Good morning. My name is Sharon, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Crawford & Company Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Release Conference Call. In conjunction with this call, a supplementary financial presentation is available on our website at www.crawco.com, under the Investor Relations section. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, Friday, March 5, 2021. Some of the matters to be discussed in this conference call and in the supplementary financial presentation may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may relate to, among other things, the impact of COVID-19; our expected future operating results and financial condition; our ability to grow our revenues and reduce our operating expenses; expectations regarding our anticipated contributions to our underfunded defined benefit pension plans; collectability of our billed and unbilled accounts receivable; financial results from our recently completed acquisitions; our continued compliance with the financial and other covenants contained in our financing agreements, our long-term capital resource and liquidity requirements; and our ability to pay dividends in the future. The company's actual results achieved in future quarters could differ materially from results that may be implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release revisions to any forward-looking statements made in this conference call to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of the call or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. In addition, you are reminded that operating results for any historical period are not necessarily indicative of results to be expected for any future period. For a complete discussion regarding factors which could affect the company's financial performance, please refer to the company's Form 10-K for the quarter ended December 31, 2020, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly the information under the headings Risk factors and Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations as well as subsequent company filings with the SEC. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under the SEC rules. As required, a reconciliation is provided for those measures to those most directly comparable GAAP measures. I would now like to introduce Mr. Rohit Verma, Chief Executive Officer of Crawford & Company. Rohit, you may begin your conference.

Thank you so much, Sharon. Good morning, and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings call. Joining me today is Bruce Swain, our Chief Financial Officer; Joseph Blanco, our President; and Tami Stevenson, our General Counsel. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for your questions. First and foremost, our thoughts go out to everyone impacted by winter storm Marie, a terrible tragedy in the middle of a pandemic. This was undoubtedly a surprise for everyone, and we are extremely proud of how our team has responded to this unprecedented event. We currently have close to 1,000 employees, contractors and seasonal workers mobilized for it. 2020 marked a year of resilience, tenacity and innovation. Over the last year, we have seen the world transform and demonstrate a phenomenal ability to adapt during the period of extreme adversity. At Crawford, we moved quickly to acclimate to this rapidly changing environment. We shifted to working from home, ramped our remote claims handling capabilities, helped our clients adopt self-service technologies and continued to introduce new solutions to meet the unique challenges of a world in lockdown. In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted Crawford's strength. It has pushed us to accelerate our innovation, but also think differently as we swiftly pivoted to address the demands of the world that changed overnight. At the same time, it reinforced that our purpose-driven approach and prioritizing the safety and well-being of our people is the bedrock of our resilient performance. Along those lines, we introduced new and enhanced business solutions that have specifically targeted the unique challenges of the pandemic. These have included advancements to WeGoLook, rapid expansion of our contractor program, special services to address COVID-related workers' compensation claims, event cancellation claims, and business interruption claims. These solutions allowed…

Thank you, Rohit. Throughout the pandemic, we at Crawford remained unified by our purpose, which enabled us to transcend the trials and tribulations of 2020. We are extremely thankful to all of our employees, as it is their perseverance and dedication to delivering on our client commitments that drove our success in 2020. The global COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to the health and safety of our workforce. At the outset of the pandemic, we immediately formed a global incident response team, transitioned all nonessential staff to work from home, procured PPE for those roles deemed essential workers, adopted safety protocols for field employees and delivered weekly health and safety updates to our global workforce. Additionally, we modified our sick leave policies to support the health of all of our employees, established physical and mineral health and wellness programs and launched the parents support group. As a key component to our success, we remain committed to protecting the safety and well-being of all of our employees, while promoting a culture reflective of our RESTORE values of respect, empowerment, sustainability, training, One Crawford, recognition and entrepreneurial spirit. This is exemplified in the launch of our Office of Inclusion and Diversity in early 2020 and the subsequent formation of a Global Diversity Council to work with our executive and country leadership teams to enhance our inclusion and diversity policies and practices. Two key accomplishments for 2020 were delivering unconscious bias training to our executive leadership team, our managers and our employees and launching two employee resource groups in the United States. Additionally, in 2020, we conducted an employee poll survey as well as a series of surveys throughout the year to help us manage our COVID-19 response. Our overall response rate was 82%, up from 76% in December of 2019. And favorable response rates increased across all categories of questions: the way we execute, the way we lead, the way we manage, the way we see ourselves and the way we work together. We continue to look for opportunities across our enterprise to become more socially responsible and are increasingly integrating ESG best practices into our operations. With that, I will turn the call over to Bruce to review our fourth quarter and full year results in more detail.

