Kingstone Companies has extended the employment agreement of president and chief executive Meryl Golden (pictured above) through January 2029, signaling board confidence in a turnaround that has taken the Nasdaq-listed property and casualty insurance firm from heavy losses to record earnings in under three years.
The extension moves up a deal that had been scheduled to expire in January 2027.
The compensation committee recommended the move, with further terms set to be disclosed in a Current Report on Form 8-K. Board chairman Thomas Newgarden said Kingstone had "returned to record profitability and established a clear road map for measured expansion" under Golden, citing the insurer's planned entry into California and further state expansion.
The financial backdrop is striking. Kingstone's full-year 2025 net income more than doubled to $40.8 million, with diluted earnings per share up 95% to $2.88, a GAAP combined ratio of 75% and a return on equity of 43%, according to results reported in March.
Direct premiums written rose 14.8% to $277.8 million, and Golden told investors on the fourth-quarter earnings call that the period marked Kingstone's ninth consecutive profitable quarter.
That stands in stark contrast to the company Golden inherited when she took over in mid-2023. In a shareholder letter published earlier this year, she described Kingstone at that point as "an underperforming business" overexposed to states where it had no edge, selling a product that did not match rate to risk and carrying a 41% net expense ratio.
The firm had exited Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey in 2022, eventually shrinking its non-core book from roughly 20% of premiums to about 5%.
California is the next test. The entry, scheduled for the second quarter of 2026, will be made on an excess and surplus lines basis and is expected to account for less than 5% of 2026 premium, with a 30% quota share ceded to contain exposure during the scaling phase.
Golden has told shareholders that no state is more diversifying to Kingstone's New York-heavy portfolio than California, whose homeowners insurance market is nearly twice the size.
Earlier this month, the insurer announced a partnership with ZestyAI to deploy its Z-FIRE wildfire risk model for property-level rating and underwriting, saying it was the first AI-based wildfire model approved as part of a carrier rate filing in California.
Golden said the work was far from complete. "I'm excited about the opportunities ahead to continue innovating and to lead our incredible team to achieve our 2029 goal of $500 million in direct written premium," she said.
