Richard Steven Dziadzio
Executive Vice President And Chief Financial Officer at Assurant
Thank you, Keith, and good morning, everyone. Adjusted EBITDA, excluding catastrophes, totaled $302 million, equal to the first quarter of 2021. Performance was driven by strong growth across Global Lifestyle, which was offset by higher non-cat loss experience in Global Housing, primarily from our specialty offerings. For the quarter, we reported adjusted earnings per share, excluding reportable catastrophes, of $3.80, up 17% from the prior year period, driven by buybacks and a $9 million nonrecurring tax benefit from one of our international businesses. Now lets move to segment results, starting with Global Lifestyle. This segment reported adjusted EBITDA of $217 million in the first quarter, a year-over-year increase of 13%, driven by continued earnings expansion in both Connected Living and Global Automotive.
Connected Living earnings increased by $16 million, or 13% year-over-year. The increase was primarily driven by continued mobile expansion in North America device protection programs from cable operator and carrier clients, including more favorable loss experience and subscriber growth as well as an increase in global mobile devices service, including higher trade-in volumes from continued carrier promotions. In Global Automotive, earnings increased $9 million or 12% from three items: higher investment income, favorable loss experience in select ancillary products and continued growth in our U.S. national dealer and third-party administrator channels, including growth of 5% in global vehicles protected. As we look at revenues, Lifestyle revenues increased by $99 million or 5%, aligning with our expectation that revenue would increase mid-single digits year-over-year.
This was driven by continued growth in Global Automotive and Connected Living. In Global Automotive, revenue increased 9%, reflecting strong prior period sales of vehicle service contracts. Even with the decline in U.S. auto sales year-over-year, net written premiums increased 4% as we continued to benefit from higher attachment rates on used vehicles. Within Connected Living, revenue increased 2% from higher mobile fee income driven by our global mobile devices service. Devices service encompasses the devices we touch in our trade-in, repair and dynamic fulfillment ecosystem. In the first quarter, the number of global mobile devices service increased by $800,000 or approximately 13% to $6.8 million.
This was led by higher trading volumes, supported by new phone introductions and carrier promotions from the introduction of 5G devices as well as initial service and repair volumes. In terms of mobile subscribers, growth in North America subscribers was partially offset by declines in runoff mobile programs, previously mentioned, which also impacted mobile devices protected sequentially. For full year 2022, we continue to expect Lifestyle adjusted EBITDA growth to be low double digits compared to the $740 million in 2021. Connected Living is expected to be the key driver of adjusted EBITDA growth, driven by global expansion in existing and new clients across device protection and trade-in and upgrade programs.
This will be partially offset by strategic investments to support new business opportunities and client implementations as well as unfavorable impacts from foreign exchange in Asia Pacific and Europe. Auto adjusted EBITDA is expected to increase due to higher investment income and business performance throughout the year, which will be partially offset by higher expenses. Moving to Global Housing. Adjusted EBITDA was $104 million for the first quarter compared to $94 million in the first quarter of 2021, driven by lower reportable catastrophes. Excluding catastrophe losses, earnings decreased $30 million, primarily due to higher non-cat losses in our specialty and lender-placed businesses.
Nearly 2/3 of the earnings decrease was from an unfavorable non-cat loss experience in our specialty offerings, including a $14 million increase within sharing economy, primarily related to a reserve adjustment and adverse development from policies previously written under less favorable contract terms. Taking a closer look at sharing economy, the product where we are seeing higher claims relates to on-demand delivery. Its a short-term liability policy covering the period when a driver may be using their vehicle for commercial purposes, which is not covered by a traditional auto insurance policy. We started writing this business in 2017 and is a relatively small portion of our Global Housing business, representing roughly 12% of specialists annualized net earned premium.
We have taken several actions over the years, including modifying contract terms with some of our partners and discontinuing less profitable business to improve performance. However, based on the recent higher claims frequency and severity, we are taking a closer look at the business and expect to take appropriate steps to improve performance as we look to deliver on our financial objectives. Turning to lender-placed. This business comprised the majority of the balance of the increase in our non-cat loss experience within the segment. This was mainly related to elevated frequency and claim severities from fire claims, ultimately leading to lower earnings year-over-year.
I did want to note that while fire claims tend to ebb and flow throughout the year, we continue to see higher cost of claims throughout our book due to inflationary factors, including labor and materials. These impacts continue to be largely offset by higher average insured values. In Multifamily Housing, underlying growth in our PMC and affinity channels was offset by more normalized losses compared to an abnormally low first quarter of 2021 as well as increased expenses from ongoing investments to further strengthen the customer experience. Global Housing revenue was up slightly year-over-year, mainly from higher average insured values and lender-placed and growth in Multifamily Housing.
This was partially offset by lower specialty revenues from client runoff. Overall, we announced that Global Housing adjusted EBITDA, excluding cats, to grow mid-single digits from the $486 million in 2021. Lender-placed is expected to be a key driver for the following four items: first, expense efficiencies across the business, including system enhancements and new digital capabilities, we expect these to create additional scale as the volume of our business grows; second, higher average insured values; third, a modest lift from expected placement rate increases; and last, REO recovery later in the year, noting that volumes were significantly reduced from foreclosure moratoriums during the pandemic. Additionally, we are monitoring higher claims costs as well as reinsurance costs, which are aligned with the increase in AIVs.
Overall, for Housing, we would expect the combined ratio, including cats, of 84% to 89%. At Corporate, adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $22 million, an improvement of $6 million compared to the first quarter of 2021. This was mainly driven by two items; first, lower employee-related expenses; and second, higher investment income from higher asset balances following the sale of premium. For full year 2022, we expect the Corporate adjusted EBITDA loss to be approximately $105 million. This reflects lower investment income compared to 2021. In addition, the first half of the year historically experiences lower expenses as investments ramp throughout the year. Turning to holding company liquidity.
We ended the first quarter with $738 million, $513 million above our current minimum target level. In the first quarter, dividends from our operating segments totaled $129 million. In addition to our quarterly Corporate and interest expenses, we also had outflows from two main items: $242 million of share repurchases and $37 million in common stock dividends. As Keith mentioned, we expect to return the remaining portion of the $900 million of Preneed proceeds or approximately $125 million in the second quarter. Our outlook assumes returning an additional $200 million to $300 million throughout the year. For the year overall, we continue to expect segment dividends to be roughly 3/4 of segment adjusted EBITDA, including catastrophes.
As always, segment dividends are subject to the growth of the businesses, rating agency and regulatory capital requirements and investment portfolio performance. In summary, were confident in our ability to achieve our financial objectives for 2022 and over the long term, as we discussed at Investor Day. Our earnings growth, strong capital generation, product and service offerings as well as our business resiliency continue to differentiate Assurant as a strong partner and as a compelling investment.
And with that, operator, please open the call for questions.
