ProAssurance Corporation

Welcome to the Pro Assurance First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Ruby and I will be your moderator for today's call. If you would like to ask a question during the presentation, please press start followed by one on your telephone keypad. I'll now hand over to our host, Jason Gingrich of VP of Investor Relations to begin.

Thank you, Ruby. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to ProAssurance's conference call to discuss the company's first quarter 2022 results. These results were reported in a news release issued on May 9th, 2022, and in the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q, which was also filed on May 9th, 2022. Included in those documents were cautionary statements about the significant risks, uncertainties, and other factors that are out of the company's control and could affect ProAssurance's businesses and alter expected results. Please review those statements. Management expects to make statements on this call dealing with projections, estimates, and expectations, and explicitly identifies these as forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws and subject to applicable safe harbor protections. The content of this call is accurate only on May 10, 2022, and except as required by law or regulation, Pro Assurance will not undertake and expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter information disclosed as part of these forward-looking statements. The management team of ProAssurance also expects to reference non-GAAP items during today's call. The company's recent news release provides a reconciliation of these non-GAAP numbers to their GAAP counterparts. I would like to remind you that the call is being recorded, and there will be a time for questions after the conclusion of prepared remarks. This morning, we will discuss selected aspects of our quarterly results on today's call and remind investors that they should review our filing on 410Q and the accompanying press release for full and complete information. On our call today, we have Ned Rand, President and CEO, Dana Hendricks, Chief Financial Officer, Mike Bogusky, President of our Specialty, Property, and Casualty Lines, and Kevin Shook, President of our Workers' Compensation Insurance Operations. Ned, will you start us off, please?

Thank you, Jason. Last Thursday marked the one-year anniversary of the closing of the largest acquisition in our history. As we brought into the ProAssurance family the team members and policyholders of NorCal Group, While the closing of that transaction was the culmination of much hard work and due diligence, it also marked the beginning of the hard work of the integration process, which we'd spent over a year planning for. As I look back at the year that has passed, I am proud of how much the teams at ProAssurance and NorCal have accomplished to integrate the operations of these two great companies, while continuing to deal with the pandemic's impact on both our operations and the business of our insureds. I'm also pleased with the financial and operational benefits that the NorCal transaction has brought to ProAssurance, including a broader nationwide footprint, a wealth of talent and experience from the team members that joined our organization, greater scale and efficiency, and a history and reputation recognized by many physicians around the country. The additional assets in the portfolio also increased our investment leverage. providing an opportunity to benefit from more attractive core fixed income yields and increased investment income. The improvements we are making in our healthcare professional liability business are being seen in both the legacy pro assurance business and the acquired NorCal book. Dan and Mike will take you through those results in detail and provide insights into what actions are leading to the improved results. The workers' compensation insurance operations continue to provide diversification for the overall organization, as the team continues to navigate a competitive marketplace. Kevin will discuss the signs we are seeing in that business and the actions we are taking to respond appropriately to market conditions. We are also pleased to report that just last month, AMBEST affirmed the A, excellent financial strength rating of the members of the ProAssurance Group and upgraded the long-term issuer credit rating outlook to stable. We believe this is indicative of the strong capitalization and financial flexibility of our family of companies following the acquisition of NorCal. Finally, I'll note that we successfully implemented our return to office plan in March. As this establishes a more regular cadence to our office environment, we are eager to keep our full attention on what we do best, protecting others. Now I'll ask Dana to share results for the quarter. Dana?