Employers Holdings Inc

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Employers Holdings, Inc.' 's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star 1-1 again. As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Lori Brown, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jonathan. Good morning and welcome, everyone, to the third quarter 2024 earnings call for employers. Today's call is being recorded and webcast from the investor section of our website, where a replay will be available following the call. 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 non-public information and for complying with disclosure obligations under the SEC's regulation FD. Some disclosures will be included in the investor section of our website. Accordingly, investors should monitor that portion of our website in addition to following our 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 measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures 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. And now I'll turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Kathy Antonello.

Thank you, Lori, and let me echo your words earlier with a warm welcome to everyone participating in today's call. Joining me today is Mike Paquette, our Chief Financial Officer. During the call, we will follow our typical agenda where I will deliver my opening comments and then hand it over to Mike to provide the details on our financials. I'll close with a few additional thoughts and then we'll open it up for questions, comments, and discussion. We are very pleased with employers' third quarter results as we saw year-over-year net income per share increase by 124% and adjusted net income per share increased by 19%. Higher earned premiums, strong net investment income, and continued net investment gains were the main drivers of the increases. Our strong operating results, coupled with the sharp decrease in interest rates experienced during the quarter, listed each of our book value per share metrics to all-time highs. During the quarter, we continue to grow our new and renewal premiums while experiencing reductions in both premium audit pickup and audit accrual. Our current accident year loss in LAE ratio on voluntary business was 64%, slightly above the 63.3% we maintained throughout 2023 and consistent with that of 2022. As was the case in the third quarter of 2023, we did not recognize any prior year loss reserve development on our voluntary business because a full actuarial study was not performed. We will evaluate our prior year reserves in more detail at year end when we routinely perform a full reserve study. Our ongoing initiative to reduce our underwriting and general and administrative expense ratio continues to be effective. This quarter's ratio of 23.2% is down from 23.6% a year ago, and it's the second lowest since 2018. The decrease was primarily the result of the Serity Integration Plan we executed in the fourth quarter of 2023. With that, Mike will now provide a deeper dive into our financials, and then I will return to provide my closing remarks. Mike?