Now I'll turn the call over to Beth to provide more detailed commentary on the quarter.

Thank you, Chris. Before I begin, I want to thank Chris for his leadership and partnership. The company we are today reflects his vision and discipline, and I look forward to continuing our work together through the transition and supporting Mo as we begin our next chapter. Third quarter core earnings were $956 million or $3.50 per diluted share with a trailing 12-month core earnings ROE of 17.9%. Book value per share excluding AOCI of $82.47 increased 12% from year end and 16% from a year ago, reflecting the earnings power of our businesses and disciplined approach to capital management. In addition, the trailing 12-month net income ROE was 25%, which includes earnings from Hartford Funds. As it relates to the sale of Hartford Funds, we are progressing towards closing, which could occur as early as December 1, subject to standard regulatory and fund approvals. And as a reminder, once we close, distributions from Hartford Funds will occur quarterly, and will be recorded in realized gains within net income. Moving to results, in business insurance, core earnings were $731 million with written premium growth of 6% and an underlying combined ratio of 90.1. Small business continues to deliver excellent results with written premium growth of 7% and an underlying combined ratio of 85.2. The underlying combined ratio improved 4.6 points from the prior year, primarily due to lower non-cap property losses and a lower expense ratio. Middle and large business delivered written premium growth of 3%, including 5% in middle market, with an underlying combined ratio of 99.5. The underlying combined ratio increased from prior year, equally impacted by higher loss ratios from non-cap property and workers' compensation. Non-cap property losses reflect normal volatility with a few large fire and non-weather water losses this quarter. The increase in workers' compensation relates to a broad-based uptick in claim frequency, which we have been observing and reacting to throughout the course of the year. Global Specialties' third quarter was strong, with written premium growth of 7% and an underlying combined ratio of 86.1, which was relatively consistent with the prior year. The business insurance expense ratio of 30 improved 1.1 points from the prior year, driven by the impact of earned premium growth and lower staffing costs, partially offset by higher technology costs. In personal insurance, core earnings were $105 million with an underlying combined ratio of 87.1. Written premium declined 4% with a 9% decline in auto and 6% growth in home. The underlying combined ratio improved 2.9 points in the quarter, driven by earned pricing increases outpacing lost cost trends in both auto and home. The personal insurance expense ratio of 26 was relatively flat compared with 25.8 in third quarter 2025. Turning to reserves, favorable prior year development of $594 million before tax included a $497 million benefit from the impact of commuting the A&E adverse development cover. This benefit is not included in core earnings. Core favorable prior development was $97 million, driven by reserve reductions in workers' compensation, commercial property, and personal insurance. With respect to catastrophes, P&C current accident-year losses were $198 million before tax, or 4.2 points, primarily from tornado, wind, and hail events. This compares with $70 million, or 1.6 points, in the third quarter of 2025, which was a historically light catastrophe quarter. Moving to employee benefits, core earnings of 120 million and a core earnings margin of 6.4% reflect higher group life and disability loss ratios, partially offset by an improved expense ratio and higher net investment income. Fully insured ongoing premium grew 4% reflecting strong new business sales increased exposure on existing accounts and book persistency above 90%. The group life loss ratio of 77.8 increased 3.6 points as compared to an unusually favorable prior year period. The group disability loss ratio of 76.3 increased 5.7 points driven by higher claim incidents across short and long-term disability and less favorable long-term disability recoveries. Long-term disability loss ratios, while elevated on a year-over-year basis, remained within expectations, while short-term disability loss ratios were slightly above expectations. The employee benefits expense ratio of 25.4 improved 1.3 points, driven by lower staffing costs and the impact of earned premium growth As Chris mentioned, we closed the acquisition of Equitable's employee benefits business earlier this month and expect $500 million in annual premium across group life, disability, and other supplemental products, including dental and vision. Consistent with the smaller end of employee benefits, we expect loss ratios for this business to be lower than our existing book, so offset by a higher expense ratio due in part to approximately 30 million of annual intangible asset amortization. Excluding the amortization, we expect the core earnings impact of the acquisition to be modestly diluted in 2027 and to improve each year as the business integrates and scales. Turning to investments, our diversified portfolio delivered strong results in the third quarter. Net invested income was $850 million, up $95 million, or 13% from the third 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 4.6% before tax. annualized limited partnership returns were 10.2% before tax and 7.8% year-to-date. Results benefited from particularly strong performance in infrastructure and energy transition funds. Turning to capital management, holding company resources totaled $1.5 billion at quarter end. As Chris mentioned, we increased our common quarterly dividend by 12% to $0.67 per share Payable on January 5, 2027. Over the past decade, our annual dividend increases have averaged approximately 11%, demonstrating our confidence in the sustained earnings power and capital generation of the organization. During the quarter, we repurchased 3.4 million shares under our share repurchase program for $475 million. As of September 30th, we had $4.37 billion remaining on our share repurchase authorizations. In summary, we are very pleased with our strong performance for the third 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.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Brian Meredith with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. I guess first question, I was hoping to unpack the underlying combined ratio a little bit on the middle market and particularly what was the impact of the unusual losses on the underlying loss ratio in the quarter for the total business insurance and then maybe talk a little bit about what you're doing with the comp in order to kind of and a number of others.