Thank you, Joseph. Company-wide revenues before reimbursements in the 2020 fourth quarter were $257.4 million, up 4.1% over the $247.2 million in the prior year's fourth quarter. On a non-GAAP basis, excluding the benefit of foreign exchange, the company saw revenues of $254 million. On a non-GAAP basis, net income attributable to shareholders was $12.2 million, resulting in fourth quarter 2020 diluted EPS of $0.23 for both CRD-A and CRD-B, as compared to 2019 diluted EPS of $0.15 for CRD-A and $0.13 for CRD-B. The company's non-GAAP operating earnings totaled $18.8 million in the 2020 fourth quarter or 7.4% of revenues compared with $16.7 million or 6.8% of revenues in the prior year period. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $27.9 million in the 2020 fourth quarter or 11% of revenues compared to 200 -- compared to $27.5 million or 11.1% of revenues in the 2019 quarter. I will now review the fourth quarter performance of each of our segments, who all enjoyed solid improvements in operating earnings in the quarter. Crawford Claims Solutions revenue totaled $99 million, increasing 17.5% from $84.3 million reported in last year's quarter. Absent foreign exchange rate benefits of approximately $1.9 million, fourth quarter 2020 revenues would have been $97.1 million. The segment reported operating earnings of $8 million in the 2020 fourth quarter or 8.1% of revenues, more than doubling the $3.6 million or 4.2% of revenues in the prior year quarter. Crawford Specialty Solutions' revenues were $64.3 million in the 2020 fourth quarter, down from $65.9 million in the prior year quarter. Absent foreign exchange rate benefits of $1 million, revenues would have been $63.3 million for the quarter. Operating earnings in Crawford Specialty Solutions totaled $14.2 million or 22.1% of revenues in the 2020 fourth quarter, increasing over operating earnings of $11.2 million or…

Thank you, Bruce. As we embark on 2021, we are confident in our outlook as we reap the benefits of our success from new and enhanced client wins. Our strategy enables our growth plans and envisioned future as we continue to deliver innovative and market leading solutions. Above all, we remain committed to protecting the health and safety of our employees, while continuing to provide best-in-class service to our clients despite the current global environment. In 2020, we responded, adapted, innovated and delivered. In 2021, we will continue to progress from a position of strength, finding new ways to excel for our clients while delivering further value to our shareholders. We look forward to the journey ahead as we fulfill our purpose of restoring and enhancing lives, businesses and communities. Thank you for your time today. Operator, please open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from Mark Hughes.

Bruce, when we think about the cash flow for 2021, I know you're not providing guidance. I'm curious whether there's any items that either were an unusual help or hindrance in 2020? And anything that might move, say, in a different direction in 2021? Is this a -- is it normal run rate and no impacts in the coming year?

Right. So within 2020, we had a couple of benefits in operating cash flow. One, we deferred our U.S. unemployment deposits in the U.S., which was about $13 million. That was under the CARES Act. Those are repaid in two installments in 2021 and 2022 under the Act. So in 2021, we'll have the normal payroll tax deposits that we normally would, plus at the end of the year, we'll have to make up about $6.5 million of what we deferred in 2020. We also benefited from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy in 2020. And that was a program put on by the Canadian government to subsidize companies for retaining their workforce. That was about -- and on a cash basis, about an $11.8 million benefit for us in 2020. That program is ongoing through the first half of this year, although at a reduced rate. So we won't see that subsidy, but we do expect for our business to improve as we exit out of COVID. So we're hopeful that we'll have kind of an offset there. But I would expect to see a little bit of pressure on operating cash flow just as a result of the CARES Act benefit that we got going away in '21.

Understood. The Canada Wage Subsidy, was the $11.3 million in unallocated corporate costs, was that inclusive of the $4.8 million, so -- but for -- it would have been meaningfully higher?

The corporate unallocated cost had a piece of the Canadian benefit, about half of the benefit, but the other half sat in our operating results.

And what is the kind of the normalized run rate? And maybe just looking backwards, and any thoughts about how that will trend in 2021?

For the corporate unallocated cost?

Yes, yes.

Yes. I mean, we certainly think that the fourth quarter was abnormally high. And that's not indicative of a run rate going forward. We can see some volatility there. The thing that tends to impact us the most are self-insurance reserve true-ups. But I think if you go back and look over the last few quarters, that's probably more indicative of where we would be on that line item.

