Old Republic International Corporation

Good afternoon. My name is Audra, and I will be your conference operator today. I'd like to welcome everyone to the Old Republic International Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Joe Calabrese with FRB. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Old Republic Conference Call to discuss third quarter 2024 results. This morning, we distributed a copy of the press release and posted a separate financial supplement. Both of the documents are available on Old Republic's website at www.oldrepublic.com. Please be advised that this call may involve forward-looking statements as discussed in the press release and financial supplement dated October 24th, 2024. Risk associated with these statements can be found in the company's latest SEC filings. 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'd like to turn the call over to Craig Schmitty. Please go ahead, sir.

All right. Thanks, Joe. Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome again to Old Republic's third quarter 2024 earnings call. With me today are Frank Sidero, CFO of ORI, and Carolyn Monroe, President and CEO of our Title Insurance Group. So during the third quarter, we produced $229 million of consolidated pretax operating income, which is down from $251 million in 23. And our consolidated combined ratio was 95 compared to 92 last year. General insurance had strong underwriting results, which continued through the third quarter, producing $197 million of pretax operating income, And that was down from 216 million last year. The general insurance combined ratio was at 94 in the quarter compared to 89 last year. And this mostly reflects the anticipated lower level of favorable prior year loss reserve development when compared to the historically high level of favorable development we experienced in 2023. High mortgage interest rates and a continuing tight real estate market continue to constrict our title insurance business. Although it does feel like we're at the beginning of a transition in the real estate market, which we'll talk about in a little bit more detail. And despite the headwinds, title insurance produced $40 million of pre-tax operating income in the quarter and almost $90 million so far this year. the title insurance combined ratio was 96.7 in the quarter, and that's unchanged from the quarter in 23. So our conservative reserving practices continue to produce favorable prior year loss reserve development in both general insurance and title insurance, though as expected, not to the same historically high level we saw in general insurance the last couple of years. In 2024, we remain on track to produce our 10th consecutive year of favorable loss reserve development. Our balance sheet remains strong as we returned capital to shareholders through both dividends and share repurchases during the quarter. We continue to manage for the long run, investing in our new general insurance specialty underwriting subsidiaries, as well as investing in technology in both general insurance and title insurance. So with those opening remarks, I will now turn it over to Frank, and then Frank will turn things back to me to cover general insurance, and that will be followed by Carolyn, who will discuss title insurance. And then we'll open up to the usual Q&A discussion.