HCI Group, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to HCI Group's third quarter 2021 earnings call. My name is Kate and I will be your conference operator this morning. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Before we begin today's call, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay through December 9, 2021, starting later today. This call is also being broadcast live via webcast and available via webcast replay until November 9, 2022, on the Investor Information section of HCI Group's website at www.hcigroup.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Glover, Gateway Investor Relations. Matt, please proceed.

Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to HCI Group's third quarter 2021 earnings call. On today's call is Karen Coleman, HCI's Chief Operating Officer, Mark Harmsworth, HCI's Chief Financial Officer, and Parish Patel, HCI's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Following Karen's opening remarks, Mark will review our financial performance for the third quarter of 2021, and then Parish will provide an operational outlook. To access today's webcast, please visit the investor information section of our corporate website at www.hcigroup.com. Before we begin, I would like to take the opportunity to remind our listeners that today's presentation and responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as anticipate, estimate, expect, intend, plan, and project, and other similar words and expressions are intended to signify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and conditions, but rather are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Some of these risks and uncertainties are identified in the company's filings with the SEC. Should any risks or uncertainties develop into actual events, these developments could have material adverse effects on the company's business, financial conditions, and results of operations. HCI Group disclaims all the obligations to update any forward-looking statements. Now, with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Karen Coleman, Chief Operating Officer. Karen?

Thank you, Matt, and welcome, everyone. I'd like to provide a brief update on the quarter. For anyone new to our story, HCI Group is comprised of four main divisions, our real estate operations, Greenleaf Capital, our captive reinsurer, Cladow, and our two insurance subsidiaries, Homeowner's Choice, our traditional insurance company, and TipTap, our technology-driven homeowner's insurance company, which includes Exeo, the software development company. My remarks on this call will focus primarily on our insurance operations and events at the HCI group parent company level. As for highlights this quarter, our insurance divisions reached another milestone as consolidated annualized gross premiums reached approximately $615 million in the quarter. The pace of growth at both of our insurance subsidiaries, Homeowners Choice and TIP TAP, again exceeded our expectations. At Homeowner's Choice, strong policy retentions combined with incremental growth from strategic opportunities in Florida, including transitioning business from Gulfstream Property and Casualty Insurance Company, contributed to double-digit growth in the quarter. At the end of Q3, TIC-TAC's annualized premiums were approximately $214 million, which compares to $87 million in the prior year quarter. A number of weather events in the third quarter of 2021 had an adverse impact on profitability for the property industry. These events included tropical storms Elsa, Fred, and Henri, as well as hurricanes Ida and Nicholas. Even with the weather challenges in the third quarter, HCI incurred only $6.5 million in gross weather-related losses in the quarter for the quarter. And we did not have any reinsurance recoveries for current quarter weather losses. Of this amount, $2.9 million of losses are for TIP-TAP and the remainder is for HCI. Two additional points. First, the stronger than expected premium growth in the quarter resulted in both of our insurance subsidiaries having a reinsurance true-up. Also this quarter, we received approval and rate increases of 6.2% for Homeowner's Choice and 9.9% for TIP-TAP. Both of these rate increases become effective December 1st of this year. Florida Senate Bill 76, insurance litigation reform, became effective July 1. In line with my prior comments, it's too early to see any real trends. However, we remain cautiously optimistic. In the third quarter, however, we did observe a decline in the number of lawsuits received. Despite profitability challenges across the industry in the quarter, our superior technology allowed both of our insurance subsidiaries to deliver superior results. The proprietary technology I'm speaking about was developed by our subsidiary, Exeo. Now, moving to the HCI group level, we recently declared our regular quarterly cash dividend of 40 cents per share, our 44th consecutive quarterly dividend. That is 11 years and counting of dividends. Lastly in my report, also during the quarter, a number of holders of our convertible notes converted or exchanged their notes for common shares. This increased our book value by $4 per share and cut our long-term debt in half. We think this is a great outcome for the company. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mark to discuss the details of our financial results for the third quarter in the nine months of 2021. Mark?