Item 1. Business
Item 1. Business
Who We Are
We are a specialty insurance company that provides property and casualty insurance products to individuals and businesses. We use our underwriting and analytical expertise to provide products for select markets that we believe are underserved by other insurance companies, including the market for earthquake insurance. We use proprietary data analytics and a modern technology platform to offer our customers flexible products with customized and granular pricing for both the admitted and excess and surplus lines (“E&S”) markets.
We provide admitted insurance products through our Oregon domiciled insurance company, Palomar Specialty Insurance Company (“PSIC”), and E&S insurance products through our Arizona domiciled surplus lines insurance company, Palomar Excess and Surplus Insurance Company (“PESIC”). Each of our insurance company subsidiaries carries an “A-” rating from A.M. Best Company (“A.M. Best”), a leading rating agency for the insurance industry.
We distribute our products through multiple channels, including retail agents, program administrators, wholesale brokers, and partnerships with other insurance companies. Our business strategy is supported by a comprehensive risk transfer program with reinsurance coverage that we believe reduces earnings volatility and provides appropriate levels of protection from catastrophic events. Our management team combines decades of insurance industry experience across specialty underwriting, reinsurance, program administration, distribution, and analytics.
Founded in 2014, we have significantly grown our business and have generated attractive returns. We have organically increased gross written premiums from $16.6 million in our first year of operations to $881.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, which reflects a compound annual growth rate of approximately 64%. We have also been profitable since 2016 and our net income growth since 2016 reflects a compound annual growth rate of 41%.
We seek to continuously grow our income by developing product offerings for lines of business that harness our core competencies and where we believe we can generate attractive risk adjusted returns. Since 2021, we have introduced several new products including General Casualty, Fronting, Excess Liability, and Excess Property to diversify our book of business and broaden our product portfolio. We believe that our market opportunity, distinctive products, and differentiated business model position us to grow our business profitably.
Our Business
Our management team founded our company to address unmet needs that we perceived to exist in certain specialty insurance markets. These markets have primarily been served by either large generalist insurance companies and state-managed entities applying “one-size-fits-all” pricing and policy forms across broad geographies. We sell both admitted and surplus lines products. Our admitted products feature rates and policy forms approved by state insurance departments and are backed by state guaranty funds, providing a further level of security to policyholders. We believe that for our personal lines products, both our customers and distribution partners prefer the ease of use and security of admitted products with flexible coverages. We write surplus lines policies primarily for our commercial business. As the E&S market does not involve the same level of regulation and required approvals as the admitted market, our surplus lines products enable us to react quickly to changing market conditions.
We believe that we can generate superior risk-adjusted returns through underwriting which better reflects our customers’ underlying risk by applying a more granular approach to pricing than what is typically offered by standard carriers. We believe this market acceptance and return potential is evidenced by the fact that we have quickly and profitably grown to be the 4 th largest earthquake insurer in the state of California and the 5 th largest earthquake insurer in the United States. We continue to experience growth and profitability across our other lines of business.
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Our primary lines of business include: Residential and Commercial Earthquake, Fronting, and Inland Marine. We seek to write a diverse mix of business by loss exposure, customer type and geography to capitalize on market opportunities, mitigate the potential impact of any single catastrophe event, and reduce our cost of reinsurance.
We continue to develop product offerings for lines of business that harness our core competencies and where we believe we can generate attractive risk-adjusted returns. Notable recent examples of our commitment to developing new products include the expansion of our Casualty and Fronting operations during 2022. We believe these markets complement our existing product offerings and offer significant growth opportunity across both the admitted and E&S markets.
We seek to have a diversified business mix, anchored by our core earthquake offerings and we have made substantial progress diversifying our business by product, market, and geography. In 2014, our first year of operations, all our premiums were related to earthquake insurance. For the year ended December 31, 2022, 39% of our gross written premiums were related to earthquake insurance and non-earthquake related premiums grew 96% while earthquake related premiums grew 32% versus the prior year.
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Our admitted insurance subsidiary, PSIC, is licensed in 37 states and we have the flexibility to write nationally through our surplus lines subsidiary, PESIC. California represents our largest current exposure with 47% of our gross written premiums for the year ended December 31, 2022. Our business strategy involves continuing to grow our core earthquake insurance business while also diversifying our book of business into uncorrelated products such as Casualty and Fronting and extending the reach of heritage lines of business such as Inland Marine. The following charts illustrate our business mix by product, residential versus commercial markets, state, and entity for the year ended December 31, 2022:
We employ a highly granular and analytical underwriting process to assess each insurance policy that we write, and we ensure that the risk characteristics of business assumed through our channel partnerships or written by program administrator partners are consistent with our underwriting of direct business. Our systems enable us to underwrite all of our personal lines business automatically within minutes by leveraging our proprietary modeling techniques to analyze data at the geocode or ZIP code level. With our commercial products, we balance automation with human expertise and controls to underwrite more complex risks. Because the data we collect through our underwriting process is highly granular, we can utilize detailed portfolio analytics to actively manage aggregation of policies and to ensure an appropriate dispersion of risks across our full portfolio. Similarly, our casualty products are subject to extensive risk analysis, including review by experienced underwriters, thorough actuarial review, fostering broker relationships to obtain complete underwriting information, and accurately assessing and quantifying loss exposures to inform pricing, terms and conditions, limits, and attachment points.
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Our Competitive Strengths
We believe that our competitive strengths include:
Focus on capturing market share and expanding underserved markets. We focus on specialty insurance markets that we believe are underserved, and where we believe we can capture market share and expand the market to new customers. In our target markets, there are few direct competitors who focus exclusively on specialty risks. With our specialized knowledge of these risks and our customized products, pricing and risk management, we believe we can better serve these markets than our competitors. Furthermore, we can expand our markets by creating products that attract insureds who previously had not obtained coverage. Our focus and expertise have enabled us to rapidly increase our market share; for example, we have grown to become the 4 th largest earthquake insurer in California and the 5 th largest earthquake insurer in the United States. In markets with similar characteristics, we are experiencing growth and profitability across our other lines of business. We believe that our focus on addressing the needs of underserved specialty markets provides us with a competitive advantage.
Differentiated products built with the customer in mind. We have invested significant time and resources into developing what we believe are innovative and unique product offerings to address customer needs within our target markets. Our products generally offer our customers flexible features that are not typical of standard products in our markets. By offering our customers the ability to manage pricing, coverage options, and deductibles, we believe we have created products that are attractive both to those who have existing coverages with our competitors, and to those who have not historically bought insurance in our target markets. Furthermore, since our admitted products have been approved by individual state regulators and have been supported by proprietary pricing models since inception, we believe that these products are not easily replicable, particularly by existing carriers who would face the burden of gathering data, building new models, and revising existing rates and policy forms with regulators.
Product offerings in both the admitted and E&S markets. We believe that our core capabilities can be applied to both the admitted as well as the E&S insurance markets. Admitted products are backed by state guarantee funds and, as a result, are subject to more regulation, as admitted insurance companies must receive approval for rates and policy forms from individual state regulators. Our admitted insurance company subsidiary, PSIC, is licensed to write business in 37 states. We primarily serve the personal lines insurance market through the sale of admitted insurance products as those risks tend to be more homogenous in nature and retail agents prefer the sale of admitted products. We offer E&S insurance products through our surplus lines insurance company subsidiary, PESIC, which is licensed to do business on a national basis. We primarily serve the commercial lines insurance market through the sale of E&S insurance products as those markets are better suited to the flexibility of rate and form available to E&S carriers. Having E&S offerings allows us to react quickly to changing market conditions and to accelerate the expansion of our business nationally as we do not have to go through the process of receiving required approvals from individual state regulators.
