American Financial Group, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American Financial Group third quarter 2024 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, Diane Widener, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to American Financial Group's third quarter 2024 earnings results conference call. We released our 2024 third quarter results yesterday afternoon. Our press release, investor supplement, and webcast presentation are posted on ASG's website under the investor relations section. These materials will be referenced during portions of today's call. I'm joined this morning by Carl Lindner III and Craig Lindner, co-CEOs of American Financial Group, and Brian Hertzman, AFG CFO. Before I turn the discussion over to Carl, I would like to draw your attention to the notes on slide two of our webcast. Some of the matters to be discussed today are forward-looking. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results and or financial condition to differ materially from these statements. A detailed description of these risks and uncertainties can be found in AFG's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are also available on our website. We may include references to Core Net Operating Earnings, a non-GAAP financial measure, in our remarks or in responses to questions. A reconciliation of net earnings to Core Net Operating Earnings is included in our earnings release. And finally, if you're reading a transcript of this call, please note that it may not be authorized or reviewed for accuracy, and as a result, it may contain factual or transcription errors that could materially alter the intent or meaning of our statements. Now, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Carl Linder III to discuss our results.

Good morning. I'll begin my remarks by sharing a few highlights of AFG's 2024 third quarter, after which Craig and I will walk through more details. I will then open it up for Q&A where Craig, Brian, and I Be happy to respond to your questions. I'm pleased to report an annualized third quarter core operating return on equity of 16%. Underwriting margins in our specialty property and casualty insurance businesses held up nicely despite elevated catastrophe losses, particularly from Hurricane Helene during the quarter. And higher interest rates increased property and casualty net investment income by 15% year over year. Craig and I thank God, our talented management team, and our great employees for helping us to achieve these results. I now turn the discussion over to Craig to walk us through some of the details.