Kinsale Capital Group Inc

Kinsale's first quarter of 2026 produced a 77.4% combined ratio, meaning for every dollar of premium they collected they paid out only 77 cents in claims and expenses. That is far better than the roughly 95 cents most insurers pay. Operating earnings per share jumped 37.7% year over year to 5 dollars and 11 cents, and annualized operating return on equity hit 24%.

Kinsale is sitting on 5.3 billion dollars in cash and investments earning higher yields. Net investment income climbed 26.5% year over year to 55.4 million dollars in the quarter alone. The portfolio is conservatively built with AA-minus average credit quality and a 4.1 year duration. They also returned cash to shareholders, buying back 62.5 million dollars of stock at an average price near 376 dollars.

The Commercial Property division, one of Kinsale's largest, saw gross written premiums fall 28.3% year over year as bigger insurers pushed back into the specialty space and competed on price. Total gross written premiums actually dipped 0.5% to 482 million dollars. Strip out Commercial Property and the rest grew 6%, but the headline growth is clearly cooling.

Specialty insurance is famously cyclical. When rates across the industry eventually soften, Kinsale's returns will compress with them. This quarter's earnings got a lift from 18.7 million dollars of favorable reserve development, but those releases can reverse, and a bad catastrophe season can hit fast. This is a high-quality compounder, not an immune one.