Erie Indemnity Company

Good morning and welcome to the Erie Indemnity Company first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. This call was pre-recorded and there will be no question and answer session following the recording. Now I'd like to introduce your host for the call, Vice President of Investor Relations, Scott Byhars.

Thank you and welcome everyone. We appreciate you joining us for this recorded discussion about our first quarter results. This recording will include remarks from Tim DeCastro, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Greg Gutting, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings release and financial supplement were issued yesterday afternoon after the market closed and are available within the investor relations section of our website, yourinsurance.com. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion may contain forward-looking remarks that reflect the company's current views about future events. These remarks are based on assumptions subject to known and unexpected risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties may cause results to differ materially from those described in these remarks. For information on important factors that may cause these differences, please see the safe harbor statements in our Form 10Q filing with the SEC dated April 28, 2022, and in the related press release. This prerecorded call is the property of your indemnity company. It may not be reproduced or rebroadcast by any other party without the prior written consent of your indemnity company. With that, we'll move on to Tim's remarks. Tim?

Thanks, Scott, and good morning, everyone. Earlier this week, we held our annual meeting of shareholders. We broadcast the meeting from the new Thomas B. Hagen building, which, as I've mentioned on previous calls, was dedicated last September. This beautiful building has continued to sit mostly empty since that time, as the majority of our employees have continued to work remotely. However, just in the past couple weeks, that's started to change. We celebrated Erie's 97th anniversary on April 20th by welcoming nearly 200 employees back to our home office campus. They joined the essential employees who have been coming into the office to maintain operations since the beginning of the pandemic. This is the beginning of a broader, phased-in return to our offices that will be taking place over the next several months. We're returning with greater flexibility than ever before, but we're taking a slow and steady approach to ensure the spirit of the organization and levels of service are upheld as the pandemic continues its transition to new variants in a world anxious to return to living fully. At Erie, our focus now is less about getting back to what we previously knew and more about exploring what's next. We'll be listening, learning, and adapting as we go, and we'll be doing that together with our Erie employees. At the annual shareholders meeting, I also shared some of the external challenges we're facing. The inflation rate, supply chain issues, and labor shortages are being felt across all industries, and they are further echoed in our industry through increased claims costs. Our combined ratio for the first quarter, which stands at 104.6%, reflects some of those challenges. But I'm confident in Erie's financial strength, evidenced by $11.5 billion in policyholder surplus, and continued growth, which can be seen in the 7% direct written premium increase for the quarter. And of course, Erie's 97-year track record of stability and success is a testament to the adaptability and resilience through whatever the times may throw our way. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Greg for a deeper view of our first quarter financials.