Craig Kliethermes

Thank you, Erin, and good morning, everyone. I want to start by acknowledging the devastating hurricanes that occurred over the last several months and the impact they have had on our customers, business partners and team members. We continue to extend our heartfelt support to all who were affected by these strong do and life-threatening events.
Our lives committed, doing our part to store our customers livelihoods. Our purpose is to protect people and organizations from life's uncertainties to help them explore, create, build and drive our financial strength and stability, empower us to help individuals and businesses diversified and sustain risks that they can't manage on their own. It also enables us to deliver consistent returns to for our shareholders.
I will let Tod and Jeff go into more detail on the financials, the market in general, the opportunities we see an impact that these storms had on our financials, all things considered. We were pleased with the opportunity to grow profitably during the quarter and lean into the disruptions in the marketplace where we have expertise. I'll now turn it over to Todd for his comments.

Todd Bryant

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday, we reported third-quarter operating earnings of $1.31 per share, positive underwriting performance and a 15% rise in investment income contributing to the increase in operating earnings on a comparative basis.
Our combined ratio was 89.6 for the quarter and now stands at 83.3 on a year-to-date basis. Top line growth continued in the quarter with gross premiums amazing 13%. Jen will offer some additional details on premium growth, which remain very balanced across our product segments.
As referenced in our pre announcement on October seventh, results were affected by storm activity in the quarter on quarter, most acutely hurricanes Helene Baril. On a GAAP basis, net earnings of $2.6 per share compares to $0.29 per share in Q3 of 2023.
Last year's results were heavily influenced by the Hawaii wildfire losses and an equity market that was inventory over the quarter. Underwriting income in Q3 2024 was primarily driven by continued growth in earned premium, lower current year catastrophe losses and favorable prior year development in combination.
This resulted in an improved combined ratio of 89.6 compared to 98.7 and 2023 losses recorded from hurricanes. Helene Baril totaled $37 million, $35 million of that effect of the property segment. While $2 million was tied to package policies in the casualty segment under gains, we recorded $2 million of other storm losses in the quarter.
Although we are largely focused on Q3 results in our discussion today, I do want to take a moment to outline a range of loss estimates for hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida on until the nine. This is a very large storm and our estimates are subject to change.
We currently estimate that pretax loss from Hurricane Walton net of any reinsurance benefits will be between $45 million and $55 million. We will reflect a final loss estimate in our Q4 financials, but would not expect to publish in narrowing or adjustment to this range between now and our fourth-quarter earnings release. Unless our claim estimates change materially.
Turning to segment level results. As mentioned, growth in gross premium was very balanced in the quarter and our underwriters continue to find top line opportunities. Casualties has been growing at double digit pace this year in Q3 came in at plus 16%. Bottom line for casualty benefited from $9 million of favorable prior-year loss development.
Of note, we continue to monitor wheelbase and other excess liability exposures makes the pattern for loss emergence, considering similar uncertainty on wheels based on liability exposures in the current accident year casualty book booking ratio was up slightly weighing on the underlying loss ratio.
On an overall basis. Casualty remains profitable for the 98.8 combined ratio for the quarter. Surety growth remain robust at night at a 9% increase in gross premium in the third quarter alongside $3.1 million of favorable prior-year loss development resulted in an 8.5 point benefit for surety loss ratio, which was partially offset by an increase in the expense ratio.
Acquisition costs have moved higher influenced in part by the mix of business as well as our continued investments in people and technology to support should lead to growth labeling discussion on catastrophes, the Property segment continued to grow and was up 10% in quarter by product, marine and blind homeowners are outpacing moderating growth and E&S property.
Overall, we reduced prior year reserves by $4.4 million associated with marine contract to some strengthening in Q3 was 2023. Additionally, prior year storm losses were adjusted favorably by $3.3 million. Underlying results per property were very comparable to last year and the segments 77 combined ratio for the quarter, again highlighting the influence of growth in earned premium.
Operating cash flow was strong in the quarter at $219 million and help to support continued purchase activity. The Investment Portfolio yields averaged 4.9%. Opportunities remain available to add high-quality bonds that are accretive to book yield, and our approach has remained fairly consistent. The portfolio's average durations extend slightly to 4.8 years as we have been focused on intermediate maturity.
These total return for the quarter was 4.8%, with significant contributions from bonds as rates decline and from stocks due to the market's continued upswing on the core portfolio, our investment in prime contributor to invest the earnings of $1.2 million in Q3.
Putting it all together, comprehensive earnings were $3.79 per share and diluted book value per share to $38.17, an increase of 26% from year-end 2023, inclusive of dividends for 2024. We are pleased with the results for three quarters.

