Good morning, and welcome to American Financial Group's fourth quarter 2024 earnings results conference call. We released our 2024 Fourth Quarter and full year results yesterday afternoon. Our press release, investor supplement and webcast presentation are posted on AFG's website under the Investor Relations section. These materials will be referenced during portions of today's call. I'm joined this morning by Carl Lindner III and Craig Lindner, Co-CEOs of American Financial Group; and Brian Hertzman, AFG's CFO. Before I turn the discussion over to Carl, I would like to draw your attention to the notes on Slide 2 of our webcast. Some of the matters to be discussed today are forward-looking. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results and/or financial condition to differ materially from these statements. A detailed description of these risks and uncertainties can be found in AFG's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are also available on our website. We may include references to core net operating earnings, a non-GAAP financial measure, in our remarks or in responses to questions. A reconciliation of net earnings to core net operating earnings is included in our earnings release. And finally, if you're reading a transcript of this call, please note that it may not be authorized or reviewed for accuracy. And as a result, it may contain factual or transcription errors that could materially alter the intent or meaning of our statements. Now I'm pleased to turn the call over to Carl Lindner III to discuss our results.

Good morning. As we begin our remarks, it's important to acknowledge that our thoughts and prayers continue to include those who have been impacted by the devastation caused by the wildfires in Southern California. We're grateful to our claims professionals and insurance specialists who are helping our policyholders recover, restore their businesses and rebuild their communities. Now turning to our results. I'll begin by sharing a few highlights of AFG's 2024 Fourth quarter and full year results, after which Craig and I will walk through more details. We'll then open it up for Q&A, where Craig, Brian and I will be happy to respond to your questions. The fourth quarter was a strong ending to a great year for AFG. In addition to producing an annual core operating return on equity in excess of 19% in 2024, net written premiums grew by 7% during the year and we continue to create value for our shareholders through effective capital management. Our compelling mix of specialty insurance businesses, entrepreneurial culture, disciplined operating philosophy and astute team of in-house investment professionals collectively have enabled us to outperform many of our peers over time. Craig and I thank our talented management team and our great employees for helping us to achieve these results. Now I'll turn the discussion over to Craig to walk us through some of these details.

Thanks, Carl. As you'll see on Slide 3, AFG's core net operating earnings were $10.75 per share for the full year 2024, generating a core operating return on equity of 19.3%. This ROE is calculated using an average of the five most recent quarter-end balances of shareholders' equity, excluding AOCI. As Carl noted, capital management is one of our highest priorities. Returning capital to our shareholders is an important component of our capital management strategy and reflects our strong financial position and our confidence in AFG's financial future. We returned $791 million to shareholders during 2024, including $545 million or $6.50 per share in special dividends and $246 million in regular common stock dividends. Dividend payments and share repurchases totaled $6.3 billion over the last 5 years, including $50 per share in special dividends since the beginning of 2021. Our quarterly dividend was increased by 12.7% to an annual rate of $3.20 per share beginning in October of 2024. Growth in book value per share, excluding AOCI, plus dividends, was 19.6% in 2024. We're proud of the value we've created for shareholders over time. As Carl noted, we closed out the year with a strong fourth quarter. As you'll see on Slide 4 and Slide 5, fourth quarter 2024 core net operating earnings per share of $3.12 produced an annualized fourth quarter core return on equity of 21.9%. Now I'd like to turn to an overview of AFG's investment performance and financial position and share a few comments about AFG's capital and liquidity. The details surrounding our $15.9 billion investment portfolio are presented on Slide 6 and Slide 7. Looking at results for the fourth quarter, Property & Casualty net investment income was approximately 21% higher than the comparable 2023 period as a result of improved returns on alternative investments and the impact of strong reinvestment rate opportunities and higher balances of invested assets. For the 12 months ended December 31, 2024, P&C net investment income was $784 million, approximately 8% higher than 2023 and a new record for AFG. Excluding alternative investments, net investment income at our P&C insurance operations for 2024 increased 11% year-over-year. As you'll see on Slide 7, approximately 66% of our portfolio is invested in fixed maturities. In the current interest rate environment, we're able to invest in fixed maturity securities at yields of approximately 5.75%. Current reinvestment rates compare favorably to the 5% yield earned on fixed maturities in our P&C portfolio during the fourth quarter of 2024. The duration of our P&C fixed maturity portfolio, including cash and cash equivalents, was 2.8 years at December 31, 2024. The annualized return on alternative investments in our P&C portfolio was approximately 4.9% for the 2024 fourth quarter compared to 0.8% for the prior year quarter. Our business plan for 2025 assumes an 8% return on alternative investments. Longer term, we continue to remain optimistic regarding the prospects of attractive returns from our alternative investment portfolio with an expectation of annual returns averaging 10% or better. Please turn to Slide 8, where you'll find a summary of AFG's financial position at December 31, 2024. During the quarter, we returned $404 million to our shareholders through the payment of a $4 per share special dividend in November and our regular $0.80 per share quarterly dividend. AFG ended the year in a strong capital position, and we expect our operations to continue to generate significant excess capital in 2025, which provides ample opportunity for acquisitions, special dividends or share repurchases. We evaluate the best alternatives for capital deployment, including the timing and amount of special dividends on a quarterly basis. Our current capital position and expectations give us the flexibility to pay a special dividend in the first half of the year. We continue to view total value creation as measured by growth in book value per share plus dividends as an important measure of performance over the long term. For the 3 and 12 months ended December 31, 2024, AFG's growth in book value per share, excluding AOCI, plus dividends, was 5.4% and 19.6%, respectively. Our strong operating results, coupled with effective capital management and our entrepreneurial opportunistic culture and disciplined operating philosophy enable us to continue to create value for our shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Carl to discuss the results of our P&C operations and our business plan assumptions for 2025.

