HCI Group, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to HCI Group's third quarter 2024 earnings call. My name is Paul 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 December 7, 2024, starting later today. The call is also being broadcast live via webcast and available via webcast replay until November 7th, 2025 on the investor information section of HCI Group's website at www.hcigroup.com. I would now like to turn our call over to Matt Glover, Gateway Investor Relations. Matt, please proceed.

Thank you, Paul, and good afternoon. Welcome to HCI Group's third quarter 2024 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 third quarter of 2024, and then Parish will provide a strategic update. To access today's webcast, please visit the information section of our corporate website at www.hcigroup.com. Before we begin, I'd like to take the opportunity to remind listeners that today's presentation and response to the 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, 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 and Exchange Commission. 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 would like to turn the call over to Karen Coleman, Chief Operating Officer. Karen.

Thank you, Matt, and welcome, everyone. Since our last call, we have been impacted by three hurricanes. Hurricanes Debbie and Helene occurred in the third quarter, and Milton made landfall early in the fourth quarter. These storms have affected our customers as well as our neighbors, employees, families, and families in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Our hearts and prayers go out to everyone impacted. These three events have produced more than 10,000 claims, and we expect to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to help our policyholders rebuild their lives. Category 1 and Category 4 hurricanes making landfall in the third quarter, HCI Group had positive earnings reporting pre-tax income of $14 million and diluted earnings per share of 52 cents. This is a tremendous result. HCI continued to deliver on its commitment to return value to shareholders by paying a dividend of 40 cents per share, our 56th consecutive quarterly dividend. Subsequent to the third quarter, we successfully added policies from citizens. Given the expectation for a competitive assumption process, our original plan was to add roughly 40,000 policies from citizens in the fourth quarter. We were pleased with the response from policyholders and were able to reach our target ahead of schedule. At the October assumption, approximately 42,000 policyholders chose to join HCI. In closing, I want to address the talk about the impact of this year's overly active hurricane season on future rates for Florida. We believe it is important to have stability for our policyholders, and therefore, we're not looking to increase rates in Florida at this time. Now, I'll turn it over to Mark to provide more details on our financial results.