Cincinnati Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: CINF) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated Feb. 10, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Dennis E. McDaniel — Investor Relations Officer
Stephen M. Spray — President and Chief Executive Officer
Michael J. Sewell — Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President and Treasurer
Steven A. Soloria — Chief Investment Officer and Executive Vice President
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Michael Phillips — Analyst
Jon Paul Newsome — Analyst
Michael Zaremski — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Okay, gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Today’s conference call will begin momentarily. Until that time, your lines will again be placed on a music hold. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for standing by. My name is Jordan and I’ll be your conference operator today. At this time, I’d like to welcome everyone to the Cincinnati Financial fourth quarter and full year earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you’d like to ask a question during this time, simply press STAR followed by the number one on your telephone keypad.
If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I’d now like to turn the call over to Dennis McDaniel, investor relations officer. Please go ahead.
Dennis E. McDaniel — Investor Relations Officer
Hello, this is Dennis McDaniel at Cincinnati Financial. Thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. Late yesterday we issued a news release on our results along with our supplemental financial package including our year end investment portfolio. To find copies of any of these documents, please visit Our investor website, investors.sinfin.com the shortest route to the information is a quarterly results section near the middle of the Investor Overview page. On this call, you’ll first hear from President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Spray and then from Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Mike Mike Sewell.
After their prepared remarks, investors participating on the call may ask questions. At that time. Some responses may be made by others in the room with us, including Executive Chairman Steve Johnston, Chief Investment Officer Steve Soloria and Cincinnati Insurance’s Chief Claims Officer Mark Schambeau and Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance Andy Schnell. Please note that some of the matters to be discussed today are forward looking. These forward looking statements involve certain risks and uncertain. With respect to these risks and uncertainties, we direct your attention to our news release and to our various filings with the sec.
Also, a reconciliation of non GAAP measures was provided with the news release. Statutory accounting data is prepared in accordance with statutory accounting rules and therefore is not reconciled to gaap. Now I’ll turn over the call to Steve.
Stephen M. Spray — President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning and thank you for joining us today to hear more about our results. Thank you. We had another excellent quarter of operating performance that again demonstrated the resilience of our proven operating model and the long term strategy that drives our insurance business. Investment results were also part of that excellent performance including investment income growth and another quarter with net investment gains. Operating performance was very strong for the fourth quarter and boosted full year results enough to outperform last year in several key areas. Despite starting 2025 with the largest catastrophe loss in our company’s history, net income of $2.4 billion for full year 2025 was 4% higher than 2024.
Fourth quarter net income of $676 million rose 67% and included recognition of $145 million on an after tax basis for the increase and fair value of equity securities still held non GAAP Operating income for the quarter increased 7% to $531 million for full year 2025. It was up 5% from a year ago. Our fourth quarter 2025 property casualty combined ratio was an outstanding 85.2%. It lowered the full year combined ratio to 94.9% near the midpoint of our long term average target range. The full year ratio was 1.5 percentage points higher than last year, driven by an increase of 1.6 points in the catastrophe loss ratio.
On a current accident year basis measured at 12 months before catastrophe losses, the combined ratio improved by 0.4 percentage points. The loss and loss expense portion would have improved slightly if not for the unfavorable effect of 0.2% 3 points from reinsurance reinstatement premiums. Consolidated property casualty net written premiums continued to grow but at a slower pace. 5% for the quarter that reflects our pricing discipline in the insurance marketplace as our underwriters carefully consider risks on a policy by policy basis and use pricing precision tools to segment those risks as part of their underwriting decisions. Estimated average renewal price increases for most lines of business during the fourth quarter were lower than the third quarter of 2025 but still at a level we believe was healthy.
Our standard and excess and surplus commercial lines business averaged increases in the mid single digit percentage range. Our personal lines segment included homeowner in the low double digit range and personal auto in the high single digit range. We believe our relationships with independent agencies are as strong as ever and that they will continue to trust us with their high quality new business. The fourth quarter 2025 decrease in new business written premiums was driven by our personal lines segment that had unusually large amounts the past two years. However, the $92 million for the quarter was still 62% more than the average of the three years prior to 2023.