Thank you, Craig. Please turn to Slide 9 and Slide 10 of the webcast, which include an overview of our fourth quarter results. Our Property and Transportation, Specialty Casualty and Specialty Financial groups as well as AFG overall reported fourth quarter calendar year combined ratio below 90%. In addition to these strong underwriting margins, we're finding opportunities to grow through new business opportunities, a continued favorable pricing environment and increased exposures. Nearly all the businesses in our diversified Specialty Property and Casualty portfolio continue to meet or exceed targeted returns, and we set new records for premium production in 2024. As you'll see on Slide 9, our Specialty Property and Casualty businesses reported a strong finish to a successful year with an overall 89% combined ratio in the fourth quarter of 2024, albeit at 1.3 points higher than the 87.7% reported in the prior year fourth quarter. Results for the 2024 fourth quarter included 1.1 points of catastrophe losses, primarily the result of Hurricane Milton compared to 1.4 points in the 2023 fourth quarter and 1.8 points of adverse prior year development compared to 3.3 points of favorable prior year development in the fourth quarter of 2023. We are pleased to report $70 million in overall favorable prior year reserve development in our Specialty P&C businesses for the full year. Adverse prior year development in some of the social inflation exposed businesses within our Specialty Casualty Group led to the overall adverse development in the fourth quarter for that group and for AFG overall. This reserve strengthening is consistent with the commentary we've shared throughout 2024. We continue to have a good amount of favorable development from our workers' compensation businesses in the fourth quarter of 2024. And in the fourth quarter, the favorable development in workers' comp was more than offset by adverse development in our social inflation exposed umbrella and excess liability businesses. The adverse development reflects higher than previously anticipated severity across several accident years. For the full year 2024, the Casualty group reported $10 million in net favorable prior year development as net favorable development from our workers' comp businesses was substantially offset by adverse development in our social inflation exposed umbrella and excess liability and social services businesses. This was primarily due to higher than previously anticipated severity across several accident years. We continue to feel confident in the strength of our reserves and remain relentless in our focus on rate adequacy. Our insurance professionals are working collaboratively across our own operations and across the industry to address this. I'm pleased that despite the adverse development, the businesses in our Specialty Casualty Group reported a combined ratio of below 90% for the fourth quarter and for the full year of 2024. For this group of long tail lines of business, that equates to a return on equity of around 30%. So overall, this is an enviable result given the pressures of social inflation on some of these businesses. Fourth quarter 2024 gross and net written premiums were up 3% and 1%, respectively, when compared to the same period in 2023. Gross and net written premiums increased 9% and 7%, respectively, for the full year in 2024. Average renewal pricing across our Property and Casualty Group, excluding our workers' comp business was up 8% in the fourth quarter and up 7% approximately overall. Both measures were in line with renewal rates in the previous quarter. We reported overall renewal rate increases for 34 consecutive quarters, and we believe we're achieving overall renewal rate increases in excess of prospective loss ratio trends to meet or exceed targeted returns. Now I'd like to turn to Slide 10 to review a few highlights from each of our Specialty Property and Casualty business groups. Details are included in our earnings release, so I'll focus on summary results here. The businesses in the Property and Transportation Group achieved a strong 89.2% calendar year combined ratio over the fourth quarter of 2024, and an improvement of 1.1 points over the 90.3% reported in the comparable '23 period. The improvement was attributable to higher year-over-year underwriting profitability in our crop insurance operations. Coming into the fourth quarter, we were optimistic about the potential for an above-average crop year in 2024. While decreases in commodity prices throughout the growing season were generally within entered deductibles, the impact of abnormally dry conditions in certain states reduced yields, particularly soybean yields from what industry models were projecting and this resulted in an average crop year for AFG. Fourth quarter 2024 gross and net written premiums in this group were both down 6% from the comparable prior year period. The decrease was primarily due to the impact of lower year-over-year commodity pricing on winter wheat premiums, coupled with elevated pricing competition and the nonrenewal of certain underperforming accounts in our transportation businesses. Overall, renewal