Richard Dziadzio
Chief Financial Officer at Assurant
Thank you, Keith, and good morning, everyone. We're pleased with our second quarter performance, especially when compared to our strong results last year. For the quarter, we reported net operating income per share excluding reportable catastrophes of $2.99, up 12% from the prior year period. Excluding cats, net operating income for the quarter totaled $184 million and adjusted EBITDA amounted to $298 million, a year-over-year increase of 12% and 10% respectively. Our performance across Lifestyle and Housing remains strong and we also benefited from a lower corporate loss and higher investment income, primarily related to the sale of a real estate joint venture partnership.
Now let's move to segment results, starting the Global Lifestyle. The segment reported net operating income of $124 million in the second quarter, a year-over-year increase of 2%. This was driven by growth in Global Automotive and more favorable claims experience in Global Financial Services. Diving deeper into earnings. In Global Automotive, earnings increased $7 million or 16% from continued strong year-over-year growth related to our U.S. clients across various distribution channels. Results within auto also included a $4 million increase from the sale of the real estate joint venture partnership. Absent this gain, investment income in auto was down.
Connected Living earnings decreased by $9 million compared to a strong prior-year period. The decline was primarily driven by less favorable loss experience in our extended service contract business. Mobile earnings were modestly lower. The less favorable loss experience and service contracts in mobile was primarily related to our European and Latin American businesses. These regions benefited from lower claims activity in the prior year period due to the pandemic.
Our underlying mobile business continue to grow in North America and Asia Pacific from enrollment increases that mobile carriers and cable operators, with an increase of over one million covered devices in the last year. In addition, contributions from acquisitions such as Hyla Mobile benefited results. For the quarter, Lifestyle's adjusted EBITDA increased 6% to $186 million. This reflects the segments increased amortization related to higher deal-related intangibles for more recent transactions in mobile in Global Automotive. IT depreciation expense also increase stemming from higher investments.
As we look at revenues, Lifestyle increased by $169 million or 10%. This was driven mainly by continued growth in Global Automotive and Connected Living. Within Global Automotive, revenue increased 13% reflecting strong prior period sales of vehicle service contracts. Industry auto sales continue to increase during the quarter with April seeing record levels in the U.S. This was reflected in our net written premiums of roughly $1.3 billion in the quarter, the highest quarter ever recorded. Connected Living revenues were up 7% for the quarter. In addition to growth in service contracts, mobile fee income was driven by strong trading volumes, including contributions from Hyla.
For the full year, Lifestyle revenues are expected to increase modestly, compared to last year's $7.3 billion, mainly driven by year-to-date Global Auto and Connected Living growth. We continue to expect to cover mobile devices to grow mid-single digits in 2021 as we increased subscribers in key geographies like the U.S. and Japan. This also reflects the reduction of 750,000 mobile subscribers related to a European banking program that moved to another provider in the second quarter. As we previously outlined. This is not expected to significantly impact our profitability.
For 2021, we still expect Global Lifestyle's net operating income to grow in the high-single digits compared to the $437 million reported in 2020. While we expect earnings growth year-over-year for the second half, earnings in the second half of the year are expected to be lower compared to the strong first half performance primarily due to two items: first, investments will increase across Connected Living in the second half of the year, including our same-day service and repair capabilities. While these investments will mute earnings growth in the short term, they are expected to generate growth over the long term; and second, the investment income will be lower as we are not expecting gains from real estate joint venture partnerships that benefited the second quarter in auto. Adjusted EBITDA for the segment is still expected to grow double-digits year-over-year at a faster based in segment net operating income.
Moving now to Global Housing. Net operating income for the quarter totaled $94 million, compared to $85 million in the second quarter of 2020 due to $10 million of lower reportable catastrophes. Excluding catastrophe losses, earnings were relatively flat as growth within lender-placed and higher investment income was offset by the expected increase in non-cat loss experience across all lines of business. Investment income included a $4 million increase from the sale of a real estate joint venture referenced earlier.
Regarding the non-cat loss ratio, the second quarter 2020 benefited from unusually low non-cat losses, including impacts from the pandemic. As anticipated, we saw an increase in the frequency and severity of claims in the second quarter. We also increased reserves related to the cost of settling run-off claims within our small commercial book. In Multifamily housing, underlying growth was offset by increased investments to further strengthen our customer experience including our digital-first capabilities.
Within lender-placed, higher revenues and investment income were partially offset by unfavorable non-cat loss experience and declining REO volumes from ongoing foreclosure moratoriums. Looking at loans track, the $1.5 million sequential loan decline was mainly attributable to a client portfolio that rolled off in the second quarter. However, the decline in loans track should be partially offset by two new client partnerships in the quarter, which should enable us to onboard approximately 700,000 loans by year-end.
We also continue to reduce risk within housing. At the end of June, we completed our 2021 Catastrophe Reinsurance program. To mitigate multi-event risk, we added a flexible limit that can be used to reduce our retention from $80 million to $55 million in certain second and third events, or increase the top-of-the-tower $50 million in excess of $950 million in the rare case of a 1 in 174-year event. We also increased our multi-year coverage to over 50% of our U.S. tower. In terms of revenue, Global Housing's revenue increased 5%, primarily due to double-digit growth in Multifamily housing, as well as higher revenue in lender-placed including higher premium rates and average-insured values.
As a result of the strong first half, we now expect Global Housing's net operating income excluding cats to be flat compared to the $371 million in 2020. This is above our initial expectations that earnings would be down this year. Earnings in the second half are expected to be lower than the first half of the year, primarily related to three items: first, lower net investment income, particularly considering the real estate joint venture gain in the second quarter; second, lower results in our Specialty P&C offerings after our strong first half; and third, continued investments in the business, particularly in Multifamily housing to sustain and enhance our competitive position. We also continue to monitor the REO foreclosure moratoriums and any additional extensions that may be announced.
At corporate, the net operating loss was $12 million, compared to $29 million in the second quarter of 2020. This were driven by two items: first, lower employee-related expenses and third party fees, which we expect to increase in the second half of the year; and second, we had $6 million of favorable one-time items including a tax benefit and income from the sale of the real estate joint venture partnership. We also anticipate higher spending in the second half of the year compared to the first half due to an increase in recruiting and moderate travel and related expenses as we expect to begin a phased re-entry of our workforce. In addition, third-party expenses are expected to increase due to acceleration and timing of investments. For the full year of 2021, we now expect the Corporate net operating loss to be approximately $85 million. This compares to our previous estimate of $90 million.
Turning to holding company liquidity. We ended the second quarter with $353 million, which is $128 million above our current minimum target level. This excludes both the $1.2 billion in net proceeds from the sale of Preneed and the net proceeds from the second quarter debt offering, which were used for the July redemption of senior notes due in 2023. In the second quarter, dividends from our operating segments totaled $243 million. In addition to our quarterly corporate and interest expenses, we also had outflows from three main items: $191 million of share repurchases, $42 million in common stock dividends and $17 million mainly related to mobile acquisitions including Olivar and Assurant venture investments.
For the overall year, we continue to expect dividends to approximate segment earnings, subject to the growth of the businesses, rating agency and regulatory capital requirements, investment portfolio performance and any impact on a potential change in corporate U.S. tax rates. In summary, our strong performance for the first half of the year positions us nicely to meet our full year financial commitments, while continuing to invest in our long-term growth.
And with that, operator, please open the call for questions.
