... especially, I'm going on the plane tonight. Okay, we are gonna move on to our next session. I'm very happy to welcome Mac Armstrong, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Palomar, and Chris Uchida, the CFO. Mac is gonna open with some brief comments, and then we'll move into Q&A. And as always, if you have questions, I want to make sure that you're getting what you need out of the session, so don't hesitate to raise your hands. And with Mac, Mac, Mac, there you go. Thanks, Meyer. It's great to be here. This is a terrific event, and we're always proud to be a participant. Yeah, just the opening comments, I think I'll make them somewhat brief, but first and foremost, we feel like year to date, we have really executed well on building a specialty market leader, and in a portfolio that is a distinct one, and frankly, one that we feel is one of one. Because it's a balance of products that are both property and casualty, as well as a mix of admitted and E&S business, as well as a mix of residential and commercial business. So it is a distinct portfolio that's becoming increasingly so, especially as we grow in areas like crop and surety. I think, you know, one of our steadfast goals is to make a business that can play through insurance market cycles. And, as we add these new lines of business, it only... it further enhances our ability to do so. From a results standpoint, we're thrilled with how the year has started. You know, top line year to date, it's up 25%, bottom line, more importantly, up 50%+. And, you know, it's given us great conviction in a couple things. One, in raising guidance. We've raised guidance three times this year. And moreover, it just gives us confidence in our ability to execute in our Palomar 2X strategic imperative, and that's doubling the underwriting income in an intermediate timeframe, while maintaining an ROE that's in excess of 20%. Long-winded way of saying we feel very good about where we sit today, but more so where we think we can go tomorrow. Fantastic. I want to build on that, and talk maybe individually about crop, casualty, and surety, because these lines have different dynamics- Yeah ... than the, I'll call it, the legacy earthquake-heavy portfolio. Yeah. And I was hoping you'd talk about how they're each emerging relative to expectations and how we should think about diversification of line of business going forward. Yeah, so, you know, first and foremost, you know, we earthquake and property is our heritage, and we feel very good about the portfolio that we've built on the property side, because it provides ballast, and balances us, and it affords us to enter into these new three categories that you've highlighted, in a deliberate and conservative fashion. You know, with respect to the casualty business, we are growing quickly, and we like the approach that we've taken, because while it's growing the top line rapidly, we're doing it in a conservative fashion. So we're going into niche markets of the casualty arena. Real Estate E&O is an example. Environmental Liability is an example. And then with great leadership who have tried-and-true histories in the market, a reinsurance following in the market, 'cause as you know, that's central to what we do, but also a well-defined risk appetite. And so as we've gone into these lines of business in the casualty arena, it's been very modest in terms of a gross and net limit appetite. So our average net limit is less than a million dollars across the casualty portfolio. And we're heavily using quota share to make sure that we're not disproportionately impacted by a shock loss, and also, that the books can season. So with casualty, you know, we're pleased with how it's evolving. We're continuing to expand our footprint and our reach from a product standpoint, and continuing to add terrific leadership. On the crop side, you know, we're very pleased with how crop is coming together. We've said that we'd do $200 million of crop premium this year, which would be almost a doubling of the book. As we sit here today, we feel quite good about that potential and what we like about the crop is, again, terrific, well-tenured leadership that's executing the strategy for us. Benson Latham has been in the business for nearly 40 years, and he's built crop leaders at three different companies, so very enthused about the potential for crop and what we can do in the intermediate term, where we stated a goal of $500 million of premium, and what we think we can do long term, which is building a billion-dollar franchise there. Then lastly, on the surety, you know, this was the acquisition. This is the first true kind of buy versus build. We've been, you know, an organic growth story historically. This was a chance for us to build another specialty leg of the stool, so to speak. And it's still small, but it's in line, if not exceeding plan, and it's really been a circumstance where we have gone deeper in the existing geographies as opposed to expanded widely beyond those geographies. But you should expect us to continue to make big investments in the surety space because what we like about that is, again, it's uncorrelated, but it's got margins very similar to what we see on the quake side. And it has its own market cycle, so it does really solve this kind of diversifying and playing through market cycle dynamic that we've talked about. ... Great. So one quick follow-up on the casualty side. Well, it's gonna be a two-part follow-up. Yeah. Can you talk about the exposure to social inflation? Yeah - and the