United Fire Group, Inc

Good morning. My name is Jordan, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the UFG Insurance Second Quarter of 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Eric Martin, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining this call. This morning, we issued a press release on our results. To find a copy of this document, please visit our website at UFGinsurance.com. Press releases and slides are located under the Investors tab. Joining me on the call are Chief Executive Officer Randy Ramlow and Chief Operating Officer Mike Wilkins. We also have other members of management available to answer questions at the end of our prepared remarks. Before I turn the call over to Randy Ramlow, a couple of reminders. First, please note that our presentation today may include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties and are not a guarantee of future performance. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations. The actual results may differ materially due to a variety of factors which are described in our press release and SEC filings. Also, please note that in our discussion today, we may use some non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are also available in our press release and SEC filings. At this time, I will now turn the call over to Mr. Randy Ramlow, CEO of UFG Insurance.

Thanks, Eric. Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter 2022 conference call. Today I'm pleased to report continued improvement in our core loss ratio and for the first time in two years, premium growth. Let me start with premium growth. This quarter we saw some positive signs of growth after two years of focusing on improving profitability through non-renewal of underperforming accounts in our commercial auto line of business and our exit of personal lines business. Profitable growth is our number one consideration when putting new business on the books. Earned premium was up by 2.9% over the same quarter last year, and written premium was up 9.5%. This growth was led by our specialty and assumed reinsurance lines. In addition, for the fifth consecutive quarter, we saw improvement in our core loss ratio, which removes the impact of catastrophe losses and favorable reserve development. In the second quarter of 2022, our core loss ratio improved 1.8 percentage points And year to date, our core loss ratio improved 10.1 percentage points as compared to the same periods in the prior year. For a summary of our core loss ratio calculation, refer to slide 11 in the presentation on our website. For the second quarter of 2022, we have reported a combined ratio of 100.7%, which is slightly lower than the 100.8% we reported in the second quarter of last year, Despite having above average catastrophe losses in the second quarter of 2022 pre tax catastrophe losses added 12.1 percentage points to the combined ratio in the second quarter of 2022 which is one point higher than our second quarter historical average and 2.5 points higher than the second quarter of 2021. During the second quarter of 2022, the higher than average catastrophe losses was driven by 18 catastrophic events, which collectively resulted in above average catastrophe losses. Before I turn the call over to Mike, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you, as this will be my last earnings call. It has been an honor to serve as CEO for the past 15 years, and I am proud of the growth and success we have had during my tenure. As CEO, it's been my promise to lead UFG with the kind of forethought that will move the needle of success in a positive direction for our shareholders, employees, agents, policyholders, and communities. As I reflect back on my career of 38 years at UFG, I'm proud of our success, and we intend to keep moving in a positive direction. Our new CEO, Kevin Lightwinger, will join UFG on Monday, August 22nd. Kevin will serve as the sixth leader in our company's more than 75-year history. I wish Kevin good luck in the future, and I am confident that he, along with the management team, will take UFG to great new heights. Here's to a successful future for UFG. I will now turn the call over to Mike Wilkins.