Old Republic International Corporation

Thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to today's Old Republic International second quarter 2024 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, excuse me. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Once again, star one. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Joe Calabrese with MWW. Joe, please go ahead. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Old Republic conference call about second quarter 2024 results. This morning, we distributed a copy of the press release and posted a separate financial supplement. Both of the documents are available on Old Republic's website at 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 25th, 2024. 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.

Okay, Joe, thank you. Well, good afternoon, everyone. We hope you're enjoying your summers and welcome again to Old Republic's second quarter 2024 earnings call. With me today are Frank Sidero, our CFO of ORI, and Carolyn Monroe, our President and CEO of Title Insurance. So during the second quarter, we produced $254 million of consolidated pre-tax operating income. That was up from $227 million in 2023. Our consolidated combined ratio was 93.5, which was little changed from the 92.6 we saw last year. General insurance's strong underwriting results continued through the first half of 2024, producing $202.5 million of pre-tax operating income in the quarter, an increase of 10%. The general insurance combined ratio was 92.4 in the quarter. In title insurance, they continued to face headwinds from mortgage interest rates in the real estate market. But we were still able to produce 46 million of pre-tax operating income in the quarter, an increase of 32%. The title insurance combined ratio was 95.4 in the quarter. Our conservative underwriting and reserving practices continue to produce favorable prior year loss reserve development in both general insurance and title insurance. Though, as expected, not to the same outsized degree that we saw in general insurance the last couple of years. It's worth noting that in 2024, we're on track to produce our 10th consecutive year with favorable loss reserve development. Our balance sheet, it remains strong while we continue to return capital to shareholders through both dividends and share repurchases. And focused on the long term, we will continue to invest in our new general insurance underwriting subsidiaries, as well as in technology in both general insurance and title insurance. So with those as opening remarks, I will now turn the discussion over to Frank. He'll then turn things back to me to cover general insurance, followed by Carolyn, who will discuss title insurance, and then we'll open it up to the usual Q&A. So with that, Frank, I hand it to you.