pricing environment for the casualty niches that you're focused on? Yeah, so, you know, with the social inflation, you know, it's. I think we have been very mindful of it in trying to confine it, if not avoid it at all costs. So and I think that starts with the lines of business that we're writing. So we're not writing commercial auto and transportation, so we're trying to stay away from severity exposures and those that tend to be the classes of business most impacted by nuclear verdicts or social inflation, for that matter. But then I think it's also in the underwriting. So if you look at what we're doing, I talked about the net line size on the casualty being, you know, a $1 million, and a gross line of, you know, maybe on average, inside of $3 million, but it's also where we're attaching. And so what we are doing, you know, and I'll highlight our E&S Casualty line of business, that's a bit of habitational business, some hospitality, fair bit of construction. We're typically either gonna write the primary or the buffer layer. Mm. So we might be $3 million excess of $1 million. Being in that position, you are. You're gonna get hit, but you know you're gonna get hit. Like, you're not getting surprised. Right. So it's not like a circumstance where a nuclear verdict is rewarded, and all of a sudden, like, you thought you were highly attached and out of the exposure, and then you get popped for $10 million-$15 million at least. This is. It's the devil you know, to some degree. Right. So marrying that attachment with that small limit size gives us conviction that we are not immune to social inflation, but we can confine it and not be surprised. 'Cause that's ultimately the goal, I think, is with social inflation and nuclear verdicts not going away. I think confining it is your best tool, and I think that's what we're doing a good job of. Okay, and then one follow-up, and this would apply to all three of them: as the book of business diversifies from a property focus, is it incremental reinsurers that are covering these newer lines, or is it extending the programs with the preexisting group of reinsurers? You know, our property program has over 140 reinsurers on it, so by definition, I think we're doing a pretty good job of canvassing it. Fair. So our goal is to go deeper with existing trading partners, and I think that's generally the case. But, you know, whether they're new reinsurers, like an Arch Re or someone that's coming on and getting involved in the program, or someone that's not been as heavy on the property side, that's leaning in on the casualty side, that is presenting itself. But I think it's ultimately we're going deeper with existing relationships. And, you know, when I go over to London or Bermuda or the Continent, you know, we're leaving behind what we kind of call our Chinese menu of treaties that you can support- Mm-hmm ... to make sure that they know. And anytime any of our ceded reinsurance team is meeting with the reinsurers, we do this leave behind, just so they know that Palomar is not just a property company, and there's a lot of ways for us to trade together. Right. And I would imagine- Yeah ... that makes you more attractive when you've got less risk because of the diversification. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Okay. Yeah. How should we think about the runway of Palomar 2X? So far, it's been on or ahead of schedule all the time. Yeah. At some point in time, doubling becomes more and more difficult. It does, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, I think we, you know, Palomar 2X is a concept that's now approaching, you know, four or five years in age, and we've done a good job of executing it. As I said earlier, what we're trying to do is double the adjusted net income in an intermediate timeframe, you know, call it inside of five years, while maintaining a 20% ROE. And if you look, you know, the periods of which we measured it, off of 2021, we did it in three years. 2022, we'll do it in three years. In 2023, we'll actually do it in two. That's not sustainable, but we do think we can continue to do it in that intermediate timeframe. And I think what gives us conviction around it is it's not driven by gross written premium growth at this point. Now, like, we've got a lot of levers to pull that will allow us to double that net income, whether that is, taking advantage of risk participations- Mm ... as our books, like crop and the casualty season, we can reduce the amount of our quota share cessions and retain more of that, or just transition the risk transfer paradigm to one that's more excess of loss as opposed to proportional. We are taking advantage of certainly on the property side, a softening property cat market that will allow for greater net premium growth and, ultimately, margin expansion, and particularly on the residential side of our book. And then also, as the book evolves, and we are... You know, from a complexion standpoint, you have more Casualty business, or take more risk, you will have the ability to drive more investment leverage. Yeah. We have pretty modest investment leverage right now- Mm-hmm ... which will drive investment income. So ultimately, we feel very good about our ability to execute Palomar 2X and double the book inside of five years for the intermediate future. And some of that's driven more by just the leverage in the model than pure chasing top-line growth. Right. And I just want to clarify that when you said earlier that the top line is up by more than 20%, there is still gross written premium growth? No question. Right. That's fine. