at Raymond James.
Gregory Peters (Equity Analyst)
Well, good morning everyone. So for the first question I’m going to step back and just ask about the ROE. You know what’s the 24.2% ROE on a trailing 12 month basis versus your mid teens target over time? Alan, I’m just curious as we look across the enterprise, do you think you could consider relaxing some of your underwriting standards of price get more aggressive on pricing to grow faster considering your over your returns are far in excess of what your target is longer term.
And I guess related to that is when do we get back to that destination of the mid teens core ROE over time.
Alan Schnitzer, Chairman and CEO
Good morning Greg. Well, first of all, we’re happy to be above that mid teens core turn on equity over time objective. To your question, are we going to relax underwriting standards or pricing to try to grow that? That’s a fool’s errand and we’ve always said that’s a fool’s errand. This is a very competitive marketplace and you relax pricing, all you do is end up with same size book of business with lower margins. So our objective is to compete on franchise value and every virtually every investment that we’re making is geared towards making sure that we’ve got the franchise value to grow this company profitably.
But competing on pricing in this business is a fool’s errand.
Gregory Peters (Equity Analyst)
You know, it seems every quarter I ask technology questions and I just can’t help myself. In the last couple months there have been numerous reports and commentary about the rising costs of technology implementation. You know, including things like token costs, etc. You know, as we’ve been looking at it from the outside in, we thought at least I’ve been thinking about technology investments as a way to improve efficiency. So I’m just curious, as the cost side of technology implementation seems to be rising, do you think that’s going to offset the expected efficiency gains? And related to that, there was a story that popped up about some software glitch that may have happened at your company through an implementation. Just curious when you deploy technology, how you manage potential challenges as that is being rolled out. Thank you.
Alan Schnitzer, Chairman and CEO
Yes, there’s a lot in that question, Greg, but thanks for the question. We are laser focused on the costs of technology and innovation and we have substantial productivity and efficiency gains. We talked about it in terms of operating leverage. We’ve generated substantial operating leverage over recent years and even longer periods. So we feel great about that. In terms of token costs and how you manage expenses of a large innovation and investment program. You got to remember that we’ve been innovating as a strategy for more than a decade now and there’s a lot of hard won know how in doing that. And we said we’ve done three things really well. We’ve identified the right priorities, we’ve executed them very well. And we’ve harvested the benefits.
Part of harvesting the benefits is making sure that you understand your costs and that you’re managing your costs. And we are laser focused on that and very comfortable that we’re doing a great job there. Actually, in terms of the software glitch that you mentioned, it really wasn’t a software glitch. The underlying platform is working just fine. We were moving substantial amounts of information as part of a system conversion and that is just a highly complex undertaking. You know, as always, we regret any disruption to any customer or agent. But sometimes these things happen when you have these large complicated programs. Many of the issues have been resolved and we will stay at it until every single one of them is resolved.
OPERATOR
We’ll go next to Paul Newsom at Piper Sandler.
Paul Newsom (Equity Analyst)
Good morning. A little bit of the same question on the ROE, but more talking about capital management. I would love to hear a little bit more full discussion of the high class problem of the ROE and how you think that we should think about the change in capital management respectively, given you should be generating quite a bit of excess capital perspectively.
Dan Frey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Hey Paul, it’s Dan. So I think we’ve had a long standing capital management philosophy which Alan referred to in his prepared remarks that served us and our shareholders really well and that’s been throughout various cycles of either under earning relative to the mid teens long term objective or over earning relative to the mid teens ROE objective. So I think the beauty of that capital management philosophy is that you’re able to apply it sort of in all circumstances. And so said simply, again, we expect to generate strong levels of capital. We want to be as strongly capitalized company. We have consistently generated more capital than we need to run the business, including to support the growth of the business. We’re going to look to deploy it whether that’s organically or inorganically.
If we think we can do so and generate attractive returns and to the degree that we’ve accumulated more capital than we can, we’re going to return the rest of it through dividends and share repurchases, which you’ve seen from us clear here clearly in the past several quarters.
Paul Newsom (Equity Analyst)
Any difference in thoughts on the M and A environment which can be part of that capital management?
Dan Frey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
No. We are highly attuned to M and A opportunities and confident that whenever attractive M and A opportunities come around that we’ll find a way to finance them. So our, our view of M and A doesn’t change. Doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t change relative to the capital excess capital that we have.
OPERATOR
We’ll take our next question from Katie Sackis at Autonomous Research.
