Employers Holdings Inc

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q1 2021 Employers Holdings, Inc. conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Lori Brown. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Angela. Good morning and welcome, everyone, to the first quarter 2021 earnings call for employers. Today's call is being recorded in webcast from the investors section of our website, where a replay will be available following the call. Presenting today on the call will be Kathy Antonello, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Paquette, our Chief Financial Officer. Statements made during this conference call that are not based on historical facts are considered forward-looking statements. These statements are made in reliance on the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although we believe the expectations expressed in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to be materially different from our expectations. including the risks set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All remarks made during the call are current only at the time of the call and will not be updated to reflect subsequent developments. The company also uses its website as a means of disclosing material nonpublic information and for complying with disclosure obligation under the SEC's Regulation FD. Such disclosures will be included in the investor section of the company's website. Accordingly, investors should monitor that portion of the company's website in addition to following the company's press releases, SEC filings, public conference calls, and webcasts. In our earnings press release and in our remarks or responses to questions, we may use non-GAAP financial metrics. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP metrics to our GAAP results are included in our financial supplement as an attachment to our earnings press release, our investor presentation, and any other materials available in the investor section on our website. Now I will turn the call over to Kathy.

Thank you, Lori, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. On today's call, Mike and I will outline our financial results for the first quarter of 2021 and discuss our observations of the current workers' compensation market. Employers has performed well throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and the first quarter of 2021 was no exception. While our top line was adversely impacted early in the first quarter by a meaningful year-over-year decrease in new business premium, we are very encouraged by the strength of our writings in March and April, including those of Serity. The recent improvement in submissions, quotes, and binds is directly correlated with increased hiring and expanded reopenings across most states. With respect to our renewal book, our policy retention rate remained very strong at 94% for the quarter. This was offset to some degree by lower average policy sizes and modest rate decreases. And overall, our renewal premium was down 11% on a year-over-year basis. We closed the quarter with another record number of policies in force, which demonstrates that our policyholders are enduring the pandemic and small businesses are shopping for workers' compensation coverage. As widespread vaccination continues and the labor market improves, we are optimistic that rising payrolls will serve to increase premium. In support of this anticipated recovery, we have continued to pursue and advance the significant investments we've made in delivering a superior customer experience for our agents. Due to declines in both frequency and severity for lost time claims, we've lowered our current accident year loss and LAE ratio on voluntary business to 63.6%, down from 65.5% a year ago and 64.3% at year end. In addition, we continue to experience favorable loss reserve development in nearly every prior accident year. Regarding our expenses, several first quarter events are worth noting. We underwent a reduction in force, which impacted approximately 7% of our workforce. We also said fond farewells to a few of our executives, including our former CEO, and subsequently realigned the organization to increase efficiency and generate cost savings. As a result, our first quarter underwriting and general administrative expenses of 46.6 million will be the high watermark for 2021, and you will see immediate and significant expense reductions for the remainder of the year. With that, Mike will now provide a further discussion of our financial results, and then I will return to provide my closing remarks. Mike.