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, again, just, just departmentalize it and focus on crop. You know, this year, we think we'll do over $200 million, up from $120 million last year. Our goal is to get that to $500 million in, you know, an intermediate timeframe and long term, $1 billion. So implicit in that, there's a lot of growth. Right. And then casualty, you know, if you just look at some of the people we've added in the second quarter alone, there are decent-sized TAMs that they're going into, whether it's Healthcare Liability or primary E&S, GL, contractors and construction alike. There's a lot of runway for growth still. Okay, fantastic. One of the comments in the second quarter was a recalibration of expected earthquake premium growth over the course of 2025. I was hoping you could take us through what you saw that led to that? Yeah. So, we did, you know, we grew just less than 10% on the quake side in the second quarter, which was a bit below what we saw in the first quarter, and that informed us to say we expect to see kind of high single digit to double, high single digits growth for the remainder of the year. I think, first and foremost, we feel great about our ability to grow property because of the balance that we have. Mm-hmm. In that residential book is a consistent grower with record new business in the second quarter, premium and policy retention in the mid-80s, a host of partnerships, and frankly, an attractive competitive environment that's allowing us to feel very good about sustained growth, and no rate pressure. Commercial was a different story, and so that's really what drove the recalibration, if you would, of our earthquake growth expectation. We are seeing more competition in large commercial earthquake, and that's no different than other types of property business, but you are seeing new entrants coming in. There are fewer barriers to entry when you can give an MGA capacity and not have to make any type of system investment, really add people. It's really more just putting your balance sheet out there, and so that's where we've seen more competition. That's where the rate pricing has been under the most pressure, and where we've seen new entrants. Okay, and I want to jump off from there 'cause I'm hammering out a thesis- Yeah ... and I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet. But when we look at second quarter results, there are a number of brokers that had given guidance and said, "You know what? It's gonna be weaker than we expected," because of this emerging, largely large commercial property softness that emerged faster than people that are industry experts anticipated. And I'm on the sell side. I'm not criticizing anyone for having expectations that didn't pan out exactly as expected. But what I think that tells us is that soft markets are emerging differently than in the past, and maybe faster than in the past. And, you know, I have a few theories in terms of what's causing that. But if we are in a more dynamic, cyclical environment than we had in the past, and feel free to disagree with that, then what are the skill sets that you need to have to thrive when things change faster than they had in past cycles? Yeah, so I think, you know, I agree to a point with what your thesis in that the property market, the softening accelerated a little more in the first half of this year than I expected. But, you know, you have to put it into context. We had never seen metrics as strong as they were in commercial property. You know, the AAL to premium, the PML out of premiums were at all-time low, not just in our company history, but my experience predating Palomar, you know, going back to my Arrowhead days. So, there was room for slack, so to speak. Right. You know, and I think capital mobilizes quickly, as you know, as well as anyone, Meyer, and I think that it did mobilize quickly in commercial property. I think what it requires is someone to be, first and foremost, not just be overly reliant on a single product and overly exposed to commercial property. So that's why I think we go back to the balance in our property book and the barriers to entry and the moats that you have, whether it's in admitted or residential business. And so I think that gives us balance, and again, allows us to play through market cycles. But more than anything as well, like, you have to be nimble and entrepreneurial as a company and have the balance sheet, frankly, to pivot appropriately. And so I think that's what we've gotten right since we formed the company, again, is having the balance that can recognize when there's opportunities in commercial, or when to pull back in commercial, and when to lean in on residential, or lean in on another segment of the business. And so as we look at our portfolio, you know, having multiple ways to play the property market cycle is imperative for us and anyone for that matter. But then also having diversification in the lines of business that are a little more impervious to the P&C market cycle swings, like a crop, where again- Right ... there are major barriers to entry, whether it's becoming one of the AIPs, or you know, becoming an AIP or having access to the production source. Okay. Um- I'm gonna put it on that. It's a crop question. I'm gonna turn to Chris. You gave a lot of guidance with regard to how crop will impact the third quarter because it's got, based on the work that I've done, and feel free to criticize it, a profound impact on the ratio of net to earned gross. Let me try again. Net to gross earned premium, the loss ratio, and the expense ratio, because all of those are, or most of those are different from the rest of the book. So I was hoping you could go through those individual components, and then as a follow-up, on behalf of the sell side, how well have we gotten it? 