Essent Group Ltd

NYSE:ESNT

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Abby, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Essent Group Ltd. third quarter earnings call. [Operator Instructions]

Thank you. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Phil Stefano. You may begin.

[Philip Stefano, executive]

Thank you, Abby. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our call. Joining me today are Mark Casale, Chairman and CEO; and David Weinstock, Chief Financial Officer. Also on hand for the Q&A portion of the call is Chris Curran, President of Essent Guranty.

Our press release, which contains Essent's financial results for the third quarter of 2024 was issued earlier today and is available on our website at essentgroup.com. Our press release includes non-GAAP financial measures that may be discussed during today's call. A complete description of these measures and the reconciliation to GAAP may be found in Exhibit O of our press release.

Prior to getting started, I would like to remind participants that today's discussions are being recorded and will include the use of forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please review the cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements in today's press release, the risk factors included in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 16, 2024 and any other reports and registration statements filed with the SEC, which are also available on our website.

Now let me turn the call over to Mark.

[Mark Casale, executive]

Thanks, Phil, and good morning, everyone. Earlier today, we released our third quarter 2024 financial results, which continue to benefit from our high-quality portfolio and the impact of higher interest rates on persistency and investment income. While higher mortgage rates, interest rates have reduced overall mortgage originations, as a portfolio business, we are less reliant on transaction activity than other sectors of the housing ecosystem. As such, our results for the quarter continue to demonstrate the strength of our business model in generating high-quality earnings.

Our long-term outlook for housing remains constructive as the supply/demand imbalance and favorable demographic trends should provide foundational support to home prices. At the same time, the U.S. labor market and consumers continue to exhibit resilience, which has supported economic growth and credit performance.

And now for our results. For the third quarter of 2024, we reported net income of $176 million compared to $178 million a year ago. On a diluted per share basis, we earned $1.65 for the third quarter compared to $1.66 a year ago. On an annualized basis, our return on average equity was 13% in the third quarter.

As of September 30, our U.S. mortgage insurance in force was $243 billion, a 2% increase from a year ago. Our 12-month persistency was approximately 87%, relatively flat compared to last quarter with nearly 65% of our in-force portfolio having a note rate of 5.5% or lower. While persistency has likely peaked, we expect that the current level of mortgage rates should continue to support elevated levels.

The credit quality of our insurance in force remains strong with a weighted average FICO of 746 and a weighted average of original LTV of 93%. Credit performance in the third quarter reflected both the aging of our portfolio and the typical seasonality of default behavior. Our 2021 and prior vintages represent about half of our portfolio, and home price appreciation should continue to mitigate ultimate claim experience for those cohorts. Newer vintages continue to perform in line with our expectations.

On the business front, we are monitoring the potential falloff from Hurricanes Helen and Milton that impacted the Southeast region of the country, Like Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in the second half of 2017, these storms have the potential to cause an uptick in delinquencies for the affected areas. While delinquencies may be higher, we remind you that mortgage insurance policies have an exclusion for claims if property damage is the principal cause for borrower default, and therefore, the ultimate P&L impact may be muted.

During the third quarter, we closed our 10th Radnor Re ILN transaction, providing us with $363 million of fully collateralized excess of loss coverage. We were pleased with the execution and continue to be encouraged by the strong demand from investors in our program. We remain committed to a programmatic reinsurance strategy, which helps to diversify our capital resources while seeding a meaningful portion of our mezzanine credit risk.

Cash and investments as of September 30 were $6.4 billion and our new money yield in the third quarter was nearly 5%. The annualized yield for investments available for sale in the third quarter was 3.8%, up from 3.6% a year ago. And we'd note that higher yields and a growing investment portfolio generate incremental revenues for our business model.

We continue to operate from a position of strength with $5.6 billion in GAAP equity, access to $1.7 billion in excess of loss reinsurance and a PMIER efficiency ratio of 186%. Given our strong financial performance and capital position, we continue to take a measured approach to capital management. Our objectives remain the same relative to maintaining a conservative balance sheet, preserving optionality for strategic growth opportunities and optimizing shareholder returns over the longer term.

Now let me turn the call over to Dave.

[David Weinstock, executive]

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Let me review our results for the quarter in a little more detail.

For the third quarter, we earned $1.65 per diluted share compared to $1.91 last quarter and $1.66 in the third quarter a year ago. Our U.S. mortgage insurance portfolio ended September 30, 2024 with insurance in force of $243 billion, up $2.3 billion compared to June 30 and 2% higher compared to the third quarter a year ago. Persistency at September 30 was 86.6%, largely unchanged from 86.7% last quarter.