rates in this group increased 7% on average in the fourth quarter of 2024, in line with pricing the previous quarter. Pricing for the full year for this group was up 8% overall. We continue to remain focused on rate adequacy, particularly in our commercial auto line of business, where rates were up approximately 20% in the fourth quarter. This is our 13th year of rate increases in this line. The businesses in our Specialty Casualty Group achieved a very strong 89% calendar year combined ratio overall in the fourth quarter, 4.4 points higher than the excellent 84.6% reported in the comparable period in 2023. Higher year-over-year underwriting profits in our targeted markets business were more than offset by lower underwriting profit in our excess liability, workers' compensation and executive liability businesses. Underwriting profitability in our workers' compensation and executive liability businesses continues to be excellent despite the lower year-over-year profitability in these businesses. Fourth quarter 2024 gross and net written premiums increased 5% and 4%, respectively, when compared to the same prior year period. Primary drivers of growth were new business opportunities and favorable renewal pricing in several of our targeted marketed businesses and our excess & surplus lines business. Our mergers and acquisition business also benefited from an increase in M&A activity. This growth was tempered by lower year-over-year workers' compensation premiums. Excluding workers' comp, fourth quarter gross and net written premiums in this group both grew 8% year-over-year. Excluding our workers' comp businesses, renewal rates for this group were approximately up 11% in the fourth quarter, an improvement of about 1 point from the previous quarter. Pricing in this group, including workers' comp was up 8%, in line with the third quarter. For the full year, pricing in this group, excluding comp, was up 9%. I am pleased that we continue to achieve renewal rate increases of 10% or better during the quarter. Several of our social inflation exposed businesses, including our social services, excess liability and public entity businesses. The Specialty Financial group continued to achieve excellent underwriting margins and reported an outstanding 80.7% combined ratio for the fourth quarter of 2024, an improvement of 0.6 point over the prior year period. Fourth quarter 2024 gross and net premiums were up 11% and 12%, respectively, when compared to the prior year period due primarily to the growth in our financial institutions business. Renewal pricing in this group was up 3% in the fourth quarter and up 6% for the full year. Now as we look to 2025 and our expectations for providing formal earnings guidance, we provided several key assumptions underlying our 2025 business plan, which you'll see summarized on Slide 11. These assumptions for 2025 include growth in net written premiums of 5% from $7.1 billion reported last year, a combined ratio of approximately 92.5% and a reinvestment rate of approximately 5.75% and an annual return of approximately 8% on our $2.7 billion portfolio of alternative investments. We expect that performance in line with these assumptions would result in core net operating earnings per share of approximately $10.50 in 2025 and generate a core operating return on equity, excluding AOCI, of approximately 18%. Our estimate for losses related to the Southern California wildfires based on what we know currently, is $60 million to $70 million, acknowledging that this remains a developing situation. This range is embedded in our 2025 assumptions. The combined ratio of 92.5% included in our 2025 business plan compared to the 91.2% achieved in 2024 reflects anticipated improved loss experience in our social inflation exposed businesses, optimism for the potential overall company for net favorable reserve development, which we expect to be substantially offset by lower but still strong workers' comp profitability and higher catastrophe losses primarily due to the California wildfires. Growth in certain product offerings that pay higher broker commissions and modestly lower ceding commissions from certain reinsurers are expected to elevate the expense ratio in 2025 relative to 2024 also. We believe that the combination of our reserve strength, the continued healthy rate environment, prudent growth and the ability to invest at a rate that exceeds our current portfolio yield positions us well for continued strong results in 2025 and beyond. Craig and I are pleased to report these exceptionally strong results for the fourth quarter and full year. We're proud of our proven track record of long-term value creation. Our insurance professionals have exercised their specialty P&C knowledge and experience to skillfully navigate the marketplace and our in-house investment team has been both strategic and opportunistic in the management of our $15.9 billion investment portfolio. We look forward to continuing to build long-term value for our shareholders in 2025 and beyond. We'll open the lines for a Q&A portion of our call today. Craig, Brian and I'd be happy to respond to your questions.

