Assurant Stock

Welcome to Assurant's Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Sean Moshier, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We look forward to discussing our second quarter results with you today. Joining me for Assurant's conference call are Keith Demmings, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Keith Meier, our Chief Financial Officer. Yesterday, after the market closed, we issued an earnings release announcing our results for the second quarter 2026. The release and corresponding financial supplement are available on assurant.com. Also on our website is a slide presentation for our webcast participants.

Some of the statements made today are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements are based upon our historical and current expectations and subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. Additional information regarding these factors can be found in the earnings release, presentation and financial supplement on our website as well as in our SEC reports.

During today's call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are important to analyzing the company's performance. For more details on these measures, the most comparable GAAP measures and a reconciliation of the 2, please refer to the earnings release, presentation and financial supplement on our website. We'll start today's call with remarks before moving into Q&A.

I will now turn the call over to Keith Demmings.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Following a strong start to the year, we delivered our second consecutive quarter of record earnings. This was supported by profitable growth across Assurant, reinforcing the durability of our business model, value of our embedded partnerships and our disciplined approach to investing for the long term.

Our second quarter results extended the momentum that we carried into the year with adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS growth rates in the high teens, both excluding reportable catastrophes. Through the first 6 months of 2026, we generated 12% adjusted EBITDA growth and 14% adjusted EPS growth, both excluding reportable cats. What's most important is what these results say about Assurant. In a dynamic operating environment, Assurant continues to deliver as we balance near-term execution with long-term investments, including within data, automation and AI. These capabilities are helping us operate with greater speed and precision, improve decision-making and strengthen the support we deliver for clients and consumers. At the same time, we're maintaining our disciplined approach to capital allocation, returning excess capital to shareholders while preserving flexibility to invest in attractive growth opportunities across the businesses.

Most importantly, our performance continues to be powered by our people. Their commitment to execution, innovation and service is what enables Assurant to consistently deliver. As we look ahead, we're very well positioned to deliver our 10th consecutive year of profitable growth while continuing to create value for our clients, customers and shareholders. Our success is rooted in a clear strategy and business model built for durable growth. We're a trusted B2B2C partner to many of the world's leading brands with long-standing partnerships built by helping our clients solve complex challenges while serving hundreds of millions of consumers. Our relationships are grounded in transparency and a relentless focus on shared outcomes driven by operational excellence. We're strategic partners helping clients grow while strengthening customer loyalty.

Our value extends well beyond protection products across Global Lifestyle and Global Housing. We've built integrated ecosystems of services, technology, data and operational capabilities supported by AI that create value throughout the client and customer journey. These capabilities are difficult to replicate and increasingly important as our clients seek partners who can solve broad business challenges at scale.

In Connected Living, for example, we've evolved from a protection provider to a business partner that enables end-to-end mobile and technology solutions. Through continuous innovation powered by technology and a willingness to disrupt ourselves, we've expanded the value we deliver far beyond the original protection product. We remain laser-focused on markets where we have a clear right to win. Disciplined execution through global scale and specialized capabilities create meaningful competitive advantages and generate multiple paths for continued growth. The results speak for themselves.

In addition to our exceptional year-to-date performance, Assurant has a multiyear track record of proven results. Since 2020, Assurant delivered an 11% compound annual growth rate in adjusted EBITDA and a 17% CAGR in adjusted EPS, both excluding catastrophes, while continuing to generate attractive returns for shareholders.

Let's move to our segment highlights. Global Lifestyle delivered another outstanding quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased 21%, both in the second quarter and year-to-date, reflecting continued momentum in Connected Living and ongoing earnings expansion in Global Automotive. In Connected Living, earnings increased 24% year-to-date, benefiting from growth with existing clients and continued optimization of recently added programs. Targeted investments in technology, capabilities, innovation and customer experience have supported significant momentum across the business and have created multiple growth vectors to support ongoing earnings growth.

Our momentum is undeniable, and we're incredibly proud of how we've strengthened our market position. We've expanded and reinforced our relationship with T-Mobile, migrating UScellular's large in-force business and launching a new reverse logistics program through a co-located facility. We've made tremendous progress as we continue to expand and deepen partnerships with all other large U.S. mobile carriers and cable operators. We're driving growth through the optimization of programs across mobile, extended service contracts and financial services, including key wins with Telstra, Best Buy and Chase Card Services. We're extending our presence into adjacent markets including home warranty, where our partnership with the largest U.S. brokerage continues to progress. And internationally, we're expanding capabilities, deepening client relationships and increasing our presence in key markets around the world, particularly within mobile and extended service contracts. Our competitive position has enabled us to create differentiated value across the connected living value chain.

Turning to Global Automotive. Earnings increased in the quarter, supported by growth in global partnerships. We also continue to see loss improvement. Year-to-date, adjusted EBITDA has grown 15%. We remain focused on deepening relationships with existing partners while expanding our global footprint. A key example is the long-term renewal with one of our largest automotive clients, which reflects the strength of our partnership and positions us to create additional value together over time. Internationally, we continue to gain traction with OEMs and vehicle retailers, further expanding our opportunities for auto growth.

Moving to Global Housing. Our products continue to play an important role across the U.S. housing ecosystem while delivering strong earnings performance. Our Homeowners products and services support homeowners, mortgage servicers and lenders by protecting properties and maintaining continuity of coverage, contributing to stability across the housing ecosystem. Beyond protecting properties, our solutions facilitate the repair and recovery process following covered losses, supporting homeowners and helping preserve long-term property values. As we scale the business and continue to invest in AI and other technology, data and operational capabilities, we're enhancing the customer experience, improving efficiency and delivering value for clients, homeowners and policyholders.

We're very pleased to announce a new partnership in our lender-placed business. During the second quarter, we began providing lender-placed insurance services to Freedom Mortgage, a top 10 U.S. mortgage servicing partner with approximately 2.6 million loans, further enhancing our market position and validating the competitive strength of our offerings. This partnership is the result of our operational excellence and commitment to delivering an exceptional customer experience. We continue to see additional opportunities to add new partnerships across the servicing market.

Within renters, our Cover360 platform remains a key growth driver. After the second quarter launch of a new partner, we now serve 7 of the top 10 property management companies. Through deeper integration with PMC partners, Cover360 continues to improve penetration rates and coverage. Overall, our success across Global Housing has supported continued earnings expansion with 7% year-to-date adjusted EBITDA growth, excluding cats. Excluding prior year reserve development, underlying year-to-date EBITDA growth in housing was double digits. As we position Assurant to deliver our 10th consecutive year of profitable growth, our differentiation is clear. We have market-leading businesses, trusted client partnerships and a disciplined operating model with multiple avenues for growth.

A growing portion of our earnings comes from embedded services and protection partnerships that generate recurring revenue streams and are less dependent on traditional insurance market cycles. Combining fee-based revenue, specialized protection products, strategic risk management and disciplined capital allocation creates a more stable and less cyclical earnings profile than many traditional property and casualty insurers. Within our countercyclical lender-placed business in housing, our risk profile remains broadly diversified across the United States, while our inflation guard mechanisms and pricing framework help mitigate claims inflation pressures over time. Taken together, these advantages give us confidence in the durability of our results across various market environments over the long term. We look forward to updating you on our continued progress in the quarters ahead.

Now over to Keith Meier.

Thanks, Keith, and good morning, everyone. We were very pleased with the record performance in the quarter, driven by strength of both Global Lifestyle and Global Housing.

Second quarter growth was exceptional with adjusted EBITDA increasing 18% and adjusted earnings per share growing 19%, both excluding cats. We're proud of the underlying strength of Assurant as we continue to drive growth and strong financial performance through our intense focus on innovation and product differentiation. Our outstanding second quarter performance supports another increase to our full year 2026 outlook.

Before reviewing our increased outlook, let me start by highlighting our second quarter results, beginning with Global Lifestyle. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 21% or $43 million compared to last year. Within Connected Living, EBITDA growth was 29% or $39 million. Results included non-run rate benefits of approximately $10 million from a client adjustment within extended service contracts and an international tax benefit within mobile. When normalized for these non-run rate items, Connected Living adjusted EBITDA increased by 22%. Strong growth was driven primarily by our mobile business. Our growing global supply chain business, which includes reverse logistics, trade-in and upgrade, claims fulfillment and other capabilities, serviced over 7 million devices, an increase of approximately 1.8 million compared to last year, driven by our new reverse logistics programs.

Underlying margin improvement as we scaled and matured programs also contributed to growth. Within device protection programs, we continue to see strong subscriber growth over the last year, adding over 4 million devices protected across our U.S. and international partnerships. In addition, growth within Financial Services was led by the optimization of programs within our growing card benefits business. In Global Automotive, adjusted EBITDA increased 6% or $4 million. Growth was driven by the expansion of global partnerships, particularly in Latin America and Europe, where our value proposition and market credibility has led to higher earnings from scaling programs and new opportunities. Auto results continue to reflect improving loss experience.

Moving to Global Housing. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA was $275 million, including $12 million of reportable catastrophes. Excluding cats, adjusted EBITDA was $287 million, an increase of $43 million or 18%. Results benefited from a lower-than-typical second quarter non-cat loss ratio of approximately 35%, excluding prior period reserve development. Favorable loss ratio trends are the result of reduced claims frequencies in the quarter, given the lower number of weather events. On a year-to-date basis, the non-cat loss ratio is relatively consistent with 2025. Lower cat reinsurance costs also contributed to growth, driven by favorable pricing following the April 1 placement of our 2026 program.

Additionally, top line growth within specialty products and higher average premiums in lender-placed also contributed to growth. Second quarter results were partially offset by $12 million of lower favorable prior period reserve development. Within lender-placed, our total tracked loans grew 9% to over 34 million loans, driven by our exciting new partnership with Freedom Mortgage. As previously communicated, we did experience some fluctuation within our quarterly placement rate of 2.02%. Although relatively flat year-over-year, our placement rate was down sequentially.

During the quarter, a client transferred a portion of their loan portfolio to another loan servicer, which was not an Assurant client. The decline to our placement rate was entirely driven by these loan movements, which were related to a small block of loans with a higher-than-average placement rate. Supported by the new client win, which will have policies ramp up over the next 12 months and our expectations for continued growth in 2026, we remain excited about the performance of our housing business as we continue to grow our leadership position in the market.

Turning to capital. Our liquidity position at quarter end was $911 million, providing flexibility to continue to invest in growth, return capital to shareholders and drive innovation. This quarter, we returned $123 million to our shareholders, including $75 million of share repurchases and $48 million in dividends. Our strong capital position supported by record earnings enabled us to accelerate our repurchase plans during the first half of the year. Through July 31, we've repurchased an additional $30 million, bringing our year-to-date total to $230 million.

Let's move on to our increased outlook for 2026. We now expect full year adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share to grow mid-single digits, both excluding cats, overcoming $71 million of lower favorable prior year reserve development. The reserve development includes $113 million in 2025 and $42 million in the first half of 2026. Excluding the impact of prior year reserve development, we expect approximately 10% underlying growth in both adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share, excluding cats. Global Lifestyle is expected to lead the growth for Assurant. We're increasing our outlook for Lifestyle and now expect growth of low double digits, reflecting our strong first half results. Connected Living results for the year will benefit from continued optimization of new programs, expansion with existing clients and contributions from new programs and capabilities, demonstrating the returns we've achieved through previous investments. Global Auto is expected to grow from higher investment income, continued loss improvement and growth of global partnerships.

Turning to Global Housing. Our outlook has also increased as we now expect earnings to grow modestly, excluding cats. Absent impacts from lower prior year reserve development, we expect solid underlying growth for the full year. Consistent with our past approach, our 2026 outlook does not contemplate incremental prior year reserve development for the remainder of the year. From a capital perspective, our strong cash generation creates flexibility, enabling us to reinvest for growth, including M&A and return excess capital to shareholders. Over the remainder of the year, we'll continue to evaluate capital deployment opportunities anchored to our disciplined and balanced approach. For 2026, we are increasing our expectations for share repurchases to be towards the upper end of our $300 million to $350 million repurchase range.

Our second quarter and year-to-date results demonstrate that Assurant continues to operate from a position of strength with momentum across each of our differentiated businesses. We are well positioned to deliver our 10th consecutive year of profitable growth, extending our proven track record of strong performance. As we execute against our increased financial objectives, we remain focused on investing in future growth opportunities while leveraging our strong capital position to create long-term value.

With that, operator, please open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Mark Hughes with Truist.

Just a very broad question. You had spoken earlier this year and last year about the investments you're making in the new customer agreements. Those things were expected to ramp up. You've certainly seen that here in 2026 in the first half. How would you describe the pipeline and investments, your visibility as it pertains to 2027? Just sort of trying to understand, are we harvesting the fruits of that earlier momentum? Or is there a continued momentum under the surface?

Yes. That's a great question. First of all, obviously, incredibly proud of what we've put up in the first half of the year. This is coming off the back of 3 years of double-digit growth in earnings and EPS and now having our second straight quarter of record earnings. Super proud of that result.

It's really broad-based, too, when you look across all the businesses, Lifestyle, both Connected Living and Auto, Housing, even international is performing well. So I think from that perspective, we feel really good. Obviously in great shape this year to deliver our 10th year consecutive earnings growth. And I think we like to highlight the resiliency of the business. And clearly, you see our leadership position showing through the momentum, as you said, with clients and obviously excited to raise the guidance for the full year.

