Employers Holdings Inc

Good day, thank you for standing by and welcome to today's Q1 2022 Employers Holdings, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ms. Lori Brown, General Counsel. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Alex. Good morning and welcome everyone to the first quarter 2022 earnings call for employers. Today's call is being recorded in webcast from the investor 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 development. The company also uses its website as a means of disclosing material nonpublic information and for complying with disclosure obligations under 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 2022 and discuss our observations of the current workers' compensation market. We are executing well on our business plan, which calls for us to remain laser-focused on capitalizing on the recent labor market improvement while continuing to maintain underwriting discipline and actively manage our expenses. Our gross premiums written during the first quarter were up 16% versus those of a year ago. Within our employer segment, the strong rebound primarily resulted from solid new business writings, especially within alternative distribution channels, and was further impacted by an increase in audit premium recognition. We can also attribute growth to CRD's strong new business writings. One of the key drivers of our growth was our appetite expansion into new markets within our targeted low-hazard groups, including landscaping, residential janitorial, and several artisan contracting classes. We ended the quarter with yet another record number of policies in force. The significant growth in policy count positions us well for premium growth as wages rise and employment levels improve. The leverage associated with these dual forces is expected to further increase our top line. We recorded our current accident year loss and LAE ratio on voluntary business at 64%, largely consistent with the 63.5% we recorded throughout 2021. Our first quarter limited review of our prior accident year loss reserves was consistent with our expectations, so we did not adjust our reserves. We plan to evaluate our prior year loss reserves in more detail at mid-year when we perform our semiannual full reserve study. Our underwriting and general and administrative expenses of $39 million were consistent with those of the fourth quarter and were down 16% year over year. You may recall that we stated a year ago that our first quarter 2021 expense ratio would be the high watermark and that firmly remains the case. While we're committed to diligently managing our expenses, we continue to make investments in technology to deliver a seamless customer experience to our agents and policyholders. With that, Mike will now provide a further discussion of our financial results, and then I will return to provide my closing remarks. Mike?