UNITED FIRE GROUP INC (UFCS) Risk Factors

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS

We provide readers with the following discussion of risks and uncertainties relevant to our business. These are factors that we believe could cause our actual results to differ materially from our historic or anticipated results. We could also be adversely affected by other factors, in addition to those listed here. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently deem to be immaterial could have a material effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and/or liquidity.

Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements is set forth in Part II, Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations."

Strategic

The success of our strategy may be adversely impacted by various internal and external factors.

We have set a strategy to grow our business through six distinct business units. We expect to execute our strategy, but our success could be impacted by several different risks including but not limited to regulatory changes, economic conditions, advancements in technology, cybersecurity threats, operational risks, intense market competition, and talent risks. We continually monitor these risks and mitigate their potential likelihood and impact. We also adjust our strategy as needed as results are realized or projections indicate any potential weaknesses in the adequacy or execution of our strategic plan. Our efforts to successfully mitigate risks to our strategy are not guaranteed, which could have a material impact on our financial condition and the results of our operations.

Our core insurance business is dependent on strong and beneficial relationships with a large network of independent insurance agents. A strain in these relationships could result in loss of sufficient business opportunities within our expertise and stated risk appetite.

Our direct insurance products are marketed exclusively through independent insurance agencies, all of which represent more than one company. We face competition within each agency and competition to retain qualified independent agents. Our competitors include companies that market their products via independent agents, exclusive agents and companies that sell insurance directly to their customers.

Our distribution model is subject to the risks of possible loss of independent agencies for various reasons and the discretion agencies have to reduce their business with us. Other potential consequences of not maintaining strong and beneficial relationships include the loss of sufficient business opportunities within our specific risk appetite, impacting the quality of our underwriting and loss ratio. If the quality of the independent agencies with which we do business were to decline, policyholders might consider purchasing their insurance through different agencies or channels.

We will be at a competitive disadvantage if, over time, our competitors are more effective in pricing their products, development of new product offering, implementation of technology or data analytics.

We compete with many major U.S. and non-U.S. insurers and smaller regional companies, as well as mutual companies, specialty insurance companies, underwriting agencies, and diversified financial services companies, including banks, mutual funds, broker-dealers and asset-managers. Our competitors may attempt to increase their market share by lowering prices. Our competitors may also develop new products and capabilities that render our offerings less appealing. These situations may hinder our ability to retain existing business and/or procure new business.

We use various actuarial techniques and data analytics to understand our risk exposures such as frequency and severity of different types of insurance claims. The data we rely on for these analytics includes experience data from our own business (e.g., policies written, characteristics, coverages, and details of associated losses) and data attained from third parties, including industry results. We use outputs of predictive models and other analytics to assist in decision making related to underwriting, pricing, claims management (including reserving), and catastrophe risk exposure management. Although underwriting and pricing decisions are informed by these analytics, assumptions are required based on experienced judgment that may be incorrect or fail to contemplate external, unforeseeable factors. This may result in decisions that could result in an adverse impact on our business and financial results.

Emerging technology, including artificial intelligence, offers opportunities to underwrite and price business more efficiently and accurately, thus lowering costs. If we cannot use technology and data analytics as effectively as our

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competitors, our competitiveness and ability to write and retain business within our risk appetite will be impacted. This may reduce the profitability of the business we write and retain and negatively affect our ability to meet our business objectives.

Our strategy's success could be affected by our timely ability to recognize and adapt to our position in the insurance cycle.

The risk presented by market conditions presents a unique set of challenges in the property and casualty insurance industry. The property and casualty insurance marketplace is cyclical in nature and has historically been characterized by soft markets (periods of relatively high levels of price competition, less restrictive underwriting standards and generally low premium rates) followed by hard markets (periods of capital shortages resulting in a lack of insurance availability, relatively low levels of price competition, more selective underwriting of risks and relatively high premium rates). During soft markets, we may lose business to competitors offering competitive insurance at lower prices. We may reduce our premiums or limit premium increases leading to a reduction in our profit margins and revenues. During hard markets, we may underprice our competition resulting in adverse selection and missed opportunities for higher profit margins.

Changing weather patterns and climate change add to the unpredictability, frequency and severity of catastrophe losses and may adversely affect the results of our operations, liquidity and financial condition.

