Good morning. My name is Mal, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Crawford & Company First Quarter 2022 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] Now I would like to introduce Tami Stevenson, Crawford & Company's General Counsel.

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, and expectations regarding our anticipated contributions to our underfunded defined benefit pension plans, collectability of our billed and unbilled accounts receivables, 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 liquidity requirements and our ability to pay dividends in the future. The company's actual results achieved in future quarters could differ materially from the 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 the operating results for any historical period are not necessarily inclusive 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-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2022, 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 SEC rules. As required, a reconciliation is provided for those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I would like to now introduce Mr. Rohit Verma, Chief Executive Officer of Crawford & Company.

Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter 2022 earnings call. Joining me today is Bruce Swain, our Chief Financial Officer; Joseph Blanco, our President; and Tami Stevenson, our General Counsel. As is the custom after our remarks, we will open the call for your questions. Before I review our results, I would like to extend my thoughts to our colleagues, clients, and partners who have family and friends in and around Ukraine. We remain hopeful for the safety of the Ukrainian people, especially all those who are directly in harm's way, and for a swift and peaceful resolution to the conflict. We continue to actively monitor this evolving situation to understand how this might affect our colleagues in Ukraine and around the world. Crawford delivered strong top line results during the first quarter, with revenues increasing over 10% to $279 million compared to the prior year period despite a benign weather environment. This marks our fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth, and we are extremely proud of this continued momentum. These strong results underscore the hard work of our colleagues, as well as the progress we're making on our long-term growth strategy and the envisioned future. Positive momentum continues in our U.S. operations where we're gaining market share across all segments of our business. Within North American loss-adjusting, we're seeing strong contributions from major and complex specialist loss adjusters, Platform Solutions also remains a growth driver for Crawford with 35% revenue growth year-over-year. This is aided by increased traction with large U.S. carriers, as well as the better-than-expected performance of the Praxis acquisition. Looking globally, we're making progress in our international operations despite continued margin pressures due to the same factors we reviewed with you on our last few earnings calls, mainly benign weather activity, and weakness in…

Focusing on North America loss suggesting, which services the North American property and casualty market, our revenues were driven by our large and complex business, where we have continued to hire more specialists, including 35 loss adjusters during the first quarter. Our deep expertise is establishing us as leaders in the marketplace and driving new business wins, especially among large U.S. clients. As we anticipated, our business in Canada experienced growth over the prior year due to a rebound in activity as a result of the continued COVID recovery. Additionally, our clients are increasingly turning to Crawford as they grapple with staffing challenges. This is a direct result of our cultivated relationships, and although we expect the elevated outsourcing opportunities to be short term, we believe there will be a long-term benefit of these deepening relationships, which will lead to additional opportunities in the future. Turning now to our international operations, we are building solid traction in this segment despite continued weakness in certain business lines in the U.K., Australia, and Asia. In the U.K., the weakness is isolated to a specific business line, while Australia exhibited some transitory weakness in the first quarter. It is expected to see recovery in the second quarter amidst unprecedented flooding in Southeast Queensland and New South Wales. In Asia, despite a muted performance in the first quarter, we have made good progress on our regionalization strategy and remain optimistic in our outlook. Europe is seeing signs of the COVID recovery and benefiting from talent acquisitions. We are taking steps to further diversify our business and implement some cost containment measures and geographies experiencing continued weakness. Although it will take time for the full effect of those actions to be realized, we believe that we will see some of these impacts throughout the remainder…

Company-wide revenues before reimbursements in the 2022 first quarter were $279 million, up 10% from $253.2 million in the prior year first quarter. Foreign exchange rates decreased revenues before reimbursements by 2.8 million or 1%. On a constant dollar basis, revenues before reimbursements totaled $281.8 million. GAAP diluted EPS in the 2022 first quarter was $0.10 for both CRD-A and CRD-B compared to $0.11 for both share classes in the 2021 period. On a non-GAAP basis, first quarter 2022 diluted EPS was $0.15 for both CRD-A and CRD-B, unchanged for both share classes compared to the 2021 period. The company's non-GAAP operating earnings totaled $13.1 million in the 2022 first quarter or 4.7% of revenues, increasing slightly from $13 million or 5.1% of revenues in the prior year period. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $21.9 million in the 2022 first quarter or 7.8% of revenues compared to $22.2 million or 8.8% of revenues in the 2021 quarter. I will now review the first quarter 2022 performance of each of our segments. As a reminder, North America loss adjusting, which services the North American property and casualty market, is comprised of the previously reported Crawford loss adjusting segment in the U.S. and Canada, including Global Technical Services and edgester. The Canadian operations will include all operations within that country, including those previously reported within the Crawford TPA Solutions and Crawford Platform Solutions segments. North American loss adjusting revenues totaled $64.4 million in the 2022 first quarter, increasing 14.5% from $56.3 million reported in last year's quarter, including $3.6 million from the Edgester acquisition. The segment reported operating earnings of $4.1 million in the 2022 first quarter, decreasing from $4.4 million reported in last year's quarter. The operating margin was 6.4% in the 2022 quarter compared to 7.7% in the 2021 quarter. The…

