Category: Insurance

On Genworth

On Genworth

Posted on by David Merkel

Another letter from a reader:

Hi David

Hope you are having a good summer.

Would love to hear your thoughts on recent developments at Genworth.? My sense has always been that LTC care insurance is a really tough business for the underwriter.? How can one possibly know how LTC costs will trend in the future – yet that unknown is what the insurer is agreeing to cover.? And some states aren’t even allowing them to raise prices?? Why would I want any exposure to this!!

Dear Friend,

Yes, LTC [long term ?care] is an ugly liability and it has been consistently underpriced for the last 25+ years. ?This has lad to the demise of some small companies (like Penn Treaty), with many more exiting or limiting the business. ?I try to avoid companies that don’t reserve conservatively, and that has been true of Genworth over the last ten years. ?Both LTC and Mortgage Insurance produced more claims than anticipated.

I’m not saying that things will get worse from here, but I put this in my “too hard” pile. ?I would need a lot more information before committing money to a stock like this. ?There are companies that are easier to understand, that also offer good potential returns.

If you can’t understand it, don’t buy it.

Sincerely,

David

Understanding Insurance Float

Understanding Insurance Float

Posted on by David Merkel

Warren Buffett has made such an impression on value investors and insurance investors, that they think that float is magic. ?Write insurance, gain float, invest cleverly against the float, and make tons of money.

Now, the insurance industry in general?has been?a great place to invest, but we need to think about float differently. ?Float is composed of two things: claim reserves and premium reserves.

  • Claim reserves are the assets set aside to satisfy all claims that likely will be made as of the current date.
  • Premium reserves are the assets set aside representing prepaid premiums that have not been earned yet.

Claim reserves can be long, short or in-between. ?Last night’s article dealt with long claim reserves — asbestos, environmental, etc. ?Those reserves can be invested in stocks, real estate, long bonds, etc. ?But most claim reserves are pretty short, like a year or so for most personal insurance auto & home claims — those typically get settled in a year.

The there are classes of insurance business that are in-between — workers comp, D&O, E&O, commercial liability, business continuation, etc. ?Investing the claim reserves should reflect the length of time it will take until ultimate payoff.

The premium reserves are very short. ?If premiums are paid annually, the average period for the premium reserves?is half a year. ?If premiums are paid more frequently, the average period for the float falls, but the premiums rise disproportionately to reflect the insurance company’s desire to have the full year’s premium on hand. ?It usually makes sense for policyholders to pay at the longest period allowed — thus, thinking about premium reserves as having a ?duration of half a year on average makes sense. ?Except auto — make that a quarter of a year.

Earnings financed by?float should be divided into two pieces — non-speculative, and speculative. ?The non-speculative returns on float reflect what can be earned by investing in high quality bonds that match the time period over which the float will exist. ?Short for premium reserves, longer for claim reserves. ?So, the value of float is this:

Present value of (investment earnings of high quality duration-matched assets plus underwriting gains [or minus losses]).

This is a squishy calculation, because we do not know:

  • the number of years to calculate it over
  • future underwriting gains or losses

The speculative earnings from float come from assuming that float will stay at the same levels or grow over many years, and so the insurer invests more aggressively, assuming that float will be a permanent or growing thing. ?He speculates by financing stocks or whole businesses using the float that could reduce, or that could become more expensive.

How could that happen? P&C insurance often gets very competitive, and the cost of maintaining float in a soft underwriting environment is considerable. ?Also note the claim reserves mean that the company took a loss. ?That the company earns something while waiting to pay the loss does not help much. ?Far better that there were fewer losses and less float.

Smart P&C insurance companies reduce underwriting in soft markets, and in such a time, float will shrink. ?Let aggressive companies undercharge for bad business, and let them choke on it, while we make a little less money.

Well-run insurers let float shrink – they don’t depend on float being the same, much less growing. ?If it does grow, great! ?But don’t invest assuming it will always be there or grow forever. ?That way lies madness.

