Pelagos Insurance Capital Limited

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Pelagos Insurance Capital first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. Following the conclusion of formal remarks, the management team will host a question and answer session and instructions will be given at that time. With that, I will now turn the call over to Miranda Hunter, head of investor relations. Ms. Hunter, please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Pelagos Insurance Capital's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. With me today are Dan Burrows, our CEO, Alan DeClaire, our CFO, and Johnny Strickle, our Group Managing Director. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during the call, including the question and answer section, will include forward-looking statements. Management's comments regarding expectations, projections, targets, and any future results are based upon current assessments and assumptions and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and emerging information developing over time. It is important to note that actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied today. Additional information regarding factors shaping these outcomes can be found in our SEC filings including our earnings press release issued last night. Management will also make reference to certain non-GAAP and proprietary measures of financial performance. The reconciliations to US GAAP for each non-GAAP financial measure, as well as description of our proprietary financial measures, can be found in our earnings press release and financial supplement available on our website at pelagosinsurancecapital.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dan.

Thank you, Miranda. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to welcome you to our first earnings call as Pelagos Insurance Capital. The Pelagos rebrand marks an exciting milestone and a deliberate step in our evolution. Our new name is a stronger, clearer reflection of who we are, an expert capital allocator accelerating our resilient, high performing, diversified portfolio by bringing together strategic capital and underwriting expertise through our expanding community of specialist partners. Our strong first quarter performance builds on our momentum from last year. I want to highlight three key areas that both underscore our progress and position us well for continued success. First, we once again delivered excellent results, demonstrating the strength and flexibility of our capital allocator model. We achieved a combined ratio of 86.6%, generated annualized operating ROAE of 15.2%, and grew book value per diluted share to $26.22, including dividends, an increase of 7.2% in the quarter. This represents our best ever quarter of value creation for our shareholders. Second, our growth this quarter highlights the unique advantages of our model. We grew gross premiums written by 7%, driven by our new underwriting partners. And as our platform evolves, we will continue to expand on this. What sets us apart in the market is our ability to allocate capital across a diverse and expanding universe of distribution networks. This gives us multiple differentiated points of access to the market and allows us to execute with agility. Third, we continue to successfully balance profitable underwriting with meaningful capital returns, creating significant value for shareholders. This is underscored by the accretion to our book value per share, which to reiterate, increased by 7.2% in the first quarter alone. We continue to believe that our current market price of stock is undervalued. And as part of our capital management strategy, we repurchased $219 million of shares in the quarter. This includes 163 million bought through a privately negotiated transaction to repurchase all the remaining shares of one of our original PE sponsors, CVC. Importantly, Following this strategic transaction, approximately 65% of our shares are now in the public fleet. At current market valuation, we do not anticipate any further secondary follow-on offerings with our remaining original and long-term PE sponsors in the near term. Turning to our segments, within insurance, we grew gross premiums written this quarter by 13%. driven by the continued execution of our strategy to expand new underwriting partnerships across multiple lines of business. Property again delivered strong performance with continued growth and new business momentum. Our disciplined underwriting approach has enabled us to maintain our margin through our leadership position and by optimising our use of Outlaws Reinsurance. Even amid a competitive environment and rate pressure. This is evidenced by the fact that over the last three years, we have been running at an average sub 40% loss ratio for our property line, despite an active cap and secondary peril environment. Within property, construction has had a strong start to the year, with growth driven by success in the open market, particularly in complex and post-loss accounts, where pricing and terms are more attractive. While some segments continue to experience pressure, we have remained selective while continually adapting our underwriting approach. Asset-backed finance and portfolio credit continued its strong performance with both our existing and new underwriting partners, as we continue to convert our pipeline of opportunities. This is not only diversifying our portfolio, but giving us additional ways to grow in a market with high barriers to entry and where we have deep expertise. We continue to see strong margins across these products, which are insulated from traditional market cycles. In marine, we saw strong new business flow with a step change in marine war rates, driven by conflict in the Middle East. As a leader, our ability to quickly respond, executing bespoke trades in the open market, enables us to actively manage our portfolio at the individual risk level. Our underwriting discipline is driven by a precise risk assessment process. Along with our underwriting partners, we analyse each risk across critical factors like vessel, journey, crew origination, cargo and beneficial ownership, allowing us to underwrite vessel by vessel, avoiding broader coverage through facilities. Outside of war, market conditions in hull, cargo and liability remain competitive. and we continue to prioritise underwriting discipline to maintain portfolio quality. Our political violence and terror lines also presented opportunities for growth in the quarter, driven by our agile approach to selecting individual risks that meet our pricing hurdles. Pricing in the Middle East remains strong. We continue to benefit from our scale and lead position enabling selected deployment and margin preservation in attractive segments. The evolving geopolitical landscape is creating new opportunities in this region, which we are well positioned to continue executing on. In our reinsurance segment, gross premiums written were $404 million for the quarter. This represented growth of 7%, excluding the impact of the reinstatement premiums related to the California wildfires in Q1 2025. We are pleased with the results of our January 1st renewal season. Our underlying portfolio is supported by strong margins and sustained demand, and we've delivered a three-year average annual loss ratio in the sub 20% for this segment. clearly demonstrating the healthy margin profile of the business. Before I hand it over to Alan to discuss our first quarter results in more detail, I'd like to take a moment to highlight how our capital allocator model uniquely positions us in this market. While the market is seeing increased competition in certain lines today, that pressure is verticalised. By that, we mean the pricing difference between lead and follow markets continues to become more pronounced. And being a price maker, not taker, is increasingly important. As a market leader, we continue to see strong pricing, retention levels, and access to business. Our ability to pick and choose how, where and when we execute across lines and geographies and with the right partners gives us the flexibility to capitalize on the most attractive opportunities. For example, following the outbreak of conflicts in the Middle East, we immediately set an underwriting and risk appetite framework. And working alongside our partners, we're among the first to underwrite risk and deploy capital. This enabled us to maximise pricing and set terms and conditions, demonstrating our ability to not only match the right capital to the right risk, but also to the right partner at the right time. In summary, our strong capital position, deep relationships and access to the market, we continue to see significant opportunities for disciplined, profitable growth. And as demonstrated by our results this quarter, The deliberate actions we are taking across this election, our hours of insurance strategy and capital allocation position us to deliver strong performance throughout the cycle. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Alan.