Long-term weather trends may be changing, a phenomenon that has been associated with extreme weather events linked to rising temperatures, including effects on global weather patterns, sea, land and air temperature, sea levels, rain, snow, and drought. Such changes in climate conditions could cause our underlying modeling data to be less accurate, limiting our ability to evaluate and manage our risk. Climate change also adds to the unpredictability of natural disasters and creates uncertainty as to future trends and exposures. Climate change presents risks in four categories to UFG:

(1) Physical Risk: The cost of natural perils may change. This is a concern for our property insurance underwriting strategy and, to a lesser extent, our real estate costs.

(2) Regulatory Risk: Certain regulatory bodies may impose laws that require UFG to report GHG emissions from our own operations and our strategies to mitigate emissions, resulting in compliance with such regulations requiring increased time and expense.

(3) Transition Risk: Financial risks arising from a global transition to a lower-carbon economy could impact long-term return on certain invested assets.

(4) Liability Risk: New areas of law enabling litigation alleging damage from climate change may present legal risk to UFG.

Underwriting

Our success depends primarily on our ability to underwrite risks effectively and adequately price the risks we insure.

The results of our operations and our financial condition depend on our ability to underwrite and set premium rates accurately for a wide variety of risks based on available information. Adequate rates are necessary to generate premiums sufficient to pay losses, loss settlement expenses and underwriting expenses and to earn a profit. To price our products accurately, we must collect and properly analyze a substantial amount of data, develop, and apply appropriate pricing techniques, closely monitor changes in trends and project both severity and frequency of losses with reasonable accuracy. We could underprice risks which would adversely affect our profit margins. Conversely, we could overprice risks, leading to reduced sales volume and competitiveness. Our ability to undertake these efforts successfully is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to:

(1) The availability of sufficient reliable data and our ability to properly analyze available data.

(2) Market and competitive conditions.

(3) Changes in medical care expenses and restoration costs.

(4) Our selection and application of appropriate pricing techniques.

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(5) Changes in the regulatory market, applicable legal liability standards and in the civil litigation system generally.

The demand for property and casualty insurance can also vary significantly, rising as the overall level of economic activity increases and falling as that activity decreases. Fluctuations in demand and competition could produce underwriting results that would have a negative impact on the results of our operations and financial condition.

Claims

We may be unable to predict the rising cost of insurance claims resulting from changing societal expectations that lead to increasing litigation, broader definitions of liability, broader contract interpretations, more plaintiff-friendly legal decisions and larger compensatory jury awards.

We refer to these phenomena collectively as "social inflation" and they present a significant challenge in accurately pricing risk and managing the liabilities that arise on insurance policies. As a commercial casualty insurance company, we have always been sensitive to the effects of emerging claims and coverage issues, including class action lawsuits. But more recent trends such as litigation financing have led to an unprecedented number of large liability losses for us as well as our competitors.

These issues may adversely affect our business by either extending coverage beyond our underwriting intent or by increasing the number and/or size of claims, resulting in further increases in our reserves. The effects of these and other unforeseen emerging claims and coverage issues are difficult to predict. Further examples of these issues include:

(1) Judicial expansion of policy coverage and the impact of new theories of liability.

(2) An increase in plaintiffs targeting property and casualty insurers, including us, in purported class action litigation regarding claims handling and other practices.

(3) Medical developments that link health issues to specific causes, resulting in liability or workers' compensation (for example, cumulative trauma).

(4) Claims relating to unanticipated consequences of current or new technologies.

(5) An increase in the variety, number and size of claims relating to liability losses, which often present complex coverage and damage valuation questions.

(6) Claims relating to potentially changing climate conditions, including higher frequency and severity of weather-related events.

(7) Adverse changes in loss cost trends, including inflationary pressure in medical cost and automobile repair costs.

Many of the policies we issue include exclusions and other conditions that define and limit coverage, which exclusions and conditions are designed to manage our exposure to certain types of risks and expanding theories of legal liability. In addition, many of our policies limit the period during which a policyholder may bring a claim under the policy, which period in many cases is shorter than the statutory period under which these claims can be brought by our policyholders. While these exclusions and limitations help us assess and control our loss exposure, it is possible that a court or regulatory authority could nullify or void an exclusion or limitation, or legislation could be enacted which modifies or bars the use of these exclusions and limitations. This could result in higher than anticipated losses by extending coverage beyond the intent of our underwriting. In some instances, these changes may not become apparent until sometime after we have issued the insurance policies that are affected by these changes. As a result, the full extent of liability under our insurance contracts may not be known for many years after a policy is issued.

