AFLAC Incorporated

Good day and welcome to Aflac Incorporated first quarter 2025 earnings 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 one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to David Young, Vice President of Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome. Thank you for joining us for Aflac Incorporated's first quarter 2025 earnings call. This morning, Dan Amos, Chairman and CEO of Aflac Incorporated, will provide an overview of our results and operations in Japan and the United States. Then Max Brodin, Senior Executive Vice President and CFO of Aflac Incorporated, will provide more detail on our first quarter financial results, current capital, and liquidity. These topics are also addressed in the materials we posted with our earnings release, financial supplement, and quarterly CFO video update on investors.aflac.com. For Q&A today, we are also joined by Virgil Miller, President of Aflac Incorporated and Aflac U.S., Charles Lake, Chairman and Representative Director, President of Aflac International, Masatoshi Kuide, President and Representative Director, Aflac Life Insurance Japan, and Brad Dislin, Global Chief Investment Officer, President of Aflac Global Investments. Before we begin, some statements in this teleconference are forward-looking within the meaning of federal securities laws. Although we believe these statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that they will prove to be accurate because they are perspective in nature. Actual results could differ materially from those we discussed today. We encourage you to look at our annual report on Form 10-K for some of the various risk factors that could materially impact our results. As I mentioned earlier, the earnings release with reconciliations of certain non-U.S. gap measures and related earnings materials are available on investors.aflac.com. I'll now hand the call over to Dan. Dan?

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. We're glad you joined us. Although we just have one quarter under our belt, the first quarter marked a good start for the year. Aflac Incorporated's reported net earnings per diluted share of 5 cents which was significantly impacted by net investment losses this quarter compared to net investment gains in the first quarter of 2024. At the same time, the company reported adjusted earnings per diluted share of $1.66, which is unchanged from the first quarter of 2024. Beginning with Aflac Japan, I am pleased with the 12.6% year-over-year sales increase. This quarter's sales reflected a continued significant contribution from Sumitaz and a 6.3 percent increase from cancer insurance sales, taking into account Japan's demographics and product strategy is to fit the needs of customers throughout all stages of life. Acquiring younger customers is critical to our success. We believe Sumitaz helped us appeal to and, more importantly, reach younger customers in Japan. Our strong sales in Japan reflect the success our agencies have had selling Sumitaz. As the pioneer of cancer insurance and leading third sector insurer, we also aim to sell these Sumitaz policyholders a medical policy or cancer policy. We have also launched the initial stage of sales in our newest cancer insurance on March the 17th. While it is still very early, the results that we have seen thus far have been positive. As of April the 21st, the product has been available through all of Japan's sales channels. Maintain strong premium persistency is a testament to Aflac's reputation and customer recognition of the value of our products. By maintaining this level of persistency and adding new premium through sales, we are partially offsetting the impact of reinsurance and policies reaching paid-up status. This will be vital to our future growth of Aflac Japan. Turning to Aflac US, I was pleased by the 3.5% year-over-year increase in sales and encouraged by the momentum we are seeing within all areas of our group business, especially our group life and disability, as well as network dental. In addition, we believe our efforts to drive more profitable growth with a stronger underwriting discipline have contributed to our strong premium persistency and net earned premiums growth. At the same time, Aflac US has maintained its prudent approach to expense management and maintaining a strong pre-tax margin, as Max will expand on in a moment. In both Japan and the United States, I believe that consumers need the products and solutions Aflac offers More than ever, for our policyholders who've become claimants, Aflac is more than an insurance company. We are a partner in health, a supporter of families during their times of need, and a pioneer and leader in the industry. We are leveraging every opportunity to convey how our products can help fill the gaps during challenging times, providing not just financial assistance, but also compassion and care. At the same time, we continue to generate strong capital and cash flows while maintaining our commitment to prudent liquidity and capital management. We have been very pleased with our investments, which have continued to produce strong net investment income As an insurance company, our primary responsibility is to fulfill the promises we make to the policyholders while being responsive to the needs of our shareholders. Our solid portfolio supports our promise to our policyholders, as does our commitment to maintaining strong capital ratios. We balance this financial strength with tactical capital deployment. I am very happy with how management has handled capital deployment and liquidity, and specifically how well we've adapted to this environment. In the first quarter, Appalach Incorporated deployed $900 million in capital to repurchase 8.5 million shares of our stock. Additionally, we treasure our track record of 42 consecutive years of dividend growth At the same time, we have maintained our position among companies with the highest return on capital and the lowest cost of capital in the industry. Combined with dividends, this means we delivered $1.2 billion back to the shareholders in the first quarter of 2025. We believe in the underlying strengths of our business and our potential for continued growth in Japan and the United States, two of the largest life insurance markets in the world. On an ongoing basis, we are taking action to reinforce our leading position and build on our momentum. I will now turn the program over to Max to cover more details of the financial results.