As I think about the momentum broadly, you're right, we are certainly benefiting from the investments we made in '24 and '25. Those are now scaling. We're certainly optimizing the performance against many of those programs. So that's a big contributor to why things are performing so well in the first half year-over-year. I think we do have great momentum across the board. We've talked a lot about it. We had a great Nashville event, showcased some of the capabilities that we're building in mobile, helping demonstrate why we see great long-term opportunity for growth. We saw great growth in ESC, Financial Services. We're seeing auto inflect and then housing with Freedom Mortgage now giving us more power and scale over time. So I do think we'll continue to make investments. We've got lots of opportunities to do more with clients and certainly feel really good about our momentum heading into '27.

Maybe, Keith, would you like to add anything?

Yes. I think the only thing I would add is we've announced 4 additional programs last quarter for Connected Living. So I think that gives us some good momentum as we continue on through this year. And then as Keith mentioned, we also have some nice momentum with a large client win in housing.

So I think that good feeling that we had reaping the benefits of those investments, Mark, I think there's some good momentum still to come.

Excellent. And then on Global Automotive, I think, Keith, you might have just used the inflection word around growth. You've talked about kind of international partnerships. Could you maybe give a little more detail on what's changed there? Why the greater optimism?

Yes. I mean I think we've talked a lot about the work we've done over the last several years. Since 2022, we've put 26 rate increases in against a handful of client programs where we had some risk. So that is certainly benefiting our financial performance. And then we talk about momentum internationally and also, we think there's a great long-term opportunity with large dealers in the U.S. Our team is hyper focused on execution, very much in growth mode, trying to innovate and drive change in the market.

But what else would you add, Keith?

No. I think we have been pleased with how auto is continuing to progress. We saw the growth in international coming out where we focus more on OEMs, and we also have dealerships there, but we feel good about that. And then we also see opportunities to gain additional share with national dealers in the U.S. as well. So we're pleased with the progress we're making since the inflection point last year and continue to want to grow that business.

Our next question comes from Charlie Lederer with BMO.

Okay. So on housing, congrats on the new client win. In the past, you've alluded to the growth in this segment being helped by the hard market in insurance, which is moderating or reversing to an extent now. Should we expect that to lead some of your lender-placed policyholders to return to traditional home insurance policies? Are you seeing any of that? And was the change in the gross written premium trend this quarter in that segment, is that affected by that? Or was that related to the dynamic you called out in your prepared remarks?

Great. Maybe I'll start on the placement rate. I would say if you set aside the loan movement that we described, which was at a higher than normal placement rate, the underlying placement rate is very stable sequentially. It's actually still up year-over-year. So we're definitely seeing more moderation. We're not seeing the escalation of growth in placement rate as a result of the voluntary market challenges.

But I'd say it's very stable when we look at it. It deviates across state, as you'd imagine. I think Florida, we're -- year-to-date, we're down in policies about 2%. Texas, California were up 1% or 2%. On balance, very steady and very stable. I think we feel really good about our outlook going forward. And then layer on top of that, obviously, 2.6 million loans that will build over the next 12 months in terms of policies, and that will give us a nice opportunity to continue to drive growth.

But maybe Keith can share some thoughts as well.

Yes. And Charlie, you mentioned the gross written premium. That was due to the client that transferred a portion of their loan portfolio to another servicer. So that did affect the current quarter. But we feel good that the new client that we're putting on, that will more than compensate for that over the next 12 months. So we feel good about that continued momentum there.

And then maybe switching over to Lifestyle or Connected Living. The EBITDA growth year-over-year comparisons do get tougher here in the back half. I appreciate you had all the 4 new announcements last quarter. I guess how should we think about that growth trend evolving as we head into the back half?

Yes. And I think you've seen really good performance, in particular, in Connected Living with mobile. Our device protection subscribers are up 4 million year-over-year. You've seen a step change in devices serviced. Obviously, we've launched a lot of new programs around reverse logistics. Those 2 things are certainly benefiting, but we're also scaling across our client base as well.

So I do feel really good about how we're positioned. Certainly, as we look forward, I expect within Lifestyle, we're talking about low double-digit EBITDA growth in 2026. I think Connected Living will be the bigger driver of the 2, but auto is certainly performing well. And on balance, we feel really good about how we're situated for the rest of the year and obviously, how that builds momentum into 2027.

Our next question comes from Jeff Schmitt with William Blair.

Another question on the lender-placed business. Again, good to see the win, loans tracked are increasing. Are there other deals in the works? I mean, maybe if you could talk about your pipeline there, what that looks like? And just in general, are there a lot of opportunities in that market? I mean you have a high market share. So just curious.

Yes, it's sort of fascinating, right, because we do have a great market position, but I think that's allowed us to leverage our scale to deeply invest in our capabilities. And I feel like we've got a great pipeline of long-term opportunities for growth because we're so intensely focused on scaling and investing in this area. I think when you see announcements like a couple of years ago, bringing on Bank of America, now Freedom Mortgage, every time we launch another major client, we raise the bar in terms of what we deliver, the capabilities that we're investing in, how we're leveraging technology.

So I think as time goes on, our offerings become richer and more robust, and I think our opportunity for growth is better today than it was 3 years ago because of the investments we're making.

Okay. And then you continue to make good progress on the reverse logistics partnership that's driving high fee growth in Global Lifestyle. Just curious how much more capacity do you have in the Nashville device care center? And then maybe if you could just talk about the margins on that business versus your kind of core device protection business.

Yes. So Jeff, I would first say we've got device care centers in Nashville and also multiple centers in Texas as well. And we have plenty of room to expand and take on more business in those. So that is definitely not a gating item for us.

And then in terms of the contributions, we certainly were pleased with the contributions as we mature these programs in the second quarter. The device protection programs are the drivers for our economics, but it's certainly a nice complementary element and really just allows us to deliver unique value for the whole device life cycle ecosystem.

Yes. And one other thought is, as we operate very much as a global company, which is particularly true across lifestyle, we're building out and have infrastructure in most of our key markets in terms of device care centers, whether it's Canada, Japan, Europe, Australia, et cetera. So we feel really good that we're trying to build our ecosystem of services consistently around the world to create better long-term growth opportunities.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Tommy McJoynt with KBW.

Starting off on the Connected Living side, adjusted EBITDA in the first half was up almost 20% even after excluding the one-timers. Is there any correlation there to the global chip and memory shortage and your service of protecting and processing devices being able to generate outsized margins around that? Or is this strength really separate from that cycle and just a more structural and sustainable improvement?

Yes. So in terms of the quarter, I would say the biggest drivers are contributions across our supply chain business that we've talked about. Also the growth in our protection programs. And we have seen the maturing of our financial services business that have been contributing as well. So I think we've gotten contributions across the board there in the U.S. and then international is delivering too. So I think that's the biggest driver, Tommy, of the second quarter.

And then I think in general, the memory costs and new device prices, I think those are probably, call it, neutral to positive for us over the longer term. And there's lots of reasons for that. But a couple of highlights is, one, when devices are more expensive, people tend to want to protect them more. So that's usually a positive element for us. And then also, as the new phones are more expensive, it also allows us to take advantage of our certified pre-owned devices and be able to also fill a need for less expensive devices. So those are a couple of examples where I think it should be a good dynamic for us as those memory costs evolve.

Got it. And then switching over to the capital side and the priorities around that. When we look at the amount of dividends that you're getting from your subs up to the holdco and we think about the allocation of capital to interest and to paying the quarterly dividend, there's still a ton of excess capital across available for buybacks and M&A. Any interest in thinking about increasing your buybacks going, kind of, surpassing that $350 million you're targeting for this year? And then conversely, what are you guys looking at on the M&A front? Are there any pockets you're looking to fill in your processes? Or what can you say about that?

Yes. First of all, I would say, I appreciate you highlighting the great cash flow generation that we have in our businesses. We do have $911 million of liquidity at our holding company today. We did raise our repurchase outlook to the upper end of our $300 million to $350 million range. But overall, we really like the position we're in to have the flexibility to be able to make organic and M&A investments, as you touched on, Tommy.

We always have a pipeline of opportunities that we're looking at, and we want to make sure we are in a strong position to play offense and be able to invest for the long-term future. So we really like the position we're in currently, and we'll continue to make sure that we're being disciplined in terms of the capital allocation long term.

Our next question comes from Paul Newsome with Piper Sandler.

I was hoping you could touch on your most recent thoughts and what you're seeing from a claims inflation perspective in both the auto and the home business sort of ex cats. Not a ton of movement, but we've seen some inflation some -- in the CPI in some key areas that would affect your businesses. So curious as what your book is seeing.

Yes. I think, Paul, in terms of auto, it's been pretty stable actually quarter-over-quarter in terms of the CPI and what we're seeing specifically for our business. And then in housing, we see ourselves well positioned in terms of inflation there. We're not seeing it be an impact, and you saw that in our strong loss ratios this quarter. So I'd say it's been very manageable to this point. But I think on both fronts, we feel okay about inflation at the moment. And we've got lots of levers, as we've talked about in terms of how our businesses are resilient in different macroeconomic times.

Yes. And I think we've done a really good job certainly on the auto side, working with partners to manage claims costs to be as efficient as we can, but also put rate in as necessary, and that's a big mitigator to any inflation. And then I think as you know, on the housing side, we've got our automatic inflation guard feature. If you look at average insured values, they're up 5% year-over-year. We continue to see that as we move forward. So that's a nice offset to certainly inflationary pressure.

And then as we look at the quarter, certainly, Q2 was favorable from a loss ratio perspective for housing. But year-to-date, it's maybe a 100 basis point delta in the first half versus first half last year. So it's not a huge driver of our overall outperformance.

Maybe a quick follow-up. Just on the auto piece, some disagree in the industry about what's going on with frequency. Obviously, you're more indirect, but have you seen changes in even small ones and frequency of late?

I wouldn't say anything significant. I think in general, we're making the progress on our claims experience, both for the vehicle service contracts and our GAP program. So nothing that I would call out, Paul.

Our last question comes from Mark Hughes with Truist.

In the lender-placed business, you talked about not as much ramp in the current environment as you might have seen in earlier periods, still up in certain markets, down in Florida. How are you seeing that play out in terms of the duration of the policies as they come on board, I think one of the benefits you've seen is the lengthening of that duration. Is that reversing itself? Or are you just seeing fewer -- a deceleration in the pace of new loans coming into the placement rate?

Yes. I wouldn't say we've seen a meaningful change in the duration. We've certainly seen the duration extend over the last couple of years. I'd say it's holding relatively steady.

Okay. And then on the home warranty side, how productive has that brokerage relationship been? Is it meeting your expectations?

Yes. I mean, for sure, as far as -- if you want to launch a new program with a partner, they've been a fantastic client to partner with, I think, like I've talked about before, very aligned to the vision around serving consumers, leveraging technology, building the agent experience. A lot of work going on to continue to integrate and refine how we go to market, how we optimize. But yes, super excited, and I still feel very convicted about the long-term growth opportunity, and we're excited to continue to drive momentum forward.

All right. I think that was the last question. So just a couple of sign-off comments. First of all, super proud of where we sit year-to-date, looking forward very much to executing on the revised and increased outlook for 2026 to deliver our 10th year of growth. Thanks, everybody, for your time and look forward to speaking to you again next quarter. Have a great day.

Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.

Welcome to Assurant's First Quarter 2026 Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions].

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Sean Moshier, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We look forward to discussing our first quarter results with you today. Joining me for Assurant's conference call are Keith Demmings, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Keith Meier, our Chief Financial Officer.

Yesterday, after the market closed, we issued an earnings release announcing our results for the first quarter 2026. The release and corresponding financial supplement are available on assurant.com. Also on our website is a slide presentation for our webcast participants. Some of the statements made today are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements are based upon our historical and current expectations and subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements.

Additional information regarding these factors can be found in the earnings release, presentation and financial supplement on our website as well as in our SEC reports. During today's call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are important in analyzing the company's performance.

For more details on these measures, the most comparable GAAP measures and a reconciliation of the 2, please refer to the earnings release, presentation and financial supplement on our website. We'll start today's call with remarks before moving into Q&A. I will now turn the call over to Keith Demmings.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Following a remarkable 2025, where we delivered our third consecutive year of double-digit earnings and EPS growth, we're pleased to share that 2026 is off to a strong start. The first quarter represents the strongest performance in Assurant's history, driven by record earnings in Global Lifestyle.

We delivered 6% growth in adjusted EBITDA and 9% growth in adjusted EPS, both excluding reportable catastrophes. When excluding impacts from Global Housing's prior year reserve development, these metrics grew 8% and 12%, respectively. Once again, our diversified portfolio and disciplined execution supported strong performance in a dynamic operating environment.

Our results this quarter reflect the momentum we've built across the enterprise, supported by the durability of our earnings. We leveraged the strength and flexibility of our capital position to accelerate share repurchases during the quarter given our compelling valuation. At the center of our performance is our talented workforce, leading with insight, challenging convention and delivering with discipline. Their commitment continues to help us and our clients win together as we redefine protection and related services and create value across the markets we serve.

The first quarter represents an exceptional start to the year, reinforcing our path to achieving our 10th consecutive year of profitable growth. Turning to Global Lifestyle. We delivered an exceptional first quarter with double-digit earnings growth in both Connected Living and Global Automotive.

In Connected Living, earnings increased 18%, driven by expansion with existing clients and continued optimization of recently added programs. As our earnings benefit from the momentum we've built, we continue to execute on our compelling pipeline of new opportunities with 4 new mobile announcements this quarter.

