Well, good day, everyone, and welcome to the Old Republic International Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Just a reminder that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to Mr. Joe Calabrese. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Lisa. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Old Republic Conference Call to discuss second quarter 2026 results. This morning, we distributed a copy of the press release and posted a separate financial supplement. Both of the documents are available on Old Republic's website at oldrepublic.com. Please be advised that this call may involve full-looking statements as discussed in the press release dated July 23, 2026. Assumptions, uncertainties, and risks exist that may cause results to differ material from those set forth in these full-looking statements. For more information on these assumptions, uncertainties, and risks, please refer to the foldable statement discussions in the press release and the company's other recent SEC filings and the risk factors discussed in the company's most recent Form 10-K and other recent SEC filings. We also may include references to net income, excluding net investment gains or net operating income, a non-GAAP financial measure. In our remarks or in responses to questions, GAAP reconciliations are included in the press release. Presenting on today's conference call will be Craig Schmitty, President and CEO, Frank Sedaro, Chief Financial Officer, and Carolyn Monroe, President and CEO of Old Republic's National Title Insurance Group. Management will make some opening remarks, and then we'll open the line for your questions. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Craig. Please go ahead, sir.

Okay, Joe, thank you, and good afternoon, everyone and welcome again to Old Republic's second quarter 2026 earnings call. So in the quarter we produced $238 million of consolidated pre-tax operating income and that compares to $268 million and our consolidated combined ratio was 95.3 and that compares to 93. annualized operating return on beginning equity stands at 12.1%. And for the first six months of the year, growth in book value per share, including dividends, stands at seven. Specialty insurance grew net premiums earned by 2.3% over the second quarter of 2025 and produced $199 million of pre-tax operating income compared to 254 million. Specialties combined ratio was 95.5 compared to 90.7. In title insurance we grew premiums and fees by 10% over the second quarter of 2025 and produced 56 million of pre-tax operating income compared to $24 million. Title's combined ratio was 95.1 compared to 99. We saw some slight unfavorable prior year loss reserve development in specialty insurance and consistent favorable prior year development in title insurance. And Frank will provide more topics, more details, I should say, on that topic. So I'll turn the discussion over to Frank, and then Frank will turn things back to me to cover specialty insurance, followed by Carolyn, who will discuss title insurance. Frank, it's all yours.

Thank you, Craig, and good afternoon, everyone. This morning, we reported net operating income of $186 million for the quarter, compared to $209 million last year. On a per-share basis, comparable quarter-over-quarter results were 76 cents compared to 83 cents. So starting with investments, net investment income increased just over 6% in the quarter, primarily as a result of a larger investment base from strong operating results and our debt issuance that took place in May. Our average rate on corporate bonds acquired during the quarter was 4.9% compared to the average yield rolling off of about 4.2%. The total bond portfolio book yield ended the quarter at 4.8%, which was a slight increase from year-end. Turning now to loss reserves. Overall in the quarter, the consolidated combined ratio benefited slightly from favorable development compared to 2.1 points of benefit last year. This was a result of favorable development from title insurance being partially offset by unfavorable development from specialty insurance.