By Chris Munro

March 14 - (The Insurer) - Kingstone Companies’ share price was up more than 21% on Friday morning after the Northeast U.S. regional carrier said its Q4 2024 net combined ratio improved by 11.0 percentage points year on year to 78.5%, driven in part by lower catastrophe losses.

The insurer’s stock was trading at $16.59 as of 11:06 a.m. in New York on Friday, up 21.4% from Thursday’s close.

Kingstone’s share price had hit a high of $16.62 earlier on Friday morning.

The rise in the carrier’s share price comes after the Kingston, New York-based insurer published its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings on Friday morning.

The company reported that its catastrophe loss ratio stood at nil for the final quarter of 2024, compared with 3.0 points in the prior-year period.

That decrease supported an 8.1 point improvement in Kingstone’s net loss ratio, which for 2024’s fourth quarter totalled 48.7%.

Kingstone’s combined ratio benefited from 40 basis points of favourable net prior year loss development, compared with zero in Q4 2023.

The company booked direct premiums written of $72.5 million in 2024’s fourth quarter, compared with the prior-year period’s $52.9 million.

Operating net income increased to $6.15 million for the final three months of 2024, compared with $1.73 million in the prior-year period.

Net investment income increased by over a fifth to $1.91 million in Q4 2024, up from $1.57 million in 2023’s fourth quarter.

The net loss ratio for Kingstone’s core New York business improved by 6.0 points year on year to 48.4%, while the segment’s DPW increased by 49.2% to $70.2 million for Q4 2024, with the growth due to “market dislocation”, the company’s president and CEO Meryl Golden said.

“We remain committed to profitable growth by adhering to disciplined underwriting while delivering exceptional service to our producers and policyholders,” Golden noted.

“From a profitability standpoint, we achieved our fifth consecutive quarter of profitability during the fourth quarter of 2024, with a combined ratio of 78.5%, an 11-percentage point improvement from the same period last year.

“While we experienced a moderate increase in large losses, as expected during the holiday season, our improvement was driven by lower frequency overall, no catastrophe losses, and a lower expense ratio,” Golden added.