CINCINNATI, May 2, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Cincinnati Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: CINF) announced that, at its regular meeting on April 30, 2016, the board of directors declared a 48-cents-per-share regular quarterly cash dividend. The dividend is payable July 15, 2016, to shareholders of record as of June 22, 2016.

Steven J. Johnston, president and chief executive officer, commented, "Cincinnati Financial has reported several consecutive quarters of strong operating performance. The company remains well positioned to reward shareholders in the near term and long term, in large part due to the efforts of our associates and the outstanding independent insurance agents who offer Cincinnati products. The board continues to favor regular dividends as the primary means of returning capital to shareholders. It also intends to maintain a prudent amount of capital to support future growth of insurance operations, as the company aims to increase shareholder value over time."

About Cincinnati Financial
Cincinnati Financial Corporation offers business, home and auto insurance, our main business, through The Cincinnati Insurance Company and its two standard market property casualty companies. The same local independent insurance agencies that market those policies may offer products of our other subsidiaries, including life and disability income insurance, fixed annuities and surplus lines property and casualty insurance. For additional information about the company, please visit cinfin.com.



    Mailing Address:                   Street Address:

    P.O. Box 145496                    6200 South Gilmore Road

    Cincinnati, Ohio 45250-5496         Fairfield, Ohio
                                        45014-5141

Safe Harbor Statement
This is our "Safe Harbor" statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our business is subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements in this report. Some of those risks and uncertainties are discussed in our 2015 Annual Report on Form 10-K, Item 1A, Risk Factors, Page 26.

Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to:


    --  Unusually high levels of catastrophe losses due to risk concentrations,
        changes in weather patterns, environmental events, terrorism incidents
        or other causes
    --  Increased frequency and/or severity of claims or development of claims
        that are unforeseen at the time of policy issuance
    --  Inadequate estimates, assumptions or reliance on third-party data used
        for critical accounting estimates
    --  Declines in overall stock market values negatively affecting the
        company's equity portfolio and book value
    --  Domestic and global events resulting in capital market or credit market
        uncertainty, followed by prolonged periods of economic instability or
        recession, that lead to:
        --  Significant or prolonged decline in the fair value of a particular
            security or group of securities and impairment of the asset(s)
        --  Significant decline in investment income due to reduced or
            eliminated dividend payouts from a particular security or group of
            securities
        --  Significant rise in losses from surety and director and officer
            policies written for financial institutions or other insured
            entities
    --  Prolonged low interest rate environment or other factors that limit the
        company's ability to generate growth in investment income or interest
        rate fluctuations that result in declining values of fixed-maturity
        investments, including declines in accounts in which we hold bank-owned
        life insurance contract assets
    --  Recession or other economic conditions resulting in lower demand for
        insurance products or increased payment delinquencies
    --  Difficulties with technology or data security breaches, including
        cyberattacks, that could negatively affect our ability to conduct
        business and our relationships with agents, policyholders and others
    --  Disruption of the insurance market caused by technology innovations such
        as driverless cars that could decrease consumer demand for insurance
        products
    --  Delays, inadequate data developed internally or from third parties, or
        performance inadequacies from ongoing development and implementation of
        underwriting and pricing methods, including telematics and other
        usage-based insurance methods, or technology projects and enhancements
        expected to increase our pricing accuracy, underwriting profit and
        competitiveness
    --  Increased competition that could result in a significant reduction in
        the company's premium volume
    --  Changing consumer insurance-buying habits and consolidation of
        independent insurance agencies that could alter our competitive
        advantages
    --  Inability to obtain adequate ceded reinsurance on acceptable terms,
        amount of reinsurance coverage purchased, financial strength of
        reinsurers and the potential for nonpayment or delay in payment by
        reinsurers
    --  Inability to defer policy acquisition costs for any business segment if
        pricing and loss trends would lead management to conclude that segment
        could not achieve sustainable profitability
    --  Inability of our subsidiaries to pay dividends consistent with current
        or past levels
    --  Events or conditions that could weaken or harm the company's
        relationships with its independent agencies and hamper opportunities to
        add new agencies, resulting in limitations on the company's
        opportunities for growth, such as:
        --  Downgrades of the company's financial strength ratings
        --  Concerns that doing business with the company is too difficult
        --  Perceptions that the company's level of service, particularly claims
            service, is no longer a distinguishing characteristic in the
            marketplace
        --  Inability or unwillingness to nimbly develop and introduce coverage
            product updates and innovations that our competitors offer and
            consumers expect to find in the marketplace
    --  Actions of insurance departments, state attorneys general or other
        regulatory agencies, including a change to a federal system of
        regulation from a state-based system, that:
        --  Impose new obligations on us that increase our expenses or change
            the assumptions underlying our critical accounting estimates
        --  Place the insurance industry under greater regulatory scrutiny or
            result in new statutes, rules and regulations
        --  Restrict our ability to exit or reduce writings of unprofitable
            coverages or lines of business
        --  Add assessments for guaranty funds, other insurance-related
            assessments or mandatory reinsurance arrangements; or that impair
            our ability to recover such assessments through future surcharges or
            other rate changes
        --  Increase our provision for federal income taxes due to changes in
            tax law
        --  Increase our other expenses
        --  Limit our ability to set fair, adequate and reasonable rates
        --  Place us at a disadvantage in the marketplace
        --  Restrict our ability to execute our business model, including the
            way we compensate agents
    --  Adverse outcomes from litigation or administrative proceedings
    --  Events or actions, including unauthorized intentional circumvention of
        controls, that reduce the company's future ability to maintain effective
        internal control over financial reporting under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
        of 2002
    --  Unforeseen departure of certain executive officers or other key
        employees due to retirement, health or other causes that could interrupt
        progress toward important strategic goals or diminish the effectiveness
        of certain longstanding relationships with insurance agents and others
    --  Events, such as an epidemic, natural catastrophe or terrorism, that
        could hamper our ability to assemble our workforce at our headquarters
        location

Further, the company's insurance businesses are subject to the effects of changing social, global, economic and regulatory environments. Public and regulatory initiatives have included efforts to adversely influence and restrict premium rates, restrict the ability to cancel policies, impose underwriting standards and expand overall regulation. The company also is subject to public and regulatory initiatives that can affect the market value for its common stock, such as measures affecting corporate financial reporting and governance. The ultimate changes and eventual effects, if any, of these initiatives are uncertain.

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SOURCE Cincinnati Financial Corporation