'Cause I'm not sure we got it in the second quarter. ... Yeah, no, thanks, Meyer. And obviously just confirming we're at the KBW Conference, so there is no greater analyst than Meyer at the KBW Conference. So need to make sure I get that out there. But no, I think for us, when we think about our book of business and what Mac described earlier, the specialty portfolio that we built, as we diversify, we do hope that the model gets a little bit simpler, for the sell side or for all the analysts to model. When I look at the third quarter, specifically before going into crop, right, this third quarter has historically been a little bit more difficult to model, and that has been historically because of reinsurance. Reinsurance, the third quarter is the first full quarter of our excess of loss placement being run through the financial model. It is also. The third quarter is probably the heaviest quarter for our analysts to put in their cat load. Right. Those two things historically have driven differences in the model and make it more difficult or a larger, a wider range in adjusted net income from the sell side. Crop is now the newest thing that we've kind of added to the third quarter from a difficulty standpoint in our model. You mentioned the comments I made in the second quarter, so I'd refer back to those. I would tell people, "Hey, go look at those comments." We still feel very good about what we said there. There's no real things that we've seen that are going to make us change those ranges or those guideposts that we've put out there. We feel good about that. What I will add to that, for that is right now, Mac mentioned $200 million of written premium for crop this year. I think what we've seen so far leads us to feel very good about that $200 million. The other side of it, I've said, is in with some of the Q2 results, we feel probably a little better about that loss ratio. Mm. So you think, hey, you know, we're going to give a range, probably feel better on the low side of that for the Q3 and maybe even for the year, that the loss ratio is trending better. And the same thing on the net earned premium. I think we feel better about that as well, that, hey, you know, we talked. I think when we started this year, we said... we're saying, you know, maybe high thirties for the year. Maybe we're saying low forties. You know, what does low forties mean? We let people put that. I feel better about that now. So I think things are trending the right way, but there's really no differential from what we've put out there. The third quarter is going to continue to be a little bit more difficult. I think those guideposts we put out there with the comments on all those ratios you talked about are still true. We just definitely feel better about $200 million of written premium on crop. We feel better about net earned premium being a little bit better or favorable to what we said, and same with loss ratio. So I think those trends are performing well, but overall, there's no real change to some of the stuff we put out there. Maybe the only thing I'd add, but we did comment on this, is that with the second quarter results, we do feel that, historically or earlier this year, we'd had 60%-70% of that premium for crop was probably going to be in the third quarter. Now, we definitely feel it's probably 50%-60% in the third quarter. But overall, the year is setting up in a very favorable manner to where we expected it to be. Right, and that changes because a lot of that crop premium emerged in the second quarter- Correct ... not that things are trending worse. Yeah. Yeah. The second quarter, but also I'd say the written premium, we feel very good about where that is now. Right. Okay. Yeah, and for me, like, the point of confusion, just to elaborate, was unlike a lot of your businesses, crop is a very high loss ratio- Yeah ... still profitable, high loss ratio, low expense ratio line of business, and the earned exposure is heavily in the third quarter. Yeah, yeah. So that's where we get that, I'll call it, disruption. The earned premium in general for that is really focused on 2025. Right. So let's say 80%-90% of what we write this year- Mm ... is going to be earned this year. Right. That is very different from a lot of the model. When you think about Q3, right, everything we write for most of our business in Q3, a lot of that favorability goes to 2026. Right. Crop, it's really going to sit in this year, and so when I talk to analysts, yourself as well, is we tell people it's probably the right time to start thinking about breaking crop out of the models. Trying to call it, use an average for crop- Mm ... doesn't necessarily work, 'cause we think you need to take that, take the earning of crop and those ratios you talked about, the higher loss ratio, expense ratio, let's call it a low-nineties-type combined, and probably apply it to crop separately versus earthquake, which you're just going to take and spread over twelve months. Yep. And then have, you know, a much lower combined ratio on than crop, where a lot of that just is going to sit in 2025. Speaking on behalf of all the sell-side, we appreciate that because it is helpful. How does that play out in coming years as