We maintain an internal education plan on the risk of social inflation. We endeavor to find ways to keep claims out of litigation and manage downward the length of time that certain claims are open. We also steer our portfolio away from business that is most exposed to these trends, and we target business in our assumed reinsurance operations and other alternative distribution channels that offer shorter tail risks.

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Our reserves for property and casualty insurance losses and loss settlement expenses are based on estimates and may be inadequate, adversely impacting our financial results.

We maintain insurance reserves to cover our estimated ultimate unpaid liability for claim and claim adjustment expenses, including the estimated cost of the claims adjustment process, for reported and unreported claims and for future policy benefits. Our reserves may prove to be inadequate, which may result in future charges to earnings and/or a downgrade of our financial strength rating or the financial strength ratings of our insurance company subsidiaries.

Insurance reserves represent our best estimate at a given point in time. They are not an exact calculation of liability but instead are complex estimates, which are a product of actuarial expertise and projection techniques based on assumptions and expectations about future events, many of which are highly uncertain.

The process of estimating claim and claim adjustment expense reserves involves a high degree of judgment. These estimates are based on historical data and the impact of various factors such as:

(1) Actuarial and statistical projections of the cost of settlement and administration of claims reflecting facts and circumstances known.

(2) Historical claims information and loss emergence patterns.

(3) Assessments of currently available data.

(4) Estimates of future trends in claims severity and frequency.

(5) Judicial theories of liability.

(6) Economic factors such as inflation.

(7) Estimates and assumptions regarding social, judicial and legislative trends, and actions such as class action lawsuits and judicial interpretation of coverages or policy exclusions.

(8) The level of insurance fraud.

Many of these factors are not quantifiable. The inherent uncertainties of estimating reserves are greater for certain types of liabilities, particularly those in which the various considerations affecting the type of claim are subject to change and in which long periods of time may elapse before a definitive determination of liability is made. Reserve estimates are continually refined in a regular and ongoing process as experience develops and further claims are reported and settled.

Actual loss and loss settlement expenses paid might exceed our reserves. If our loss reserves are insufficient, or if we believe our loss reserves are insufficient to cover our actual loss and loss settlement expenses, we will have to increase our loss reserves and incur charges to our earnings, which could indicate that premium levels were insufficient. As such, deviations from one or more of these assumptions could result in a material adverse impact on our Consolidated Financial Statements and our financial strength rating or the financial strength ratings of our insurance company subsidiaries could be downgraded.

For a detailed discussion of our reserving process and the factors we consider in estimating reserves, refer to the "Critical Accounting Estimates" section in Part II, Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations."

We insure property that is exposed to various natural perils that can give rise to significant claims costs.

Our property and casualty insurance operations expose us to claims arising from catastrophic events affecting multiple policyholders. Such catastrophic events consist of various natural disasters, which may increase in severity and frequency due to climate change, including, but not limited to, hurricanes, tornadoes, hailstorms, wildfires, earthquakes, severe winter weather, volcanic eruptions, and man-made disasters such as terrorist acts (including biological, chemical or radiological events), explosions, infrastructure failures and results from political instability.

Property damage resulting from catastrophes is perhaps the largest short-term underwriting loss we face in the ordinary course of our business. Catastrophes may reduce our net income, cause substantial volatility in our financial results for any fiscal quarter or year or otherwise adversely affect our financial condition, liquidity or results of operations. Catastrophes may also negatively affect our ability to write new business.

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In addition, as with catastrophe losses generally, it can require time for us to determine our ultimate losses associated with a particular catastrophic event. The inability to access portions of the impacted area, the complexity of the losses, legal and regulatory uncertainty, and the nature of the information available for certain catastrophic events may affect our ability to estimate the claims and claim adjustment expense reserves. Such complex factors include but are not limited to: determining the cause of the damage, evaluating general liability exposures, estimating additional living expenses, the impact of demand surge, infrastructure disruption, fraud, business interruption costs and reinsurance collectability.

The timing of a catastrophic occurrence at the end or near the end of a reporting period may also affect the information available to us when estimating claims and claim adjustment expense reserves for the reporting period. As our claims experience for a particular catastrophe develops, we may be required to adjust our reserves to reflect our revised estimates of the total cost of claims. However, because the occurrence and severity of catastrophes are inherently unpredictable and may vary significantly from year to year and region to region, historical results of operations may not be indicative of future results of operations.

