Brown & Brown, Inc.

to the third quarter and are intended to fall within the safe harbour provisions of securities laws. Actual results or events in the future are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and may differ materially from those currently anticipated or desired or referenced in any forward-looking statements made as a result of a number of factors. Such factors include the company's Determination as it finalises its financial results for the third quarter and that its financial results differ from the current preliminary unaudited numbers set forth in the press release issued yesterday. Other factors that the company may not have currently identified or quantified and those risks and uncertainties identified from time to time in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Additional discussions of these and other factors affecting the company's business and prospects, as well as additional information regarding forward-looking statements, is contained in the slide presentation posted in connection with this call and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, further events or otherwise. In addition, there are certain non-GAAP financial measures used in this conference call. A reconciliation of any non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the company's earnings press release or in the investor presentation for this call on the company's website at www.bbinsurance.com. by clicking on the Investor Relations and then Calendar of Events. With that said, I would now like to turn the call over to Powell Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer. You may begin.

Thank you, Cecilia. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2021 earnings call. Q3 was another very good quarter for Brown and Brown. This was a result of our nearly 12,000 teammates delivering creative risk management solutions for our customers. We delivered strong top-line growth driven by the combination of robust new business, good retention, rate increases, and some expansion of exposure units. At the same time, our team continued to drive profitable growth, resulting in impressive margin improvement and adjusted earnings per share expansion. We're also very proud that last week our board of directors authorized an increase of 10.8% in our quarterly dividend. Of note, We've now increased our dividend for the 28th year in a row. Now let's transition to the results for the quarter. I'm on slide three. We delivered $770 million of revenue, growing 14.3% in total and 8.5% organically. I'll get into more detail in a few minutes about the performance of our segments. Our EBITDA margin grew by 280 basis points to 35.6% versus the third quarter of 2020. Our net income per share for the third quarter was 52 cents on an as reported basis and 58 cents, excluding the change in estimated acquisition earn out payables. During the quarter, we completed another seven acquisitions and would like to extend a warm welcome to all of our new teammates that joined during the quarter. In summary, we're really pleased with our strong performance for the third quarter and the first nine months as the year to date results are the best in our history. 10.8% internal growth year to date. Later in the presentation, Andy will discuss our financial results in more detail. I'm now on slide four. We have customers that have done well throughout the pandemic and others that are struggling to fully reopen, mainly due to the inability to hire employees. We're seeing this challenge in a number of industries and geographies, and as a consequence, restricting how fast companies can become fully operational. In addition to shortages of workers, supply chain issues and inflation are putting pressure on costs. From a placement standpoint, the themes are pretty consistent. Customers with good loss experience are getting the best rates and coverage, while those with tough loss experience are seeing material rate increases or reductions in available limits, or both. As a result, customers continue to consider program modifications to manage their premium increases. Rate increases remain relatively consistent with prior quarters. Admitted market rates continue to be up 3% to 8% across most lines. The outliers are workers' compensation rates, which are down 1% to 3%, and commercial auto rates, which are up 5% to 10%. From an ENS perspective, most rates were up 10% to 20% with some outliers. Coastal property, both wind and quake, are up 10% to 30%. with this being a slightly broader range than we saw in the previous quarter. Professional liability for most accounts remained very challenging with rates up 10 to 15 plus percent. Cyber rates in some instances could increase dramatically depending on the security in place with the customer. Security protocols that were viewed as nice to have in the past are now viewed as a minimum expectations to obtain coverage. Also, excess umbrella coverage remains very difficult to place. For professional liability, cyber, and umbrella, we're seeing carriers reduce limits while seeking significant rate increases. Florida and California placements in ENS for personal lines remain the most challenging due to losses or aggregate concentrations. We expect the appetite for personal lines and CAT areas to continue to be constrained in 2022, which will likely put pressure on state-sponsored programs and the cost of insurance for the consumer. From an M&A perspective, we were successful in closing seven transactions during the quarter with annual revenues of approximately $21 million. We've closed a total of 11 deals year-to-date with annual revenues of $65 million and have already announced a couple of additional acquisitions in October. Our pipeline remains full, and we feel good about our level of activity and engagement with prospective sellers on slide number five. Let's discuss the performance of our four segments. Retail delivered great results with organic revenue growth of 8.3% for the third quarter. The performance was driven by growth from all lines of business through a combination of strong new business, good retention, rate increases, and exposure unit expansion. We're leveraging our broad capabilities to benefit our customers and prospects. National programs delivered another outstanding quarter, growing 13.2% organically. Our growth was driven by the strong performance from most programs due to new business, good retention, and rate increases. The wholesale brokerage segment delivered 5.1% organic growth with commercial brokerage and binding performing well, driven by new business, and continued rate increases for most lines of coverage. Personal lines in coastal states continues to be a headwind, as I mentioned earlier. The services segment delivered organic revenue growth of half a percent. The performance for the quarter was driven by claims processing revenue associated with recent weather events, which was substantially offset by external factors continuing to impact our advocacy businesses. Overall, it was a great quarter across the board. Now let me turn it over to Andy to discuss our financial performance in more detail.

Great.