Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for The Hartford's second quarter 26 Earnings Call and Webcast. Yesterday, we reported results and posted all earnings related materials on our website.

Before we begin, please note that our presentation includes forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and may differ materially from actual results. We do not assume any obligation to update these statements.

Investors should consider the risks and uncertainties detailed in our recent SEC filings news release and financial supplement, which are available on the Investor Relations section of thehartford.com. Our commentary includes non GAAP financial measures, with explanations and GAAP reconciliations available in our recent SEC filings news release and financial supplement.

Now I would like to introduce our speakers, Christopher Jerome Swift, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Beth A. Costello, Chief Financial Officer.

After their remarks, we will take your questions, assisted by several members of our management team. And now I will turn the call over to Christopher.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Hartford delivered another quarter of strong results reflecting the strength of our franchise, the depth of our distribution relationships, and our commitment to a superior customer experience.

Supported by market leading positions and differentiated capabilities, across property and casualty and employee benefits, The Hartford remains well positioned to continue delivering outstanding returns. During the quarter, we announced an agreement to sell Hartford Funds to Wellington Management, strategically monetizing a noncore long term investment, I am also pleased to announce that our board of directors approved a new share repurchase authorization of $4.2 billion reflecting strong capital generation from our businesses as well as expected cash proceeds from the Hartford Funds sale.

We will continue to balance growth, investing in our businesses, and returning excess capital to shareholders, through repurchases and dividends. Now let me share a few details from the quarter.

Business insurance delivered strong written premium growth of 5% with an underlying combined ratio of 89.3. In personal insurance, underlying combined ratio improved 1.7 points year over year with growth impacted by a competitive market.

Employee benefits had another quarter of strong premium growth, with a core earnings margin of 7.4%, and the investment portfolio continued to generate strong net investment income. All these factors contributed to core earnings of $945 million and an outstanding core earnings ROE of 18.7% over the trailing 12 months.

Let's take a closer look at second quarter performance. Business insurance delivered another strong quarter reflecting excellent execution across our portfolio.

The current market conditions highlight the importance of underwriting discipline pricing rigor, and risk selection, areas where we continue to differentiate ourselves. This was evident in our performance during the quarter as we continue to outpace the market in small business while remaining disciplined and selective across middle and large and specialty lines demonstrating our ability to perform well across cycles.

Small business results were excellent with written premium growth 7% and an underlying combined ratio of 86.5. Growth was driven by double digit increases in both package and ENS binding.

Our investments in automation and digital service which have driven speed, ease, and accuracy of quoting, also position us well as wholesale and retail brokers seek to consolidate business with a smaller number of underwriting partners. These market leading capabilities will continue to drive meaningful growth in 2026 and beyond.

Moving to middle and large, written premium growth was solid at 4% with an underlying combined ratio of 95.3 which included normal quarter to quarter volatility in non cat property losses. The team remains focused on disciplined underwriting and selecting opportunities that deliver attractive risk adjusted returns in an increasingly competitive environment.

We continue to invest in AI enabled capabilities that enhance underwriting effectiveness by providing faster access to risk insights directly in our underwriting workflows. For example, in middle and large, early results are encouraging with underwriting activities being completed in a fraction of the time increasing productivity, and enabling underwriters to spend more time expanding agent and broker relationships to drive increased submission flow.

Our underwriters continue to own the decision leveraging AI enabled capabilities that provide deeper insights and enhance underwriting consistency. Turning to global specialty, underlying margins remained strong in the mid-80s, demonstrating disciplined underwriting and active portfolio management.

Written premium growth of 4% reflected continued momentum across several lines of business, led by wholesale excess casualty, and auto bond and financial lines. Market conditions vary across businesses, and we remain focused on deploying capital where we see attractive risk adjusted returns.

The breadth of our global specialty platform and underwriting capabilities enables us to adjust to changing market conditions and pursue profitable growth across the portfolio. Turning to pricing, business insurance renewal written pricing excluding workers' compensation, remained relatively consistent at 5.8% in the quarter.

Pricing in commercial auto and general liability remained strong and above loss trend. With Umbrella in excess achieving some of the highest rate increases across the portfolio.

Property continues to remain highly profitable and an attractive area for growth though pricing moderated during the quarter. Driven primarily by large property.

Importantly, aggregate property pricing for small business package, and middle market general industries, remain fairly steady in the mid single digits. Shifting to personal insurance, the underlying combined ratio was strong at 86.3.

