WRB US S&P 500Russell 1000 Earnings call · transcribed from the recording
W. R. Berkley Corporation (WRB) · Q3 2026 results and valuation
Share price: $76.67 · 2026-11-11
W. R. Berkley Corporation is an insurance holding company that provides commercial and specialty personal lines insurance and reinsurance. It serves a diverse customer base across the United States and international markets, including regions in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Source: 10-K annual report (2026-02-27)
Results Q3 2026 vs Q2 2026 · previous quarter · published 19 Oct 2026 and 20 Jul 2026
Management sounded restrained, in its script and in answers to analysts.
1 · Numbers
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No financial figures for this pair
2 · How management spoke
Restrained
Less upbeat than 79% of company calls
Answers to analysts: cautious, in line with the script.
Similar to last call.
3 · What stood out
Figure
Pretax net investment income increased to $384 million in the current quarter, driven by growth in the core portfolio of 12%.
Valuation
Is W. R. Berkley Corporation undervalued?
Reverse DCF on net income from the last full fiscal year (no meaningful free cash flow: a bank, insurer or a year of negative cash flow) (2025-12-31), grown for 10 years, discounted back, plus a terminal value. “Implied growth” is the rate the current price assumes.
At 9.6% growth a year (3-year revenue growth), the model's fair value is $110.29 a share — the stock trades 30% below it. Today's price assumes 4.7% growth a year.
Current price
$76.67
close of 2026-11-11
Market implies growth of iThe yearly free-cash-flow growth, for the next 10 years, that today’s share price already assumes. If you believe the company grows faster than this, the stock is cheap under this model; slower, and it is expensive.
+4.7% for 10 yrs
Fair value / share
$110.29
Buy below
$82.71
Price vs fair value
Undervalued 30%
Price vs buy-below price
Undervalued 7%
Read between the lines
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Figure
W. R. Berkley thinks the reinsurance business is likely going to continue to shrink for the foreseeable at 10% rate, somewhere between 10% and 20%, and that's fine with it.
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Figure
The domestic portfolio sits at just inside of $24 billion, Richie. Is that correct? And today, it has a book yield of about 4.7 or so percent.
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Key theme
As W. R. Berkley's earned premium may begin to slow due to market conditions, the technology will allow us to maintain a level of efficiency that will contain that expense ratio from moving up as it perhaps would have in the past.
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Key theme
At this stage, W. R. Berkley is pleased with the rate that it is able to achieve by and large and how that will maintain or enhance margins.
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Key theme
When W. R. Berkley's colleagues are forming views of how the next quarter or quarters will unfold, there certainly is a component of that around rate, and that can evolve over time.
4 more
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Key theme
Aside from the auto line, W. R. Berkley is seeing signs that the steepness of that trajectory is perhaps abating somewhat or certainly not becoming ever more steep.
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Key theme
That having been said, for it as an organization, W. R. Berkley buys more reinsurance than it sells, so it has a pretty good hedge on that front.
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Key theme
W. R. Berkley thinks that if you look at the commercial property market, that is going to get uglier before it gets prettier, and it thinks that much of the liability-related lines are going to prove to be the opportunity for the foreseeable.
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Figure
The comment that I was making, and perhaps I should have been more specific, is W. R. Berkley's ability to take in submissions and quote them is up by that 20%.
Tone
How upbeat the language was, compared with other companiesiTone counts positive minus negative finance words, adjusted for length. Executives mostly speak positively, so the labels compare each call with every company's latest call: “typical” is the middle third, “very upbeat” the top tenth, “cautious” the bottom tenth.. Dot: Q3 2026. Ring: Q2 2026.
Script and answers carried a similar tone, so the script's message held up under questioning.
Sentences that drove the tone
“As it relates to premium production, the Insurance segment's gross and net premiums written grew 4.9% to a third quarter record of $3.6 billion and 3.2% to a third quarter...”
