Q3 2026 Aon pls Earnings Conference Call - AON PLC

Good morning and thank you for holding. Welcome to Aon PLC's third quarter 2026 conference call. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question and answer portion of today's call. To join the question queue, please press star 1 on your touchtone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. I would also like to remind all parties that this call is being recorded. If anyone has an objection, you may disconnect your line at this time. It is important to note that some of the comments in today's call may constitute certain statements that are forward-looking in nature, as defined by the Private Securities Reform Act of 1995. statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or those anticipated. For information concerning these risk factors, please refer to our earnings release for this quarter and to our most recent quarterly or annually SEC filings, all of which are available on our website. Now it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Greg Case, President and CEO of AonPLC. go ahead. Good morning and thank you for attending our third quarter earnings call. I'm joined today by Nadine Barani, Interim CFO, Andy Marcel, Deputy CEO with responsibility for risk capital and human capital, and Ann Corona, CEO of North America. The presentation which Nadine will reference during his remarks is available on our website. Our outstanding third quarter results reflect continued momentum across the firm and reinforce high confidence in our Aon United strategy we delivered 6% overall organic growth with 7% risk capital and 5% human capital demonstrating broad-based strength across our solution lines as we progress through the final year of our 3x3 plan our execution and ongoing investments in talent and technology are delivering differentiated value for clients expanding our opportunity set and creating long-term value for our shareholders today we want to emphasize three important drivers of our performance this past quarter and as we look to the future. First, the forces shaping client demand. Second, our Aon United operating structure with integrated risk capital and human capital capabilities. And third, our recently announced pending acquisition of USI, which together with NFP and Aon establishes the premier US middle market platform for clients. Let's start with the landscape for business decision makers and what we're hearing from clients. The Today's macroeconomic environment continues to be defined by volatility and complexity. Geopolitical uncertainty remains elevated, economic conditions are uneven, and cyber threats continue to evolve. All while rapid technology innovation is creating new opportunities, reshaping business models and workforce strategies. These forces don't exist in isolation. They're deeply interconnected, making it more complicated than ever for businesses to understand their risks, build resilience, and grow. In uncertain and challenging times, clients turn to AI as a trusted partner to help them diagnose risk and people issues, design bespoke programs, and access capital solutions. And with rapid technology change, the catalyst to deliver sustained client impact and greater value over the long term will be at the intersection of human expertise, proprietary data, and technology. Cassettes will not accrue solely to AI models or to individuals, but rather to organizations with the technology and talent to build trusted, lasting client relationships. This is exactly where Aon is positioned, and it links directly to my second topic, how Aon continues to strengthen our capabilities to help clients make better decisions for their businesses and employees. Our Aon United strategy remains the foundation upon which we capture these opportunities. By bringing together risk capital and human capital supported by AI on Business Services, we connect data, analytics, expertise, and access to capital across our firm. This integrated approach is a key differentiator, allowing us to address client needs more comprehensively and deliver better advice and superior solutions. And our strategy is further accelerated by AI as our analyzers and diagnostics lead to better insights that help us win more business, retain more clients, and create new revenue opportunities. We're also capturing productivity gains as we leverage our shared services platform and domain expertise to deliver faster, more relevant, and more actual insights for clients. Importantly, this work continues to reinforce our Aon United advantage, which translates into stronger client results. A few examples highlight how this advantage is powering our momentum. During the quarter, we were appointed as the lead broker for the reinsurance program of a new natural catastrophe program introduced by the Thai government to reduce the protection gap for natural disasters particularly flood the significant peril in Thailand the program is executed by a consortium of local insurers through the Thailand General Insurance Association provides broad risk coverage including flood earthquake and windstorm to 30 million households in Thailand the vast majority majority of which currently have no insurance. This work and impact demonstrates the relevance and strength of risk capital, connecting insurance and reinsurance, along with the national government, to reduce the production gap in a region where natural perils have profound impact for millions of people. Another example highlights our ability to broaden capital access and attract new capital pools. Our partnership with a leading alternative asset manager shows how Aon combines proprietary data analytics and structuring expertise to deliver innovative capital solutions traditional insurance capital remains critically important but the scale of emerging client needs increasingly requires us to connect risk with capital beyond the traditional insurance market we have spoken previously about the 250 trillion of capital globally and this is a clear tangible example of our work to selectively bring these sources of capital to bear on behalf of clients our Our ability to quantify risk exposure and provide investors with the insight required to deploy capital with confidence will create additional capacity for clients and expand the universe of insurable risks. Which brings me to the third driver of our performance, especially as we look to the future, USI and the U.S. middle market opportunity. Post-close, we could not be more excited about the opportunity to bring together USI team members and our colleagues at NFP and Aon to set a new standard of capability, expertise and client service for the middle market. This important growing segment includes more than 200,000 companies and 48 million employees, representing an addressable market of more than $40 billion across commercial risk, health and wealth. These businesses face the same interconnected forces as our largest clients, and they need full access to analytics, insights, and capital solutions required to protect and build our companies. Against this backdrop, our acquisition of USI, which we expect to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, represents an important step in the development of our global middle market strategy that builds directly on the successful foundation we established with NFP. USI also