Skyward Specialty Premium Growth Cools After Apollo Close

The Tip Desk · November 7, 2026 · 3 min read

Gross written premiums were $803.5 million in the third quarter, up 9.0% from a year earlier, as net income reached $49.8 million, or $1.09 a share.

Skyward Specialty Insurance Group (SKWD), the specialty insurer that closed its Apollo acquisition earlier in the year, reported third-quarter gross written premiums of $803.5 million, up 9.0% from a year earlier on a pro forma basis. That pace was slower than the 13.3% increase recorded in the second quarter.

Net income was $49.8 million, or $1.09 a share, compared with $45.9 million, or $1.10 a share, a year earlier. Diluted operating earnings were $1.28 a share, versus $1.05 a year earlier. Annualized return on equity was 15.7% and annualized operating return on equity 18.4%.

Managed premiums, the company’s key operating metric combining gross written premiums and fee-generating written premiums, rose 12.5% to $1.32 billion. Fee-generating gross written premiums increased 18.4% to $517.1 million. Both growth rates were slower than in the second quarter, when managed premiums rose 17.5% and fee-generating premiums rose 29%.

The combined ratio was 89.9% and the ex-cat combined ratio 88.1%. Both the Skyward Specialty and Apollo segments were impacted by catastrophe losses in the third quarter, predominantly convective storm activity.

Skyward Specialty’s combined ratio was 88.3% and Apollo’s 90.5%; ex-cat ratios were 86.8% and 87.7%, respectively. The Skyward Specialty loss and LAE ratio rose 1.8 points to 62.6% versus the same 2025 period, which the company attributed primarily to shifts in business mix driven by growth in accident & health and global agriculture. The segment’s expense ratio improved 1.6 points to 25.7%, which the company said was driven by business mix shift, enhanced operating efficiencies, and scale as net earned premiums outpaced expense growth.

Accident & Health gross written premiums rose 57.0% to $99.1 million. Global Agriculture rose 20.8% to $192.2 million. Credit & Surety rose 27.3% to $67.2 million. Strategic Distribution Partners, the renamed Specialty Programs division, rose 32.4% to $109.6 million. Captives fell 26.2% to $50.2 million, Energy Solutions fell 16.4% to $55.6 million, Global Property fell 19.3% to $22.3 million, Professional Lines fell 9.6% to $31.3 million, and Transactional E&S fell 20.0% to $40.7 million. Total continuing Skyward Specialty gross written premiums were $668.3 million.

Apollo segment gross written premiums rose 3.4% to $135.2 million. Syndicate 1969 was $67.5 million and Syndicate 1971 was $67.7 million. Partner syndicate fee-generating gross written premiums rose 71.7% to $115.6 million; aligned syndicates rose 8.6% to $401.5 million. During the third quarter, the company reclassified fee-generating premiums attributable to Syndicate 1972 from Partner Syndicates to Aligned Syndicates.

Net investment income increased $11.9 million to $33.9 million versus the same 2025 period, which the company said was driven by the addition of the Apollo portfolio, a higher yield, and a larger asset base.

Stockholders’ equity was $1.276 billion at September 30, 2026, up 0.7% from $1.268 billion at June 30. Book value per share was $28.74, an increase of 15.3% compared with December 31, 2025. Chairman and CEO Andrew Robinson said that through the first nine months of the year the company delivered an annualized operating ROE of over 20% while growing managed premiums by 16%, and that the company remains well positioned to continue to deliver top-quartile financial returns.