Analytically driven, disciplined and scalable underwriting. Our underwriting approach combines decades of specialized underwriting experience of our management team with sophisticated, customized modeling tools we have developed that utilize extensive geospatial and actuarial data across all our lines of business. Our proprietary models enable automated pricing of risks at the geocode or ZIP code level, in contrast to our competitors who we believe use less granular analytics and more manual underwriting processes. For example, our Residential Flood products underwrite risks at the distinct address level compared to broader pricing zones employed by alternative product offerings in the market. Our analytical pricing framework is embedded in all facets of our business and is incorporated into our filings, pricing, underwriting and risk management. We believe that our analytically-driven underwriting approach has been the foundation of our ability to generate attractive risk-adjusted underwriting margins.
Multi-channel distribution model. Our open architecture distribution framework allows us to attract and underwrite business from multiple channels. We work with a wide variety of retail agents, program administrators, and wholesale brokers. We serve over 25 insurance companies as a specialty partner either by issuing companion policies or providing reinsurance for their in-force risks that fit our strict underwriting parameters. The breadth and flexibility of our distribution model allows us to generate premium from many different parts of the insurance ecosystem and to rapidly take advantage of changing market conditions.
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Sophisticated and conservative risk transfer program. Our risk transfer program utilizes excess of loss, quota share and property per risk coverages for both our property and casualty products. We manage our exposure to catastrophe events through several risk mitigation strategies, including the purchase of reinsurance. We believe that our reinsurance program provides appropriate levels of protection and improves visibility into our earnings. Our current reinsurance program is designed to limit our net loss before tax from a single event to $12.5 million , equivalent to approximately 3.2% of our total stockholders’ equity as of December 31, 2022. At each reinsurance treaty renewal, we consider any plans to change the underlying insurance coverage we offer, our current capital, our risk appetite, and the cost and availability of reinsurance coverage, which may vary from time to time. In addition to the magnitude of coverage, we believe our reinsurance program provides us with significant protection and stability during potential periods of multiple severe catastrophes or market volatility due to our use of aggregate reinsurance protection as well as features such as prepaid reinstatements and expanded coverage windows for catastrophe events and our diverse panel of more than 100 highly rated reinsurers and capital markets investors. Further, we buy program specific quota share reinsurance coverage for certain lines of business to mitigate the impact of attritional losses on underwriting results. In our quota share agreements, we cede a portion of our premium for lines of business subject to attritional losses to reinsurers and, in return, we also cede a proportionate amount of losses and receive ceding commissions from the reinsurers.
Emphasis on the use of technology and analytics across our business. We have built a proprietary operating platform that employs best practices derived from our management team’s extensive prior experience. Our technology platform is not burdened by outdated technology and processes which may be utilized by older insurance companies. In building our platform, we have emphasized automated processes that use granular data and analytics consistently across all aspects of our business. Our internally developed Palomar Automated Submission System (“PASS”) acts as our interface with retail agents and wholesale brokers. PASS serves as the conduit to our policy administration system that integrates policy issuance, underwriting, billing and portfolio analytics. Our platform enables us to rapidly quote and bind policies via automated processing, and also to run detailed risk-management analytics for internal and external constituents including distribution partners, carrier partners and reinsurers. We believe that this real-time access to data and analytics provides us with an advantage in distributing our products, managing our risk, and purchasing reinsurance.
Entrepreneurial and highly experienced management team and board. Our management team is highly qualified, with an average of more than twenty years of relevant experience in insurance, reinsurance and capital markets. We are led by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mac Armstrong, who prior to founding Palomar was President of Arrowhead General Insurance Agency (“Arrowhead”). Many of our management team members such as Mr. Armstrong, Jon Christianson, our President, Jon Knutzen, our Chief Risk Officer, and Chris Uchida, our Chief Financial Officer, have a long history of working together. For example, while at Arrowhead, Mac Armstrong worked closely with Chris Uchida, who served as Executive Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer of Arrowhead. As owners of approximately 2.8% of our outstanding common stock as of December 31, 2022, we believe our management team has closely aligned interests with our stockholders. In addition, our Board of Directors is comprised of accomplished industry veterans who bring decades of experience from their prior roles working in insurance and financial services companies.
Our Strategy
We believe that our approach will allow us to achieve our goals of both growing our business and generating attractive returns. Our strategy involves:
Expand our presence in existing markets. We compete in the United States property and casualty market that represented nearly $800 billion in total written premiums during 2021. By comparison, we generated $881.9 million of gross written premiums for the year ended December 31, 2022. We believe that our differentiated product offerings will enable us to continue growing in our existing markets by (i) gaining market share from competitors who have less flexible product offerings; (ii) continuing to expand our strong distribution network; and (iii) increasing the total addressable market by providing attractive products to customers who previously elected not to purchase coverage. We continue to evaluate additional geographic markets and lines of business where we believe we can generate attractive risk-adjusted returns by harnessing our core competencies.
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Maintain our distinctive combination of profitability and growth. Our analytically informed risk selection and disciplined underwriting guidelines enable us to identify segments of the market that are both underserved and mispriced. As a result, we are able to generate an attractive underwriting profit through expanding the addressable market and winning market share with our distinctive products. For the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, our return on equity (“ROE”) was 13.4% and 12.1%, and our adjusted ROE was 18.3% and 13.8%, respectively. As we seek premium growth, we intend to remain disciplined in our pricing, underwriting, and risk management processes, including closely managing our net probable maximum loss (“PML”), average annual loss (“AAL”), and spread of risk. We will remain focused on lines of business with attractive pricing dynamics and a favorable risk / return profile, and we will not participate in markets where we believe our business model cannot add incremental value.
Maintain a diversified book of business. We currently write a book of specialty insurance that is diversified by underlying loss exposure, customer type and geography. Our major product lines and exposures are uncorrelated, such that events contributing to a loss in one line of business are unlikely to generate material losses in our other lines of business. The diversification of our book of business improves our risk-adjusted returns, insulates us from swings in any single insurance or reinsurance market, and allows us to capitalize on market shifts opportunistically. As we grow, we intend to maintain a diversified book of business and continually capitalize on these advantages.
Leverage our underwriting, analytics, and risk transfer acumen to generate fee income. We generate fee income by underwriting on behalf of other insurance companies and through the use of quota share reinsurance treaties whereby third-party reinsurers pay us a ceding commission in order to access attractive pools of risk. Our fronting business offers an additional source of fee income that we earn from program administrators and reinsurers seeking to access our licensed insurance companies. Our multi-channel distribution model produces attractive business that we aim to translate into a balanced mix of underwriting and fee income. As a result, we have an increasing number of partnerships where we write policies on behalf of other insurance and reinsurance companies who pay us a ceding commission to access the business. We believe these partnerships are an important validation of the intellectual property and expertise we have developed, and that this strategy enables us to scale our business more quickly and profitably and provides a growing and valuable fee stream to complement our profitable underwriting operations.
Continue to purchase conservative reinsurance coverage, while optimizing for risk-adjusted returns. We believe that protecting our earnings and balance sheet through the use of reinsurance is critical to our business and supports our ability to meet obligations to our policyholders and other constituents, and generate strong returns for our stockholders. We plan to maintain a conservative, robust reinsurance program to provide protection against severe or frequent catastrophe losses. Our goal is to protect our earnings by constructing a reinsurance program that mitigates losses and ensures profitability in spite of potential shock losses or catastrophic activity. As we grow, we expect that we will benefit from increased scale and diversification of risk in our business, and we plan to optimize our reinsurance program continuously by adjusting terms, structure, pricing, and participants to maximize our risk-adjusted returns.