Policy retention rates in 2025 were similar to 2024. Our commercial line segment was down slightly but still in the upper 80% range. Our personal lines segment was also down slightly but still in the low to mid 90% range. Performance by insurance segment is the next area I’ll highlight, focusing on full year 2025 results compared to with 2024. But first I’ll note that all operating units had an excellent fourth quarter profitability, each with combined ratios below 90%. Commercial lines 91.1% combined ratio for the year improved by 2.1 percentage points, including a decrease of 1.9 points in the catastrophe loss ratio.
Its net written premiums grew 7%. Personal lines 103.6% combined ratio for 2025 increased by 6.1 percentage points, including an increase of 7.1 points. In the catastrophe loss ratio, its net written premiums grew 14%. Excess and surplus lines 88.4% combined ratio for the year improved by 5.6 percentage points, including a decrease of 1 point in the catastrophe loss ratio. Its net written premiums grew 11%. Both Cincinnati Re and Cincinnati Global produced strong results and again demonstrated the benefits of diversifying risk to improve income stability. Cincinnati Re’s combined ratio for the year was 95.9%. Its 1% decrease in net written premiums reflects changing reinsurance market conditions.
Cinsan Global’s combined ratio for 2025 was 79.2% with premium growth of 10%. Benefiting from product expansion, our life insurance subsidiary increased annual net income by 16% and grew term life insurance earned premiums by 3%. Moving on to our reinsurance seeded programs, on January 1st of this year we again renewed each of our primary property casualty treaties that transfer part of our risk to reinsurers. For our per risk treaties terms and conditions for 2026 are fairly similar to 2025. Other than an average premium rate decrease of approximately 7%. The primary objective of our property catastrophe treaty is to protect our balance sheet.
The treaty’s main change this year is increasing the top of the program to $2 billion compared with $1.8 billion effective July 1, 2025. Should we experience a 2026 catastrophe event totaling $2 billion in losses, we’ll retain $523 million compared with $803 million for an event of that magnitude during the second half of last year. We expect 2026 ceded premiums for these treaties in total to be approximately $204 million, with the increase from the actual $192 million in 2025 driven by additional coverage and subject premium growth. As usual, I’ll conclude my prepared remarks with the value creation ratio.
Our 18.8% full year 2025 VCR exceeded our 5 year annual average target range of 10 to 13% on a full year basis. Net income before investment gains or losses contributed 9.1% higher. Overall valuation of our investment portfolio and other items contributed 9.7%. Now Chief Financial Officer Mike Sewell will highlight investment results and other important points about our financial performance.
Michael J. Sewell — Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President and Treasurer
Thank you, Steve thanks to all of you for joining us today. Investment income was a significant contributor to higher net income and improved operating results, rising 9% for the fourth quarter and 14% for the full year 2025. Compared with the same periods of last year. Bond interest income grew 10% for the fourth quarter and net purchases of fixed maturity securities totaled $1.6 billion for the full year 2025. The fourth quarter pre tax average yield of 4.92% for the fixed maturity portfolio was similar to last year. The average pre tax yield for the total of purchased taxable and tax exempt bonds during 2025 was 5.6%.
Dividend income for the quarter matched last year even without the repeat of a $6 million special dividend from December 2024. Net purchases of equity securities totaled $74 million for the year. Valuation changes in aggregate for the fourth quarter and the year were favorable for both the equity portfolio and our bond portfolio before tax effects. The fourth quarter net gain was $181 million for the equity portfolio and $24 million for the bond portfolio. At the end of the fourth quarter, the total investment portfolio net appreciated value was approximately $8.4 billion. The equity portfolio was in a net gain position of $8.5 billion, while the fixed maturity portfolio was in a net loss position of $181 million.
