CNA Financial Corporation

Good morning and welcome to CNA's discussion of its 2020 third quarter financial results. CNA's third quarter earnings release, presentation, and financial supplement were released this morning and are available via its website, www.cna.com. Speaking today will be Dino Robusto, CNA's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Al Morales, CNA's Chief Financial Officer. Following their prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. Today's call may include forward-looking statements and references to non-GAAP financial measures. Any forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made during the call. Information concerning those risks is contained in the earnings release and in CNA's most recent SEC filings. In addition, the forward-looking statements speak only as of today, Monday, November 2, 2020. CNA expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements made during this call. Regarding non-GAAP measures, reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures and other information have been provided in the financial supplement. This call is being recorded and webcast. During the next week, the call may be accessed on CNA's website. If you are reading a transcript of this call, please note that the transcript may not be reviewed for accuracy. Thus, it may contain transcription errors that could materially alter the intent or meaning of the statements. With that, I will turn the call over to CNA's Chairman and CEO, Dino Robusto.

Thank you, Rolando. Good morning. It's very good to be with you today, and I hope you and your families are coping well. Despite these unprecedented times, CNA continued to operate effectively as our underlying business performance improved once again this quarter as evidenced by the ongoing acceleration in rate achievement as well as higher overall growth and growth in new business. We also had an improved underlying loss ratio and a lower expense ratio for the quarter. As we have done in previous years, we completed our annual like and group review in the quarter, which importantly includes the long-term care growth premium valuation or GPP analysis of our active life reserves. As part of our analysis, we took strong action to address the lower interest rate environment we now face compared to a year ago by conservatively modifying our discount rate assumptions. First, we have lowered our expectation for the normative 10-year treasury yield to 2.75%, a reduction of 100 basis points from last year. Second, we extended the time period to grade up to that normative rate from six years to 10 years. Since long-term care reserves are discounted, these changes reflect our ongoing prudent approach to reserving and our steadfast resolve to protect our capital and earnings in an ongoing low interest rate environment. Al will provide you with much more detail associated with this year's GPV review. Turning to PNC, our underlying combined ratio of 92.6% for the quarter improved by two points from a year ago and is the lowest underlying combined ratio for CNA in the last 10 years. The underlying loss ratio improvement consisted of only a half point benefit due to lower frequency from the ongoing economic downturn, with most of the improvement driven by our international business, which has steadily returned to profitability as a result of our re-underwriting efforts in our London operation over the last 18 months. As I mentioned last quarter, we expected only a relatively modest impact from lost frequency benefit, because a substantial portion of our portfolio consists of insureds essential industries such as construction, healthcare, and manufacturing that were not subject to shelter-in-place restrictions. And we continue to assume a potential for higher severity in casualty lines like auto and general liability as the economy is restored over time. So we believe that it's still early to react too favorably to the short-term trends. The lower P&C expense ratio of 31.8% largely reflected our growing premium base, which contributed approximately 0.7 points of the improvement in our underlying combined ratio. As I have said on prior calls, our strategy has been to simultaneously make substantial investments in talent, technology, and analytics to position us for sustained success while streamlining our operation in order to keep our overall underwriting expenses flat. Then by growing the company in a disciplined and prudent fashion, we would steadily decrease the expense ratio, which you can clearly see in this quarter, as more of the growth earned in. Turning to the dynamics of this hard market and starting with pricing, rate increases continue to accelerate. as we achieved plus 12% in P&C overall, up a point from the second quarter. Importantly, excluding workers' comp, which had slightly negative rate, and our very profitable affinity programs, which had a small positive rate increase, the rate change was plus 17%, up two points from Q2 and five points from Q1. Importantly, the increases, apart from these two areas, were broad-based as each business unit and essentially all product lines achieved higher rate. Acceleration in our written rate increases over the last six quarters has led to four quarters of earned rate increases now at plus 9%. This compares to our long-run loss cost trend assumptions of slightly more than 4%, excluding our affinity book. As mentioned on our last call, We had previously increased our view of long run loss cost trends in 2020. As we continue to feel the impact of social inflation on our portfolio, in particular in our aging services and auto portfolios. In the quarter, we remained comfortable with our latest view and did not further need to increase them. However, as I also mentioned last quarter, the impact of the pandemic could be obfuscating the social inflation dynamic. So there still is some uncertainty around future impacts to