Cincinnati Financial Corporation (CINF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Please take your seats. It's really great to see everybody. Welcome. It's great to be back in-person, isn't it? I'm Steve Johnston, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cincinnati Financial Corporation, and it's an honor to be with you at our Annual Meeting of Shareholders. At this time, I would like to formally call the meeting to order. If any registered shareholder wishes to turn in your proxy, please raise your hand and one of the inspectors of election will collect it. Also, any registered shareholder wishing to vote in-person may come forward to see the inspectors of election here to my left, who will facilitate voting in-person. Thank you. I will now ask Lisa Love, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, to read the notice of meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certify that on March 24, 2022, notice of the Annual Meeting of the Shareholders was mailed to those persons who were shareholders of record of the company on March 9, 2022. That notice provided that the annual meeting be held at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 7, 2022, at the Cincinnati Art Museum. And that the items of business to be considered at the meeting would be: electing 13 directors for 1-year term; voting on a nonbinding proposal to approve compensation for the company's named executive officers; ratifying the selection of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2022; and transacting such other business as may properly come before the meeting. I will include a copy of the notice, along with the minutes of the meeting in the company record.

Thank you, Lisa. Let me now introduce our appointed inspectors of election, Brandon McIntosh, Cincinnati Insurance, Assistant Vice President and Manager of Shareholder Services. And joining us virtually is Alyson Osenenko from Alliance Advisors. Alliance supports the company with proxy solicitation and vote tabulation services. Inspectors, please tabulate the shares presented in-person or by proxy at the meeting. While the inspectors tabulate the shares, let me make some introductions. First, your company's directors. Please hold your applause until we recognize all of our directors. And directors, please wave as your name is called. The nominees for election of this year's meeting are and, I hope you can see him a little better than I can. They're in the back corner of the room here. So wave big, Tom Aaron, Bill Bahl, Nancy Benacci, Linda Clement-Holmes, Dirk Debbink, Jill Meyer, David Osborn, Gretchen Schar, Charlie Schiff, Doug Skidmore, John Steele and Larry Webb. I am also standing for reelection at today's meeting, and thank you all for your efforts on behalf of the shareholders of Cincinnati Financial. At this point, I'd like to pause to thank in absentia a long-time director and friend of Cincinnati Financial, Ken Lichtendahl. Ken has retired from the Board service today after 34 years of sharing his insights and experiences learned from his many years as a successful business owner, executive and entrepreneur. During his tenure, he served as Chair of our Audit Committee and as a member of both the Compensation and Nominating Committee. Ken also had a great perspective and deep knowledge of environmental issues, which have benefited our company as our customers and shareholders have asked to be -- to better understand our environmental impact and risk management strategies. Most importantly, I thank Ken for his friendship and the guidance that he has offered me throughout the years. While he's not here, let's give it, Ken, a big hand. Next, let me introduce the company officers with me on stage: Lisa Love, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary; Mike Sewell, Chief Financial Officer, Principal Accounting Officer, Senior Vice President and Treasurer; Steve Spray, President of the Cincinnati Insurance Company and its subsidiaries; Marty Hollenbeck, Chief Investment Officer and Senior Vice President; and Roger Brown, Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President of the Cincinnati Life Insurance Company. At our subsidiary Board meeting this past January, we promoted Steve Spray to President of all the U.S. subsidiaries. Since 2019, Steve has been our Chief Insurance Officer, with executive oversight of the company's property casualty insurance operations. An industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience, Steve has served as an agent, an underwriter and a field marketing representative. He also helped establish the company's excess and surplus lines operation, created the target markets division and led commercial Lines operations and property casualty sales and marketing. Steve is ready for his next challenge. He's been in leadership roles across the organization and has a deep understanding of what it will take for us to succeed far into the future. Congratulations, Steve. We also have many other company officers in attendance today. Would you please stand, all the officers. All right. And now will all the associates who are also here present today, please stand. Thank you for your interest in your company and for your many contributions to our 2021 performance. Your attention to our core strategic initiatives has set our company on the right path to continue our mutual long-term success. I'd like to take a minute and welcome some other special guests at the meeting today. From Deloitte & Touche, our independent registered public accounting firm, we have David Freitas; Mark Mette; and Maggie Wehage. We also have some retired directors that I'd like to ask to stand and we'll give applause at the end: Tony Woods, Greg Bier. And then those that were directors and also officers of the company, Ken Stecher, Jim Benoski, Jack Schiff, Jr. and Tom Schiff. From Cincinnati Global Underwriting we have Derek Eales. Nick Chalk, [ Tok Ahmed ] and [ Eva Bosmatti ]. All right, all the way from London. Great. Cincinnati Global is the company we acquired in 2019. Based in London, CG Underwrites for Lloyd's of London Syndicate 318. Thank you all for being here today. We have some other special guests that I would like to announce and have stand. First, some first-time attendees: [ John Hanson ], [ Mark Shambo ], Julie Doyle, Megan Schneider, [ Abby Gibler ], 7 years old. All right, Abby, [ T Gillespie ] having [ Ed Bossi ] and Bradley Williams. All right. Thank you all. This is the 37th year we've held our shareholder meeting here at the Cincinnati Art Museum, and we thank Cameron Kitchin, Museum Director, and his staff for making this beautiful facility available. At this time, the inspectors may be ready with proxies. Mr. McIntosh, how many shares are represented at today's meeting?