Overall, we are tremendously pleased with our results for the first quarter, which highlight the effectiveness of our long-term growth strategy. Our gears remain shifted in growth mode, which is demonstrated by the forward consecutive quarter of revenue growth, and we are confident in our ability to carry this momentum forward into future quarters. We believe the strategic evolution of our business will enable us to confidently execute on our growth plans and enriching future supported by a best-in-class group of experts and leaders. Our financial position is enviable, and we look forward to delivering value to our shareholders in 2022, while fulfilling our purpose of restoring lives, businesses and communities.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Mark Hughes of Truist Securities.

This is Michael Ramirez in for Mark. Just curious, what does the pipeline look like for client growth at the contracts or connection? And if you could maybe help us understand is this one of your major levers for incremental top line and bottom line growth?

So our pipeline remains strong across all of our businesses as we shared that we won about $43 million of new business. Just in comparison to what we had shared in the call related to the fourth quarter of last year, in total for the full year, we had $100 million of business. That's for the entire company. Contractor Connection, we already do a significant portion of the top 20 carriers and we are continuously expanding that. The specific growth that we're seeing in platforms right now is coming from our Catastrophe Network business, our WeGoLook network business, as well as Praxis, which was our most recent acquisition that reports to our platform segments. So that's what's driving the growth in the third quarter, but overall, we see all that the pipeline of our contractor connection is strong.

I guess we saw a little bit of improvement in the international segment. Can you maybe help us understand how long you think it would take you to get back to positive earnings?

Yes, overall we're encouraged by our International segment. If you look at what's driving the difference between last year and this year, there was a difficult comparison with Australia because there were storms as you may recall, in the November-December time frame last year in Australia, which were there. So, there was definitely some weakness in Australia, although we think that weakness is short-lived because of the activities that we're seeing as a result of the floods and we expect that we should see a lift coming from that in the second quarter and subsequent quarters. The second area of comparison was Asia, and we had shared, as a matter of fact in our third and the fourth quarters last year, but that is a geography that got severely impacted by COVID, that is a geography that got really impacted by certain other changes in the business, and we have since been in the rebuilding mode, and actually, we're very encouraged back from our expectation. Asia is doing better than what we expected. So, while it seems a comparison to last year is not favorable, but if we look at a comparison to our expectations, it is actually pretty favorable, so we feel good. In the U.K., we've got a business which has had a pocket of weakness, which has continued longer than we want it to be, but we feel confident that we will resolve it before the end of the year, and overall, we're very pleased with our U.K. operations. It's one specific business, one specific issue, which has caused weakness and we are working to alleviate that and feel pretty confident about it before the end of the year.

Maybe just shifting gears a little bit, could you give us a sense of what you think the build would be in terms of Workers' Compensation claims and medical case management?

Sorry, I apologize, I didn't catch the question, Mike.

Sure, we're just wondering, do you think there's going to be a sort of a slow build in terms of Workers' Compensation claims build and medical case management?

I understand that now. Yes. So we're actually already seeing a recovery in our Workers' Compensation claim volume, and the claim volume has been sequentially up. Our challenge has been that medical management has not recovered at the same pace at which we're seeing the Workers' Compensation claims recover, and while we've seen some recovery in our medical management plans, it's certainly not to the level of the pre-pandemic, but we've been very encouraged with the new business growth that we're seeing in our business in Broadspire, specifically as it relates to Workers' Comp, and I think as the year goes by and things come back to normal, we should see that pick up. That's what we've been seeing over the last three quarters. We also saw a little bit of a bump because of COVID claims. We expect the COVID claims to come down and they have been coming down, but we think that the more traditional Comp business will continue to pick up as workers return to work.

