Earnings Call Excerpt
ProAssurance Corp. (PRA)
Q4 2008 Earnings Call
February 25, 2009 9:30 am ET
Executives
Frank O'Neil – SVP of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations
Stancil Starnes – Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Edward Rand – Chief Financial Officer
Howard Friedman – Chief Underwriting Officer, Chief Actuary, SVP & Co-President of Professional Liability Group
Darryl Thomas – Senior Vice President & Chief Claims Officer, Co-President of Professional Liability Group
Victor Adamo – President
Analysts
Mark Hughes – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey
Mike Grasher – Piper Jaffray
David Lewis – Raymond James
Michael Nannizzi – Oppenheimer & Co.
Presentation
Operator
Good day everyone and welcome to the ProAssurance 2008 year end conference call. As a reminder this call is being recorded. Now I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Frank O'Neil. Please go ahead.
Frank O'Neil
Thank you, [Jennifer], and thanks everyone for joining us. The news release we issued yesterday afternoon and our SEC filings, including this morning's 10-K filing, included disclosures with respect to forward-looking statements. In that regard please understand that many of the statements we make today will deal with projections, estimates, expectations and are thus explicitly identified as forward-looking statements subject to various risks. Our actual results could differ materially from current projections or expectations.
Our SEC filings have a listing of risks you should understand about ProAssurance. We will not undertake, and we expressly disclaim, any obligation to update or alter forward-looking statements whether it is a result of new information or future events except as required by law or regulation. The content of this call is accurate only on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, the date of first broadcast. If you happen to be reading a transcript of this call, please note that we did not authorize it, nor have we reviewed it for accuracy. Thus, it may contain errors that could alter the intent or meaning of our statements.
On the call today is our Chairman and CEO, Stan Starnes; our President Vic Adamo; Chief Financial Officer Ned Rand; Chief Underwriting Officer Howard Friedman; and our Chief Claims Officer Darryl Thomas. All will have a part today, but Stan will open our remarks.
Stancil Starnes
I wanted to open the call because I want to highlight our very strong results in a very, very difficult market. By many measurements, 2008 was the strongest year we've ever had. In a year where losses reduced the stockholders' equity of many companies by double digit amounts, we grew stockholders' equity by 13% and increased book value by 10%.
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