Essent Group Ltd.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Essin Group Limited second quarter earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. Thank you. I'd now like to turn the call over to Phil Stefano, Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, Rob. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our call. Joining me today are Mark Casale, Chairman and CEO, and David Weinstock, Chief Financial Officer. Also on hand for the Q&A portion of the call is Chris Curran, President of Essent Guarantee. Our press release, which contains Essent's financial results for the second quarter of 2026, was issued earlier today and is available on our website at EssentGroup.com. Our press release includes non-GAAP financial measures that may be discussed during today's call. A complete description of these measures and the reconciliation to get may be found in Exhibit Q of our press release and in our second quarter 2026 earnings presentation posted on our website. Prior to getting started, I would like to remind participants that today's discussions are being recorded and will include the use of forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, projections, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially. For discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please review the cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements in today's press release, the risk factors included in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 18, 2026, and any other reports and registration statements filed with the SEC, which are also available on our website. Now let me turn the call over to Mark.

Thanks, Phil, and good morning, everyone. Earlier today, we released our second quarter 2026 financial results, which again reflect the benign credit environment along with the effects of current interest rates on persistency and investment income. Cash generation from our core MI business remains strong, giving us the flexibility to allocate capital between investing in growth across the franchise and returning capital to the shareholders. Our buy, manage, and distribute operating model remains a distinct advantage, positioning Essent to produce high-quality earnings across a wide range of economic environments. For the second quarter of 2026, we reported a net income of $190 million, or $2.08 per diluted share, which translates to an annualized return on average equity of 13.4%. As of June 30, our book value per share was $63.01, and inclusive of our common dividend, it grew nearly 13% over the past year and has compounded approximately 18% annually since our IPO. As a reminder, we believe that success in our business is best measured by growth in book value per share. In our MI business, as of June 30th, our insurance and force was $250 billion, a 1% increase versus a year ago. 12-month persistency was 84%, reflecting the current rate environment and that nearly half of our in-force portfolio has a mortgage rate of 5.5% or lower. We believe that this rate dynamic will support elevated persistency levels while our portfolio growth will remain in a pause as affordability continues to constrain origination volume. Longer term, we continue to believe that favorable demographics and pent-up demand will be a positive for housing and our MI business when affordability improves. The credit quality of our insurance and force remains strong, with a weighted average credit score of 747 and a weighted average original LTV of 93%. Our portfolio default rate was effectively flat quarter over quarter, and we continue to believe that the embedded home equity of our in-force book should mitigate ultimate claims. In addition, 97% of our insurance in-force is subject to reinsurance protection, which provides capital relief and reduces tail risk. On title, we continue investing in technology across our platform while onboarding new partners by leveraging the broad relationships within our MI franchise. High interest rates remain a modest headwind near-term, and we do not expect Title to have any meaningful impact on earnings. Longer-term, our expectations remain the same. Title provides a capital-light opportunity that generates supplemental earnings for our franchise and deepen our lender relationships. Turning to the reinsurance segment, we continue to expect written premium of approximately $320 million for our P&C reinsurance activity in 2026, with roughly half earned this year at a combined ratio in the high 90s. The P&C book is weighted towards casualty and specialty, requiring minimal incremental capital from S&RE. However, over the near term, mortgage risk and a related MGA business will continue to drive the segment's earnings. Our consolidated cash and investments as of June 30th totaled $6.6 billion, with an annualized aggregate investment yield for the second quarter of 4.9%. Our investment yield this quarter includes income from other invested assets, a portfolio of strategic investments in insurance, Specialty Finance and Housing that we built over several years. It's now approximately $450 million or 7% of our total portfolio. Although returns will vary period to period, this portfolio gives us another way to deploy capital outside of our core businesses to generate income and increase book value. We continue to operate from a position of strength, with $5.7 billion in gap equity, access to $1 billion in excess of loss reinsurance, and $1.1 billion in cash and investments at the holding companies. With a trailing 12-month operating cash flow of $834 million, our franchise remains well positioned from an earnings, cash flow, and balance sheet perspective. The capital strategy remains a balanced approach that optimizes shareholder returns over the long term while preserving optionality for strategic growth. Here to date through July 31st, we've repurchased nearly 6 million shares for approximately $350 million, and I'm pleased to announce that our Board has approved a common dividend of $0.35 for the third quarter of 2026. Now let me turn the call over to Dave.