In auto, the underlying combined ratio improved 1.9 points year over year as earned pricing continues to exceed loss trend. Home results remain strong, supported by consistent underwriting execution, and low double digit pricing.

Competition for new business remained elevated and continued to impact growth. Within agency, following our July rollout, our contemporary product offering is now available in 23 states and progressing as planned.

In direct, with the AARP relationship, we are focused on strengthening customer acquisition and retention. Across personal insurance, we continue to invest in strategic capabilities required to compete effectively and sustainably including competitive pricing, seamless customer experiences in products and services targeting the mature market.

Before moving on to employee benefits, I would like to briefly touch upon our annual P&C agent summit held in May. Discussions with key distribution partners reinforce the Hartford's differentiated claims, and risk engineering capabilities.

A key theme at the summit was the importance of risk mitigation as customers increasingly look for insights and expertise to help prevent losses. Our focus is on practical, scalable solutions that help customers operate more safely.

By combining claims insights risk engineering expertise, and technology enabled tools we help customers identify risk earlier take action sooner, and improve outcomes over time. Moving on to employee benefits.

Core earnings margin of 7.4% was driven by excellent life and solid disability results. We were pleased with another strong quarter of fully insured premium growth, benefiting from excellent sales execution, persistency in the low 90s, and continued investments in technology.

We were able to achieve these results while maintaining our pricing and underwriting discipline. Demand for solutions that help improve workforce productivity and simplify absence and leave management remains high.

We believe our integrated benefits platform differentiates us in the market and together with strong persistency and disciplined execution positions employee benefits to continue generating attractive growth and margins. In closing, second quarter results demonstrate continued momentum and execution of our strategy.

In business insurance, a diversified portfolio strong distribution relationships, disciplined underwriting, and technology enabled execution continue to drive profitable growth at attractive returns. In personal insurance, our focus remains on thoughtful market share expansion supported by continued progress in the agency channel.

Employee benefits remains a high quality accretive business where our leadership and absence in leave positions us well at the large end of the market and our ongoing investments will enable us to extend those capabilities to more small and mid sized customers. Investment income remained strong supported by a diversified and durable portfolio.

With another strong quarter, I am confident in the Hartford's ability to continue delivering outstanding ROEs and attractive returns for our shareholders. Now let me turn the call over to Beth to provide more detailed commentary on the quarter.

Thank you, Christopher. Core earnings for the quarter were $945 million or $3.42 per diluted share with a trailing 12 month core earnings ROE of 18.7%.

Book value per share, excluding AOCI, of $78.91 increased 7% from year end and 15% from a year ago, reflecting the earnings power of our businesses and disciplined approach to capital management. In business insurance, core earnings were $605 million with written premium growth of 5% and an underlying combined ratio of 89.3.

Small business continues to deliver excellent results with written premium growth of 7% and an underlying combined ratio of 86.5. The underlying combined ratio improved 2.5 points from the prior year, primarily due to lower non cat property losses and improved operating leverage.

Middle and large business had a solid quarter with written premium growth of 4% and an underlying combined ratio of 95.3. Underlying results include elevated non cat property losses due to a few large fire losses, and a shift in business mix towards national accounts and commercial auto.

Global specialty second quarter was strong, with written premium growth of 4% and an underlying combined ratio of 85.8. The underlying combined ratio increased from the prior year primarily due to an increase in the international loss ratio and a higher expense ratio driven by technology costs.

The business insurance expense ratio of 30.7 was generally consistent with the prior year and in line with our expectations. We remain on track to achieve our 2027 year end targets.

In personal insurance, core earnings were $128 million with an underlying combined ratio of 86.3. The underlying combined ratio improved 1.7 points in the quarter with improvement in the underlying loss and loss adjustment expense ratio in both auto and home.

The personal insurance expense ratio of 26.3 increased from 25.1 in second quarter 2025 primarily driven by the impact of lower earned premiums and higher commissions due to an increasing mix of agency business. Written premium in personal insurance declined 7% with a 10 percent decline in auto and flat growth in home.

Agency growth remained strong at 7% over the prior year. Renewal written pricing increases were 5.5% in auto and 10.4% in home.

An effective policy count retention improved slightly in auto remained relatively stable in home. Turning to reserves.

Favorable prior year development was driven by reserves in workers' compensation, catastrophes, bond, and personal insurance, partially offset by an increase in general liability and commercial auto liability reserves. General liability reserves were increased in the quarter primarily to reflect a higher frequency of large losses in excess casualty and umbrella lines across multiple accident years.