long run lost cost trends, which is why we remain cautious to acknowledge margin expansion from the earned rate trend being amply above current levels. The great news, however, is that all the dynamics fueling the hard market, which we and others have articulated repeatedly, should allow us to achieve strong rate increases well into 2021, so that the margin gap, all else equal, should continue to grow net of any added pressure from long-run loss cost trends in 2021. And as we see this play out over the next couple of quarters, we will then be in a better position to incorporate the benefit into our loss ratio picks. In terms of growth, gross written premium, ex-captives do 9%, while net rate and premium growth was 7%, both higher than the second quarter. Exposure continued to be a headwind to our growth, as it was down three points compared to the third quarter last year. As was the case in the second quarter, new business growth in the third quarter was again higher than the same period last year, which evidences our ability to provide strong service to our agents and brokers in this remote working environment. The investments we made at the end of the first quarter to respond quickly to shorter timeframes on submissions that I mentioned on the last call continued to pay dividends this quarter. Retention declined one point from the second quarter to 82% due to our re-underwriting efforts in our London operations, which will essentially be completed in the fourth quarter, and to our targeted actions in the U.S. to improve the profitability of certain lines within healthcare and manufacturing that I have spoken about previously. Completing the picture for the quarter, our overall combined ratio was 100.9%, which included 0.4 points of favorable development and 8.7 points of loss activity from a series of natural catastrophe events. Also, as indicated in our press release, we made no change to our COVID-19 catastrophe loss estimate. In the quarter, There were no significant changes in the regulatory environment. The claim notices we received in the third quarter have been modest, and very little has been paid out. Of course, that was our expectation all along, as we knew the claim outcomes from this event would play out slowly over time. As a result, our previously established COVID-19 ultimate loss estimate of $195 million remains appropriate for all events that occurred through the third quarter from which we believe claims will eventually emerge, and our loss estimate is still virtually all in IB&R. Moving to investments, the overall portfolio fared well in the third quarter, with the unrealized gain position increasing once again, and net investment income was strong, driven by LP positions. Despite this strong quarter, we continued to see a reduction in our net investment income from our fixed income portfolio, supporting P&C due to the lower interest rate environment that we believe is unlikely to change meaningfully anytime soon. This is a key dynamic fueling my perspective for a protracted hard market as it will take time for us in the industry to achieve an offsetting increase in underwriting income. Finally, our core income for the third quarter was 193 million or 71 cents per share. Net income was $213 million, or 79 cents per share. And with that, I'll turn it over to Al.

Hi, Steno, and good morning, everyone. Steno indicated that we'll now provide details of our results by business segment. Starting with specialty, the combined ratio was 89.5% this quarter. The combined ratio includes favorable prior period development of two points and one point for catastrophe losses. The favorable prior period development is largely driven by continued strong profitability of the surety business, partially offset by unfavorable development in healthcare. The underlying combined ratio for special needs is 90.5% this quarter, 1.6 points of improvement compared to third quarter 2019. The underlying loss ratio was 60% and the expense ratio was 30.5%. The expense ratio is improved by 1.3 points compared to third quarter 2019 due to both growth in net earned premium and lower expenses. The gross written premium growth X cap is plus 11% especially for the quarter and is 9% on net written premium. Rates continue to increase at plus 13% up from 11% last quarter. The tension is 86% this quarter, which was flat for last quarter. The business volume was strong, with growth of 14% over the prior year's quarter. The combined ratio for commercial was 111.5% this quarter. This is 9.9 points higher than third quarter 2019 and includes 17 points of catastrophe losses and 0.6 points of unfavorable prior period development. The CAT losses are attributable to severe weather-related events in the quarter primarily hurricanes Laura, Isaias, Sally, and the Midwest ratio. The underlying combined ratio for commercial was 93.9% this quarter, 0.1 points higher than third quarter 2019, but 0.9 points improvement on a year-to-date basis versus prior. The underlying loss ratio is 61% compared to 61.5% in the prior year. reflecting a modest benefit from lower frequency in the quarter, as Dino mentioned. The expense ratio was 32.3 percent, compared to 31.7 percent in the third quarter of 2019. The prior year expense ratio included a release associated with the State Loss Assessment Fund, which is muting the favorable impact of current year net earned premium growth and lower expenses. Gross written premium growth ex captives plus 7% in commercial for the quarter and net was plus 4%. The rate change of 11% was up one point from last quarter. Tension was 81%. New business growth was down 3% versus prior quarter and up 8% on a year-to-date basis. The combined ratio for international was 98.1% this quarter compared to 107.4% in the third quarter of 2019. The combined ratio includes three points of catastrophe losses for the quarter. The underlying combined ratio for international