Mr. Chairman, we, the undersigned inspectors of election, duly appointed to act at the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Cincinnati Financial Corporation held on the 7th day of May 2022, respectively, report as follows: number of shares represented in-person, 0; number of shares represented by proxy, 139,483,466; total number of shares represented, 139,483,466. That is 86.9% of the shares outstanding. Prospectively submitted, Brandon McIntosh and Alyson Osenenko.

Thank you, Brandon. We have a quorum present, and the meeting may proceed. Is there a motion to waive the read from the last shareholder meeting of May 8, 2021.

Mr. Chairman, I move to waive the reading of the minutes of the last Annual Meeting of Shareholders and to approve the minutes as written.

Thank you, Lisa. Is there a second? Thank you, Betsy. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Oppose same sign. Motion carried. Thank you very much. We have 3 items of business to present this year before our inspectors tally the votes. I'd like to also note that the polls are now open for each matter to be voted on at this meeting. The first is the election of directors. To nominate the slate of directors listed in the proxy statement, I call on Dennis McDaniel, Cincinnati Insurance Vice President and Investor Relations Officer.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I hereby nominate Thomas J. Aaron, William F. Bahl, Nancy C. Benacci, Linda W. Clement-Holmes, Dirk J. Debbink, Steven J. Johnston, Jill P. Meyer, David P. Osborn, Gretchen W. Schar, Charles O. Schiff, Douglas S. Skidmore, John F. Steele, Jr. and Larry R. Webb for election as directors of the company to hold office until the date of the Annual Meeting of Shareholders in 2023 and until their successors are elected and sealed.

Thank you, Dennis. Are there any other nominations? Seeing none, I declare the nominations closed. The second order of business is voting on a nonbinding proposal to approve the compensation for the company's named executive officers. To present this proposal, I call on Betsy Ertel, Cincinnati Insurance Vice President Corporate Communications.

Mr. Chairman, I propose that shareholders approve the following resolution. Resolved that the company's shareholders approve on an advisory basis, the compensation of the named executive officers as disclosed in the company's proxy statement for the Cincinnati Financial Corporation 2022 Annual Shareholder Meeting, pursuant to the compensation disclosure rules of the SEC including the compensation discussion and analysis, the 2021 summary compensation table and other related tables and narrative disclosure.

Thank you, Betsy. Is there any discussion at this time? The third order of business is to ratify the selection of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2022. To present the proposal, I call on Andy Schnell, Cincinnati Insurance Vice President, Corporate Finance.

Mr. Chairman, I propose that shareholders ratify the selection of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2022.