Net premiums earned for the third quarter were $249 million and included $17.1 million of premiums earned by Essent Re on our third-party business and $17.7 million of premiums earned by the title operations. The base average premium rate for the U.S. mortgage insurance portfolio for the third quarter was 41 basis points, consistent with last quarter. And the net average premium rate was 35 basis points for the third quarter, down 1 basis point from last quarter.

Net investment income increased $1.3 million or 2% to $57.3 million in the third quarter of 2024 compared to last quarter due primarily to higher balances. Other income in the third quarter was $7.4 million compared to $6.5 million last quarter. The increase in other income includes higher title settlement services income, partially offset by a decrease in the change in fair value of embedded derivatives in certain of our third-party reinsurance agreements.

In the third quarter, we recorded a $1.2 million decrease in the fair value of these embedded derivatives compared to a $732,000 increase recorded last quarter. In the third quarter, we recorded a provision for losses and loss adjustment expense of $30.7 million compared to a benefit of $334,000 in the second quarter of 2024 and a provision of $10.8 million in the third quarter a year ago. At September 30, the default rate on the U.S. mortgage insurance portfolio was 1.95%, up 24 basis points from 1.71% at June 30, 2024.

Other underwriting and operating expenses in the third quarter were $57.3 million and include $14.8 million of title expenses. Expenses for the third quarter also include title premiums retained by agents of $9.6 million, which were reported separately on our consolidated income statement.

Our consolidated expense ratio was 27% this quarter. Our expense ratio excluding title, which is a non-GAAP measure, was 18% this quarter. A description of our expense ratio excluding title and the reconciliation to GAAP can be found in Exhibit O of our press release.

For the 9 months ended September 30, 2024, other underwriting and operating expenses excluding our title operations totaled approximately $131 million. We are revising our guidance for this metric from $185 million previously to approximately $180 million for the full year 2024 as a result of disciplined expense management along with higher seeding commissions from quota share reinsurance transactions.

As Mark noted, our holding company liquidity remains strong. As we discussed last quarter, on July 1, we issued $500 million of senior unsecured notes with an annual interest rate of 6.25% that mature on July 1, 2029. Approximately $425 million of the proceeds were used to pay off the term loan outstanding as of June 30. And interest expense in the third quarter includes $3.2 million of expense associated with this repayment. At September 30, 2024, our debt-to-capital ratio was 8.1%.

Additionally, effective July 1, we entered into a 5-year $500 million unsecured revolving credit facility, amending and replacing our previous $400 million secured revolving credit facility. Combined, these transactions provide Essent with access to approximately $1 billion in capital. No amounts were outstanding under the revolving credit facility at September 30, 2024.

At September 30, Essent Guaranty's PMIERs sufficiency ratio, excluding the 0.3 COVID factor, remained strong at 186% with $1.7 billion in excess available assets. During the quarter, Essent Guaranty paid a dividend of $58 million to its U.S. holding company. The U.S. mortgage insurance companies can pay additional ordinary dividends of $267 million in 2024.

At quarter end, the combined U.S. mortgage insurance business statutory capital was $3.6 billion with a risk-to-capital ratio of 9.7:1. Note that statutory capital includes $2.5 billion of contingency reserves at September 30. Over the last 12 months, the U.S. mortgage insurance business has grown statutory capital by $275 million while, at the same time, paying $220.5 million of dividends to our U.S. holding company.

During the third quarter, Essent Re paid a dividend of $87.5 million to Essent Group. Also in the quarter, essent Group paid cash dividends totaling $29.5 million to shareholders, and we repurchased 170,000 shares for $9.6 million under the authorization approved by our Board in October 2023.

Now let me turn the call back over to Mark.

[Mark Casale, executive]

Thanks, Dave. Our performance this quarter reflects the strength and resilience of our franchise. Our team continues to focus on executing our long-term strategy, which includes expanding our lender network maintaining financial discipline and evaluating potential growth opportunities. Looking forward, we remain committed to the bi-managed and distributed operating model and believe that Essent remains well positioned in the current economic environment to deliver strong operating returns to our shareholders.

Now let's get to your questions. Operator?

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Terry Ma with Barclays.

[Terry Ma, analyst]

I think you addressed it a bit in your prepared remarks, but was there any quantifiable impact on the default rate or new notices this quarter from just hurricanes?

[Mark Casale, executive]

Terry, it's Mark. There was a little bit but it was pretty minimal, mostly coming from Beryl, not from the newer ones. We should see -- we should definitely see some noise in the fourth quarter on those.