Berkshire Hathaway has benefited from intelligent underwriting and intelligent investment over a long period. ?That is not normal for insurance companies. ?That is why it has done so well. ?Float is a?handmaiden to good results, but not worth the attention paid to it. ?After all, all?insurance companies have float, but none have done as well as Berkshire Hathaway. ?Better you should focus on underwriting earnings rather than float.

Underwriting insurance produces premium float. ?Underwriting bad business produces claim reserve float. ?Float is not an unmitigated good. ?Good underwriting is an unmitigated good. ?So focus on underwriting, and not float.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-===-

Berkshire Hathaway has been in the fortunate position of having had wise underwriters, and and ability to expand into new markets for many years. ?Guess what, that was AIG up until 2003 or so. ?After that, they could not find more profitable markets to underwrite, and results began to deteriorate. ?They ran up against the limits of their ecosystem.

Buffett is a brighter man than Greenberg; he can consider a greater realm of possibilities in how to run an insurance conglomerate, and the results have been better. ?All that said, there is only so much insurance to underwrite in the world, and big insurers will eventually run out of places to write insurance profitably.

All that said — float is a sideshow. ?Focus on profitable underwriting — that is what drives the best insurers.

 

 

On Berkshire Hathaway and Asbestos

On Berkshire Hathaway and Asbestos

Posted on by David Merkel

Recently, a friend of mine from Canada came to stay with me. ?We talked about a wide number of things, but when we talked about investing, I described insurance investing to him, giving my usual explanation on reserving.

Classical life insurance reserves are a science. ?Death happens with regularity, it is only a question of when. ?Short-tail P&C, health, etc, are almost a science — the claims come quickly, and the reserves get adjusted rapidly. ?Long-tail Casualty and Liability?is a dark art at best. ?Mortgage, financial, and title insurance reserving is?not even an art; there is no good theory behind them, as is true of life insurance products with secondary guarantees, particularly those dealing with variable products.

As an example of long-tail P&C, I told my friend about Berkshire Hathaway and asbestos — I mentioned to him how BRK has become the reinsurer of choice for insurers with uncertain asbestos liabilities. ?Buffett has reinsured White Mountains, AIG, CNA, Equitas. and many others, the most recent being Liberty Mutual, which happened after the talk with my friend.

This is retroactive reinsurance, where an insurer purchases insurance from a reinsurer to cover business previously written. ?This is an uncommon form of insurance, and most commonly used when the amount of claims is very uncertain.

Quoting from the Bloomberg article:

Liberty Mutual Group Inc. issued $750 million of bonds to help finance a payment to a unit of?Warren Buffett?s?Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/B)?for covering the insurance company?s liabilities tied to asbestos.

The 4.85 percent, 30-year notes were sold to yield 160 basis points more than similar-maturity Treasuries, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.?Standard & Poor?s?increased Liberty Mutual?s rating one level to BBB from BBB- after Berkshire?s National Indemnity Co. agreed last week to provide as much as $6.5 billion of coverage for the insurance company?s liabilities for asbestos, environmental and workers? compensation policies.

?This agreement covers Liberty Mutual?s potentially volatile U.S. A&E liabilities and largely mitigates potential risks from future adverse reserve developments,? Tracy Dolin, an S&P analyst, said in a statement.

Berkshire, which has grown over the last five decades by investing insurance premiums in stocks and takeovers, has assumed billions of dollars in asbestos risk from insurers including American International Group Inc. and CNA Financial Corp.

Liberty Mutual paid Omaha, Nebraska-based National Indemnity about $3 billion for the coverage, according to a July 17 company statement.

This is similar to the other deals, where the premium paid is roughly half the amount of what BRK could have ot pay out at maximum. ?Note that BRK has capped its exposure to the claims.? ?If asbestos claims against Liberty Mutual exceed $6.5 Billion, Liberty Mutual will have to pay the excess.