was 95% this quarter, an improvement of 10.3 points compared to prior year quarter. The underlying loss ratio was 60.1%, and the expense ratio was 34.9%. The underlying loss ratio includes 7.2 points fueled by a re-underwriting execution, while the expense ratio declined 3.1 points, driven by lower acquisition and underwriting expenses. The gross written premium in international increased by 5%, the net increased by 10%, both in comparison to the prior year. The net written premium growth in comparison to the prior period was impacted by a change in timing of the reinsurance treaties. Rate change of 16% was up two points in prior quarter. Tension was 70% this quarter, which is in line with 2019 levels and reflects the progression of the Re-underwriting strategy. Before I review the results of our Life in Group segment, including the impacts from our annual reserve reviews, I would ask you to refer to slides 11 through 13 of our earnings presentation as I take a moment to walk through our approach to the long-term care business and the actions we've taken over time. More than five years ago, we commenced efforts focused on the active management of long-term care with the goal of reducing the risk to CNA while also effectively serving our policyholders. This encompassed significant investment in the business and a commitment to proactively and effectively address risks. We've made considerable progress on these objectives including reducing risk across many dimensions of the block, achieving meaningful rate increases, and taking preemptive actions on our reserving assumptions. The actions we have taken with our 2020 annual review of our life and group reserves are reflective of this continued approach and commitment. As a reminder, our annual life and group reserve reviews include the Long-Term Care Gross Premium Valuation, or GPV, of our active life reserves, as well as the long-term care claim reserve analysis. In addition, we completed a claim reserve review for our structured settlements block, which I will also address. Starting with the long-term care GPV review, the most significant change resulting from this review was an update of our discount rate assumptions. These changes associated with the discount rate are detailed in slides 14 and 15. It is important to note that the discount rate is a function of the current investment portfolio yield as well as the reinvestment yield assumed for future investments. The benchmark we use in reference to the risk-free reinvestment yield is the 10-year U.S. Treasury. While we project these risk-free rates over the short and intermediate term, assumed long-term rate or normative rate is of critical importance given the duration of the liabilities. In the previous two years' reserve reviews, we had reduced our expectations for the normative 10-year Treasury yield by 105 basis points, with our 2019 review assuming that this benchmark rate would get to 3.75% by 2025. In light of the current interest rate environment and expectation of these conditions persisting, we've taken several critical actions on our discount rate assumptions. We have lowered our expectation for the normative rate to 2.75%, a reduction of 100 basis points from last year and 205 basis points cumulatively over the last three years. Second, we've extended the time period to grade up to that normative rate from six years to now 10 years. This means that it's not until 2030 that we will assume the new 2.75% normative rate. And finally, we are using the forward curve for the first three years of the projection, and then we'll grade up to the normative rate over the remaining seven years. You will see on slide 15, we are not assuming the 10-year will get back to the 2 percent level until 2027, a significant change compared to our prior year expectations. I should also note, we did not make any meaningful changes to investment spread assumptions or portfolio credit qualities part of this review. The sum of all the assumption changes on the discount rate resulted in unfavorable pre-tax impacts of $609 million. These discount rate changes, including significant decrease in the normative rate, extended timeframe to get to the new normative rate, and use of the forward curve over the next several years reflects our prudent approach to reserving and meaningfully reduces the reinvestment risk assumed in these liabilities. With that, I will move on to other key assumption changes, including morbidity, persistency, and rate increases, all highlighted on slide 16. With respect to morbidity, along with our change in the level of interest rates, we also lowered our expectation of inflation. This change impacts our assumption for cost of care for future claims, and together with other morbidity assumptions, had a favorable pre-tax impact of $51 million. With respect to persistency, the key assumption changes an increase in mortality rates for older age policyholders not on claim and reflective of our experience of this cohort. Persistency changes had a favorable pre-tax impact of $152 million. Finally, regarding future premium rate increases, as a reminder, our approach is to include rate increases that have been approved filed but not approved, or that we plan to file as part of the current rate increase program. Over the past year, our actual rate achievement has exceeded our prior year expectations, contributing $200 million of favorable impact. In addition, we are continuing to file for additional rate increases under existing programs. Updating our assumptions to reflect our actual rate achievement in addition to the updates to existing programs had a total favorable pre-tax impact of $318 million. I should note that the weighted average duration of future rate increase approvals in the reserves is only 1.5 years. Overall, and as highlighted on slide 17, our annual GPV analysis for long-term care is a living reserve deficiency and charged earning