Jennifer Klobnak

And now I'll turn the call over to Jim. Jim?
Thank you, Pat. Let me provide some more color by segment. As Todd mentioned, the casualty segment grew by 16%. Growth was widespread coming from almost all of our pack. I candidly brokerage group, which ranged primary general liability and the final any coverage grew by 8%.
Submissions are up 15% as we continue to stay, and that's the nature of demand for Business Center categories that experienced adverse loss development and are restricting their appetite, giving us a chance to see more opportunity at the same time, continuing to be new engineers and Calian entering that market.
As Todd mentioned, we are seeing kind of taking longer to resolve a trend that Lehman incorporated into our loss development factors. In addition, our dedicated cleaning and there's more closely with our underwriters are actually making adjustments as needed, so we can remain consistent participant in the market. Our Transportation division grew by 15%.
Area remains the target for legal system. This has caused some competitors to rethink their strategy, which reported a 20% increase in our solutions. We are focused on with selection on maintaining adequate rates. We have walked away from accounts that became understanding and achieved an 11% rate increase. And the business. We retain investments in new products, including Romania, storage and immunoassay offering, starting to pay off, and we provide a new alternative to our producers.
We remain cautious. I see a lot of opportunity in this market. First on dialogue with 36%, including a 16% rate increase just supported by Nationwide, may approve all affected in the third quarter. We actively monitor rate adequacy and get an enrollment.
And look, we continue to win new business as an airline carriers have become homeowners and auto issue creating opportunities for us. Standalone product dedicated claim team for providing regular feedback to our underwriters and actuaries have been outside of years and optimize the growth in book. The only area of the casualty segment that is contracting with our executive products group, which focuses on directors' and officers' insurance and other management liability coverages.
Our book is about one-third public company issue, which is the most competitive space. We are focused on growing and a private company visits rates were down 4% in the quarter. We take into account we can get on rates and which accounts to walk away from it appears the market is getting a bit more stable. Net sales selling business agenda counseling overall casually rate change was 9% increase, which matches the main change from last quarter.
On a combined ratio of 98.8 at a notable increase from last quarter's third quarter. We have the system in place with strong collaboration between our underwriting claims and analytical support team to continuously optimize our approach as the market evolves.
The surety segment, premiums grew by 9% contracture in Latin America at 25% growth due to the left from the elevated cost of materials as well as many units. Commercial and transactional sharing at a smaller piece of competition remains fierce. We continue to be selective as inflation and economic conditions at creating a disparity in individual company financial strength.
Our focus for the segment is not being and educating producers on our appetite. A combined ratio for surety of 78.8 affects our underwriting discipline and the lack of any large loss activity in the quarter. Finally, the Property segment grew by 10%. I'll start with why homeowners last year's third quarter was heavily influenced by the online allowed by law.
We are happy to report that over 90% of our recorded loss has been paid to our insurance claim resolution at the core of our business due to our proactive claim handling, customer service and underwriting and select competitors pulling back, we continue to see growth in this book as evidenced by the 22% increase in premium this quarter.
Rate increased to 4% from the quarter was more rain approval becoming effective in the fourth quarter. Marine also grew by 21% in the third quarter. We are very responsive and identify opportunities to conversations with our brokers. In addition, we continue to add rates in the book. This quarter, we achieved 5% rate increase, missing a lot of opportunity and the ratification of business to the wholesale market.
Our E&S Property Group grew by 5% in the quarter. Increasing rates and premium over the last year is earning through giving us a foundation to resolve hurricanes and other funding while producing an underwriting profit has been an active hurricane season.
Starting the 13 payrolls landfall in early July. It continued into early October benchmarking of Verizon deployment throughout the season. We remain diligent in the latest, capturing our exposure in a very granular level, maintaining policy terms and conditions and staying prepared to normalize our claims staff immediately following the event we continue to have a physical claim sizes are small enough to assist our issuers as any that are used on the ground approach supports our ability to grow, quantify the extent of damage and inform our Las Vegas and an untimely basis as demonstrated by our engineers.
In terms of Martin market conditions, the property market has been softening somewhat peak prior to the most recent events. In the third quarter, hurricane rates were down 8% with overall E&S property may change. Perhaps it's too early for most carriers in MGAs to react and a three sizable parking this year. While we are focused on is saying available the total new business, providing timely feedback to our previous, you're trying to be carrying levels and continuing to resolve claims as quickly and fairly as possible.
Our exposure has decreased over the last year as competition became more interested in the market. Is that competition in Siemens, we have some room to take advantage of any changes in the aggregate this quarter showcased our ability to execute on the last few years. We've invested in the airline community with additional staff, training and tools to improve processes.
We have also spent significant time and resources investing and producer relationships and technology, particularly technology that enhances ease-of-use as well as enabling our claims staff to resolve claims more effectively. These investments, I mean nothing and profitable growth. This quarter, we grew premium by 13% and producing 89.6 combined ratio.
We have three quarters behind us. So we're sitting on an 83 combined ratio for the year. We do not only can finish strong.
With that, I'll turn the call over to the moderator to open it up for questions. Thank you.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

