Crawford & Company

Good morning. My name is Colin and I'll be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Crawford and Company third quarter 2022 earnings release conference call. In conjunction with this call, a supplementary financial presentation is available on our website at www.crawco.com under the investor relations section. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period. Instructions will follow at that time. Should anyone need assistance at any time during this call, please press star, then zero, and an operator will assist you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this call is being recorded today, Wednesday, November 9, 2022. I would now like to introduce Tammy Stevenson, Crawford & Company's General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Colin. Some of the matters to be discussed in this conference call and the supplementary financial presentation may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may relate to, among other things, the impact of COVID-19, our expected future operating results and financial conditions, our ability to grow our revenues and reduce our operating expenses, expectations regarding our anticipated contributions to our underfunded defined benefit pension plans, collectability of our billed and unbilled accounts receivable, financial results from our recently completed acquisitions, our continued compliance with financial and other covenants contained in our financing agreements, our long-term capital resource and liquidity requirements, and our ability to pay dividends in the future. The company's actual results achieved in future quarters could differ materially from the results that may have been implied in such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release revisions to any forward-looking statements made in this conference call to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of the call or to reflect the occurrence of the unanticipated events. In addition, you are reminded that operating results from any historical period are not necessarily indicative of results to be expected for any future period. For a complete discussion regarding factors which could affect the company's financial performance, please refer to the company's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2022, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. particularly the information under the headings risk factors and management's discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations, as well as subsequent company filings with the SEC. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under SEC rules. As required, a reconciliation is provided for those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I would now like to introduce Mr. Rohit Verma, Chief Executive Officer of Crawford & Company. Rohit, you may begin the conference.

Thank you, Tammy. Good morning and welcome to our third quarter 2022 earnings call. Joining me today is Bruce Swain, our Chief Financial Officer, Joseph Blancourt, President, and Tammy Stevenson, our General Counsel. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for your questions. Before we begin, I want to extend our thoughts to all those who have been impacted by Hurricane Ian, particularly those in Florida who are still struggling as a result of this terrible devastation and actually facing a new risk from Hurricane Nicole. As our response continues, we are tremendously proud of the entire Crawford team, especially our adjusters on the ground who are working tirelessly to help restore communities and businesses that have been impacted by this terrible devastation. Our third quarter results reflect continuing top line momentum driven by the strategic investments we have made across the business. Revenues increased 2% or 6% on a constant currency basis compared to a strong prior year period which included pronounced weather events in the US. Looking at our North America business, our efforts to increase penetration with the top five carrier clients continues to bear fruit. This ongoing success is a testament to Crawford's technology and people focus strategy as our clients increasingly depend on Crawford's deep bench of experts and commitment to quality when assessing their outsourcing needs. This has resulted in strengthened relationships and higher claims allocations for us. Platform solutions experienced strong results, delivering yet another quarter of double-digit revenue growth. This was driven primarily by strength from our networks business and contributions from our Praxis acquisition. Within North America loss adjusting, we are gaining traction in the marketplace as we bring more experts on board as well as expand our geographic footprint within our volume business across U.S. This differentiated offering enables Crawford to address the increasingly complex nature of claims. As a result, we are becoming an even more valuable player to our clients. Broad Spire also continues to experience a steady recovery towards pre-pandemic levels aided by increased economic activity and new client wins. In our international segment, we have experienced ongoing margin pressure, which I will discuss more in greater detail. Overall, the investments we have made and continue to make are delivering results across the business. We remain confident that we have the right strategy in place to support increased market share gains and improve profitability. While top-line growth has maintained its strong momentum, there are clearly areas across our business that we know are ripe for improvement. We have experienced attractive margins and continue to make growth investments across our North American businesses. These investments include adding experts, closing geographic market gaps, investing in quality. As these businesses scale, we expect to see further margin and profitability expansion. Additionally, we are seeing improved efficiencies as our new hires ramp. While the lack of US-based weather activity during majority of the third quarter pressured margins in our North American business, we anticipate improvements in the fourth quarter driven by activities related to Hurricane Ian. Our international segment continues to experience margin constraints, particularly in the UK and Europe. We are taking deliberate actions to address the challenges across these businesses. These actions include adjusting prices and addressing pockets of low productivity or underperformance. We've also made changes across the organization to optimize our cost structure in alignment with current market dynamics. While it is early days, we are already seeing the benefit of these efforts in Latin America. In addition to the above measures, in the UK we're addressing legacy client contract issues. Finally, we are enhancing our product offering and improving quality and service with investments and digitization. Overall, we remain optimistic that our positive momentum in North America combined with expected improvement in our international business in 2023 will drive further growth and improve our overall margin profile. As we look at capital allocation, given the volatility in the market as well as geopolitical tensions, we are focused on strengthening our financial position. We were able to leverage our liquidity to fund working capital needs related to the storm activities in Australia, as well as the US. We expect improved cash generation moving forward, which we will use to pay down debt and get our leverage ratio back closer to our target of two times EBITDA. This gives us financial flexibility, which should position us well to weather any macroeconomic issues next year. Overall, Crawford is in a solid financial position. and we feel confident in our ability to continue executing our growth strategy and drive margin improvement. Lastly, I would like to highlight our recent announcement of the election of Cameron Brady to Crawford's Board of Directors. He will serve on our audit committee. Cameron brings over 25 years of global finance, operations, and risk management experience to the board, and we believe his fresh perspective will help to further support Crawford's envisioned future. With that, I'd like to hand the call over to Joseph, who will discuss our business line results for third quarter.