Just maybe a quick follow-up on that one. Regarding the health care costs within Workers’ Compensation, are you seeing any signs of emerging inflation?

I don't know if we looked at it from an inflationary perspective, we're certainly seeing inflation impact on our first-party loss business where we're seeing time lines for property repairs to be longer, time lines for order repairs to be longer. I don't know if I've seen a specific piece on inflation as it relates to Comp, but let we ask Bruce or Joseph, if they want to add something to that.

I think you covered it. I'm not aware of the specific impact that we're seeing.

We have the next question come from the line of Kevin Steinke of Barrington Research.

I wanted to start off by asking about within Platform Solutions, the network business, 40% year-over-year revenue growth there in the quarter, and you mentioned the benign weather environment. So I guess, should we just think about that as being driven by the increased penetration of the large carriers that you referenced and overall market share gains?

Yes, I think that is the primary factor. But I think, Kevin, the other factor that's playing out right now in the P&C market specifically, but I'm seeing it broadly as well, is the availability of staffing. We have we have been very fortunate, both in terms of recruitment and retention, and what we're seeing is that a lot of our carrier partners like a lot of the other industry sectors are seeing a pretty significant issues with retention and staffing, and as a result of which, we've seen more overflow work come to us, and yes, it's come from mainly the large carriers, but we've seen some significant work coming from the large carriers, while there was no real major storm activity. And that work has been not just on the property side, but also on the casualty side, where the auto frequency has picked up pretty significantly, and not all carriers have adequate staffing levels, particularly for auto and other casualty lines as well, which have taken a hit during COVID, as you would recall. And so I think we've benefited from that. It's given us the ability to demonstrate broader capabilities to our carrier partners. So it's not just been the pure weather issue, it's been also other elements that have led to increased outsourcing by the carriers.

That's very interesting. So, how do you feel about your ability to stay up and retain talent in this environment? Obviously, you mentioned the CEWS, you have mentioned issues with a very tight labor market, but it sounds like you've been able to capitalize on that, but just wondering about what you're seeing in terms of staffing and retention overall.

We are obviously not immune from the challenges that are broadly in the industry, but I'd like to say that we've had a few booster shots that have helped immunity, if I can use that analogy. Our attrition is up, but it's probably up by roughly 100 basis points in the overall organization, which in the services business from what I've seen actually is pretty good. We've also been investing pretty significantly in training. We've trained close to 600 adjusters just in the first quarter, which we think creates a healthy pipeline for us to bring new talent in the industry. We've also partnered at least in the U.S. as well as in U.K. with some of the local college systems starting to do some apprenticeships, as well as internships, and we think that is creating momentum for us to continue to add people again into the industry and into the organization. So, we feel good about the progress that we've been making. We're certainly not out of the woods yet, because I think as the year goes by and as people get integrated back into the workforce, we might see some more changes happening, but where we are right now, we feel pretty good about.

Switching to North American loss adjusting, just first is housekeeping, the edgester acquisition, when you break out North American loss adjusting between U.S. and Canada, are you including edgester in the U.S. or Canada and that break when you break out?

Yes. There's actually a piece of it that's in the U.S. and a piece of it that’s in Canada. Most of it is in Canada, but there's a smaller piece here in the U.S.

The reason I asked is, you had the 15% year-over-year growth in U.S. loss adjusting, and it sounds like that's being primarily driven by organic growth, you mentioned your success in hiring major complex loss adjusters, so maybe just speak to that organic growth and your success and hiring in that business.

As you know, our North America loss-adjusting business has 2 components to it, the major complex, as well as our volume, which is our field ops. Both of those areas have been seeing growth over the last few quarters, driven by increased client penetration, getting more experts on board as well as starting to geographically expand the footprint that we have within our volume business. We have new leadership, I should say relatively new leadership there, which has brought on some very fresh thinking and approach to it. We've made a pretty significant commitment strategically, as quality expertise and the 2 most important pillars for us, as it relates to that business, and digital as it relates to simplifying the work for our adjusters. So we feel very good about the traction that we're creating in the marketplace there. We believe that competitively, we are better positioned than anyone in terms of scale, in terms of presence, in terms of line relationships, and now it's just a matter of continuing to execute on that. Because of our presence and because of the culture that we're building, we have been very successful in attracting experts, and that continues to happen. As we have shared with you last year, I believe we had hired 60-plus adjusters and that hiring continues. In fact, we've invested even more this year to bring on more experts related to industry segments, related to expertise in places like energy and engineering and marine, which is making us just a more valuable player to our carrier partners.

