HCI Group, Inc.

Good afternoon, and welcome to HCI Group's fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. My name is John, and I will be your conference operator. 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 April 8, 2023, starting later today. Call is also being broadcast live via webcast and available via webcast replay until February 8, 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, John, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to HCI Group's fourth quarter 2022 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 operational update, Mark will review our financial performance for the fourth quarter of 2022, and then Parish will provide a strategic update. 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 Securities Exchange Commission. Should any risks or uncertainties develop into actual results, these developments could have material adverse effects on the company's business, financial conditions, and results of operations. HCI Group disclaims all obligations to update any forward-looking statements. Now, with that, I would like to turn the call over to Karen Coleman, Chief Operating Officer. Karen?

Thank you, Matt, and welcome, everyone. HCI Group reported net income of $2.6 million and diluted earnings per share of 18 cents for the fourth quarter, an improvement over last year and last quarter. Let me start with our insurance division. Results in our insurance subsidiaries benefited from three factors. First, prior rate actions. Second, a decline in our gross loss ratio to 39.4%. The 39.4 includes costs associated with Hurricane Nicole and Winter Storm Elliot. Third, investment income nearly tripled over Q4 last year as we put our balance sheet to work at yields over 4% while maintaining short duration and ample liquidity. As for Hurricane Ian, the claims received for Homeowners Choice and TIP TAP insurance totaled just over 13,000. We continue to support policyholders impacted by Hurricane Ian, leveraging our technology and resources to expedite the claims handling process. Mark will provide more detail in his remarks. On the legislative front, in December, the Florida legislature passed Senate Bill 2A, which squarely addresses the rising cost of litigation and social inflation in the Florida property insurance market. The provisions of this law, billed on Senate Bill 2D, passed in May, and represent substantial changes to the laws governing the litigation of property insurance claims in Florida. Provisions in this landmark bill include three main items. It eliminates one-way attorney fee provisions related to property claims, it abolishes assignment of benefits, and it reduces the filing deadline to one year for policyholders reporting a claim. Mark will detail the favorable impacts we're seeing in our business, We have heard some industry experts projecting a reduction to loss expense on the order of 25 to 40%. Obviously, the level of improvement will vary from company to company, but we expect to see a significant change in litigation costs when the changes take full effect. We commend Governor DeSantis and the Florida legislature for taking decisive action to stabilize the property insurance market in Florida. now moving to our real estate subsidiary green leaf capital we will disclose in our 10k that we are under contract to sell two of our retail shopping center investment properties for gross proceeds of more than 31 million dollars similar to the sale of cypress property in 2020 and the century park right-of-way in 2022 these transactions highlight our ability to capitalize on the strength in the florida real estate market We plan to provide more detail on these transactions on our next call. Finally, a word on capital. In a difficult year for the industry, HCI continued to return capital to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. During the quarter, we repurchased nearly 3% of outstanding shares at an average cost of $37 per share and paid our 49th consecutive quarterly dividend to shareholders at 40 cents per share. These actions underscore the strength of our balance sheet and the commitment we have to our shareholders. Now I'll turn it over to Mark who will provide more detail on our financial results.