First, our long-term agreement with T-Mobile supports our leadership and innovation in this space. Following the success of our reverse logistics partnership, we deepened our relationship following T-Mobile's acquisition of U.S. Cellular, successfully migrating another large in-force mobile subscriber base and contributing to an increase in our total devices protected that now stands at nearly 69 million devices globally.

Like our prior device protection migration with Sprint, this reflects our proven ability to quickly transition large complex device protection portfolios with minimal disruption and low subscriber churn, a critical proof point for potential new clients.

Taken together, these milestones reinforce the strength of our relationship with a leading U.S. carrier and highlight the strategic value of our integrated mobile protection, repair and logistics platform.

Second, we're extending our leadership in reverse logistics through a new opportunity with another large U.S. carrier. This engagement expands our existing services to support all device return and disposition channels. Returned devices will be repaired for circular usage, creating incremental value across their network. Devices will be processed through our highly automated Nashville device care center, demonstrating how our investments in scaled infrastructure and operational excellence are enabling us to deepen relationships with key mobile partners and unlock new growth opportunities.

Third, we recently expanded our partnership with Xfinity Mobile through a new rate plan that includes lifetime device protection for phones, tablets and watches and includes a benefit that allows customers to receive a phone upgrade anytime. These benefits are embedded in Xfinity's Mobile Plus plan at a single bundled cost to customers.

This milestone builds on our 10-year partnership with Xfinity and underscores our shared focus on long-term customer value. And finally, following last year's introduction of Verizon's Total Wireless Protect, we expanded the offering to now include a more comprehensive loss and theft product. In addition, we recently launched Straight Talk Protect. This collaboration represents our third prepaid brand with Verizon and further strengthens our footprint with this major carrier. Our success over the last 2 years in mobile has built extraordinary momentum. Our embedded scalable model demonstrates mobile's multiple growth paths, deep client entanglement and our innovation-led operating model.

Turning to Global Automotive. Following an inflection year in 2025, earnings increased 23% in the quarter, benefiting from higher investment income and continued loss improvement. Our performance this quarter positions the business for continued growth in 2026 as we remain focused on solidifying and expanding existing partnerships and winning new business across the globe.

To support future growth, we're advancing capabilities utilizing AI across the business. Throughout 2026, we'll be introducing new products and capabilities fueled by AI focused on enhancing dealership training, streamlining claims processing and improving customer experience while leveraging our scale to drive share gains with existing partners and win in the marketplace.

Turning to Global Housing. Following 2025's performance, where we surpassed $1 billion in adjusted EBITDA, excluding cats, our first quarter results position us for solid underlying earnings growth in 2026, excluding prior year development. Underlying performance in the quarter was driven by double-digit top line growth in homeowners.

For the year, we continue to expect a combined ratio in the low to mid-80s. This excludes prior year development and reflects our full year cat assumption of $185 million. We differentiate Housing's performance through strong returns, client retention and renewal execution.

During the first quarter, we completed 2 long-term renewals with large lender-placed partners, representing over 5 million loans. As we look at the remainder of 2026, we see clear opportunities to further build upon our market-leading position as we execute on our robust new business pipeline. In renters, we continue to see strength in our property management company channel, supporting ongoing growth in policies and reinforcing the effectiveness of our strategy. This channel continues to grow premiums double digits as today, we serve 6 of the top 10 PMCs.

Our partners are realizing significant benefits from our platform. Throughout 2026, we remain focused on scaling our latest version of Cover360, which is driving double-digit penetration and premium lift across our PMC client base. Assurant continues to differentiate our performance while reinforcing our attractive valuation and compelling investment profile.

Our differentiated portfolio of lifestyle and housing businesses continues to deliver diversified earnings and cash flow, supporting strong returns, robust cash flow and attractive growth with lower volatility. Since 2020, we've grown adjusted EBITDA at an 11% compounded annual growth rate, while growing adjusted EPS at a 17% CAGR, both excluding catastrophes.

This was supported by strong returns, generating an average ROE of approximately 14% and a return on tangible equity over 30%. Our outperformance against the broader S&P 1500 P&C Group demonstrates our multiyear track record of differentiated results.

Over the last 5 years, we've outperformed the group median for adjusted EBITDA and EPS, including cats and in line or better when excluding cats. Finally, I'll provide an update on Assurant Home Warranty. While we're still very early, the launch of our new long-term relationship with Compass International Holdings spanning 6 U.S. real estate brands continues to progress well.

As we ramp, we're working closely with Compass to drive agent education, marketing, product penetration and a positive customer experience. We believe our Home Warranty solutions are resonating in the market, reinforcing our confidence in both our strategy and our ability to scale over time. For Assurant overall, first quarter was a strong start to the year, supported by the durability of our earnings model, the strength of our partnerships and our disciplined execution across the enterprise. We are proud of the long-term performance we've continued to drive, delivering consistently, investing for growth and creating value for shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Keith Meier to speak to the underlying growth levers of our business, including our updated 2026 outlook. With that, Keith, over to you.

Thanks, Keith, and good morning, everyone. 2026 is off to an excellent start. We're excited about our performance and our increased outlook for the full year. We're operating from a position of strength, reflecting our powerful B2B2C distribution strategy in both Lifestyle & Housing. We continue to embed innovation across everything we do, deploying technology enhancements, including AI and automation to drive simpler, faster and more consistent outcomes for our clients and customers.

Our results this quarter are the product of disciplined execution and our commitment to operational excellence as we deliver differentiated customer experiences and attractive returns for shareholders. Before reviewing our updated 2026 outlook, let me start by highlighting our strong first quarter results, beginning with Global Lifestyle. First quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 20% or $39 million compared to last year.

Results included a $13 million real estate joint venture gain, of which $10 million was in Global Automotive. Within Connected Living, EBITDA growth was 18% or $22 million, led by continued expansion with existing clients and optimization of recently added programs.

Strong growth within our mobile device protection programs was supported by the addition of over 4 million subscribers across our U.S. and international partnerships, including T-Mobile's conversion of U.S. Cellular to Assurant. In global trade-in and reverse logistics, we processed nearly 7.5 million devices, an increase of approximately 2 million, driven by our reverse logistics programs and underlying organic growth.

In Global Automotive, adjusted EBITDA increased 23% or $17 million, including $10 million from the real estate gain. Excluding that gain, earnings in Global Auto increased 9% or $7 million. This growth was driven by continued improvement in loss experience following prior rate actions, enhancements to claims processes and product designs within our vehicle service contract offerings and improved performance in our Guaranteed Asset Protection or GAP product.

For Global Lifestyle overall, net earned premiums, fees and other income grew 11%, primarily driven by Connected Living growth from mobile trade-in and global protection programs as well as the recent launch of our partnership with Best Buy. Moving to Global Housing. First quarter adjusted EBITDA was $237 million, including $24 million of reportable catastrophes.

Excluding cats, adjusted EBITDA was $261 million. Absent the impacts of lower favorable prior period reserve development, underlying results were level year-over-year. First quarter results included a more normalized non-cat loss ratio of approximately 38%, excluding prior year development, aligned with our expectations. This compared to a loss ratio in first quarter of 2025 that was lower than typical. Strong growth from higher in-force policies and average premiums in lender-placed allowed us to offset a more normalized loss ratio.

Additionally, we saw growth from specialty products and higher investment income. Turning to our cat reinsurance program. We are very pleased with the outcome of our 2026 program placement, which was finalized on April 1. Through our continued partnership with roughly 40 highly rated reinsurers, we secured strong coverage once again with more favorable terms than the prior year.

Our per event retention of $160 million is consistent with our retention from our 2025 program, representing a 1 in 5-year Probable Maximum Loss or PML. Our main U.S. program provides nearly $1.6 billion of loss coverage in excess of our retention, protecting Assurant and its policyholders against severe events for up to a 1-in-265-year PML.

Our protection in Florida is even more robust with $1.8 billion of loss coverage in excess of our retention. In terms of costs, our 2026 catastrophe reinsurance premiums are estimated to be approximately $180 million compared to approximately $200 million in 2025.

The reduction reflects favorable market pricing, the strength of our portfolio and lower Florida exposures. Lastly, in Corporate and Other, first quarter adjusted EBITDA loss was $32 million, which includes investments made in our Home Warranty business.

Turning to capital. Our liquidity position at quarter end was $836 million, providing flexibility to continue to invest in growth, return capital to shareholders and support future opportunities that enable Assurant to drive innovation for our clients and customers.

This quarter, we returned $169 million to our shareholders, including $125 million of share repurchases and $44 million in dividends. Our strong capital position allowed us the flexibility to accelerate our repurchase plans during the first quarter. Through May 1, we repurchased an additional $30 million. Over the remainder of the year, we'll continue to evaluate capital deployment opportunities using a disciplined and balanced approach.

Let's move on to our outlook for 2026. We now expect full year adjusted EBITDA and earnings per share to grow low single digits, both excluding cats, overcoming $94 million of lower favorable prior year reserve development. This includes $113 million in 2025 and $19 million in the first quarter of 2026.

Excluding the impact of prior year development, we expect high single-digit underlying growth in both adjusted EBITDA and earnings per share, excluding cats. Global Lifestyle is expected to lead the growth for Assurant. We're increasing our outlook for Lifestyle and now expect growth of approximately 10%, reflecting our strong first quarter results.

Connected Living results for the year will benefit from continued optimization of new programs, expansion with existing clients and contributions from recently announced new programs and capabilities, demonstrating the returns we've achieved through previous investments.

Global Auto is expected to grow from higher investment income, continued loss improvement and growth of global partnerships.

Turning to Global Housing. Our outlook has improved, and we now expect earnings to decline only modestly, excluding cats. Absent prior year development, we continue to expect solid underlying growth for the full year. Consistent with our past approach, our 2026 outlook does not contemplate potential prior year reserve development for the remainder of the year.

In lender-placed, we expect growth to be driven by higher tracked loans and in-force policy growth from expected new client wins and the continued hardening of the voluntary Homeowners market. From a placement rate perspective, we anticipate some quarterly fluctuations from client loan movements during the year. From a capital perspective, our strong cash generation creates flexibility, enabling us to reinvest for growth, including M&A and return excess capital to shareholders. For 2026, we now expect share repurchases of $300 million to $350 million, which is at the high end of our initial range from the beginning of the year and is subject to M&A and other market conditions.

Our first quarter results demonstrate the strength and consistency of Assurant's differentiated business model. We look forward to executing on our increased financial objectives while delivering results for our clients and shareholders throughout the year. With that, operator, please open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

The Connected Living results are quite strong in the quarter. Can you talk about the kind of your longer-term view on that business, up 18% earnings. You got a good slide on a lot of the new business wins and renewals.

Are you thinking that, that is a faster growth business? Or are we just kind of hitting it at a good peak here where you're executing on the pipeline, but it may not be sustained at this level?

Yes. I mean it's certainly a fantastic start to the year overall. And if you look back the last 3 years or so, we've grown our EBITDA and EPS overall double digits and a fantastic way to start the year this year with significant performance, our best year -- our best quarter, sorry, in history and then Lifestyle, obviously, delivering outstanding results.

So I think when I look at it, I'd probably highlight 3 big drivers. First is you've seen the scaling of our device protection subscriber counts over the last year. It's up at 4.3 million subs year-over-year. And that's a lot of hard work, a lot of innovation with partners. We've done incredible things with our cable partners.

We've launched new clients like Total Wireless, which is contributing significantly. We've launched programs internationally with clients like Telstra, and then obviously, with U.S. Cellular and our relationship with T-Mobile, that's driving a lot of momentum across the Board for our protection business. That's certainly the biggest driver of our overall outperformance in Connected Living.

But I'd also say we're maturing some of the nonmobile programs that we've announced to the market as well. Our relationship with Best Buy being one example, our relationship with Chase, these are 2 really important clients for us, and they're growing and contributing nicely.

And then finally, you saw a lot of growth in devices serviced, not just from our trade-in programs maturing and driving organic growth, but also the investments we've made in reverse logistics. So it does feel like we're in a great position. I feel great about how we look for the future.

I want to ask -- I don't know if you think of it this way, but the market share that you have got, if you kind of put the main Verizon, AT&T programs to the side, I'm sure that's within your target area. But if you look at the size of the market, aside from those 2 big pieces of business, how much share do you think you have? How much more opportunity is there for further growth?

Yes. I still think there's a lot of white space in this market, particularly as we think about the globe. We're in obviously more than 20 countries around the world. Programs continue to mature. I think the product set continues to evolve. We've got a really deep value chain that we deliver across a wide range of services. So I think there's a tremendous amount of upside. And we're innovating. We're winning with new entrants, and we're scaling in a way that's meaningful. So I do feel really good about -- and then maybe, Keith, you want to add?

And I think when you think about Connected Living overall on top of that, we have opportunities in the extended service contract side, and you saw that with Best Buy. And then we also have our Financial Services business performing well with the addition of Chase and other marquee clients.

So I think when you look at Connected Living in terms of what the opportunities are in the future, I think there's a lot of white space and opportunities ahead.

Our next question comes from Tommy McJoynt with Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods.

Staying on the same topic here, you've had some really good success with those 2 largest carriers in the U.S. being Verizon and AT&T. Can you start off just rehashing, reminding us all of the services that you're now providing for each of those carriers?

Yes. Happy to do it certainly at a high level. And you're right. I mean, we've been making progress really across the Board in the U.S. with every major operator. And if you think back to the acquisition that we made of HYLA back in 2020, a big part of that was they did a lot of great work with partners that we weren't necessarily doing as much with.