Commercial auto liability reserves were increased primarily due to adverse loss development within accident years 2023 and 2024 driven by higher severity than previously estimated. This activity reflects increasing attorney representation and time limit demands, which have been incorporated into our reserve estimate.

With respect to catastrophes, PNC current accident year losses were $222 million before tax up from $212 million in the prior year while the catastrophe ratio remained unchanged at 4.9 combined ratio points. Moving to employee benefits.

Core earnings of $139 million and a core earnings margin of 7.4% reflect excellent group life and solid disability performance. The group life loss ratio of 74.2% was relatively flat to the prior year, and the group disability loss ratio of 74.8% increased by 6.3 points.

Disability results were partially driven by increased claim incidents across short and long term disability. In addition, long term disability claim recoveries were in line with long term expectations although were less favorable than the prior year benefited from particularly strong recoveries.

The employee benefits expense ratio of 25.2 improved 0.5 points compared with 25.7 in second quarter 2025, driven by the impact of earned premium growth and a lower commission ratio partially offset by higher technology costs. Turning to investments.

Our diversified portfolio delivered strong results in the second quarter. Net investment income was $800 million up $142 million or 22% from the second quarter of 2025 driven by higher income from limited partnerships and other alternative investments and a higher level of invested assets.

Excluding limited partnerships, the annualized portfolio yield was 4.7% before tax, up 20 basis points from the first quarter. We continue to strategically manage the portfolio balancing risk, and pursuing accretive trading opportunities.

Annualized limited partnership returns were 7.6% before tax up from 5.1% in the first quarter. Results benefited from multiple real estate joint venture sales and strong performance from infrastructure and energy transition funds.

Looking ahead to the second half of 26, we expect limited partnership returns to remain generally consistent with the average annualized return achieved in the first half of the year. Although further geopolitical and economic volatility could affect results.

For full year 2026, given the current market conditions, we continue to expect net investment income to increase supported by growth in invested assets with overall portfolio yields expected to remain broadly in line with 2025. Yesterday, the board of directors approved a new share repurchase authorization of $4.2 billion effective through December 2028 reflecting the strong capital generation of our businesses as well as expected cash proceeds from the Hartford Funds transaction.

This authorization is in addition to the existing authorization which as of June 30th had approximately $650 million remaining. During the quarter, we repurchased 3.4 million shares for $450 million.

We expect to increase our quarterly repurchases to $475 million through the remainder of 2026. In summary, we are very pleased with our strong performance for the second quarter and believe we are well positioned to continue to enhance value for our stakeholders.

I will now turn the call back to Kate.

Thank you, Beth. We will now take your questions.

Operator, please repeat the instructions for asking a question.

Hey. Thanks, and good morning, everyone.

I appreciated the granularity in the queue on loss reserve development and best additional remarks about more frequency in GL and severity in commercial auto. So I would like to just zero in on 3 numbers in that table.

The $110 million favorable in workers' comp the $116 million adverse in general liability, and the $26 million in commercial auto. Could you share some thoughts on whether you feel this is a onetime or it is something that could become chronic?

How are you thinking about these lines and the reserve adequacy going forward Andrew, Christopher. Thanks for your question and appreciate your commentary on transparency and granularity.

I think as you know, loss reserving is both a science and an art, and think we have combined them pretty well over a long term period. And had and have had great stability.

But this quarter required some changes and I will let Beth just give a little bit more color on, you know, what drove some of those changes.

Sure. So again, the numbers that you are referring to, Andrew, I think as you know are 6 month numbers.

So the numbers for the quarter, a bit smaller than that. So if I start with general liability, again, there, we increased prior year reserves by $46 million.

And again, as it says in the commentary, that was across multiple accident years. We saw some elevated large loss activity and these are lines that we want to be very cautious about.

So we reacted to that and I think a very modest, increase when you think about the reserve base being a little bit under $6.5 billion. Commercial auto there we saw activity in more recent years, again, large, you know, higher frequency of large losses, and really what we are seeing there is more attorney involvement in accidents that in the past would have probably been more minor in nature and minor injuries.

So again, looked at that and made the adjustments that you referenced. And then on workers' comp, that continue we continue to see favorability there.

We look at those reserves every quarter. I do not like predictions about the future.

But the underlying book as it relates to prior years continues to perform very well.

Excellent. Very helpful.

And then kind of along the same lines with the employee benefits business zeroing in on the group disability loss ratio at 74.8%, which was up a fair amount year over year. You made the comment, I think, on this call and then in the in the release that it is in line with long term expectations.