Following catastrophes there may be legislative, administrative, and judicial decisions that seek to expand insurance coverage for claims beyond the original intent of the policies or seek to prevent the application of deductibles. Our ability to manage catastrophic exposure may be limited by public policy considerations, the political environment, changes in the general economic climate and/or social responsibilities.

Financial

We are subject to certain risks related to our investment portfolio that could negatively affect our profitability.

Our fixed maturity investments are professionally managed by New England Asset Management ("NEAM") as of February 1, 2024. NEAM’s investment decisions are governed by our management team and in accordance with our investment guidelines approved by our Board of Directors. Investment income is an important component of our net income and overall profitability. We invest premiums received from policyholders and other available cash to generate investment income and capital appreciation, while also maintaining sufficient liquidity to pay covered claims, operating expenses, and dividends. Our investment performance is sensitive to various factors including general economic conditions, changes in financial markets, global disruptions, and other factors beyond our control. Although our guidelines stress diversification in investment grade fixed income securities, our financial results may be adversely impacted by investment creditworthiness, fluctuations in interest rates, and disruptions in the financial and capital markets.

We seek to match the maturities of our investment portfolio with the estimated payment date of our loss and loss adjustment expense reserves to ensure strong liquidity and avoid having to liquidate securities to fund claims. Risks such as inadequate loss and loss adjustment reserves, a large natural catastrophe, or unfavorable trends in litigation could potentially result in the need to sell investments to fund these liabilities. This could result in significant realized losses depending on the conditions of the general market, interest rates and credit profile of individual securities. Further, our investment portfolio is subject to increased valuation uncertainties when investment markets are illiquid. The valuation of investments is more subjective when markets are illiquid, thereby increasing the risk that the estimated fair value (i.e., the carrying amount) of the portion of the investment portfolio that is carried at fair value in our financial statements is not reflective of prices at which actual transactions could occur.

We exercise prudence and significant judgment in analyzing and validating fair values, which are primarily provided by third parties, for securities in our investment portfolio, including those that are not regularly traded in active markets. We also exercise prudence and significant judgment in determining whether the impairment of particular investments is temporary or other-than-temporary. Due to the inherent uncertainties involved in these judgments, we may incur unrealized losses and subsequently conclude that other-than-temporary write downs of our investments are required.

A downgrade in our financial strength or issuer credit ratings could result in a loss of business and could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations and liquidity.

Ratings are an important factor in establishing the competitive position of insurance companies. Third-party rating agencies assess and rate the claims-paying ability, capital strength and creditworthiness of insurers and reinsurers

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based on criteria established by the agencies. Financial strength ratings and issuer credit ratings are used by policyholders, insurers, reinsurers and insurance and reinsurance intermediaries as an important means of assessing the financial strength, creditworthiness and quality of insurers and reinsurers. These ratings are not evaluations directed to potential purchasers of our common stock, and are not recommendations to buy, sell or hold our common stock. These ratings are subject to change at any time and could be revised downward or revoked at the sole discretion of the rating agency.

The ratings assigned by A.M. Best are an important factor in marketing our products. Our ratings from A.M. Best affect our ability to retain our existing business, and to attract new business in our insurance operations. Failure to maintain our ratings could motivate current and future independent agents and policyholders to transact their business with higher rated competitors. If A.M. Best downgrades our ratings or publicly indicates that our ratings are under review, it is possible that we will not be able to compete as effectively, leading to a decrease in premium revenue and earnings. For example, many of our agencies and policyholders have guidelines that require us to have an A.M. Best financial strength rating of "A-" or higher. A reduction of our A.M. Best ratings below "A-" could prevent us from issuing policies to a portion of our current or future policyholders with ratings requirements.

The failure of our insurance company subsidiaries to maintain their current ratings could dissuade a lender or reinsurance company from conducting business with us. A ratings downgrade could also cause some of our existing liabilities to be subject to acceleration, additional collateral support, changes in terms, or creation of additional financial obligations. For more information, refer to the "Financial Strength and Issuer Credit Rating" section in Part I, Item 1 and Note 13 "Debt" contained in Part II, Item 8.

We may be unable to secure reinsurance capacity that provides necessary risk protection at a reasonable cost.

Our reinsurance strategy seeks to protect the Company from extremely adverse underwriting outcomes as well as unnecessary volatility in underwriting results. We purchase conservative levels of reinsurance as measured by our property catastrophe models, our economic capital model, and benchmarking with our peers.

