Old Republic International Corporation

If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Joe Calabrese with Financial Relations Board. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the Old Republic Conference Call, the third quarter, 2023 results. This morning, we distributed a copy of the press release and posted a separate financial supplement, which we assume you have seen and or otherwise have access to during the call. All of the documents are available at Old Republic's website, which is www.oldrepublic.com. We advise that this call may involve forward-looking statements, as discussed in the press release and financial supplement dated October 26, 2023. Risks associated with these statements can be found in the company's latest SEC files. This afternoon's conference call will be led by Craig Schmitty, President and CEO of Old Republic International Corporation. and several other senior executive members as planned for this meeting. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Craig. Please go ahead, sir. Okay.

Thank you, Joe. Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome again to Old Republic's third quarter earnings call. With me today is Frank Sedaro, our CFO of ORI, and Carolyn Monroe, our President and CEO of Title Insurance. Well, during the third quarter, general insurance continued to produce strong underwriting results, which drove a 28.6% increase in pre-tax operating income for the quarter and a 32.3% increase year-to-date. The decline we saw in title insurance pre-tax operating income continues to reflect what we're seeing from the effects of mortgage interest rates. However, our focus on specialization and diversification across title and P&C segments allowed us to produce $251 million of consolidated pre-tax operating income in the third quarter compared to $257 million in the third quarter of 22, alongside of a consolidated combined ratio of 91.9% for the quarter and 92.4% year to date. So our conservative reserving practices continue to produce favorable reserve development and we saw that in all three segments led by strong favorable reserve development in general insurance. Our balance sheet remains solid even as we continue to return capital to shareholders through both dividends and share repurchases. and as we continue to invest in the long term, including our September announcement of yet another new underwriting venture, Old Republic Accident and Health. So I'll now turn the discussion over to Frank, and then Frank will turn things back to me to go into some details on general insurance, followed by Carolyn, who will discuss some details on title insurance, And then we'll open up, as we always do, for conversation and Q&A. So, Frank, I hand it to you.