Skyward Specialty Insurance Group, Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to Skyward Specialty Insurance's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star 1-1 again. I would now like to hand the call over to Head of Investor Relations, Natalie Schoolcraft. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Lateef. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Today, I am joined by our Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Robinson, and Chief Financial Officer, Mark Hochul. We will begin the call today with our prepared remarks, and then we will open the lines for questions. Our comments today may include forward-looking statements, which by their nature involve a number of risk factors and uncertainties which may affect future financial performance. Such risk factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements. These types of factors are discussed in our press release as well as in our 10-K that was previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Financial schedules containing reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures along with other supplemental financial information, are included as part of our press release and available on our website, skywardinsurance.com, under the Investors section. Now, I will turn the call over to Skyward CEO, Andrew Robinson. Andrew?

Thank you, Natalie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We had another exceptional quarter, reporting $0.65 adjusted operating income per diluted share, an adjusted return on equity of 18.9%. Gross written premiums grew 32% in the quarter as we continue to benefit from broadly favorable market conditions and our outstanding execution. 54% of our writings in the quarter were in excess and surplus and non-admitted lines, and 52% were short tail lines of business. Our company's best ever combined ratio of 90.2% for the quarter included less than a point of CAT losses which continues to be at the low end of our peer group, even though over 25% of our business is property. Our pure rate continued to be strong and above our lost cost inflation estimates, and new business pricing remains in line with our enforced book. Both are strong indications that the attractive underwriting margins we are generating will continue. Lastly, we continue to further strengthen an already strong balance sheet, maintaining a conservative reserve posture, and deploying all investable assets into core fixed income, while simultaneously rotating out of our higher risk asset classes. Altogether, the execution of our Rule Our Needs strategy is excellent, and our aim to deliver top quartile financial returns is visible in our growth, our underwriting profitability, our shareholder returns, and our balance sheet strength. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark to discuss our financial results in greater detail. Mark?