the book grows, as it diversifies? Does the third quarter become more or less of an outlier? I think the third quarter will still be an outlier. Mm. I think what we will be able to see with everything is that as we have a little bit more history, there will be more consistency on a quarter-over-quarter basis when you look at our book. I think this year will provide a better framework for everyone, myself included, here, is to help model our portfolio. So we think that what you are seeing this year, let's call it what you saw in Q2, what we will see in Q3, Q4, will provide a better framework for everyone to help model. Okay, that's great. Yeah ... because we always do things on a year-over-year basis. Exactly, yeah. So once we have one full year- One full good year, and then obviously we changed. Crop is growing significantly. We do expect strong growth to get to $500 million. It's not going to grow probably at the same percentage as it did this year. Right. So it won't be as divergent as it was this year. So we expect that to help out. Yeah, the way I have it, if you're doubling gross written premium and retaining- More ... let me get this right, 6x as much- Yes, yes ... that's 12x. Yeah. All else equal. We don't expect to retain 6x as much next year either. That would be hard to do. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's a different model. Yeah. Yeah, right. I'm a numbers guy. Yeah. I wanted to talk about the reinsurance, because one of the areas... I remember talking to Mac early on, like- Yeah ... one of the first hires was a reinsurance buyer because it was so important to control the volatility of a line of business on a gross basis. It's volatile, and you've talked about retaining more risk over time as the balance sheet grows, as the portfolio diversifies. That said, June 1 of this year, we didn't see dramatic changes- Yeah ... in the, let's call it, earthquake attachment point. I was hoping you could walk us through the puts and takes of that calculation. Yeah. So you're absolutely right, Meyer, on both fronts. One, long term, we do expect to increase our risk participations across the board, as lines of business cessions, our balance sheet grows, and our appetites evolve. At 6/1, we opted but before I go on, the one thing we want to balance is earnings consistency and volatility. And so we opted at 6/1 to focus more on earnings consistency as opposed to earnings growth because, frankly, it was a little bit of, you know, the old adage, "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered," because we are seeing a 10% risk-adjusted decrease- Mm-hmm. in our Cat XOL, which, you know, of which we're going to receive recoup 7/12 of this year and 5/12 of in 2026. So it's ceding nice earnings growth for 2026. But we didn't want to disproportionately change our retentions. In fact, we actually opted to reduce our retentions, in the circumstance of the wind to align it with what our cat load was. So again, affording both you and us more consistency in the earnings base and saying, "All right, if there's a full retention, incurred, it's already cooked into the model," despite the fact that we reduced our wind PML from $600 million- $85 million over the last four years. And then similarly on the quake, we grew our quake limit, we grew our quake book, but we maintained those retentions. Those are levers that we have to pull. Mm-hmm. And we kind of get an annual chance to assess and determine what's the right approach. We felt this year, with the savings we were getting on the reinsurance side and the ability to increase the guidance on the heels of that, let's maintain our retention. So, if there was a large event, it would not have been disruptive to, frankly, guidance in the case of a wind event or our earnings at all in the case of a large quake. But you should expect us to increase those retentions in due time. We have an annual. For each line of business, it's an annual assessment that we do. And, you know, in the case of 7/1, we did take up our Builder's Risk retention sum. Mm-hmm. I would expect us to take up some of our crop retention this year or in 2026. Then the quake retentions, they're getting pretty small relative to the earnings base and the capital base that affords us some latitude, too. Okay. Fantastic. One of the non-insurance-centric discussions out there is that, given the uncertainty related to interest rates and tariffs, and frankly, I think immigration policy enforcement, there's been a decline in overall construction activity, and you have a number of lines of business that are exposed to that. Yeah. I started off thinking of Builder's Risk- Yeah ... but I think it goes beyond that. There's surety. Yeah. There's the habitational. What are you seeing in terms of demand from past and potential insureds? Yeah. So it's a good question, and it's something we keep a watchful eye on. I think, you know, when I talk to Robert Byerly, our Chief Underwriting Officer, who also, you know, built our Builder's Risk franchise, which is our second-largest property line after quake, you know, he's been dealing with labor shortages for the last several years. Mm-hmm. He's been dealing with rising material costs. It's kind of ebbed and flowed. And, what he would say is he's actually encouraged right now, and he thinks he's relatively well-hedged on the Builder's Risk side because, if their projects are taking longer, so many of our policies are auditable, and you're paid a premium commensurate with the time on risk, we're getting more premium. Secondly, I