Continue to invest in proprietary technology assets that deepen our competitive advantage. We believe that the success of our business is centered upon our relentless commitment to using technology to improve our business. For example, we have dedicated software developers focused on building application programming interfaces (“APIs”), which enable seamless integration into the point of sale systems of our partner carriers and distribution partners. This integration increases the ease of use for our partners, embeds us within their systems, and facilitates real-time sharing of information between our distribution, underwriting, and risk management functions. We will continue to evaluate and invest in proprietary and third-party technology assets, which deepen our competitive advantage, strengthen our operations, and improve our returns.
History
We are an insurance holding company that was originally incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands in October 2013. In March 2019, we (i) implemented a domestication pursuant to Section 388 of the Delaware General Corporation Law and became a Delaware corporation.
Our primary operating subsidiary, PSIC, is an insurance company domiciled in the state of Oregon and is an admitted insurer licensed to write business in 37 states as of December 31, 2022. PSIC was formed in February 2014. In
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August 2014, we incorporated Palomar Specialty Reinsurance Company Bermuda Ltd.(“PSRE”), a Bermuda-based reinsurance subsidiary that provides reinsurance support exclusively to PSIC and PESIC. In August 2015, we incorporated Prospect General Insurance Agency, Inc., now known as Palomar Insurance Agency, Inc., (“PIA”), to underwrite specialty insurance products on behalf of third-party insurance companies. During 2020, we received regulatory approval for and capitalized PESIC. PESIC is domiciled in the State of Arizona and licensed in Arizona to write surplus lines business on a nationwide basis across all our existing lines of business.
Our Products
We provide personal and commercial specialty insurance products in our target markets. With the goal of giving customers better options, we designed an analytical framework to create flexible products with innovative coverages and pricing that we believe better reflects the underlying risk. Using this framework, we initially introduced residential and commercial earthquake products in 2014 and have subsequently expanded our product portfolio to cover multiple specialty risks in several regions of the United States. We have grown our business by entering markets that demonstrated one or more of the following attributes: (i) have loss characteristics, including limited attritional losses, similar to our initial earthquake product, (ii) can benefit from our technology platform, data analytics and customer centric products, and/or (iii) allow us to leverage our existing underwriting talent, reinsurance expertise and/or distribution relationships.
Our primary insurance products include Residential and Commercial Earthquake, Fronting, and Inland Marine. We aim to develop a diversified portfolio with exposure spread across geographic regions with limited correlation. Although our largest exposure remains in the state of California, we have expanded across the United States. We tailor our risk participation to optimize our returns depending on the conditions of specific markets. In total, we are licensed as an admitted insurer in 37 total states. The following table shows gross written premium (“GWP”) by state for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020.
Year Ended December 31,
2022
2021
2020
($ in thousands)
% of
% of
% of
Amount
GWP
Amount
GWP
Amount
GWP
State
California
$
418,809
47.5
%
$
244,416
45.6
%
$
172,765
48.8
%
Texas
90,459
10.3
%
62,893
11.8
%
67,974
19.2
%
Washington
41,827
4.7
%
23,608
4.4
%
14,328
4.0
%
Hawaii
40,157
4.5
%
34,993
6.5
%
16,398
4.6
%
Florida
38,715
4.4
%
27,386
5.1
%
5,795
1.7
%
Oregon
24,108
2.7
%
13,677
2.6
%
10,038
2.8
%
Illinois
17,368
2.0
%
12,133
2.3
%
6,133
1.7
%
North Carolina
12,776
1.5
%
15,271
2.9
%
11,143
3.1
%
Other
197,649
22.4
%
100,798
18.8
%
49,786
14.1
%
Total Gross Written Premiums
$
881,868
100.0
%
$
535,175
100.0
%
$
354,360
100.0
%
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We believe that maintaining a balanced book of personal and commercial lines business is beneficial. For example, while our Residential Earthquake products experience higher premium retention rates, our Commercial Earthquake products provide more flexibility on pricing, which enables us to increase premium rates more quickly when market conditions accommodate price increases. For the year ended December 31, 2022, 37% of our gross written premium consisted of personal lines business and 63% of gross written premium consisted of commercial lines business, compared to 54% personal lines business and 46% commercial lines business during the year ended December 31, 2021. The following table shows gross written premium by product line for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020:
Year Ended December 31,
2022
2021
2020
($ in thousands)
% of
% of
% of
Amount
GWP
Amount
GWP
Amount
GWP
Product
Fronting
$
223,249
25.3
%
$
11,459
2.2
%
$
—
NM
Residential Earthquake
213,803
24.2
%
171,048
32.0
%
140,934
39.8
%
Commercial Earthquake
131,677
14.9
%
90,552
16.9
%
58,890
16.6
%
Inland Marine
105,068
11.9
%
57,124
10.7
%
15,423
4.3
%
Commercial All Risk
51,671
5.9
%
38,640
7.2
%
53,933
15.2
%
Casualty
35,791
4.1
%
9,584
1.9
%
—
NM
Hawaii Hurricane
32,967
3.7
%
30,298
5.6
%
13,824
3.9
%
Specialty Homeowners
29,959
3.4
%
67,894
12.7
%
49,849
14.1
%
Residential Flood
14,539
1.7
%
11,652
2.2
%
8,176
2.3
%
Other
43,144
4.9
%
46,924
8.6
%
13,331
3.8
%
Total Gross Written Premiums
$
881,868
100.0
%
$
535,175
100.0
%
$
341,029
100.0
%
NM-Not Meaningful
Residential Earthquake
We offer Residential Earthquake products in 37 states on an admitted basis and nationwide on an E&S basis. Our products insure against damage to the home, contents and any appurtenant structures, and reimburse for temporary housing costs in the event of an earthquake. We design our products to provide agents and policyholders with coverage flexibility, including a full range of deductible options and the ability to tailor limits to a customer’s individual preferences. We aim to sell our products to buyers who may not have previously purchased earthquake coverage. We believe that our pricing model is a distinctive feature of our product offering. Using data from industry-leading catastrophe models we can evaluate and accurately price exposures at the ZIP code or geocode level based on characteristics particular to the risk. For example, we believe competing earthquake insurance products in California are commonly based on broad territorial pricing zones that do not consider regional differences in soil types, liquefaction potential and include little price differentiation between risks with varying proximity to known faults. Our ability to divide geographies into highly resolute grids, or ZIP codes, and price according to more detailed information relating to the exposure allows us to obtain a more appropriate rate for the risk, and often allows us to offer rate relief, particularly in low risk areas that historically have low earthquake insurance penetration. We write policy limits up to $15 million; all policies involve automated underwriting and lower limit policies are issued via automated processing. During the year ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, our Residential Earthquake products had a premium retention rate of approximately 91%.
Commercial Earthquake
We offer Commercial Earthquake products, commonly known as “Difference in Conditions” policies, on an admitted basis in 15 states and nationwide on an E&S basis. Our Commercial Earthquake products focus on providing coverage for benign commercial risks where the business interruption exposure is typically less than 15% of the total insured value (“TIV”). We attempt to avoid risks where the contents are hard to value or represent a disproportionate
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percentage of the value. We write policy limits up to $25 million with the ability to serve larger accounts using facultative reinsurance.