We are hearing a little bit about some of your competitors and seeing that line kind of tick up as well. Do you think it kind of stays in line with your target, or do you do you think this is something that is gonna start driving up over time And maybe share a little bit on the backdrop.

You what you are seeing in that product area from a loss standpoint.

Yeah. Thanks for the question again, Andrew.

I will start and just give some context and sort of my views and then I would ask Mike Fish to add his. So this is a very you know, good business, you know, for us.

it is been a strong performer over a long period of time, and you could actually make the argument that its performance over the last couple years probably exceeded expectations and we are sort of at the know, the high end of expectations. But our 6 percent to 7 percent long term margin is always been the view.

And as I said, we have outperformed it of late. But through the first, you know, 6 months of this year, you know, we are you know, still operating at the high end of that margin, although down a little you know, from prior years.

So I do not think there is anything you know, fundamentally changing of the business other than you know, when you are dealing particularly with national accounts and big employers, you know, some of that favorability has been reflected back in pricing. And how that works its way through the P&L is a higher generally current accident year, you know, loss ratio that is really still in pick.

You know, we have not come out, you know, from any actual experience because, you know, a lot of these policies have 6 months of seasoning required before we will make any adjustments. And then, obviously, there is generally some lower prior year development, you know, because you are just you are picking the initial loss ratio closer to the expected long term trend.

So that is maybe too much technical on sort of the nuts and bolts, but I think the key message, at least from my perspective, is it is still performing within expectations. We always, you know, look hard at pricing on cycles.

Generally, these are still 3 year policies. Michael probably comment upon LTD, STD, and paid family leave, you know, some of the incidences that we are seeing there.

But it is a business we still like. And at that 6 to 7% margin, we are still generating 15-plus tangible ROEs.

Yeah. So, Andrew, I would just add that in the loss ratio for disability, think about half of that premium is long term disability.

The remainder is in the short tail lines, including PFML. So as Christopher noted for LTD specifically in the quarter, again, recoveries very pleased with the overall results continue to be a bit above our pricing expectations, but just on a, you know, quarter to quarter basis from Q2 2025 you saw you know, we talked about the you know, a little bit of a decline there in recoveries, but we will continue to monitor that.

I would say on the shorter tail lines, again, we are seeing higher incidents in the quarter and on a year to date basis. A bit coming through across, I would say, all diagnosis although behavioral health claims are up a bit.

Relative to the other claims, those claims tend to have a bit more severity in those short tail lines like short term disability. So, again, we are sort of seeing a bit of that develop.

And then lastly, paid family medical leave, PFML, and we talked about that last quarter. So in the year to date results from a sales and premium perspective, you know, we are benefiting on the top line with 3 new states coming online.

As I talked about last quarter, we do see higher utilization in the early periods when new states go live, so we are we are seeing that a bit. But I would also add we are seeing utilization up in the states that have been, you know, out in force for a number of years.

And so as we have talked about, we will continue to put rate on top of that book. And, you know, we will see where that develops.

But, again, as we feel really good in general about where our pricing is coming in, in total.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Hey. Thanks.

Hey, Christopher, about I am just curious. Is it to unpack the underlying loss ratio in Commercial Lines a little bit?

Maybe give us what the impact of the fire loss were year-over-year so we can get kind of a baseline with the actual underlying kind of loss ratio deterioration was in the quarter?

Yeah. Beth, do you want to break that down?

Yeah. I am not gonna go into all the puts and takes that are within that line.

As we said, non cat property was a significant contributor to the performance kind of year to year. But maybe the way to help you frame it Brian, is that if I look at MLC and their year to date underlying combined ratio of 93.3, And I think about what we expect for the second half of the year and assuming non cat property kind of, you know, evens out a bit, We would expect the full year to probably come in you know, roughly a point better than that.

So gives you some sense of just some of the elevation that we see kind of in the in the first half that, we would not expect to see in the second half.

Makes sense. Thanks.

And then my second question, and maybe I would just way I heard it was a little confusing. So, Beth, I think you made a comment about the underlying loss ratio up because of more commercial auto and national accounts in the mix.

Have you been leaning more into the commercial auto area? Or is that simply just higher loss coming in?

And if so, maybe it is a different area of commercial auto? Was a little confused by that.

Hey, Brian. I am gonna let Moe, you know, answer that Yeah, Brian.

We the commercial auto premium has been up. I would not say it is a change in strategy.

it is just been, I think, a way we think we add things up as just we bind business, but the commercial auto premium was up in the half of the year. The other piece that is in there is national accounts.