Katie Sackis (Equity Analyst)
Good morning. Thank you for the question. First, I wanted to unpack the new business momentum in domestic BI middle market a little bit more. Greg, wondering if you could just give us a better understanding of some of the drivers behind the uptick this quarter and how sustainable you think new business momentum is in the middle market going forward. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we’re certainly proud of the number we put up in middle market. It can be lumpy from time to time, given that’s a transactional business. But Dan, already referenced in my prepared comments, I also talked about the investments we’re making that not only impact the loss experience, they impact production also by making sure we’ve got the best predictive analytic tools, the best risk selections and product and technology that we’re putting into the marketplace.
In addition to claim and risk control, those items are definitely in demand of our distribution and I think that helps with the new business also. But you know, given that transactional business, it can bounce around from quarter to quarter.
Ryan Tunis (Equity Analyst)
Yep. No, totally understand that. And then perhaps as a follow-up, sticking with middle market. You know, I completely understand the difficulties in national property and the desire to maintain underwriting discipline there. Are you guys, you know, seeing any, any signs of pricing terms not aligning with your view of risk in middle market property or are trends kind of hanging in higher there or stronger there? I should say.
Katie Sackis (Equity Analyst)
Yeah, no, we’re not really seeing a material shift in terms and conditions in the middle market property. We’re so much on an account provider there and you know, we’re, we’re also going to typically have the GL and the comp, but that’s been more of a national property dynamic.
OPERATOR
We’ll take our next question from Ryan Tunis at Cantor.
Ryan Tunis (Equity Analyst)
Hey, thanks. Good morning. First question just for Michael on the personal auto side. Just looking for a little bit of an update on what you’re seeing in terms of frequency and severity. Obviously gas prices have been a little bit higher. Curious if there’s any impact flowing through results from that.
Michael Klein (President of Personal Insurance)
Sure. Ryan. Yeah, this is Michael. I would say as I mentioned, the improvement in underlying in auto was really favorable experience across coverages. That’s a, actually a combination of favorable frequency and severity as respects the question on frequency related to gas prices. I think I’ve said this before, it’s always a little tough to diagnose what’s driving frequency improvements. There tend to be a range of factors and we can point to a few things.
Most importantly, you know improving vehicle technology and advanced safety features in vehicles, less distraction that again we can measure. But there’s not a ton of evidence at least at this point that there have been material changes in driving behavior related to gas prices, particularly as you look through the first part of this year.
Ryan Tunis (Equity Analyst)
Got it. And then follow up just from Dan probably. But just the favorable development and business insurance. How about the just curious what the casualty lines outside of workers compared to commercial auto gl what’s kind of the what was kind of the bottom line on the reserve review this quarter.
Dan Frey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Thank you. Ryan. So, so bi you know, good, good solid number. I mentioned comp and commercial property. Those were the biggest drivers and just to give you a sense of magnitude on those comp was a little more than 200 million. Commercial property was around 80 million. And if you think about what’s left then you think about all you know, there’s definitely ups and downs in some of the other, other lines of business but the net of those things was a good guy.
We have paid particular attention to the casualty lines including umbrella and commercial auto and did not see any pressure there at all this quarter.
OPERATOR
We’ll move next to Mark Hughes at Truist Securities.
Mark Hughes (Equity Analyst)
Yeah, thank you. Good morning. Talked about the bonded specialty. Sounds like a couple of large projects helped the premium there and then the data center impact. How durable do you think that’ll be?
Jeff Klenk
Yeah. Mark, good morning. It’s Jeff Klenk. We did see some exceptional growth in the quarter across the portfolio and you’ve referred to the things I called out in the prepared remarks. It’s important to remember that the majority of surety production is coming from new bonds. Right. So renewals are really limited to just a few types of obligations in commercial surety. So we’ve always expected there will be top line variability. I wouldn’t get into projecting the durability of those things.
But if you think about the type of projects, the large projects, the data center construction as the leader insurity in North America and our quality portfolio, high credit, quality customers, we believe that we’re well positioned to benefit from that future investment in infrastructure, particularly when it involves public spending but also included in these other opportunities I’ve called out.
Mark Hughes (Equity Analyst)
Yeah, appreciate that. Then a quick follow up on the commercial property. In business insurance, the downdraft was less than it had been the last few quarters. Was that anything to do with mix in the quarter is the worst behind us in terms of your top line experience in commercial property.