[Terry Ma, analyst]

Okay. Got it. So if I look at the rate of increase year-over-year in new notices, it's kind of accelerated each of the last 3 quarters. Are we starting to see the effects of kind of vintage seasoning from some of the larger post-COVID vintages materialize more? And I guess going forward, how should we kind of think about how that kind of rate or trajectory evolves?

[Mark Casale, executive]

Yes, I mean, I would look at it. We said this before, the portfolio is definitely seasoning, right? The average age is 32 months versus historically, it was 18 months. There's a little bit of seasonality in the third and the fourth quarter. And you also have to mix in, Terry, just again, the noise around forbearance. That probably exasperated both the number of new defaults and the cures, right? People coming in and out of forbearance. The rule changed last November, December.

So I think we're starting to see a little bit of a normalization of that. Looking forward, it's hard to tell. Again, we're still levered mostly to unemployment and pretty strong portfolio. Here's an interesting fact for you, though. Just when you kind of think through the provision, whether the fall is starting to grow, one, they're right around 16,000 defaults at the end of the quarter. We were roughly 15,000 at the end of last year. it's gone up, but -- and I know you're talking about the ins and outs.

But also take a step back with our defaults. I would say approximately 70% of the default, terry, are '21 vintage and prior. The mark-to-market on those defaults is 61%. So even if they were to go to claim, the probability of us pushing cash out the door is pretty low. So I'm just trying to put it in context of the whole portfolio and try to take a step back from the movement. Again, we should see seasoning. You may see increasing defaults. But the probability of claim, which is when cash leaves the door, again, I think is probably pretty low.

[Operator]

And your next question comes from the line of Doug Harter with UBS.

[Douglas Harter, analyst]

Mark, just to touch on that last comment you made around probability claim. Did you make any changes in kind of the claim rate assumptions in the quarter? Because by our calculations, kind of the current year loss over the NODs at that rate seem to be higher. So just trying to understand that.

[Mark Casale, executive]

No. No real change in the claim rate assumptions for the quarter.

[Douglas Harter, analyst]

Okay. And in that -- where you said 70% of defaults were '21 vintage or older any change in kind of the new notices in that mix? Or has that been relatively consistent?

[Mark Casale, executive]

It's been pretty consistent, Dough.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from the line of Bose George with KBW.

[Bose George, analyst]

Actually, just a follow-up on Doug's question on the new notices. Are the loan sizes getting bigger? I mean, in terms of just -- because the provision for notice [ will be ] calculated went up as well. So just curious how much loan size is impacting that.

[David Weinstock, executive]

Yes, Bose. Clearly, the loan sizes, just in general with what we're doing in our insurance in force, the average -- with the GSEs raising what's eligible, definitely our loan sizes have grown. And so a lot of what you're seeing, and you can see this in our supplement, we're still reserving at about the same amount for early notices as we always have been. But clearly, what's going to impact that is the size of the loan when you're looking at a provision dollar number.

[Mark Casale, executive]

I mean, just to give you a sense of that, Bose, the average loan size for our insurance in force right now is right around $290,000, when historically, it was probably $226,000. And you're also seeing that on the front end, right? And when we talk about the insurance in force portfolio has been relatively flattish over the past years, a lot of it caused by low originations. But the loan size of our portfolio has continued to grow.

So new originations, NIW back in, say, 2017, '18 was like $240,000. This past year, it's probably $380,000. So when you think about growth in the portfolio -- and just look at units, right? We probably did about 130,000 units last year. We'll do less than that this year. That's really reflective of the environment, kind of that whole transactional part of the business.

We originated, I think, between 2017 and '18, so well before COVID, kind of normalized housing, we were right around between those 2 years, we averaged 190,000 units of NIW. So when you think about future growth in the portfolio, it has the potential for renewed growth. So it works both ways, right? So you're going to see it in the losses, but eventually, you'll start seeing it around kind of growth in the portfolio.

[Bose George, analyst]

Great. That's helpful. And then just in terms of the commentary you made on we might see some noise around the storm in 4Q. For those notices, do you provision for that since they will -- should be excluded from the losses?

[Mark Casale, executive]

We may. We haven't decided yet. We haven't seen -- we'll have to wait to see that the numbers come in. We did -- just to give you guys some color, remember back in 2017 when we had the last storms, we ended up -- we did do -- we did kind of set that aside and I think 99% of them cured. So again, we'll have to wait and let the defaults come in, and then we'll assess it from there.

