Kemper Corporation

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Kemper's second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. My name is Grant, and I will be your coordinator today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes.

I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Michael Marinaccio, Kemper's Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Mr. Marinaccio, you may begin.

Thank you, Grant. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Kemper's discussion of our second quarter 2021 results. This afternoon, you'll hear from Joe Locker, Kemper's President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Jim McKinney, Kemper's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Dwayne Sanders, Kemper's Executive Vice President and the President, and the Property and Casualty Division President. We'll make a few opening remarks to provide context around our second quarter results, and then open the call for a question and answer session. During the interactive portion of the call, our presenters will be joined by John Buscelli, Kemper's Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, and Eric Sternberg, Kemper's Executive Vice President and Life and Health Division President. After the markets closed this afternoon, we issued our earnings release and published our second quarter earnings presentation, financial supplement, and Form 10-Q. You can find these documents on the Investors section of our website, Kemper.com. Our discussion today may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, but are not limited to, the company's outlook and its future results of operation and financial condition. These statements may also include impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our actual future results and financial condition may differ materially from these statements. For information on potential risks associated with relying on forward-looking statements, please refer to our 2020 Form 10-K, as well as our second quarter earnings release. This afternoon's discussion also includes non-GAAP financial measures we believe are meaningful to investors. One such measure we are reintroducing is as adjusted for acquisition. It's important to understand our reported results, including the impact of American access acquisition has to Kemper overall. However, investors have also expressed an interest in understanding the underlying organic performance of the combined businesses. Since our as-reported financials don't include American Access's historical information prior to the closing of the acquisition, and our current results include the impact of purchase accounting, the underlying trends are not easily discernible. In an effort to provide insight into the underlying performance of the combined businesses, we also display our financials as adjusted for acquisition. This view removes the impact of purchase accounting and includes historical American Access information for periods prior to the acquisition to more readily provide a meaningful year-over-year comparison. In our financial supplement presentation and earnings release, we have redefined and reconciled all non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP where required in accordance with SEC rules. You can find each of these documents on the investor section of our website, Kenber.com. All comparative references will be to the corresponding 2020 period unless otherwise stated. I will now turn the call over to Joe.