And we have mixed a little bit more in middle and large towards our national accounts. And what I would just wanna be clear on the national accounts is our national accounts business is a little bit different than some of our peers, and I just wanna make sure that we everybody understands that, which is it is really adjacent to our middle market business.

I it is it is loss picks I. E.

Less than $5 million We have an occasional account that gets up to $10 million but it really is our way to follow middle market customers into a loss sensitive structure But it does run at a higher combined ratio based on the excess casualty lines, and we just end up booking a little bit higher.

Yeah. And I will I will just to make a fine point on that.

So, again, it really is about the mixing to those that business rather than a change in view of the loss trend for those particular lines.

Great. Makes sense.

Thank you.

Okay. Great.

Just probably an easy yes or no. Based on what was just said.

But, it sounds like there was kinda no meaningful change to expected forward loss trend especially in casualty lines based on kind of all the great color you gave in the queue and on this call so far. Is that correct that is that is impacting the you know, the, the underlying and, maybe forward basis that we should be considering?

Thanks.

Yeah. Very, very minor impact Obviously, whenever we have prior year development, we always look at the more current years to see if that changes our view on loss trend.

And we did not call it out because it did not have a significant impact year-over-year. You know, it is it is, you know, tenth of basis points.

Perfect. And I guess my follow-up just kind of stepping back and thinking about the competitive environment in commercial lines specifically.

Think, you know, there is a lot of focus on pricing, and we have seen a lot of competitors show their pricing KPIs decelerate. You know, we are teasing out that it is it is more so or maybe only coming from the large account space.

But can you maybe just talk about whether you all have been surprised by the stability in kind of the especially on the smaller end in terms of pricing? Or would you expect given healthy returns and interest rates, there to be, you know, a bit of a decel or downwards trend in the in the coming year?

Thanks.

Yeah, Mike, it is Christopher. I am gonna give you some data at least on the quarter that might help.

But I would say generally through the first 6 months of the year, you know, there are, you know, really no surprises, obviously, other than the normal volatility that Beth just talked about in some of our non cat, you know, property exposure. But you know, I would say the market at least the segments we participate in active are in are holding up fairly well.

Know, I mean, you could see, you know, what we have been able to do with commercial auto and general liability, you know, pricing. You know, which we think we are we are we are strong there.

And keeping up with the loss trend, particularly with umbrella and excess. Achieving some of the highest rates of increase across, you know, the portfolio.

I would say property pricing continues to moderate. But again, still a highly profitable line for us and an attractive and still an attractive area for growth.

I think the metric I would give you there is that the aggregate pricing for small business package and middle market general industry Property book was fairly steady in the mid, you know, single digits on an aggregate, you know, basis. I gave my know, commentary on pricing in aggregate in business insurance at 5.8.

down 30 basis points, you know, from the first quarter. But again, still a excellent result and our underwriters are really executing, you know, well in the market I would say again, specifically on general liability, we are at 9.9%, up 30 basis points from, you know, the last quarter.

Excess and umbrella lines were still in the low double digit. And improved 70 basis points from last quarter.

If I look at small renewal written pricing of 7 percent was flat compared to the first quarter. Middle market ex comp was down, you know, 130 basis points to 4.4%.

With declines across most lines, but still healthy in auto and NGL. And global specialty pricing improved 60 basis points to 5.5.

So you put it all together, I am still feeling good about our ability to execute, the ability to you know, generate attractive risk adjusted returns on individual accounts and where we cannot. It will step away.

Thank you.

Hey. Good morning, everyone.

I was gonna pivot to the personal lines, but I just cannot help my myself on the pricing commentary and the answers you have provided so far. And you know, maybe you can help frame it for me in a different way.

Because I mean, the areas that have come under scrutiny about really large property schedules I just do not think you have a lot of exposure in that area of the market. So when I see the growth in your middle and large business, it is really not skewing to this area that is gotten that is under our microscope for all the substantial rate decreases.

But maybe you can help frame that for me.

Well, I think you framed it. You know, well.

I mean, our large property book is relatively small. it is about $200 million, would you say, Melinda?

On a full year basis? You know, our E and S, you know, book again, is relatively small, maybe $300 million.

it is particularly in small commercial. So yeah.

The markets that the activity in the markets where the most pressure is generally our smallest exposure And, you know, our Spectrum product which is a small business product, and our general industry properties are 2 biggest lines. And as I said, you know, Gregory, you know, we are holding in sort of that mid single digit range as far as price increases.