Thank you for question and answer session will begin at this time.(Operator Instructions)
Bill Carcache, Wolfe Research.

Bill Carcache

Thank you. Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. Craig, I wanted to follow up on your comment about wanting to lean into the disruptions in the marketplace where you see the greatest opportunities. Could you discuss the most attractive opportunities for incremental profitability across your business size that you see currently?

Craig Kliethermes

Sure, Bill, thanks. I mean, obviously, the weight of our businesses setup with narrow and deep expertise in both underwriting and claims. We have been prepared to lead. And when there is opportunity and some disruption, we've been saying that in our personal umbrella of space for probably the last several years, Jim mentioned transportation, and we're always prepared Molina, and we've been in that business for 40 years with people that only underwrite transportation only handle transportation related claims.
Our marine business continues to see opportunities, particularly on the inland side of the house. Jen mentioned July homeowners. We remain steadfast in our commitment to that market. Obviously, we'd like to continue to get rate increases over time, and so we can continue to remain competitive in that market. But a lot of people are working backwards. ne
There. And obviously, we're kind of a wait-and-see mode rather E&S property. We saw a huge opportunity over the last two or three years. We leaned in heavily into that opportunity. We'll see what happens as a result of these three fairly sizable collective hurricanes that we that we had this year. I'm always prepared to lean into surety and I would say commercial access business as well.
So when we see a fair amount of opportunity in our portfolio, the beauty of our very diverse portfolio, as you know, we have some products that there is opportunity or the products where we have to pull back in our model, as always allowed our interest to do the right thing in all markets so they can lean in and they've proven track record of success over time, which gives us the confidence to list them lead into markets where there is opportunity and it's for pretty much self-regulating in regards to them.
Pulling back in regards to where the market is a little too competitive and underwriting profits not available to us. Thanks.

Bill Carcache

That's helpful. Separately, it would be great to hear any observations on the trajectory of pricing versus loss cost inflation trends you're seeing and any changes you anticipate in the aftermath of the hurricanes?

