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PROPERTY & CASUALTY CONNECTIONS is published by UFG Corporate MarketingUNITED FIRE GROUP, INC. | 118 Second Avenue SE, P.O. Box 73909, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52407-3909 | www.ufgAgent.com | marketing@unitedfregroup.com© UFG 2017. All rights reserved.YOU ASKED, WE DELIVEREDAt the request of many of our agents, UFG has changed how we deliver new insurance policies to your customers. Instead of sending new insurance policies to your agency, policyholder copies of new policies are now sent directly to your insureds. We are confdent this change will make doing business with us even easier, giving you one less step to take and saving you time, resources and mailing costs. Prefer to receive insured policies instead?Your agency administrator can choose this setting in your Agency Profle at ufgAgent.com. If you had already opted to receive insured copies of renewal policies, we have defaulted the setting for new policies to match, whether you’ve chosen “all policies” or only policies over a certain premium amount. Interested in using our technology to streamline work processes and improve work fow at your agency? Talk to one of our agency training specialists at UFG, including the newest member of our team, Reed Benson. Reed, along with our Agency Training Specialists Jen Menzner and Tyra Hamilton Daniels, offer on-demand automation and technology training for you and your staff members. The training sessions are customized specifcally for your agency and can be held either onsite at your agency or online via a webinar, whichever you prefer. To schedule a training session with Reed, contact him at 303.426.2958. Reed joins our team of agency training specialists at UFG! MEET AGENCY TRAINING SPECIALIST REED BENSONLATEST FINANCIAL RESULTSOn November 8, UFG announced our third quarter fnancial results, reporting a consolidated net loss of $17.9 million, compared with net income of $12.4 million for the same period in 2016. Year to date, our consolidated net income was $5.0 million, compared with $37.9 million for the same period in 2016. Our GAAP combined ratio increased to 118.1 percent for the third quarter versus 100.9 percent for the same period in 2016. Year to date, the GAAP combined ratio increased to 107.6 percent, compared with 99.5 percent for the same period in 2016.“In the third quarter of 2017, our results were impacted by two items: frst, an increase in catastrophe losses, primarily from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria; and second, continued deterioration in our core loss ratio, primarily from an increase in severity of commercial auto losses,” stated UFG President and CEO Randy Ramlo. Ramlo continued, “As we have stated the last few quarters, we are aggressively implementing many new initiatives to address this deterioration, which we know will take some time before we see the positive benefts in our fnancial results.”$5.0 MILLIONNET INCOME107.6%GAAP COMBINED RATIOOASIS INITIATIVE AT UFGUFG is embarking on a major multi-year initiative to modernize our policy processing system and transform the way we do business. The initiative, which we’ve named OASIS (Optimizing Achievement with a Strategic Insurance System), will allow us to issue policies more effciently, improve underwriter decision making, provide greater data accessibility and, most importantly, enhance the ease of doing business for agents. We hope you share in our excitement for a new policy administration system. We will keep you informed of major progress on our journey to OASIS. initiativeYEAR TO DATE