All right. I think we're right about at time, so how about we get started? My pleasure to be joined on stage by Rob Berkley, CEO of W.R. Berkley. So thanks for being here with us, Rob. Thanks for the invitation. Nice to be here. Maybe we just kick it off with the news that came out on Friday. MSI acquiring a 12.5% stake in Berkley. I know this was a previously announced transaction, but anything of additional context, update you want to provide on that? Maybe just a little bit of background, recognizing different folks may have a different knowledge base of the situation. But to make a long story short, some time ago there was an announcement that was made that MSI, a large Japanese insurance company, was going to be buying a 15% stake in the company. And I think what's important to, there are a couple of things that are important to recognize. One is that it's been a relationship that the company I work for has had with MSI for more than a decade. My interpretation of the catalyst for their decision was they are one of the largest insurance companies in the world, certainly one of the largest Japanese insurance companies, and they are notably underweighted in the largest insurance market in the world, that being the United States. From my perspective, they viewed it as a way to increase their exposure to this market, but to partner with an organization that they've had an extended period of time to get to know. They've been a reinsurance partner of ours for some number of years, and I think that was a key component of that comfort level. I think it's worth noting, and perhaps this is apparent to those that had read the original announcement some time ago, and that is there were no new shares that were sold by the company. My boss and myself, we did not sell any shares as well and have no intention to. And there are certainly some very important points in the agreement that was entered into. So long story short, some of the reaction that came about recently on the announcement and even leading up to the announcement was a little bit surprising to me. It seemed as though people were caught off guard, but quite frankly, it's been very clear that they were going to be getting to, call it, 15% or so by the end of the first quarter, and I think this was just a natural step in that occurring. Yeah, right in line with what was originally announced. So I guess moving more broadly on to the overall business, could you just provide us some background on sort of where the business stands today from a holistic perspective and kind of what's the strategy going forward into 2026? Perhaps it's more exciting for some if one were to get up here and announce some radical change, but I guess when you think about it, we're pretty boring as an organization. We've been doing essentially the same thing for the past 55 years, and that is we are focused on the specialty insurance industry, and that is ultimately how we approach creating value for shareholders. Our view of the business is we do not want to be all things to all people. We are a collection of 60 different businesses focused on particular niches, and ultimately our value proposition to customer and in the end shareholders is the expertise that we have in each one of those niches. Yeah. And so I guess one thing that is changing is the insurance cycle, and every cycle is unique. Berkley has 60+ independently managed underwriting units to manage it. What would you say about this cycle relative to past cycles, and how does that inform your view on how conditions should play out over the coming year? Every cycle is the same, but no one is a mirror image of ones that we've seen in the past. The fundamentals continue to be the same, that there's really two human emotions, if you like, that drive the cycle: fear and greed. And it's really the profitability at any moment in time or lack of profitability that drive that mindset. Just taking half a step back, when the profitability is strong, human nature being what it is, people want more. And how do they do that? They compromise on underwriting discipline, and ultimately they will follow that path down to a place where they do not want to be. And that's when all of a sudden the greed is overshadowed by fear, and discipline returns to the market. One of the changes that we have seen more recently is a decoupling of product lines. Approaching 30 years ago when I got into this business, product lines marched somewhat in lockstep throughout the cycle. Today, there is much more of a decoupling. So by example, we are seeing a property market, certainly a commercial property market, that is in the early stages of softening. Workers' compensation has been soft for some extended period of time, similar for Professional Liability. On the other hand, you see Commercial Auto or some of the other liability lines such as GL, Excess, and Umbrella, where there's meaningful firming that is going on. So I guess the punchline, Rob, is that it is different in the sense that product lines have decoupled. It is similar in the sense that what drives the behavior at a macro level continues to be what it has been for generations. Yep. Yep. And if we zero in on casualty, for example, how are those claim cost trends trending here? And do you expect any sort of let-up in the level of loss trend that you're seeing in those lines? I think the industry over the past several years was, quite frankly, caught flat-footed. There were really two phenomena that were driving loss trend above and beyond what was anticipated. One of them was economic inflation coming out of COVID, and the other one was social inflation, which essentially is just a shift in the legal environment and the awards that are coming out of the legal environment, particularly jury awards. Excuse me. We me. We have seen a very steep trajectory on the social inflation front and how that is contributing to the loss cost trend for some number of years now. The industry has been having to play catch-up, and there's been a fair amount of pain that's come out of the policy years 2015 through 2019, and in some examples, spilling over into 2020, maybe even to 2022. I