We retain multiple reinsurance intermediaries to plan, create, and facilitate our ceded reinsurance placements. These intermediaries work closely with our risk, corporate underwriting, and finance departments to design reinsurance transactions that align with corporate strategy and risk appetite. Reinsurance transactions are supported by a large and diverse array of reinsurance providers to ensure that the capacity is reliable in each underwriting year. However, in hard reinsurance market conditions, reinsurance capacity can become constrained as reinsurers are pressed with concerns about capital or profitability. In these conditions, we may be unable to secure our desired reinsurance protection at a reasonable cost.

Lost reinsurance capacity could expose the Company to larger retained losses per loss occurrence, per risk, or per year in total. To mitigate this risk, we maintain a large panel of reinsurers and prefer to trade with partners that participate in each of our ceded programs. We transact with multiple intermediary companies to ensure full access to the entire reinsurance market. We monitor the credit quality of our reinsurance providers. We have a clear view of the criticality of various components of our reinsurance program. Finally, we maintain active dialogue with intermediaries and underwriters throughout the year.

Operations

We may be unable to attract, retain or effectively manage the succession of key personnel.

Our success depends on our ability to attract and retain key personnel, including members of our executive and senior management team. Any unplanned turnover or our failure to develop an adequate succession plan for one or more of our executive officers or other key positions could compromise our institutional knowledge base and erode our competitive advantage. The loss or limited availability of the services of one or more of our executive officers or other key personnel, or our inability to recruit and retain qualified executive officers or other key personnel in the future, could, at least temporarily, have a material adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.

Unauthorized data access, cyber attacks and other security breaches could have an adverse impact on our business and reputation.

We rely on computer systems to conduct critical business functions, such as customer service, marketing and sales activities, customer relationship management and producing financial statements. Our business and operations rely on secure and efficient processing, storage and transmission of customer and Company data, including personally

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identifiable information. Our ability to effectively operate our business depends upon our ability, and the ability of certain third-party vendors and business partners, to access our computer systems to perform necessary business functions, such as providing quotes and product pricing, billing and processing premiums, administering claims, and reporting our financial results.

We retain confidential information on our computer systems, including customer information and proprietary business information belonging to us, our policyholders, third party claimants and vendors. Our business and operations depend upon our ability to safeguard this personally identifiable information. Our systems may be vulnerable to unauthorized access and hackers, computer viruses, and other scenarios in which our data may be compromised.

Cyber attacks involving these systems, or those of our third-party vendors, could be carried out remotely and from multiple sources and could interrupt, damage, or otherwise adversely affect the operations of these critical systems. Cyber attacks could result in the modification or theft of data, the distribution of false information, or the denial of service to users. Threats to data security can emerge from a variety of sources and change rapidly, resulting in the ongoing need to expend resources to secure our data in accordance with customer expectations and statutory and regulatory requirements.

Any compromise of the security of our data could expose us to liability and harm our reputation, which could affect our business and results of operations. We continually enhance our operating procedures and internal controls to effectively support our business and comply with our regulatory and financial reporting requirements, but there can be no assurances that we will be able to implement security measures adequate to prevent every security breach.

Although, to date, we have not identified any risks from cybersecurity threats, including as a result of any previous cybersecurity incidents that have, or are likely to, materially affect us, our business strategy, results of operation or financial condition, the scope and effect of any cyber attack may remain undetected for a period of time. We maintain cyber liability insurance coverage that provides both third-party liability and first-party insurance coverage; however, our insurance may be insufficient to cover all losses and expenses related to a cyber attack.

Federal and state policymakers have and will likely continue to propose increased regulation of the protection of personally identifiable information and appropriate protocols after a related cybersecurity breach. The New York Department of Financial Services has a cyber protection and reporting regulation for financial services companies. The NAIC has the Data Security Model Law based upon the New York regulation. We are in compliance with these regulations; however, ongoing efforts to address continually developing cybersecurity risks may result in a material adverse effect on our results of operations, liquidity, financial condition, and financial strength.