I don’t think there is another American insurance company with more asbestos exposure than BRK. ?That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. ?Let me quote from BRK’s recent 10-K:

We are exposed to environmental, asbestos and other latent injury claims arising from insurance and reinsurance contracts. Liability estimates for environmental and asbestos exposures include case basis reserves and also reflect reserves for legal and other loss adjustment expenses and IBNR [DM: Incurred But Not Reported] reserves. IBNR reserves are based upon our historic general liability exposure base and policy language, previous environmental loss experience and the assessment of current trends of environmental law, environmental cleanup costs, asbestos liability law and judgmental settlements of asbestos liabilities.

The liabilities for environmental, asbestos and other latent injury claims and claims expenses net of reinsurance recoverables were approximately $13.7?billion at December?31, 2013 and $14.0?billion at December?31, 2012. These liabilities included approximately $11.9?billion at December?31, 2013 and $12.4?billion at December?31, 2012 of liabilities assumed under retroactive reinsurance contracts. Liabilities arising from retroactive contracts with exposure to claims of this nature are generally subject to aggregate policy limits. Thus, our exposure to environmental and other latent injury claims under these contracts is, likewise, limited. We monitor evolving case law and its effect on environmental and other latent injury claims. Changing government regulations, newly identified toxins, newly reported claims, new theories of liability, new contract interpretations and other factors could result in significant increases in these liabilities. Such development could be material to our results of operations. We are unable to reliably estimate the amount of additional net loss or the range of net loss that is reasonably possible.

Long tail P&C reserves are roughly 20% of the total gross P&C reserves of BRK, and this deal with Liberty Mutual increases it. ?Again, that’s not a bad thing, necessarily. ?Given the premium paid, even if BRK pays out the maximum on average 10 years from now, the deal is a winner if BRK earns more than 8% per year. ?If 15 years 5.3%. ?If 20 years, 4%. ?Given the long period before the ultimate payment of claims, BRK can make money in most scenarios.

That said, if anything bad ever did happen to BRK,?such that its solvency was impaired, there would be a lot of insurance companies hurting as a result. ?BRK is critical to the payment of asbestos claims. ?There is not a better company to entrust with this task.

Full Disclosure: Long BRK/B for myself and clients — we own the equivalent of one “A” share.

On Fixed Payment Annuities

On Fixed Payment Annuities

Posted on by David Merkel

Before I start, thanks to all those who e-mailed me over my “sorted weekly tweets.” ?I am likely to continue doing them. ?That will start next week, because I have had a flood of new clients, and other obligations.

On Fixed Payment Annuities

How often do you run into articles in quality publications talking about annuities that will pay a fixed sum over your life, or over your life if you live past a certain age? ?Not often, right? ?Right. ?Well, today I got two articles on the same day:

Longevity insurance is an important topic, and everyone should consider getting an income that they can’t outlive. ?That said, there are two problems with this:

  • Inflation, and
  • Credit risk (will the insurer survive to make the payments?)

It is possible to buy inflation-protected annuities, but at a cost of a lower initial payment. ?With credit risk, consider what the state guaranty funds will cover in insolvency, and realize that any payments over that amount could be lost due to insurer insolvency. ?If you have a large payment, only buy from strong insurers.

Then there are the deferred fixed payment annuities. ? You are 50 years old, and you want a payment stream that kicks in when you are 80, should you live so long. ?You can buy a lot of income that far out, which will help you if you survive, subject to the same two main risks: inflation and credit risk. ?I am not aware of any deferred inflation-adjusted payment annuities.

Now, you can think of your annuity as a replacement for long-dated fixed interest bonds. ?A portfolio of fixed payment annuities, cash, maybe some commodities/gold, and stocks could be very stable, balancing the risks of inflation and deflation, and of high and low real rates.

There is the added benefit of the regular income which is useful to average people, who are okay with budgeting, but really don’t understand investments. ?Just beware inflation and credit risk.