Which again, we think is keeping up with trend. We are probably not gonna grow at the rate that we thought when we started the year, but I still think we can grow our overall property book in the mid single digits, you know, through the end of the year.

But, Moe, would you add anything?

Great. Maybe just to add a couple of points, just as evidenced to Christopher' point on the large property We had a fairly substantial shared and layered book within our large property segment in middle and large.

that is now less than $25 million So we really have shrunk that just because that is the part of the market as you referenced is falling quicker, and it just does not meet our benchmark anymore. The second thing I would point to is we are watching the middle and large space really closely So, yes, the large end is where we see mostly the most competition, but we did feel increasing pressure in the second quarter and potentially a divergent view from some of our competitors, especially on GL and workers' compensation.

So we have always talked about our middle market book being subject to market conditions. We are watching closely in that space because we did feel the competition pick up in that space and that will impact our growth in second half of the year if that competitive pressure maintains.

Thank you for indulging me. On that topic, and I appreciate the detail.

Let's pivot to the personal lines business. You know, it is obviously that is a pretty intense marketplace.

It looks like, you know, your agency business is doing fine. The direct business might be a little challenged.

And, you know, Christopher, I think you mentioned the contemporary product offering that is rolling out. You know, as we as we look forward, maybe you can help reconcile how we should be thinking about growth in the context of just the, you know, the intensity of competition in the market?

Yeah. I will call on Melinda, add her commentary, but I would say generally we are trying to complete the rollout of agency As quickly as we can.

We expect to be in 30 states, you know, by the beginning early 27. So we feel good about that.

And that is, again, the same product we are using in the direct channel. I would say, you know, the direct channel, I think, is gonna continue to come under pressure.

I think shopping is gonna remain elevated. Obviously, competition is gonna remain strong, but again, we are gonna continue to try to improve retention improve obviously, you know, the you know, the customer experience and you know, see if there is some value added if we could create for the mature market.

So I would say, you know, we are we expect a little bit of headwinds, particularly in direct as we head into 2027.

But Melinda, I do not know. What would you add?

I think you summed it up very well, Christopher. You know, we certainly wanna find and win and keep more customers.

So all 3 components of that important in our growth strategy. We wanna do that while we maintain our target profitability.

And it will be bifurcated, I would say, near term in the, in the channel dynamics. We are very encouraged by everything we are seeing on the agency side, very strong execution by our teams and excellent progress toward our long term growth objectives.

And, Gregory, it goes without saying, you know, obviously, auto has a story, but home has a unique story too where home, I think, is performing well. You know, we have been able to continue to get rate, you know, in that book to kinda keep up with trend.

And you know, for the agency channel, you know, having a competitive home product is gonna be very, very important. We feel good about how we are positioned.

Yep. Great.

Thanks.

Hey. Good morning.

Wanted to see if you could dig a bit more into capital management strategy just in light of you know, the Hartford Funds transaction and some flexibility, but obviously coming in over time and just how you approach you know, sort of replacing the dilution initially from that transaction.

I will I will let Beth, you know, talk to the specifics of capital management plan that we just announced. But I would just like to make a comment, but you know, so that everyone sort of understands my views that monetizing this long term held investment noncore investment.

I thought was a priority over the last couple of years. Just giving the sort of the changing dynamics in the asset management, you know, wealth business.

Obviously, we have enjoyed a 40-year relationship with Wellington. And I think combining, you know, with Wellington capabilities with our distribution you know, platform, I think it is just gonna be a added benefit to continue to, you know, reach, you know, more clients, you know, through various channels.

You know, with differentiated investment, you know, capabilities, particularly in the wealth management, you know, market here in The US. So I thought it was an excellent transaction.

Unique, structured uniquely. Which really allows us to participate in the upside as the 2 combined organizations come together and I think, create additional value in the marketplace.

But Beth, what would you say on the capital management Yeah. So, we obviously, you know, took the, expected proceeds over the next couple of years.

From the funds transaction into consideration in sizing our new share repurchase authorization. So, again, remind you that our previous 1 was at $3.3 billion.

So this is a $900 million increase or a 27% increase over the prior authorization. And the way I think about that is, about 15 percent comes from the ex the cash that we are getting from Hartford Funds above sort of what we would normally have received Hartford Funds.

I think you have to keep in mind that with the $3.3 billion authorization, there were dividends that we were already getting from Hartford Funds. When we think about the incremental put that towards the authorization.

