AXIS Capital Holdings Limited (NYSE:AXS) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 2, 2023 9:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Miranda Hunter - Head, Investor Relations

Vince Tizzio - President and Chief Executive Officer

Pete Vogt - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Weston Bloomer - UBS

Matthew Carletti - JMP Securities

Elyse Greenspan - Wells Fargo

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Second Quarter 2023 AXIS Capital Earnings Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Miranda Hunter, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Miranda Hunter

Thanks Chad. Good morning and welcome to the AXIS Capital second quarter 2023 conference call. Our earnings press release and financial supplement were issued yesterday evening after the market closed. If you would like copies, please visit the Investor Information section of our website at axiscapital.com. Joining me on today's call are Vince Tizzio, our President and CEO; and Pete Vogt, our CFO.

Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone the statements made during this call including the question-and-answer section, which are not historical facts, may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions.

Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors including the risk factors set forth in the company's most recent report on the Form 10-K or our quarterly report on the Federal Form 10-Q and other reports the company files with the SEC. This includes the additional risks identified in the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements in our earnings press release issued last night.

We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. In addition this presentation may contain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations are included in our earnings press release and our financial supplement.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Vince.

Vince Tizzio

Thank you, Miranda and good morning. Thank you for joining us. I'm now 90 days in to seat as AXIS' new CEO and I'm excited to share our results and priorities as we look to the future, including generating consistent profitable results and growing book value per share.

As reported, the second quarter was very strong across multiple measures. We grew gross premiums written to $2.3 billion, a company record for the second quarter and an 8% improvement year-over-year. This was driven by our specialty insurance business which produced 15% growth its largest ever quarterly premium volume of $1.7 billion, a record new business of $500 million and a combined ratio of 86%.