Thank you, Andy. Is there any discussion at this time? Again, I would invite any registered shareholders present, who want to vote in-person to come down and see the inspectors of election or raise your hand, and we'll come to receive your vote. Seeing and hearing none, if there is no further discussion on the proposals and no further business at this time, the polls are now closed for each matter voted on at this meeting. While the inspectors of election are tallying the votes, I will talk about the company's 2021 performance and trends that may affect 2022 and beyond. You have an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the meeting, but please let us know if you want to hear more on any subject at that time. As we begin, let me remind you that some of the matters we will discuss are forward-looking and may involve certain risks and uncertainties. You may refer to various filings with the SEC for factors that could cause results to differ materially from those discussed. You can find reconciliations for non-GAAP measures in our most recently filed quarterly earnings news release, which is available at cinfin.com/investors. It's great to be here with you again. I can't see you all that well with that -- with the lights, but I feel the passion. It's really good. I'm going to start the way I always do, with our vision and with our strategy. Our vision is to be the best company serving independent agents, not just the best insurance company, the best company serving independent agents. And this visual is perfect to depict our strategy that has the agent at the top, surrounded, supported by great and overwhelming claim service, and field representatives, all working from their homes, in the neighborhoods, in the territories with the agents. With all of our field people working from home, assigned to agents, as the world went work-from-home, we were perfectly positioned to come through the pandemic the way we did in fine fashion. Here in the headquarters, we're here to support the field, the claims, the agent as we continue to improve on our expertise and get better every day. And then there's financial strength. We're A+ rated by A.M. Best. We have about $12 billion in GAAP equity, supporting about $6.8 billion in net written premium volume. So very financially strong. And then we put the whole foundation of our strategy on ethical behavior. It doesn't do any good to have a lot of goals, vision, strategy, if you don't go about it in the right way, does it? We strive to execute on the golden rule, treat people the way we want to be treated. We do use metrics then to see how we're delivering on our vision and on our strategy. Our primary financial metric is the value creation ratio. It's the growth in book value plus the dividend contribution. We set a target to be between 10% and 13% every year. As you can see from this slide, the blue bars represent the VCR for every particular year. The orange boxes have the 3-year average at that year. And then you can see in each of those orange boxes, the value creation ratio has been driven by so many that are here exceeds that 10% threshold. So great job, everyone. And it takes contributions from everyone to make it happen. Here in 2021, we're off a bit as we start minus 6.9% but that puts us right about in the middle of the peer group, the financials of the stocks and bonds have been off this quarter, and we think we're perfectly positioned with a nice mix in our investment portfolio of stocks and bonds. Stocks as we go into inflationary environment and historically have proven to perform pretty well. Driving that VCR and a very important measure is our underwriting profitability. This chart shows our combined ratio: the blue bars represent Cincinnati Insurance; the green, a very tough peer group; the gray, the industry. Anything under 100 means that we're making money from our underwriting operations. We show 5 years in the first quarter here. But if we would go back 10 years, the associates, many of them here in the room have delivered a combined ratio under 100 for 10 consecutive years and now the start of the 11th. As you can see, the blue bars generally and consistently actually outperformed the industry and the peer group. We had a stellar year in 2021 with an 88.3% combined ratio and we're starting off quite well in the first quarter, 89.9%, under 90% outperforming the peer group. So I don't know. There's a lot of you here. This isn't in the script, but give yourself a hand. That's just a fantastic result. And we're also growing. This chart shows our premium growth, same color schematic. And you can see the blue bars here also outperformed consistently the peer group and the industry. We're off to a great start here in the first quarter, up 12.2%, which is outperforming the peer group. The great profitable growth. It's also diversifying growth. This chart for 5 years, breaks our premiums down by our business units. The blue bars represent Commercial Lines division, as you can see, they're up from $3.2 billion to $3.8 billion. Our whole company didn't exceed $3.5 billion until 2013. Great growth in commercial lines has been fueled by things such as our customer care center, our target markets, our key accounts, but it's always been and still is and always will be driven by that field representative out in the agent's office, the CEOs of our territory. In the orange box, we have personal lines up from $1.3 billion to almost $1.6 billion. And here, it's fueled by our entrance and achieving the position as one of the world's leaders in high-net-worth personal lines. Also, we have a new rating company in Cincinnati Casualty Company that really appeals to growth in the middle market segment. And then we have the Life company in the green up to $346 million, and they've done it synergistically with the P&C agents with products like Worksite and also really growing in term insurance. Then we have CSU. CSU wasn't even here in 2008. And now here we are at about $426 million. It's been double-digit growth throughout. Stellar combined ratios year after year. Don Doyle is here. Congratulations, Don, great job. And then I can't think about everybody -- but Don has done a great job over the last so many years. Then we have Cincinnati Re, which we just started in 2015 from scratch, $461 million. And it has been, growing nicely and continues to grow. Jamie Hole is here with us as well. And then, of course, we've already introduced from London, those in CGU, the acquisition was just in 2019. And already contributing almost $190 million of profitable business to the organization. And I'd like to give a special shout out to Teresa Cracas, who has been our leader here in Cincinnati with CGU. She's just done a wonderful job. So you can see that growth, it's been diversifying growth by geography, by product, and it's allowed us to have more stable results over time, contributing to those 10 years in a row of underwriting profit. Then comes investments. Marty Hollenbeck is here. He's doing a fantastic job. You can see the growth in our balance sheet here. The blue bars would be our statutory surplus, up from $5 billion to $7.2 billion, really good growth there to support our operations and add in the cash and marketable securities at the holding company, and we've got shareholders' equity growing from $8.2 billion to $13.1 billion. So plenty of capital to grow. As I think -- as I've gone through this, I called out some people. I didn't call out Sean Gibler, who is -- I see right there with his daughter, giving him accolades in the commercial lines department and Will Van Den Heuvel is also here, who leads our Personal Lines division. So we're well represented with all the business leaders. That leads to dividends. And as you know, that's a hallmark of ours. We've increased our dividend every year for 61 straight years. So not just paying the dividend, increased it every year for 61 years. We've increased the Board with the Board approval here in the first quarter, which sets the stage for a 62nd year. When we add all that up, we'll get to kind of the performance of the stock. And I show this every year. It starts with a dollar invested at the end of 1987 and the chart shows it growing 3 different ways. The bottom line would be the green line, as the S&P 500 over that time period through the first quarter, the dollar has grown to $38.57. Then is our value creation ratio, the primary measure of our financial performance as the gray line, $71.46, well outstripping the S&P 500. And then the total shareholder return of Cincinnati Financial through the first quarter, up from $1 to $1.07 -- $107.86. So great performance over the long haul. It's also been great performance over the shorter term. This year has been a rough and volatile market. But through last night, we were up about total shareholder return of about 11% versus about a minus 12% for the S&P 500. So all the hard work pays off for shareholders in terms of our focus on doing business the right way. And that will lead to a video that we're going to show. We've talked a lot about our numbers. And I think a key point is, we're in a noble business. We provide a great service in the communities that we write in. When people are having their worst day, we're there to help them on the road to recovery, and we should never lose track of that. That's one of the most important -- that is the most important thing that we do. It's one thing to have a vision, a strategy, a lot of numbers. But to be there, when bad things are happening to good people, and we can come forth with our financial strength, our field claims representatives and everybody else supporting them, that's really what makes it go. And this video, I think will highlight that. [Presentation]