Fronting
Our Fronting business offers both admitted and E&S products to reinsurers, insurance carriers and managing general agents to enable the design and operation of customized insurance programs. We issue insurance policies for other insurance companies which may not have the licensure, product suite or rating to serve their desired markets, or for programs supported by reinsurance or alternative capital providers. In addition, we enter fronting arrangements with program administrators that require a broadly licensed, highly rated carrier to conduct their business in certain states.
Inland Marine
Our Inland Marine products include Builder’s Risk, Contractor’s Equipment, Mobile Equipment, Motor Truck Cargo, Miscellaneous Floaters, Installation Floaters, and Special Property Floaters. We write our Inland Marine products on an admitted and on an E&S basis directly and through program administrators. Policy limits vary by product, however, our E&S offerings are designed to target larger limit business and does not directly compete with our admitted offerings. We believe the flexibility of our Inland Marine products enables us to compete in select market segments and price risk appropriately.
Commercial All Risk
We offer Commercial All Risk insurance on a E&S basis nationwide through the underwriting division of a national wholesaler. Our products currently compete in the national layered and shared commercial property market, an area where we believe there is currently a high-level of market dislocation. The Commercial All Risk policy covers the perils of fire and wind, with wind including hurricane, tornado, and hailstorm. For additional premium, the policy can include the peril of earthquake. We target occupancy types including government entities, homeowner’s associations, retail stores, hotels, motels, and office buildings. Previously, we wrote this business on a direct admitted basis in select states in the Southeastern United States. During 2020, we ceased writing this business on an admitted basis and as of December 31, 2021, all admitted Commercial All Risk business has been run off.
Hawaii Hurricane
We offer admitted residential property coverage for named hurricanes in the state of Hawaii. The state requires this coverage for homeowners that carry a mortgage on their properties. Similar to our residential earthquake product, insureds have the ability to tailor limits to their preferences. The policies we write only trigger coverage if wind damage occurs while the insured risk is in a county that is under a hurricane watch or warning as deemed by the Pacific division of the National Weather Service. Coverage only remains in effect for a period of 72 hours after the hurricane watch or warning expires. Therefore, there is no exposure to attritional losses with this product. We believe our products are preferred by local retail agents due to our “A−” (Excellent) (Outlook Stable) rating by A.M. Best. We write policy limits up to $15 million; all policies involve automated underwriting and policies under $5 million in limit are issued via automated processing.
Specialty Homeowners
Our Specialty Homeowners product previously provided admitted insurance coverage to homeowners in wind-exposed coastal regions. During the year ended December 31, 2022, we ceased writing Specialty Homeowners policies outside the state of Texas and converted our Texas Specialty Homeowners business to a fronting arrangement. We do not plan to write Specialty Homeowners business in the future.
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Residential Flood
We provide residential flood products on an admitted basis in 14 states and on an E&S basis in 16 states across the United States. Our products primarily compete against those of the NFIP, which caps dwelling coverage at $250,000 and prices risk using less granular regional zones. We offer higher limits than the NFIP and price risk at the specific geocode level having developed detailed granular models of all current markets in partnership with a leading national catastrophe modeling agency. Furthermore, due to our proprietary pricing grid models we eliminate the need for a waiting period or an elevation certificate prior to binding and issuance of policies. We write policy limits up to $5 million, all of which involve automated underwriting and are issued via automated processing.
Casualty
We provide casualty products on an admitted and non-admitted basis. We write primarily general casualty and professional liability coverages directly and through program administrators. We utilize experienced underwriters and thorough actuarial review to optimize our pricing, terms and conditions, limits, and attachment points.
Other
Examples of our other product offerings include assumed reinsurance contracts where the exposure is uncorrelated to our existing product offerings. We continuously seek to develop product offerings and write business in areas that harness our core competencies and where we believe we can generate attractive risk adjusted returns.
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Marketing and Distribution
We market and distribute our products through a multi-channel, open architecture distribution model which includes retail agents, wholesale brokers, program administrators and carrier partnerships. We have well-defined underwriting criteria and have designed our distribution model to access our targeted risks through what we believe to be the most efficient channels.
Retail Agents: We primarily distribute our personal lines products through retail agents. We believe that retail agents are an important pillar of our distribution model due to the high retention rates and rate stability that we are able to achieve with policies sold through this channel. We provide agents with flexible products that are preferred by end consumers and are easier for agents to sell. In many cases, we provide agents with direct access to our policy management system that enables them to quote, bind and issue policies in a matter of minutes. We believe this ease of use and quick speed-to-quote serves as a competitive advantage.
Wholesale Brokers: We distribute our commercial lines products primarily through wholesale brokers. Wholesale brokers are an important channel for commercial property insurance products as they control much of the premium in these segments. We select wholesale brokers based on our management’s review of their experience, knowledge, and business plan. We target brokers with the experience to serve our target markets and with business plans consistent with our strategy and underwriting objectives. Brokers must demonstrate an ability to produce both the quality and quantity of business that we seek. To assist with this goal, our underwriters regularly visit with brokers to market and discuss the products we offer.
Program Administrators: Within select lines of business, we partner with program administrators to harness the efficiency and scale of their existing marketing and distribution infrastructures. Generally, all policies bound by our program administrators are pre-underwritten using our pricing models which have been programmed into the policy administration system of each partner. For business that is not automatically underwritten, we set strict underwriting guidelines to which our partners must adhere. We audit the underwriting, systems, financial strength and reporting capabilities of all of our program administrators on a regular basis. Most notably, for our Value Select Residential Earthquake products, we have a mutually exclusive program administrator agreement with Arrowhead for the states of California, Oregon and Washington. Under this agreement, which accounted for $173.1 million of written premiums for the year ended December 31, 2022, we conduct product development and underwriting while our program administrator manages a base of over 1,000 retail agents who individually bind policies through PASS or an internal system which automatically applies our pricing and underwriting guidelines to new policies, and is subjected to our disciplined risk management. We have also partnered with several program administrators that focus on specific areas of the E&S market as we pursue the growth of PESIC.
Carrier Partnerships: Given our unique specialty focus and underwriting expertise, we are a carrier of choice for other insurance companies seeking a specialty insurance partner to act as a fronting carrier, transfer certain classes of risk, satisfy insurance department mandatory offer requirements or provide a more comprehensive risk solution to their customers. As of December 31, 2022, we had partnerships with over 25 insurance companies. Several carriers invite us to provide a companion offer for residential earthquake insurance alongside their homeowners’ insurance policy offerings. Other carriers will direct their captive agents to our online system so that they may quote, bind and issue policies directly. Finally, we offer assumed reinsurance arrangements to carriers whereby we assume up to 100% of the underlying risk for specific classes of business in exchange for a ceding commission. Our assumed reinsurance treaties represent risks that we would ordinarily underwrite on a primary basis and/or that fit well within our risk tolerance, however, the cedant either (i) has already written these policies or (ii) the cedant wants to issue the policies on its paper but not retain any of the risk and as such prefers an assumed reinsurance partnership. We believe that our carrier partnerships with sophisticated industry participants speak to the value and quality of our products, service offering and systems. Furthermore, carrier partnerships are a highly scalable distribution model as they enable us to tap into a sizable customer base and to quickly build scale in new markets. With all partnerships, we review pricing at the policy level to ensure that the risk characteristics of both new and assumed business are consistent with our underwriting of direct business. We intend to pursue additional carrier partnerships in the future including those that involve PESIC.