And then the remaining 12 percent coming from, the growth in our business. So I think it is a nice balance, and obviously, as the combined entity performs, you know, over the next several years, we will continue to see those cash flows and view it as excess capital to be deployed.

Thank you. Follow-up question.

I just wanted to circle back on prior year development. If I go back and think about 2023 and 2024, there was sort of a consistency, if you will, to some of the unfavorable in the lines that you took unfavorable on this quarter.

And you know, I is there anything different about this time? I mean, I think there is some of the some under underlying drivers, like attorney representation.

So, I mean, is there anything about the David you did this quarter that we should think about being different from the way it was being reviewed in 2023 and 2024?

No. I would not call out anything being different.

I mean, we look at our reserves every quarter. And as we saw, as I said earlier, some of elevated activity in GL, primarily in our excess and umbrella lines, we felt was appropriate to make some modest adjustments And on commercial auto, you know, same thing as we saw some trends there that we felt we should reflect, but nothing that changes overall how we look at the reserves, the review that we do, the very tight alignment that we have between our claims teams, our actuarial teams, and then most importantly, on, you know, our underwriters to understand what is being seen.

And as Christopher said, feel very good about the pricing that we are getting in those lines, feel very good about all the underwriting actions that we have taken. Over the past many years in that.

So feel good about where we are as we ended the quarter.

Thank you.

Thanks. Good morning.

First, I wanted to circle back to your comments, Beth, on the expense ratio. I think you mentioned in your prepared remarks, you expect to still be able to hit exit year 2027.

Guidance. Last quarter, I think you guys had talked about, you know, some opportunity for incremental improvement the expense ratios across the 3 business segments here in 2026.

Do you still have a line of sight on that?

Kate, thank you for the question. I would just rephrase your commentary a little bit.

We are not providing guidance These are goals that we have set for the organization. We are not in the guidance game.

And as we sit here today and as I said in my prepared remarks, I think we will see improvement in 2026 and I continue to be optimistic in business insurance and employee benefits of hitting the goals, you know, that we set for ourselves. I would I would say there is increasing pressure in personal insurance you know, to hit the goals there.

We are not giving up, but that is I would say, a substantially higher bar to achieve right now just given growth dynamics, competitive, you know, marketplace. But I know Melinda and team are not giving up and we will see what we could do.

But I would say that is that is my update for the quarter.

I appreciate the color there. Thank you.

And then I wanted to shift to small commercial. I mean, I think, you know, the growth there continues to impress.

But given some of the commentary from some of your competitors about, you know, identifying better growth opportunities for their down market. Curious to see, you know, how you guys are thinking about competition there and the trends from you know, increased activity from either traditional carriers or maybe, you know, some more technology enabled entrants.

Yeah. I will I will let Moe add, you know, his color.

But I would say, Kate, remember, I think we are in a competitive market across all our all our lines. But of all our lines, I am most impressed, most proud of our capabilities that are differentiated in the marketplace in small commercial that I think will allow us to continue to capture additional market share.

But Noah, that I know you and I talk about things quite a bit, but what would you say?

Kate, just to build on Christopher' comments, with a little bit more granularity. Flow for our small business team in both the retail and the wholesale channels remains really strong.

Christopher referenced our growth in Spectrum. He referenced our growth in ENS binding.

You know, the technology and the advantages we have with retail brokers. And Chris mentioned the session we have with our VIP brokers in May.

We continue to get incredible feedback about differentiated experience that these agents enjoy when they use our technology and how much efficiency it creates for them. So I would yes.

there is lots of competition, but I really feel confident about our ability to maintain margins and grow at a similar pace. Going forward here just based on all the capabilities and the feedback we are getting today.

Great to hear. Thank you.

Hey. Thanks.

Good morning. Just following up on the adverse development in general liability this quarter.

Was wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about the accident year mix. I know you said multiple accident years.

But just wondering specifically if you just talk about which accident years primarily were impacted. And if you had added any to accident year 2025.

Yeah. So it is it is multiple years.

So you go back, it is you know, we saw some activity in 2017. You know, 2018, 19, a little bit in also in 2022, 23.

We did not add anything to 2025. So it really was spread across.

And, again, focused on access and umbrella lines you know, as I said in my previous remarks.

Got it. Thank you.

And, Beth, last year, I think you had spoken about having about 1 point better than expected non cat property experience within the loss ratio in BI. And it sounds like it was elevated this quarter.

So I wanted to be clear. Was it was it elevated, but also worse than expected this quarter?

