Axis Capital Holdings Limited

thank you all for standing by today's fourth quarter 2021 access capital earnings call will begin in around two to three minutes thank you Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the fourth quarter 2021 Axis Capital Earnings Call. If you'd like to ask a question at the end of today's presentation, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you have joined online, please press the red flag icon on your screen. It's now my pleasure to hand the call over to Matt Rohrman, Head of Investor Relations to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Emma. 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, 2021. Our express release and financial supplement were issued last night after the market closed. If you'd like copies, please visit the investor information section of our website, axiscapital.com. We set aside an hour for today's call, which is also available as an audio webcast on our website. With me today are Albert Benchmall, 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, are not historical facts. They 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 report on Form 10-K and other reports the company files to the SEC. This includes the additional risk identified in the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements in our earnings press release issued last night. 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, and thank you for joining today's call. This was a strong quarter for Axis. in a year where we demonstrated meaningful progress in strengthening all aspects of our business and in enhancing the value proposition that we deliver to our customers. I'm grateful to my Axis colleagues for their tenacity and commitment in serving our brokers and clients, as well as supporting one another as we collectively navigated to a dynamic environment that included another tough cashier, continued curveballs thrown at us by the COVID pandemic and rising inflation. To the credit of our team, in 2021, Axis advanced its efforts to reposition the portfolio, manage down volatility, and drive profitable growth while capitalizing on a favorable market. We began 2022 as a stronger company than we were just a year ago, committed to further increasing the value that we deliver to all of our stakeholders, and we're confident that we'll continue to build on our progress in the year ahead. In a few minutes, people will walk us through the fourth quarter results. but I'd like to take a moment to step back and put our annual results in the context of a multi-year transformation. Let me get to some of the specifics of the evident progress in our performance. Comparing our results in 2017, we've taken our attritional ratio down by nine points to 55.1 this year, and brought our current year XCAT combined ratio by 10 points to 88.7, the best since 2007. All the while, we reduced our PML by over 50% across the curve. The improvement in our performance is attributable to more proactive reshaping of the portfolio, reduction of limits, and modification of attachment points, in addition to good growth in selected lines once they reached rate adequacy. In 2021, industry CAT losses are up about 40%, but our CAT loss ratio stayed flat at 9.5. This is still higher than we target, even in a $100 billion-plus CAT year. and we're actively continuing our disciplined actions to reduce our cat exposure and deliver more consistent earnings. Importantly, we continue to build a very successful specialty insurance franchise, which produced $4.9 billion of gross premium in 2021, making up 63% of our writing, up from 50% in 2017. We expect that number to approach 70% this year as we capitalize on our already well-established presence in some of the most attractive P&C markets today. Our insurance business is producing excellent results, growing production by 20%, generating record new business and total premiums, while at the same time strengthening the overall portfolio. Our insurance segment delivered a combined ratio of 91.6 this year, the best since 2010, and a current year XCAT combined ratio of 85.9, the lowest since 2006. We're confident that the business is on pace to establish its place among the top carriers in the specialty insurance sector. We continue to be focused on actively growing this business by enhancing the customer experience and investing in capabilities and services that will increase the value that we deliver to our customers and the greater specialty sector. Our reinsurance business also delivered improved performance, and it's an encouraging sign of progress that in a very high-cat year for the industry, it produced a combined ratio below 100. In addition, the current year XCAT combined ratio of 86.3 was the best since 2012. This progress demonstrates the work our team has done to improve the quality and resilience of our reinsurance portfolios. And as I noted earlier, we're fully committed to driving even more progress. Indeed, during the recent January 1 renewals, where we write more than 50% of our reinsurance business, We advanced our corporate objectives to reduce volatility, allocate capital rigorously, and produce the most optimized portfolio for the current market. As such, we took decisive action and reduced our reinsurance property and property cap premiums by 45%. I'll talk more about this later during the call when we discuss rates and trends, but I would like to thank now our reinsurance team for their tremendous work during a tough renewal period. Our performance over the last few years tells us that our plan is generating tangible results, but we're still not done. We won't be satisfied until we consistently deliver top quintile performance. I've said this before, but it bears repeating. We know exactly what we need to do to sustain this momentum and profitably grow our business. We'll continue to grow a franchise that leverages our broad global capabilities to deliver value-added products and services that meet our customers' needs. We'll continue to intelligently grow our portfolio while reducing exposure to catastrophe events. We'll focus on achieving a competitive expense ratio that can support continued investment in long-term profitable growth. And we will continue to invest in our culture, our people, and in making a positive impact in our communities, as well as in advancing our ESG objectives. We're excited to begin 2022 and looking to the future with optimism and enthusiasm. We're confident in what we can achieve and believe there's significant runway to further grow the business, deliver consistent profitable results, and enhance the value that we provide to all our stakeholders. And with that, I'll now pass the floor to Pete, who will walk us through the fourth quarter and year, and I'll come back to discuss market trends, and we'll have a Q&A. Pete?