“Record third quarter underwriting profit of $296 million, combined with double-digit growth in the core investment portfolio, resulted in operating earnings of $456 million or $1.17 per share.”
“From as best as we can tell, we think the insurance business is going to be able to continue to grow all in, barring the unforeseen event, at mid-single digits...”
Full figures
USD · SEC EDGAR XBRL (10-Q, period end 2026-06-30)
| Metric | Q3 2026not yet filed | Q2 2026period end 2026-06-30 | Change | Q3 2025 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | — | 3.72B | 3.77B | ||
| Operating income | — | 575.2M | 648.1M | ||
| Net income | — | 452.3M | 511.0M | ||
| EPS | — | 1.15 | 1.28 | ||
| P/E today 15.9 | — | 14.5 | — | 16.1 | — |
Topics
Most discussed now
- New W. R. Berkley is going to follow its typical agenda where I'm going to offer a couple of very brief macro observations,...
- New W. R. Berkley has some operations that are taking traditional wholesale products, taking it direct to retail.
- Both of W. R. Berkley's segments reported terrific underwriting results in the third quarter.
- W. R. Berkley's strong results in the third quarter were driven from both underwriting and investment performance, contributing to an…
- That's the business mix, if you will.
Faded since Q2 2026
- Fading The company's second best quarterly pretax underwriting income was $318 million and record quarterly pretax net investment income of $419...
- Fading A couple of quick additional comments from me, and then again, W. R. Berkley will be pleased to open it up for...
- Fading It would seem as though that there is a growing amount of catalyst for a shift in behavior, and W. R. Berkley...
- Fading It is much more of a scalpel than a cleaver as to how W. R. Berkley thinks about rate, and it gets...
Latest announcements
Official filings, newest first. Summaries are generated from each filing and its attachment; every figure is checked against the source.
- Results of operations · SEC 8-K
W. R. Berkley Corporation reported a return on equity of 18.4% and operating return on equity of 18.8% for the third quarter of 2026, with net investment income growing to $383.5 million.
- Results of operations · SEC 8-K
- Director or officer change · SEC 8-K
Lucille Sgaglione will resign as Executive Vice President of W. R. Berkley Corporation on June 30, 2026, and transition to a part-time role as Senior Advisor.
- Material agreement; New financial obligation · SEC 8-K
W. R. Berkley Corporation entered into an amendment on June 9, 2026, extending the maturity date of its revolving credit facility from April 1, 2027, to June 9, 2031.
- Other events · SEC 8-K
W. R. Berkley Corporation announced the passing of its founder and Executive Chairman William R. Berkley at age 80 and appointed W. Robert Berkley, Jr. as Chairman.
- Shareholder vote results · SEC 8-K · routine
- Results of operations · SEC 8-K
- Results of operations · SEC 8-K
W. R. Berkley Corporation reported record annual pre-tax underwriting income of $1.2 billion and net premiums written of $12.7 billion for 2025, with net investment income growing 7.2% to $1.4 billion.
Balance sheet & ownership
From SEC filings; short interest is FINRA data via Yahoo. Collected 2026-11-08.
Cash & runway
Cash & equivalents
$2.11B
2026-09-30
Implied runway
—
operating cash flow positive over the TTM window
Dilution
weighted-average basic shares, per quarter. Change: -2.1% YoY, -0.1% QoQ.
| Quarter | Shares |
|---|---|
| Q1 2025 | 396.9M |
| Q2 2025 | 397.0M |
| Q3 2025 | 397.2M |
| Q1 2026 | 392.3M |
| Q2 2026 | 389.2M |
| Q3 2026 | 388.8M |
Shares outstanding: 371.5M (2026-10-26)
Insider transactions
Form 4 open-market trades (codes S/P), trailing 12 months. 35 filings parsed.
Sold by insiders
0 shares
0 transactions
Bought by insiders
10.2M shares
$705.5M · 94 transactions
Net direction
net buying