And how should we think about just you know, that 1 point of favorable non cat property experience within the loss ratio Like, is that is that gonna normalize? Is that potentially more durable just because the changes in terms and conditions?

Just wondering how you are thinking about that going forward.

Yeah. I would say, David, it really does move a bit, you know, quarter to quarter.

I would say overall for this quarter to expectations, non cat property came in a little bit under what we would have anticipated. Again, favorable in small unfavorable in middle to net a net unfavorable affecting the overall business insurance ratio.

So it is hard to predict if it would what the points of improvement you know, could be, you know, quarter to quarter because there is just inherent some volatility as I indicated, pointed to a couple of large fire losses in middle and large quarter that contributed to that. Nothing that we see in our underwriting that would say these were not good risks for us to place.

And that is why we say there is some just normal volatility that is also why I provided on a response to an earlier question some of our views on how we think, you know, MLC you know, could end the year based on things kind of returning to more normal.

Great. Thank you.

Hi. Thanks.

Good morning. My first question, you know, we heard, you know, 1 of your peers the quarter talking about an LAE improvement, right, just driven off of some you know, AI and, you know, some claims driven efficiencies that did benefit you know, their commercial lines underlying loss ratio.

I just wanted to get a sense, like, how you guys are thinking about AI efficiencies and the potential, you know, to benefit you guys on the LAE side.

Yeah. I would say Elyse, just to remind you, again, the big areas that were sort of focused with our AI initiatives, building on our, I will call it, our strong excellent platform is underwriting operations, which we just define as customer facing, you know, activities, call centers, billing, audit premiums, and claims.

Claire has some, I would say, most some exciting activities, you know, they are exploring, you know, whether it be a sort of custom built AI or some, you know, vendor related activities. So that is a area of focus.

For us to get more efficient and ultimately, you know, just better in total. But, Moe, what would you add?

Yeah. At least I would just add that we have got some really exciting use cases.

We have not disclosed any KPIs on either the claims or the underwriting side, and we will not today. But just trust that we are making significant investments in all 3 areas that Christopher referenced, and we think that will improve LAE and expense ratios generally.

Thanks. And then my follow-up question just going back to the capital discussion, You know, you guys obviously upped the buyback today, and we did see the funds transaction that does give you more capital.

But it sounds like given the increase in the buyback program, right, there is probably less of a focus on M&A now, but, Christopher, would just be, you know, great to get your current views there.

Yeah. I would say, obviously, you saw what we were planning to do for the next, you know, 2 years.

As we have always, you know, commented, you know, we are we are aware of marketplace activities. But, you know, we are equally committed to an organic, you know, plan.

We think that is ultimately a safer way to grow and protect margins and you know, manage. But, you know, we are aware and there is nothing obviously to announce, you know, today.

But I again, we would like to grow organically and invest in new products, new capabilities, expanding our you know, underwriting, you know, appetite. And that is what I would say our primary focus is.

Thank you.

Hey. Good morning.

Thanks for fitting me in here. I just wanted to ask about retention in the middle and large commercial book.

I noticed it flipped a little bit. So just curious if there is any pruning related to the GL and auto reserve additions, you know, that contributed to retention flipping or if that is just more market driven.

Robert, it is Moe. No.

it is it is it is entirely market driven There is nothing specific that we were doing on GL or auto in the quarter. Just the team making good decisions.

It does reference back to a comment I made to a questions ago where we are just feeling an increasing competition in the middle and large space. And as we have talked about for a number of quarters, we are gonna continue to make choices and not grow if we see the competitive dynamic going too far and those 3 points retention would be evidence of that.

Okay. Great.

That makes sense. And just following up on global specialty, you know, pricing acceleration there in the quarter Obviously, there is been widespread discussion on property, which you know, it seems like there is there is not as much exposure to as peers.

But just curious what is driving that. It seemed like maybe in the October, it was implied that it was US wholesale potentially driving that acceleration.

Robert, it is Moe again. I would say a couple of things: We have less negative rates internationally.

We you know, we have got a fairly large book of financial lines in our Lloyd's syndicate, was less negative, which is helping us out there. Similarly, our financial lines book improved the rate of positive, moderately positive.

it is moving slightly more positive. So that is helping the mix in that rate calculation.

And then wholesale overall, our rate on the entire wholesale book ticked up nicely. And an important 1 just as we watch the complexity of that book and making sure we are getting adequate rates on our wholesale book in the entire global specialty portfolio.

Thank you.

Thanks for joining us today. As always, feel free to follow-up with additional questions.

Have a great day.