Cash flow from Successful insurance and investment activities continue to fuel investment income. Cash flow from operating activities for full year 2025 was $3.1 billion, up 17%. Regarding expense management, our strategy continues to seek a good balance between controlling expenses and investing in our business. Our fourth quarter 2025 property casualty underwriting expense ratio decreased by 0.2 percentage points as an increase in agency profit sharing commissions was offset by growth in earned premiums, outpacing growth in other expenses. Turning to loss reserves, our approach remains consistent and aims for net amounts in the upper half of the actuarially estimated range of net loss and loss expense reserves.
As we do each quarter, we consider new information such as paid losses and case reserves. Then we updated estimated ultimate losses and loss expenses by accident year and line of business. During 2025, our net addition to property casualty loss and loss expense reserves was $1.3 billion, including $1.1 billion for the IBNR portion for current accident year loss, loss expenses before catastrophe effects and measured at 12 months. Several of our major lines of businesses had 2025 ratios better than 2024. The main exception was Commercial Casualty rising 4.2 percentage points. That reflects ongoing uncertainty, including potential negative effects of legal system abuse.
We and others in the industry have noted in recent years. We remain confident with our pricing and risk selection for this line of business. For prior accident years, we experienced $196 million of property casualty net favorable reserve development during 2025 that benefited the combined ratio by 2.0 percentage points on an all lines basis by accident year. Net reserves developed during 2025 included a favorable $275 million for 24, favorable $8 million for 23, and an unfavorable $87 million in aggregate for accident years per prior to 23. As usual, I’ll conclude with capital management highlights for the full year 2025, we return capital to shareholders totaling $730 million, including $525 million of dividends paid and $205 million of share repurchases.
We repurchase approximately 1.44 million shares at an average price of $151 per share, including 651,000 shares during the fourth quarter at $157 per share. We continue to believe our financial flexibility and our financial strength are both in an excellent position. Parent company cash and marketable securities at quarter end was $5.6 billion. Debt to total capital remained under 10%. Our quarter end book value was a record high $102 million $102.35 per share with $15.9 billion of GAAP consolidated shareholders equity providing plenty capacity for profitable growth of our insurance operations. Now I’ll turn the call back over to Steve.
Stephen M. Spray — President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Mike. Before we get to Q and A, I want to share our efforts related to intelligent automation. As most of you have heard us say before, our vision is to be the best company serving independent agents. Strategies we undertake must ladder up to improving the experience for the independent agents we serve and their clients. We are embracing intelligent automation to improve processes across our technology ecosystem. Generative AI is certainly a part of it, but it’s only one aspect. Our work began with improvements to our data architecture, giving us a rich understanding of our risks and how we could shape our entire insurance portfolio for the future.
We use workflow tools in each insurance segment that organize data and automate certain activities in writing new business or in other transactions that experience formed a deep pool of talented associates with the knowledge, skills and desire to continue our journey into Generative AI. Most importantly, these associates are also insurance experts. We’ve created an AI center of Excellence which is harnessing cloud provider large language models to create internal solutions that can be then that can then be easily replicated throughout our company for fast scalability. We have a number of projects completed and even more on the roadmap.
Let me share an example. Using generative AI, we created a proprietary chatbot that our commercial lines underwriters use to obtain reference information and find answers that assist with underwriting decisions. We are concentrating on using Genai to gain efficiency that leads to meaningful productivity gains for our associates. We’re optimizing their efforts, allowing them to add more value to our business, deepening relationships, sharing expertise and focusing their energy on the most complex underwriting and claims decisions. As we continue to weave Gen AI into our business, we expect to see additional impacts to our profitability and growth. As a reminder with Mike and me today are Steve Johnston, Steve Soloria, Mark Schambeau and Andy Schnell Jordan, please open the call for questions.
Questions and Answers:
operator
As a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question, press Star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from Michael Phillips from Oppenheimer. Your line is live.