We are subject to comprehensive laws and regulations, which may have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Insurance is a highly regulated industry. We are subject to extensive supervision and regulation by the states in which we operate. As a public company, we are also subject to regulation at the federal level. Our ability to comply with these laws and regulations and obtain necessary and timely regulatory action is, and will continue to be, critical to our success. Examples of regulations that pose a risk to our ability to earn profits include but are not limited to:

•Required licensing

•Regulation of insurance rates, fees and approval of policy forms

•Restrictions on cancellation, nonrenewal or withdrawal

•Risk-based capital and capital adequacy requirements

•Transactions between insurance companies and their affiliates

•Required participation in guaranty funds and assigned risk pools

•Restrictions on the amount, type, nature, and quality of investments

•Terrorism risk insurance

•Accounting standards

•Corporate governance and public disclosure regulation

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•Information privacy regulation

•Potential assessments for the provision of funds necessary for settlement of covered claims under certain policies provided by impaired, insolvent or failed insurance companies

Compliance with these laws and regulations requires us to incur administrative costs that decrease our profits. These laws and regulations may also prevent or limit our ability to underwrite and price risks accurately, obtain timely premium rate increases necessary to cover increased costs, discontinue unprofitable relationships or exit unprofitable markets and otherwise continue to operate our business profitably. In addition, our failure to comply with these laws and regulations could result in actions by state or federal regulators, including the imposition of fines and penalties or, in an extreme case, revocation of our ability to do business in one or more states. Finally, we could face individual, group and class action lawsuits by our policyholders and others for alleged violations of certain state laws and regulations. Each of these regulatory risks could have a negative effect on our profitability.

Macroeconomic conditions could materially and adversely affect our business, results of our operations, financial condition, and growth.

Macroeconomic conditions such as growth, inflation, market stability, and geopolitics can impact our operations, opportunities, and risk profile. Important sectors we follow include goods, services, and housing. Markets exhibit stability when credit is available, there is liquidity in the system, and banks are stable. Geopolitical concerns can also disrupt the business environment. All these factors can contribute to adverse financial consequences for UFG.

Shareholders

Our stock price could become more volatile, and your investment could lose value.

The market price of our common stock historically has been, and we expect will continue to be, subject to fluctuations. These fluctuations may be due to our operating results or factors specific to our operations (including those discussed elsewhere in our risk factors), changes in securities analysts' estimates of our future financial performance, ratings or recommendations, our results falling below our expectations and analysts' and investors' expectations, the failure of our capital return programs to meet analysts' and investors' expectations, significant catastrophe events, departure of key personnel, cyber attacks, or factors largely outside of our control, including those affecting the property and casualty insurance industry. The stock market in general has experienced price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the actual operating performance of listed companies. In addition, our stock is followed by a small number of analysts and the average daily trading volume tends to be low. These factors could adversely affect the price of our common stock.

Efforts to disrupt the structure, management or ownership of the Company could diminish the value of our common stock.

Certain provisions of our articles of incorporation and bylaws and applicable provisions of laws governing corporations and insurance companies may delay, deter or prevent a change of control of the Company, in particular through unsolicited transactions. Recent amendments to our bylaws included certain governance and structural defense enhancements to protect the Company and our shareholders in the event of an activist or takeover situation. However, any such effort to disrupt the Company, regardless of its success, may still adversely affect market prices for our common stock.

The ability of our subsidiaries to pay dividends may affect our liquidity and ability to meet our obligations.

As an insurance holding company, we have no significant independent operations of our own. Our principal sources of funds are dividends and other payments received from our subsidiaries. We rely on those dividends for our liquidity, including payment of dividends to common shareholders and interest on long-term debt, and to make share repurchases. Dividends from those subsidiaries depend on their statutory surplus, earnings and regulatory restrictions.

State insurance laws limit the ability of insurance subsidiaries to pay dividends and require our insurance subsidiaries to maintain specified minimum levels of statutory capital and surplus. The actual ability to pay dividends may be further constrained by business and regulatory considerations, such as the impact of dividends on surplus, by our competitive position and by the amount of premiums that we can write. Ordinary dividend payments, or dividends that do not require prior approval by the insurance subsidiaries' domiciliary state insurance regulator are generally limited to amounts determined by a formula which varies by jurisdiction. Extraordinary dividends, on the

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other hand, require prior regulatory approval by the insurance subsidiaries' domiciliary state insurance regulator before they can be made.

In addition, competitive pressures generally require insurance companies to maintain insurance financial strength ratings. These restrictions and other regulatory requirements affect the ability of our insurance subsidiaries to make dividend payments to us. At times we may not be able to pay dividends on our common stock, or we may be required to seek prior approval from the applicable regulatory authority before we can pay any such dividends. In addition, the payment of dividends is within the discretion of our Board of Directors and will depend on numerous factors, including our financial condition, our capital requirements and other factors that our Board of Directors considers relevant.