One more note: most insurance agents will never suggest immediate annuities to you because when you buy one, that’s the last commission the agent ever gets. ?They would rather you buy a deferred annuity, where they can gain another commission when the surrender charge period is up, and roll you to a new product.

Summary

Longevity insurance is good, but be sure you avoid credit risk, and have other assets to compensate for potential inflation risk.

But They are not Actuaries, nor CFAs

But They are not Actuaries, nor CFAs

Posted on by David Merkel

I am grateful that risk managers inside banks have more clout these days. ?That said, I want it to persist, and the best way to do it is to have risk managers beholden to an ethics code, like actuaries or CFAs.

This is valuable, because the risk manager can point to a body of ethics that says to his manager, “I am sorry, but those of my discipline say that this action is unethical,” when line managers complain that the risk manager is killing business by insisting that certain risk standards should be maintained.

Actuarial risk models cover the life of the business, unlike Wall Street models that measured risk in terms of days. ?Cash flows mater, and the ability to meet the demand for cash matters. ?Long-term risk models tend to surface risks better than short-term models because an intelligent businessman can ask what are the odds that we will have a crisis over the duration of our existing business?

Once on a task force of the Society of Actuaries, when discussing non-traditional actuaries going to Wall Street, I said, “Great idea, but the line managers will eventually kill anyone that gets in their way. ?They don’t want people who have an ethics code. ?It inhibits business.” ?After that, there were some nervous chuckles on the phone, and the conversation moved on.

Ethics codes are needed when the disparity of knowledge between the designers and ultimate consumers/investors/regulators is so great that there are many ways that the consumers/investors/regulators could be cheated.

My view is controversial but simple. ?Every professional?in investing and finance needs to have an ethics code, making them more sensitive to their clients. ?The easy solution is that every investment/finance professional needs to hold?a CFA charter. ?The three exams are pretty minimal, and can be passed by most people with some study. ?Give the actuaries a pass, their exams are far harder — far, far, far harder.

But set some boundary for ethics and examinations of competence, to clean up finance and send the flim-flam men to the edges of the market, where they belong.

 

 

Avoid Illiquidity

Avoid Illiquidity

Posted on by David Merkel

There are several reasons to avoid illiquidity in investing, and some reasons to embrace it. ? Let me go through both:

Embrace Illiquidity

  • You are offered a lot of extra yield for taking on a bond that you can’t easily sell, and where you are convinced that the creditor is impeccable, and there are no sneaky options that you have implicitly sold embedded in the bond to take value away from you.
  • An unusual opportunity arises to invest in a private company that looks a lot better than equivalent public companies and is trading at a bargain valuation with a sound management team.
  • You want income that will last for your lifetime, and so you take some of the money you would otherwise allocate to bonds, and buy a life annuity, giving you some protection against longevity. ?(Warning: inflation and credit risks.)
  • In the past, you bought a Variable Annuity with some good-looking?guarantees. ?The company approaches you to buy out your annuity at a 10-20% premium, or a 20-30% premium if you roll the money into a new variable annuity with guarantees that don’t seem to offer much. ?Either way, turn the insurance company down, and hold onto the existing variable annuity.
  • In all of these situations, you have to treat the money as money lost to present uses. ?If there is any significant probability that you might need the money over the term of the asset, don’t buy the illiquid asset.

Avoid Illiquidity

  • Often the premium yield on an illiquid bond is too low, or the provisions take value away with some level of probability that is easy to underestimate. ?Wall Street does this with structured notes.
  • Why am I the lucky one? ?If you are invited to invest in a private company, be skeptical. ?Do extra due diligence, because unless you bring something more than money to the table (skills, contacts), the odds increase that they are after you for your money.
  • Often the illiquid asset is more risky?than one would suppose. ? I am reminded of the times I was?approached to buy illiquid assets as the lead researcher for a broker-dealer that I served.
  • Then again, those that owned that broker-dealer put all their assets on the line, and ended up losing it all. ?They weren’t young guys with a lot of time to bounce back from the loss. ?They saw the opportunity of a lifetime, and rolled the bones. ?They lost.
  • We tend to underestimate how much we might need liquidity in the future. ?In the mid-2000s people encumbered?their future liquidity by buying houses at inflated prices, and using a lot of debt. ?When everything has to go right, the odds rise that everything will not go right.
  • And yet, there are?two more?more reason to avoid illiquidity — commissions, and inability to know what is going on.

