Wesley Carmichael: Hey, thanks for taking my follow-up. I had a question on the US Traditional segment. I think we saw in the financials a re-measurement gain and you said mortality experience, I think, was favorable. So — are you seeing anything new there? Or is that maybe just more quarterly volatility?
Todd Larson: Yes, for the quarter for — in the U.S. mortality markets, as I mentioned in my comments, we saw some very favorable mortality and primarily due to frequency. I don’t think we saw anything unusual is pretty much widespread as far as the favorable experience there.
Wesley Carmichael: And I guess, Todd, what I’m trying to kind of get at is, are you still kind of expecting excess mortality continues into 2024? Or are you kind of changing your thinking at all from your outlook at Investor Day.
Jonathan Porter: Yes. Maybe I’ll take that one, Wes. So it’s Jonathan. Yes, we do — our outlook is still pretty much consistent with what we thought at Investor Day. So we’re pleased to see some of the trends where excess mortality in the population is coming down. I think now it’s around 1% to 2% if you look at the most recent couple of quarters. But we still believe that excess mortality will continue in the intermediate term. And of course, that’s reflected in our assumptions that we’ve got in our business and in our reserves. We haven’t, at this point, changed our expectation for long-term mortality improvement.
Operator: The next question comes from Tom Gallagher with Evercore. Please go ahead.
Thomas Gallagher: Thanks for taking the follow-up. Just a question on Asia. What’s driving the — such a good level of favorability in the traditional business, is it life insurance underwriting? Is it critical illness? Is it both? Because I’m guessing if it’s critical illness there might be something that’s a little more sustainable to that. But just curious if you — how you’re seeing that.
Tony Cheng: Maybe I’ll take that one. Really, there’s a number of drivers in Asia that we’re very happy with. Part of it is the fact that we feel being a US company with obviously strong Asian presence and strong teams allows us to leverage off a sweet spot we have, which is being able to create new products with liabilities such as critical owners and mortality, but also connect that with the ability to reinsure on the asset side of the balance sheet. So that’s a pretty unique attribute out there in Asia. So that’s what’s driving most of the performance is that ability to gain those exclusives and create more value for ourselves as well as our partners to share in. Like you mentioned, I mean, critical illness is one of the major risks there, more so than mortality, but it’s something that we’ve been doing in Asia and the rest of the globe for probably about 25 years now.
Thomas Gallagher: Okay. Thanks.
Operator: The next question comes from Jamminder Bhullar with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Jamminder Bhullar: Hey, I just wanted to follow up on the Asia business and specifically on Australia on how that’s been performing over the last few quarters because I think you’ve obviously had charges there in the past, but I’m assuming that it’s doing better given results in the Asia division overall.
Todd Larson: Jimmy, it’s Todd. Yes. So for the quarter for Australia, I think excluding notable items, there was a modest profit. And I think year-to-date, we’re — it’s profitable. It’s still not back to the level that we would like to see it at. But it’s moving in the right direction is the best way. We have been cautious there the last several years as far as new business.
Jamminder Bhullar: So going forward, things are, I think, heading in the right direction.
Tony Cheng: Yes. And Jimmy, just strategically, I mean, it is a strong example of the optionality we have across the world. I mean, we able to assess the risk return of many, many blocks and businesses across the world. And when they meet the market, the market provides a risk/return trade-off that we like and we’re able to pursue it. But the discipline we’ve shown over the number of years as well as the repricing of in-force blocks there has held us in good stead, as Todd said, in terms of the financial.
Jamminder Bhullar: And fair to assume that as part of LDTI, you would have looked at reserves and taken experience into sort of account for reserves in Australia as well.
Todd Larson: Yes. For any of the business subject to LDTI, we had to update all of our best estimate assumptions.
Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tony Cheng for any closing remarks.
Tony Cheng: Well, thank you all for your questions and continued interest in RGA. On behalf of all the employees of RGA, I would love to congratulate Anna on her upcoming retirement. This was a very strong quarter, further demonstrating the substantial earning power in our business. We remain very well positioned to capitalize on the many growth opportunities. We are firing on all cylinders, and we are confident in our ability to continue to deliver attractive returns to our shareholders. So thank you and this concludes our third quarter call.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
