Old Republic International Corporation

Hello, my name is Chris and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Old Republic International second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star one again. Thank you. Joe Calabrese with the Financial Relations Board may begin.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Old Republic Conference Call to discuss second quarter 2023 results. This morning, we distributed a copy to the press release and posted a separate financial supplement, which we assume you have seen and or otherwise have access to during the call. Both of the documents are available at Old Republic's website, which is www.oldrepublic.com. Please be advised that this call may involve forward-looking statements as discussed in the press release and financial supplement dated July 27, 2023. Risks associated with these statements can be found in the company's latest SEC filings. This afternoon's conference call will be led by Craig Smitty, President and CEO of Old Republic International Corporation, and several other senior executive members as planned for this meeting. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Craig Smitty. Please go ahead, sir.

All right, Joe, thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome again, everyone, to Old Republic's second quarter earnings call. With me today is Frank Sidero, our CFO of ORI, and Carolyn Monroe, our President and CEO of Title Insurance. Well, during the second quarter, General Insurance continued to produce strong underwriting results, which drove its 34% increase in pre-tax operating income. And despite continued challenges with mortgage interest rates affecting the top line, our title insurance pre-tax operating income improved over the first quarter of the year. Our focus on specialization and diversification across title and P&C insurance paid off in the second quarter, producing $227 million of consolidated pre-tax operating income. And on a year-to-date basis, general insurance has produced $378 million of pre-tax operating income, while title insurance has produced $52 million, alongside of a consolidated combined ratio of 92.6. Our conservative reserving practices that we've spoken about are once again clearly visible with favorable reserve development reported in all three of our segments led by general insurance. With our strong underwriting income and investment income results, we maintained our strong balance sheet while at the same time continuing to return capital to shareholders during the quarter and did this through both dividends and share repurchases. And we're also continuing to invest for the long run, including the April announcement of our newest underwriting business, Old Republic Lawyer Specialty Insurance. So I will now turn the discussion over to Frank. Frank will then turn things back to me to cover general insurance. We'll follow that with Carolyn, who will discuss title insurance. And then we'll open up the conversation for Q&A. So with that, Frank, I will turn it to you.