Board Declares Regular Dividend on Common Stock

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, Feb. 19, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The board of directors of United Fire & Casualty Company (Nasdaq:UFCS) declared a regular quarterly dividend on the common stock of 15 cents per share at its meeting today, Friday, February 19. This dividend will be payable on March 15, 2010, to stockholders of record as of March 1, 2010. Our company has paid dividends every quarter since March 1968.
About United Fire & Casualty Company

Founded in 1946, United Fire & Casualty Company is engaged in the business of writing property and casualty insurance and life insurance and selling annuities. Our company's net premiums written totaled $467.4 million in 2009, and our market capitalization was $483.7 million at year-end 2009.

We are represented by professional independent insurance agents throughout the country, predominantly in the Midwest, West and South. Our complete line of products includes commercial insurance (92 percent of property and casualty premiums), which comprises surety bonds; personal insurance and life insurance.

For the 17th consecutive year, United Fire has been named to the Ward's 50, a respected benchmark group of the industry's top-performing insurance companies. For the fourth consecutive year, our subsidiary, United Life Insurance Company, has been named to the Ward's 50 Life & Health Insurance Companies.

In 2009, for the third straight year, United Fire was named to Audit Integrity's Top 100 list of companies that demonstrate high corporate integrity. United Fire is rated A (Excellent) by A.M. Best Company.

United Fire was named a "Top 10 Ease of Doing Business Performer" for 2009 in Deep Customer Connections Inc.'s (DCC) seventh annual Ease of Doing Business (EDB) survey. Over 8,700 independent agents and brokers assessed the performance of more than 250 property and casualty carriers as part of the survey. They rated the importance of 11 EDB factors, ranging from underwriting responsiveness and handling claims promptly to acting with the agency's needs in mind. DCC specializes in helping property and casualty carriers achieve profitable growth by making it easy for their agents to work with them. DCC's EDB Index® is an industry benchmark of carriers' EDB performance.

For more information, visit www.unitedfiregroup.com.

Disclosure of forward-looking statements

This release may contain forward-looking statements about our operations, anticipated performance and other similar matters. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected and/or projected. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about our company, the industry in which we operate, and beliefs and assumptions made by management. Words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "continues," "seeks," "estimates," "predicts," "should," "could," "may," "continue," "might," "hope," "once" and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed in such forward-looking statements. Information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in Part I Item 1A "Risk Factors" of our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December, 31, 2008, filed with the SEC on March 2, 2009, and in our report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2009, filed with the SEC on November 9, 2009. The risks identified on Form 10-K are representative of the risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from what is expressed in forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release or as of the date they are made.

CONTACT: United Fire & Casualty Company
         Randy A. Ramlo, President/CEO
         Dianne M. Lyons, Vice President/CFO
         319-399-5700