Steven A. Zabel
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Unum Group
Great. Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. The third quarter was a very good quarter for the company as we saw the continuation of our strong first half operating performance, with margins and persistency remaining at historically strong levels and above our expectations, helping support year-over-year premium and earnings growth across core operations. Last quarter, we increased our outlook based on improved mortality trends, and we saw these trends continue in the third quarter with Group Life and AD&D segment adjusted operating earnings increasing 80% over last year driven by continued lower incidence.
Disability results in the third quarter were highlighted by strong underwriting performance with benefit ratios of 59.1% for Unum U.S. group disability, 42.8% for Unum U.S. individual disability and 69.5% for Unum U.K., all favorable to our expectations. Sales in Unum U.S. were down in the quarter. This was most pronounced in group disability. As Rick mentioned, the fourth quarter is historically the largest sales quarter for this segment with over 40% of annual sales. Based on our results to date and a strong pipeline of new sales, we believe we will achieve our full year sales growth target of 5% to 10% for Unum U.S. Across our other segments, Unum International is also on track to meet its sales target, while Colonial Life is tracking in line with last year's sales levels.
Given the mix of sales and levels of persistency, we remain confident in the long-term outlook for future premium growth. As I review our results by segment, I will describe our adjusted operating income results and benefit ratios, excluding the impacts from the annual GAAP reserve assumption updates in the third quarter of both 2024 and 2023. The 2024 assumption update process resulted in a $357.4 million pretax reserve release driven by a number of different product lines, including long-term care.
I will provide additional details of the 2024 update following the discussion of our segment results. So starting with Unum U.S., adjusted operating income increased to $363.3 million or 1.5% in the third quarter of 2024 compared to $357.8 million in the third quarter of 2023. Results finished above prior year, primarily due to favorable benefits experienced in group life. The group disability line reported adjusted operating income of $156.7 million compared to $170.1 million in the third quarter of 2023 driven primarily by a benefit ratio of 59.1% compared to 57.5% in the year-ago period, while the benefit ratio increased year-over-year, results were favorable to our outlook, reflecting continued favorable claim recoveries.
As I mentioned, results for Unum U.S. Group Life and AD&D improved significantly compared to the third quarter of last year with adjusted operating income of $94 million for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $52 million in the same period a year ago. The benefit ratio decreased to 65% compared to 73.3% in the third quarter of 2023 due to lower incidents. We still plan for the benefit ratio to be below historical norms and around 70% as we close out the year. Adjusted operating income for the Unum U.S. supplemental and voluntary lines in the third quarter was $112.6 million compared to $135.7 million in the third quarter of 2023. This decrease was driven predominantly by benefits experience.
The voluntary benefits loss ratio was 45.8% compared to 39.1% in the third quarter of 2023 and in our expected range of 40% to 43%. The dental and vision benefit ratio of 74.6% was also slightly above our expectation of 70% to 73%. Unum U.S. results included steady year-over-year premium growth of 4%. Persistency for total group business of 92.5% remains strong and stable in the third quarter with stable results in most of our supplemental voluntary lines. Moving to Unum International.
The segment continued to show very strong trends in its underlying earnings power with adjusted operating income for the third quarter, increasing to $40.3 million from $36.8 million in the third quarter of 2023. Adjusted operating income for the Unum U.K. business improved in the third quarter to GBP29.5 million compared to GBP28.4 million in the third quarter of 2023. The benefit ratio for Unum U.K. increased to 69.5% in the third quarter compared to 67.4% in the same period a year ago.
And as expected, the inherent benefit of high levels of inflation have dissipated and did not enhance third quarter 2024 results. In fact, U.K. earnings grew approximately 20% when excluding the inflationary benefit experienced in the third quarter of last year. International premiums and sales continue to show strong growth. Unum U.K. generated premium growth of 11.7% on a year-over-year basis in the third quarter, while our Poland operation grew 22.1%. Sales in the U.K. grew 26.9% compared to the third quarter of 2023, while Poland sales were up 8.6%.
So that moving to Colonial Life, adjusted operating income for the segment was $113.4 million in the third quarter compared to $102.9 million in the third quarter of 2023. The increase was driven primarily by a benefit ratio of 47.6%, which was down from 49.1% in the year-ago period. Colonial Life premium income of $441.9 finished 2.5% higher than the premium year driven by prior period sales and strong persistency. Top line growth continues to build, and with year-to-date premium growth of 3.4%, we're positioned to meet our growth outlook for the segment of 2.4% for the full year. Sales in the third quarter of $120.9 million, decreased slightly from $121.3 million in the prior year.
As I mentioned previously, Colonial Life sales for full year 2024 are now expected to be in line with the 2023 sales of approximately $540 million. In the Closed Block segment, adjusted operating income remained consistent at $34.2 million in the third quarter of 2024. Higher net investment income was offset by lower premium income for long-term care. LTC elevated incidence experience continues to dissipate as claim inventories normalized, albeit at a slower rate. The net premium ratio as of the third quarter of 2024 was 94.5% compared to 93.7% in the prior quarter.