Craig Kliethermes

Yes, this is Jen. So regarding properties, I think if you look at it obviously and a loss trend up a little bit different property given material costs and now somewhat litigation environment around when this thing and then claims to be handled with public adjusters and whatnot.
We have been pushing rate allowed. Our rates are up about 200% over the last five years might not even from last two years, probably almost 200%. And so we've already taken a significant amount of rate. We think our portfolio very low price.
I think the opportunity here at a minimum is that that would be large events stabilized from our And so regardless of people, planet and charging operative to cover those losses when we have. So I think Fabry, it's again too early to say because these events are just and holding yet. But I'm hoping that the impact of the government and the candidates that I would say, our rate changes keeping up with loss trend and the benefit we have that with the connection between underwriters, claimants and a lot of support the enterprise network perhaps.
And so they know that to continue to push that rate and kind of where they are with regard to profitability so that they can on each account and they look at it, they know kind of where they need to be, so that can eventually catches site. Thanks, Jan. No, that's helpful. If I could squeeze in one final sort of higher level question for the broader team. So we saw another quarter of favorable development across your fuel casualty property and surety segments.
And I think the market fully appreciates that are underway. Lighting is exceptional. But could you take us inside the business and perhaps give a bit more perspective on what's driving that kind of consistency at a time where social inflation has been pervasive and reserve adequacy remains a concern for many of your competitors? Well, I mean, our trial and maybe Todd can join in here. But I mean, I I mean, we obviously have always taken a long-term view of loss cost trends of, I'll say, a prudent view of risk that's factored into all of our estimates.
Some are starting booking ratios. We tried to look at a reasonable range and tried to be prudent and post the initial loss ratio in the maybe the higher end of that range, but certainly within the range. But to factor in the risks that are out there, particularly right now, you have a single source of the day use. We invest heavily in our claim department and the communication between our claim department and then our actuaries, which gives us real-time feedback of what the actuaries you're seeing. Sometimes you don't actually get caught up in the data and we get the credit spectrum or what might be driving that data.
Certainly people sharing that with our underwriters as well, which helps give them information to the pullback or lead into a market. And we have the same approach around here for much longer than I've ever been here. I mean, at least 30 years has been the same approach.
We've not changed our approach. You know, I'm not going to say we've always had favorable development as you go back way far like in the last. So really, really soft market in the early the two thousands of late 1990s, we had adverse development as well, but just not as much as the rest of the industry is not as much as our peers.
And I think I would say it speaks to kind of our overall long-term approach to thinking about things that risk-based approach to thinking about things I wanted to cover the Makena. I think part of it is our risk appetite with regard to small and middle market insurance that we target. Generally speaking in most of our businesses, we opened our excess administrative insurance side. You know, maybe less of a target for some of the single system, at least that goes on and then it comes down to hardware accelerate. It comes to underwriting.
You're going through the submission in your underwriting year, actually paying attention to where the uninsured in terms of venues, but they are working to covering us and work is not what they don't do that like it kind of slotted in there and claims were getting investigation early and that clean line, we are strategizing around knowing that the plaintiff's attorney has a playbook.
And we know that we can counteract that playbook by getting investigation early staying ahead of public adjusters, as an example, an offering of a reasonable settlement at the proper time and energy and that contact with our insurance to resolve the claims. So it's really about kind of being diligent going deep into our processes, those underwriting and claim and also our risk appetite so that we are not as much of a target.
And then those cases do comment where they look a little history. We know how to address that and trying to resolve the claims prior to getting cannot control building out our that Jim talked about it in her opening as well. Craig spoke to it just a moment ago where we are and you know, we tend to be a little bit slow, we believe and recognize the good news.
We are extending the reporting towns and some of the auto and excess liability areas where we have seen a bit higher emergence on maybe not to a level others, but we have seen a few things there. So we believe it is prudent to be a bit cautious that are going to say you do see that a little bit lower from a favorable development on the casualty side compared to third quarter of last year in Q3 of last year, just moves around a bit.
The processes consistent, but we had significant favorable on EPG. third quarter of last year was about $9 million. So that that accounts for a lot of the difference here quarter to quarter. We take a consistent approach. We are cautious or prudent and where we set the initial booking various ratios law from them. And so that that I think helps has helped historically with some of the consistency in unison.
Again, I would add one more thing. As I say, I think we're adamant getting information in the hands of our underwriters and because of our business model because our underwriters are focused on underwriting profit, they listen for one thing. Maybe there you go a bit in the chip in regards to those conversations.
And there wondering trying to continue to grow underwriting profit. And I think Jim mentioned I mean, I have some advantage or limits. We don't we're not a big limit carrier. We don't put out really big limits. We avoid deep pocket insurance for the most part, manage our jurisdictions and the others do pretty good job of overall managing our exposure to I'll say this, the legal system abuse. But however, we are not a view of what we can do is mitigate the new, both through our underwriters who have the information and exceptional client people who are trying to get the best outcomes for the company can do a pretty good job. Thank you. I was really helpful. I appreciate the detailed response.