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Underwriting
Our underwriting team combines comprehensive data analysis with experienced underwriting techniques to build a profitable, stable and diversified book of business. Our underwriting process involves securing an adequate level of underwriting information, classifying and evaluating each individual risk exposure, assessing the impact of the risk upon our existing portfolio, and pricing the risk accordingly. Our overarching underwriting philosophy is ‘to write what we know’ a straightforward approach that allows our underwriters to focus on business they understand and can process quickly without sacrificing diligence and attention to detail.
We develop our underwriting guidelines and pricing models for our property and casualty products through traditional underwriting metrics, management experience, and advanced data analytics. Our underwriters actively collaborate with our actuarial team to determine pricing and risk exposure. This analytical and underwriting expertise framework enables us to offer rate relief in low risk areas and to accurately price risks that are at higher risk.
Personal lines policies are issued via automated underwriting and account for approximately 37% of our gross written premium for the year ended December 31, 2022. Using our predefined underwriting guidelines, distribution partners can rapidly quote and bind accounts lower in limit via automated processing. We believe that automated underwriting of personal lines policies improves efficiency, reduces errors, and enhances the customer experience.
Since property and casualty commercial lines risks involve additional complexity and do not lend themselves to highly automated underwriting, we combine robust risk analysis and data collection with underwriter expertise to evaluate individual risk and to quote business efficiently. We regularly audit data gathered during our underwriting process to determine the accuracy of rating information and risk pricing. For example, we often inspect properties as part of our underwriting process to discover any unrepaired damage and identify any other conditions that affect the insurability of the property. Similarly, our casualty products are subject to extensive risk analysis, including review by experienced underwriters, thorough actuarial review, fostering broker relationships to obtain complete underwriting information, and accurately assessing and quantifying loss exposures to inform pricing, terms and conditions, limits, and attachment points. Our underwriters bring specific line of business experience including underwriting expertise, distribution relationships and support from the reinsurance community while collaborating closely with our actuarial team on pricing. In addition, we continue to pursue the use of technology to streamline inspections and other components of the underwriting process.
We apply the same principles and discipline to underwriting when selecting program administrator partners. We proactively engage with our program managers to create specific underwriting guidelines and techniques. We regularly conduct underwriting, claims and financial audits to ensure consistent execution upon underwriting guidelines, claims processing and compliance with regulatory requirements.
Ongoing risk management of our portfolio in aggregate is a critical component of our underwriting process. We use third-party catastrophe modeling software to evaluate our ongoing risk exposure. We regularly review the output of these models to evaluate the geographic spread of our risk, including the evaluation of AAL and PML by line of business and for the portfolio as a whole. This review enables us to monitor our exposure to correlated risks and optimize the design and pricing of our reinsurance program including the purchase of appropriate reinsurance coverage.
Claims Management
Given the low frequency nature of the primary perils that we insure, we primarily outsource our claims handling infrastructure to third-party administrators (“TPAs”) to eliminate the expense associated with maintaining full time dedicated claims personnel. We currently contract with multiple TPAs to reduce our reliance on any single TPA, as well as to benefit from expertise of individual vendors in specific lines of business. Our management team is responsible for overseeing our TPAs, including the management of loss reserves, event preparation, settlement, arbitration, and mediation. Claims are reported directly to us and the applicable TPA, which adheres to agreed upon service level standards.
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In the case of a catastrophe event, our technology infrastructure and data analytics enable us to identify potentially affected policies immediately and begin assisting our customers by notifying our TPAs, our reinsurance partners and other potentially impacted parties. Contracting with a network of TPAs improves our ability to mobilize claims adjusters immediately to the areas where our customers are most affected and helps insulate us from the “demand surge” following a catastrophe event. To prepare for a potential catastrophe event, we run simulations and work closely with our TPAs to ensure there are dedicated desk and field adjusters to handle the volume of claims that would be expected in each loss scenario. Using each earthquake and hurricane scenario, we project losses and identify an individualized and optimal catastrophe response plan for each event.
We review claims files and claims reports from our TPAs for accuracy and reasonableness on an ongoing basis. We review all claims received from our TPAs to validate coverage, limits, and deductibles prior to making payment. In addition, we have certain managerial requirements of our TPAs around notification, reserve approval, payment management, correspondence with insureds, and reports for all claims in excess of the claims analyst’s authority. We also monitor possible litigation and litigation trends associated with our claims.
Reinsurance
We purchase a significant amount of reinsurance from third parties that we believe enhances our business by reducing our exposure to potential catastrophe and attritional losses, limiting volatility in our underwriting performance, and providing us with greater visibility into our future earnings. Reinsurance involves transferring, or ceding, a portion of our risk exposure on policies that we write to another insurer, the reinsurer, in exchange for a premium.
We purchase several types of reinsurance, including catastrophe excess of loss (“XOL”), in which the reinsurer(s) agree to assume all or a portion of losses relating to a group of policies occurring in relation to specified events, subject to customary exclusions, in excess of a specified amount. In addition, we buy reinsurance coverage for specific lines of business on a quota share, property per risk, or a facultative basis. In quota share reinsurance, the reinsurer agrees to assume a specified percentage of the ceding company’s losses arising out of a defined class of business in exchange for a corresponding percentage of premiums, net of a ceding commission. Property per risk coverage is similar to catastrophe excess of loss except that the treaty applies in individual property losses rather than in the aggregate for all claims associated with a single catastrophic loss occurrence. Facultative coverage refers to a reinsurance contract on individual risks as opposed to a group or class of business. We use facultative reinsurance selectively to supplement limits or to cover risks or perils excluded from other reinsurance contracts.
We have a robust program utilizing a mix of traditional reinsurers and insurance linked securities. We currently purchase reinsurance from over 100 reinsurers, who either have an “A−” (Excellent) (Outlook Stable) or better financial strength rating by A.M. Best or post collateral. Our reinsurance contracts include special termination provisions that allow us to cancel and replace any participating reinsurer that is downgraded below a rating of “A−” (Excellent) (Outlook Stable) from A.M. Best, or whose surplus drops by more than 20%.
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In addition to reinsurance purchased from traditional reinsurers, we have historically incorporated collateralized protection from the insurance linked securities market via catastrophe bonds. During the first quarter of 2021, the Company closed a $400 million 144A catastrophe bond which became effective June 1, 2021. The catastrophe bond was completed through Torrey Pines Re Pte. Ltd. (“Torrey Pines Re Pte.”). Torrey Pines Re Pte. is a special purpose reinsurance vehicle incorporated in Singapore that provides Palomar with indemnity-based reinsurance covering earthquake events through June 1, 2024. During the second quarter of 2022, the Company also closed a $275 million 144A catastrophe bond which became effective June 1, 2022. This catastrophe bond was completed through Torrey Pines Re Ltd., a Bermuda-domiciled special purpose insurer that provides indemnity-based reinsurance covering earthquake events through June 1, 2025.
Our largest single XOL reinsurer, excluding Torrey Pines Re, comprises 5.2% of the total catastrophe XOL reinsurance limit we have in effect. The table below reflects the ratings of our largest individual reinsurers.
Reinsurer Ratings
A.M Best
S&P
Torrey Pines Re 144A Cat Bond 2022
NR
NR
Torrey Pines Re 144A Cat Bond 2021
NR
NR
Houston Casualty Company (UK Branch)
A++
A+
Lancashire Insurance Company, Ltd.