Commissions

Illiquid assets offer the purveyor of the assets the ability to pay a significant commission to their salesmen in order to move the product. ? And by “illiquid” here, I include all financial instruments that carry a surrender charge. ?Do you want to know how much the agent made selling you an insurance product? ?On single-premium products, it is usually very close to the difference between the premium you paid, and the cash surrender value the next day.

Financial companies build their margins into their products, and shave off a portion of them to pay salesmen. ?This not only applies to insurance products, but also mutual funds with loads, private REITs, etc. ?There are many?brokers masquerading as financial advisers, who do not have to?act strictly in the best interests of the client. ?The ability to receive a commission makes them less than neutral in advising, because they can make a lot of money selling commissioned products. ?In general, it is good to avoid buying from commissioned salesmen. ?Rather, do the research, and if you need such a product, try to buy it directly.

Not Knowing What Is Going On

There are some that try to turn a bug into a feature — in this case, some argue that the illiquid asset has no volatility, while its liquid equivalents are more volatile. ?Private REITs are an example here: the asset gets reported at the same price period after period, giving an illusion of stability. ?Public REITs bounce around, but they can be tapped for liquidity easily… brokerage commissions are low. ?Some private REITs take losses and they come as a negative surprise as you find ?large part of your capital missing, and your income reduced.

What I Prefer

In general, I favor liquid investments unless there is a compelling reason to go illiquid. ?I have two private equity investments, both of which are doing very well, but most of my net worth is tied up in my equity investing, which has done well. ?I like the ability to make changes as time goes along; there is value to being able to look forward, and adjust.

No one knows the future, but having some slack capital available to invest, like Buffett with his “elephant gun,” allows for intelligent investing when liquidity is scarce, and yet you have some. ?Many wealthy people run a liquidity “barbell.” ?They have a concentrated interest in one company, and balance that out by holding very safe cash equivalents.

So, in closing, avoid illiquidity, unless you don’t need the money, and the reward is very, very high for making that fixed commitment.

Post 2500: What is the Aleph Blog About?

Post 2500: What is the Aleph Blog About?

Posted on by David Merkel

Every hundred or so posts, I take a step back, and try to think about broader issues about blogging about finance. ?Tonight, I want to explain to new readers what the Aleph Blog is about.

There have been many new followers added to my blog recently, ?through e-mail, RSS, and natively. ?This is because of this great article at Marketwatch, which builds off of this great article at Michael Kitces’ blog.

I am humbled to be included among Barry Ritholtz, Josh Brown, and Cullen Roche, and am genuinely surprised to be at number 4 among RIAs in social media influence. ?Soli Deo Gloria.

What Does the Aleph Blog Care About?

I’m writing this primarily for new readers, because I’ve written a lot, and over a lot of areas. ?I write about a broader range of topics than almost all finance bloggers do because:

  • I’m both a quantitative analyst and a qualitative analyst.
  • I’m an economist that is skeptical about the current received wisdom.
  • I like reading books, so I write a lot of book reviews.
  • I’m also a skeptic regarding Modern Portfolio Theory, and would like to see it discarded from the CFA and SOA syllabuses.
  • I believe in value investing, in both the quantitative and qualitative varieties.
  • I believe that risk control is a core concept for making money — you make more money by not losing it.
  • I believe that good government policy focuses on ethics, not results. ?The bailouts were not fair to average Americans. ?What would have been fair would have been to let the bank/financial holding companies fail, while protecting the interests of depositors. ?The taxpayers would have been spared, and there would have been no systematic crisis had that been done.
  • I care about people not getting cheated. ?That includes penny stocks, structured notes, private REITs, and many other financial innovations. ?No one on Wall Street wants to do you a favor, so do your own research and buy what you want to own, not what someone wants to sell you.
  • Again, I don’t want to see people cheated, so I write about ?insurance. ?As a former actuary, and insurance buy-side analyst, I know a lot about insurance. ?I don’t know this for sure, but I think this is the blog that writes the most about insurance on the web for free. ?I write as one that invests in insurance stocks, and generally, I buy the stocks because I like the management teams. ?Ethical, hard working insurance management teams do the best.
  • Oddly, this is regarded to be a good accounting blog, because as a user of accounting statements, I write about accounting issues.
  • I am a skeptic on monetary and fiscal policy, and believe both of them tend to sacrifice the future to benefit the present. ?Our grandchildren will hate us. ? That brings up another issue: I write about the effects of demographics on the markets. ?In a world where populations are shrinking in developed nations, and will be shrinking globally by 2040, there are significant economic impacts. ?Economies don’t do well when workers are shrinking in proportion to those who are not working. ?(Note: include stay-at-home moms and dads in those who work. ?They are valuable.)
  • I care about the bond market. ?There aren’t that many good bond market blogs. ?I won’t write about it every day, but I will write about i when it is important.
  • I care about pensions. ?Most of the financial media knows things are screwed up there, but they do not grasp how bad the eventual outcome will likely be. ?This is scary stuff — choose the state you live in with care.

Now, if you want my most basic advice, visit my personal finance category.

If you want my view of what my best articles have been, visit my best articles category.

If you want to read about my “rules,” read the rules category.

Maybe you want to read some of my most popular series:

My blog is not for everyone. ?I write about what I feel most strongly about each evening. ?Since I have a wide array of interests, that makes for uneven reading, because not everyone cares about all the things that I do. ?If that makes my readership smaller, so be it. ?My blog expresses my point of view; it is not meant to be the largest website on finance. ?I want to be special, even if that means small, expressing my point ?of view to those who will listen.

I thank all of my readers for reading me. ?I appreciate all of you, and thank you for taking the time to read me.

As one final comment, I need to say this. ?I note people unfollowing my blog at certain times, and I say to myself, “Oh, I haven’t been writing about his pet issue for a while.” ?Lo, and behold, after these people leave, I start writing about it again. ?That is not intentional, but it is very similar to how the market works. ? People buy and sell investments at the wrong times.

To all my readers, thank you for reading me. ?I value all of you, and though I can’t answer all e-mails, I read all e-mails.

In summary: the Aleph Blog is about ethics and competence. ?I want to do what is right, and do what gives the best investment performance, in that order.

 

Questions from Readers

Questions from Readers

Posted on by David Merkel

Miscellaneous questions post — here goes:

Thank you very much for your blog! I am hooked since I found it and have been getting smarter by the day!

I like Safety Insurance Group, found it through your blog, noticed you were no longer long. They don’t do life insurance, just cars and houses – I know you say not to mix because they are sold and underwritten differently. They had a rough Q1 but a good 2013, seems like the winter Mass weather might have done it. They are over Book of 1 so there are other insurers that are cheaper, but they look like a good compliment to NWLI (also found through you and like very much) in the auto space, in a small (and thus dominate-able) market.?

Am I missing something about SAFT??

Many sincere thanks David!

I like the management team at Safety Insurance. ?When I met with them years ago, they impressed me as bright businessmen competing well in one of the most dysfunctional insurance markets in the US — Massachusetts. ?Most major insurers did not write auto and home insurance there as a result. ?But then the state of Massachusetts began to loosen up their tight regulations, and some of the bigger insurers that stayed away have entered — GEICO, MetLife, Liberty Mutual, etc.

