Alan D. Schnitzer
Chairman And Chief Executive Officer at Travelers Companies
Thank you, Abbe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.
Core income of $454 million for the quarter benefited from very strong underlying underwriting results and net investment income but was also impacted by elevated catastrophe losses and net unfavorable prior year reserve development. Mike will provide more context on the catastrophe losses.
The unfavorable prior year reserve development was driven by the results of our annual asbestos review in our run-off book. The reserves in the ongoing businesses of all three segments developed favorably. We are very pleased with the underlying fundamentals of our business. Underlying underwriting income of $868 million pre-tax was up more than 40% over the prior year quarter, driven by record net earned premiums of $9.7 billion and a consolidated underlying combined ratio, which improved almost 2 points to an excellent 90.6%.
The underlying combined ratios in our commercial segments remained excellent. Our Business Insurance segment once again delivered very strong results, with an underlying combined ratio of 89.7%. The underlying combined ratio in our Bond & Specialty business was also excellent at 80.7%. Looking at the two commercial segments together, the aggregate BI and BSI underlying combined ratio was 88.3% for the quarter, among our best ever. In our Personal Insurance segment, the underlying combined ratio improved more than 5 points to 94.2% as a strong written rate from prior quarters is earning in. Our underlying results in Personal Insurance are improving and heading in the right direction.
Turning to investments. Our high-quality investment portfolio continued to perform extremely well, generating after-tax net investment income of $640 million, reflecting strong and reliable returns from our growing fixed-income portfolio and solid returns from our non-fixed-income portfolio. In terms of production, thanks to great execution by our colleagues in the field and strong franchise value they have to sell, we grew net written premiums by $1.3 billion or 14% to a record $10.5 billion.
In Business Insurance, we grew net written premiums by 16% to $5.1 billion. Renewal premium change in the segment was very strong at 12.9%, driven by renewal rate change, which accelerated year-over-year and sequentially to 7.9%. Renewal rate change was higher sequentially in every line, other than workers' comp. Our overall renewal premium change remains positive and appropriate, given returns in the line. For the segment, even with higher pricing at record levels, retention remained very strong at 87%, a reflection of a rational market. New business was strong and higher broadly across the segments.
In Bond & Specialty Insurance, we grew net written premiums to a record $1 billion, achieved 91% retention of our high-quality management liability business, and grew net written premiums in our industry-leading surety business by 13%. Given the attractive returns, we are very pleased with the strong production results in both of our commercial business segments.
In Personal Insurance, top line growth of 14% was driven by higher pricing. Renewal premium change was 19.4% in our Homeowners and Other business and increased to a record-high 18.2% in our Auto business.
Another quarter of strong production across the board positions us well for the rest of the year and into 2024. You'll hear more shortly from Greg, Jeff and Michael about our segment results.
With the end of the year in sight and 2024 on the horizon and coming into focus, we feel very well-positioned for what's ahead and quite confident. In our Business Insurance segment, written margins are expanding. Pricing has been strong and the components of core goods inflation that impact our loss costs are moderating. Medical inflation in particular remains benign. Nonetheless, given the duration of relevant liabilities, we continue to incorporate medical inflation in our loss costs based on higher longer-term trends.
In terms of the top line in Business Insurance, we're pleased that economic output and consumption so far remain robust. Given our leading workers' compensation business, we benefit in particular from the near 50-year low in unemployment, the prime-age labor participation rate, which is at its highest level since 2017, and ongoing wage inflation, which contributes to premium growth and margins. As a result of strong pricing in recent years and higher fixed-income NII, returns in this segment are currently attractive. Nonetheless, given the uncertainty generally in terms of weather volatility, economic and social inflation, a hardening reinsurance market and the geopolitical landscape, we plan to continue pursuing strong price increases in both the property and casualty lines to achieve our over time return objectives.
Turning to our industry-leading Bond & Specialty business, we just reached a milestone of $1 billion in net written premiums, returns are terrific. And as you've heard, results in our Personal Insurance business are headed in the right direction. Earned margins are improving and additional price increases will earn in from here. We're very pleased with our targeted marketplace execution. At the same time, inflationary pressures are moderating. In terms of the investment portfolio, with interest rates at their highest levels in recent memory and most indications suggesting higher for longer, we are extremely well-positioned. In the last five years, we've grown our very-high quality investment portfolio by nearly $19 billion or about 25% to more than $90 billion. 93% of the portfolio is allocated to fixed-income. As we look ahead to 2024, we expect our after-tax fixed-income NII will be more than $2.6 billion.
To ensure that our competitive advantages continue to distinguish us and fuel our performance, we will continue to invest in our ambitious and focused innovation priorities. We're spending more than $1.5 billion this year on technology, insight and excellent expense ratio and with a higher proportion allocated to strategic technology investments. We're confident that we're working on the right priorities, executing effectively and that we'll see the benefits play out and growth at attractive returns going forward.
Lastly, I'll share that we're recently back from one of the year's largest industry conferences where we met with many of our distribution partners. We left confident that we have the pole position with distribution in the United States and that we're positioned to support each other's strategic and marketplace priorities. We're committed to being their best partner and to offering the products and services that best serve our mutual customers.
To sum it up, we remain very confident in the outlook for our business. I couldn't be more grateful to my 30,000 colleagues who show up everyday, committed to our culture, for our standard of excellence, and fulfilling our mission of creating shareholder value and our purpose of taking care of the people we are privileged to serve.
And with that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Dan.
