W. R. Berkley Corporation (WRB) CEO Rob Berkley on Q2 2022 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

W. R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call July 21, 2022 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Rob Berkley - President and CEO

Rich Baio - Group Chief Financial Officer

Bill Berkley - Executive Chair

Conference Call Participants

Elyse Greenspan - Wells Fargo

Michael Phillips - Morgan Stanley

Yaron Kinar - Jefferies

David Motemaden - Evercore ISI

Mark Hughes - Truist Securities

Alex Scott - Goldman Sachs

Ryan Tunis - Autonomous Research

Brian Meredith - UBS

Josh Shanker - BofA Securities

Operator

Good day, and welcome to W. R. Berkley Corporation Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference call is being recorded.

The speakers' remarks may contain forward-looking statements. Some of the forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words, including, without limitation, believes, expects or estimates. We caution you that such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by us that the future plans, estimates or expectations contemplated by us will, in fact, be achieved. Please refer to our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, and our other filings made with the SEC for a description of the business environment in which we operate and the important factors that may materially affect our results. W. R. Berkley Corporation is not under any obligation and expressly disclaims any such obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Rob Berkley. Please go ahead, sir.

Rob Berkley

Josh, thank you very much and good afternoon to all. And thank you for joining our second quarter call. Co-hosting with me this afternoon is Bill Berkley, our Executive Chairman; as well as Rich Baio, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

We're going to follow the usual agenda where I'm going to hand it over to Rich momentarily. He's going to run through some highlights of the quarter. Once Rich has completed his comments, I'll receive the baton back from him, offer a few thoughts of my own, and then we'll be pleased to open it up for Q&A and take the conversation anywhere participants would like to take it.

Before I hand it over to Rich, there is a one point or a topic that I did want to flag, and it's something that we talk about with some regularity within our shop. And I don't think it's a unique observation, I'm sure everyone on the call and beyond is acutely aware of this point, but nevertheless, I think it easily falls off the radar screen as we can easily get consumed by other aspects of the industry. And that is the macro observation or reality that this is a very unusual industry for a variety of reasons, but one of them is, this is an industry where you do not know your cost of goods sold until oftentimes many years after the transaction has actually occurred. That creates additional complexity and how one operates the business. It's less consequential when you're operating through an extended period of time where things are quite stable. But when you're in a period of time where changes abound, volatility is material, it becomes much more consequential.