Erie Indemnity Company

Good morning and welcome to the Erie Indemnity Company first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. This call was pre-recorded and there will be no questions and answer session following the recording. Now I'd like to introduce your host of the call today, Vice President, Investor Relations, Scott Bauhart. Your line is open.

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 McCastro, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Greg Gutting, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings relief and financial supplement were issued yesterday afternoon after the market closed and are available within the investor relations section of our website, earinsurance.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 due 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 Harvest Statement in our Form 10-Q signed with the SEC dated April 27, 2023 and in the related press release. This pre-recorded call is a prop of your indemnity company. It may not be reproduced or rebroadcast by any other party without our written consent of your indemnity company. With that, we move on to Tim's remarks. Tim?

Thanks, Scott. And thanks to all of you for your interest in Erie's performance for the first quarter of 2023. Last week on April 20th, we marked the 98th anniversary of our company's founding. A few days later, held our annual meeting with shareholders. For the first time in three years, we were able to hold this meeting in person. and we did so just a block from our home office at the historic Warner Theater in downtown Erie, Pennsylvania. Earlier this month, we also welcomed the final groups of employees returning to on-site work. This move marked the end of our pandemic-driven working arrangements with the COVID-19 public health emergency set to expire in just a few weeks. We look forward to moving fully into a new mode of interaction and engagement as we embrace hybrid work as a model for the majority of our workforce. The pandemic pushed the brakes on many aspects of how we live and work, while at the same time accelerating the pace of technology and change. Additional challenges like inflation, supply chain issues, and labor shortages emerged from the pandemic and have persisted even as COVID has slowed. Many of these challenges have had a direct impact on the unusually high combined ratio for Erie Insurance Exchange. We're continuing with a slate of intentional steps to reduce our combined ratio through a measured approach to rate increases, adherence to expense management and strict underwriting guidelines, and agency profitability reviews. We're also placing a high priority on modernizing our legacy technology platforms and investing in digital capabilities that meet customer needs and expectations. I'll share more about that notable progress that's been made so far this year, but first, let's turn to our first quarter financials. Like the rest of the industry, our combined ratio continues to be impacted negatively by the inflationary environment. That was compounded in the first quarter by an increase in the severity of weather events. CAT losses from the four weather events experienced in the first quarter added 40 to 50 points to the combined ratio, And adverse development from Elliott, which earned late in 2022, added another four points to the first quarter combined ratio, which reached 122.7 compared to 104.6 for the first quarter of 2022. Tornadoes, severe winds, and flooding have battered Kentucky and Ohio in particular during the first few months of 2023, I'd like to extend my gratitude to our catastrophe claims and first owners of loss teams, as well as agents and staff for working tirelessly to serve our policyholders affected by these unrelenting storms. Now, I'll turn the call over to Greg to expand on our first quarter results.