“I know there's headlines about that today that it seems to be making some progress,” said president and CEO Janelle Frost during a conference call to discuss second quarter results.
“Certainly, there are things within that bill that we believe will be beneficial to Amerisafe,” said Frost.
She pointed to the reported outline of the bill: $100bn to spend on roads and bridges, $65bn for broadband, and $17bn for ports and more.
“All things that we think could fall within Amerisafe’s wheelhouse, in terms of industries that we insure, and could be beneficial to small to midsize employers.”
The level of optimism about these projects reflects ongoing optimism in the economic recovery, despite worries about the pandemic resurging, Frost said.
“Certainly, we, like everyone else in the country, [are] concerned about the Delta variant and the surge there, both from a public health standpoint, and what it could mean to the industry,” the CEO said.
But she reflected that the industry fared better than was expected early in the outbreak. “We don't see the Delta variant, for at least from an industry-wide or from the business side of things, hopefully not being that impactful,” she said.
That said, Frost noted that the reopening of the economy was expected to enable agents to get back out in the field and build up its pipeline.
The Louisiana-based company was unable to build up policy count during the second quarter, Frost noted, reversing an uptick in the first quarter.
“I don't know that there's a trend that I would point to there,” Frost said. There was no shift in the market and the level of competition remained the same, she said.
Amerisafe reported an 8.2% decline in gross premiums written for the three months ended June 30, to $73.7mn, reflecting lower voluntary premiums on policies written in the quarter, due to a continued decline in approved loss costs. Net premiums earned fell 8% to $69.9mn.
Favorable development and a decline in its expense ratio pushed the combined ratio for the second quarter down 4.1 points to 74.4%.