I'm going to ask Beth to sort of break down and give an attribution of the combined ratios for, you know, the two items that we called out, right? I mean, non-cap weather was, you know, a little elevated. quarterly impacts and the year-to-date impacts after she's done. But I think the comp, we've been watching very closely here in 26 as far as the emerging trend of higher frequency. So, Beth, would you break down those components?

Yeah, I will. And Brian, I'm going to take some time and just go through the various components as it relates to MLC and then the impact just when we think of total BI. But as I said in my prepared remarks, when we look at the underlying combined ratio for MLC for the quarter, we definitely saw a little bit of improvement in expense. So think of that about a point kind of consistent with what we're seeing in small commercial. And then the rest relates to loss ratio movements. And so the two items that we called out, comp and non-CAT property, I would say both contributed a little less than four points to the change from the prior year. And again, all my comments are related to the prior year. In addition, similar to what we've seen during the course of the year, although we didn't call it out because it was not as large as those two items, we continue to see a little less than a point related to mix. And I think we've talked about that before as some of the growth that we saw in national accounts has earned into the book. and then like a lot of other things that make up the difference there. Going back to the two items, comp and non-cap property. A non-cap property, what I would say, and I said this in my remarks, is as we look at the results there, we see this as normal volatility. It is another quarter of seeing an uptick there, but if you go back and look over several quarters, we've had more quarters where Non-cap property has been favorable in ML than unfavorable. So we do see that as normal volatility. And then on the comp side, as I said, we've been seeing an increase in frequency during the course of the year. Increases in frequency, you know, quarter to quarter can happen. So you don't necessarily react to that. But as we evaluated where we were year to date, felt that it was appropriate to increase the loss ratio there. So a component of just under four points of underlying combined loss ratio points this quarter, a little bit of that does relate to prior quarters, just to put that in context. So then when you go to the all-in business insurance and what the impact of all of that is, I would say a non-cap property, it's really not a driver. We had favorability in small and that offset the unfavorability that we saw in middle. And then the comp piece pulling that through to the all-in BI loss ratio is a little over a point. And then again, we have some small sort of items as it relates to mix and other things. And then more importantly, if I look at things on a year-to-date basis, were probably a little under a point off to where we were year-to-date last year for all in BI. The comp piece that I referenced is a little less than half a point. And then the remainder of the items are things like mix and some of the other things that I discussed. So when I step back from all of it, looking at where middle came out, How small performed, the contribution to the total, where we are year to date. I feel really good about the overall performance in business insurance as we continue to perform, I think, in a competitive marketplace. And I can stop there, Brian, if you have any questions. Then I was going to turn it to Mo to talk about some of the actions that we've been taking. Yeah.