Greg Teslowski (President of Business Insurance)
Yeah, good morning, this is Greg again. Yeah, I think if you’re just referencing the net written premium delta from the first quarter to the second quarter. The slight improvement there, there’s a number of items, timing, variances, reinsurance, the treaties that come up in that particular quarter. But I wouldn’t read into that that that’s a signaling of the pricing cycle. I would say that it’s incrementally softer and certainly not a reflection of that net written premium delta.
OPERATOR
We’ll take our next question. Question from David Motimadin at Evercore.
David Motimadin
Hey, thanks. Good morning, Dan. In a prior question you had mentioned on business insurance, you had mentioned a little bit of an improved view of the loss environment overall. I was wondering if you could elaborate on that and maybe just talk about if you’ve changed the loss cost trend assumption.
Dan Frey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
David, so we’re going to stay away from the loss trend question and sort of for that reason because we say, look, loss trend is one particular fairly narrow definition. You also consider things like changes in base year over time and how you how you view the loss environment. So not a big number. So I wouldn’t shine a big light on it. It was just one in a series of modestly favorable, favorable items. But the reality is like if you just look back at the last couple of years, the margins in business insurance from an underlying perspective have been very good.
And so we’ve seen a little bit of favorability probably relative to what we might have thought things were going to look like a year and a half or two years ago. And we’re cautiously baking some of that into our, into our picks now, but very small data.
David Motimadin
Got it. No, that, that makes sense. And then one of the, one of the drivers, Greg and, and Dan also mentioned just you also just mentioned just on the investments that you’ve been making that are probably starting to have an impact within, within the underlying loss ratio in bi, I guess how should we think about that flowing through going forward or is that just a step change now that’s embedded in the run rate or is that sort of an ongoing tailwind that will keep building as an offset that we should consider to some of the pricing dynamics.
Dan Frey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
So, David, again, I’ll start, you know, again, we’re talking about very small numbers, right. The underlying loss ratio and business insurance changed by about a half a point. So these are not big things. But it does go into sort of our thought process of why it’s important to think about more than just what’s the pure rate number or what’s the pure renewal premium change number. There are other things that impact the loss environment, including actions we take with underwriting, appetite terms and conditions, deductible levels, claim efficiency, all those things.
OPERATOR
We’ll go to our next question from Brian Meredith at UBS.
Brian Meredith (Equity Analyst)
Yeah, thanks. First of all, I’m just curious, workers compensation insurance. We’ve seen some reports out there about maybe longer recovery times happening and perhaps that’s related to just some of the fears of unemployment with respect to AI. Curious are you seeing that? And maybe in that context, how does that kind of factor in your thoughts on reserving for workers compared to.
Dan Frey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Hey Brian, it’s Dan. So I’ll take it at least from a reserving perspective. So again, you know, first quarter and second quarter here again another couple of favorable quarters in terms of PYD which would tell you that we’re really not seeing pressure from a severity perspective and comp continues to be favorability both in frequency and severity. And I would just go back to the comments we’ve made many times before, which is we take a very respectful view of what the long term severity trend in workers comp is going to be.
And even if the more recent periods have been pretty benign, our assumption in our loss picks and in our reserves is still that severity is going to go back to some higher, more normal long term trend. So even if there were some increase in severity, whether it’s because people are out longer or injuries cost more, unless it gets outside of your pick, we’re not going to have a problem. The other thing I’d say just specific to your question, we didn’t really see anything specific in the most recent data that aligns with the problem you’re alluding to.
Greg Teslowski (President of Business Insurance)
But the other thing I would add, Brian, just as sort of a general matter, is that we expect some changes in frequency and severity in workers comp as a function of economic activity. So that will impact the frequency at which workers go out and the length that they stay out. And so we’ve got a view on whether improving or deteriorating economy is going to, to what degree is going to contribute to those. And so we bake that into our assumptions.
Brian Meredith (Equity Analyst)
Makes sense. Thanks. And the second one, I guess for Michael. Michael, I know there’s a bunch of initiatives that you’re, you know, implementing to try to get growth going in personal auto insurance. But maybe, you know, I’m just curious how reasonable is to think that growth is going to actually pick up there given just the competitive dynamics? It seems like every company out there is looking to grow and cutting prices.
