AFLAC Incorporated

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the AFLAC Incorporated Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a 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 and then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the floor 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 fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. This morning, Dan Amos, Chairman, 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 financial results for the quarter, current capital and liquidity. These topics are also addressed in the materials we posted with our earnings release, financial supplement and quarterly CFO update on our investors.aflac.com. For Q&A today, We are joined by Virgil Miller, President of Aflac Incorporated and Aflac US. 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. GAAP 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. Aflac Incorporated reported fourth quarter net earnings per diluted share of $2.64 and adjusted earnings per diluted share of $1.57. For the year, Aflac Incorporated reported net earnings per diluted share of $6.82 and adjusted earnings per diluted share of $7.49. Max will expand upon these strong results for the quarter in a moment, but before he does, I'd like to comment on our operations. Beginning with Japan, I'm very pleased with Aflac Japan sales increase of 15.7% for the fourth quarter and 16% for 2025. These strong sales results were driven largely by the remarkable 35.6% sales increase, mainly due to Morito, our latest cancer insurance product, launched in March. While still early, we are also excited about the positive reception our newest medical product, On Shin Pallet, has received since its late December introduction. As part of our ongoing strategy, we also continue to emphasize and promote the importance of third sector protection to new and younger customers with our innovative first sector product, Sumitas, which was repriced in September. While premium persistency reflected lapses tied to the launch of Morito, it still remained strong at 93.1% for the year. Our success with so many policyholders who realize the value of Aflac's products and keep them is a testament to Aflac's reputation, our strategy, and our customers' recognition of the value of our products. By maintaining this level of persistency while adding new premium through sales, we look to offset the impact of reinsurance and policies reaching paid-up status in the future. Maintaining strong persistency continues to be vital to the future of Aflac Japan. For the year, We also saw an increase in sales through each distribution channel. Being where the customer wants to buy insurance has always been an important competitive strength of our growth strategy in Japan. Our broadened networks of distribution channels, including agencies, alliance partners, and banks, are dedicated to continually optimizing opportunities to help provide financial protection to Japanese consumers. We will continue to work hard to support each channel as we evolve to meet customers' changing needs. Overall, I believe we have put in place the right people and the strategy to meet our customers' financial protection needs through their different stages of life. Turning to Aflac US. we generated nearly $1.6 billion in new sales in 2025, over one-third of which came from the fourth quarter. More importantly, we maintained strong premium persistency of 79.2% and increased net earned premiums by 2.9% for 2025. We continue to focus on driving our profitable growth by exercising a strong underwriting discipline and maintaining strong premium persistency. We believe this will continue to drive net earned premium growth. At the same time, Aflac US has continued its prudent approach to expense management and maintaining a strong pre-tax margin, as Max will expand upon shortly. In both Japan and the United States, consumers continue to face financial hardships due to increasing out-of-pocket medical expenses. That is exactly where we come in as partners to be there when our policyholders need us most. As the pioneer of cancer insurance and the leader in the industry, our management teams, employees, and sales networks approach every day as a chance to help our policyholders fill the gap during challenging times, providing not just financial protection, but also compassion and care. At the same time, we generate strong capital and cash flows on an ongoing basis while maintaining our commitment to prudent liquidity and capital management. We continue to be pleased with our investments, producing solid net investment income. As an insurance company, our primary responsibility is to fulfill the promises we make to our policyholders while being responsive to the needs of our shareholders. Our financial strength is the foundation that backs up our promise to our policyholders balanced with the financial flexibility and tactical capital deployment. I'm very pleased with the company's financial strength, which supports our capital deployment, including the board's decision to increase the first quarter of 2026 dividend by 5.2%. In 2025, Aflac Incorporated deployed a record 3.5 billion to repurchase 33 million shares of our stock and paid dividends of 1.2 billion. We treasure our 43 consecutive years of dividend increases and remain committed to extending this record. Combining share repurchase and dividends, we delivered nearly $4.8 billion back to the shareholders in 2025. In doing so, we have maintained our position among companies with the highest return on capital and the lowest cost of capital in the industry. 2025 also marked three significant milestones for Aflac. The 70th year since the company's founding, the 30th anniversary of what is now Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and the 25th anniversary of the Aflac Duck. Each of these noteworthy milestones demonstrates the staying power of the financial protection Aflac's products help provide and the privilege of helping enrich the lives of millions of people. In today's complex healthcare environment, our relevant products, financial strength, powerful brand, and broad distribution network uniquely positions Aflac as the ideal partner for consumers as they navigate the financial strain from out-of-pocket medical costs. The enduring foundational strengths of our business and our capacity for continued growth in Japan and the U.S., two of the largest life insurance markets in the world, support 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.