Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Mark Hughes - SunTrust Bank.
Mark Hughes – SunTrust Bank
Thank you very much. Following up on your final commentary there about regional carriers driving price decreases, could you give a sense of just an overall discipline of the carriers, including the national carriers? What’s your sense of where we stand today at the start of the third quarter versus say six months ago?
J. Powell Brown
Mark, a couple quick comments. We as a group as you know, we’ve talked about write a lot of business with regional carriers, and we write a lot with national carriers as an observation, number one.
Number two, there is a bifurcation I think somewhat that is going on right now where carriers are very, very aggressive on new business and are trying to do everything they can to get rate or maintain rate on renewal business. That doesn’t mean it’s occurring, but that is what they’re trying to do. In certain parts of the country we’re starting to hear of carriers that will say ?No more. We can’t go any lower.? That doesn’t mean there won’t be one carrier that can go lower but a group of carriers, so the incumbent and three or four or five carriers will all be bunched up around the same price rates for the said exposures and yet there will be one carrier that would drop it, whatever that is, in that particular part of the country, so is there a significant difference now to six months ago? I don’t think there’s probably that much difference in the ultimate outcome, but how you get to the ultimate outcome is more difficult in terms of negotiating that rate decrease or with the incumbent or with the new carrier because people are less apt to push it down on renewals. That’s number one.
Number two, one thing that we hear around the country from our team is that lots of people talk about, meaning outside of our business, a propose change in rates with carriers because some of the carriers did not have as good a year last year as you would hope they might, and therefore there would be upward pressure on those rates and yet we haven't seen anything to really indicate that other than coastal property.
Mark Hughes – SunTrust Bank
Thank you. How about if the acquisition pace continues to be pretty modest here, will you get a bit more aggressive on your investments or look more to buy back shares?
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