When the market was more closed, SAFT had strategies that allowed them to profitably take market share Commerce Group [now Mapfre]. ?With more competition in Massachusetts, Safety’s earnings have suffered. ?I can’t get excited about a short tail P&C insurer trading above book at 13-14x forecast earnings.

Maybe people are buying it for the 4%+ dividend. ?I don’t use dividend yield as an investment criteria, for the most part. ?I would avoid Safety Insurance. ?It’s well-run, but the price of the stock is too high. ?If it drops below $35, it would be a compelling buy.

Hi David,

I was interested in your comment on Normalized Operating Accruals as an indicator of accounting quality.

Why is this?

I tend to view changes in accruals as an indication of the underlying strength of a business, but would appreciate your insight on this.

Thanks

The idea behind net?operating accruals is that accrual entries represent future cash flows, which are less certain than cash flows that have already happened. ?Companies that report high levels of accounts receivable, inventories, etc., as a fraction of assets or earnings, tend to offer negative earnings surprises, because many of those accruals will not convert to cash as expected.

Here is how I measure Net Operating Accruals:

(Total assets – Cash ?- (Total liabilities – Short-term debt – Preferred stock – Long-term debt))/Total assets (or earnings)

An apology here, because the term commonly used is “net operating accruals” and I messed up by calling it “normalized.”

Companies with conservative accounting (fewer accruals) tend to have stronger earnings than those that are more liberal in revenue recognition.

Dave, you and I are too old school. We need to move into this century. The way that most people seem to get into the investment industry has nothing to do with what you talk about. It is far easier to become a “financial advisor” that pushes annuities on the 60+ crowd. You don’t really have to learn anything about investing. All you need to know is about salesmanship. Offer a free lunch/dinner and reel them in!

I honestly think that more folks are going this route instead of the “hard way” you have outlined. . .

Maybe you can do a sarcastic post: “How to NOT be valuable, but make a lot of money in the Investment Business.”

Personally I find the annuity and non-traded REIT pushers very repulsive. At the same time, I know several of them that have done very well . . .

There are two factors at work here — yield and illiquidity. ?The need for yield is driven by monetary policy. ?Particularly with a?sizable?increase in retirees, many of whom can’t make enough “income” when interest rates are so low, they take undue risks to get “income,” not realizing the risks of capital loss that they are taking.

When I was an analyst/manager of Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities, there was a key fact one needed to understand: safe mortgages?do not depend on whether the businesses leasing the properties operate well or not. ?Safe mortgages have no operational risk, and thus avoid theaters, marinas, etc. ?Stick to the four food groups: Multifamily, Retail, Office, and Industrial.

There will be negative events with insecure investments offering a high yield. ?You may not get the return of your money, as you try to get a high return on your money.

Then there is the illiquidity — that is what allows the sponsors the ability to pay high commissions to those who sell the annuities and non-traded REITs. ?Because the investors can’t leave the game, the income stream of the sponsor is very certain. ?They take a portion of the anticipated income stream, and pay it in a lump sum to their agents as a commission. ?And that is why the agents are so highly motivated.

Eventually, the demand for yield will be disappointed. ?Uncertain yields will fail in a crisis, and reset much lower. ?Income that stems from dividends, preferred dividends, MLPs, junk bonds, structured notes, etc., is not secure in the short-to-intermediate run. ?It is far better to invest to grow value than to invest for income. ?They can pay you a yield, sure, but if the underlying value is not growing, you will eventually get capital losses, and after that, much less yield.

Look for safety in yield investments. ?If you are going to take risks in investing, take risk, but ignore the income component. ?Don’t stretch for yield.

Unlikely Bid for Tower Group

Unlikely Bid for Tower Group

Posted on by David Merkel

Tuesday, a subsidiary of Eurohold Group, Euroins Insurance Group, announced a $3.75 bid for Tower Group. ?I think it is bogus. ?Here’s why:

  • At the price they are paying, they are offering more than their net worth to buy Tower Group $215MM vs $190MM.
  • They would pay a 2x+ premium over book to buy Tower when they trade at ~70% of book.
  • They have no overlapping lines, geographically. ?It would be cheaper for Eurohold to buy a Bermuda shell and poach some talent, if what they want to do is diversify.
  • TWGP isn’t even worth the $2.50 that ACP Re is offering.
  • The language in the “offer” is weaker than that of many “letters of intent” I have read, much less a binding offer.

