United Fire Group, Inc

Good morning, my name is Drew and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the UFG Insurance Second Quarter of 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to UFG Vice President of Invest Relations, Tim

Borst. 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. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections about the company, the industry in which we operate, and beliefs and assumptions made by management. 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, and the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. 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 Leidwinger, CEO of UFG Insurance.

Thank you, Tim. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our second 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. UFG delivered strong results in the second quarter, growing net written premium to a record $373 million with the highest second quarter underwriting profit in more than 10 years. The benefits of our ongoing strategic actions continue to materialize in our results, with improved underwriting and investment income delivering a 10% return on equity through the first half of the year, a significant milestone in the company's ongoing transformation. Second quarter net written premium growth of 14% was driven by improved retention, record revenue, business production, and rate increases that continue to exceed loss trends. The second quarter combined ratio improved 9.2 points to 96.4%, with all components of the combined ratio contributing favorably. Underlying loss ratio improved 1.3 points to 57.6%, reflecting the ongoing benefits of strong earned rate achievement and moderating loss trends from continued underwriting discipline. In the second quarter, we recognized modest favorable prior year reserve development of $5 million following our annual review of loss adjustment expenses while continuing to strengthen our overall loss reserve position against the uncertainties of social inflation. Our second quarter catastrophe loss ratio of .5% was considerably below historical averages as well as our quarterly expectation of 8.9%. Catastrophe losses through the first half of the year remain below our expectations despite unusual first quarter wildfires. We continue to actively manage our exposure and believe the strategies we've implemented in recent years are favorably impacting the catastrophe loss ratio and are reflected in our annual plan of 5.7%. The underwriting expense ratio improved just over half a point to .9% in the quarter. The improvement from prior year reflects the benefits of growth, funding strategic investments and talent and technology necessary for sustained success. Net investment income increased 20% from prior year with sustainable improvement and fixed maturity income as we continue to invest at yields well above the portfolio average. We're pleased with our performance in the second quarter and through the first half of 2025. We remain committed to executing our strategic business plan to achieve superior financial and operational performance. I'll now hand it over to Julie Stevenson, our chief operating officer, to discuss our underwriting results in more detail.