Michael Phillips
Thank you. Good morning everybody. I guess I did want to start with the commercial casualty line. Mike, I heard your comments on the uncertainty and the legal system abuse. You know, I think it’s been pretty common for everybody for a while. I guess pricing seems to be getting softer for commercial casualty for the industry, maybe not necessarily for you, but at least for your peers. So I guess just as we think about 26 and your 2025 number of I guess 76, 8 or 77%. You know how much confidence do you that number not continuing to creep up from here or hopefully holding flat or maybe improving just confidence around that given what is a bit of a softer market today than it was the last couple years.
Thanks.
Stephen M. Spray
Yeah Mike, Steve Spray let me. I can start and then if Mike wants to add some additional thoughts, he can as well. Just to your to the softness in the pricing I think the we did see just I’ll say I’ll speak to maybe overall commercial pricing there in the fourth quarter. We did see it start to get more competitive pretty quickly in the fourth quarter on a package basis. All lines. Now most of that was driven by commercial property, but I think again as a package company, the auto and the casualty kind of Got drawn into that.
I can understand somewhat the property softening just given the results of the industry. And you can see Cincinnati’s results as well. I just think there’s lost cost headwind, particularly in casualty, as Mike mentioned on the legal system abuse, commercial auto. So I think that the pricing is going to hold up. We’re confident in the future for 2026. We’re confident that our rates, our pricing are exceeding loss costs in all lines except for workers compensation. The only other thing I might add there, Mike, and we talk about it in, you know, in prior quarters, is if you look at the average rate increase for Cincinnati, I’ll just speak to Cincinnati.
It just doesn’t tell the entire picture. Our underwriters, both on new and renewals, have been executing now for years on, on using the sophisticated tools they have to segment the business. The accounts we write, risk by risk. And when you get into a market like we’re in and you have commercial results like we have 14 consecutive years of underwriting profit, I think it only stands to reason that the average net rate is going to be, be under pressure. We have, you know, we have fewer accounts that are underpriced or that need aggressive action. And then on the business that’s most adequately, adequately priced, we’re coaching our teams to make sure they do whatever they need to do to keep that business.
And so sometimes when the market gets a little softer, we have to give up a little rate on that. But again, in my opening remarks, I said we’re still confident in the risk selection and the overall pricing we think is very healthy in the commercial book too.
Michael Phillips
Okay. Yes, Steve, thank you for all that. That’s helpful. I appreciate the comments. Second question is on your tech investments. And you’ve talked to this for a while and one of the benefits that you’ve talked about is more accurate pricing, I guess. Do you see those investments and the one comment of more accurate pricing, is that more applicable to you in personal lines versus commercial lines or is it kind of the same? Do you apply that to both? Should it be applied to both? How do you think about that from the two sides of the fence there? Thank you.
Stephen M. Spray
Yeah, we definitely apply it to both. You know, like I just mentioned, you know, our overall, you know, our overall combined ratio as a company now, 14 consecutive years of underwriting profit. And for someone who’s been here for 34 plus years, grew up as an underwriter, I can tell you we’ve always had this culture of continuous improvement. We’ve gotten better at risk selection. We’ve gotten better at loss control, loss mitigation, we’ve got better at claims management. But from my seat, that’s always been linear. And the pricing sophistication and segmentation that we instituted back roughly 2011, 2012, that has been exponential in the improvement in the results of Cincinnati Insurance.
And it is in commercial lines, it’s in personal lines. It runs through other areas of our business as well. It’s probably been more pronounced in the improvement in commercial lines over the years, but the sophisticated pricing is probably even more important in middle market personal lines and specifically personal auto. So, you know, if you can see the ex CAT accident year continuing to improve in personal lines and that’s heading in the right direction and we need it. We need that too. CAT has been, we’ve had a lot of volatility, a lot of variability around cat, and we think there’s still room for improvement across all lines of business, actually, but probably more importantly in personal lines.
Michael Phillips
Okay, thank you, Steve. Appreciate that.