So with Verizon, certainly, the growth that we've seen on the prepaid side, we support their Visible brand. Their Total brand and now Straight Talk Wireless, and it's a fantastic relationship. We're innovating and launching new products, and we're super excited there. We provide a range of supply chain-related services as well.

And then with AT&T, we do a lot of work around the supply chain, historically a big trade-in partner for us. And to your point, long-term opportunity. It's all about building deep relationships, solving problems, building trust over time and then looking to find creative ways to innovate.

And your remarks there are sort of noting the fact that these large carriers often have different prepaid brands, something that I had admittedly overlooked. Does a similar dynamic exist on the postpaid side such that there could be an opportunity to win select postpaid segments for the big carriers? Or are those more of an all-or-nothing nationally campaign?

Yes. I think -- I mean you could think of it, there are certainly opportunities if you separate consumer from enterprise. So you could have postpaid customers that are consumer branded versus enterprise branded small business, et cetera. But generally speaking, most of the postpaid is under a single brand and it's managed by a single provider. Not to say you couldn't have variation to that over time, but that's typically how it works.

Our next question comes from Jeffrey Schmitt with William Blair.

Could you talk about your growth strategy for the new Home Warranty business, just in terms of building that out beyond the Compass partnership and how you plan on doing that? And are you building out the contractor network as well there?

Yes. I mean, we absolutely are. I think first thing I'd say is we're super happy with the partnership we have with Compass. Obviously, we're still very early in terms of the ramp and the rollout, but there's complete alignment about the importance of delivering for customers, keeping the agents at the center of everything that we do and then leveraging technology to integrate the offer naturally into the real estate process.

So I feel really good. Volumes are ramping. The agents continue to get educated about our solution. And I would say our message and our vision of what we're trying to do is definitely resonating in the market. In terms of other opportunity, yes, I mean, right now, we're certainly having many conversations with potential long-term partners, whether that's with current affinity clients that we do business with today or whether it's looking at additional opportunities to serve the real estate sector. I feel good there's multiple ways for us to drive growth. And I think our solution is unique and our story is resonating. So I'm super happy about where we're headed. But maybe, Meier, do you want to add?

Yes. And Jeff, you mentioned the contractor network. When you think about that, we have clients like Best Buy and Lowe's, where we do a tremendous amount of appliance and all the related services in the home. And then we have other programs as well that round out several of the other Home Warranty services.

So we have actually a very robust network that I think positions us in even stronger and better ways than some of the traditional players, and we're able to leverage that.

And remember, we've been working on this rollout for well over a year to bring this to market in terms of the product, the service network and the full solution set. So this is not something we started 3 months ago, even though that's what it feels like in terms of the announcement in the market.

Right, right. Okay. And then how much revenue is the new Best Buy legacy book adding in Global Lifestyle? And are those products, do they typically have multiyear contracts? How should we think about that ramp? Is it over 1 year, over a couple of years?

Yes, Jeff. And you should think about it as definitely there's a mix of shorter-term and longer-term contracts. So they can range from a couple of years to 5 years, that kind of range. So those earn over time. And we also did the assumption in the fourth quarter as well.

So that will help some of those earnings coming through faster than they would have otherwise. But overall, you should see that evolving over the coming several years.

Our next question comes from Charlie Lederer with BMO Capital Markets.

On the new announcements in mobile, is there any sort of upfront spending you'd call out that we should think about as offsetting the strong growth in EBITDA in Lifestyle that you're experiencing? And more broadly, can you help dimension the impact and ramp we should expect on those programs?

Sure. Certainly, U.S. Cellular was a move of an in-force block. So that starts to contribute immediately. There's a little bit of investment upfront to bring that to life, but that's behind us at this point. So I would suggest that's immediately accretive as we think about the run rate going forward.

The other 3 examples, I would say they'll be accretive to EBITDA in aggregate, certainly this year. So there's not a big investment spend I would call out. I think they'll contribute positively this year. And then they'll ramp more naturally over time, but it's certainly not a drag as we think about '26.

And then maybe just on auto, you're clearly starting to get better results. Do you feel like you're out of the woods on loss costs there? Written premiums were down a little bit in the quarter. And I'd imagine you're still fairly early days as far as being on risk on some of the policies that were underwritten in that inflationary '22 time frame. Can you give us a sense, I guess, on claims frequency of those vintages, too?

Yes. I would say last year, we talked about being a bit of an inflection year for us. And we've seen that roll into this year. Auto had a good quarter. We had favorable loss experience continuing, and that also is aided by our prior rate increases, the enhancements we've been making to the claims processes, the product designs that we've been working on with our clients.

And I think overall, it really speaks to the success that our auto team has been having in working with our clients to arrive at mutually beneficial outcomes. So overall, I think that we feel good about where that business is today.

And just lastly, did you guys update your cat outlook? I don't know if I missed that for the full year?

Yes. So our cat assumption for this year is $185 million, up modestly from $175 million last year, and that's mainly due to the growth of the business. And I would say in terms of our cat reinsurance, we are very pleased with the coverage that we secured this year.

Our program costs are expected to be about $180 million this year, down about $20 million from the $200 million from last year. And I think that really reflects the favorable market pricing that was out there, the strength of our performance of our portfolio. And then also, we have a little bit lower Florida exposures.

So overall, we've been pleased with how that's come together, and that kicks in or kicked in on April 1. And from a comparative rate standpoint from last year, we were down north of 20%. And so overall, the outcome, I think, was very positive, and we kind of stayed in that 1-in-5-year PML for the retention and at the top of the tower, about 1-in-265-year. So pretty consistent from last year.

Maybe just a quick follow-up on that. I mean, should we think about the seasonality of your cat load being a little different just given the geographic shifts that you're speaking to?

Yes. I think it's -- as it has been historically, I think the latter half of the year with the hurricane season is typically the -- where it would be weighted more so to that and obviously, mostly in the third quarter-ish kind of time frame.

Our next question comes from Brian Meredith with UBS.

So a couple of them. First, just on the global housing, placement rates keep picking up here. And I'm assuming that's still a function of the tight Homeowners market. I'm wondering if you could give us a little color on -- it seems like the Homeowners market is starting to at least loosen up in some states even outside of Florida.

Do you expect that placement rate to kind of peak out here and maybe trend downwards here as the market kind of opens up a little bit here?

Yes. I mean we've talked about -- as we think about the year, we expect to add additional loans to the portfolio. We do think policy counts go up over the balance of the year. We'll see some fluctuation in placement rate. It hasn't really showed up yet in terms of the shifting away from the hard voluntary market.

We're still seeing pretty strong growth in California and Texas. It's probably half the growth sequentially. The other half is other states and Florida is relatively stable. So I do feel like we haven't seen evidence of a major shift yet in terms of that trend line, but it's something we're certainly watching very closely. But we feel good about how we're positioned as we think about the full year within that business and the pipeline of opportunities that we've got that our teams are working on actively.

Got you. And then my second question is you talked a fair amount about how AI is going to enhance, call it, customer experience and streamlining some processing functions, et cetera. I'm wondering from a productivity perspective, how you're kind of approaching it? And is there any kind of KPIs or something we look at from a maybe margin enhancement or something that could potentially happen here over the next couple of years from what you're doing with AI? I imagine there's a lot of opportunity in your business for productivity improvements.

Yes. Maybe I'll start and Keith can certainly add in, and we'll think about over time, if there are metrics that can make sense. I'd say there's no doubt we think we can improve the customer experience. So set aside efficiency for a second. There are so many ways to remove friction to serve customers better, which is great for business, great for our clients.

That also comes with efficiency gains as well. I think there's phenomenal opportunities to upskill our talent to protect our talent and leverage them in new and different ways. I think we're leaning into more personalized services as we think about matching various product designs for what customer needs look like.

We're doing a lot of work around robotics and automation in our facilities. So there's a tremendous amount of leverage. I think this is going to be a game changer for our company over time. And I think we're incredibly focused on high-value use cases that we can bring to scale. And I think focus is key, and I think we're on a really good track to deliver that. But what would you add, Keith?

Yes. And I think, Brian, as you mentioned, what kind of metrics to look at, I'll give you a good example of that. If you look at Housing, our general expenses are in the last year are up 2% and our revenues, our net earned premiums fees and other income is up double digit, 11%.

And so you're seeing us through our technology, getting that expense leverage. And I think those are continuing to be areas where our technology is certainly helping us from an efficiency and expense perspective. But it's actually also helping us differentiate against the competition and really be able to deliver the great customer experiences.

So I think we win on both fronts, and that's why we're really passionate about the technology and having global platforms that allow us to make these things happen.

[Operator Instructions] Our last question comes from Mark Hughes with Truist Securities.

I had to switch screens there. The fee income in Lifestyle was quite strong. You talked about good momentum in the reverse logistics program growth. I assume that's a contributor to that. I think the number of devices serviced was up quite strongly.

Was that helped by any particular programs in the first quarter, recognizing there's some seasonality there, but there seem to be a lot of strength. I know there's timing on some of these programs that could influence that business. How should we think about the coming quarters there in that dimension?

Yes. I think you were thinking about it right, Mark, in terms of it being driven by our trade-in, reverse logistics side of the business. Devices serviced have been growing significantly, and that's where that fee income has been growing as well. And then you also highlighted there is some seasonality into that.

So we had a very strong quarter as it relates to the trade-in side. And then we're looking forward to continuing the progress we have with our clients in providing these reverse logistics and other trade-in services as we go forward. So we feel good overall about the momentum.

Yes. Does that say nothing particularly unusual about the first quarter, no special programs. There is some variability there, but was there anything unusually robust about Q1?

Yes. I would say it's more of the seasonality. And then also -- I think it was also contributions across multiple programs, Mark. And obviously, some of the newer programs gearing up as well. But I think it was well balanced with some seasonality.

All right. I think that was the last question. So again, thanks for joining. We look forward to talking to everyone after the second quarter, and I know we'll see many of you at our mobile event in Nashville next week. So we look forward to that. And thanks again. Have a great day.

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.

Welcome to Assurant's Fourth Quarter 2025 Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] And the floor will be open for your questions following management's prepared remarks. We ask that you please hold all questions until the completion of the formal remarks, at which time you will be given instructions for the question-and-answer session. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Sean Moshier, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We look forward to discussing our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results with you today. Joining me for Assurant's conference call are Keith Demmings, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Keith Meier, our Chief Financial Officer. Yesterday, after the market closed, we issued a news release announcing our results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. The release and corresponding financial supplement are available on assurant.com. Also on our website is a slide presentation for our webcast participants. Some of the statements made today are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements are based upon our historical performance and current expectations and subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements.

Additional information regarding these factors can be found in the earnings release, presentation and financial supplement on our website as well as in our SEC reports. During today's call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are important in evaluating the company's performance. For more details on these measures, the most comparable GAAP measures and a reconciliation of the 2, please refer to the news release and supporting materials. We'll start today's call with remarks before moving into Q&A. I will now turn the call over to Keith Demmings.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. 2025 was an exceptional year for Assurant, marking our ninth consecutive year of profitable growth. Our business model continues to outperform, supported by disciplined investment in innovation across lifestyle and housing businesses. These investments are delivering simpler faster and more consistent outcomes for clients and are reinforcing a strong foundation for long-term value creation. In 2025, we delivered another year of double-digit growth including 11% for adjusted EBITDA and 12% for adjusted earnings per share, both excluding catastrophes.

Including catastrophes, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS grew 16% and 19%, underscoring the strength and resiliency of Assurant. At the core of that performance and what truly differentiates us is our people. Around the world, our team show up every day with a relentless commitment to clients and customers. Their dedication continues to elevate our market leadership. I'm proud we were recognized on Forbes World's Best Employers list, and we continue to be named amongst Fortune's America's most innovative companies. These recognitions reflect a culture grounded in collaboration, accountability and a drive to make a meaningful impact.

Our results this year build on a multiyear track record of strong, resilient performance, highlighting earnings durability. Since 2020, adjusted EBITDA, excluding cats, has increased by well over $700 million, representing an 11% compound annual growth rate. At the same time, adjusted EPS, excluding cats, grew to $22.81 per share, delivering a high teens compound annual growth rate. Over the last 5 years, we generated an average ROE of approximately 14% and a return on tangible equity over 30%. Together, our strong growth and financial return profile delivered a total shareholder return of 93% over this period.

Turning to our operating segment highlights. In 2025, Global Lifestyle delivered mid-single-digit adjusted EBITDA growth, reflecting increased momentum in Connected Living and Global Automotive. We are positioning the business for additional growth by investing in innovation to expand programs and product capabilities for clients and in consumers. Across Connected Living and Global Automotive, we are transforming operations through our intense focus on technology, including artificial intelligence to support clients, deliver efficiencies and improve the customer experience. In Connected Living, adjusted EBITDA grew mid-single digits. Over the last 2 years, we prioritized investments that are delivering earnings growth and supporting expansion across client programs. In mobile, we added nearly 2 million protected devices over the past year through new programs and strategic wins. Today, we protect over 66 million devices globally. Subscriber growth remains strong supported by the expansion of device protection programs globally, including with U.S. device protection clients who continue to win in the market.

We also deepened key carrier partnerships this year. Early in 2025, we launched a new device protection plan with Verizon's fast-growing no contract wireless provider total wireless. As previewed on our third quarter call, we expanded our T-Mobile relationship through a multiyear reverse logistics agreement and opened a dedicated state-of-the-art logistics facility. Looking to 2026, we see additional opportunities to grow with T-Mobile. We continue to be excited about the additional near-term opportunities within the reverse logistics space with other large U.S. mobile carriers. Together, these examples reinforce our role as a long-term strategic partner within the carrier ecosystem.

In retail extended service contracts, we continue to build momentum across appliances and consumer electronics, including the expansion of our partnership with Best Buy to support their Geek Squad protection program. Following our third quarter announcement of this new program, we're now servicing the back book of existing protection policies, meaningfully increasing our scale as we focus on optimizing the program in the coming quarters. We also saw strong progress in financial services as we scaled our card benefits business with the completion of the first full year of our partnership with Chase Card Services, supporting benefits for millions of cardholders nationwide and also recently expanding our relationship in the U.K.

This past year, Global Automotive also delivered mid-single-digit earnings growth in what was a significant year for the business. We expanded our presence with national dealer groups, third-party administrators and OEMs now protecting 57 million vehicles, nearly 2 million more than last year. After several key wins throughout 2025, we launched a new partnership with a top 25 dealer group in the U.S. and renewed a key national dealer partnership. We also accelerated progress in heavy equipment and lease and finance businesses, adding 4 new partnerships with heavy equipment manufacturers and renewing 10 agreements with key lending partners. Entering 2026, Global Auto is well positioned with momentum across major channels.

Turning to Global Housing. Adjusted EBITDA grew double digits, excluding catastrophes, with earnings surpassing $1 billion, more than doubling since 2022. This year demonstrated the differentiated profile of our specialized housing business, achieving a very strong underlying combined ratio of 80%, excluding favorable prior year reserve development. In homeowners, our lender-placed business continued to serve a critical role in the U.S. mortgage market. As the voluntary homeowners market is hardened, more homeowners rely on lender-placed insurance to protect their homes. This drove a 5% increase in in-force policies year-over-year.

During the year, we renewed 4 major lender place partnerships, representing more than 4 million loans tracked. We see clear opportunities to expand our market position in 2026. In renters, our technology-enabled services, including our Cover 360 platform, continue to differentiate Assurant in the marketplace. We delivered meaningful top line growth and increased renters policies by 15%, supported by onboarding a new portfolio that expanded our footprint and unlock future growth potential. We reinforced our market position by signing several new PMCs and renewing key partnerships, including 3 of our top 5 partners. Overall, our market-leading positions in scale in housing allow continued technology investments, leading to attractive expense and combined ratios while providing an exceptional experience for both our clients and customers.

Across Assurant, we executed against our priorities that remain central to our strategy. This year, we expanded offerings and attachment rates with existing partners, won new clients globally and continue to invest in core markets where we see long-term value creation. These examples show how leading with insight, challenging convention and delivering with discipline help us and our clients win and redefine the boundaries of protection in the market. We were excited to announce our new relationship with Compass International Holdings. We recently signed a long-term agreement across 6 of their U.S. real estate brands. This launch expands our total addressable market in home protection and extends our reach directly into the real estate channel making Assurant home warranty available to hundreds of thousands of affiliated agents across participating Compass International Holdings brands.

We see a clear path to long-term leadership in home warranty driven by 3 core advantages. First, we have a proven track record of executing successful channel expansion by partnering with market-leading clients and building solutions aligned to their strategic objectives. Within Assurant Home Warranty, we're applying the same highly collaborative operating model and senior-level engagement that enabled us to scale and differentiate our mobile business. As a result, we're already seeing growing interest across the broader real estate ecosystem and from existing Assurant partners who view home warranty as a natural extension of their customer relationships.

Second, we're leveraging our global capabilities at scale. We bring decades of experience managing service networks, underwriting risk, administering claims and supporting customers across mobile, auto and home protection. Our ability to integrate seamlessly in a partner workflows reduces friction for agents and delivers more consistent, reliable outcomes for homeowners. Third and most importantly, we deliver exceptional customer experiences. Historically, home warranty has been defined by complexity and inconsistency creating friction for both homeowners and agents. We believe the market opportunity will grow by earning trust. Our solution is built around customer-first claims resolution and a nationwide network of service professionals focused on quality and reliability.

Ultimately, we're bringing greater clarity, simplicity and confidence, giving agents a solution they can stand behind and homeowners a reason to renew year after year. Taken together, these strengths reinforce our confidence in our path towards leadership in home warranty and our ability to scale over the long term. As we begin 2026, we expect increasing momentum in Global Lifestyle with high single-digit earnings growth anticipated for the year and continued underlying strength in Global Housing. While we continue investing in home warranty and other strategic priorities, we expect to deliver strong underlying results as we execute our long-term strategy.

Before turning the call over to Keith, I want to thank our clients for their trust and partnership and the entire Assurant team for tremendous work throughout the year. Your dedication and commitment to excellence define who we are and position us for another strong year ahead. Keith, over to you.

Thanks, Keith, and good morning, everyone. 2025 was definitely another outstanding year for Assurant. Through the commitment of our teams, we executed on key priorities and reinforced our market-leading positions with strong financial performance across housing and lifestyle. Our performance was underscored by yet another exceptional year in Global Housing, where we delivered 15% adjusted EBITDA growth, excluding reportable cats, representing our third consecutive year of double-digit earnings growth. Within Global Lifestyle, earnings grew across both businesses, supported by new partnerships and programs in Connected Living, and continued loss improvement in Global Automotive.

At the same time, we invested in partnerships to drive value for all stakeholders, advancing our innovation road map and strengthening product differentiation as we leverage global technology to create customized new products and unlock new growth paths. This was capped off by our entrance into the attractive home warranty market, where we see a path to market leadership. We're excited about our trajectory heading into 2026. Before getting into this year's outlook, let me start by highlighting our fourth quarter results, beginning with Global Lifestyle. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 2% compared to last year, with year-over-year growth impacted by an unfavorable $7 million non-run rate mobile inventory adjustment in Connected Living.

Excluding this item, Global Lifestyle's underlying adjusted EBITDA grew 6% or $11 million. Within Connected Living, underlying EBITDA growth was 7% or $9 million, led by global mobile device protection programs and modest growth in mobile trade-in programs. The strength of our mobile device protection programs was supported by subscriber growth across the U.S. and with our international clients. In Global trade in, we continue to see higher contributions across U.S. mobile partners. Our trade-in and reverse logistics business has benefited from the use of robotics and AI to assess mobile device quality and process trade-ins with greater speed and consistency.

This has presented a powerful opportunity at facilities like our innovation and device care center near Nashville, to support higher average selling prices and create more value for our clients and end consumers. In Global Automotive, adjusted EBITDA increased 3%. Prior rate increases and enhancements to claims processes continue to improve loss experience. Our guaranteed asset protection or GAAP product, also improved in recent quarters as we proactively reduced claims risk. For Global Lifestyle, our net earned premiums, fees and other income grew 7% primarily driven by Connected Living growth from mobile protection and trade-in programs and the recent launch of our partnership with Best Buy to support their Geek Squad protection program.

Moving to Global Housing. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $276 million, including $9 million of reportable catastrophes. Excluding cats, adjusted EBITDA increased 3% to $285 million. After considering impacts of lower prior period reserve development, underlying growth was 8%. Results benefited from continued top line growth in lender place due to higher in-force policies and average premiums Specialty products, including our manufactured housing business also contributed to growth. Finally, our liquidity position at year-end was $887 million, providing flexibility to continue to invest in growth return capital to shareholders and support future opportunities.

This quarter, we returned $138 million to our shareholders, including $94 million of share repurchases and $44 million in dividends. This brings our 2025 share repurchases to $300 million, ending at the top end of our expected range. As we enter 2026 with an attractive valuation, we've repurchased an additional $30 million through February 6. We'll continue to evaluate the best uses of capital using a disciplined and balanced approach. During 2025, we completed 4 small acquisitions to enhance our products and capabilities. This included the fourth quarter acquisition of RL Circular Operations, a reverse logistics division of TIC Group based in Australia and New Zealand. This acquisition will help us bolster our reverse logistics capabilities through AI-based technologies, which we'll look to deploy across other regions.

Additionally, in November, we increased our dividend by 10% and marking our 21st consecutive year of increases. Let's move on to our outlook for 2026. We expect full year adjusted EBITDA and earnings per share to be consistent with 2025 levels both excluding cats, given the $113 million of favorable prior year reserve development within our 2025 results. Excluding this impact, we expect mid- to high single-digit growth in both adjusted EBITDA and earnings per share, excluding cats. To deliver these objectives, we expect to generate EBITDA growth of over $130 million, overcoming the $113 million of 2025 prior year development, and incremental investments for Assurant Home Warranty in 2026.

We expect Global Lifestyle to lead the underlying growth of the enterprise with high single-digit earnings expansion. Connected Living growth is expected to be driven by continued optimization of new programs, expansion with existing clients and contributions from recently announced new programs and capabilities. Global Auto is expected to grow from higher investment income, continued loss improvement and growth of global partnerships. Turning to Global Housing. We expect solid underlying growth excluding the favorable 2025 prior year reserve development of $113 million. Consistent with our past approach, our 2026 outlook does not contemplate additional prior year reserve development.

In lender-placed, we expect growth to be driven by higher tracked loans from expected new client wins and the continued hardening of the voluntary homeowners market. From a placement rate perspective, we anticipate some quarterly fluctuations from client loan movements during the year. For our 2026 catastrophe reinsurance program, we are currently working through the placement which will be effective on April 1. Overall, we expect a similar structure to our 2025 program, maintaining robust coverage at both the top and bottom end of our program. Our annual cat load assumption for this year is estimated to be between $180 million and $185 million. We'll provide additional information on the program on our May earnings call.

For corporate, we expect an EBITDA loss of approximately $140 million, which includes incremental investments related to Assurant Home Warranty. We currently expect this to be our most substantial organic investment across Assurant in 2026. From a capital perspective, strong cash generation creates flexibility enabling us to reinvest for growth, including M&A and return excess capital to shareholders. After a strong year of repurchases, we expect our 2026 repurchases to be in the range of $250 million to $350 million, subject to M&A as well as market and other conditions. This represents an increase from last year's range of $200 million to $300 million, demonstrating the confidence we have in business growth and our ability to generate meaningful cash flows.

Our full year results and financial performance, commercial momentum and our outlook for 2026 reinforced the strength of our businesses and the value we bring to all of our stakeholders. With that, operator, please open the call for questions.

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Charlie Lederer at BMO.

I guess I wanted to start with -- I know you don't like to anchor to the written premium KPIs, but I wanted to kind of understand the connected living growth in the context of the guidance. So we can see the written premium growth accelerated in Connected Living to 48% from 21% last quarter and 9% in the quarter before that. But guidance for the Lifestyle segment is mid- to high single-digit EBITDA growth. Can you help us unpack that? What's offsetting the premium growth? Is it slower earn-in of the premium? Is it growth in lower-margin business? Or are there underlying investments offsetting that premium growth?

Great. Thanks, Charlie. Maybe I'll start with a couple of high-level comments, and then Keith Meier can jump in. I mean, I think we are pleased as we look at 2026, certainly relative to the overall outlook, but in particular, with the lifestyle growth leading the organization next year. And we do expect growth in both Connected Living and Auto so that's really, really good to see. And obviously, coming off of mid-single digit in both businesses this year. And you're right. I mean we've had a lot of investment in the business. We've launched a lot of new client programs. We're scaling results, and you've seen a lot of growth in subscribers, 2 million subscribers up year-over-year. So that trend line continues as we head into '26 and certainly a big driver of the company's success and growth. But maybe, Keith, more specifically on the revenue side. .

Yes. And I think we certainly have the momentum on the revenue side. You mentioned is there an earnings aspect to that and a lot of that, especially in the fourth quarter, as we've expanded our extended warranty business is -- does have multiyear contracts in it, and we brought on a book as well during the fourth quarter. So I think you'll see that earning through over the next couple of years. And I think it also just as another example of why we have the confidence to say that our Lifestyle business will lead the growth into 2026.

And then maybe just on the outlook for PYD. I know you guys don't include it in your guide, but how are you feeling about, I guess, reserve confidence in housing and have some of the tailwinds that have boosted that KPI over the last couple of years. Is that still there? Or any color there?

Yes. I think we're -- we feel very good about the reserve position we're in, in our housing business. And so I think that's where -- it's hard to predict where that will come in into next year, but we certainly feel good about the reserve position as of the end of the year. And certainly, we'll share more as that evolves throughout the next few quarters.

Yes. Maybe I'll add a couple of comments, I think, and to your point, we've had favorable development in the last couple of years, really pretty consistent in '24 and '25. When you look at the underlying growth in housing, year-over-year, it's certainly double-digit with and without considering PYD. So we're incredibly proud of how this business has performed. Talk about our business growing from just over $400 million in 2022 to over $1 billion in 2025 has truly been remarkable. And as we think about next year, and this is probably the important message setting aside the PYD, strong underlying growth continues. We see loan growth, policy growth, AIV increases over the year. Probably a relatively neutral rate environment and low to mid-80% combined ratios for the year in 2026. So we're really proud of the business and how it's proven to be so resilient the last few years. .

And I guess just 1 other follow-up. I think Keith Meier mentioned continued hardening of the traditional home insurance market. I guess, have you seen any signs of that trend abating? I guess, is that concentrated in specific geographies or I think that's somewhat countered to some of the messaging in the market. So I would love to hear more of your thoughts there.