A
A-
Ariel Re Bda Limited obo Synd 1910 (Bermuda)
A
A+
Lloyd's # 1947 - GIC Re
A
A+
Swiss Reinsurance America Corporation
A+
AA-
MS Amlin AG Bermuda Branch
A
A
Elementum Re Ltd. obo Allianz Risk Transfer AG (Bermuda Branch)
A+
A+
Lloyd's # 1301 - Inigo Insurance
A
A+
Catastrophe XOL Reinsurance Coverage
Our catastrophe event retention before any tax effect is currently $12.5 million for all perils. Our reinsurance coverage exhausts at $2.11 billion for earthquake events, $1.01 billion for Hawaii hurricane events, and $250 million for continental U.S. hurricane events, providing coverage in excess of our 1:250 year peak zone PML and in excess of our A.M. Best threshold. In addition, we maintain reinsurance coverage equivalent to or better than the 1 in 250 year PML for our other lines. As of December 31, 2022, our first event retention represented approximately 3.2% of our stockholders’ equity.
In the event that multiple catastrophe events occur in a period, many of our contracts include the right to reinstate reinsurance limits for potential future recoveries during the same contract year and preserve our limit for subsequent events. This feature for subsequent event coverage is known as a “reinstatement.” In addition, to provide further coverage against the potential for frequent catastrophe events we have $25 million of aggregate XOL reinsurance limit, which is effective through April 1, 2023. This coverage, applying within our per occurrence retention, has an attachment point of $30 million and applies across all perils including but not limited to earthquakes, hurricanes, convective storms, and floods above a qualifying level of $2.0 million in ultimate gross loss. We believe subsequent event coverage and the aggregate reinsurance cover reduces the volatility of our business and we will always consider the need to protect against subsequent or multiple events in our reinsurance strategy.
To assess the sufficiency of our catastrophe XOL reinsurance coverage, we continuously quantify our exposure to catastrophes including earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and hailstorms. We evaluate and monitor the total policy limit insured for each peril and in each geographic region, and we use third-party catastrophe models to evaluate the AAL as well as the estimated PML at various intervals. Our PML modeling is consistent with standards established by A.M. Best and includes “demand surge,” and loss amplification. To protect against model bias, we perform probabilistic modeling as well as deterministic modeling using a variety of industry models including AIR Touchstone for all perils and regions and RMS RiskLink for all perils and regions.
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We believe our current reinsurance program provides coverage well in excess of our theoretical losses from any recorded historical event. The below table shows the PML from selected historical catastrophe events, all of which are less than the amount covered by our current catastrophe reinsurance program. Should an event equivalent to one of these historical events recur, our hypothetical net loss before any tax effect would be capped at our current net retention of $12.5 million.
12/31/22
Historical Event
modeled PML
($ millions)
CA 1906 San Francisco M7.8
$
1,821
CA 1994 Northridge M6.7
1,252
CA 1971 San Fernando M6.7
625
CA 1868 Hayward M7.0
576
NM 1811‑12 sequence M7.8
552
HI 1992 Hurricane Iniki
439
NW 1949 Puget Sound M7.1
375
CA 1857 Fort Tejon M7.9
350
CA 1933 Long Beach M6.4
320
While we only select reinsurers whom we believe to have acceptable credit and a minimum A.M. Best rating of “A−”, if our reinsurers are unable to pay the claims for which they are responsible, we ultimately retain primary liability to our policyholders. In addition, at each reinsurance treaty renewal, we consider any plans to change the underlying insurance coverage we offer, our current capital, our risk appetite, and the cost and availability of reinsurance coverage, which may vary from time to time.
Program Specific Reinsurance Coverage
In addition to our catastrophe XOL coverage, we purchase reinsurance for specific programs in order to control our net exposure for any single risk, manage our exposure to attritional losses and improve our economics through ceding a portion of the risk to reinsurers in exchange for a ceding commission which generates fee income. We purchase program specific reinsurance, consisting primarily of quota share coverage, for certain lines of business with an attritional loss component such as Inland Marine and Casualty. We also utilize a combination of XOL and quota share reinsurance to provide coverage for our Flood products.
Technology
Our integrated technology systems form the backbone of our business as they enable us to offer quality and timely service to our policyholders and producers, communicate seamlessly with reinsurers and partner carriers, and run our business more efficiently and cost effectively. As a recently formed insurance company, we have the benefit of having built a proprietary operating platform that employs the best practices of our management team’s extensive prior experience and that is not burdened by outdated legacy technology and processes. Our systems offer greater ease of use to distribution partners and provide seamless integration between our pricing models, quoting tools, policy administration systems and portfolio analytics databases. Our proprietary operating platform is based on applications licensed from multiple third-party software vendors. We have invested significantly in customizing, building on top of and extending these applications to increase automation and enhance efficiency. We have dedicated in-house software developers as well as external resources, all of whom report to our Chief Technology Officer. Our internally developed PASS provides producers direct access to our retail and wholesale distributed products including Residential Earthquake, Commercial Earthquake, Hawaii Hurricane, Inland Marine and Residential Flood. PASS also serves as the administration system for select policy data and the access point for business written through direct personal lines partnerships. PASS enables the effective use of predefined underwriting, providing efficiency and optimization to our production partners and real-time transparency in underwriting and aggregate management. Our software development team develops programing interfaces where applicable so that partner carriers and distribution partners can seamlessly access our system.
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Our pricing models are based on the most recent versions of catastrophe models from industry leading vendors and our internal expertise. For certain products where limited models are available, we have worked directly with the vendors to develop proprietary models. We update all of our pricing models as new versions are released, which mitigates our exposure to changes in our business following industry-wide model changes. For personal lines products issued through automated underwriting, our pricing models integrate directly into our policy administration system as well as the systems of program administrator partners. Since our commercial lines products do not lend themselves to highly automated underwriting, we have built a customized operating platform that our underwriters use to evaluate risk and to efficiently quote business. Our custom application platform seamlessly integrates policy administration, billing, and maintenance.
We emphasize the use of technology in our analytics and enterprise risk management (“ERM”) operations. Our analytics team, which reports to our Chief Risk Officer, uses multiple catastrophe modeling software applications to evaluate our ongoing risk exposure. Our data analytics enable us to provide real-time reporting of our in-force portfolio to our reinsurers, TPAs and distribution partners on a regular basis and during severe weather events. This reporting combines content from the catastrophe models that we license with internally developed content. Event reporting is an element of our overall ERM framework which monitors our risks and ensures that we have appropriate controls and preparations are in place. Our technology infrastructure is designed to function through any major disruption, with all data stored offsite and employees provided with the resources to work remotely.
Reserves
When a claim is reported to us or when an event occurs, we establish loss reserves to cover our estimated ultimate losses under all insurance policies that we underwrite, and loss adjustment expenses relating to the investigation and settlement of policy claims. These reserves include estimates of the cost of the claims reported to us (case reserves) and estimates of the cost of claims that have been incurred but not yet reported (“IBNR”) and are net of estimated related salvage, subrogation recoverables and reinsurance recoverables. Reserves are estimates involving actuarial projections of the expected ultimate cost to settle and administer claims at a given time, but are not expected to represent precisely the ultimate liability. Estimates are based upon past loss experience modified for current trends as well as prevailing economic, legal and social conditions. Such estimates will also be based on facts and circumstances then known, but are subject to significant uncertainty based on the outcome of various factors, such as future events, future trends in claim severity, inflation and changes in the judicial interpretation of policy provisions relating to the determination of coverage.
When a claim is reported and investigated by a claims adjuster, we establish a case reserve for the estimated amount of the ultimate payment after an appropriate assessment of coverage, damages and other information as applicable. The estimate is based on general insurance reserving practices and on the claim adjuster’s experience and knowledge of the nature and value of the specific type of claim. Case reserves are revised periodically based on subsequent developments associated with each claim.
