Kingstone Companies, Inc

Greetings and welcome to the Kingstone Company's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star 0 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ms. Amanda Goldstein, Investor Relations Director. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Donna, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday afternoon, the company issued a press release detailing Kingstone's 2022 second quarter results. On this call, Kingstone may make four looking statements regarding itself and its business. The four looking events and circumstances discussed on this call may not occur and could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting Kingstone. For more information, please refer to the section entitled Factors that May Affect Future Results and Financial Conditions in Part 1, Item 1A of the company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2021, along with a commentary on forward-looking statements at the end of the company's earnings release issued yesterday. In addition, our remarks today include references to non-GAAP measures. For a reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures to the GAAP figures, please see the tables in our earnings release. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Kingstone CEO, Mr. Barry Goldstein. Go ahead, Mr. Goldstein.

Great. Thanks, Amanda, and good morning, everyone. We're pleased that you can join us for this, our second quarter 2022 conference call. As in our prior call, with the elephant still present in the room, at the end of our remarks, I will share what I can and hope you understand that what I say is limited and as per an existing non-disclosure agreement. Today, as in our prior call, we will only accept questions from the analysts that cover the stock. But first, let me talk about the state of Kingston. Our focus remains squarely on returning Kingston to profitability. It's not an overnight process, but much has already been done and much is underway. I'd like to begin by reviewing the key changes we've made and which we have focused on in order to improve our profitability. First, we have been and continue to take rate in all states. We are achieving this through a combination of rate filings, inflation guard increases, and adjustments to coverage to properly reflect increased replacement costs. Second, through the introduction of our new select product suite, which better matches rate to risk, we are targeting more profitable risk profiles. Select, which is now live in over 85% of our footprint and which will increase to more than 90% when our next date goes live later this quarter. Third, we developed and have implemented a proprietary model to enable us to better identify currently insured risks that do not meet our profitability standards. And fourth and last, we've made numerous changes to reduce our expenses, and I'm pleased to note that this effort, which has begun to bear fruit as a result of Kingstone 2.0, and that will be discussed by Merrill. But one last thing before Merrill reviews our operating results. I'm not sure that I need to, but I do feel obligated to point out what many of you already know. Our premium rates are approved by the insurance departments of each state in which we operate and remain at that level until the next approved change. We cannot and do not flow through our increased costs as they occur like so many other businesses can. Our loss and loss adjustment expenses are subject to inflation. Supply chain issues make repairs more difficult, makes the repair processes take longer. So, yes, we priced that in, but the rate impact is deferred, and our current results reflect the 9% to 10% inflation seen throughout our northeast footprint. So with that, let me turn it over to Meryl to review our operating results for the second quarter. Meryl, please go ahead.