think the industry is making progress in catching up, and as a result of that, I think while rates will have to continue to go up in some of the liability lines, I don't know if it will remain as steep a trajectory. But the reality is it's just the industry pushing rates in response to an environment that is driving loss cost trend up, and that has not abated as of yet. Okay. That makes sense. And Berkley is a large participant in the E&S market. In the past, you've said that E&S is likely to continue to take share of the commercial market over the long term. Do you think that's still the case, and is there any differences between what you're seeing in the near medium- term versus long- term? I think E&S is a pretty broad brush from my perspective. And without a doubt, E&S, and quite frankly, being a bit of a proxy for specialty overall, has benefited greatly over the past several years because of a shift in loss costs and a challenge for the standard market to reposition itself. And that's just been a reality that has benefited against specialty and E&S. Will that continue? It really depends on what the appetite will be of the standard market. Said differently, the specialty market, in particular the E&S market, picks up the crumbs that fall off the table of the standard market. To get to the point or to the question, Rob, I think given the appetite that we are seeing on the property front, starting with Property Cat and how it is waterfalling through into the shared and layered market, and ultimately will make its way down into the primary insurance market, you're going to see more competition on the property front. On the liability market, I think you're going to continue to see some runway there, some opportunity for that part of the specialty market, and by extension, the E&S market to continue to take market share. To bring it home a little bit for us as an organization, when you look, we are one of the larger E&S markets in general, but we are weighted towards the liability lines. So if you look at our E&S portfolio, we're sort of 85% to flirting with 90% of our E&S business is liability-related. So the comment I was making earlier about where the opportunity still lies on the liability side, I think bodes well for us because we are, as opposed to many of our peers, we were not really just focused on the property piece. We caught the property wave, but really the lion's share of what we do is casualty-focused. For Berkley specifically, growth has been like high single digits this year, called out rate adequacy in certain lines of business that has held you back from some additional growth. As we think about that, what's the right rate of growth for W.R.B. going forward? It sounds like maybe you're more opportunistic on certain products versus others. We start from a place that we are managers of capital. We manage the capital in part through selecting and pricing risk and then all of the activities that come behind that. But we are not in the business of issuing insurance policies. We're in the business of making good risk-adjusted returns. Full stop, period. We also recognize it's a cyclical industry, so there are moments in time you can grow and there are moments in time you can't. So long story short, Rob, you tell me what the market conditions are going to be, and I can tell you much more thoughtfully what expectations should be of the top- line. What I can tell you is regardless of market conditions, we will be focused on profitability, and if the window of opportunity is there, we will have no problem leaning into it and growing dramatically. But if we do not see that opportunity, again, we have no problem folding our arms and waiting for market conditions that are more attractive to present themselves. Okay, and you touched on property briefly there. You said you rode the wave. If we think about Property Cat specifically and 1/1, maybe even on the reinsurance side of the business, what are you seeing for 1/1 renewals and how do you think about rate adequacy right now? I don't think anyone has perfect visibility as to where 1/1 is going to come out. Our finger on the pulse, as imperfect as that is, would suggest that Property Cat is probably going to be off more than 10, not likely more than 20. So pick the midpoint, 15-ish. I think that there's even after 01/01/25 and what we saw happen with rates. I think there was a lot of confidence that there was still margin in the business and it was worth continuing to ride the merry-go-round. I I think as you get to the rate levels that I was referencing or alluding to a few moments ago, it's going to start to invite the question whether people really want to continue and it generates a good risk-adjusted return. We'll see with time. From our perspective as a seller of reinsurance, which is a relatively modest part of what we do, nevertheless, we are pleased to play in that marketplace in an opportunistic way. We are flirting right with that line in the sand at the rate decreases we were talking about. So we'll see. Is it possible that our property reinsurance writings could be off meaningfully at 1/1? If we don't like the pricing, that's exactly what you should expect. If we feel as though there's still margin in the business to generate good risk-adjusted returns, we will continue to play. Got it. And so if we shift to the margin of the business, maybe an insurance first, I think you've said rate is in excess of trend, excluding workers' comp, but you've also had some mixed shifts going on. Could you unpack for us what's going on with the underlying loss ratio and how you're thinking about that? So the comment about mix is really just a reflection of the portfolio, is ebbing and flowing depending on market conditions and how we see opportunity. And in addition to that, as referenced earlier, we got 60 different businesses, and at any moment in time, their growth or something less than their growth is affecting the mix overall. So when we talk about the rate opportunity, when we talk about the growth opportunity, it's very rare that from one quarter to another, we're getting to a similar answer in the same way. So if