Stephen M. Spray
Thank you. Mike.
operator
Your next question comes from the line of Paul Newsom from Piper Sandler. Your line is live.
Jon Paul Newsome
Good morning. Thanks for the call. You guys are. Well, I want to follow up a little bit on the commercial competition question that Mike asked and maybe some thoughts. Is it still very much large versus small, with the competition you’re seeing in the fourth quarter incrementally changing towards still just the large folks, or are we seeing it creep down into smaller accounts over time? And similarly, I want to see if there’s any sort of thoughts you had or observations you had related to the kind of source of that incremental competition. Is it, you know, is it just across the board or are we seeing some emergence in some folks that maybe aren’t necessarily terribly disciplined carriers or MGAs or whoever?
Stephen M. Spray
Yeah, Paul, I would say yes, it’s still, is still, I would say, leaning towards larger accounts and then even there I’d be, say more specifically towards large property. But like I mentioned, you know, it’s gotten more competitive in the middle market space for sure. And I think that is what you’re, what you’re seeing there too. But let me, let me maybe, let me maybe put this in perspective a little bit too and see if this, if this helps. If you look over the last three or four years, we were in unprecedented hard market, I’d say, for my, for my career, particularly in personal lines.
And with our financial strength, we were able to really help our agents continue to write business through that hard market and be there in a really dislocated market. Let me just give you, Let me give you. I hate, I hate the tough comp thing because it sounds like an excuse. So that’s not what I’m driving at here. 2024 was just an extraordinary year when it comes to new business, both for personal lines and commercial lines. And if you look at, if you just look at the. At 2025 over 2023, commercial lines, new business is up 31%.
25 over 23 for purse lines, new business, we’re up 14%. 2025 over 2023. For ENS, up 30%. If you consolidate those three, 25 was up over 25% over 2023. So on an actual basis, we are still really pleased with the new business business. We’re able to write it at pricing that we feel is adequate and that it’s healthy and that we’re happy with. So a little bit of this softening is just coming off, you know, I’d say a pretty extraordinary hard market. And again, we were able to grow through that because the relationships we have with our agents, because of our financial strength, you know, Cincinnati insurance companies since 2018, on an all lines basis, we’ve doubled net written premiums since 2018 from just a little over 5 billion to now over 10 billion in net written premium.
Personal lines more than doubled in the last four years. So that just kind of frames it, Paul. Hopefully, the way we’re looking at it, the way I’m looking at it, really strong growth for the company. I think this is a natural slowdown. And one thing I can promise you is we’re going to maintain discipline through all cycles when it comes to risk selection and pricing. And I couldn’t be, I couldn’t be more proud of the underwriters, both on the new business and on the renewal and the way they’re executing with what I think are the most professional agents in the business.
Jon Paul Newsome
That makes a lot of sense. A second question different. Where are we in the process for de risking on the personal line side? You know, you mentioned California. I think it’s maybe mentioned it’s a little bit broader than that. But where are we in that process? Are we kind of done. Are we have a few quarters to go before all this works itself out and then you can’t. So we get out of some of those policies?
Stephen M. Spray
Yeah, yeah, Paul, we are, we are well into the process. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be able to give you a view on if we’re, you know, for a quarter or two or three or four away I can just tell you from my perspective, we’re well into it on the metrics we’re using. We’re exceeding the expectations that we’ve, we have for ourselves at this point in the process. You know, there we had moratoriums on certain areas for new business. You know, we’re, you know, we’re working with the state of California and we’ll continue to do that as, as well.
But you know, as far as lessons learned in California, I think it really boils down to it’s just a new view of risk, I think both for us and for the industry on what a really bad day can look like and aggregations. And so that’s where our focus has been, terms, conditions and pricing on our ENS homeowner business in California. Whether it’s post loss or pre loss, we still feel really good about where we are there.
Jon Paul Newsome
Great. Appreciate the help as always. Thank you guys.