of $74 million on a pre-tax basis. While these changes and notably the change on the discount rate are significant, they reflect our continued approach to prudently and proactively address risk associated with this business. In addition to the GPV analysis, we have also concluded our annual long-term care claim reserve review. which is a review of the sufficiency of our reserves covering our claim operation. The impact from this review is favorable with a $37 million release of reserves driven by lower expected claim severity. Specifically, we observed higher claim closure rates, most notably driven by claim recoveries. I should note that this is the fifth year in a row the result of the claim review is favorable which is a validation of a responsible approach to actual assumption setting. Finally, and as indicated on the bottom of slide 17, we had an unfavorable impact associated with the claim reserve review for a structured settlements block. These structured settlements are agreements to provide fixed periodic payments to claimants associated with historic P&C claims. Total reserves for a structured settlement block were approximately $550 million at the end of the third quarter. Similar to a long-term care block, these reserves are held on our balance sheet on a present value basis, and thus are subject to changes in assumed discount rates. As well, many of these policies have life contingencies, and thus are impacted by changes in mortality assumptions. Part of our reserve review this year, we made adjustments to both the discount rate and mortality assumptions, resulting in a reserve strengthening of $46 million on a pre-tax basis. Turning to slide 18, overall, our life and group segment produced a core loss of $35 million in the quarter. With some of the reserve changes, covering both the long-term care and structured settlement blocks, with a pre-tax charge of $83 million, for $65 million after tax. Apart from the impacts of these reserve reviews, the segment produced core income from current operations of $30 million for the third quarter. These results were favorable to our expectations and primarily driven by morbidity experience. Specifically, we continue to experience lower than usual new claim frequency, higher claim terminations, and more favorable claim severity amid the effects of COVID-19. As referenced in the previous quarter, given the uncertainty of these trends, we are taking a cautious approach from an income recognition perspective and then holding a higher level of IBNR reserves. In addition, as we continue to deem these trends as temporary and short-term in nature, we did not incorporate this more recent experience into our GPV assumption-setting efforts. Our corporate segment produced a core loss of $19 million in the third quarter. Now let me turn to investments. Pre-tax net investment income is $517 million in the third quarter, compared with $487 million in the prior quarter. The results reflected favorable returns from our limited partnership and common equity portfolios, which produced pre-tax income of $71 million compared to $18 million during the same period last year. Pre-tax net investment income from our fixed income portfolio was $443 million this quarter, compared to $462 million in the prior year quarter. The pre-tax effective yield on our fixed income holdings was 4.5 percent for the period. A decrease is primarily in our P&C portfolio, which, as Dino mentioned, has been impacted by lower reinvestment rates. Pre-tax net investment gains for the quarter were $27 million compared to a gain of $7 million for the prior year quarter. The gain was primarily driven by the continued recovery of the mark-to-market under non-redeemable preferred stock investments and higher net realized investment gains on fixed maturity securities, partially offset by a loss on the redemption of our $400 million of senior notes due August 2021. Our unrealized gain position on our fixed income portfolio stood at $5 billion, up from $4.4 billion in second quarter. The change in unrealized during the quarter was driven by the tightening of credit spread across the market, while risk-free rates remained low. Fixed income assets that support our P&C liabilities had an effective duration of 4.5 years at quarter end, in line with portfolio targets. The effective duration of the fixed income assets that support our life and group liabilities was nine years at quarter end. Slides 21 and 22 of the earnings presentation will provide you with additional details of the investment results and the composition of the investment portfolio. The balance sheet continues to be extremely strong. At quarter end, shareholder's equity was $12 billion, or $44.30 per share, driven by the increase in our unrealized gain position during the quarter. Shareholder's equity excluding accumulated other comprehensive income was $11.6 billion, or $42.78 per share. We continue to maintain a conservative capital structure with a low leverage ratio, and a well-balanced debt maturity schedule. As I noted in August, we issued $500 million of senior notes at a record low coupon of 2.05%, with tremendous demand for the paper, and we subsequently redeemed our 2021 debt, the net of which will reduce our annual interest expense by nearly $13 million. And at quarter end, all of our capital adequacy and credit metrics remain above target levels, supporting our credit ratings. In the third quarter, our operating cash flow was strong at $758 million, driven by higher premiums and, to a lesser extent, lower paid losses. In addition to our positive operating cash flow, we continue to maintain liquidity in the form of cash and short-term investments and have sufficient liquidity holdings to meet obligations and withstand significant business variability. And we are pleased to announce our regular quarterly dividend of 37 cents per share. With that, I will turn it back over to Dino.