you look at our rate that we've been achieving over the past extended period of time, that's sort of fluctuated between 5% and 10%. I would tell you we get to that answer in a very different way today than we did get to that answer two years ago. The property opportunity two years ago was quite noteworthy. Today, it requires more caution. On the other hand, the opportunity for rate in the auto liability space, as an example, or some of the other casualty lines is quite meaningful, and we are trying to take full advantage of that. That makes sense. How about on the expense side of the equation? I think Berkley has made significant improvement over a longer-term period. Is there more opportunity to get more efficient in the near term, or is that becoming more challenging by some of the tougher growth environment? I think clearly the top- line challenges that could lie ahead at some point certainly would not help us leveraging the fixed costs. That having been said, I think we are reasonably comfortable barring the unforeseen event in our ability to keep it under 30% or so. With all that as a backdrop, we are actively making what I would define as meaningful investments in data and analytics and on a technology front, which does require upfront investment, but we are confident that the return on that investment will more than justify the investment itself. Yeah. You mentioned data and analytics. Maybe that's a good segue to ask you about artificial intelligence. How do you think AI can impact a business like Berkley and what capabilities are you investing in, and has there been any success, or is that further down the road? So I think as far as the opportunities with AI, anyone who suggests that they have it figured out and fully scoped out, I think they're fooling themselves or maybe trying to fool someone else. Are we using the tools today? Absolutely. Do we have initiatives at the group level that we're working on for the various businesses that make up the group? Without a doubt. But in addition to that, we're able to provide toolkits to all of the operating units, so we essentially have 60 different laboratories all experimenting with different types of tools. Some of the low-hanging fruit certainly is on the underwriting side, particularly on the intake and our ability to, quite frankly, just plow through more submissions in a more efficient, greater precision, in a more timely way. Also, on the claims front, there is without a doubt opportunity for us to be handling certain types of claims in a much lower-touch manner, so I think we're just beginning to scratch the surface, more to come, and we are, and I expect we'll continue to be in learning mode for an extended period of time, but early returns remain encouraging. Got it. I wanted to pivot and maybe ask you about MGAs. I know you've highlighted some conflicts of interest there in the past. I do have my views on delegated authority. Yes. Where are you seeing the greatest prevalence of MGA risk today? I think wherever you see the market most competitive is where you will find the greatest presence of MGAs, and I think it really just stems from this observation that I've shared. I think other people have made the same observation on their own as the misalignment of interests. MGAs, while not all, the reality is that the model there is a disconnect. When you are an MGA, you get paid based on the number of policies you sell. You get rewarded on a commission structure. When you are an underwriting shop like the one that I work for, you get paid based on how much money is left after you cover your expenses and your claims, and those economic models, while they can work together, there are some fundamentals that are in conflict with one another. I made the comment to some folks recently, if you were a portfolio manager, imagine if you got paid based on the number of stocks that you bought. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So that is just my take on MGAs, which is perhaps not popular but is honest. It's a fair one. And so hopping around a little bit here, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about Berkley One. Berkley has seen strong growth in that business, the high-net-worth personal lines. Can you give us a sense of where this endeavor stands in the success to date? So it has been a long road, but it has been built the right way. Foundationally, I think it is as solid a player as there is in the marketplace. It's really built on some of the same principles that I was trying to point to earlier about the specialty commercial lines business. It's all about a value proposition that is built upon knowledge and expertise to customer and ultimately to capital. Berkley One is well on its way to becoming a billion-dollar business, and I expect that it will blow right through that over time. We've been very thoughtful and deliberate, or my colleagues have been very thoughtful and deliberate about the approach they've taken to the business, both the product offering, including the geographical exposures to certain, well, we've been very, for example, we've stayed out of California, and that wasn't by good fortune. That was by design. So I think it's a great addition to the organization. It continues to contribute in a meaningful way, and I expect it will continue to grow from here. My comments about property in general, I should have been a little bit more specific. They were really pointed more towards the reinsurance market and the commercial lines property market. The personal lines, particularly in the private client space property market, continues to enjoy a tailwind. That makes sense. And if we pair those comments on Berkley One with the additional CAT exposure there, and you've shifted some mix into property in recent years, how do we get a sense of where you are in terms of CAT exposure relative to where you might want to be over the longer term? Is this a new level? We pay close attention to how we manage our CAT, and just on a relative basis, given how the business overall has grown, our exposure to CAT is actually less today than it was in the past, but partly that's because the business