Operator

Michael Phillips, Oppenheimer.

Michael Phillips

Thank you. Good morning. But maybe a little bit more on some kind of you actually just made a couple of comments on the extent of reporting patterns in the casualty. And I just want to ask on that with the backdrop of some prior quarters where you've talked about having to monitor the tail on. So when you talk about the extent of reported earnings, are you talking specifically sort of late reporting from older accident years? Or is it more recent accident years where you're being more cautious there?

Craig Kliethermes

Thank you. I would say, I guess a little bit of a little bit of both from that standpoint and we talk kind of on the reporting patterns that you mentioned or extending the tail. That's the same. I mean, we're just some of the business that excess liability that we write in LEDs that can have a longer tail to it slower to get some analysis on that standpoint.
Whether it was COVID and post-COVID, whether you see, of course, being a bit slow on the lots of things that on the wheels base, Jim talked about some of that. I just go a little bit slower on how long it may take for those those claims to sell, so that can influence here. So I would just add that I think that I'm not sure that we have seen in our data that the actual reporting pattern of longer. I mean, we've got a ways out some of the COVID stuff because that that messed up some of the numbers, but certainly the development the time it takes to get final resolution of claim and take that.
That's a that takes longer field people hanging out waiting for Jeff, but sometimes and we're trying to get claim resolution and that comes out of our debt maturities push and we can that can be you can take a while. So that's why we're trying to reflect that in our loss development patterns. Okay, thank you. On I guess specifically on your commercial access book, can you say what you're seeing there for current kind of severity trends there and maybe how that compares to what you purchased a few years ago?
So I'm not I signed worry about in our focus a lot on construction flaring. You're in a project is a lot of it is project business and some of them are practice policies. Are you ensuring that conducted for all of them work that they do throughout the year? So there's a mix within about a lot of it is concessionaire. So you do have some bodily injury or somebody gets turned on the construction site. I would say from us in terms of trend, we're not seeing a lot of change in that trend. And this trend different today than we've seen in our book is more about auto than it is about your traditional excess liability coverages.

Operator

Greg Peters, Raymond James.

Gregory Peters

Good morning, everyone. So I just I guess, building on the last answer, just you mentioned construction and I guess this is to step back and I'm interested in the areas of growth in your general liability and transportation lines because there can be a lot of different types of business that are included in there. And I think you're pretty specific in construction. Are you focused on GC. or are you getting involved that's subcontractors area geographically focused?
Can you give us some color there? And then pivot to the transportation book. I assume you're not writing taxicabs or Litmos, but maybe you could give us some color on what you're getting involved with on transportation as well.

