Evan G. Greenberg
Chief Executive Officer at Chubb
Good morning. We had an outstanding quarter and finished to the year; in fact, a record year. Our quarter's results included double-digit premium growth, record P&C underwriting and investment income, and strong life operating income, all leading to exceptional operating earnings on both a per share and dollar basis. Our results, both earnings and book value related, were also positively impacted in a significant way by a one-time deferred tax benefit related to Bermuda's new income tax law. While the quarter's results are impressive and important, it's the full year result that really matters most. All things being equal, one quarter hardly tells a story. Our full year results were simply stunning. Core operating income topped $9.3 billion, up 45%, or $8.2 billion, excluding the tax benefit, up 28%. P&C underwriting income was a record $5.5 billion with a combined ratio of 86.5%, and investment income was up 33% and topped $5.3 billion. As you can see, the balance between underwriting income and investment income was about 50:50, a very healthy balance. Life income was over $1 billion, while consolidated premium revenue growth was 13.5% for the year.
For the year our core operating ROE was 15.4% and our return on tangible was 24.2%. Tax benefit contributed. So excluding that, our core operating ROE was 13.6% and our tangible ROE was 21.6%. Excellent numbers. Finally, for the year, per share of book and tangible book value each grew by over 20%. All divisions of the company and major geographies contributed to these outstanding results last year, and I want to congratulate and thank my colleagues around the globe. Our results speak to the global nature of this organization, which is one of the things that distinguishes Chubb.
Our fundamentals are very strong, and the quarter itself was simply a continuation of the year. For the quarter, core operating income was $2.3 billion, excluding the tax benefit or $5.54 per share, up 36% and 39%, respectively. The one-time tax benefit then added $1.1 billion, or $2.76 a share. Our underwriting performance in the quarter was a result of strong earned premium growth, excellent underwriting margins, with a published combined ratio of 85.5% and a current accident year of 84.3%. We had strong prior period reserve development in both North America and Overseas General and relatively light cat losses. P&C underwriting income for the quarter was $1.5 billion. Our prior year reserve development in the quarter and for the year was $177 million and $773 million, respectively, which speaks to the consistent strength of our loss reserves. At year end, our loss reserves were in an exceptionally strong position, as strong as they have ever been. On the invested assets side, record adjusted net investment income of $1.5 billion was up $369 million, or 33% over prior year. Our portfolio yield at the end of the year was 4.3% versus 3.6% a year ago, and our reinvestment rate is currently averaging 5.3%. We have very strong liquidity, and our investment income run rate continues to grow as we reinvest our cash flow at higher rates. Peter will have more to say about financial items.
Now turning to growth, pricing, and the rate environment. Consolidated net written premiums for the company increased over 13% in the quarter, with P&C up 12.5% and Life up 20%. Of the P&C 12.5%, consumer lines were up 20% and commercial P&C was up 10%, which is, in fact, stronger than the full year average of 8.6%. Our premium revenue growth in the quarter was well spread globally. And from a broader perspective, for the full year, growth was 13.5%, with P&C up 10% and Life up 52%. Again, Chubb is a globally diversified company, and our growth last year demonstrates the broad-based nature of our operations. North America Commercial P&C, a very large and important business, representing 40% of the company, grew 7.5%. The balance of the company, the other 60%, grew 18%. U.S. high net worth personal lines grew 11%. International Consumer P&C grew 18%, International Commercial P&C grew over 11%, and Life grew 52%. In terms of the commercial P&C rate environment, the pattern was the same as we have experienced all year. Price increases in the quarter in property and casualty lines exceeded loss costs in both North America and our international division, while globally rates and prices continued to decrease in financial lines led by D&O.
Getting to the detail for the quarter and beginning with North America, premiums were up 9.4%, or 6.2% excluding agriculture and consisted of growth of 12.1% in personal insurance and 4.4% in commercial insurance. Within the 4.4%, P&C lines were up 6.3% and financial lines were down 2.1%. Unpacking the 4.4%, which was obviously slower than previous quarters: first, our middle market division had another strong quarter with P&C premiums up 9.8%, while financial lines were essentially flat. Our E&S business had a strong quarter with growth of 16% in our wholesale brokerage lines. On the other hand, our division, which serves large corporates, Major Accounts, grew only 1.4%. Growth in Major was adversely impacted by about 7.5 points, or $125 million of premium, from underwriting actions we planned for and took in a segment of our primary and excess casualty business. One half of the reduction in premium was the result of increased client retentions with the balance due to loss business. For clarity, these actions, in fact, contribute to future growth in underwriting income.
