Good morning, and welcome to the Erie Indemnity Company’s Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2020 Earnings Conference Call. This call was prerecorded, and there will be no question-and-answer session following the recording. Now I would like to introduce your host for the call, Vice President of Investor Relations, Scott Beilharz. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for this recorded discussion about our 2020 fourth quarter and year-end results. This recording includes remarks from Tim NeCastro, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Greg Gutting, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings release and financial supplement were issued yesterday afternoon after the market closed and are available within the Investor Relations section of our website erieinsurance.com. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion may contain forward-looking remarks that reflect the company's current views about future events. These remarks are based on assumptions subject to known and unexpected risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties may cause results to differ materially from those described in these remarks. For information on important factors that may cause these differences, please see the safe harbor statements in our Form 10-K filing with the SEC, dated February 25, 2021, and in the related press release. This prerecorded call is the property of Erie Indemnity Company. It may not be reproduced or rebroadcast by any other party without the prior written consent of Erie Indemnity Company. With that, we will move on to Tim's remarks.

Thanks, Scott, and thanks to all of you for taking time to learn more about Erie's performance in the fourth quarter of 2020 and our year-end results. I hope you and your families are staying healthy and safe and are ready to move forward positively in 2021. Last year was unlike any other, it demanded a lot from us as individuals and as a company, and it deeply impacted how we live, how we work and how we connect with one another. The culture of Erie has been an incredible asset in helping us get through this together. And I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to the nearly 6,000 employees and 13,000 licensed agents who make up our Erie Family. They adapted seamlessly to the new ways of serving our customers and keeping our business thriving over the course of this uncertain and often challenging year. In March, as the threat of the pandemic became more clear, we equipped more than 95% of our employees to work from home in a matter of days. This was to keep them safe and to reduce the risk of exposure to the small number of dedicated employees whose roles require them to be in the office. I have received countless messages for members of the Erie Family expressing appreciation for the actions we have taken over the past year to keep their well-being a priority. In April, we provided $400 million in financial relief for our personal and commercial automobile customers, including $200 million in policyholder dividends and an overall 5% rate reduction for those policies. After the 2.5 million dividend checks were distributed, we heard from thousands of customers who responded with greeting cards, letters and emails, thanking Erie and our agents. To support communities across our geographic footprint, we…

Thank you, Tim. At this time a year ago, I began our year-end discussion by saying that our strong financial performance in 2019 would propel us forward in 2020. Then a month later, our world was turned completely upside down when the COVID-19 pandemic drastically altered our everyday lives and uncertainty of the future became the new normal. Despite the difficulty and challenge that 2020 presented, Erie delivered, and I’m proud to share with you our fourth quarter and full-year 2020 financial performance. Starting with the Exchange, the insurance operations we manage, direct written premium growth for the fourth quarter was 1%, driven by strong growth in new business premium, which climbed just over 11% compared to the fourth quarter of last year, while total year direct written premium grew almost 2%. I will remind you that the Exchange implemented $200 million in auto rate reductions that began in July of 2020 and will extend through June of 2021. These rate reductions impacted the rate charged on new and renewal policies. With a combined ratio for the quarter of 94.4% and the strong financial markets, the Exchange's policyholder surplus grew to $10.7 billion from $10 billion at the end of the third quarter. The Exchange's total year combined ratio ended significantly better compared to 2019 at 93.7% compared to 105% a year ago. Shifting our focus to Indemnity, net income was $63 million or $1.20 per diluted share compared to $60 million or $1.14 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2019. 2020 total year net income was $293 million or $5.61 per diluted share compared to $317 million or $6.06 per diluted share in 2019. Operating income in the fourth quarter decreased nearly $4 million or 5.3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. Comparing year-over-year results, Indemnity's…

Thanks, Greg. As we enter 2020, we are pleased to deliver on several key initiatives in support of our strategic focus areas: strengthening business platforms and use of data, enhancing the Erie experience, identifying and developing new sources of revenue, and preparing the workforce in the future. The unexpected challenges presented early in the year by the pandemic could have easily upended those plans. But I'm proud to say that our employees and agents stepped up, often exceeding expectations. As I reported in previous calls, we launched and enhanced several products this year. ErieSecure business, we imagine seven legacy products into one single customizable commercial multi-peril product. Agents can get a quote in about seven minutes, and nearly half of the policies are instantly issued without underwriting review. This is a considerable improvement from the days and weeks those tasks took with legacy products. Since the new product rollout in late 2020, ErieSecure business has generated nearly $35 million in written premium and provided protection of nearly 15,000 businesses. ErieExpress Light, a new instant issue term and whole life product, can be quoted, bound and issued during the auto insurance quote and application process without the need for a medical exam or physician statement. More than 2,400 policies were placed in less than four months after it was introduced in August. Erie Rate Lock, which provides customers with an option to lock in their auto rate until they made a qualifying change, was refreshed with more competitive pricing and rolled out in 10 states. Auto conversion rates increased nearly 25%, and applications were up more than 10% in those states. In your term, a product that rewards safe drivers with financial benefits expanded to four additional states, more than 22,000 drivers have registered for your turn in eight states, where…

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. End of Q&A: