Richard Dziadzio
Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Assurant
Thank you, Keith, and good morning, everyone. As Alan noted, we are pleased with our third quarter performance as our results reflect strong growth across Global Lifestyle and solid earnings in Global Housing. For the quarter, we reported net operating income per share excluding reportable catastrophes of $2.73, up 5% from the prior year period. Excluding cats, net operating income and adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, each increased 4% to $162 million and $262 million, respectively.
Now let's move to segment results, starting with Global Lifestyle. This segment reported net operating income of $124 million in the third quarter, continued earnings expansion within Connected Livings mobile business. In Global Automotive, earnings increased $8 million or 21% from continued global growth in our U.S. national dealer and third-party administrator channels, including contributions from our AFAS and international OEM channels. Better loss experience in select ancillary products and higher investment income also supported earnings growth in the quarter.
Connected Living earnings increased by $6 million or 9% year-over-year. The increase was primarily driven by continued mobile subscriber growth in North America and better performance in Asia Pacific, as well as higher trading volumes, led by contributions from our Hyla acquisition and carrier promotions. This quarter, Global Automotive and Connected Living results also included a modest one-time tax benefit that improved earnings. For the quarter, Lifestyle's adjusted EBITDA increased 17% to $177 million. This reflects the segments increased amortization resulting from higher deal related intangibles from more recent transactions in mobile in Global Automotive. IT depreciation expense also increased, stemming from higher investments.
As we look at revenues, Lifestyle revenues increased by $158 million or 9%. This was driven mainly by continued growth in Connected Living and Global Automotive. Within Connected Living, revenue increased 10% boosted by mobile fee income that was driven by strong trade-in volumes, including contributions from Hyla. Trade-in volumes were supported by new phone introductions and carrier promotions from the introduction of new 5G devices. Higher revenue from growth in domestic mobile subscribers was offset by declines in run-off mobile programs. Mobile subscribers were up slightly year-over-year and flat year-to-date as mid-single digit subscriber growth in North America was offset by declines in other geographies mostly due to three factors. First, the 750,000 subscribers related to a run-off of European banking program previously mentioned, which is not expected to be a significant impact in our profitability. Second, subscriber growth for existing programs moderating in Asia Pacific. And third, a slower than expected recovery from the pandemic in Latin America.
In Global Automotive, revenue increased 8%, reflecting strong prior period sales of vehicle service contracts. Industry auto sales remained elevated in the third quarter and we benefited from this trend as reflected in the year-over-year growth of our net written premium by 12%. We have though seen this trend begin to normalize beginning into the fourth quarter. For the full year, Lifestyle revenues are expected to increase modestly compared to last years $7.3 billion, mainly driven by Global Auto and Connected Living growth. For all of 2021, we still expect Global Lifestyle's net operating income to grow in the high single digits compared to 2020. Adjusted EBITDA for the segment is expected to grow double digits year-over-year, which continues to grow at a faster pace in segment net operating income.
As previously reported, we began our investment in the [Technical Issues] capability this quarter. However, due to the timing of the rollout, most of our associated startup costs will occur in the third quarter. These costs primarily relate to technician hiring and parts sourcing. We do expect these costs to meaningfully impact Connected Livings profitability as we end the year. In addition, we expect our effective tax rate to return to a more normal level, approximately 23%. Looking ahead to 2022, we expect earnings expansion to continue, but more likely at more moderated levels as we continue to invest for growth including additional implementation start-up costs for in-store service and repair.
Moving to Global Housing, net operating income excluding catastrophe losses was $81 million for the third quarter, including the $78 million of pre-announced catastrophe losses mainly from Hurricane Ida, net operating income totaled $3 million. Excluding catastrophe losses, earnings decreased $19 million due to anticipated higher non-cat losses, which returned to levels more in line with historical averages. As a reminder, favorable non-CAT losses in 2020 were not representative of historical trends and third quarter 2020 marked the lowest point of last year, mainly driven by loss experience within lender placed and specialty products.
The year-over-year earnings decline was nearly all driven by unfavorable non-cat loss experience from several factors. The largest driver which contributed close to half of the increase was from the expected normalization of the non-cat loss ratio. The balance of the decline was split relatively evenly between increased reserves related to our Specialty P&C offerings, primarily in our on-demand sharing economy business as well as higher claims severity. Claims severity included moderate impacts from inflationary factors such as higher labor and material costs. While there is always a lag. If this trend continues, we would expect higher loss cost to be offset by increased rates over time.
In Multifamily Housing, underlying growth was offset by increased investments to further strengthen our customer experience, including our digital first capability. Global Housing revenue decreased slightly year-over-year from lower Specialty P&C revenues as well as a cat reinstatement premium resulting from Hurricane Ida and lower REO volumes in lender placed. This was partially offset by higher average insured values and premium rates in lender placed and growth in Multifamily Housing. We continue to expect Global Housing's net operating income excluding cats to be flat for the full year compared to 2020. For the fourth quarter and into 2022, we would expect non-cat losses to continue to be above 2020, but in line with year-to-date 2021 experience, which is consistent with long-term trends. We also continue to monitor the REO foreclosure moratoriums and any additional extensions that may be announced.
At Corporate, the net operating loss was $21 million, an improvement of $4 million compared to the third quarter of 2020. This was driven by two items. First, lower employee-related expenses and third-party fee. And second, expense savings associated with reducing our real estate footprint. In the fourth quarter, we do anticipate a higher loss due to the timing of spend. For the full year 2021, we now expect the Corporate net operating loss to be approximately $80 million, driven by favorable year-to-date results mainly from the one-time tax and real estate joint venture benefits in the second quarter. This compares to our previous estimate of $85 million. As we look forward to 2022, we would expect our net operating loss in Corporate to be closer to $90 million, more in line with historical trends.
Turning to the holding company liquidity, including the net proceeds from the sale of Preneed in August, we ended the third quarter with over $1.3 billion, well above our current minimum target level. In the third quarter, dividends from operating segments totaled $127 million. In addition to our quarterly corporate and interest expenses, we also had outflows from three main items, $323 million of share repurchases, $39 million in common stock dividends and $11 million mainly related to Assurant ventures investment. In addition to completing our 2019 Investor Day objective of returning $1.35 billion to shareholders from 2019 through 2021, we have also completed roughly one-quarter of our objective to return $900 million in Global Preneed sale proceeds through share repurchases. For the year overall, we continue to expect dividends to approximate segment earnings subject to the growth of the businesses, rating agency and regulatory capital requirements and investment portfolio performance.
I also want to provide a quick update on the Assurant Ventures, our venture capital arm. In the third quarter, three investments in our portfolio went public via SPACs. We are pleased with the results as the three investment exceeded a 7 times multiple on investment capital under their respective SPAC transaction terms. These transactions combined with strong performance in the broader ventures portfolio led to a $75 million after-tax gain flowing through net income in the quarter. In addition to strong returns, these investments also provide key insights into emerging technologies and capabilities within our Connected Consumer businesses.
Before turning to Q&A, I too would like to take a minute to thank Alan for his partnership over the last five years. In addition to positioning Assurant for long-term success and growth, he has created an environment of inclusion in community, truly representative of our core values, common sense and common decency. Alan, I wish you all the very best in retirement, well deserved.
And with that operator, please open the call for questions.