Now, let me take one step back, and say that the numbers I calculated above derive from documents written in Bulgarian that I have translated mechanically. ?I may have made mistakes.

Also, a fool and his money are soon parted. ?If Eurohold is foolish, a bid could be made where economics doesn’t matter. ?After all of my dealings with foreign insurers, I have seen many ill-thought-out deals.

Kudos to the guy who sold near $3 on Tuesday. ?He got the best outcome out of this sordid mess. ?Opposite for the one that bought.

As for me, I have no position. ?I rarely short, and there is no significant margin of safety in owning TWGP. ?The odds of the operating subsidiaries as a group?having not enough surplus?to exceed?the?relevant company action level risk based capital??for the group as a whole is not high, but is not zero. ?That is the one condition that can break the $2.50 deal with ACP Re.

Now let’s see how the first quarter earnings come in. ?That will say a lot.

As an aside, the bonds of Tower Group offer about as much upside, and less downside than the equity does, if the ACP Re deal is the only real deal.

 

Yet Another Letter from a Reader

Yet Another Letter from a Reader

Posted on by David Merkel

I get a lot of interesting letters — here is another one:

First, let me say how much I appreciate your blog. I started my career in sellside research covering life insurers (after interning in insurance M&A). Your posts on insurance investing were invaluable in developing my understanding of the industry. My superiors did not have time to teach me the basics – I would have had a hard time getting started without your blog.?

?I’m now in equity research at a large mutual fund company, also covering insurers (and asset managers). However, I do not have an actuarial background. So I am very interested in why you think financial & mortgage insurers don’t have an actuarially sound business models.?

?And as a former life insurance analyst, I am curious what aspect of life insurance reserving you view as liberal – I’m guessing secondary guarantees on VAs??

?Finally, to digress, do you have any views on medical malpractice insurance? I’ve been looking at PRA, and find it pretty compelling at first glance: massive excess capital, consistently conservative and profitable underwriting, and a relatively reasonable valuation. 90% of policies are claims made. There are headwinds: Obamacare, the reserve releases from mid-2000s accident years rolling off, and a diversifying business model (although PRA has historically proven competent at M&A). My only concerns are management continuing to underwrite at too low a level (currently writing at 0.32x NPW / Equity; regulators would be fine with up to 1.0x), and potentially squandering that capital.?

In the interest of full disclosure, I own no insurance stocks personally for compliance reasons.

Thanks for writing. ?Let’s start with mortgage and financial insurance. ?It’s not that there isn’t a good way to calculate the risk (in most cases), it is that they do not choose to use those models. ?The regulators do not subscribe to contingent claims theory. ?They do not look at default as an option, even if it is not efficiently exercised. ?They should use those models, and assume efficient execution of default risk.

Even if they use approximations, the recent crisis should have forced reserves higher for mortgage credit, and other credit exposures.

Credit and mortgage insurers are bull market stocks. ?When I was a bond manager, I sold away my few financial insurer bonds from MBIA and Ambac, and avoided the mortgage insurers. ?The possibility of default was far higher than he market believed.

With respect to Life Insurers, it is secondary guarantees of all sorts, especially with variable products. ?Options that have a long duration are hard to price. ?Options?that have a long duration, and involve significant contingencies where insureds may make choice hurting the insurer are impossible to price.

On Medmal, I have always liked PRA, but it has never been cheap enough for me to buy it. ?Always thought they were the best of the pure plays. ?They have survived many other companies by their clever management. ?I would not begrudge them their conservatism, Medmal is volatile, and it pays to be conservative in volatile businesses.

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