Universal Insurance Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:UVE) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 23, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Corporate Participants

Arash Soleimani - Chief Strategy Officer

Steve Donaghy - Chief Executive Officer

Frank Wilcox - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Paul Newsome - Piper Sandler

Nicolas Iacoviello - Dowling & Partners

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Universal's Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder this conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Arash Soleimani, Chief Strategy Officer. Please go ahead.

Arash Soleimani

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. Welcome our quarterly earnings call. On the call with me today are Steve Donaghy, Chief Executive Officer and Frank Wilcox, Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, please note today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. Forward-looking statements involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. For more information, please see the press release and Universal's SEC filing, all of which are available on the Investors section of our website at universalinsuranceholdings.com and on the SEC's website.

A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP measures is included in the quarterly press release and can also be found on Universal's website at universalinsuranceholdings.com.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve.

Steve Donaghy

Thanks Arash. Good morning, everyone.

We closed out both the fourth quarter and full year with double-digit adjusted returns on common equity. And I believe that even stronger results are firmly in our future. 2023 was a transformative year for us and our significant efforts position us for meaningful success in the new legislative environment.

We've added a buffer to our loss picks and bolstered reserves for years that predate the elimination of one-way attorney fees and assignment of benefits to what I view as the most conservative level in our history. Importantly, we did this because we wanted to place the past in the rearview mirror and shift our focus to the future.

In 2023, we took yet another step towards the future by commuting Hurricane Irma, the largest and most significant storm in our history with the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund.

Now that we're past the one-year anniversary date of the 2022 special legislative session, and all new and renewal policies are subject to the new legislation, the impact of the reforms is becoming clear. Claims trends across the board are improving, including reductions in total claims, represented claims, assigned claims and daily claims.