Kemper Corporation

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Kemper's fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. My name is Jason, and I'll be your coordinator today. At this time, all participants are in listening mode only. Later, we will conduct a Q&A session. 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, Karen Guerrera, Kemper's Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Guerrera, you may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Kemper's discussion of our fourth quarter 2022 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, Matt Hunton, Kemper's executive vice president and president of Kemper Auto, Dwayne Sanders, Kemper's executive vice president and the property and casualty division president, and Tim Stonehocker, Kemper's Executive Vice President and President of Kemper Life. We'll make a few opening remarks to provide context around our fourth quarter results, followed by a Q&A session. During the interactive portion of our call, our presenters will be joined by John Buscelli, Kemper's Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. After the markets closed today, we issued our earnings release and published our earnings presentation and financial supplements. We intend to file our Form 10-K with the SEC within the next week. Our discussion today may contain forward-looking statements with 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 operations and financial condition. Our actual future results and financial condition may differ materially from these statements. These statements may also be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For information on additional risks that may impact these forward-looking statements, please refer to our 2021 Form 10-K as well as our fourth quarter earnings release. This afternoon's discussion also includes non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are meaningful to investors. In our financial supplement, earnings presentation, and earnings release, we've defined and reconciled all the non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP. where required in accordance with the SEC rules. You can find each of these documents on the investor section of our website, KEMPER.com. All comparative references will be to the corresponding 2021 period unless otherwise stated. I will now turn the call over to Joe.

Thank you, Karen. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today and welcome to our fourth quarter conference call. I want to start by saying that I'm optimistic about KEMPER's future. The quarter included improving underlying profitability masked by a few infrequent items impacting financial results. Our top priority remains returning the company to target profitability. Further, our initiatives to enable greater capital return while reducing volatility in earnings and cash flow are well underway. We are observing continuous improvement in the underlying profitability of core businesses. Our recent strategic actions are already delivering results. I'm bullish about achieving adjusted consolidated net operating income during the first half of 2023 and producing underwriting profits during the second half of the year. The strength of Kemper's differentiated capabilities, market focus, and enhancement initiatives positions the company to provide attractive near and long-term returns to shareholders. In the fourth quarter, we made progress on each of our initiatives. Highlights include the following. Rate-taking activities exceeded the third quarter forecast. rate approval for California specialty personal auto, cost structure enhancements aligned with third quarter commitments, continued strong profitable commercial vehicle growth, and improved life profitability. The current operating environment remains dynamic. This requires us to be agile, use quality and timely information, and have a team that can quickly ingest, adapt, and respond to these changes. We have the right team in place to navigate through this period and capture the opportunities will emerge on the back side as a reminder we'll be holding an investor day in new york on thursday march 9th this will be a great platform to discuss kemper's journey to date and the road ahead the event will include presentations from myself and jim as well as matt hun who leads our specialty auto franchise and tim stonehocker who's responsible for our life business as a result matt and tim are joining our usual speakers today I'll now turn the call over to Jim to discuss additional details on our operating results and an update on our strategic initiatives.