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Text: We continued to see headwinds in the third quarter as we dealt with elevated industrywide weather events year-to-date, particularly in coastal states.
Our catastrophe response teams have directly engaged with our insureds to ensure they receive the attention they deserve.
As previously announced, we were affected by full retention events from Hurricanes Isaias and Sally in addition to other PCS events year-to-date.
As the Statute of Limitations for Hurricane Irma approach is ending, we experienced increased prior-year companion claims, as the window closed.
This increase in claims led us to increase our reserves in years prior to 2020.
We feel good to have Hurricane Irma behind us, the ability to strengthen reserves appropriately and proud of our employees for their contributions during these unprecedented times.
Our vertically integrated suite of capabilities continues to differentiate us in our home state.
Our primary rate increases continue to flow through our book, as evident by our strong direct premiums written growth of 19.4% in the quarter.
We continue to selectively write new business, are quickly approaching $1.5 billion in premiums in force, and are optimistic about our prospects in the future.
As a reminder, discussions today on adjusted operating income and adjusted earnings per share are on a non-GAAP basis, and exclude effects from unrealized and realized gains and losses on investments and extraordinary reinstatement premiums and related commissions.
Adjusted operating income also excludes interest expense.
EPS for the quarter was a loss of $0.10 on a GAAP basis and a loss of $1.43 on a non-GAAP adjusted earnings per share basis.
Year-to-date, GAAP earnings per share was $1.14 and negative $0.08 on a non-GAAP adjusted earnings per share basis.
Despite elevated activity year-to-date, we produced an annualized year-to-date return on average equity of 10% with a book value per share that remained relatively flat since the end of 2019 at $15.15.
As to underwriting, direct premiums written were up 19.4% for the quarter, led by strong direct premium growth of 18.8% in states outside of Florida and 19.6% in Florida.
The quarter's growth benefited from organic new business growth and primary rate increases continuing to flow through the book.
On the expense side, the combined ratio increased 36.9 points for the quarter to 134.7%.
The increase was primarily driven by previously announced increased weather events in addition to prior years reserve development and the continuation of occurring incremental reserves for current accident year loss cost.
In addition, higher reinsurance cost affected the base of the ratio.
These increases were partially offset by a benefit from our claims adjusting business and a reduction in the expense ratio.
Turning to services, total services revenue increased 14.9% to $17.1 million for the quarter, driven by commission revenue earned on CD premiums and an increase in policy fees.
On our investment portfolio, net investment income decreased 40.1% to $4.6 million for the quarter, primarily due to lower yields on cash and fixed income investments during 2020 when compared to 2019.
Realized gains for the quarter were $53.8 million and resulted from taking advantage of increased market prices on our available-for-sale debt investment portfolio.
We took the opportunity to monetize the increase in fair value of our investment portfolio as a means to enhance surplus for UPCIC.
This facilitates our growth strategy in a hardening primary rate market while strengthening reserves.
Cash and cash equivalents increased 122.5% to $405.1 million when compared to the end of 2019 as a result of the actions taken to realize investment gains leading to higher investment cash flows.
As a result of the sales and reinvestment, future portfolio investment income will reflect current market rates.
In regards to capital deployment, during the third quarter, the company repurchased approximately 534,000 shares at an aggregate cost of $9.9 million.
Year-to-date, the company repurchased 1.4 million shares at an aggregate cost of $26.5 million.
On July 6, 2020, the Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.16 per share of common stock, which was paid on August 7, 2020, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on July 31, 2020.
As mentioned in our release yesterday, we are updating our full year guidance to reflect increased top line revenue, offset by elevated third quarter loss and loss adjustment expense.
We now expect a GAAP earnings per share range of $1.80 to $2.10 and a non-GAAP adjusted earnings per share range of $0.55 to $0.85, assuming no extraordinary weather events in the fourth quarter of 2020 and no realized or unrealized gains for the fourth quarter.
This would yield a return on average equity derived from GAAP measures of between 11.1% and 14.1% for the full year.
We continue to make significant progress in resolving the remaining open claims on prior-year catastrophe events.
And as Steve noted, we reached the Statute of Limitations milestone for Hurricane Irma claims.
We did see over 2,000 new Irma claims reported during the third quarter and we elected to book the un-gross ultimate at $1.55 billion.
The modest run-up in claims filed in advance of the three-year Statute of Limitation for filing new Irma claims that expired in the second week of September was expected, but we were surprised and disappointed to see quite a number of non-cat Irma companion claims filed simultaneously.
This phenomenon contributed to a portion of our third quarter prior-year adverse development.
We will continue to monitor the effects of these late reported Irma and Irma-related claims going forward.
But we are extremely pleased with the diligence of our claims adjusting staff.
As of 9-30, Hurricane Michael had a little over 100 claims open, as we start to approach the end on this storm.
We did elect to book the Michael gross ultimate at $386 million.
This change does not impact our net loss position.
Each of these events was booked at 9-30, expecting a full retention loss under its respective reinsurance program.
For Hurricane Isaias, that was $15 million pre-tax under our other states program, and for Hurricane Sally, that was $43 million pre-tax under our all states program.
Together, these two events resulted in a total net impact of approximately $58 million pre-tax, approximately $44 million after-tax.

user
q3 gaap loss per share $0.10.
qtrly non-gaap adjusted loss per share of $1.43).
sees fy 2020 gaap earnings per share $1.80 - $2.10.
sees fy 2020 adjusted non-gaap earnings per share $0.55 - $0.85.

assistant