On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization declared that the recent coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak was a global health emergency, and on March 11, 2020, declared it to be a pandemic. Due to the global circumstances resulting from the pandemic, the Company updates its risk factors contained in Item 1A of its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 25, 2020, as follows:

AFG’s results of operations could be adversely impacted by catastrophes, both natural and man-made, pandemics or severe weather conditions or climate change.

Catastrophes can be caused by unpredictable natural events such as hurricanes, windstorms, severe storms, tornadoes, floods, hailstorms, severe winter weather, earthquakes, explosions and fire, and by other natural and man-made events, such as terrorist attacks, as well as pandemics and other similar outbreaks in many parts of the world, including the recent outbreak of the coronavirus commonly referred to as “COVID-19”.  These events may have a material adverse effect on our workforce and business operations as well as the workforce and operations of our customers and independent agents. Some of the assets in our investment portfolio may be adversely affected by declines in the equity markets, changes in interest rates, reduced liquidity and economic activity caused by large-scale catastrophes, pandemics, terrorist attacks or similar events which could have a material adverse effect on our revenue, liquidity and operating results.

While not considered a catastrophe by insurance industry standards, droughts can have a significant adverse impact on AFG’s crop insurance results. In addition, extreme weather events that are linked to rising temperatures, changing global weather patterns and fluctuating rain, snow and sea levels (climate change) could result in increased occurrence and severity of catastrophes. The extent of gross losses for our insurance operations from a catastrophe event is a function of both the total amount of insured exposure in the area affected by the event and the severity of the event, potentially mitigated by any reinsurance coverage purchased by AFG’s insurance subsidiaries. In addition, certain catastrophes could result in both property and non-property claims from the same event. A severe catastrophe or a series of catastrophes could result in losses exceeding AFG’s reinsurance protection and may have a material adverse impact on its results of operations or financial condition.