Just so I can clarify, are you also seeing growth on the volume side of the business in loss adjustments?

Yes, we are. I would say that we're seeing growth there as well, but if you look at the magnitude of the growth, it has been driven more from the expertise side of the business than the volume side of the business in the recent quarters.

But in any way, it's encouraging that you're seeing some growth on the volume side, nonetheless. When we think about the operating earnings for North American loss adjusting, just down slightly year-over-year, should we just think about that as continued investments that you expect to leverage over the coming quarters?

I would say 2 primary factors, like one is just from last year, there's a $1 million CEWS impact, which is the Canadian Emergency Rate Subsidy, and as the second is the front loading of investment to bring on additional resources and experts onto the business. Those are the 2 primary factors.

So there is $43 million of new and enhanced business in the first quarter, a strong result there. Any specific areas showing particular strength? Is it just broad-based across the company? Any more flavor you could provide there, please?

I would say it's broadly North America with a significant portion of that coming from Broadspire, and as you know, when we look at a new business growth, it's frankly much easier for us to quantify on the Broadspire side sometimes, so that usually is the lion's share of the new business growth that we look at from a pipeline perspective. So, we feel good about it and the U.S. businesses are certainly overweighed in that number.

What do you believe is driving the strength in that new business for Broadspire? I noticed you mentioned your investment there for that growth, but can you maybe just comment on the strengths of the new business there.

Certainly, I would put it at 3 factors. One is I think the sales team is doing a great job in executing in the marketplace, being a lot more visible, making sure that our differentiation is understood, our relationships are developing and that brand promise is recognized better. So I think that's number one. Number two, the investments that we've made from a technology standpoint continue to differentiate us to our competitors, whether it's in data analytics, whether that's in machine learning, the client experience journey or the adjuster experience journey that we're trying to influence, and then the third thing is, I think this focus that we are having on the carrier and MGA market continues to position us well and allows us to take greater share in the marketplace because when you went corporate business, it's one account at a time. When you win a carrier business, it is multiple accounts at a time.

I also wanted to ask about Praxis, the acquisition you made, and you said that it performed better than expected. Maybe what's driving the traction there? And just related to that, derive the contingent adjustment in the quarter?

That's correct. So, here it's actually the same explanation that I gave you on the platform business. We saw an increased level of outsourcing by the carriers as it relates to the pandemic, the staffing challenges that they had and execution challenges that they may have had, resulted in more of the business overflowing to us, and we've benefited from that. And again, a great job and the team to execute flawlessly on what they got. And praxis has performed better than what we had originally expected and resulted in a higher earn-out level for them --

Lastly, I wanted to ask about the profitability trends internationally. I believe it was mentioned that you would expect to start to see some improvement maybe in the second half of the year. So, are we on course with cost containment and addressing those kind of couple of pockets of weakness that you've been calling out here the last couple of quarters?

Yes. I'd like to say that we believe that the second quarter should be, as I was mentioning to Michael earlier, that we've had an issue in one specific pocket of our U.K. business. We believe that should resolve before the end of the year. We believe that the Asia business is trending better than what we expected it to in terms of its profitability, still not where we want it to be, but it's better than where we expected it to be. We believe that the Australian weakness should really be alleviated by the storm source that we are seeing right now, and then as it relates to Latin America and Europe, we believe that they should be on a better trajectory as well. So overall, we feel like by the end of the year, we should be in a much better position than where we are right now.

I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Rohit Verma, Chief Executive Officer of Crawford & Company, for closing remarks.

Thank you to all our employees, clients and shareholders for your continued commitment to Crawford & Company. Our fantastic start to 2022 provides strong momentum for the rest of the year and beyond. As always, we wish you well and look forward to seeing you in the next quarter. Thank you and god bless.

Thank you for participating in today’s Crawford & Company conference call. This call will be available for replay beginning at 11:30 AM Eastern Time today through 11:59 PM Eastern Time on June 10, 2022. The conference ID number for the replay is 3598119. The number to dial for the replay is 800-585-8367 or 416-621-4642. Thank you. You may now disconnect.