The first question today will be from Gregory Peters of Raymond James. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. I would like to start with a question about your disclosure regarding the California wildfires. Can you provide some insight into where the losses are coming from for you? Is this related to the Specialty Financial business and financial institutions, or is it on the property side and the Property Transportation business? Can you offer some additional details about the types of exposures that led to the estimated loss of $60 million to $70 million?

Yes. Greg, it comes from our property-oriented businesses, the lender-placed property, sure. That will have losses there. Things like property in the marine, our nonprofit is, those are businesses that have property exposures in California would be the exposed businesses generally.

Okay. And then you mentioned in your comments about some expense ratio pressures. Wondering if you could just revisit those comments and just give us a little extra detail about the lines of business that are driving the higher expense ratio, maybe it's surety-related, I'm not sure, but maybe you could just give us some color, that would be helpful.

Greg, this is Brian. So, when we're looking at our business opportunities, we're always looking at things from an overall return perspective. So not just the loss ratio or the expense ratio in isolation but also the investment income opportunity. So, in some cases, if we're growing a business, for example, our financial institution business that runs at a higher commission ratio than, say, our workers' comp business that runs lower, that can impact the ratio. So, when you look at the businesses, it's really mining across the board of businesses where when we look at the overall economics of the transaction, paying a higher commission makes sense.

Got it. Well, congratulations on the year. Thanks for the questions.

And our next question will be coming from the line of John Newsome of Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Good morning. I was wondering to see a little bit more color on the cash reserve development in the quarter. In particular, I'm curious about what's sort of underneath some of the excess pieces? Is it general liability under there? Is it commercial auto? Those seem to be kind of hot button areas industry-wide that have had some issues? Just sort of what we can think about sort of what the sources of those trends on an underlying basis might be?

Yes. Predominantly, the adverse development is coming from an excess liability writing unit that focuses on kind of the Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 larger entities. Our other excess liability entity, the profitability is very good, so it's really focused on kind of one of our business units focused on larger companies.

No, that makes sense. That's interesting. And also thinking about that, maybe kind of philosophical thoughts on how you think about taking or reacting to trend lines in this kind of issues. It looks like you're kind of taking a little bit every quarter kind of thing approach. But I'm curious if there's sort of anything that triggers a more aggressive or less aggressive approach to reserves when you're thinking about changing trend.

Yes, Brian, you can share your thoughts as well. Historically, we evaluate each of our businesses on a quarterly basis, examining them from a reserving actuarial perspective and looking for trends in the loss ratio. If we observe any changes in these trends, it influences our reserving decisions. This quarter, we responded based on the information available, particularly concerning the Fortune 500 and 1000 excess liability business. We aim to be cautious and thoroughly analyze all of our businesses each quarter.

When we assess our businesses each quarter, particularly the Fortune 500 excess business, we are responding to increased severity from earlier years. We are observing that the severity from years like 2019 and prior is rising, and we also recognize that this trend will likely persist, prompting us to adjust our loss estimates for the more recent years, even if we haven't seen those impacts yet. Our approach is comprehensive; we're not just making small adjustments each quarter. Instead, we aim for a well-informed strategy based on the information available at each review.

Our next question is from Andrew Anderson of Jefferies. Your line is open.

Good morning. Just wanted to go back to the 92.5% combined ratio guide for '25. And I guess it would be an expectation of average crop, which was the case in '24. But if we also maybe strip out the California wildfires as part of the guide, it sounds like you're booking to a higher workers' comp loss ratio next year. I guess, one, is that the case? And two, are you also booking to a higher casualty loss ratio in '25?

So, without going into too much detail business by business unit, what I would say is, you’ve said that correctly, is that we have an average crop year in '24 and would be embedded in our plan would be an average crop year in 2025. We do have the higher cat exposure from the California wildfires in there. And then when you look at the workers' comp overall through accident year picks and sort of tempered view of the potential for favorable development, we will have a higher pick in workers' comp, you're correct there too. But what's offsetting that is in the other Casualty businesses where we've been taking underwriting actions, whether it's rate increases or moving up higher in the tower or non-renewing underperforming accounts, all of those things, we're expecting our loss ratio outside of the cats and the workers' comp to be better.

