Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) We'll go first to Matthew Heimermann of JPMorgan.
Matthew Heimermann – JPMorgan
Hi, good morning everybody. You talked, Joe, about expecting growth to remain pretty healthy over the balance of the year. With respect to some of the growth you saw in the international sector, there wasn't any – was there any front end loading with respect to business you are writing this year. I know you had the S&P review going on. But I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything unusual on any of those numbers.
Joseph Taranto
No. There wasn't anything unusual about the numbers.
Matthew Heimermann – JPMorgan
Okay. Easy enough. And then could you just revisit either you or Tom the comments with respect to buyer changes? On one hand, I thought you mentioned people shifting to excess of loss versus proportional which I've heard in other places but in another comment, I thought I heard that there were some shifts from excess to proportional. So if you could just flesh that out a little bit.
Joseph Taranto
Sure. Let me give you a more broad answer to that, Matt. First of all, I think there's just a lot of positive things going on in the marketplace that have benefited us and that we’re capitalizing on. Part of that is a flight to security. Part of it is some of our competitors having some difficulty and even some of our customers having some difficulty when it comes to protecting their surplus. I think what we probably were referring to on some of the shift to quota share was at least in some cases where clients wanted essentially more surplus relief. Ease their balance sheet a little bit, and that's something that we could provide since we have a strong balance sheet. You are right at any particular point in time, different lines, different countries. There's an ebb and flow, as clients move between excessive loss and pro rata. But we did see, at least with regard to surplus strain some clients moving more to the pro rata side. But between pockets that are hardening very nicely, where we have some very unique opportunities, and the flight to security and some of the troubles that others have had, we have just had had a lot to operate with in the first quarter and I see most of those drivers being opportunities that we have to capitalize on for the remainder of the year.
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