Craig Kliethermes

Sure. Yeah, this agenda on the construction side, we have actually a very diverse portfolio of construction businesses. I would say a little by little bit less than a third of our entire portfolio is focused on construction in the surety space.
We focus on top of that construction on the insurance side of the house because my private construction spread holiday to the country, but each region connects differently in terms of trade and investment. A lot of areas of the CoStar, I think investors I celebrated in Illinois are sitting today, not so much investment. Do you look at our finance businesses, we tend to focus on general contacted. If you look at our unlimited businesses, we tend to focus on subcontractors. So those are the general guidelines.
We generally scheme of our construction book sequencing, you know, depending on the type of insured as a region and the type of project, we can focus on what type of coverage we're comfortable providing a very diverse book, which makes it hard to talk about globally in terms of how it's doing.
But if I listen to say something about the way, I would say overall, we keep waiting for construction to slow as an industry. And I would say, particularly on the public side and the number of advertisers and a very healthy the private side has been as a lower investment rate lately, that ratios went on auto financing and things of that nature. And so it's been a little smaller. But again, we continue to be a consistent market that are pretty interesting years, whereas some of our competitors have been announced.
And so that's allowed us to continue to grow despite paying the underlying market being a little further on the private fund. Then transitioning, I'm going to transportation. We do focus on some of the major buckets. So we didn't have a truck, our leverage by truck. We have a public group, which includes a lot of different forms of buses.
And we have our commercial specialty auto, which is kind of a hodgepodge of classes on that does not include does not include taxanes to try. And there's very little if no limit our exposure there as well. And that's really a few classes that we can. And I think that as such, the balances are construction for single manager, but it's there's a lot of different classes within that book. More recently, we invested a focus on moving and storage business.
And also we provide a little bit of media availability as well, given that market and has gone through a lot of turmoil. And I think we'll continue to be selling either on an answer for that as well as the operator. So that kind of laid out, I think, both of those books.
But I'm happy to answer any questions on this. Well, actually, that's great detail. Thank you, Al. I also wanted to pivot my second follow-up question relates to another comment you made. John, you talked about investments in technology, et cetera. It's such a big comment that includes a lot of information, but we very rarely get any details on what's actually going inside of those investments. You talked about how these investments are generating help you generated in growth opportunities.
I maybe you can give us the the 32nd pitch on what you're investing in and why it's able to deliver a growth opportunity for you. Sure. So like every question about our alliance, hard to answer because it's specific to each business unit given ongoing.
Again, we're getting a couple of examples here. So in our personal umbrella means we can have a lot of growth that a lot of investing in the front, the frontline maintenance in the application that they should go straight to fill it out the orient the question for some of the technology. So I'm going to price and T&M or the questions we get asked every single question.
So we eliminated view and then we provide a system that is very user friendly and similar to what you see in other industries that you might use on a personal basis. So there's been a lot of investment there. And then for that policy kind of go through our systems that are being touch too many times.
And if you look at other places, we have a contract application similarly, where we have redone the application process and get input from our producers to say how do you actually use our system. And then we reconfigured the system using newer technology that supports a better experience.
So that again, we can capture that business at the level we need to upfront and then it flows through our system without against any such, as I'll give you one more, which is the and our marine division, where we there's a lot of steps actually issuing a policy. And we have basically taken work off of the underwriter's desk and help those positive issue more quickly so that the underwriting focus more on marketing and underwriting, first of all, the follow-up that's required to actually service center business.
So it's basically an emphasis here at RLI for continuous improvement and to take time, focusing on your inbox to actually step back and look at processors and see how we can make them better faster and so that we can have the right people doing the right jobs, eliminated.

Operator

Meyer Shields, KBW.

Meyer Shields

Hi on casino from there on. Thank you for taking my question. On STEM for follow-up questions on the casualty segment, on how you talked a lot of that favorable reserve development was just curious about the accident year loss ratio on casualty segment on take-up on kind of a sequential decline year over year. Just wondering if it's just good prudent, Tom, you have taken on in the loss picks. Any color you can provide would be great.

