American Financial Group, Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to American Financial Group's first quarter 2024 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 queue, you may press star 1 1 again. I would now like to hand the call over to Diane Weidner, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to American Financial Group's first quarter 2024 earnings results conference call. We released our 2024 first quarter results yesterday afternoon. Our press release, investor supplement, and webcast presentation are posted on AFG's website under the Investor Relations section. These materials will be referenced during portions of today's call. I'm joined this morning by Carl Lindner III and Craig Lindner, co-CEOs of American Financial Group, and Brian Hertzman, AFG's CFO. Before I turn the discussion over to Carl, I would like to draw your attention to the notes on slide two of our webcast. Some of the matters to be discussed today are forward-looking. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results and or financial condition to differ materially from these statements. A detailed description of these risks and uncertainties can be found in AFG's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are also available on our website. We may include references to core net operating earnings, a non-GAAP financial measure, in our remarks or responses to questions. A reconciliation of net earnings to core net operating earnings is included in our earnings release. And finally, if you're reading a transcript of this call, please note that it may not be authorized or reviewed for accuracy. And as a result, it may contain factual or transcription errors that could materially alter the intent or meaning of our statements. Now, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Carl Lindner III to discuss our results.

Good morning. I'll begin my remarks by sharing a few highlights of AFG's 2024 first quarter, after which Craig and I will walk through more details. I will then open it up for Q&A where Craig, Brian, and I will respond to your questions. AFG's financial performance during the first quarter was excellent. In addition to producing an annualized first quarter operating return on equity of 20%, net written premiums grew by 8% year over year. Our compelling mix of specialty insurance businesses and entrepreneurial culture, disciplined operating philosophy, and an astute team of in-house investment professionals collectively have enabled us to outperform many of our peers over time. Craig and I thank God our talent and management team, and our great employees for helping us to achieve these results. I'll now turn the discussion over to Craig to walk us through some of the details.