We establish IBNR reserves in accordance with industry practice to provide for (i) the estimated amount of future loss payments on incurred claims not yet reported, and (ii) potential development on reported claims. IBNR reserves are estimated based on generally accepted actuarial reserving techniques that consider quantitative loss experience data and, where appropriate, qualitative factors.
We regularly review our loss reserves using a variety of actuarial techniques. We also update the reserve estimates as historical loss experience develops, additional claims are reported and/or settled and new information becomes available. A reserve can be increased or decreased over time as claims move towards settlement, which can impact earnings in the form of either adverse development or reserve releases.
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The following tables present the development of our loss reserves by accident year on a gross basis and net of reinsurance recoveries during each of the below calendar years:
Gross Ultimate Loss and LAE
Development- (Favorable) Unfavorable
Calendar Year
2019 to
2020 to
2021 to
Accident Year
2019
2020
2021
2022
2020
2021
2022
(in thousands)
Prior
$
81,778
$
78,503
$
83,896
$
87,938
$
(3,275)
$
5,393
$
4,042
2020
—
171,470
194,752
206,532
—
23,282
11,780
2021
—
—
171,922
156,434
—
—
(15,488)
2022
—
—
—
200,765
—
—
—
$
(3,275)
$
28,675
$
334
Net Ultimate Loss and LAE
Development- (Favorable) Unfavorable
Calendar Year
2019 to
2020 to
2021 to
Accident Year
2019
2020
2021
2022
2020
2021
2022
(in thousands)
Prior
$
33,958
$
33,894
$
33,487
$
33,870
$
(64)
$
(407)
$
383
2020
—
64,179
61,001
64,171
—
(3,178)
3,170
2021
—
—
45,042
43,872
—
—
(1,170)
2022
—
—
—
76,289
—
—
—
$
(64)
$
(3,585)
$
2,383
Investments
Investment income is an important component of our earnings. We collect premiums and are required to hold a portion of these funds in reserves until claims are paid. We invest these reserves, primarily in fixed maturity investments. Our fixed maturity investment portfolio is managed by Conning, Inc., an investment advisory firm that is an experienced manager of insurance company assets, and operates under guidelines approved by our Board of Directors. We believe our investment strategy allows us to eliminate the expense of a treasury department while allowing our management to maintain oversight over the investment portfolio.
In the years that we make an underwriting profit, we are able to retain all investment income. Underwriting losses may require us to dedicate a portion of our investment income or capital to cover insurance claims and expenses.
Our cash and invested assets consist of fixed maturity securities, short-term investments, cash and cash equivalents, mutual funds, exchange traded funds and equity securities. Our fixed maturity securities are classified as “available-for-sale” and are carried at fair value with unrealized gains and losses on these securities reported, net of tax, as a separate component of accumulated other comprehensive income (loss). Our equity investments are measured at fair value with changes in fair value recognized in net income. Fair value generally represents quoted market value prices for securities traded in the public market or prices analytically determined using bid or closing prices for securities not traded in the public marketplace. Short-term investments are reported at cost and include investments that are both readily convertible to known amounts of cash and have maturities of 12 months or less upon acquisition by us.
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Our investment securities available totaled $553.6 million and $465.9 million at December 31, 2022 and 2021 respectively, and are summarized as follows:
Fair
% of Total
December 31, 2022
Value
Fair Value
Fixed maturities:
U.S. Governments
$
48,551
8.9
%
States, territories, and possessions
5,354
1.0
%
Political subdivisions
4,298
0.8
%
Special revenue excluding mortgage/asset‑backed securities
32,799
6.0
%
Industrial and miscellaneous
254,095
46.4
%
Mortgage/asset‑backed securities
169,967
31.0
%
Total fixed maturities
$
515,064
93.9
%
Equity securities
38,576
6.1
%
Total investments
$
553,640
100.0
%
Fair
% of Total
December 31, 2021
Value
Fair Value
Fixed maturities:
U.S. Governments
$
16,870
3.6
%
States, territories, and possessions
4,014
0.9
%
Political subdivisions
6,380
1.4
%
Special revenue excluding mortgage/asset‑backed securities
44,498
9.6
%
Industrial and miscellaneous
249,046
53.5
%
Mortgage/asset‑backed securities
111,874
24.0
%
Total fixed maturities
432,682
92.9
%
Equity securities
33,261
7.1
%
Total investments
$
465,943
100.0
%
Our primary investment focus is to preserve capital to support our insurance operations through investing primarily in high quality fixed maturity securities with a secondary focus on maximizing our risk-adjusted investment returns. Investment policy is set by our Board of Directors, subject to the limits of applicable regulations.
Our investment policy imposes strict requirements for credit quality, with a minimum average credit quality of the portfolio being rated “A” or higher by Standard & Poor’s or the equivalent rating from another nationally recognized rating agency. Our investment policy also imposes restrictions on concentrations of securities by class and issuer and any new asset class must be approved by management and our Board of Directors. Given our existing exposure to property values, notably in the state of California, we have imposed restrictions on municipal obligations in the state of California and CMBS single issuers concentrated in the state of California. In addition, we allocate at least 1% of our investment portfolio to investments in green bonds- or fixed income investments tailored towards environmental solutions such as renewable energy, clean transportation, green building, and wastewater treatment – a commitment that is consistent with both our investment objectives and our company values.
Enterprise Risk Management (“ERM”)
We maintain a dedicated ERM function that is responsible for analyzing and reporting our risks, monitoring that risks remain within established tolerances, and monitoring, on an ongoing basis, that our ERM objectives are met. These objectives include ensuring proper risk controls are in place, risks are effectively identified, assessed, and managed, and key risks to which we are exposed are appropriately disclosed. Our ERM framework plays an important role in fostering our risk management culture and practices. We continue to enhance our ERM framework, which is guided by the Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (“ORSA”) model developed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (“NAIC”) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) cybersecurity framework. These ongoing enhancements include the creation of an ERM Sub Committee of the Audit Committee of the
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Board of Directors which is comprised of executive management and select board members, creation and maintenance of a risk register, and regular reporting on risk management.
An additional important part of our ERM is business continuity, including in the circumstances of a catastrophe event. We have established a business continuity team made up of executive management with predefined roles and responsibilities in the event of an emergency response situation and a business continuity communication site where employees are directed to receive instructions that are tailored to various scenarios. We store all data offsite and ensure it is accessible remotely. Our communications, virtual file servers, underwriting and distribution systems, and claims portal are hosted in geographically diverse data centers domestically and globally. We maintain an additional office in Edina, Minnesota to use as a redundant location in the event of a disruptive event in San Diego, and purchase business continuity services to support the La Jolla office in the event of a disruptive event.
Environmental, Social and Governance Matters
In 2021, our Board of Directors established an Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (“ESG”) Committee which is comprised of various members of our Board. The ESG committee oversees and provides guidance on the company’s strategies related to several factors, including environmental, health and safety, corporate social responsibility, governance, sustainability and public policy matters relevant to our business.
Specific duties of the ESG committee include:
• Assisting the management team in setting general strategy relating to ESG matters;
• Developing, implementing and monitoring initiatives and policies based on that strategy; and
• Overseeing communications with employees, investors and shareholders with respect to ESG matters.
The ESG committee meets on a regular basis to assess progress on ESG matters and will continue to look for opportunities to integrate ESG concerns in our strategy.