Yeah, Brian, just to build on where Beth was. I think as we've looked at the frequency throughout the year, I think it's really important to understand we see it across the book in all segments. It's not specific to any industry. It's not specific to any geography. It's not specific to size or risk, not specific to injury types. So really what we're seeing, we think, is a broad-based move in frequency that's not unique to our book. And when we look at the contributing factors, we are looking at The increase in health care costs in this country, the expiration of the ACA subsidies, and broadly, just thinking about the affordability challenge for many workers across this country, and we feel like some of those losses that might have been in the health care costs are coming back into the workers' compensation system, which is why we feel it's so broad-based. And to your point on underwriting, as Beth talked about on the property side, we really don't think there's anything going on in our book. As Beth said, eight of the past ten quarters, we've been better than expected on property losses in middle of March. So we really feel like this is just a second quarter of adverse results relative to expectations. Then on the workers' compensation side, we've been working on it all year. We're making sure the quality of the new business is strong, the new business pricing. We're pulling the levers that we can in terms of segmentation, and certainly we're working to get price increases into our filings in for 27. So just think of a broad-based underwriting reaction to all that we just described.

Great. That's really helpful. Very thorough. I appreciate it. And then maybe just my next question, switching over to the disability loss ratio. Thanks for some description. But I know Mike last quarter mentioned a couple of things going on with long and short-term disability. And one of those are continuing, i.e., maybe the Family Medical Leave Act, maybe some mental health claims you've seen coming through.

Yeah, we'll ask Mike to add his color.

Yeah, so Brian, I think similar to what I discussed last quarter, both those items you pointed out, so we're seeing a bit of elevation in behavioral health. We're seeing that both in short and long-term disability products. In addition to sort of that from a diagnosis perspective, we're also seeing some higher claims with higher wage earners. So I think the individuals who are Going out on claim, we're seeing in terms of a little bit on the higher end of the salary level. So I'd say those are a couple of underlying trends within the short and long-term disability lines. Paid family leave in the quarter was modestly improved relative to 3Q of 25, but on a year-to-day basis still elevated. I'd just end by saying we continue to put rate into the paid family and medical leave product line. We've been successful through the year, so think mid-double-digit rate increases we're putting into that book. We are seeing utilization continue to trend up, so again, as long as that utilization level continues to rise, we'll put rate increases in that product line.

Terrific. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Clyderman with TD Cowen. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks a lot. Mo, congratulations on the well-deserved new role. And Chris, spare me 30 seconds. I've covered this company throughout your tenure. So before my question, I just want to say congratulations on an exceptional run. You made some bold, unpopular calls. from acquiring Aetna Benefits and Navigators to reportedly rejecting a $65 offer in 2021. And your conviction proved right. Underwriting has excelled. The stock has nearly quadrupled since you became CEO. And most importantly, you restored the Hartford to its place as an iconic industry leader, only better. That's an incredible legacy, Chris. And I just want to congratulate you on that. And now I'll shift into my questions. First one, Beth, you didn't call out anything on general liability and commercial auto in the reserve adjustment. So I just, you know, I went through the queue. I didn't see anything in there. Just want to make sure I understand that right. Or if there were some big moves in prior accident years. And generally, just how are you thinking about the reserves going forward for commercial auto and GL?

Yeah, Andrew, so your review is correct. We did conduct our reserve review during the quarter, and we did not adjust our booked reserves as we looked at the activity. It was consistent with the actions that we had previously taken. We did not make any adjustments there.

And you're feeling good going forward?

Yes, we are feeling good going forward. Obviously, we do our reserve review every quarter, and if we felt that we needed to increase our reserves, we would have. Again, our reserve review substantiated where we stood relative to our book reserves.

Yeah, and on small business, the 85.2 underlying was quite exceptional and certainly materially stronger than your other business insurance segments. So I just want to get a sense, historically, have you always done much better in small business? And how do you feel about the sustainability of that combined ratio amidst pricing pressures?