think he feels that if there are tariffs that are flowing through, like, that's reflected in the TIV. Mm-hmm. So you're charging the requisite premium for there. He has seen recently a lot of quotes that were kind of hung up in the air because of the overhang of tariffs and/or rates. Some of those projects are starting to come online, so we're seeing some bindings come on. So there's a little bit of cautious optimism, and frankly, if rates decrease, we actually think that could be a modest tailwind on the quake side, and particularly the residential quake side, as new home sales pick up in California, 'cause the cost of the carry of the home could come down modestly. So we watch it, but we think we're relatively well-hedged on it. And right now, it's by no means a headwind, and frankly, we're hoping that it turns into a bit of a tailwind second half this year, the end of this year into 2026. Okay, fantastic. I want to look around the room again. If there are questions, please let me know. But in the absence of that, I was hoping to flesh out the timeline for surety, both penetrating current markets, I'm going to say the Northeast, and then expanding to the... I keep on saying legacy, but it's not like you're that old of a company- Yeah, yeah ... but the pre-existing, Palomar geographic footprint. Yeah. So I touched on this briefly and appreciate the question because, you know, surety is an important growth avenue for us. We bought a small regional surety in New Jersey that's got a great franchise in a handful of states in the Northeast, in really a subsegment of contract surety bonds. And this year, the integration has been really focused on going deeper in the existing territories. Mm-hmm. So we've added underwriters to help extend their growth in their backyard, so to speak, and that's coming from not leveraging a T- listing, but also taking advantage of some of the distribution relationships that we had that they did not. I think in years to come, the focus on integration and building surety will be, as you described, geographic expansion. It's a hyperlocal product, so you know, we can't service business in the Chicago or Ohio from New Jersey. We need to have boots on the ground in those local territories that know the contractors, that know the markets, and can do the underwriting in the granular fashion that we do because it is, again, a local focus or a hyperlocal business. So we will expand the geographic footprint in pretty deliberate fashion by adding underwriting talent. And our expectation is 2026 and 2027, you'll see new markets that we're going into that leverages existing distribution relationships that we have, and particularly on the builders, on the contractor side. But, you know, not trying to overextend ourselves 'cause that's how you can get caught, and get, frankly, adversely selected against. Right. But your sense, and I just wanna sort of get this confirmed, is that your current distribution network has or can access- It does ... the surety expertise 'cause it is a unique line. It does, yeah, yeah. Okay. Absolutely. We're at the point in the cycle where at least there's more discussion of M&A, and we've seen some deal-making already. Yeah. I'm not even talking about the IPOs. I'm talking about actual consolidation. Yeah. And you've done a couple of deals. How is the profile of the deals you're looking at changing? And how open are you to doing an acquisition where you'd be taking on somebody else's reserves? Yeah, so, I think, we have done two acquisitions this year. They're both pretty modest in their size, both less than $50 million in proceeds. But, you know, they have allowed us, in the circumstance of FIA, First Indemnity of America, enter into a new market that we had determined was a better buy than build- Mm-hmm ... in the case of surety. Or they've catalyzed a growth trajectory in the case of Advanced AgProtection, which was getting us breadth from a geographic standpoint and from a systems standpoint in crop. So, overarchingly, I still want us to be viewed as an organic growth story, and we think we have plenty of runway for organic growth, but we will look at M&A opportunistically. But, the bar will be set on, can it add or extend our specialty franchise- Mm-hmm ... and go into markets that are complementary or adjacent, or diversifying because of their specialization? And so what that means is, yes, we might take on some reserves, but, you know, we're not gonna turn it into a runoff company. You know, it's gonna be- Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be so we're not opposed to buying balance sheets. We've done one, and I think we'll continue to look at those, but it's gotta be something that is uniquely diversifying or for our portfolio or really specialized and a nice complement. Does that premise of seeing more deals as broad pricing tailwinds subside, does that match what you're seeing? Yeah, I mean, we're seeing some interesting opportunities, and the ones that we are, are partial to have expertise that we don't have resident inside our four walls- Okay ... right now. I would say that. Like, so that inherently, that leads to diversification and further enhancement of our specialty franchise because there's a competence that they have that we don't. Like, we're, you know, we wouldn't go buy a Builder's Risk business right now. Right. Yeah. Okay. No, that's helpful. Like, one of my long-standing theses with Palomar, there's always stuff going on that we don't know about- Yeah ... so, you know, there will be positive