Greetings, all,

I would agree with Mr. Allen Bradley that this quarter was satisfactory, but with the following caveats:
Though it reported higher income, the underlying business is getting a bit soft. Premium earned was $70 million in 1Q, it slipped to $65.7 million, or about 7% reduction. Too, the combined ratio without counting prior year loss cost adjustment were 90.2%, it's now 91.2%.
What nags me is that AmSafe was not able to capture a larger slice of shrinking pie. Payrolls are sure to shrink during recession, but 7% reduction quarter over quarter is like 30% annualized. Surely this is worse than average. Makes me wonder if we aren't actually losing business to competitions.
Though without seeing the numbers, it appears that the bright spot continues to be aggressive settlement of old claims. That padded the results pretty well so far. There is a limit to its effect though, the size of unsettled claims already shrank.
The biggest hope I had--with the new investment manager--did not materialize. Investment income actually shrank a little.

All and all, not exciting. Next quarter, maybe?

Sam