I'll start, and if Mo or Chris want to add anything. I think we've consistently talked about the strong performance in small business, which has been there quarter after quarter and year after year. Obviously, this quarter, printing the combined ratio that we did was impacted by favorable non-CAT property, as we called out, and so obviously that can move around significantly. from period to period. But when we look at the underlying performance, feel very good. So the question may be, where would we expect fourth quarter to be? It's a little bit of kind of what happens with non-cap property. But again, I think the performance of small business stands on its own.

Andrew, I would just add, we're very proud, obviously, as I called out in our prepared commentary that Kenova is recognized as, again, for the eighth consecutive year of leading with digital capabilities. And I think that just reflects our mindset of continuing to invest in small commercial to be easier to interface with faster, make lives easier for our agents and brokers and customers. So, yeah, we're going to continue investing in this franchise are differentiated as the world changes going forward. But, Mo, what would you add? Maybe just one more anecdote, Andrew.

The 78% straight through on the entire portfolio that Chris called out, that's an all-time high for us, and we think it's probably 5 to 10 points better than our leading competitor, let alone our average competitor. So we expect that 78% with all the technology investments we're making including AI to continue to improve and that just creates a better experience for our agents and brokers.

Thanks a lot.

Your next question comes from the line of Elise Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. My first question is going back to the discussion on workers comp. So I think you said you guys gave a lot of color on the impact of null and large, but then said it was around a point on overall BI in the quarter. So just given it sounds like you expect perhaps this elevated frequency to persist, should we continue to think about an ongoing You know, one-point drag from comp on BI for, you know, at least in the near term?

I would say not necessarily, and Beth can add her, you know, point of view. You know, obviously, we're focused on 2026 trends and finishing the year strong. Obviously, we'll talk about 2027 at the right time and give you any additional, you know, color, but... Again, I think this is a step change, you know, given some of the activities that we talked about, particularly, you know, health care. And we'll see, you know, how it's going to play out, you know, beyond, you know, this year end. But I think this is a year of sort of, as I said, a step change. And hopefully then things at least, you know, calm down a little bit. But Beth, what would you say?

Yeah, the only thing I would point out, Elise, is when we talked about the impact on comp for the quarter being little over a point, that is for the quarter, which included a bit of a true-up for first and second quarter. So when I think more of the run rate, and I kind of look at the nine months, kind of where we are year-to-date, the impact on comp from that perspective is about a half a point. So again, I don't want you to lose sight of the fact that there is a bit of a true-up that happens in the quarter if you just look at the quarterly number.

Thanks. And then my second question is on employee benefits. You guys gave some guidance on just bringing on the equitable deal. Also, it sounds like maybe some normalization and disability should persist. So as we think about Those two forces, right, bringing on equitable, which, you know, at least, right, you said will be dilutive, right, in 27. Can you guys, do you still expect to be within the 6% to 7% margin guide for benefits with all those factors taken into consideration?

Yeah, it's a great question. I would say yes. We still think in terms of this business as 6% to 7%, you know, percent. But I would point out there's three moving parts here that you would apparently know. One, obviously we've got to integrate, and we're going to spend some money on integrating, probably in the $30 million-ish range, maybe $40 million. Those costs will be sort of below the line on core, so it's excluded from core like we've done all our deals. We also called out that there's probably $30 million of annual intangible amortization that will be part of core earnings. And then we're going to obviously continue to be as efficient as possible and continue to invest in the business. But when you put it all together, we still see this business as the six to seven. We called out that there's going to be a modest dilution in 27. Particularly as we scale, I mean, you know, the technology required is really actually very, very good and industry leading in our judgment. But it's going to take some time to sort of scale and get all the things, you know, moving forward. But when we get to that point, and if you really, you know, think about, you know, the moving parts, six to seven is still our long-term, you know, view.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Scott with Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. I wanted to see if you could give us a better sense of what to expect out of the core margin and group benefits. No, you probably don't want to give guidance for 27 and that kind of thing, but just given there's some more moving parts there around the acquisition and disability and maybe even paid family medical leave, I just wanted to see if you'd Help us out with thinking through that.

