[ The transcript was presubmitted by CNA Financial Corporation. No live call was conducted for the third quarter earnings call. ] In the third quarter, we produced very strong results with increased core income, the highest quarterly top-line growth of the year, excellent profitability including the sixth consecutive quarter with pretax underlying underwriting gain of $200 million or greater, higher investment income, and a one point increase in renewal premium change for both Commercial and Specialty compared to the second quarter. On a year-to-date basis, core income is a record high at $974 million with an all-in combined ratio of 95.6% and an underlying combined ratio of 91.5%, up a little over a half point compared to the first nine months of 2023. Drilling down on third quarter, core income was $293 million including a $73 million year-over-year increase in net investment income to $626 million pretax. Our alternatives portfolio generated over half of the increase, and the growth in our fixed income portfolio was due to both a higher book yield and a larger invested asset base. The P&C all-in combined ratio was 97.2%, with previously announced catastrophe losses of $143 million or 5.8 points of the combined ratio, in line with the third quarter average over the last five years. Prior period development for P&C overall was favorable by 0.2 points of the combined ratio. The P&C underlying combined ratio of 91.6% represents the fifteenth consecutive quarter below 92%. In the quarter, we achieved the strongest production performance of the year with 9% growth in gross written premiums excluding captives and 8% growth in net written premiums. Renewal premium change for P&C overall was stable with the second quarter at 5%, but was up one point in the U.S. to 6%, and down in International by a point…

CNA's third quarter core income of $293 million is slightly above the prior year quarter, while year to date core income is up 6% to a record best of $974 million, which translates to an annualized core return on equity of 10.3% and reflects another quarter of strong underwriting and investment results. Our P&C expense ratio for the third quarter was 30.2% and is about flat to the prior year quarter. A favorable International reinsurance acquisition related catch-up adjustment in the prior year quarter was largely offset by higher net earned premiums in the current quarter. The P&C net prior period development impact on the combined ratio was 0.2 points favorable in the current quarter. In the Specialty segment, prior period development was neutral overall, and this was mostly attributable to favorable development in surety offset by unfavorable development in management liability related to accident year 2019. In the Commercial segment, prior period development was slightly favorable overall with favorable development in workers' compensation, the majority of which is attributable to accident years 2018 and prior, unfavorable development in commercial auto in recent accident years, and unfavorable development in general liability driven by excess casualty across multiple accident years back to 2015. In the International segment, prior period development was slightly favorable in the quarter. Our Corporate segment produced a core loss of $44 million in the third quarter, compared to a $33 million loss in the prior year quarter. The current quarter includes $11 million of income from the amortization of a deferred gain related to the asbestos and environmental pollution loss portfolio transfer, compared to $15 million in the prior year quarter, and a $3 million after-tax charge related to the planned office consolidation efforts we have disclosed previously. The Corporate segment results also include a $17 million…

CNA had a very strong third quarter, following up on an excellent first half, and has generated record core income on a year-to-date basis and for the most recent four-quarter period. Record levels of core income are reflective of disciplined underlying underwriting execution and prudent catastrophe management, profitable growth and high levels of net investment income. We achieved 9% growth in gross written premiums excluding captives, which is up two points from the second quarter and represents our strongest quarter of the year. We are achieving strong renewal pricing increases in the lines most impacted by social inflation, which continue to exceed long-run loss cost trends. Our retention remains very strong at 85%, and our new business production growth in the quarter was the highest of any quarter this year. We remain optimistic about our ability to continue to successfully navigate the market to capitalize on the best opportunities and grow profitably, even while stepping back without hesitation when the competitive landscape doesn't allow us to secure our required returns. Building on our year-to-date performance, we look forward to providing comments to you next quarter. As we announced earlier in the year, effective January 1, 2025, I will be transitioning to the role of Executive Chairman of the Board as Doug Worman becomes the President and Chief Executive Officer of CNA. I look forward to my new role in the Company, and I am confident that Doug, together with the remarkable leadership team at CNA, will continue to build on our track record of profitable growth. It has been an absolute pleasure for me to serve as the CEO of CNA over the last 8 years, in large part because of the opportunity to work closely with approximately 6,500 extremely talented team members across the organization who will continue to drive CNA's success going forward.

We invite shareholders and analysts to submit questions for management in advance of each quarter's earnings release. Below we address some questions we have received as well as some timely and topical focus areas for CNA and our industry.

Are you seeing anything on workers' compensation that makes you feel differently about the line?

We continue to feel great about workers' compensation. Though loss cost trends are up a little bit from where they were a few years ago due to higher medical inflation, they continue to be below our long-run loss cost trend assumptions based on much longer-run historical averages that we never lowered. This line remains profitable.

Are you seeing increased plaintiff attorney representation on casualty claims?

Yes, we continue to see this dynamic play out. The increasingly aggressive plaintiffs' bar and higher attorney representation has been one of the major drivers of social inflation over the last several years on casualty lines in our book.

As to the pension risk transfer transaction, what will be the impact on expenses on a run-rate basis?

We closed on a pension risk transfer transaction several weeks ago for about 60% of our $1.7 billion defined benefit pension obligation. We previously disclosed that we will incur a one-time, non-cash charge of approximately $290 million (after-tax) in our fourth quarter earnings, which will be outside of core income. This reflects settlement accounting where we record an approximate pro-rata portion of our unamortized net actuarial loss that resides in AOCI into earnings. In normal course this unamortized net actuarial loss would otherwise be amortized into earnings in future years as the pension obligation runs off. If you look at Note H of our third quarter 2024 financials in our 10-Q, you will see our net pension expense is minimal for the year, excluding settlement charges. Each component of the pension expense would be reduced by roughly 60% into 2025 (as we've now reduced the assets supporting the pension, the pension obligation and actuarial loss by roughly 60%) so we expect the impact on expenses to continue to be insignificant going forward, all else equal. As a reminder, there are other moving parts that will determine total 2025 pension expense including where interest rates are on December 31, 2024, and our go-forward assumption of expected return on pension assets. Accordingly, we anticipate disclosing additional information regarding the precise effect of this transaction and updated assumptions in our first quarter 2025 results.

In review of CNA's Financial Supplement, it looks like you recently reallocated about half of the limited partnership balance in the Life & Group portfolio to Property & Casualty and Corporate & Other. Can you speak to this shift in allocation?

During the second quarter we reduced the limited partnership allocation in our Life & Group portfolio by $500 million. These investments were redeployed in our P&C portfolio in exchange for high quality, long duration fixed income securities with attractive yields that will further aid our asset-liability management objectives. Over the past two years we have been able to take advantage of higher interest rates to extend the maturity of our Life & Group fixed income portfolio while also achieving yields that surpassed our reserving assumptions. The cumulative result of this activity has significantly reduced the level of reinvestment risk in this block, with the duration gap between our assets and liabilities now under one year.

In review of CNA's Financial Supplement, for the International segment in the Other expenses line, there is a $14 million variance from a loss last year to a gain this year, can you tell me what is happening here?

The International segment's core income was favorably impacted by a pretax foreign currency exchange (FX) gain of approximately $8 million compared to a pretax loss of approximately $6 million in the third quarter of 2023, which drove the variance in the Other expenses line. The FX gain this quarter was driven by the U.S. dollar weakening against the British pound during the quarter. Our Lloyd's syndicate has U.S. dollar insurance reserves that revalue to the syndicate's functional currency of the British pound through the income statement. Note that economically our Lloyd's investment portfolio is also denominated in the U.S. dollar, thus effectively hedging our currency risk and this change is reflected through other comprehensive income within stockholders' equity.