United Fire Group, Inc

Good morning. My name is Anthony, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the UFG Insurance First Quarter 2024 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 from the question queue, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to UFG Vice President of Investor Relations, Tim Borst. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining this call. Yesterday afternoon, 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 today on the call are UFG President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Leidwinger, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Julie Stevenson, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Eric Martin. Before I turn the call over to Kevin, 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. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this presentation is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. 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 discussed specifically in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K. 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 turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Weidwinger, CEO of UFG Insurance.

Thank you, Tim. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter conference call. I'll begin this morning by providing a high-level overview of our results. Following my comments, Julie Stevenson will discuss our underwriting results and Eric Martin will discuss our financial results in more detail. I'm pleased with our first quarter as net income increased to $13.5 million, driven by improved underwriting results and higher investment income. The momentum we established in 2023 carried into the first quarter of 2024 as net written premium grew 17.6% to $321 million, led by our core commercial and assumed reinsurance business. Core commercial growth remained strong, fueled by an average renewal premium increase of 10.9%, steady retention, and attractive new business opportunities reflective of our continued focus on profitability. Rates increased 9% and remained above lost cost trends. The first quarter combined ratio improved four points to 98.9% compared to the first quarter of 2023 and our lowest over the past eight quarters. The underlying loss ratio improved to 59.4%, reflecting continued underwriting and pricing discipline across the portfolio. Catastrophe losses contributed 4.6% to the combined ratio in line with the same period last year and just below our five-year historical average. The expense ratio improved to 34.9% as we continued to diligently manage cost structure while supporting strategic long-term investments in our business. Prior period reserve development was neutral overall, with favorable emergence across several lines of business, enabling us to further reinforce our position against the heightened inflationary uncertainty in some liability lines. Investment income increased 28.5% to $16.3 million as we continued to benefit from reinvesting at higher interest rates. In the first quarter, we completed the strategic reallocation of public equity assets into fixed maturities and transitioned management of our investment portfolio to New England Asset Management. Through continued robust execution of our strategic initiatives, we believe we are well positioned to deliver improved long-term performance. I'll now hand it over to Julie Stevenson, our Chief Operating Officer, to discuss our underwriting results in more detail.