Todd Bryant

Yes. Thank you, Todd. It is, we believe, are prudent from that standpoint . If you do the comparative, the current accident year on casualty quarter to quarter as of 1.5 to 2 points with some second half increases that we made in the loss booking ratio that is done for the entirety of the calendar year.
So the accident year. So you think about let's do it in the third quarter. That's retro to the first part of the years. You'll see a little bit more of a spike in the quarter. Some of it really is kind of what we've been talking about from a real estate standpoint. Some will be, and we believe proven there, and that will have an influence. If you go to the fourth quarter of last, if you look at full year 2023, we're actually about with this increase of about on par with where we ended the year from an underlying loss ratio on on casualty side. So nothing alarming there. I think certainly the improvement in our approach to reserving the current accident year.
Got it. Thanks. So you have a follow-up on specifically on from commercial auto. Given your competitors noted a quarterly severity trends, you can please provide some clarity of where you're seeing in your book severity trends in our commercial auto book because competitors are seeing some stability. We I mean we do see some severity as well. I think I'm not sure everybody out of business lines.
Do you look at our commercial auto business? The one thing I would point to that we've added over the last few years as our internal loss control resources are undermining really listen to people to contact our potential insurance over our renewables before the renewal takes place. Saying what do you do business in terms of training drivers, you maintain your vehicle?
The other thing that takes to run a safe on operation is our underwriters have an input as they renew. And some of the things that you learned in their process point to potential severity, we'll see where you're not investing in training and your drivers. For example, that's a terrible story in front of injury when you have a claim against several units and you're in front of me. So I think the quality of the issues can be evaluated through that process.
And then it just comes down to Cushing. Our key leaders have to get uptime. You certainly know what the losses are, pricing, the business and then on our team are underwriting team is focused on getting rate because I know that the scenario that it also comes down to risk selection noted we don't have top line goals here are ally in any of our business units.
I think it's particularly important in our auto division where yes, rates are up. So people that are going to grow. This is very large and growing our top line once we have actually gone on several of our largest accounts because they don't make sense anymore, somebody's going to undercut us with the rain or snow, and they're just not a quality insured anymore.
So we're backing away from that premium because that's the right thing to do because we think that that's a very good happens in those accounts. So I can't speak to what competitors are doing. The wreckage from these sales and operating. I mean, we all I would offer is I've been in this business for about 38, 39 years. That's the only place that I've ever worked, where the underwriter is still on the claim people to get the money that needs to go up as soon as possible.
As Jim pointed out, they use that business. The price, the account tried to factor in risk and they want to know if the claim is going to be a bad loss, they want to be able to factor that in as they renew the account and offer up a fair price for the product.
So and our underwriters domains that are claim people get money up as quickly as possible. Got it. Very helpful.

Operator

Andrew Petersen, Jefferies.

Andrew Petersen

Hey, maybe on the casualty rate, I think you called out 9%, which was consistent quarter over quarter. But I thought I heard you say that ratio just keeping up with loss trend, I would have thought 9% would be ahead of that because you can help us think through that. So finally, the last change and we looked at we've had a lot of industry results to come out and we don't have the best data in the industry. Some of our divisions are very niche products where we have only Ardana doesn't really compare the industry.

Craig Kliethermes

So when you look at our own severity in our loss trend in our results, it tends to be a little lower in reality than it is the numbers that we've selected, say long term is probably even business. And so the 9%, if you have on our actual experience, when we talk about loss trend and we factor in everything we can only talk about like, yes, we reflect also industry. Thanks.

Andrew Petersen

Okay. And then maybe just curious what you're expecting to see in the reinsurance market at one one, whether it be pricing or perhaps changes to premium retentions. Maybe any early views you may have, but at the fluid market reinsurance right now, we have we're in discussions with our reinsurers as we speak. That's a little early to say there was a lot of positioning by the reinsurance earlier the season with regard to casualty, I think has quieted down a little bit. I think property in oh five, we linked the label energy, make it a little bit of relief there.
But with these events, maybe that will be more stable and M&S, I think when it comes to retention, reinsurers on conversion and retention. So I think we are where we are assignments. I would characterize the market probably a stable with regard to our one one renewals. Okay. And maybe just two more questions on the investment portfolio. As you think about the growth in casualty is outpacing property right now and duration has kind of ticked up the last couple of years.
Would you be surprised to see that go above five as we kind of enter 2025? Well, I think what we're focused on right now is to maintain durability of the income profile. And that's why you've seen the duration take-up of it throughout this last year. There will be some point in time where cash is not offering the returns that we've seen lately.
And so as terming out debt maturity profile, an important part of our near-term strategy come to the extent we get all the way, it's at five or above five vendors in the past. So that's not unusual for us based on balance sheet and the strength of our capital base.
We certainly have been near that level, but we're not that far away from it now at 4.8 years. So that's a new U.S. difference, I'll call it call it and not necessarily driven by a quarter to quarter growth in casualty necessarily. And last one, if you share how much of the investment portfolio is floating rate? Yes, we have a small amount of floating rate exposure. It's around 4% of the fixed income portfolio and largely comprised of senior secured bank loans. That's the bulk of that exposure, a smaller amount in the CLO space and then a few structure products that have a floating rate coupons to them. So. Thank you.