Environmental and Climate Change
Our economic model is closely tied to our coverages for natural disasters and catastrophes. We believe the existing scientific consensus that man-made changes to climate conditions are leading to increases in sea levels and global temperatures, and that the severity and frequency of weather-related natural disasters may increase relative to historical experience. We believe that this increase in severe weather, coupled with currently projected demographic trends in catastrophe-exposed regions, contributes to factors that will increase the average economic value of expected losses, increase the number of people exposed per year to natural disasters and in general exacerbate disaster risk, including risks to infrastructure, global supply chains and agricultural production. In addition to the impacts that environmental incidents have on our business, changes to law and regulation related to climate change could also directly affect our business, including state insurance regulations that could impact the Company’s ability to manage property exposures in areas vulnerable to significant climate driven losses, and possible new requirements that insurers integrate the financial risk of climate change into business operations and governance.
From an underwriting standpoint, we carefully consider the development and deployment of insurance products in coastal areas that may be impacted by rising sea levels, and we incorporate scenarios into our catastrophe modeling that involve elevated sea surface temperatures and other relevant data. We are undertaking a third-party audit of the company’s carbon footprint, as well as options to mitigate that footprint. Evidence of the Company’s commitment to the environment and combating climate change can be found in the Sustainability and Citizenship report available on our corporate website.
The company considers ESG factors as part of its investment strategy and reviews individual investments to ensure congruence with company goals in this area. We have also made commitments to automate manual or paper-intensive processes and promote the paperless delivery of documents to our policyholders and producers. We will remain proactive in our efforts to evolve our business in response to our changing natural environment.
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Competition
The specialty insurance industry is highly competitive. While we currently target underserved markets, some of our competitors have greater financial, marketing and management resources and experience than we do. Our primary competitors include national insurance companies, including American International Group, Inc., Chubb Limited, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company and Zurich Insurance Group Ltd. We also compete with the E&S market, including Lloyd’s of London in some of our lines. In addition, we compete against state or other publicly managed enterprises including the California Earthquake Authority and the National Flood Insurance Program. We may also compete with new market entrants in the future. Competition is based on many factors, including the reputation and experience of the insurer, coverages offered, pricing and other terms and conditions, customer service, relationships with brokers and agents (including ease of doing business, service provided and commission rates paid), size and financial strength ratings, among other considerations.
Ratings
Each of our insurance company subsidiaries, PSIC and PESIC has a rating of “A−” (Excellent) (Outlook Stable) from A.M. Best, which rates insurance companies based on factors of concern to policyholders. A.M. Best currently assigns 16 ratings to insurance companies, which currently range from “A++” (Superior) to “S” (Rating Suspended). “A−” (Excellent) (Outlook Stable) is the fourth highest rating. In evaluating a company’s financial and operating performance, A.M. Best reviews the company’s profitability, leverage and liquidity, as well as its book of business, the adequacy and soundness of its reinsurance, the quality and estimated market value of its assets, the adequacy of its loss and loss expense reserves, the adequacy of its surplus, its capital structure, the experience and competence of its management and its market presence. A.M. Best’s ratings reflect its opinion of an insurance company’s financial strength, operating performance and ability to meet its obligations to policyholders. These evaluations are not directed to purchasers of an insurance company’s securities.
Intellectual Property
We have registered our logo as a trademark in the United States. We will pursue additional trademark registrations and other intellectual property protection to the extent we believe it would be beneficial and cost effective.
Human Capital
Overview
We believe our greatest asset is our talent. As of December 31, 2022, we employed 191 team members. During 2022, our workforce increased by approximately 26% compared to the prior year, and our turnover rate was approximately 14%.
Our business relies on our ability to attract and retain talented team members. To attract and retain talent, we strive to create a diverse, inclusive, and supportive workplace, with opportunities for our team members to develop in their careers. This is supported by competitive compensation, benefits and health and wellness programs, and by programs that build connections between our team members and their communities.
Diversity and Inclusion
We are committed to increasing diversity within our Company. We believe that diversity yields greater creativity and productivity, helps us serve our customers and partners more effectively, and ultimately returns greater value to our shareholders and to the communities in which we do business. We set diversity goals in our annual Sustainability & Citizenship report. In 2022, 40% of our team members identify as a member of an ethnic minority group, compared to 39% in 2021, and 50% of our senior executive team identifies as a member of an ethnic minority group. Our commitment to Diversity and Inclusion follows:
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DIVERSITY – We are not all the same. Palomar celebrates our differences, and we identify opportunities for increased innovation and collaboration amongst diverse teams with diverse perspectives.
INCLUSION – Palomar appreciates and takes pride in the active involvement of every team member’s unique contribution within a culture that harmonizes our differences. Our team members understand their important contribution to the greater good and understand that what they do makes a difference, both for the company, and in the larger communities we serve.
COMMUNITY & ENGAGEMENT – Palomar’s commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion extends into the communities where we conduct business. We believe that every organization, regardless of size or scope, can make a meaningful difference on issues of community welfare, justice, and equality. Through our social, personal, and professional networks, we champion our values and actions. We partner with like-minded organizations to drive action and positive change.
EQUALITY – Palomar promotes a work environment where individuals are treated fairly, respectfully and have equal access to resources and opportunities for growth. We encourage our teammates to share ideas and collaborate to remove organizational boundaries, solve problems, and drive company growth.
Compensation, Health and Well Being
We offer fair, competitive compensation and benefits to support our team members overall well-being. Our compensation programs include base pay, annual incentive compensation and, in many cases, long-term equity-based compensation. In 2022, 100% of our workforce received equity awards. We offer team members a comprehensive and leading benefits program that includes a holistic approach to health and wellness. We regularly benchmark programs to ensure our team has access to industry-leading benefits to address all aspects of well-being — physical and mental health, family care, financial support, and community engagement.
In our initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we allowed many of our team members to work from home since March 2020. As the pandemic began to ease, we began allowing all employees to return to our offices on a voluntary basis, with established protocols to ensure operational reliability and employee safety. As a result of the continued progress made against the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning the first quarter of 2023, we have established a return-to-office policy under which employees located near Palomar offices have a goal to work onsite a minimum of ten days per month. We continue to provide team members a reimbursement to help manage incremental costs associated with remote work. We also regularly check-in with team members to assess their mental health. Team members receive 24/7 access to behavioral health tools and resources and a company paid subscription to Headspace, a meditation and wellness application.
Effective January 1, 2023, the state of California will implement pay transparency legislation. To comply with this legislation, we intend to include base pay ranges in all our job listings. Additionally, we will voluntarily disclose our base pay ranges to all our internal employees for the roles they hold in alignment with our philosophy of pay transparency.
Talent Development
We provide numerous training opportunities for our team members, with a focus on personal and professional development. We utilize “Coaching for Performance” methodologies to manage performance, provide feedback and develop talent. Our talent development programs provide team members resources to achieve career goals and build leadership skills. We encourage all team members to take advantage of company supported learning opportunities that help broaden industry and functional knowledge to help them excel in their current roles as well as advance their overall career objectives. In 2022, our team members completed approximately 2,903 hours of training. We believe in the dynamic allocation of talent, and therefore we encourage interested team members to explore functions outside their current role. To support this belief, we provide a $3,000 tuition and/or certification reimbursement for ongoing development. Lastly, we have a methodical approach to talent development, offering organizational advancement and
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mentoring services to all team members regardless of position or title. In 2 022, 28% of our workforce was promoted or moved into new positions.
During the third quarter of 2022, our team members completed an engagement survey, and we received a 75% response rate, and a 73% overall engagement rating. W e are using the responses and learnings from this survey to inform our future talent management strategies.
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Text extracted from the filing as submitted to EDGAR. Formatting, tables and exhibits are simplified for reading; the original document is authoritative for anything you rely on.