Okay. And then the TPA business, you had a nice sequential uptick in revenue. Was that -- I think you talked about some more COVID claims. Business interruption is so strong. Was that just that and then maybe some normalization in the economy? What drove the sequential increase?

Mark, we are seeing -- this is Rohit, Mark. We are seeing an uptick in the claims volume. Largely, that has been driven by the COVID-19 claims. We certainly saw the impact of the increased infections in the U.S. that happened between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That did come through in the month of December. And we're seeing some of that impact come through in January as well. We aren't seeing a secular increase in overall claims activity until economic activity comes back. But we feel very bullish that economic activity will be back in the later part of the year. And TPA should be back on its full recovery and not just recovery, but actually doing better because of the wins that we've had in the last 12 to 18 months.

And on that front, any comment as we think about 2021 and the new business you might have won and will be coming online? Absent the COVID and other economic effects, is the -- is your customer kind of growing?

Yes. The customer count is growing. And I think we're also very encouraged by the carrier wins that we're seeing because there, the customer count is won, but the revenue increase opportunity is much higher. Because as the carriers add customers, more back claim activity starts to show. On an annualized basis, last year, we won about $37 million of TPA business. And as you know, working with us, that not all of that shows up in the first year itself, but it gradually comes in. So we expect the impact of that to come in as well this year. So we feel very good about our TPA business, where it's heading and the investment that we've made there over the last 24 to 36 months, we feel, is really starting to show.

Yes. Then I'll just ask one more question. When we think about the Q1 with the winter storm, presumably that is the catalyst for claims. And I'm not sure how much of a carryover you had from the fourth quarter. But I wonder, if you could just comment, when we think about whether broadly as it impacts Contractor Connection and your Adjusting business, how do we think about the Q1 in terms of potentially stepped-up activity?

Certainly. When we look at Q1, we did carry some benefit from Australia and U.K. in terms of the storm activity that we saw. So we believe that inventories are still there for us to work through in Q1. So we should see some of that impact. The impact of the storm really is early to comment on, but the numbers look favorable in terms of the claims volume that is coming to our end, and we should have some more clarity coming to it in the next couple of weeks. But overall, we feel very good and very positive about how the year is unfolding so far.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from Alex Bolton.

Calling in for Greg Peters. I guess my question surrounds the margin improvement that you've seen in, I guess, the specialty and the claims business. Just kind of curious, going forward, maybe past the pandemic, if you think how much you're able to retain of that margin improvement versus maybe some of that might return?

Sure. As you know, during Q3 and Q4, there was quite a significant storm activity in the U.S. And we benefited from that storm activity, which also showed in our margins. Additionally, we've been adding new carrier clients both in our specialty services business and in our traditional CCS business, which we believe have strong long-term value to us. So we expect that as the storm activity continues, that we will see better margins and improved margins. And then we certainly want to continue to make investment on the technology side to innovate and simplify the claims process, which should further enhance our margins. But as we said, we're not really providing guidance at this moment. But I'd like to reiterate that we feel very favorably about how the year will progress for our Loss Adjusting business and our Contractor Connection business.

Okay. Okay, great. And then my other question is -- I know you're not providing guidance, but I was wondering if you could comment on the reporting changes? And if there's much change to the revenue mix, I guess, between the 3 segments with the reporting changes?

Bruce, do you want to take that?

Yes, sure. I'll take that. So our plan is that by the end of this month, by the end of March, we'll issue an 8-K that has the historical financial results for 2020 and 2019, including, by quarter, restated for the change in segments. So I think that, that will help clear things up for you and other analysts and investors to kind of understand the historical results in light of the new structure change.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from Mark Hughes.

I was going to ask about the margins. So you gave a good answer on that one, so I'm all set. Thank you.

We have a question from David -- [Operator Instructions] And we did not have any telephone questions at this time. I will turn the call over to Mr. Verma.

Thank you so much, Sharon. Let me first thank all our employees, clients and shareholders for their continued trust and commitment to Crawford & Company. Our strong 2020 results reinforce our confidence in the future of the company, and we look forward to the journey ahead with you. I wish you all well. Thank you so much, and God bless.

Thank you for participating in today's Crawford & Company Conference Call. This call will be available for replay beginning 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time, today, through 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on April 5, 2021. The conference ID number for the replay is 1388329. The number to dial for the replay is (800) 585-8367 or (416) 621-4642. Thank you. You may now disconnect.