American Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:AFG) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call November 6, 2024 11:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Diane Weidner - VP, IR
Carl Lindner - Co-CEO
Craig Lindner - Co-CEO
Brian Hertzman - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Michael Zaremski - BMO
Andrew Andersen - Jefferies
Meyer Shields - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American Financial Group Third Quarter 2024 Conference Call [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, Diane Weidner, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Diane Weidner

Thank you. Good morning. And welcome to American Financial Group's third quarter 2024 earnings results conference call. We released our 2024 third quarter results yesterday afternoon. Our press release, investor supplement and webcast presentation are posted on AFG's Web site under the Investor Relations section. These materials will be referenced during portions of today's call. I'm joined this morning by Carl Lindner III and Craig Lindner, Co-CEOs of American Financial Group; and Brian Hertzman, AFG's CFO. Before I turn the discussion over to Carl, I would like to draw your attention to the notes on Slide 2 of our webcast. Some of the matters to be discussed today are forward-looking. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results and/or financial condition to differ materially from these statements. A detailed description of these risks and uncertainties can be found in AFG's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are also available on our Web site. We may include references to core net operating earnings, a non-GAAP financial measure in our remarks or in responses to questions. A reconciliation of net earnings to core net operating earnings is included in our earnings release. And finally, if you're reading a transcript of this call, please note that it may not be authorized or reviewed for accuracy. And as a result, it may contain factual or transcription errors that could materially alter the intent or meaning of our statements. Now I'm pleased to turn over to Carl Lindner III to discuss our results.

Carl Lindner

Good morning. I'll begin my remarks by sharing a few highlights of AFG's 2024 third quarter, after which Craig and I will walk through more details. We’ll then open it up for Q&A where Craig, Brian and I’d be happy to respond to your questions. I'm pleased to report an annualized third quarter core operating return on equity of 16%. Underwriting margins in our Specialty Property and Casualty Insurance businesses held up nicely despite elevated catastrophe losses, particularly from Hurricane Helene during the quarter. And higher interest rates increased Property and Casualty net investment income by 15% year-over-year. Craig and I thank God, our talented management team and our great employees for helping us to achieve results. I'll now turn the discussion over to Craig to walk us through some of the details.