You know, the activities that we spec. But, you know, $500 million of premium, and if we could grow that at a healthy rate, you know, we'll get to, you know, where we want to be. But, you know, and that's why I said in my prepared remarks, Alex, that this is still a highly accretive business, you know, for us, you know, particularly when you look at it on a tangible, you know, return on equity, you know, basis. You know, it's in the 15%, 16% return on tangible. If you look at margin on a nine-month basis, I think it's 6.9 compared to the 6.4 for the quarter. So it's contributing meaningfully. And as we alluded to, particularly with their technology, bringing more of the Hartford to that small to mid-sized customer base in benefits would be a strategic objective. I know Mo and the team have.

That's all helpful, thanks. Second question I had is on growth and BI. As we look at small commercial, could you talk a bit about the competitive landscape you're seeing there? Do you expect to be able to sustain these levels of growth even as the market continues to get more competitive? And are you seeing any of your competitors that are maybe more geared towards the larger market influencing things in the small market?

Sorry, Alex, I stepped on you. I'm going to let Mo add, but again, I think all our businesses fit together well. We constructed the portfolio here of small, middle, large, specialty, international, EB, personal lines. So it's actually a diversified portfolio that all the businesses are contributing to our overall results, both from a growth side and a profitability side. But Mo, what would you add?

Yeah, let me just make a layer below that for you. So I think the messaging is going to be fairly consistent with what we've talked about in prior quarters. In small, we're very confident about our abilities to grow at a similar pace. I think what we're bringing to the marketplace, the digital and technology capabilities continue to make a real impact for our agents and brokers. I think I cited the 78% straight through, which is nowhere near our competitors. And obviously, Chris talked about Keynova. That being said, there was an incremental step change in the competitiveness in small, in the quarter. You'll see our new business went negative or non-positive for the first time probably in 20-something quarters. It's the first time we didn't grow our new business. So there is a competitiveness. That team is staying very disciplined and making good choices. In middle and global, again, we've talked about it. That is incrementally more competitive as well, and we're really trying to pick our spots. And I talked about it last quarter about having an increasingly divergent view from some of our competitors who are talking about stability. We're not necessarily feeling stability. We're feeling it incrementally more competitive, and that's coming through in the new business numbers that we show in the supplement and both middle and global. So on those businesses, we are going to continue to make choices that are really dependent on what the market's doing from a rate perspective. We are protecting our renewals. You can see that in our retention numbers. So our growth in middle and global, as we talked about last quarter, will be very dependent on how market conditions evolve, especially in the general liability and workers' compensation space.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Gregory Peters with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Well, good morning, everyone, and congrats, Chris, and congrats to you, Mo, as well. Can we, considering the strong levels of profitability inside business insurance, can you speak for a second on the impact of, you know, contingent commissions on your expense ratio? Just curious, you know, as we look forward, you know, It seems like the outlook for your business remains really strong. So it seems like there could be the potential for some elevated pressure that are going forward just on contingents alone. But maybe you could talk a little bit about policy acquisition costs.

Yeah, Greg, it's Mo. We expect a lot of stability there. We've worked really hard with our partners to make sure that we've got equitable deals, i.e. deals that are equitable on both the benefits and the P&C side. As we look forward, we don't anticipate any significant change there.

Okay. I guess since it hasn't come up yet, at least in the Q&A, I'll pivot to the personal insurance business. Your results have recovered quite nicely, but growth is becoming an issue. So I'm just curious how you think about your price competitiveness both in auto and home and then both in agency and direct as we think about the potential for growth going forward.

Yeah, I would ask Melinda to add her color, but I'm overall pleased where we're at. Obviously, in this business, we've worked hard to restore margins and profitability. Both in auto and home, we're keeping up with the trend. We're growing home, particularly in our agency. But yeah, the auto market is, as I said in my prepared comments, intense. And I think it will continue to be that way with still elevated shopping. But Melinda, what would you add?