surprises. There's stuff that, yeah. Yeah. Right. That's fair. Anything... Do you wanna elaborate? No. No. Yeah. Okay. No. As the book of business grows, as the balance sheet grows, in theory, that diversification should allow for more risk-taking on the investment portfolio side. I was hoping you could talk us through how reasonable that is and how that can play out over the next couple of years, regardless of what happens with interest rates themselves. Yeah, Chris should chime in. I think... I wouldn't say there's more risk-taking, I just think we should be able to get more investment leverage. Mm-hmm. If you look at our investment leverage right now, it's 1.3x-1.4x. Right. You look at most of our peers, it's 2.5x+. Right. And so as we take on more risk, whether that's through crop retentions or some of the casualty lines of business being more longer tail, we should see more as our investment assets just grow- Right ... at a faster rate than maybe net earned premium has- Mm-hmm ... or if a faster rate than even gross written premium. So that affords us the ability to not have to take on more risk from an investment standpoint, but you should see scale on the investment portfolio side. So the investment portfolio income should grow, you know, at an equivalent rate to our bottom line, if not a little bit faster. So I don't think it's one where, you know, we're gonna start looking at doing esoteric things or change the complexion of the investment portfolio. I just think we're gonna have a larger asset base to invest. Okay. But the overall breakdown by asset class or whatever- Yeah, I don't think that'll change. Yeah, and I think the other thing I'd add is that, you know, when you look at the diversification of our portfolio, it also... Our underwriting portfolio- Mm-hmm ... it allows us to do the same thing with our investment portfolio- Right ... whether it be matching durations- Yeah ... or looking at the type of, call it, risk we can take just because of the volatility in the investment portfolio. I don't wanna say it's not meaningful, but we have a little bit more time to play with it, so to speak. Okay, fantastic. Yeah. One of the line of business that I wanted to jump into really quickly is flood. Yeah ... because there's been some activity there, and I was hoping just to get your outlook on that line and prospects for Palomar. ... Yeah, so, we've been in the flood space for, yeah, I think the better part of seven years or so, but we've kept a pretty narrow aperture on what we've done. We've written more inland flood, so think Midwestern states, and California. But where California, it's not storm surge it's impacting, it's more, you know, inland flood, and from monsoon season or river overflow. We have entered into a new partnership with Neptune, who's a great flood operator, that will expand our charter, so to speak, with flood. They are experts and really strong in coastal flood. And as we've pulled back our coastal wind exposure, it's afforded us the ability to kind of reallocate some PML. Mm-hmm. What we've done is we're gonna write flood nationwide with Neptune, on an E&S basis as opposed to an admitted basis, and write both inland and coastal. Right. So I think it's gonna open up some opportunity for growth in flood, but not disproportionately impact our cat exposure. So we're excited about it. I think it officially launches 10/1, 'cause we didn't wanna start writing coastal flood in the teeth of hurricane season. Mm-hmm. But it's also, you know, a nice partnership that can leverage what we've done well there, leverage our reinsurance acumen there, but, you know, bring something to the table that hopefully is additive to what is really a strong franchise in E&S flood and Neptune. Great. I wanted to ask about talent because obviously recruitment has been a big part of the story, been the vast majority of the growth story. Yeah. What does the current marketplace look like, and what does Palomar do to make sure that the talent that you've recruited sticks around? Yeah, so yeah, I mean, our head count has grown meaningfully. Some of that's been through the acquisitions. A lot of it's come from just talent attraction, and that talent attraction's not just been from underwriting, it's been in actuarial, it's been in ceded Re, it's been on the claims side as well, and claims leadership side as well. And so what we have done is recognizing that, you know, it is a competitive marketplace. We've put in place not just the traditional compensation programs that we've had, where it's stock ownership, everyone at Palomar owns stock in the business, but where you're getting a bonus that's tied to individual and divisional corporate performance, but also some long-term incentive plans that for leaders, like someone like a David Sapia, who's leading E&S Casualty, or a new hire, Frank Castro, who's building the healthcare line of business, where you put in place a long-term equity incentive that's tied to achievement of a certain profitability target- Mm-hmm ... that's hopefully achieved in year four or five. So it looks kind of like a, an equity kicker that you might get if you were at an MGA or, at a, yeah, a, a distributor or, or a private equity-backed entity. So, we think we've done a great job being thoughtful about that, and w- I think the proof is in the pudding when you look at the pedigree of the people we've brought on. New leaders are joining us from companies like, RLI and AXIS, RSUI and Berkeley. Those are the two leaders, from the casualty lines, or the claims side, and-