[Operator]

And your next question comes from the line of Mihir Bhatia with Bank of America.

[Mihir Bhatia, analyst]

I want to start on the default inventory. And I appreciate what you're saying, Mark, about them normalizing increasing. But just quarter-over-quarter, right? I mean, you're up almost 2,000 in the default inventory. That's a bigger jump than we've seen. I'm just trying to understand, was there anything this quarter unusual? Like, I guess, maybe talk -- give us some view on like '25 or like just as things normalize, what should the default rate, do you think, normalize to?

[Mark Casale, executive]

Here, our inventory default jumped 1,500 from September of '23 to December '23. So it's again, I think -- again, I can't do your jobs for you. I think there's going -- there's a lot of noise with the ins and the outs because of forbearance. So what you're really seeing is you're not seeing some of the cure activity come through because it's kind of worked its way through forbearance. So it's more of a normalization of that.

But I would say, yes, given the environment and the seasoning, just again, 32 months. It wouldn't surprise me to see the defaults increase. But again, from a mark-to-market, I think we're relatively in a good position from claims. I think our loss provision for the quarter was 12%. So again, taking a step back, we never thought we'd run the business recession-free. I don't think we're in a recession or anything close to it yet. So again, I think it's just normalization of the default inventory.

[David Weinstock, executive]

Yes. And I would just add, I think this is really normal seasonality. I mean, here, if you look pre-COVID, generally what we would see is an increase in defaults in the second half of the year, starting with the -- in the third and fourth quarters kind of peaking out maybe in January and then kind of falling back. In the first 2 quarters of the year, people catch back up, they get their tax refunds and become more current on their default. And I think this is just kind of -- we have had a lot of disruption from COVID, and the normal trend, I think, is just starting to come back to normal seasonality.

[Mihir Bhatia, analyst]

Got it. And then maybe just switching just real quickly. On the investment side, it looks like the investments in corporate bonds, corporate debt securities has been increasing. Is that -- I know from a ratings standpoint, it's still pretty similar. But hasn't there been any change in philosophy? Any -- like what's driving that?

[Mark Casale, executive]

No. There's not -- I think what we're there, the change is really getting back to our normal mix. During kind of '22 when short rates really increased, it was -- we thought it was a good risk return in treasuries and we kind of kept the portfolio relatively short and in those securities. And now what we've done over the past quarter plus is kind of get back into our normal mix of the portfolio. We've lengthened out the duration a little bit, too. But it's really more normal course of business. Nothing special driving it.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from the line of Melissa Wedel with JPMorgan.

[Melissa Wedel, analyst]

Melissa on for Rick today. I don't think -- I might have missed this, Mark. Did you elaborate or specifically quantify the risk in force in the Helene and Milton hit areas?

[Mark Casale, executive]

No, we have not. We haven't really seen any defaults from that yet. We'll probably see some -- we most likely will see some in the fourth quarter, and we'll update everyone in February.

[Melissa Wedel, analyst]

Okay, okay. Appreciate that. And then as we think -- just going back to your comments on credit and not seeing [ secure ] activity comes through because of forbearance. Can you help us think about the time line around the forbearance process and how that might -- just the timing of it might roll through and impact those numbers?

[Christopher Curran, executive]

This is for -- Melissa, this is Chris. And your question pertains to the hurricanes, just to clarify. The forbearance -- are you referring to the COVID forbearance that ended last November? Just trying to get a sense.

[Melissa Wedel, analyst]

I thought your earlier comments were related to the COVID forbearance in particular?

[Christopher Curran, executive]

Right. So I think Mark's point from earlier is that the forbearance process for the COVID default ended last November. And when you think about the term, we're about a year out. So at this point in time, there will be no more COVID forbearance. But over the last several years, you certainly have had, I'll call it, favorable development because of some of the forbearance associated with the COVID loans.

[Mark Casale, executive]

Yes, Melissa, it's Mark. It just made it easier because the way the forbearance worked there's really no friction. You could just tell your service or that you wanted forbearance and you can do it. Now there's obviously a lot -- you have to -- you have to have right party contact. You have to talk to the borrower. So what we think we're going to see is less people go into forbearance just because they can and probably more require it.

And as that works its way through the pipe, so to speak, you're seeing less cures, too. So again, it's more of the normalization. We used to see just a lot of noise. I think you're going to see less of it. And to our point earlier, more normalization around kind of defaults and cures.

[Operator]

And we have no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to management for any additional or closing remarks.

[Mark Casale, executive]

I'd like to thank everyone for joining today, and have a great weekend.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.