Yeah, I would say our growth trajectory has been improving as retention benefits from lower rate and through the customer experience efforts that we have been deploying in market. You can see that clearly in our retention up year over year and sequentially. Agency, as Chris mentioned, is scaling, which is also supporting top line. And other than that, I would just say, Greg, we're going to be disciplined. We're not trying to manufacture a growth crossover as much as we are trying to be thoughtful about making sure that we are in the market growing in a disciplined and appropriate way.

Got it. Thanks for the detail. Your next question comes from the line of Rob Cox with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Yeah, thanks for the comments on small commercial. You know, noting that you said it's getting a little bit more competitive there. But we just noticed, you know, continues to be strong policy additions in small commercial. And just curious if there's any, you know, particularly parts of the economy or, you know, geographically where you're seeing the growth there, or is it pretty broad based?

Rob, it's Mo. I would say very broad based. When we look across industries, the small business formations, when you look at the government data is still very strong. We're actually really optimistic as in a world of AI-enabled businesses that actually it's going to be a small business revival in some ways, and we think that more and more entrepreneurs will be equipped and able to start up companies with AI than more of those in the past. We actually think the capabilities in a technology perspective are coming towards us in small business, and it's one of the reasons we're so excited about the equitable transaction, because we're going to bring the same speed, ease of transaction that we've got in the P&C side to the benefit side, and We just feel like we are the full service firm for every small business in this country.

Thank you. Just to follow up on the expense ratio, you guys highlighted a decrease in staffing costs across the business. Maybe you could just help us unpack really what's going on there and where you're driving some of those efficiencies.

Yeah, I would say, Rob, you know, and many more. Yeah, we called out, in essence, salaries and overall total compensation, but that's what it means. It's just our overall, I'll call it cost per head, is coming down.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of David Motamedan with Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. I was hoping, Chris and Mo, you guys could maybe elaborate a little bit more on pricing in the workers' comp book. I heard you guys say that it improved a little bit this quarter and remained positive, but I'm wondering how you're thinking about putting price through the book now, just given the frequency increase that you guys are now assuming in your loss picks.

Yeah, I know we'll add his color. I would say there is a California dynamic and then an other 49 state dynamic where the other 49, as much as we're saying, it's positive. It's slightly positive. So I wouldn't say there's a step change in the economics that's emerging yet in our book. California has its own ecosystem, Mo, so maybe you add your overall point of view.

Yeah, please, yeah. David, I would say a couple things. One, we are constrained by the marketplace. That comes through more in the small business space where we just see the filings as a more important part of the pricing process. Just know that in the small business, we feel like the frequency change we've seen is within our law spec, and we feel like we can cater for what we're seeing within the pricing parameters we have today in small business. When you get to middle and large, we have much more flexibility in terms of the day-to-day decisions from our underwriters. Think about segmentation. Think about book mix shifts. And we've been working on that all year. So the team is working really hard to pull all the levers from an underwriting perspective, think less about pricing and more in underwriting to make sure that we can shape the book in response to the frequency changes we're seeing in middle and large.

Got it. Okay. Thanks. That makes sense. And then maybe just for Beth, So just on the underlying loss ratio in business insurance, the roughly 200 basis points deterioration year on year, 100 of that coming from the workers' comp changes, but then 100 basis points from mix and a few other small items. I guess, could you sort of unpack those mix and other small items that contributed to, I guess, 100 basis points of the 200 basis points deterioration. Should we think about those? I would think that the mix dynamic would just continue as written premium earns in, but I'm interested in how we should think about that going forward.

Yeah, so one thing just to correct in what you said is that if we're talking about total business insurance, the mix piece would be, you know, less than five-tenths of a point. The point roughly less than a point was what I meant with middle and large. So, again, if you earned the total BI piece, I'd say it's, you know, more in the 0.3, 0.4 range. And then the other items that make up the difference really is just a lot of little tenths of points here and there. across the various lines, which I think is more just reflective of a little bit of the pricing environment. So you feel a little bit in financial lines, which we've talked about in the past, and some of the other things. So not any one large item that I would point to. And I'm sorry, the last question, you had a mix. I would expect some of that mix to continue as we continue to see that The higher written premiums that we saw in national accounts continue to earn into the book.