Michael Klein (President of Personal Insurance)
Yeah, Brian, I think you’re describing the environment and Again, you all have visibility into just like we do the rate environment. And you see the filings and broadly speaking, rate continues to be decreasing in, in personal auto. You know, I would say what, what we are doing is everything that we think is appropriate to profitably grow that business. You know, the things that I mentioned, I would just put a little more color around, like when we talk about adjusting rate levels to reflect strong profitability. Alan talked earlier about lowering price in this business to grow as a fool there. And that’s not what we’re doing. Right. What we’re trying to do is match price to risk. And so our strategy in auto is we want to match price to risk.
We want to have the most sophisticated segmented product we can have in the marketplace. We want to have the appropriate eligibility that aligns with our appetite. And then we want to make sure that we are in all the places taking advantage of all the opportunities that we can to be able to produce profitable business. And again, as I talked about this quarter, new business levels in auto have been healthy and we’re very pleased with the profile of the business that we’re writing as a result. So we’re going to continue to execute our strategy. The outcome of that strategy, to your point, is going to be a little bit, you know, the function of the market, but we’re going to do what we think is appropriate to profitably grow the business.
OPERATOR
We’ll move to our next question from Pablo Singhzon at JPMorgan.
Pablo Singhzon (Equity Analyst)
Hi, good morning. The first question I have is for Michael, as you pivot to growth in personal alliance, can you talk about your approach to trading off or I guess balancing margins versus unit growth? Right. And I guess sort of simplify the question, right. At what combined ratio would you be comfortable running the book? Recognizing, you know, that it’s producing margins that are really good today. Right. And that your book is more balanced between personal auto and homeowners compared to the broader market.
Michael Klein (President of Personal Insurance)
Sure. Pablo, maybe just to put a point on the comment I made earlier, right. We have target returns. Our target return is mid-teens over time. When we talk about adjusting pricing to reflect profitability, that’s what we’re doing, right. We’re reevaluating our loss experience state by state in the line of business, whether you’re talking property or auto, determining what we think an adequate price is at those target returns, and then we’re filing for that pricing.
So that’s the, that’s the approach we take and it really is driven towards mid-teens ROE over time. Clearly we’re above the mid-teens right now. And so that’s why you see renewal premium change moderating in both lines of business.
Pablo Singhzon (Equity Analyst)
Thanks for that. And then second question I have for Dan. I guess just on the full year expense ratio guide of 20 and a half, I was wondering if you could provide just more color on what gets you there in the second half of the year. So you’re implying that there’s going to be improvement. Is it contingent selling off? Just premium growth, picking up expense save. So any color commentary would be helpful there then. Thanks.
Dan Frey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Pablo, so, so not, not a lot I can give you other than, you know. Again, I think we made this comment last quarter. If you go back and look at the last five years or so of our results, I think with the exception of 2025 which was pretty steady, it’s not at all unusual to see the expense ratio vary within a year by a point or more from quarter to quarter. So we’ve got an outlook view of what we think some of our run rate expense levels are. We line that up against what earned premium looks like.
You get little math quirks like there are actually more days of earned premium in the second half of the year than there are in the first half of the year. That’s, that’s our view. Currently there’s no particular change coming in the second half of the year strategically or any kind of slowdown in, you know, investment spending or anything like that. We just think when we put the four quarters together, we’re going to still be pretty close to that 28 and a half.
OPERATOR
We’ll take our next question from Rob Cox at Goldman Sachs.
Rob Cox (Equity Analyst)
Hey, thanks. Good morning. Just a follow up on the property discussion. I know large account property and CAT rates get a lot of attention, but we’ve noticed Travelers in the industry, you know, CMP loss ratios are at historic profitability as well. Maybe you could just talk about how you’re viewing that book right now and if we should expect the gap between large and small account pricing could start to narrow.
Michael Klein (President of Personal Insurance)
Yeah, let me give you a couple comments on that. Typically you’ll see, you know, in the change of cycles, national property, large schedule property, leading both the firming and the softening, the trough of a marketplace. And you won’t see the rest of the property portfolio fall to the depths or the peaks that you would see on national property. And that’s kind of the cycle we’re in right now. The property outside of national property in our core middle market business, the component underneath CMP select that you just referenced has a little bit of softening to it, but certainly not to the degrees that you’re seeing in the national property and the large schedules.
Rob Cox (Equity Analyst)
Okay, that’s really helpful. And then if I could just ask more directly on some of the, you know, I think opening comments on the claims straight through processing enhancements and AI initiatives there, you know, are we starting to see that in the business insurance margin this quarter and how should we expect that to trend?