Stephen M. Spray
Thank you. Paul.
operator
Your next question comes from the line of Mike Zaremski from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is live.
Michael Zaremski
Hey, great, thanks. In terms of the new reinsurance program that you detailed, should we embed lower top line impact in the income statement, maybe specifically on personal lines?
Michael J. Sewell
You know, on the, this is Mike and thanks for the question, Mike. You know, on our, the CAT program is really applicable to both commercial and personal. So in 2025 you saw a huge benefit that the CAAT program had on our personal line side. So, you know, it, I won’t say maybe it matters on which one gets hit first. First depending on what, you know, the CAT is. But we still have a reinstatement 1 reinstatement, generally speaking on the overall CAT program. So that would cover us for a second loss. But as Steve mentioned, if we do have a, you know, $2 billion loss this year compared to last year, that’d be 26.
Compared to 25, we would have a lower amount that we would be out in the, in the current, in the current year with the, the improved coverage up to 2 billion.
Stephen M. Spray
Mike. Steve Spray. The only thing I might add is that as I said, my prepared remarks too is that the overall rate on that property cat program was down 7% even with the additional coverage.
Michael Zaremski
Okay, that’s a good clarification then. Okay, so we shouldn’t be, I shouldn’t be kind of impacting the premium, the cost for that in the model. Okay, that’s good to hear about the upsized protection could be switching gears to, you know, workers comp. You know, the answer might just be, you know, you guys are booking really Conservatively on an accident year basis. But you know, if I just look at what your looking at it, it continues to increase year over year. Obviously a lot of reserve releases. But is anything changing on comp that we should be aware of?
Michael J. Sewell
Yeah, I would say let me start and Steve, if you want to say add on but you know, as it relates to release of reserves, you know it has been consistent and you know I, you know, not that I’m surprised but you know each year we have been having favorable development. You know, we have had the many years of favorable development. We did have 20 million of favorable development in the fourth quarter with 65 million for the year. You know, for the quarter I would say the 20 million it was spread really throughout. If you look back the last 10 plus years, the most favorable was 2024, 2023 accident years.
That was 4 million and 3 million between those two. If you look at it on a year to date basis, the 65 million of favorable development primarily came from accident year 2322 and 2020. The other accident years were even the most recent accident year. On a year to date basis for 2024, that was a favorable $2 million of favorable development. So you know, we continue to reserve the way we do conservatively and you know we’ll just, you know I watch what our actuaries do.
Stephen M. Spray
Mike. I might just add on the kind of on the day to day business underwriting and pricing of comp we’ve made. That’s another area we’ve made great strides over the last 15 years is our expertise and then our appetite for comp. We just, right or wrong, we just have felt that the rate environment wasn’t where we wanted it to be. So we’ve been cautious, we’ve been careful, conservative in comp. You know it is, you can see, I think it’s now roughly 200 and a little over 240 million of premium. So it has less impact on the overall commercialized book.
But we stand ready to help our agents right work comp where we feel like we can get the risk adjusted return. And I think the future will, think the future will bode well for us on comp. You know, one of the other things is some of our biggest states, well our biggest state, Ohio is obviously a monopolistic state. We don’t write workers compensation here and we’re not, you know, we’re not active for work comp in California and some of our other larger states, Texas, they’re, they’re a little more minimal as well. So that’s Just kind of a view from the say the business side.
Michael Zaremski
Lastly, just going back to the commercial lines competitive environment. You know I guess if we think about your comments about you know, casualty is still an issue for the industry in terms of inflation there property is, you know, well priced. I guess if you all had a crystal ball for the industry, if you don’t want to speak to Cincy, would you expect pricing to continue moderating just a tad from the property side or. I don’t know if you guys willing to go on record there. You know we can, you know we can see that you guys might not be playing full offense right now based on the kind of agency appointments and top line growth.
But just curious if you feel the competitive environment, the rate of change on pricing is kind of moderated and we kind of are in stable territory.