Got it. And that's at 30 to 40 basis points just on all-in underlying loss ratio and BI?

All-in, yes.

Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Katie Sekes with Autonomous Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. I wanted to ask one more question on the workers' comp book. We talked a lot about the change you have observed in claims frequency. I wanted to sort of ask about claim severity. I think earlier this year you guys described that as trending around 33.5% and still within your 5% pricing and reserving assumption. Has that changed as the year has progressed? and is there any impact from a shift in claim severity embedded in your changed loss picks this quarter?

Yeah, so our starting point still as we think about severity and I think you're referring to the medical severity still starts with that 5% and that still continues to be our starting point and no real change I would highlight relative to kind of what we've been observing. You know, obviously as frequency changes, you know, that obviously can have some impact on just how it pulls through, but the starting point of the 5% has not changed.

Okay. Thank you, Beth. And then perhaps shifting over to the small commercial business, we saw a lot of hubbub from the launch of Meta's Muse product in September. I guess more broadly, how are you guys thinking about the impact of agentic AI on your small commercial business and wondering if you could update us on your views about the way that you source risks there as agentic AI becomes more commonplace?

Yeah, Katie, it's Moe. I would say it's very early days. We're monitoring adoption, privacy, security. I mean, there's lots of issues that go on with this technology that we're monitoring closely. And we haven't seen any real changes, a real note. And we see continued strong customer engagement through our existing channels. So we're just not seeing the shift at the moment. That being said, our technology agenda, we're prepared for wherever the market goes. As a reminder, we've talked about it publicly, 3% of our small business book is direct today. Thank you for joining us. but we just haven't seen any real adoption coming through today.

Thanks for calling, Mo.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Tunis with Cantor. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. So you guys shared your assessment, I guess your early assessment on the incidence tick is kind of a step function I guess my concern is, so coming from the perspective, and correct me if I'm wrong, we're at pretty low absolute frequency levels in both group disability and workers' comp. I guess my concern would be just from an absolute perspective, there could be quite a bit harder for that to mean reverse. So just, I guess, you know, just interested in your thoughts on that and, you know, where we are in absolute terms on that frequency variable in both businesses.

I would say on both comp and disability, particularly in disability, we've enjoyed some strong results going back four or five years. I think it's, in my language, it's mean reverting now. Our customer base is very sophisticated, so they know how their book is performed. We've basically kept pricing flat to maybe slightly negative over the last couple years. So I still think it is a profitable book. There are some dynamics, particularly related to mental health, related to paid family leave, where utilization tends to be higher. So all those are the things that we could eventually price for and get back to the profitability. I think on the comp side, it's a little different, right? It's less mental health, maybe more, as we said, the environment related to healthcare, ACA, that's driving. I do think it is right now. Our belief is it's a one-time step change here in 2026, and we'll have to see how things play out in 2027, but we're not expecting sort of another year of elevated Frequency and 27 as we sit here today. But that's what I would say, Ryan. So hopefully I scratched your itch.

Yeah, that's helpful. I'm just curious, obviously, when we've had incidents of frequency increases in the past, it could be somewhat economically correlated. It sounds like there might have been a little bit of that. I think Mo mentioned more white-collar knowledge economy type claims. Are you seeing anything rhyming? between the increase in incidents and disability and frequency and workers' comp, is there anything rhyming in terms of the type of claims that are coming in? Thanks.

No, and I don't think Mo mentioned white collar at all, so maybe that was another call you're multitasking on. But yeah, I think the only thing, I will say it again, There is a premise on health care related activities, the cost, high deductible plans. And you've seen when we've seen spikes in frequency in the past, it tended to be economic shocks more than anything. Maybe you could say that the health care system is a minor adjustment or a minor disruptor that's creating some of the frequency issues. Time will tell, but we'll continue to use all our Data and analytics and AI power to really try to uncover what is exactly happening in our 50 states.

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I will now turn the call back to Kate Jorens for closing remarks.

Thanks for joining us today. As always, feel free to follow up with any additional questions and have a nice day.

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