Conifer Holdings, Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to Conifer Holdings' second quarter 2022 investor conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Roney. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Conifer issued its 2022 second quarter financial results after the close of market yesterday. You can find copies of the earnings release on the company's website, ir.cnfrh.com. The slide presentation accompanying management's discussion this morning is available to view or download via webcast or from the investor relations portion of Conifer's website. Before we get started, please note that except with regard 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 may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements, due to 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'll also discuss non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures are included when possible in our earnings release and our historical SEC filings. 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'll turn the call over to Jim Peckhoff, Executive Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer. Jim?

Thanks, Brian. Good morning, everyone. Also with me today are Nick, Harold, and Brian. Like on previous calls, I'll provide a brief update of our business strategy, then Nick will discuss our underwriting results with greater detail, and Harold will cover our financials. We were encouraged to see continued top-line premium growth in the second quarter, particularly coming from our most profitable lines of business. Our premium growth remains a combination of solid rate increases, high account retention in the specialty markets that we are excelling. Generally, we see a significant additional runway for premium growth in our core specialty lines. In addition to premium growth, we are also pleased to see our expense management initiatives come to fruition as the expense ratio continues to improve. In the first quarter, we achieved our short-term goal of sub-40 expense ratio and improved the expense trend continued for the second quarter. We expect these efforts to further drive down expense ratio for the balance of the year, and we revised our near-term expense ratio goal to 35%. While the top line growth is growing profitably and the expense ratio continues to rationalize, we also took significant measures to bolster our overall reserve position in the second quarter. In efforts to mitigate future reserve development, we dramatically strengthened reserves by considerably increasing our view of ultimates in the quarter. We realized that in addition to placing profitable premium within a reasonable expense structure, we need to stem the tide of the development we've been experiencing. As a result, we remain firmly committed to mitigating any future development as we continue to refine and tighten our business mix. and shed the residual burden of the emphasized lines of business. Given the performance we've seen today from our improved business mix, we feel more confident than ever in our go-forward book of business. In fact, the underwriting profitability is right around the corner. Our expense management and leadership teams, our executive management and leadership teams, have concentrated tremendous energy on a number of mitigating initiatives. to combat development from all angles and ultimately to generate sustained loss ratio improvement. These initiatives are bearing positive daily results and we see a clear path toward achieving profit. With that, let me turn it over to Nick for more color on the other end.