Yes, sure. What we've seen most recently is a similar trend to what we saw throughout last year, where we're growing certainly in California. We're also growing in the Midwest as well. And then that's actually offset a little bit by where in Florida, it was flat to maybe a little bit down in Florida. So overall, we are seeing the overall mix being positive. And not only that, but the places where we're getting the growth are very good for our overall long-term stabilization and how we think about not having as much risk in Florida. So we're really happy with the way the business is growing. .

Our next question will come from Jeffrey Schmitt with William Blair.

Keith and Keith. Question on the Home Warranty business. Could you discuss the size and cadence of investments that you're planning for that business in '26 and was there much invested in '25? .

Sure. Yes. And we had signaled at the third quarter that the delta in terms of the increased expectation in '25 in the corporate line was driven by some of the investments in Home Warranty, which started to scale as we went through the year. I would signal probably $15 million to $20 million of incremental invest in '26. You see that showing up in the corporate line is $140 million. In '26, it was $124 million this year. So that gives you a sort of an order of magnitude of the investment we expect. And yes, we're super excited about this opportunity. It's a great long-term growth vector for the company. I think we're incredibly well positioned in to be launching our solution with a market leader as we're doing, I think, is incredibly exciting for us.

Okay. Great. And then 1 more on Home Warranty. What geographies are you starting in there? And then how have you gone about sort of building out the contractor network in sales force there. Is it all new third-party contractors? Like how many sales agents did you hire?

Yes. So we're in the early rollout phase, I would say. We're rolling out across 6 brands. These are the legacy anywhere brands Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Sotheby's, Corporate Homes, ERA and Better Homes and Gardens. And we're in the process of rolling out as we speak to all of the affiliated agents across the country. We're rolling out nationally. We're seeing sales come through every day, and it's obviously going to grow as we continue to get the word out. We're deeply integrated into the flow the transaction flow with our partners, and we feel really excited about the opportunity. And we're -- we've been investing in this business for a long, long time. We build service networks for a living. We serve connected homes. We serve appliances. We've historically done some work in the home warranty arena. And I think there's a great opportunity. We're incredibly good at leveraging technology, building out service networks aspiring to raise the bar around customer experience, and that's exactly what our client is looking for, and that's exactly what this market is looking for. .

Our next question comes from John Barnidge with Piper Sandler.

My first question, if we can maybe stick on Home Warranty. Is that $140 million a new level we should be thinking about with the business located in corporate or do you think there's a reversion lower in the corporate loss beyond '26 in the investment period?

Yes. So I think you can think about it for this 2026 year, John. And then as the business scales, that's going to evolve. Hopefully, we can even invest more by adding more clients on as well. But as it stands now, we would be investing in '26 and then obviously, growing that business over the coming years. And we have a long-term agreement. Typically, our agreements are 3 to 5 years. This is beyond that. So this is a long-term view of how we're looking at this market, and we're super excited about the entry we have with a leader in real estate.

And my next question is on the outlook. I understand it excludes cat losses. You give us an estimate for that. It also excludes favorable reserve development and maybe going back to an earlier question. Can you remind us on a per share basis, how much favorable reserve development helped earnings in '25 and what that would be -- what that $22.81 would be ex that '25 favorable reserve development. Thank you.

Yes. So I think the way to think about it is we had the $113 million of prior year development. And I think that's the part where we see strong underlying growth but we do expect it to decline a little bit in relation to the $113 million, but the underlying growth being very, very strong. And then I think when you think about the overall company in terms of our outlook, we're overcoming the $113 million of prior year development and the investments that Keith mentioned in Home Warranty, those total $113 million. So that's the way that we combine those to -- in terms of how we view being consistent with last year, overcoming $130 million, John.

That's very helpful. My last question a lot of your distributions B2B2C ultimately. Can you talk about AI, how you're incorporating that in your business, not just to drive greater margin but ultimately, actual top line growth. Thank you.

Yes. I mean, I think our -- as you mentioned, our business model is unique. We're obviously a highly specialized provider, and we're embedding into the transaction flows of our clients really across almost every product line, which is a fantastic position to be. We're really operating as an extension of clients. And I think for us, AI is a huge opportunity, right? Whether it's driving customer experience improving efficiency across the board operationally but also in every department in the company. and then adding more personalized service, how we think about personalizing products to target the interest of individual consumers and then how we customize service delivery on a more personalized level. So there's a tremendous amount of opportunity. And a lot of it is all about how the customer is getting served. But Keith, anything you would add? .

Yes. I think we're using it across multiple areas. When you think about driving revenue we're using it to improve our products. Think about things like premium technical support, where we're able to infuse AI to make that experience for the customer even better. In Auto, we're actually helping our dealers to be able to sell better. So that's helping us on that revenue. Keith mentioned operationally, it's been very meaningful to us. And then even in our device care centers that -- where we utilize robotics and AI to process our mobile phone devices, you can see how we infuse AI across all of our businesses.

Our next question comes from Mark Hughes with Truist.

On the Home Warranty business, when do you think it will be material enough, I guess, to move out of the Corporate and into Connected Living? .

Yes, it's a great question. Hopefully, sooner than later, obviously. But I think we're early, early days, right? We just put out the announcement this week. We're super excited. It's a great opportunity to drive growth. we'll shed more light on the progress as we get a couple of quarters under our belt, see what the sales volumes look like. And then at some point, it probably does move out of corporate. Right now, I think it makes a lot of sense. It's being led by our Chief Innovation Officer, who used to lead the Connected Living business really drove our entry into the mobile space. We're trying to rerun that playbook. I think it's a pretty exciting moment, and it will move back into Lifestyle at some point in the future.

And you said there's some interest from your other partners perhaps in the Warranty business. Could you expand on that? Which categories are we talking about? And what...

Yes. I probably won't tip our hand too much in terms of the competitive market. But what I would say is -- what we're trying to do in this space, how we're thinking about coming to market with our products and services, how we're trying to address pain points and then aligning with clients. We're incredibly good at B2B partnerships and having that partner mindset and everything we do, we operate with incredible transparency and I think our clients are really interested in doing more around Home Warranty. So we've had quite a number of conversations across real estate and also with many of our affinity partners. And I definitely think there's a long-term place for Assurant in this marketplace in multiple different ways. .

Yes, I think we're pretty optimistic about the opportunities we have ahead in Home Warranty. Keith mentioned our -- the progress we had made on mobile from the early days to today, reminds me also of how we entered into Japan where we were in to align with one of the market leaders in Japan. That became a very successful business for us. Similar to Home Warranty, leveraging our global capabilities and technology. And now Japan has a lot of growth opportunity for us over the long term, and we think Home Warranty will be another growth vector for us as well.

And then in Connected Living, is revenue going to grow faster than EBITDA or slower than EBITDA?

That's a great question. I think what I would say is we do see high single-digit EBITDA growth in lifestyle, strong contributions across Connected Living and Auto. Obviously, we've had really nice revenue growth broadly, but I'm excited to be in the high single-digit growth range for that business. And we've got a ton of momentum and a lot of opportunity.

And then just a final one, if I can squeeze it in. You mentioned reverse logistics with other large carriers. Would that be a new relationship? Or is that one you've already talked about previously?

It would be something that we talk about more broadly in the future. We're super excited with what we've built with T-Mobile. We highlighted it in the third quarter, we put a little more finer point on it this quarter. This would be with an additional client. We're doing more work around this category. We'll likely share more, hopefully, in May, I would think, on the next earnings call. But this is another place where I think we're creating market advantage. We're leveraging technology and there's a lot of opportunity to embed more deeply in the mobile ecosystem.

Our next question comes from Tommy McJoynt with KBW.

Maybe the first one on the global housing side. A number of state regulators have announced sort of the exploration of profit caps. Do you have a preliminary sense for whether or not any of those proposals could impact your business, for instance, in a state like New York that's been pretty vocal about it.

Yes, I think the one thing that we feel good about, Tommy, is we do regular rate filings with all of the states, and that's a very formalized process. There's a minimum requirement to file every certain number of years. If losses and the profitability metrics are too favorable, then we file sooner. So I do feel like we're really well positioned. There's a lot of regulatory scrutiny over the top of the lender-placed product. It's obviously very different from voluntary homeowners. It's serving a very different purpose in terms of what it's protecting and when it's valuable. So I do feel like we're in a good place with the product overall. But Keith, anything you'd add? .

No. I think that's the key is the fact that we are regularly in dialogue with each state and doing the regular filing. So there really aren't any surprises going on when you're doing that.

Okay. Got it. And then maybe a big picture one here. I wanted to just check in kind of what you guys are doing to making sure that you're staying on the forefront of what's happening sort of with the evolution of connected devices. You've done a great job, obviously, on the smartphone, the mobile device. But to the extent that we see AI become more infused in other devices, whether it be smart glasses or ear buds or anything in the home. What are you guys doing to make sure you're staying on the forefront of being involved and integrated in the evolution of that technology?

Yes. I think -- first of all, I think we provide a projection around all consumer electronics and technology products. And as those products evolve, we're evolving our protection accordingly. I think about the example we gave on what we're doing with T-Mobile in Texas is a great example where we're taking back all device types in our facility. So that's wearables, hearables, cases, cables, screen protectors, et cetera. So we're evolving as the clients categories are shifting and making sure that we're able to process devices that we're able to dispose them appropriately resell them and obviously repair them. So I think we're really well positioned, and this is what our team we've got a lot of engineers that are constantly working with our clients to make sure we're fit for purpose. .

Yes. And I think when you consider we partner with the largest mobile player, the largest consumer electronics player, the largest appliance seller, we're -- we have deep R&D that is seeing all these products real-time and ahead of time as we're preparing to be able to outline the coverages that we would want to have for those products. So the nature of being able to be working with market leaders at the forefront of each of these industries, Tommy, I think, is a powerful advantage for us.

So you guys know what OpenAI's new rumored hardware devices. You guys have an inside scoop on that? .

You'll have to ask your AI assistant.

Our next question comes from Bob Wong with Morgan Stanley.

This is Dan on for Bob. Can you guys hear me? Awesome. Yes, I guess my first question would be on -- I kind of wanted to ask about global lifestyle you guys mentioned high single digits for 2026 for global lifestyle. How much of that earnings profile for this segment could we -- I just wanted to see maybe for that high single digits for 2026, how much of that would come from like new partnerships or issuance of new policies versus margin improvements. So how are you guys thinking about that? That would be my first question.

Yes. That's great. I think when we look at lifestyle overall at high single, I would say, a couple of major drivers. Number one, like we saw in '25, we're going to see mobile device protection subscriber growth. We had 2 million subscriber increases this year. That trend line will continue into 2026. We also see great opportunity to optimize the new programs that we've launched and scaling the results from some of the investments we've made. So we've made a lot of investments in the business in '24 and '25 launching new programs, that will mature, and that will definitely be a big contributor to the profitability improvement.

We've got continued momentum in Auto as we get earned through from the rate increases and all the work that we've been doing on the claims side. And then we've got broad expense discipline that's contributing as well. So I think those are probably the big drivers in '26.

Great. Yes. And I guess my final follow-up would be on lastly, Home Warranty is like as the business gets built out, I guess I wanted to ask just overall your long-term aspirations for this product line and how that in terms of growth and earnings profile and how that might impact your overall earnings profile or margin profile for Connected Living?

Yes, I think our aspirations as you'd expect are to be the market leader where we typically get into categories, and we always say we want to be aspiring to be #1. In some cases, we're settling to be #2. We don't want to be a distant player in a fragmented market. We want to be a leader and we want to define the market. And I think that's what we're going to try to do in the real estate sector and more broadly in Home Warranty. It's a phenomenal market. Had some incredible conversations with a variety of different clients and prospects. And it does feel like Assurant can make a difference in this space. So I'm super excited.

And I think it's got a good margin profile long term if we look at that industry. So we see it being a meaningful contributor over time. Similar to the other businesses we have in Global Lifestyle.

Our next question comes from Darkhan Lukpanov with Dowling & Partners.

Okay. I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but on the home warranty business. I guess 1 more question following up on Dan's question. Who are the main competitors in that channel, how fragmented is the market? Is there a big player that you're looking to replace?

I mean the largest player would be front door with American Home Shield, but there are -- there's probably 10 or 20 different players across the market and it's pretty fragmented. So there's a lot of opportunity, and I think there's a lot of long-term white space to actually grow the overall category to not just take share but to grow the category as well. .

Yes. And by the way, Dan, it's okay to ask more questions. We're pretty excited about our entry into Home Warranty as well the way we've been able to launch with the market leader.

Great. And any opportunities outside the real estate channel, maybe in retail going forward? Do you think that's an attractive market as well?

Yes. I think we'll look to work with potentially affinity partners. We do business with a lot of companies, as Keith mentioned, across a variety of industries that relate to the home. So there will certainly be opportunities to explore that. And we've got the kind of deep partnerships with clients where they're always interested in new ideas. So there will be definitely more of those conversations to come.

Great. And one more question, if I may. Just I wanted to get some color from you on the items that you put below the line in the quarter. The $29 million restructuring costs and the loss on subsidiary held for sale of $11 million. Just curious if you have any -- if you can add any color on that? .

Yes. So on the restructuring, that was basically about 1/4 of that was related to optimizing our real estate, Dan. Then we're also -- there's some real reductions in there that optimize our resource model to really drive operational efficiencies in automation as well. But overall, I think it's important to do these things to then drive and fund important investments like Home Warranty, like our AI investments. And so I think it really sets us up to be putting our dollars to where it's going to make a big impact for us long term. And then I think you mentioned there's a subsidiary sale as well. That's basically an entity that has some old long-term care legacy business that is reinsured to well-rated counterparties.

