Erie Indemnity Company

Good morning and welcome to the Area Indemnity Company second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. This call was pre-recorded and there will be no question and answer session following the recording. And now I'd like to introduce your host for this call, Vice President of Investor Relationship, Scott Beilharz. Please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome everyone. We appreciate you joining us for this recorded discussion about our second quarter results. This recording will include remarks from Tim NeCastro, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Julie Pelkowski, 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, ErieInsurance.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 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 such differences, please see the Safe Harbor Statements and our Form 10-Q filing with the SEC filed yesterday and the related press release. This pre-recorded call is the property of your Indemnity Company. may not be reproduced or rebroadcast by any other party without the prior written consent of Erie Indemnity Company. With that, we will move on to Tim's remarks.

Tim? Thanks, Scott, and good morning, everyone. Before we get into our second quarter results, I'd like to take a moment to recognize two recent affirmations of the strength of Erie's business and the trust our customers continue to place in us. First, Erie Insurance ranked highest in customer satisfaction among large auto insurers in the J.D. Power 2026 U.S. Insurance Shopping Study. This marks the third consecutive year Curia has earned the top ranking. The study looks at insurance shopping experience across several important factors including the quote process, price, distribution channel, and policy offerings. To be recognized by customers in this way, particularly in a highly competitive market, is meaningful. It speaks to the value of our independent agency model and the care our agents and employees bring to helping customers make competent informed decisions. We were also pleased to recently be ranked number 308 on the 2026 Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporations, moving up 15 spots from last year's ranking of 323. This year marks 23 years since Erie first appeared on the list. These affirmations of our service quality and financial strength are especially important in the context of today's market. As we shared in previous calls, 2025 was a challenging year for the industry and for Erie, particularly from a profitability perspective. We faced elevated weather activity, including the costliest weather event in our company's history, along with a complex and competitive market environment. In the first two quarters of this year, We've been pleased to see improvement and a more balanced picture emerging in our results. Here to share more details of your performance is Chief Financial Officer Julie Pelkowski. Julie?