Regarding future North America Commercial growth, as we said in the press release, given current market conditions and our capabilities across all segments of commercial P&C, including large accounts, E&S, and middle market, we fully expect to return to more robust growth beginning with the first quarter. Overall pricing for total North America Commercial increased 7.3%, including rate of 5.1% and exposure change that acts like rate of 2.1%. Let me provide a bit more color around rates and pricing. Pricing for Commercial Property & Casualty was strong, up 12.4%. Property pricing was up 17.3 with rates up 12.9 and exposure change of 3.9. Casualty pricing in North America was up 12.4%, with rates up 10.8 and exposure up 1.4%. In workers comp, which includes both primary and large account risk management, pricing was up 4.6%, with rates up 1.1 and exposure up 3.5%.
We are trending loss costs in North America at 6.6% with short-tail classes at 5.5% and long-tail, excluding comp, at 7.3%. We are trending our first dollar workers' comp book at 4.6%. For financial lines, the underwriting environment remains aggressive, particularly in D&O, and rates continue to decline. We know this business extremely well and are trading growth for underwriting margin and income where we need to. In the quarter, rates and pricing from North America financial lines in aggregate were down 6.1% and 5.5%, respectively. We are trending financial lines loss costs at 5.1%.
For our Agriculture business, late-season drought-related developments in crop insurance resulted in an elevated combined ratio for the quarter and the year. For context, we published a 95.4% combined ratio for the year and earned an underwriting profit of $146 million, similar to the previous year's result. Crop insurance is a cat light business, by its nature vulnerable to weather volatility, but with very good risk/reward dynamics if managed well. Crop insurance has been a great business for Chubb. Rain and Hail is an amazing company, and since acquiring them in 2010 for about $1.1 billion, we've earned almost $2 billion in operating profit with an IRR of 26%. On the consumer side of North America, our high-net-worth personal lines business had a simply outstanding quarter and year. In the quarter, premiums were up over 12% and new business growth was up 34%. There was a continued flight to our product, service, and capability. We are the gold standard, period. Again, for the year, the business grew almost 11% and published a combined ratio of 89.7%, or 80.1% on a current accident year ex-cat basis. In our homeowners business, we achieved pricing of 17% in the quarter, while our selected loss cost trend remained steady, 10.5%.
Turning to our international general insurance operations, which had an outstanding quarter. Net premiums were up 19.3% and the combined ratio was 85.9%. Our international commercial business grew 13.2%, while consumer was up 29.5%. For the year, Overseas General grew 14%. And our international business growth this quarter was broad-based with all major regions producing double-digit growth, again, illustrating the global nature of the company. Asia led the way with premiums up 37%, made up of commercial lines growth of 21% and consumer up 56%. Europe and Latin America had very strong quarters as well with growth of 15.5% about for both. We continue to achieve improved rate to exposure across our international commercial portfolio with pricing in our retail business up over 7%. Property and Casualty line pricing was up over 10%, while financial lines pricing was down about 2%. Loss cost inflation across our international retail commercial portfolio is trending at 5.8%. P&C lines trending 6%, and financial lines trending 4.9%. Within our international consumer P&C business, our A&H and Personal Lines divisions both had strong quarters and for the year their growth was 14.4% and 21.4%, respectively. Growth again was led by Asia. In our International Life insurance business, which is basically Asia, premiums were up 26%. For the year, we reported Life income of just over $1 billion, or about $950 million adjusting for some nonrecurring items.
So in summary, we had a simply outstanding quarter contributing to another record-setting year, and we are well positioned to continue producing outstanding results going forward. Underwriting conditions overall are favorable, though they vary by business and geography. It's an underwriter's market and that's what we are. We have hit the ground running in '24 and while we are in the risk business and volatility is a feature of that, we are confident in our ability to continue growing operating earnings at a double-digit pace through P&C revenue growth and underwriting margins, investment income, and Life income.
Now turning the call over to Peter, then we're going to come back and take your questions.
