Axis Capital Holdings Limited

Welcome to Access Capital 4th Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference 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. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Worman, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Kate. 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 year ended December 31st, 2020. Our earnings press release and financial supplement were issued yesterday evening after the market closed. If you would like copies, please visit the investor information section of our website at AxisCapital.com. We've set aside an hour for today's call, which is also available as an audio webcast. This is also available through the investor information section of our website. With me today are Albert Benchemal, our president and CEO, and Pete Vogt, our CFO. Before I turn the call over to Albert, I'll 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 the company's most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and other reports the company files to the SEC. This includes 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 publicly update or revise 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. With that, I'll turn the call over to Albert.

Thank you, Matt. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our fourth quarter conference call. 2020 was a tough year. Access and our industry faced the combination of COVID-19, which impacted both our underwriting and investment, compounded by heightened hurricane activity, that made 2020 the fifth costliest CAD year on record. Given our presence in the diversifying UK market and global reinsurance business, we could not avoid COVID. But I'm proud of the manner in which Axis responded to the pandemic. Our team did an outstanding job of sustaining excellent service to our clients and partners in distribution, and we exhibited our values in our support of our colleagues and our communities. We were early in identifying our potential COVID exposures and establishing prudent reserves in the first quarter. Unfortunately, the pandemic spiked again in the fourth quarter, and recent court judgments also increased the potential cost to the insurance industry. This caused us to take an additional COVID charge in the fourth quarter. While the pandemic is still an ongoing catastrophe event, I believe we've taken a prudent approach to analyzing our exposures and that we have the reserves to reasonably address our potential liability for both short and long tail related exposures incurred in 2020. COVID and the various catastrophe events of 2020 materially impacted our financial performance and we delivered disappointing results that unfortunately overshadowed encouraging progress in our core underwriting performance. The fourth quarter of 2020 marked the fifth consecutive quarter and sixth quarter in the last eight in which we delivered significant year-over-year improvement in our current accident year XCAT combined ratio. The fourth quarter's accident year XCAT combined ratio of 91.8 was 4.5 points better than that of last year's fourth quarter. And the full year 2020 accident year XCAT combined ratio of 92.2 was close to five points better than the full year 2019. We delivered better core underwriting results across nearly all of our lines of business. This encouraging progress reflects the re-underwriting of our book and strategic growth in the more attractive lines where we could achieve above our minimum return targets. We enter 2021 with a significantly stronger and more balanced book of business. But we also recognize that there is still more to do. In particular, we will continue to take advantage of the market conditions to accelerate our growth in non-CAT exposed lines of business to deliver more balance in our results. We will continue to improve the construction of our portfolio to increase our resilience to CAT events. And we're in excellent position to do just that. Across our business, we're capitalizing on favorable market conditions to continue growing in our most attractive markets while improving terms and conditions, reducing limits, and increasing attachment points where appropriate. At the same time, we're continuing to remediate and eliminate unprofitable business and feel very good about the quality of our book heading into 2021. And we believe access is poised to drive profitable growth. I'll provide additional context shortly, but first I'll pass the floor to Pete, who will walk us through the fourth quarter and year-end financials, and then I'll come back to discuss market trends, and we'll have our Q&A. Pete?