Stephen M. Spray
Yeah, Mike, let me make sure, I’m glad you mentioned this but make sure we are playing full offense. We always are. We’ve got such a winning strategy and model that’s been proven over time. We are, we’re on full offense. We’re adding more products whether it be on the standard side for commercial and personal. Our small business platform, our ENS company continues to grow. We’re adding product out of Lloyd’s to help our agents write more business with us as well. We’re adding agencies across the country, high quality agencies that will continue. So we’ll continue to play offense but playing offense, winning offense is not going to be in pulling back on risk selection or probably even worse cutting rate.
That’s not going to be part of the equation. So we’re going to have to along with I think the best agents. Like I said in the country, it can’t always come down to a price. We’ve got to be able to convey value that we think we bring as a company that I know our agents bring in their communities and that’s where we’re going to, that’s where we’re going to win. And you know if price becomes more and more of an equation then we just have to get, we’re going to have to get more at bats and, and kind of weed through all that.
As far as looking forward on competition. I, you know I said it kind of early on here just with the headwinds on loss costs primarily around casualty, general liability, umbrella management, liability has been under pressure. Commercial auto. I just don’t see that market, that’s my opinion. I don’t see that market getting, you know, continuing to have pressure on pricing. I just don’t think it it makes sense now. It may go there and I think it’ll have an impact on us because if it gets to a point where again, on risk by risk basis, if we don’t feel we can get a risk adjusted return, we’re going to, we’re going to turn away from those in the short term because we’re playing along.
We’re playing a long game here.
Michael Zaremski
Thank you, Steve.
Stephen M. Spray
Thank you, Mike.
operator
As a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question, you can press star +1 on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Greg Peters from Raymond James. Your line is live.
Unidentified Participant
Hey, good afternoon, this is Mitch. On behalf of Greg, thanks for taking my questions. So you mentioned in an earlier response that you expect commercial auto pricing to hold up. Can you give us an update on where commercial auto renewal pricing was in the quarter and based on current claims, how much additional rate you believe might be required to sustain underwriting margins in 2026? Thanks.
Stephen M. Spray
Yeah, thanks, Mitch. Well, commercial auto rate for the fourth quarter was up mid single digits. We think it on a, you know, pricing is prospective. Looking forward, we think that and we’re confident that our commercial auto pricing is exceeding loss costs. One thing that I think is a little unique with us, Mitch, is, and I mentioned earlier too is we are a package, right? And so we do not, you know, monoline auto is not a big product for Cincinnati Insurance Company. We’re also not a heavy transportation rider, long haul trucking risks. It’s not to say we don’t have one or two in our, in our portfolio, but that is not a focus of ours.
So I think our commercial auto over the last, I’ll say seven, eight years has been a little more predictable and a little more, you know, as of year end 2025, commercial auto, even with some ads in accident year 2025, on a calendar year basis, we were slightly profitable in commercial auto. So you know, for us feel good about commercial auto and again it’s, it’s part of the package.
Unidentified Participant
Great, thank you. Turning over to the investment portfolio you mentioned, reinvestment yields are running about 70 basis points above the bulk yield. How are you guys expecting that to translate into net investment income growth in 2026 considering the declining rate environment?
Steven A. Soloria
Thanks, Mitch. This is Steve Soloria. We’re thinking that the longer maturity rates are going to kind of hold steady from where they. So we’re expecting to be able to put money to work there pretty consistently. The insurance side’s given us a lot of cash to work with. But from a market standpoint, the Fed seems to be kind of cautious on what they’re going to do on the short end. So we think on the long end, we’ll continue to get yields in the ballpark of where we’ve been right now. So we’re pretty comfortable that we’ll see solid growth going into 2026 and beyond.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you.
operator
That concludes our question and answer session. I’ll now turn the call over to Steve Spray, CEO, for closing remarks.
Stephen M. Spray
Thank you, Jordan, and thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again on our first quarter 2026 call.
operator
That concludes today’s meeting. You may now disconnect.