But I would say that is really -- another example of us fine-tuning our business portfolio to really focus on being the #1 or 2 player in each market we serve and being able to have that part of the -- that particular entity being sold, I think, just allows us to continue to focus more on so many great opportunities we have.

A final question today is coming from Charlie Lederer with BMO.

Can you hear me? I've got the -- you can hear me right. Yes, sorry. Just going back to my question on the hard market in housing. I appreciate the growth coming from California and the Midwest. I guess, in the Midwest, is that growth more coming from hard market dynamics? Or is it new partnerships or something else? And I have 1 more follow-up.

Yes. Yes, I think it's a little bit of the hard markets. I think it's also a reflection of the mix of the portfolios that we have as well, Charlie. So I would say it's a combination of both of those things.

Okay. And then on the share repurchase guide, I appreciate the growth year-over-year. I guess when I look at the excess liquidity you're holding, it's at the highest level it's been in a while. I guess, what's keeping you guys from having upside to that having a wider range or higher end? .

Yes. No, and I appreciate you asking about our strong capital position. We're really pleased with where we are holding $887 million at the end of the year. And I think it really puts us in a position, Charlie, to be on offense, which is exactly where we want to be. We've mentioned that we also increased the share repurchases over last year's guide. So we feel good about that. We also increased our dividend last quarter by 10%. So we're certainly making sure that we're returning excess capital to shareholders. But certainly, our biggest priority is being in a position to drive growth organically. We talked about investments we're making organically as well as doing M&A where we can really accelerate some of our strategies. So we feel great in terms of the position we're in, and we're in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves.

All right. Thanks, Charlie. And I think that wraps us up. So thank you, everybody, for joining the call, and we'll look forward to the next call in May. Thanks, everybody. Have a great day. .

Thank you.

Welcome to Assurant's Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Sean Moshier, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We look forward to discussing our third quarter results with you today. Joining me for Assurant conference call are Keith Demmings, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Keith Meier, our Chief Financial Officer. Yesterday, after the market closed, we issued an earnings release announcing our results for the third quarter 2025. The release and corresponding financial supplement are available on assurant.com. Also on our website is a slide presentation for our webcast participants.

Some of the statements made today are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements are based upon our historical performance and current expectations and subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements.

Additional information regarding these factors can be found in earnings release, presentation and financial supplement on our website as well as in our SEC reports.

During today's call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are important in analyzing the company's performance. For more details on these measures, the most comparable GAAP measures and a reconciliation of the 2, please refer to the earnings release, presentation and financial supplement on our website.

We'll start today's call with remarks before moving into Q&A. I will now turn the call to Keith Demmings.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. 2025 continues to be a remarkable year for Assurant. We delivered a very strong third quarter with double-digit earnings growth across both Global Housing and Global Lifestyle. Our performance during the quarter and year-to-date continues to drive significant cash generation and support our balanced capital allocation.

Through our powerful B2B2C business model, and diversified lifestyle and housing portfolio, we continue to execute for our partners, policyholders and shareholders. Our unwavering commitment to operational excellence continues to deliver exceptional client outcomes, customer experiences and differentiated returns. Through the first 9 months of the year, we've achieved 13% adjusted EBITDA growth and 15% adjusted EPS growth, both excluding reportable catastrophes. Given the strength of our business performance, we're increasing our 2025 outlook.

We now expect full year adjusted earnings per share growth of low double digits and adjusted EBITDA growth approaching 10%, excluding cats, a significant increase from our initial expectations for both metrics. This upward revision further differentiates Assurant in the broader P&C industry as a provider of innovative services within specialized protection and insurance products.

Our performance is a testament to our talented employees and their commitment to our clients and policyholders. Their dedication is the foundation of our success. And it's one of the reasons why we've been recognized by time as one of the world's best companies for the third year in a row.

Let's turn to global lifestyle performance and highlights. Lifestyle earnings have continued to accelerate throughout 2025 and have increased 4% or 6% on a constant currency basis year-to-date, supported by double-digit growth in the third quarter. We remain well passioned to deliver full year growth across both Connected Living and Global Automotive.

In Connected Living, performance has been the result of executing on our long-term strategy to drive commercial momentum through new client programs and the continued expansion of our partnerships, combined with enhanced capabilities and services. This quarter, we're excited to announce 2 new connected living opportunities that were made possible by important investments, which have enabled us to expand our end-to-end solutions and reinforce our competitive advantage.

First, in mobile, we're significantly expanding our repair and logistics capabilities through a new multiyear agreement with a large U.S. mobile carrier. We have co-created and are now operating a new fully dedicated state-of-the-art logistics facility, where we receive return devices from across their entire ecosystem, including mobile phones, tablets, home Internet and accessories. This one facility solution will process and repurpose all returns from store locations, customers and manufacturers under one roof.

Our joint vision was to create a facility that maximizes circularity in the mobile industry, allowing us to reuse, repair and remanufacture and deliver these devices back to end customers within the client's network. This allows us to help them optimize their device protection program while improving the end customer experience. This leverages our capabilities, including device processing, upgrading, repair and rapid claims fulfillment while providing a broad supply of high-quality refurbished devices for insurance replacement, wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels.

This collaboration demonstrates Assurant's role as a strategic partner and solidifies our position as a leader in the reverse logistics space. Successfully executing programs like this demands seamless integration of our operational technology and supply chain management with our clients. We leverage advanced automation, AI and robotics on the processing side to maximize efficiency and ensure consistent, scalable outcomes.

We're encouraged by the traction we've made in mobile repair and reverse logistics and continue to be excited about additional near-term opportunities. Our second new opportunity within Connected Living is in our retail extended service contracts business, where we recently launched a partnership to provide administration and underwriting with Best Buy, the world's largest specialty consumer electronics retailer.

Through this partnership, Best Buy's Geek Squad protection customers will begin to have access to additional services by Assurant. Receiving support through our AI-enabled virtual agents, live chat and access to repairs through our nationwide serve network, including our cell phone repair or CPR stores. This partnership represents another win in a space where we've increased our footprint and gained significant momentum over the last several years, now working with U.S. retail leaders across appliances and consumer electronics.

Looking to 2026 and beyond, we see clear opportunities within Connected Living that will further strengthen Assurant. In Global Auto, adjusted EBITDA increased 4% year-to-date and we remain on track to grow for the full year, supported by stable run rate earnings and ongoing loss experience improvement.

We also continue to optimize performance across the business, with a sharp focus on our clients, systems, product design, claims cost and people. We have momentum in Global Auto, which is driven by renewed partnerships across distribution channels, including international OEMs and U.S. dealership groups further solidifying our client base and reinforcing our position as a market leader.

A great example is our expanded partnership with Home and Automotive, one of the largest privately owned dealership groups in the United States. Following Homeowners's 2024 acquisition of Lease Automotive Group, Assurant will support 30 newly added dealership locations with finance and insurance products, dealership sales and participation program guidance.

Our dealer services are also driving new business wins. Our platform is built to support dealers at scale with everything from product innovation to operational support, attracting new partners while creating opportunities with existing ones.

Across lifestyle, our ability to deliver solid results while investing in innovation is a key differentiator.

Turning to Global Housing. We continue to outperform with outstanding lender place results in our homeowners business as well as continued property management company or PMC expansion within renters. We expect another year of strong housing adjusted EBITDA growth, excluding cats, further building on the impressive growth demonstrated since 2022. We continue to expect a very strong combined ratio for the full year trending below our initial expectations of the mid-80s. This excludes prior year development and reflects lower-than-expected cats for the year.

In Homeowners, we're seeing the impact of our multifaceted growth strategy. supported by our differentiated market position, scale and client focus. One prime example is the momentum we have through new business wins. Following a standout 2024 with significant client renewals and new partnerships, we see meaningful growth potential from our robust new business pipeline that we expect to lead to policy expansion over time.

As we continue to scale, we expect to sustain disciplined expense management to underpin our growth. In renters, our increasing scale is reinforced by technology-enabled services particularly our Cover360 platform in the expanding PMC channel. This platform has helped deepen relationships with existing clients and win new business, supporting sustained double-digit premium growth and increasing penetration rates for renters policies.

During the third quarter, we completed a multiyear renewal with the largest PMC in the U.S. and signed 2 new PMC partnerships. We continue to see benefits from the new renters portfolio that we onboarded earlier this year, adding scale and identifying opportunities to further expand our footprint in the PMC market. Across both homeowners and renters, our strategic investments in technology and operational efficiencies continue to drive improved margins and better customer experiences.

Global Housing is a cornerstone of our business, delivering strong results today while positioning us well for the future. Assurant's long-term strength and resilience set us apart in the PMC space. Over the last 5 years, we've delivered a compound annual growth rate of 12% for adjusted EBITDA and 18% for adjusted EPS, both excluding catastrophes. Our average ROE from 2019 to 2024 outperformed the S&P 1500 PMC index median, with less than half the volatility.

While our 5-year average ROE of approximately 13% reflects the impact of prior acquisitions, our average return on tangible equity over the same period trended above 30%, well above the median of the PMC index, a testament to our earnings power and differentiated returns. Our unique and advantaged portfolio of lifestyle and housing businesses has created diversified sources of earnings and capital generating strong returns, robust cash flow and strong growth with lower volatility.

Looking ahead, we remain laser-focused on finishing the year strong and building for 2026. Although we see power in the diversification in our business, we are pleased to drive growth in 2025 across our global housing, Connected Living and Global Automotive businesses. We're well positioned for future growth as we expand offerings with a focus on increasing attachment rates with existing partners, winning new clients across the globe and prioritizing investments in our core markets. That includes launching new products and services across both lifestyle and housing and continue to embed innovation across everything we do, from AI-powered tech support and personalized solutions to robotics in our device care centers.

These enhancements are helping us drive simpler, faster and more consistent outcomes for our clients, helping them increase the lifetime value of a customer. We see further opportunity for attractive organic growth as we enter adjacent sectors through new product offerings planned for early 2026, creating pathways for growth that align with our strengths and extend our reach.

We have a clear strategy and a team that's ready to deliver on the strong momentum we have across Global Lifestyle and Global Housing. As we head into the final quarter of the year, we're energized by the progress we've made, and we're confident in our ability to continue creating value for stakeholders.

I'll now turn it over to Keith Meier to highlight our third quarter results and expectations for the remainder of the year.

Thanks, Keith, and good morning, everyone. As we near the end of 2025, we continue to make significant progress on our key priorities. Driving growth and strong financial performance through our intense focus on innovation and product differentiation. We have continued to elevate customer experience building on our long history of technology advancements with AI and digital automation while increasing expense efficiency and ensuring our capital position remains strong, putting Assurant in a position to create meaningful value over the long term.

Our third quarter results reflect that significant progress. As Keith mentioned, we're proud of the underlying strength of both Global Housing and Global Lifestyle, which together drove third quarter adjusted EBITDA and EPS growth of 13%, both excluding cats, demonstrating positive momentum within our businesses.

Let's take a look at our segment results, beginning with Global Lifestyle. In the third quarter, adjusted EBITDA increased 12% compared to last year, driven by double-digit earnings growth across Connected Living and Global Automotive. In Connected Living, earnings increased 11%, driven by strength within financial services, particularly a new card benefits program launched late last year.

Subscriber growth in mobile with 2.1 million net additions year-over-year, largely from expanding partnerships with U.S. clients and optimized global trading performance supported by growth across U.S. cable and carrier partners as well as our certified preowned business.

In Global Auto, adjusted EBITDA was up 15%, which includes a net non-run rate benefit of approximately $6 million. When normalized for this non run rate item, adjusted EBITDA was up 6%, growing both on the sequential and year-over-year basis from improved loss experience. We're encouraged by the improved loss experience in our vehicle service contract business and stable earnings overall.

We continue to benefit from prior rate increases and enhancements to our claims processes and product designs while consistently working closely with our clients to stay on track to deliver full year growth despite ongoing inflationary pressures across the industry.

For Global Lifestyle, our net earned premium fees and other income grew 7%, primarily driven by Connected Living growth from mobile programs and a new program in financial services. as well as contributions from Global Automotive.

Moving to Global Housing. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $256 million, including $3 million of reportable catastrophes. Excluding cats, adjusted EBITDA increased 13% to $259 million, marking another quarter of strong double-digit growth. Our homeowners business benefited from the absence of a previously disclosed $28 million unfavorable non-run rate adjustment in the third quarter of 2024. This was partially offset by $16 million of lower favorable prior period reserve development with $29 million in the current quarter compared to $45 million in the prior year period. Excluding these 2 items, underlying results were strong with 9% growth.

Results benefited from favorable non-catastrophe loss experience mainly due to lower claims frequency and continued top line growth within lender-placed from higher in-force policies and average premiums. Finally, our liquidity position at quarter end was $613 million providing us with flexibility to continue to invest in our business, return capital to shareholders and support future growth. We are driving strong cash flows. This quarter, we returned $122 million to our shareholders, including $81 million of share repurchases and $41 million in dividends.

Through October 31, we have repurchased an additional $27 million of shares for a total of $234 million so far this year. During the quarter, we completed the successful issuance of $300 million in 2036 senior notes and redeemed $175 million of senior notes coming due in 2026. The issuance was well received and demonstrated the strong demand for our investment-grade bonds, further affirming the strength of Assurant and our capital position.

Let's move on to our updated outlook for 2025. The strength of our year-to-date results reflect the power of our unique business model and differentiated financial profile driven by our year-to-date outperformance within Global Housing, and earnings momentum in Global Lifestyle. We now expect adjusted EPS to grow low double digits and full year adjusted EBITDA growth to approach 10%, both excluding cats. This increase from our previous expectations reinforces the earnings power of Assurant.

