Axis Capital Holdings Limited

Good morning and welcome to the fourth quarter 2018 Access Capital Earnings conference call and webcast. 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 now like to turn the conference over to Matt Rohrman, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm happy to welcome you to our conference call to discuss the financial results for Axis Capital for the fourth quarter and the period and year ended at December 31, 2018. Earnings press release and financial supplement were issued yesterday evening after the market closed. If you'd like copies, please visit the investor information section of our website at AxisCapital.com. We set aside an hour for today's call, which is also available as an audio webcast through the investor section of our website. A replay of the teleconference will be available by dialing 877-344-7529 in the United States, and the international number, 412-317-0088. The conference code for both replay dial-in numbers is 101-27972. With me on today's call are Albert Benchimol, our President and CEO, and Pete Vogt, our CFO. Before I turn the call over to Albert, I will remind everyone that the statements made during this call, including the question and answer session, which are not historical facts, may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including the risk factors set forth in ACTS' most recent report on Form 10-K, as well as the additional risks identified in the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements in our earnings press release issued yesterday evening. We undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements. In addition, this presentation may contain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations are included in our earnings press release and financial supplement, which can be found on the investor information section of our website, which is located at accesscapital.com. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Albert.

Thank you, Matt. And good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us to review our fourth quarter and year-end results. I'll begin by saying that this was a tough quarter. However, notwithstanding fourth quarter results that were clearly unsatisfactory, our overall performance for the year has continued to show progress on a multi-year trend of lower ex-CAT combined ratios, even as we've changed the mix of business to include less CAT exposure and in a declining market. Overall, 2018 was undeniably a year where we took steps forward, both in terms of underwriting profitability and organizational progress. Let's first discuss our performance. As noted in our earnings announcement, our first quarter results were negatively impacted by high attritional property loss and catactivity. Based on our research and conversations with our clients and brokers, we do believe that the higher property loss frequency is broadly based across our industry, and that the fourth quarter experience is more of an unusual quarter than it is a trend. Separately, if you step back and look at our results over the past year, you'll see that AXS delivered an improvement in full-year underwriting performance both with and without CATS. We feel the best way to review progress from period to period is on an XPGAP basis and also on an XCATS basis. So, on that basis, XPGAP, XCATS, the full-year calendar year combined ratio improved to 97.6% in 2018, from 98.5% in 2017, with a full two-point reduction in the XCAT loss ratio. We also looked at the pro forma combined results as if the merger were effective on January 1, 2017, to do two full years of comparison. And on that basis, The full-year XP-CAT calendar year combined ratio improved from a pro forma 99.5% in 2017 to an actual 97.6% in 2018, with a 1.4 point reduction in the XCAT loss ratio, reflecting the significant actions that we took over the past year to strengthen our portfolio. And our efforts in that regard have only accelerated in the past few months. As we've discussed in past earnings calls, beyond the underwriting actions, we've also made tangible progress in furthering our strategy and in strengthening our business. A highlight for the year was the successful integration of Novi into our London operations to make us a top 10 insurer at Lloyds. The market has enthusiastically welcomed our new status, and we've seen significant new opportunities as a result of our enhanced relevance, even as we've taken additional portfolio actions that have not yet been reflected in our results. You'll also recall that during the year, we launched a transformation program to allow us to better leverage data and analytics, make us more agile, and better enable us to take advantage of opportunities in the market. We announced that between the synergies relating to the Novi integration and our transformation, we were targeting $100 million in net savings off the 2017 expense levels by the end of 2020. I'm pleased to say that as of the fourth quarter of 2018, we've already achieved $70 million in annualized savings on a run rate basis. Again, to be clear, our fourth quarter results are unsatisfactory and we take ownership of that. But our performance of the quarter should not diminish the significant progress that was made in 18 to improve our business and strengthen our leadership position. Last year was all about laying the groundwork and furthering progress in the construction of our portfolio. This year, it's all about implementation and delivering on the expected benefits of our work. And we feel that we have the wind at our backs. Later in the call, I'll speak to some of the trends that we're seeing in the market. But first, let's turn to Pete, who will walk us through the results in more detail. Pete.