Michael Klein (President of Personal Insurance)
I think, I think the answer is yes. I mean, that, that’s, that was the reference in, in Greg’s script, Dan. Dan referred to it. So we are seeing benefits coming from the investments and the innovation. I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s in the, it was a half a point improvement in the underlying loss ratio. And, you know, there’s a couple of things going one way or the other in there, but, but that was, you know, big enough that it was worth bringing some attention to it. And I wouldn’t say this is the first time it’s ever appeared. It’s just, you know, it’s in the context of some other pieces that are moving one way or another. But we are very clearly generating benefits from the innovation and AI investments that we’re making.
OPERATOR
We’ll go next to Elise Greenspan at Wells Fargo.
Elise Greenspan (Equity Analyst)
Hi, thanks. Good morning. My first question was just going back to the BI discussion and just some of the commentary. Dan, you just gave around the change in view on loss trends in the quarter. Does that mean that you took down the uncertainty provision that you guys had, you know, put up over the last couple years?
Dan Frey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
No, Elise, it does not. So we had the uncertainty provision in 24 and 25 and said, I think at the end of the first quarter we had carried it into 26 and we continue to carry it into 2026.
Elise Greenspan (Equity Analyst)
Okay, thanks. And then my second question, going back to the capital discussion, I know at times you guys have kind of balanced, you know, capital return relative to capital needed for growth as premium growth. Right. As is slowing relative to, you know, some of the more recent years. Should we think about, you know, repurchases and dividends combined constituting a greater percentage of operating earnings from here?
Dan Frey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
So I think the short answer would be over time. Yes. I don’t think you could sort of apply that to any particular, you know, quarter or even necessarily full year. We’re going to always see what’s happening in a particular quarter, given profitability, cat activity in particular. But over time. Yes. And that’s why we made the comment probably going back now three years when the business was growing. That street, we thought, had gotten a little ahead of itself in terms of expected buybacks by not factoring in the need to hold capital for additional growth.
We still expect to grow and are still growing, but to the degree that that growth might be a little slower than it had been in the years, the need to accumulate additional capital is going to come down a little bit with it.
OPERATOR
And we have time for one more question. And that question comes from Meyer Shields at KBW.
Meyer Shields (Equity Analyst)
Thanks, Alice. I can go back to the comments you made on trading some excess margin for growth. I guess the question is that I would assume that in the fragmented, small or middle market, that there are companies that simply can’t keep up with better pricing because of your scale and analytical advantages. Am I missing something there?
Michael Klein (President of Personal Insurance)
Trying to understand the question. Mayor so let me try and rephrase, like when so you talked about how it’s the fool’s errand to lower pricing to gain share. And I understand that conceptually, but my impression or presumption is that you won’t necessarily invite the same level of competitiveness because business that’s very profitable for Travelers is not going to be anywhere near as profitable for companies with higher expenses and less capable loss control, which would, I think, call for maybe a little bit more aggressive pricing.
So wondering what I’m not thinking of there? I shared sort of a principle. Mayor and of course there are going to be variations from that principle in different circumstances. The other thing I would distinguish is lowering price, where you’re actually lowering returns versus lowering price because you can do so without impairing returns. And those are those are two different scenarios. But there’s circumstances that are exceptions to every rule.
But as a general rule, it’s our big preference not to compete on price because for all the reasons we’ve shared, and we prefer to compete based on franchise value.
Meyer Shields (Equity Analyst)
Okay, understood. And then just a brief question on surety. How should we think about the policy terms, especially for the larger projects or the data center stuff, does that extend the earnings period for the written premium?
Jeff Klenk
So larger projects might have longer durations? Mayor this is Jeff Klenk, by the way. Good morning. So there is there is an aspect on some of that. The underlying terms of all of these projects are bespoke. The contract between the contractor, the project owner are carefully analyzed. We actually provide consultative underwriting as part of that process. And so it’s not like there’s standard policy terms. These are all individual contracts and the bond responds to those.
It’s actually one of our competitive advantages in the service that we provide to our customers is engaging in that process. But it’s fair for you to think that on some of this business, the longer they are or the larger they are, they might be longer. But for our portfolio broadly, we’ve got lots of different sizes of contractors and types of projects in there. So while there is some movement on some of the larger, it doesn’t move the overall needle very much.
Thanks for the question.
OPERATOR
And that concludes our Q and A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Abby for closing remarks.
Abby Goldstein, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations
Thanks everyone for joining us. We appreciate your time. And as usual, if there’s any follow ups, please get in touch with investor relationships. Have a good day.
OPERATOR
And this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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