Cincinnati Financial Corporation Increases Regular Quarterly Cash Dividend

Sets stage for 49th consecutive year of higher dividends with 1 percent
increase in indicated annual dividend rate

CINCINNATI, Aug. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cincinnati Financial Corporation
(Nasdaq: CINF) today announced that the board of directors voted at its
regular meeting on August 14, 2009, to increase the regular quarterly cash
dividend from 39 cents to 39.5 cents per share, payable October 15, 2009, to
shareholders of record as of September 18, 2009.

At the new level, the indicated annual dividend is $1.58 per share. In 2008,
cash dividends paid were $1.53 per share and dividends declared were $1.56 per
share. The company had 162,569,163 shares outstanding at June 30, 2009.

Kenneth W. Stecher, president and chief executive officer, commented, "The
company has consistently increased dividends for 48 years, and the board of
directors chose to continue that record for the benefit of our shareholders.
This action demonstrates their confidence in our strong capital, liquidity and
financial flexibility and in our initiatives to improve earnings performance.

"We have rebalanced our investment portfolio, positioning it to resume an
increasing trend for growth and income. We are making major strides to improve
pricing accuracy and policy administration efficiency for our property
casualty insurance products, improving our service to agents and allowing for
expense savings. Additionally, we are working to increase geographical
diversification by expanding our insurance operations to new states and adding
agencies in established states. Our long-term perspective drives our long-term
commitment through all market and economic cycles to create value for
shareholders by investing in and expanding our insurance operations."

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, annuities and
surplus lines property and casualty insurance. For additional information
about the company, please visit www.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 2008 Annual Report on Form 10-K, Item 1A,
Risk Factors, Page 25. Although we often review or update our forward-looking
statements when events warrant, we caution our readers that we undertake no
obligation to do so.

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
-- Inadequate estimates or assumptions used for critical accounting
estimates
-- Recession or other economic conditions resulting in lower demand for
insurance products or increased payment delinquencies
-- Delays in adoption and implementation of underwriting and pricing
methods that could increase our pricing accuracy, underwriting profit
and competitiveness
-- Inability to defer policy acquisition costs for our personal lines
segment if pricing and loss trends would lead management to conclude
this segment could not achieve sustainable profitability
-- Declines in overall stock market values negatively affecting the
company's equity portfolio and book value
-- Events, such as the credit crisis, followed by prolonged periods of
economic instability, that lead to:
-- Significant or prolonged decline in the 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
-- 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
-- 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
-- Ability to obtain adequate reinsurance on acceptable terms, amount of
reinsurance purchased, financial strength of reinsurers and the
potential for non-payment or delay in payment by reinsurers
-- 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:
-- Multi-notch 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
-- Delays or inadequacies in the development, implementation,
performance and benefits of technology projects and enhancements
-- 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:
-- Restrict our ability to exit or reduce writings of unprofitable
coverages or lines of business
-- Place the insurance industry under greater regulatory scrutiny or
result in new statutes, rules and regulations
-- Increase our expenses
-- 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
-- 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, 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 recent measures affecting corporate financial reporting and
governance. The ultimate changes and eventual effects, if any, of these
initiatives are uncertain.

SOURCE Cincinnati Financial Corporation

Investors: Dennis E. McDaniel, +1-513-870-2768, CINF-IR@cinfin.com; Media:
Joan O. Shevchik, +1-513-603-5323, Media_Inquiries@cinfin.com, both of
Cincinnati Financial Corporation