Conifer Holdings, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Conifer Holdings Second Quarter 2021 Investor Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being webcasted. I would now like to turn the conference over to Adam Pryor of the Equity Group. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Conifer issued its 2021 second quarter financial results after the close of market yesterday. On the company's website, ir.cnfrh.com, You can find copies of the earnings release as well as the slide presentation that accompanies management's discussion today, which is available to view or download via webcast or from the industrial relations portion of Conifer's website. Before we get started, the company has asked that I note that except with respect to historical information, statements made in this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements relating to trends, the company's operations and financial results, and the business and the products of the company and its subsidiaries. Actual results from CONIFER may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of various risks and uncertainties underlying our forward-looking statements, including risks and uncertainties associated with COVID-19 and its impact on the economy and our business, as well as those risks described from time to time in CONIFER's filings with the SEC, including our latest Form 10-K and subsequent reports. CONIFER specifically disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information future developments, or otherwise. In addition, a replay of this call will be provided through a link on the investor relations section of our website. During this call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. Reconcilations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures are included when possible in our earnings release and our historical SEC filing. Statutory accounting data is prepared in accordance with statutory accounting rules and is therefore not reconciled to GAAP. We will conduct a Q&A session after management's prepared remarks this morning. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jim Petkoff, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Jim.

Thank you, Adam. Good morning, everybody. On the call today with me are Nick, Harold, Andy, and Brian. I'll provide a brief business overview. Nick will discuss our underwriting results in greater detail, and Harold will cover the financials. Overall, we made considerable strides in the second quarter in terms of top line growth, expense reduction, but we understand we still have a number of operating profitability milestones to accomplish as we execute our entire strategy. The sustainability of our top line growth has been driven by a combination of rate and increased policies written in our best performing lines. Our commercial and personal line segments each saw significant increases in gross written premium, leading to an overall 27% quarter-over-quarter growth rate, setting us up well for a solid full-year result. However, what might be equally important as the growth itself is how we are growing. One of our strategic objectives has been to grow our book of business and specialty lines that fit our criteria for profitability. For the quarter within commercial lines, the biggest source of growth continues to be in our small business lines, and we are largely we largely attribute that to the expanding our marketing efforts and lines of business where we have been historically profitable. As Nick will discuss a little time later, we have had certain lines of business that have not performed up to our expectations. Lowering our premium base in those de-emphasized lines is a favorable trend going forward as well. We began to lessen our exposure to these areas over the last several years, yet even with planned reductions taking place, we are still seeing overall top line growth in the areas we most want. At present, I'm very pleased with our current business mix as we continue to grow and leverage our infrastructure to achieve greater stability over time. The core of our efforts remains the mission of high-level customer service and growing our top line, while also equipping our agents with tools they need to do their jobs well and generate profitable premium products. We are seeing the benefits now in terms of premium production growth as a result of early dedication to leveraging technology to provide innovative solutions that allow our agents and their employees to seamlessly do business with us anywhere, all while serving their customer base. For the remainder of 2021, our focus will continue to be on generating profitable premium growth from all sources and in all ways. With improvements in our top line through targeted rate increases, select new policy additions, and continuing to refine our business mix while achieving even greater scale in our core specialty markets. With that, let me turn it over to Nick for more color on our underwriting. Nick.