The increase was primarily due to the impacts of the annual assumption update, which I'll discuss later in my talking points. So wrapping up my commentary on the quarter's financial results, the adjusted operating loss in the corporate segment was $49.4 million compared to $41.5 million loss in the third quarter of 2023, primarily driven by lower allocated net investment income. Then lastly, the tax rate in the quarter was 20.7% compared to our expectation of 21.5% to 22%. The favorability was driven mainly by onetime prior year tax return adjustments. So moving on from the quarter's operating results.
I'll now discuss the outcome -- the outcomes of our annual GAAP assumption review that we completed in the third quarter. The review resulted in a positive impact on financial results with a net decrease in reserves of $357.4 million or approximately $282.6 million after tax. While this impact was excluded from adjusted operating earnings, it added $1.53 to our book value per share, excluding AOCI which now stands at $74.15. Most product lines saw favorable changes, highlighted by adjustments in our group disability, individual disability and the Colonial Life businesses.
In addition, long-term care had a reserve decrease, which I will discuss in more detail momentarily. Getting into the specifics of the various reserve releases, similar to the past few years and as is representative of our continued strong operating results, group disability's update was driven by continued improvement in our claim recovery assumption and totaled $90 million pretax. For IDI, incidents and claim termination trends drove a $52.8 million pretax reserve decrease.
And lastly, Colonial Life's $46 million release was driven by favorable claims trends that we expect to continue. Then for LTC, the assumption updates resulted in a decrease in reserves of $174.1 million before tax reflecting incorporation of favorable premium rate increase experience, partially offset by lower expected premium persistency on group cases. Premium rate approvals have outpaced our assumptions over the past year, and we are currently 25% through a program following the assumption updates. LDTI cohorting dynamics are such that this quarter's reserve assumption update drives a decrease in reserves, partially offset by an increase in the net premium ratio.
Similar to last year, changes in interest margin since adopting LDTI are not reflected nor do they offset changes in liability assumptions for financial reporting purposes. In short, consideration of today's long-term rates would indicate additional margins as we previously described. While interest margin is no longer reflected in our GAAP reserve analysis, we will still see the benefit of higher earned portfolio yields compared to the locked-in discount rates as interest margins in earnings over the life of the block. We consider this dynamic when evaluating our best estimate reserves.
Following the GAAP assumption updates, the buffer between our statutory reserves plus excess capital at Fairwind and our best estimate remains at a consistent level of approximately $2.8 billion providing meaningful levels of protection against adverse events and supporting our position that no additional capital contributions will be necessary for LTC. So moving now to investments. We continue to see an environment where new money yields are at levels above our owned portfolio yield of 4.41%. Miscellaneous investment income was relatively flat in the third quarter at $23.6 million compared to $24 million a year ago.
Income from our alternative invested assets was $19.6 million. Year-to-date, the alternative investment portfolio has generated $72.6 million or approximately 5.4% in annualized returns.
So then I'll wrap up my commentary by turning back to our capital. The weighted average risk-based capital ratio for our traditional U.S. insurance companies is approximately 470% and holding company liquidity is robust at $1.4 billion. Capital metrics again benefited in the third quarter from strong statutory results with statutory after-tax operating income of $315.6 million. This now brings year-to-date statutory after-tax operating income to over $1 billion. Our strong cash generation model drives our ability to return capital to shareholders and in the third quarter, we paid $77.9 million in common stock dividends and repurchased 3.7 million shares at a total cost of $202 million.
For the three quarters of 2024, we have repurchased 9.7 million shares at a total cost of just over $500 million. As Rick described earlier, we decided to dissolve our pre-capitalized trust facility established during the pandemic. Drawing the facility was settled this week slightly raised our leverage ratio and brought approximately $270 million of invested assets onto our balance sheet. We plan to use these proceeds for incremental share repurchases in the fourth quarter. When considering this onetime special capital deployment, we expect share repurchases to total approximately $500 million in the fourth quarter or around $1 billion for 2024.
So then reflecting on our results, the first nine months of the year have been incredibly strong across many different aspects of our business, demonstrating our ability to execute against our strategy. Our top line continues its upward trajectory as historically high levels of persistence and our outlook for fourth quarter sales bolsters our ability to reach our premium growth target of 5% to 7% for the year.
Earnings are robust as our core businesses continue to exhibit exceptional margins highlighted by the sustainability of disability and life results. Because of this, we are on track to achieve our outlook of 10% to 15% growth for EPS that we raised last quarter. In addition, year-to-date statutory earnings are already over $1 billion nine months into the year, putting us well on pace to generate $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion of holding company cash generation, which we laid out at our outlook meeting.
This performance fundamentally contributes to our robust capital outcomes, featuring an RBC ratio that surpasses our long-term target by 120 points. It also enhances our capacity for capital deployment including our anticipation to repurchase around $1 billion worth of stock this year, which significantly exceeds our original goal of $500 million. And then lastly, our balance sheet is strong, reflecting the results of our latest assumption update, including positive developments in LTC and our continued expectation that no further capital contributions are needed for that block.
Now I'll turn the call back to Rick for his closing comments, and I look forward to your questions.