Okay. Thank you for the detail. Maybe on Specialty Casualty, some good rate in the quarter, 11% and it seems like it's been accelerating throughout the year. And recognizing there's a 5% consolidated guide, but how should we think about maybe Specialty Casualty here? Could growth pick up a little bit just given where the rate level is? Or are you more focused on maintaining margins here?

Well, excluding workers' comp, I think we are growing kind of high single digits, which I think is solid. I think at some point here, we could get help also by workers' comp pricing kind of bottoming out in California. I think our pricing has increased a little bit. And in our Summit business and that after seeing a 15% rate decline in January last year, I think this year, I think it's like a percent change. So, I think that may help us on the workers' comp side also.

And our next question will be coming from the line of Michael Zaremski of BMO. Your line is open.

This is Dan on for Mike. Maybe just going back to the Specialty Casualty underlying improvement year-over-year. Just to clarify. So, is the improvement there coming from moving up in the tower in terms of condition changes? And then maybe just what inning would you say you are for the underwriting actions there?

We have been seeing positive price increases. The combination of these price increases, our underwriting actions, and moving up in the tower all contribute to our improved expectations for profitability in those business units. We are monitoring these factors moving forward. We will be prudent in our selections, ensuring they do not reflect any favorable effects until we can actually see them. Our approach will be conservative as we anticipate these improvements, and we are ultimately looking for progress from these factors.

Then maybe just going back to the crop, that change and how you're viewing that year, just how that maybe if you could size up the impact of how that changed your '25 guide and specifically the releases from the '24 accident year.

Yes, we are still in the process of settling claims, including some from last year's crop. The significant change occurred in states like Ohio and Minnesota, where soybean yields were notably different from industry models. Corn and soybean prices decreased by approximately 11% and 13%, respectively, which was influenced by our average deductible for farmers being around 22%. As we moved through the summer and into fall, we became very optimistic about the upcoming year. However, the variability in yields from state to state remains uncertain until we finalize claims. This variability has been the most significant change we've encountered as we approach the end of the year and early into this year.

Our next question will be from Meyer Shields of Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc. Your line is open.

I want to go back to Brian's comments earlier where you talked about sort of extrapolating more severity from older accident years to more recent accident years. And I guess, obviously, we look at things on a high level in the reported financials, but it doesn't seem like we're seeing that level of increased severity baked into Specialty Casualty. I was hoping you could walk through the offers there?

I think of my understanding of your question. So, in the capacity, so as we business, for example, business were in 2023 would have started off at a loss pick based on our experience through that date. So, as we're getting iterative experience, we are reacting to that in our later years. The reason why it may not be that impactful is because it's being used by the positive things on the rating. So the underwriting actions would cause you to think we should have a lower loss pick than we actually have. But that's because of the offsetting impact of this increased severity and us picking up some of those more recent accident year loss picks based on that experience.

Yes. When you examine our overall commercial auto business, we are achieving a small underwriting profit for both accident and calendar years, accompanied by a solid return on equity. There is a slight underwriting loss in commercial auto liability, but we are actively working to turn that into a profit. Our transportation business, including workers' compensation, is performing well, yielding strong underwriting profits and good returns on equity. Our goal is to achieve underwriting profit in commercial auto liability. This segment, along with the broader industry, is facing challenges due to social inflation, notably in commercial auto liability, with the industry experiencing loss ratio trends exceeding 10%. For the year, we have seen growth in the mid-single digits. In the fourth quarter, we lost some large accounts due to our focus on pricing and terms, which affected our business. Overall, we still grew mid-single digits for the year. We are concentrating on improving margins in this sector. While some competitors secured large accounts, it remains unclear whether this is due to more aggressive competition or less strategic decision-making. We specialize in this field, and in commercial auto, we maintain solid returns and small underwriting profits, which our team estimates are about five points better than those of our competitors. I am very optimistic about our positioning, and as others strive to enhance their own business portfolios, it may create additional growth opportunities for us.

Thank you. And that does conclude today's Q&A session. I would like to go ahead and turn the call back over to Diane for closing remarks. Please go ahead. Thank you, and thank you all for participating this morning and for the great discussion. We look forward to talking with you all again next quarter.

Thank you all for joining today's conference call. This does conclude today's meeting. You may all disconnect.