You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: It's a pleasure to be with you today.
2020 was an exceptional year for Employers and that we achieved record levels for the number of policies in force, stockholders' equity, statutory surplus and book value per share.
We also generated more submissions, quotes and binds than at any time in the history of the Company.
We accomplished these feats during a pandemic while working from home and supporting agents' small businesses and their injured workers.
Our fourth quarter and full-year results were very strong, especially considering the challenging macroeconomic environment.
Our record number of policies in force at year-end demonstrates that our policyholders are enduring the pandemic with reduced payrolls, which directly impact workers' compensation premium.
We remain optimistic that as more vaccines are delivered and state restrictions are lifted, we will be able to begin replacing the premium we lost in 2020.
In support of this anticipated recovery, we have continued to pursue in advance the significant investments we have made in delivering a superior customer experience for our agents and insureds.
As expected the challenging pandemic environment confirmed that ease of doing business is the critical element in producing and servicing small account business.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we experienced strong new business opportunities, as evidenced by record levels of submissions, quotes and binds.
But the levels began to decrease as the pandemic progressed, particularly in certain states.
Later in the year as many businesses began to reopen and resume more fulsome operations, we began to experience year-over-year increases in new business submissions and new policies bound in nearly all of the states in which we operate with the notable exception of California.
Unfortunately, even with the increase in new business policies that we experienced outside of California in 2020, our new business premium has fallen driven primarily by significant declines in payrolls and declines in the number of policies with annual premiums greater than $25,000.
In regard to losses, we experienced a significant decline in the frequency of compensable indemnity claims in 2020 despite government mandates and legislative changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the presumption of COVID-19 compensability for all or certain occupational groups in many states.
We experienced this decline in nearly all states including California.
As a result, we reduced our current accident year loss and LAE ratio to 64.3% during the fourth quarter from the 65.5% maintained throughout the prior 21 months.
We also reduced our prior accident year loss and LAE reserves by nearly $40 million during the quarter which related to nearly every prior accident year.
Our underwriting expenses for the quarter and the year were each down and we have recently taken actions that will further reduce our underwriting expenses in 2021.
Our plan is to achieve our targeted expense ratios as quickly as possible despite the meaningful reductions in earned premium we're currently experiencing.
My primary goal as the new CEO will be to fully capitalize on the post COVID economic lift on the horizon, while continuing to maintain discipline both in terms of our underwriting and/or underwriting expenses.
With that Mike will now provide a further discussion of our financial results, Steve will then discuss some of the current trends and then Doug will provide his closing remarks.
For the year, we delivered a 7.6% return on adjusted equity and increased our book value per share, including the deferred gain by more than 15%.
These results are impressive in just about any operating environment and particularly during a pandemic.
Our fourth quarter results contributed nicely to these financial successes in 2020.
Our in-force policy count ended the year at an all-time high.
We experienced reductions in our current accident year loss and LAE and underwriting expense ratios.
And we recognized a significant amount of favorable prior-year loss reserve development, all despite the significant declines we experienced in our premiums written and earned.
Our net premiums earned were $152 million, a decrease of 11% year-over-year.
Since premiums earned are primarily a function of the amount and the timing of the associated premiums written, I'll let Steve describe that increase in his remarks.
Our loss and loss adjustment expenses were $48 million, a decrease of 51% year-over-year due to the current and prior-year favorable loss reserve development that Kathy spoke to previously as well as the decrease in earned premiums.
Commission expenses were $19 million for the quarter, a decrease of 7% year-over-year.
The decrease was largely the result of a decrease in earned premium, partially offset by a higher concentration of alternative distribution business, which is subject to a higher commission rate.
Underwriting and general administrative expenses were $43 million for the quarter, a decrease of 15% year-over-year.
The decrease was largely the result of reductions in employee benefit costs, professional fees and travel expenses.
From a segment reporting perspective, our Employers segment had underwriting income of $45 million for the quarter versus $8 million a year ago and its combined ratios were 70% and 96% respectively.
Our Cerity segment had an underwriting loss of $5 million for the quarter, consistent with its underwriting loss of a year ago.
Net investment income was $18 million for the quarter, down 20%.
The decrease was primarily due to lower bond yields.
At quarter-end, our fixed maturities had a duration of 3.2 and an average credit quality of A+ and our equity securities and other investments represented 8% of the total investment portfolio.
We were favorably impacted by $5 million of after-tax unrealized gains from fixed maturity securities, which are reflected on our balance sheet and $15 million of net after-tax unrealized gains from equity securities and other investments, which are reflected on our income statement.
These net unrealized investment gains contributed to our nearly 6% increase in our book value per share including the deferred gain this quarter.
During the quarter, we repurchased $17 million of our common stock at an average price of $32.50 per share and we have repurchased an additional $10 million of our common stock thus far in 2021 at an average price per share of $32.19.
Our remaining share repurchase authority currently stands at $19 million.
Yesterday, the Board of Directors declared a first quarter 2021 dividend of $0.25 per share, which is payable on March 17th to stockholders of record as of March 3rd.
Net written premiums for the year of $575 million were down $117 million or 16.9% from the prior year.
The primary drivers for this decrease are new business written and final audit pick-up.
With respect to the decrease in final audit pick-up, we continue to see the impact of declining payrolls due to the pandemic and resulting shutdowns as discussed on previous calls.
New business premium decreased 33.3% despite increases in submissions, quotes and bound policies.
Submissions were up 3.7% year-over-year, quotes were up 7.4% and bound policies were at 0.2% growth.
On a year-over-year basis, our in-force policy count increased by 4.8%.
A recent workers' compensation industry report that was released with information from the Valen Data Consortium reflected decreased new business opportunity trends.
New business submissions were down 10% from the comparable periods in 2019 and were down as much as 23% in some industries.
The authors of the report suggested that the owners of these businesses were likely preoccupied with other matters and did not take time to shop for insurance.
Despite our increase in submissions over the prior year, this is in line with some of our observations and feedback from our distribution partners relative to the pandemic's impact starting in the second quarter of 2020.
We continue to experience high unit retention rates.
However, renewal premium for the year decreased 3.6%.
The decrease in renewal premium was driven primarily by decreased payroll related to the pandemic and continuing -- or continued declining rates in the majority of states in which we do business.
In addition, we non-renewed some middle market accounts that underperformed our profitability expectations.
I will be retiring in March.
So this will be my last earnings call.
It's been my pleasure to lead Employers for over 27 years and I believe that the Company is in the strongest financial position in its 108-year history.
I will soon be handing control of the Company over to Kathy whose background and experience are ideal to move Employers forward into the future.
I am very excited for Kathy and her team and for the future of the Company.
In closing, I want to express my gratitude to all of you for giving me the opportunity to be the CEO of this remarkable organization.
I'm very proud of what we've achieved and it's been a privilege to serve you.

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employers holdings declares qtrly cash dividend of $0.25 per share.
compname reports fourth quarter 2020 and year end financial results; declares quarterly cash dividend of $0.25 per share.
qtrly net premiums earned of $151.5 million, down 11% year-over-year.

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