overall has grown and our ability to manage volatility is different than it was when we were a fraction of the size that we are today, but we have no desire to become a meaningful Property Cat writer on the reinsurance front, and even on the primary space, again, we pay very close attention to volatility. From our perspective, just going back to this notion of risk and return, we think one of the mistakes that's made oftentimes in this industry is when people think about risk, they don't appropriately factor in volatility as a component of risk. I want to go back to something you said on pricing. Casualty may not be seeing some of the same increases in certain lines. Were there certain products that you were thinking about when you were mentioning that, and do you have any idea of why that might be? Is that just because pricing has gone up for a long period of time? I think within the liability space, there are certain product lines, particularly in Professional Liability, that we've seen rates eroding. Again, it just goes back to this idea that people in this industry respond to pain, pain meaning losses, and the loss activity just hasn't been there to create the discipline around pricing. Again, I think you see more of that in some of the Professional Liability areas under the broader banner of liability. Got it. And how about workers' comp specifically? I think you've been pretty vocal on this product. Are you seeing any new trends there, and how's the medical severity? We continue to be concerned about medical trend. From our perspective, it is without a doubt on the rise. And we think that the comp industry has been somewhat subsidized, if you will, by how much of comp benefits, particularly around medical, are a multiple or are priced off of Medicare. And as a result of that, the government has been keeping those rates down without a doubt. I mean, we all know that the government plays below cost when it comes to Medicare to providers, and workers' comp as a multiple of that has been able to benefit from that as well. I don't think it's sustainable long term. California historically has lagged the rest of the country as far as comp pricing. It would seem as though it is out front at this moment in time, and a lot of what's driving that is cumulative trauma and litigation around cumulative trauma. But I think medical trend is going to prove to be not a friend to the workers' comp market. It's just taking time. How should we be thinking about Berkley's international ambitions, if there are any? We have the same expectations of our businesses outside of the United States as we do inside of the United States. It's all about risk-adjusted return. Our focus is on building businesses based around or built on people and their knowledge and their expertise in that particular niche. Recently, we just opened up in India, and we'll be playing in the liability space with very much of a specialty focus. I think we issued policy number one last week. Very exciting. Great. It seems like we're getting to this period of potentially lower organic growth. How are you thinking about capital return? What is the playbook for Berkley? I know you've been issuing special dividends. What's the appetite for M&A? We are generating capital, quite frankly, more quickly when we can organically put it to work. It is not lost on us that the capital belongs to the shareholders, and if we don't have a use for it, and it's above and beyond whatever cushion we need to carry, we will look for ways to return it. At this stage, there are three levers. We're not going to really touch our debt structure because there was some good work done during COVID that positioned the balance sheet very nicely, and we couldn't replace it for anything approaching what we're paying today. But so that leaves us with share repurchase, special dividends, and I think it would be appropriate to expect us to continue to use both of those tools. As far as M&A goes, we are aware of transactions in the industry, typically before they are announced. But we also have a healthy respect, maybe even a healthy fear, of the complexities that come with insurance M&A. It is hard enough to understand your own reserves, let alone somebody else's reserves, and it is very hard to change a culture. So from our perspective, while we would never say never, and we do check tires from time to time, the reality is we're cautious and cheap, and we would rather, more often than not, just build it from scratch. It takes more time, but it gives you a better risk-adjusted return, or it's a more controlled outcome. Great. And if we think about the net investment income trajectory, how should we be thinking about the portfolio moving forward and planning any changes to allocations or anything like that? Well, we have continued to have exceptionally strong cash flow, and as a result of that, the portfolio is growing. Our new money rate, as we've communicated in the past, remains comfortably above our book yield. And as far as the point around allocations, right now, given the opportunities that exist in the fixed income market, we are really not spending a lot of time focused on alternatives. That having been said, it's not off the table altogether, but it's just not where we are focusing at this stage of the game. Makes sense, and so if we put all that together, lots of comments on underwriting, on net investment income, capital deployment, you've been in this sort of high -teens ROE for a number of years. Is that still the right realm moving forward, or are we on a potentially, with the cycle, maybe a path towards a little bit more normalization, or is this sustainable? Obviously, the farther you go out, the less visibility there is. But certainly, from my perspective, given the health in the underwriting as well as our ability to continue to push and achieve rate where we think we need it, and what the investment portfolio we believe will continue to throw off, I think high- teens returns are something we expect to achieve for the foreseeable. Awesome. I think we're right about our time. Thanks, Rob, for being with us today. Thank you. Good to be with you.