James River Group Holdings, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the James River Group Holdings Inc. first quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the conference over to Bob DiMardo. Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to James River Group's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. A quick reminder that during the call, we will be making forward-looking statements that are based on current beliefs, intentions, expectations, and assumptions that are subject to various risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially. Such risks and uncertainties are detailed in the cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements in yesterday's earnings release and the risk factors of our most recent Form 10-K and other reports and filings we have made with the SEC. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, during this presentation, we may reference non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings press release for a reconciliation of these numbers to GAAP, a copy of which can be found on our website. And lastly, unless otherwise specified for the reasons described in our earnings press release, all underwriting performance ratios referred to are for our continuing operations in business that is not subject to retroactive reinsurance accounting for lost portfolio transfers. I will now turn the call over to Frank D'Orazio, Chief Executive Officer of James River Group.

Thank you for the introduction, Bob. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As we do each quarter, we look forward to discussing notable highlights of our performance updates on the execution of key corporate objectives, and the progress that James River continues to make in becoming a best-in-class E&S carrier. This quarter, our E&S results were negatively impacted by a sizable reinsurance reinstatement charge on a 2022 casualty treaty triggered by an individual claim, a disappointing development on an otherwise solid quarter. As we've discussed in the past, the organization restructured its E&S treaty placements in July of 2023 and to prevent these types of outside adjustments from impacting future results. In a few moments, Sarah will provide additional details on the specifics of this reinsurance charge. But before she does, I'd like to spend a few minutes discussing our current view of the market opportunity for James River, as well as our progress across a number of prioritized corporate initiatives. First and foremost, relative to market opportunities, we continue to believe that heightened discipline is essential in a transitioning marketplace. And James River has been well served by the refinement of our underwriting appetite, focus on smaller insureds, investment in underwriting governance and performance monitoring, and prioritization on underwriting margin, particularly over the last several years. For 2026, we feel our greatest opportunity to push rate remains in our Exit Casualty Division, and the greatest opportunities for overall growth reside in our Specialty Lines Division, as well as our Small Business Unit. Underwriting areas that we feel hold the most attractive margin in today's marketplace. At the segment level, casualty rates were positive at 7.7 percent for the quarter and were consistent with our expectations. While pressure on rates has been most pronounced in our excess property division for several quarters now, we've also recently seen increasing competitive pressure in our primary general casualty department. And as a result, our underwriters are navigating opportunities in those lines with appropriate prudence. For the segment, submission growth was strong at 4 percent, and for the first time in several quarters, we modestly grew gross written premiums across our E&S casualty and specialty portfolios, with seven of our 14 underwriting divisions reporting positive growth. Excluding our manufacturers and contractors business, where we made refinements in appetite last year, and our small delegated contract binding portfolio, which is currently in runoff, our casualty portfolio was up over 6 percent when compared to the prior year. Looking more closely at production, targeted growth during the quarter was driven by several areas I have highlighted this morning. In the aggregate, specialty lines were up 6 percent, driven by professional liability, energy, and healthcare, and excess casualty premiums increased 15 percent, largely driven by our underwriters' ability to continue to drive rate. As mentioned earlier, during 2026, the company has prioritized a number of initiatives aimed largely at making James River a more efficient organization, while also significantly improving our business development acumen and expanding our presence with our distribution partners. Continuing the same discipline that we exhibited during 2025, we also reduced G&A expenses across the group during the quarter by 11 percent. Finally, as we discussed during last quarter's call, we are excited about the significant investments in technology that we believe will increase underwriting efficiency while improving the underwriting tools and resources available to our E&S underwriting staff. The rollout of AI-enabled underwriting workbench technology is already underway, with our first two underwriting departments being rolled out this quarter, and we expect to report on the progress of the initiative in future quarters. We are confident that the combination of underwriting improvements and appetite changes we have made over the last several years, in concert with continued expense vigilance and technology adoption, will allow us to optimize our SME platform and further differentiate our very special wholesale-only distribution model. As we manage the market cycle, I'm encouraged by the uptake in focused production in areas we are hoping to scale, and by our ability to continue to push rate where necessary as we navigate through 2026. It continues to be a dynamic and competitive marketplace, but we are well positioned to succeed, strongly supported by our underwriters and wholesale distribution partners. With that, I'll turn it over to Sarah to walk through the financial results in more detail.