Shareholders is the service we can provide to you. Shareholders of record can choose to hold shares in book entry instead of keeping track of paper certificates. We want to make it easy to own CFC shares and to reinvest dividends, compounding your returns over time. If you'd like more information, please visit the website of our stock register, transfer agent and dividend dispersing agent, Equiniti Trust Company at www.shareowneronline.com. Inspectors, do we have the preliminary voting results?

Mr. Chairman, we, the undersigned inspectors of election duly appointed to act at the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Cincinnati Financial Corporation held on the 7th day of May 2022, hereby submit our preliminary report on the results of the voting. For the first proposal, the election of directors. Each of this year's nominees received votes for their election of more than a majority of the shares present or represented and entitled to vote at the meeting. For the nonbinding advisory vote, approximately 95.03% of the shares present or represented and entitled to vote at the meeting were voted in favor of the nonbinding resolution to approve the compensation for the company's named executive officers. For the third proposal, approximately 96.54% of the shares present or represented and entitled to vote at the meeting were voted in favor of ratifying the appointment of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2022. Respectively submitted, Brandon McIntosh and Alyson Osenenko.

Thank you, Brandon. It appears all directors have been elected. The nonbinding resolution to approve the compensation for the company's named executive officers has passed. And the appointment of Deloitte & Touche as the company's independent registered public accounting firm has been ratified. The inspectors of election will furnish the Corporate Secretary with a written report of the final vote count with respect to the matters voted on today to be included in the minutes of the meeting. We'll announce final results once they are certified early next week. At this time, we welcome your questions, and we want to learn more about your interest in our business. Please come down to one of the microphones we set up to hear your comment or to ask your question. So we can keep the meeting on schedule and allow everyone to speak who wishes to, please keep your comments or questions to 2 minutes or less. Anyone have any questions or comments? Okay. Unless there is any other business for today's meeting, I request a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second? All right. Before we stand adjourned, I'd like to mention that you are welcome to tour the entire art museum, including the special exhibit, David Driskell: Icons of Nature and History. You don't need a ticket. Simply tell them you're with Cincinnati Financial. Refreshments are still available as well. We stand adjourned. Thank you very much for your presence today. We look forward to seeing you again next year. Thank you.