Everest Group, Ltd.

Welcome to the Everest Regroup Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to turn the call over to John Levinson, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to the Everest Regroup Limited 2021 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. The Everest executives leading today's call are Juan Andrade, President and Chief Executive Officer. Mark Kosciancic, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We are also joined by other members of the Everest Management Team. Before we begin, I will preface the comments on today's call by noting that Everest SEC filings include extensive disclosures with respect to forward-looking statements. Management comments regarding estimates, projections, and similar are subject to the risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as noted in these filings. Management may also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These items are reconciled and are earnings release and financial supplement. With that, I turn the call over to Juan Andrade.

Juan Andrade Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. I average this off to a strong start in 2021 with robust growth, strong overall profitability, continued improvement in attritional underwriting margins, and excellent investment performance. We achieved these results despite the meaningful impact to the industry of the U.S. winter storms in the first quarter. Our thoughts are with those affected by these storms, as well as the Australian floods, and I am very proud of the work our claims team is doing on the ground to help people restore their lives. Our first quarter results demonstrate the earnings power of Everest and our success in implementing our strategy to build a broadly diversified company with a relentless focus on operational performance and disciplined underwriting. We are bullish about 2021. We will continue to profitably grow the insurance segment while continuing to grow and strengthen our position as a leading global P&C reinsurer. Our diversified reinsurance and insurance franchises, financial strength, deep distribution relationships, and leading customer solutions enable us to thrive in today's market. I will now discuss our group, reinsurance, and insurance first quarter 2021 results. Starting with the group results, we grew gross written premiums by 14% and net written premiums by 16% with robust growth across both segments. Our growth stems from one a combination of new business opportunities, two, improved terms and conditions, three, increased rate levels, four, expanded shares on attractive renewals, and five, high overall renewal retention. The as reported combined ratio was 98.1%, including the previously announced US winter storms and the Australian flooding catastrophe losses. We generated $45 million in underwriting profit compared to 29 million in the first quarter last year. While the pandemic is not over, and as we have done in prior quarters, we completed a rigorous analysis of our COVID exposure in the first quarter, resulting in no change to our COVID loss provision. Our COVID loss provision remains at 511 million, of which approximately 80% is IB&R. The attritional combined ratio was 87.3, a 2.5 point improvement over the first quarter of 2020, with both segments continuing to show significant year-over-year improvement in loss and expense ratios. We continue to diligently manage our portfolios to improve returns with a broad array of underwriting actions. This includes managing attachment points and limits, improving on terms and conditions, and targeting non-renewals of business, which does not meet our hurdles. as well as many other actions. Underwriting profitability remains at the core of everything we do. Net investment income was excellent at $260 million, compared to $148 million in the prior year first quarter. These strong operating results led to a net income for the quarter of $342 million, resulting in an annualized return on equity of 15%. For our reinsurance division, The first quarter continued our strong growth, with gross written premiums up 16%. We were pleased with our successful execution of our January 1 renewal plan. The targeted and disciplined growth was driven by higher rate, increased shares on profitable deals, along with new opportunities in property, casualty, specialty lines, and facultative business. The attritional combined ratio was 85.5 for the quarter, a 2.3 point improvement year over year. This came from improvement in both the loss and expense ratio. We saw better economics in most treaties and classes of business around the world. We were disciplined and reduced shares or non-renewed underperforming treaties or those where we did not get our target rate, terms, conditions, wordings, or exclusions. We also deployed additional capacity into lines with more attractive risk-adjusted returns. This dynamic capital allocation resulted in an improved attritional combined ratio. Overall, we continue to write a stronger, more diversified, and more profitable book. With regard to the April 1 renewals, we achieved 10% to 15% rate increases on Japanese wind treaties and 5% rate increases in earthquake treaties. rates in other geographies continue to rise in both property and casualty lines. John Doucette is available to provide additional details during the Q&A. Our insurance division continues its solid execution in the market, resulting in strong attritional underwriting performance and premium growth. Gross written premium grew 10%. If we exclude workers' compensation, where we see less attractive pricing, growth-written premium grew 20%. This growth is driven by disciplined cycle management, new business opportunities, ongoing strong rate increases in our target classes of business, and high retention rates on existing business. We are also seeing a slow but steady improvement in overall economic activity. The growth was well diversified in our target classes, where market conditions are primed for profitable growth, including specialty casualty, professional liability, and property short tail. We are happy with this diversification as it is a core tenet of our strategy. Everest Insurance delivered and improved the traditional combined ratio of 92.2 for the first quarter, a 2.7 point improvement over Q1 2020. These results continue to be driven by proactive underwriting actions and a continued focus on expense management. These actions are resulting in the continued expansion of our insurance margins. The attritional loss ratio of 64.3 improved 1.4 points year-over-year, and the total expense ratio improved 1.3 points year-over-year. Renewal rate increases continue to exceed our expectations for loss trend, up 16% in the quarter, excluding workers' compensation, and up 10%, including workers' compensation. The increased rate we achieved and the expected increase in margin is a function of market conditions and disciplined proactive underwriting actions across our businesses. After years of soft pricing and rising loss costs, pricing adjustments remain necessary. We expect this favorable pricing to continue throughout 2021. Consistent with prior quarters, rate increases were led by excess casualty of 33%, D&O up 24, property up 13, and commercial auto up 13. We are also seeing widespread rate increases in other lines of business. We are managing the insurance business to build a diversified portfolio, steering our mix toward product lines with better rate adequacy and higher long-term margins. We also continue to manage average limits deployed to control volatility. We are happy with the progress we have made and we expect that this strategic direction should possibly impact our results going forward. Conversely, we have been thoughtfully managing workers' compensation through the cycle. This portfolio now represents 14% of our first quarter premiums, down from 21% a year ago. We have pared back our writings in the monoline guaranteed cost space and shifted our portfolio to more loss-sensitive, loss-rateable business. Workers' compensation is an area of expertise at Everest, and we are monitoring market conditions closely for potential opportunities. But these efforts illustrate the disciplined cycle management we have implemented in the company. Lastly, our strong position in both the E&S and retail channels continue to give us access to a wide set of opportunities. Mike Karmelovich is available to provide additional details during the Q&A. Everest had a strong start to 2021 with robust growth, strong overall profitability, continued improvement in attritional underwriting margins, and excellent investment performance. We have vibrant and well-diversified reinsurance and insurance businesses with experienced leadership and underwriting teams providing industry-leading solutions to customers. We have sustained momentum. This company has excellent financial strength, top talent, and a prudent capital management philosophy. We are focused on sustained profitable growth, a more diversified, targeted, and deliberate mix of business, and superior risk-adjusted returns. We believe that the relentless and disciplined execution of our strategies will result in maximizing shareholder returns. I am confident in Everest's future and in our ability to deliver on our commitments to customers and shareholders. Now, let me turn the call over to Mark Koscianczyk for additional details on the financials.