We continue to expect strong growth for the year in Global Housing as well as earnings expansion within Global Lifestyle, where both Connected Living and Global automotive are expected to grow. Global Lifestyle results are expected to be partially offset by investments in new partnerships and programs as well as unfavorable foreign exchange for the year.

We continue to expect approximately $15 million of strategic investments for 2025 directly tied to launching high-impact programs and clients. Within Global Housing, we expect strong growth for the year to be led by lender-placed, including increased policies in force.

As a reminder, our outlook does not contemplate additional prior year reserve development beyond the $91 million from the first 9 months of the year. In corporate, we now expect our 2025 full year loss to be approximately $120 million. an increase of $5 million from our previous outlook. This primarily reflects organic investments in a new adjacent program. We would expect additional investments associated with this opportunity in the corporate segment in 2026 and are looking forward to sharing more details on our next earnings call in February.

And finally, our capital objectives remain consistent given our position of strength. As we focus on maintaining balance and flexibility, enabling us to support new business growth while returning excess capital to shareholders. For 2025, we now expect to return $300 million to shareholders through their repurchases. At the top end of our to $300 million anticipated range from the beginning of the year.

For the fourth quarter, we would expect a higher level of segment dividends compared to third quarter, given our business' ability to generate meaningful cash flows Full year cash conversion to the holding company is expected to approximate 2024 levels. The strength of our capital position and disciplined approach to capital management investing in growth while prioritizing shareholder returns. Our year-to-date performance, commercial momentum and increase in outlook reinforce the strength of our businesses and the value we bring to our stakeholders.

As we look to deliver our ninth consecutive year of profitable growth, we see significant opportunities across clients, products and geographies. Through the power of Assurance business model, we're driving growth by activating opportunities already in our pipeline, deepening relationships and expanding offerings with existing partners and increasing investments in core markets, all underscored by our relentless focus on innovation.

We're excited about what's ahead and remain committed to delivering meaningful value for all of our stakeholders. With that, operator, please open the call for questions.

The floor is now open for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question will come from Mark Hughes with Truist Securities.

You referred to a pipeline, I think you're talking about homeowners or renters and said you had a strong pipeline, which doesn't seem like the usual thing in that line of business. Could you expand on that?

Sure. I think we've seen a lot of momentum really across the board in housing. Certainly, the fundamental performance of the business has been strong. But we've been investing pretty deeply the last few years in all of our technology, operational capabilities. I think our lender-placed solution is unquestionably market-leading, and we do see further opportunities to drive growth with new clients over time. Even though we've got a strong leadership position, there's still opportunity for white space. And then renters, you've seen pretty consistent PMC growth for the last 3 years, and we expect that, that will continue as we forward.

Yes. Very good. In global auto, the loss performance was better year-over-year, but stable sequentially. Has it hit kind of area that you think is sustainable or likely to hold steady going forward?

Yes. Thanks, Mark. And I'd say, overall, for auto, we're really pleased with the quarter, growing EBITDA 15% year-over-year. I think when we look at the loss performance, our vehicle service contract side, I think all of our rate actions that we've taken place over 20% over the last few years and the product changes I think we've seen that become more stable.

So we're pleased with that. And then we touched on the GAAP side as well. Those loss exposure continue to diminish as expected. So we should expect those results to continue to improve. So Overall, we feel good about the business has stabilized well this year.

Then one more if I may sneak one in, in the homeowners, I think you've been helped somewhat by the hard market. I think your product has been priced right for a lot of homeowners if the housing market starts to often a little bit or broader homeowners market, do you think that has meaning for your top line prospects?

Yes. I mean there's lots of dynamics at play. I'd say for sure, we benefited from the challenging voluntary market. We've seen a lot of policy growth as a result of that. that continue certainly through the year, and we'll have to watch where that goes. And then we've also driven growth with clients in different portfolios.

So I think we're well positioned. It's also countercyclical. So should there be a downturn in the economy generally, we may see an uptick in placement rates. So we'll have to monitor how all these factors play together.

Our next question comes from Charlie Lederer with BMO.

I think we lost you.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Sorry. So just starting on the new partnerships in Connected Living, is there anything you can quantify or color you can give around the impact you're expecting from the reverse logistics and Geek Squad deals? Are these immediate revenue generators and what kind of trajectory are you expecting? And how should we think about the investment spend around these next year relative to the $15 million this year?

Yes, it's a great question. So certainly, the -- on the reverse logistics side, we're really excited about being in a position to announce that to the market. It's incredibly strategic and we're co-locating with a client in the facility. So it's terrific. It certainly will begin to contribute in 2026. We'll continue to make investments it will be positive as we think about EBITDA impact next year.

And then I'd say something similar for the Best Buy opportunity as well. It will contribute in '26. We've made a lot of investments this year, that will certainly taper off, and it will help us in our go-forward EBITDA.

Got it. And then on the buyback guide, you increased it from $250 million to $300 million or the top end of that range. I guess, given the lower caps this year, would you expect your 26 outlook on capital deployment to be a little bit higher too? Or how are you thinking about capital deployment next year?

Yes. I think, first of all, I would say we feel really good about the strength of our capital position today. We've got $613 million in holdco liquidity. So I think that really gives us that flexibility that we want to have. And we try to have a balanced approach, Charlie, as we typically talk about. So Keith highlighted some organic investments that we continue to make. In addition, -- we always have an M&A pipeline that we're working. We've announced a few smaller ones this year. We had Gestao in Brazil that helped our auto business.

We had optoFidelity that helped our device care centers and adding some technology there. And then we also acquired Solutions in Japan that furthered our walk and repair capabilities in that market. So you'll see us continue to to invest in M&A opportunities.

And then in terms of the buybacks, we felt really strong about that. That's why we signaled going to the top end of our range. And so we -- as we exit this year, we expect to be in a strong capital position, and we'll provide more guidance on share buybacks next year.

On our next earnings call. And then lastly, I would just say, we also have done 20 straight years of dividend increases as well. So we like being able to have a balance and a strong position across the Board.

And maybe just to add a little flavor for 2026. We'll certainly talk more about buyback expectations and capital deployment in February. We'll see where ends up, that will help us understand the drivers as we think about 2026 performance to provide the guidance. But I would say, as we think forward, we're incredibly pleased with the momentum that we have really across all the businesses.

We do expect to grow all 3 for the full year. Connected Living auto and housing. Certainly, this quarter, we had double-digit growth in each of those businesses. So we've got a lot of momentum, which is very good. And as we think about '26, we do expect lifestyle to continue to grow. We'll certainly benefit from the investments we've made the past couple of years. And then we do expect underlying growth in housing to continue.

So setting aside the PYD following are a really strong performance. We expect to see that continue. And then we will have a higher corporate loss in '26, Keith Meier touched on it relative to our 2015 guidance. We are expecting to launch a new program in an adjacent business, and we'll talk more about that in detail in February as well.

Maybe just 1 more. on the 2 renters, PMC deals you talked about, can you dimension the opportunity there relative to the growth we've seen this year?

Yes. I think we feel good about the consistency of the performance in renters. I mean we've had 13 quarters in a row of double-digit growth. Our largest partners are growing really excited we renewed our largest PMC client to a multiyear agreement.

We did a really successful book roll and then adding additional PMCs. That's what's going to continue to fuel the momentum that we've seen, and we expect that to continue.

Our next question comes from James Kahn with Morgan Stanley.

This is James Kane on for Bob. So my first question relates to housing. So my understanding is that you have 60-plus percent market share in lender-placed. Curious how much you think you could realistically grow share in the intermediate term? And do you have aspirations to grow share to a certain level in the intermediate term?

Yes. I mean we -- like I said earlier, we've got a strong right to win. We're incredibly focused on having the best solution and capabilities in the market. There's some big client opportunities where we don't perform that service today. So obviously, we're laser-focused on those. I wouldn't say we've set a threshold or a target. We're trying to acquire clients all the time in every one of our businesses and lender places no exception to that.

Got it. Great. My second question is a related one. So on the notable drivers supporting housing results recently. So higher AIV, the hardening of the voluntary market, solid placement rates. Curious how you would rank them in terms of their contribution to the recent uptick in segment growth? And -- how are you thinking about the relative contribution to growth going forward?

Yes. I mean I think the growth in our policies certainly has been the biggest driver as we think about the housing performance, we're up 8% year-over-year in terms of our policy counts. That certainly shows up in the placement rate, and it's a result of a lot of it from a hard voluntary market. Rate in AIV,Ithink, is been a little bit favorable this year, but it's not a dramatic change. AIVs are certainly up, but normalizing. So I would definitely put our policy growth at the top of the list.

And I think certainly, the placement rates are driving that policy growth and AIVs being up 5% year-over-year. That certainly contributes as well. And then as we talked about earlier, we also see new opportunities to add additional clients on top of that. So when you combine it, that's 1 of the things that makes that business so powerful as there's multiple ways to grow.

Our next question comes from Tommy McJoynt-Griffith with KBW.

This is [indiscernible] calling in for Tommy McJoynt. My first question is about the iPhone upgrade cycle. It's been getting a lot of attention in the media. That's led to questions about how downstream suppliers and service providers can benefit. So can you just remind us about Assurant role and opportunity in trade in upgrade and adding covered device counts specific to the iPhone upgrade cycle.

Yes. I think what we've seen certainly is a robust cycle. I think we saw some demand pull forward in the second quarter. And I think we've seen, as we outlined additional contributions to our trade-in business as a result of some of that as well. The big driver for us in our business really is the protection programs and often the customer that has their protection program on their last phone will roll it over to the new phones.

So that's what generates a lot of stability for our business as we go through the various cycles. But certainly, overall, it's a positive dynamic for us.

Yes. And we -- if we look at the clients that we operate the protection services with, particularly in the U.S., our clients gained 81% of the postpaid net adds. So to the extent that there is elevated switching, strong promotional activity. And as you said, demand for the new iPhone new devices, that tends to bode well for us, both on protection as our clients grow, but also we support a lot of different clients as well with trade-in opportunities. So I feel good about how we're positioned there.

Great. My second question would be just understanding investments are part of the business cycle or are there any major investment projects that you currently have planned for next year that we should think about as we think about margin expansion opportunity across the business lines?

Yes. I think the one thing that we're trying to signal today is we will be launching a new program in an adjacent business early next year. we're excited to share more details and it will create a long-term vector for growth for the company. We're looking to have the corporate investment be a little higher in 2026, which we'll talk more about in February.

But that's probably the big thing that we're signaling that we're going to talk about in more detail to come.

Yes. And we've started already to invest in that a little bit this year, and that's why we've raised the number on our corporate loss by $5 million this year. That takes that into account.

[Operator Instructions]

Our next question comes from Mark Hughes with Truist Securities.

Glad to be back. In Global Housing, if you look at the loss ratio, is there a material difference in the loss ratio between the lender-placed policies and voluntary policies?

I think in general, I think the premium rates are different, Mark. So I think there is a I think they would correspond, I think, generally. And I think that it also comes into play where our expenses for tracking going to our rates for lender placed. So -- there's the lender-placed tracking expenses versus typically commissions on a voluntary basis. But overall, depending on the mix, those would probably be the bigger differences more so than the loss ratios.

Yes. What is the magnitude of the top line differential or premium differential between the two?

We look at our lender-placed rates and what we can compare them to is the prior policy that a home monitor has held, and it varies from state to state. Some of them are a little bit higher. Some of them are a little bit lower. But I would say, overall, over the last couple of years, and I think it's helping our placement rate is I think our product is becoming more competitive as the voluntary market raises their rates significantly.

I think all the work we've done to drive expense efficiencies. Our expense ratio was in the mid-40s a couple of years ago, now it's in the high 30s. So us not having to raise rates as much as the voluntary market, I think, has certainly helped our contributed to our improved placement rates.

Yes. When you talk about a new program that you're planning to talk about in temporary. Is that kind of a new line of business? Is that what we're talking about?

Yes. It's a new line of business that we're not in today, which is why we've put it in corporate. The efforts being driven by our Chief Innovation Officer, who used to run the Connected Living business for the company and we're trying to create a new pathway for long-term growth, and we're very excited to talk more about it later.

Yes. Your reinsurance buy, it seems like the reinsurance market is going to be more favorable for you next year, would your preference be for reducing your retention for larger events or reducing cost on the program?

Yes. I would first say that we probably buy in to reduce our volatility more than typical. We'll certainly evaluate that as we look at the pricing. But I do think we're in a good position going into next year. We didn't have anything that touched our reinsurance tower this year -- so I think that's positive.

And then obviously, this last quarter, having very low cat activity should certainly be a positive as well. Our renewal kicks in on April 1. That's when we place the next year, and we certainly look forward to sharing more with you on that. The only other thing I would say is it also -- the mix of business in the geography in which we've been growing. And so if you look at our reinsurance rates, last year versus this year, we expect them to be on a normalized basis, pretty similar, just over $200 million.

And I think that's a little less than we were expecting this year because our Florida business hasn't grown, but we've grown significantly in less Capone states. So we've been really happy with the mix of business in terms of where we've grown for our Housing business.

There are no further questions at this time. I'd now pass the call back to Keith Demmings.

All right. I just want to say thank you to everyone for joining. As we've said, we're excited about the momentum we have across our businesses and certainly look forward to delivering our ninth consecutive year of profitable growth, and we'll talk to everybody again in February. Have a great day.