Erie Indemnity Company

Good morning, and welcome to the Erie Indemnity Company fourth quarter and year-end 2023 earnings conference call. This call was prerecorded, 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 Balshart.

Thank you, and welcome, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for this recorded discussion about our fourth quarter and year-end results. This recording will include remarks from Tim DeCastro, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Julie Pekowski, 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, erinsurance.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 that differ materially from those described in these remarks. For information on important factors that may cause such differences, please see the Safe Harbor Statements in our Form 10-K filing with the SEC filed yesterday 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 thanks to all of you for taking time to learn more about Erie's fourth quarter and year-end results for 2023. We're proudly moving closer to celebrating a century of service, and we're doing so as a company with $10 million in premium, a milestone reached in the fourth quarter of 2023. This came in a year of both record-setting growth and significant challenges. We saw net income for Erie Indemnity Company reach an all-time high of more than $446 million, and growth for Erie Insurance Exchange hit a 20-year high of 17 percent, helping us hit that $10 billion mark and moving us towards 7 million policies in force. With all that said, we've certainly been feeling the negative effects of the economic and environmental pressures that continue to impact our industry. Weather-related claims rose to nearly 70,000 in 2023, compared to roughly 50,000 in 2022. Even with the typical decline in weather-related claims in the second half of the year and overall claim severity leveling out, we ended the year with a combined ratio of 119.1%, three points higher than year-end 2022. We've responded to the tough market conditions through rate increases, and we're also reinforcing our focus on underwriting standards and partnering with our independent agents on individualized profitability action plans where appropriate. This multi-pronged approach is aimed at improving the combined ratio over time. In addition, we've placed greater emphasis on managing expenses across the enterprise and expect to see long-term savings through our work to modernize legacy technology platforms and to introduce new digital capabilities. I'll share an update on recent progress with those modernization efforts in a few minutes, but first, I'd like to introduce Chief Financial Officer Julie Palkowski, who will provide a deeper review of our financials. Julie?