(3) Combined ratio is the sum of the loss ratio, net and expense ratio. Management uses this operating metric to analyze our total expense trends and believes it is a key indicator for investors when evaluating the overall profitability of our business.
Ceded premiums earned increased by $60,191,000, or 10.4%, to $641,317,000 for the year ended December 31, 2020 from $581,126,000 for 2019. The increase is primarily driven by a $53,301,000 increase in ceded premiums earned from our quota share agreement. During the first five months of 2019, the agreement covered only UPC at a cession rate of 20%. Effective June 1, 2019 and through the entirety of the year ended December 31, 2020, the agreement was renewed to also include FSIC and to increase the cession rate to 22.5% for both companies. This resulted in more ceded premiums earned year-over-year. In addition, upon renewal of the quota share agreement effective June 1, 2020, we no longer include an offset for unearned reinsurance commission from the provisional ceding commission related to our quota share agreement increasing ceded earned premiums by $7,227,000 year-over-year.
Loss and LAE increased by $108,823,000, or 21.8%, to $608,316,000 for the year ended December 31, 2020, from $499,493,000 for the year ended December 31, 2019. Loss and LAE expense as a percentage of net earned premiums increased 13.0 points to 79.4% for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to 66.4% for the year ended December 31, 2019.
reasonably certain to exercise the option. Our lease agreements do not contain any material residual value guarantees or restrictive covenants.
Right-of-use assets and lease liabilities are based on the present value of the minimum lease payments over the lease term. We have elected the practical expedient related to lease and non-lease components, as an accounting policy election for our office equipment leases, which allows a lessee to not separate non-lease from lease components and instead account for consideration received in a contract as a single lease component. We have also elected the practical expedients to exclude leases considered to be short-term and with values that fall under our capitalization threshold.
losses against future tax periods, with the future deduction limited to 80% of taxable income before consideration of net
to the 80% limitation. As a result of the CARES Act, we were able to convert potential deferred tax assets related to net operating losses to a current receivable, generating a $12,566,000 tax benefit for difference in tax rate. The Company’s initial assessment at June 30, 2020 was a tax benefit of $5,263,000. The additional benefit stemmed from 2020 operations.
In December 2019, the FASB issued ASU No. 2019-12, Income Taxes (Topic 740) Simplifying the Accounting for Income Taxes (ASU 2019-12). This update enhances and simplifies various aspects of the income tax guidance, including intra-period tax allocation, the methodology for calculating income taxes in an interim period and the recognition of deferred tax liabilities for outside basis differences. ASU 2019-12 is effective for annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2020, including interim periods within those fiscal years, with earlier adoption permitted. We have not early adopted and are assessing the impact of adopting this new standard on our consolidated financial statements and related disclosures.
The table below summarizes our fixed maturities at December 31, 2020 by contractual maturity periods. Actual results may differ as issuers may have the right to call or prepay obligations, with or without penalties, prior to the contractual maturities of those obligations.
At the end of each quarter, we determine whether we need to transfer the fair values of any securities between levels of the fair value hierarchy and, if so, we report the transfer as of the end of the quarter. During 2020, we transferred no investments between levels.
(1) Distributions will be generated from investment gains, from operating income, from underlying investments of the funds, and from liquidation of the underlying assets of the funds. We estimate that the underlying assets of the funds will be liquidated over the next few months to seven years.
During 2020, we decreased the size of our equity portfolio in order to mitigate potential surplus declines from market volatility for each of our insurance subsidiaries. As a result, we invested a portion of the proceeds into short-term investments, driving the increase year-over-year.
We write the majority of flood insurance under an agreement with the National Flood Insurance Program. We cede 100% of the premiums written and the related risk of loss to the federal government. We earn commissions for the issuance of flood policies based upon a fixed percentage of net written premiums and the processing of flood claims based upon a fixed percentage of incurred losses, and we can earn additional commissions by meeting certain growth targets for the number of in-force policies. We recognized commission revenue from our flood program of $1,467,000, $1,506,000, and $1,575,000 for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019, and 2018, respectively.
We account for stock-based compensation under the fair value recognition provisions of ASC Topic 718 - Compensation - Stock Compensation. We recognize stock-based compensation cost over the award’s requisite service period on a straight-line basis for time-based restricted stock grants and performance-based restricted stock grants. We record forfeitures as they occur for all stock-based compensation.