ProAssurance Corporation

Good morning. Thank you for attending the Pro Assurance second quarter earnings call. My name is Matt and I will be your moderator for today's call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, Jason Grangerich, VP of Investor Relations. Jason, please go ahead.

Thank you, Matt. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to ProAssurance's conference call to discuss the company's second quarter 2022 results. These results were reported in news release issued on August 8, 2022, and in the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q, which was also filed on August 8, 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 business 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 August 9, 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 Pro Assurance 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'd like to remind you 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 the call and remind investors to review our Form 10-Q and 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, and good morning. Positive momentum continues at ProAssurance as we completed our first full year since the acquisition of NorCal. The people and process side of our integration is largely completed, and we are extremely pleased with all that we have accomplished. The solid operating results for this quarter are a testament to the success of our largest acquisition to date and a hint of what we can expect to see in the future. Our efforts across the organization, specifically in the underwriting and claims areas, are already leading to improvements in the acquired standard and custom physician business and are an important driver of our results this quarter. Dana will walk through the results company-wide, and Mike will cover the trends we are seeing in the specialty property and casualty segment. The workers' compensation insurance segment again posted a profit in a tough marketplace and competitive line of business. While both the macroeconomic conditions and more specifically the environment in this line of business remain challenging, we have begun to see signs of positivity that Kevin will remark on as he discusses the segment results in detail. Regarding broader economic conditions, We are mindful of the level of general inflation and consider how this may affect our business overall, both the positive, including higher investment rates in our bond portfolio and rising payrolls that help drive premium growth in our workers' compensation business, and the negative of expense pressures that rising costs create. I'd like to note that medical professional liability loss cost trends are not strictly linked to headline inflation figures, such as the consumer price index. There are many other factors within each market making up our professional liability business that we feel today influence loss cost trends considerably more than the general level of inflation. While inflationary trends certainly have the ability to become a factor, as we see the market today, jury behavior and social inflation have a greater impact on our view of ultimate claim costs. Now I'll ask Dana to share the results for the quarter. Dana?