Progressive Corporation (The)

Welcome to the Progressive Corporation's Third Quarter Investor Event. The company will not make detailed comments related to quarterly results in addition to those provided in its quarterly report on Form 10Q and the Letter to Shareholders, which have been posted to the company's website and will use this event to respond to questions. Acting as moderator for the event will be Progressive's Director of Investor Relations, Doug Constantine. At this time, I'll turn the event over to Mr. Constantine.

Thank you, James, and good morning. Although our quarterly investor relations event typically includes a presentation on a specific portion of our business, we will instead use the 60 minutes scheduled for today's event for introductory comments by our CEO and a question and answer session with members of our leadership team. Questions can only be asked by telephone dial-in participants. The dial-in instructions may be found at investors.progressive.com forward slash events. As always, discussions in this event may include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those discussed during today's event. Additional information concerning those risks and uncertainties is available in our 2019 Annual Report on Form 10-K and our first, second, and third quarters quarterly report on Form 10-Q, where you'll find discussions of the risk factors affecting our businesses, safe harbor statements related to forward-looking statements, and other discussions of the challenges we face. In particular, note that our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the first quarter includes discussions of the risks and uncertainties that we face, including specific risk factors arising directly and indirectly from the COVID-19 pandemic, and these risks are further referenced in our third quarter 10-Q. Before going to our first question from the conference call line, our CEO, Tricia Griffiths, will make some introductory comments. Tricia.

Thanks, Doug, and good morning, everyone. With an extremely close and not yet decided election, I thought I'd open with a few words before we get to your questions. I know that the election's been on everyone's mind, including those at Progressive. I think it's important that our shareholders know that we live our core values, specifically the golden rule, regardless of the candidate we support. I'm very proud that in the end, we're all united in our commitment to caring for our customers, our communities, our shareholders, and most importantly, for each other. As you know, we feel strongly that our people and our culture are a significant competitive advantage for us. They are one of our four strategic pillars, and we rely on our incredible culture to get us through challenging times and come out more focused and united than ever. This year has been no different as we move forward together. I thought I'd share a note that I received on Monday from an IT group manager, Scott, regarding a video I did on Unity last week. This really exemplifies who we are as a company and why we win in the marketplace. He said, Tricia, I have so much to be thankful for in this year and month, and there's a literal pile of things for which I'm deeply appreciative for you and your team. Truly, and I know I speak for so many others, I am grateful. Then he went on to share the communication that he sent to his team, and these are words that are echoed by so many leaders at Progressive. His note said, it's the last Tuesday in October, which means that next week marks the national election and another end to political yard sign season. Here's the sign we placed in our own yard, and the sign started with love your neighbor, and it talked about loving your neighbor regardless of race, who you love, etc., conveying what we hope for our neighborhood, that regardless of next week's outcome, we hope that our common bond as neighbors can prevail over the differences, really an extension of the golden rule. That's not to say that it's not easy or that we're not strong in our political convictions, but it's also to say that we strive to respect, care for, and even love our neighbors regardless of their vote or other differences. The same applies here at work with progressive culture rooted in our core values. My DRG is committed, that's direct reporting group, is committed to support the diversity of our people. Please work to grow and sustain that spirit of collegiality and friendship with each other through and beyond the election. And his words really truly reflect who we are as a company. And, you know, being up late and in the middle of the night and this morning, I will end up after this call shooting another video today to ensure that progressive people who may feel stressed remain calm and focused, even though there'll be delayed results. Also, tomorrow marks our eighth annual Keys to Progress, where we give away cars to deserving veterans. Due to restrictions on business operations for the program participants and social distancing requirements, our giveaway events will be small but still very meaningful. All in all, this is another great example of giving back to our communities where we've donated over 750 vehicles in the past eight years. Being a successful business starts with our people, and this quarter continues to exemplify what you can do with the right team and the right culture. As I stated in my letter, we're extremely pleased with our Q3 results. We're also acutely aware that these times are tumultuous and that we have to remain nimble as events unfold. That's really always been our strong suit. Thank you. And with that, James, we'll take the first question.