Operator

Scott Heleniak, RBC

Scott Heleniak

Yes, thanks. Morning. I just wanted to touch on the of the property combined ratios was really really good 77.2 despite the Lean & Barrel losses you had in there. I know you had a little bit of benefit from reserve releases, but anything else in there that there was a benefit like not non-cat weather, lower fee fire losses or anything in there that kind of drove that? You can come to mind.

Craig Kliethermes

Yes, I think there is significant growth on the revenue side.
Because of the total or the wind premium writing. I think the result of that is there's a there's a lot there to cover whether it's the hurricane losses or attritional losses. So I think the growth in that portfolio is really what's what's driving the right. I mean, again, over the last year. Yes, exposure growth in revenue, 100 Bcf. Right. Okay.

Scott Heleniak

And just on the melt loss of $45 million to $55 million on, can you just give you just talk a little bit about your Florida exposure in terms of how close to the coast you're writing? I assume a fair amount of these losses would probably be marine, but any other color you can give on that, that that forecast? And just how you're what about the Florida market in general after this? Sharon, this is Jim.

Jennifer Klobnak

So when you look at our Florida exposure, as you may have read earlier this year, we had actually been decreasing our exposure for a couple of reasons. one was the market was getting more competitive, simply MGAs and trying to take advantage of that nice pricing I leave and they were cutting insulin. That was the pricing and terms and conditions.
So we sort of walk away from a handful of accounts. So our exposure to against the Florida region and you can have policy amendments. For example, we were down about 20% from the end of last year. Which set us up for this wind season. I was a little bit less exposure than we had last year.
If you look at where we write it down by local, so exposure because we are in US E&S wind markets, we didn't cover commercial building. So we know the homeowners, which is a lot in the new idelalisib and Milton event itself, it's a long-winded, which is what we're trying to cover.
So that's a traditional events that we would expect to to have and expect to be fun to be. The event itself was not very large. Indian hit some commercial that we had a lot of residential areas to when you get away from that long ago, key areas within the cell phone area of landfall in the U.S. commercial rights have been and it's spread out. A lot of residential actually picked us. I'm expecting probably in the residential lots to be larger than the commercial loans. Again, it's very early to say what that might be going to be like we are committed to this more than 13 market. We collected a lot of premium over the years.
So we are ready to stand and paid losses, wellness app, and you get a premium massively losses that we are ready to kicking in in March because our practices are mature with our underwriters claim, actuarial support, et cetera. So the elevated to respond to that marketplace a little too early to say what will happen with rates or terms and conditions that to rebound.
Again, I'm hoping that it stabilizes and our video Grayson area for us and them being adequate pricing as we speak. So we'd like to say we're at.

Operator

Okay, great. That's really helpful detail. As a reminder, that's star one on your telephone keypad. If there are no further questions, I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Craig Kliethermes, some closing remarks.

Craig Kliethermes

Thanks to everyone who joined us today. The financial results reported yesterday reflect our organizational resiliency, consistent profitability and top line growth, a testament to our diversified specialty product portfolio. Our deep disruptors, maintaining discipline when the market is too soft and I will use to prune unprofitable business necessary are just one commitment to make the best long-term decisions for our customers.
And our shareholders has served us well and differentiates our ownership culture. I'm proud of our associate owners efforts this quarter and particularly our outreach to our customers in need during these recent natural catastrophes, our allies committed to being different because the different continues toward look forward to visiting with you all next quarter.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to access the replay for the school images to the RLI home page at www.rlicorp.com. This concludes our conference for today. Thank you all for participating and have a nice day from parties may now disconnect.