gives us direct access to the fast-growing E&S market, expanding our ability to match capital with client need and provide greater capital access across all markets. And with the addition of approximately $11 billion of P&C premium flow, we continue to enhance our middle market data footprint, further improving our Aon United advantage. Together, Aon, NFP, and USI will create the premier $6.5 billion U.S. middle market platform combining deep local relationships and distribution with the full capabilities of USI, NFB, and fundamentally this strategy is all about being better and giving our colleagues greater content capability and market access to serve clients with increasing levels of distinction in addition we also outline key initiatives that will capture 395 million of expected synergies including connecting producers and client leaders to broader content and capability optimizing premium placement for clients expanding market access and simplifying technology and operations since the acquisition announcement planning is well underway for the implementation of these initiatives with integration planning teams in place and clear work streams to bring USI NFP and a on together at closing as one connected middle market platform we look forward to welcoming Mike Saccard and the incredible team at USI to a on as we build out this terrific growth opportunity overall we have an emphasize a few points taken together our Q3 results and the progress we continue to make across our firm reinforce our confidence in the trajectory of our business and our ability to deliver on our strategic and financial commitments and prior standalone guidance. As the environment continues to evolve and the underlying drivers of client demand remain strong, organizations need better insights into interconnected risk and people challenges. They need broader and more innovative access to capital and they need trusted partners who can combine data analytics capabilities and frontline expertise across markets and geographies and United positions us to meet these needs our alignment across risk cap on human capital enabled by ABS is creating greater value for clients and accelerating momentum across the firm our investments in technology and AI are amplifying our expertise and strengthening how we serve clients and the announced acquisition of USI advances important growth pillars across the middle market and ENF. As we progress to the final year of the 3x3 plan, we remain focused on discipline execution and our overall growth agenda. To our more than 60,000 colleagues around the world, thank you. Thank you for your continued commitment to our clients, each other, and our Aon United strategy. Your dedication drives our momentum and gives us confidence to continue to deliver for clients, colleagues, and shareholders. Now let me turn the call over to Nadenh. Naden? Thank you, Greg, and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter results once again demonstrate the strength and durability of a business built to deliver through the cycle. We achieved our highest organic revenue growth of the year so far, continued strong adjusted margining expansion, and drove double-digit adjusted EPS growth. Clear evidence of broad-based momentum across our solution lines and disciplined execution of our long-term strategy our client centric organizational structure aeon united combined with continued investments in talent data analytics and ai position us well to create more value innovate for our clients and deliver strong growth despite what might be described as a challenging pricing environment that consistency is most evident in new business, which has contributed 9 to 11 points of growth now for 10 consecutive quarters. As we've announced, we plan to extend the Aon United Advantage to the premier middle market platform that we're establishing with the pending acquisition of USI and building on the success of NFP. This acquisition leverages the operating model behind our strong performance and enhances our ability to serve the growing middle market segment with broader capabilities deeper client relationships and greater distribution reach with that framing let's turn to the financials starting with our third quarter results on slide five organic revenue growth was six percent total revenue increased three percent to 4.1 billion adjusted operating income increased five percent to 1.1 million adjusted operating margin expanded by 70 basis points to 27%, and adjusted EPS grew 10% to $3.36. Finally, we generated $1.1 billion in free cash flow. Let's get into the details of these results, starting with organic revenue growth on slide 6. Organic revenue growth was 6% in the quarter. Growth was broad-based, with all four solution lines delivering mid-single digits or greater organic revenue growth, reflecting the strength of our diversified business mix. In commercial risk, organic revenue growth accelerated to 7%, driven by meaningful contributions across North America and EMEA, and reflects continued strength in our core P&C business. M&A activity accelerated during the quarter, demonstrating double-digit growth, and provided an incremental lift to our results. Strong client demand for specialized underwriting solutions also continued to support growth across our MGA and MGU platforms. Finally, growth in construction was fueled by our record pipeline of data center projects. Reinsurance delivered 7% organic revenue growth on top of 8% in Q3 last year. The strength of the reinsurance business, despite soft market conditions, reflects the differentiated value we deliver through risk capital and our ability to innovate and broaden access to capital. Strength in the quarter was driven by treaty growth reflecting continued strong new business activity and client retention which together more than offset lower rates. Looking ahead to Q4 we continue to expect strong organic growth driven by strong demand for our strategy and technology group solutions and momentum in international facultative placements. Health solutions grew six percent in the quarter driven by continued strength in our core health and benefits business internationally as we help employers navigate rising health care costs and benefits complexity. Growth also benefited from data analytics driven sales in our talent business as we continue to leverage analytics and advisory to address evolving workforce needs. Finally, wealth generated 4% organic revenue growth, reflecting sustained demand for regulatory and valuation-related work across the UK and EMEA. Growth also came from our core retirement business, as well as NFB's asset-based revenues. Turning to the components of our Q3 organic revenue broke on slide 7, in Q3, new business contributed 11 points to organic revenue growth supported by a balanced mix of new client wins and the expansion of our wallet share with existing clients. Our investments in revenue generating talent continues to be a meaningful driver of growth. The 2024 and 2025 cohorts contributed approximately 115 basis points to Organic Revenue Growth in the quarter and we expect their impact to continue to increase as productivity ramps. Revenue generating headcount is up four percent year-to-date and we remain on track to expand the population of priority growth hives by four to eight percent this year. Retention remains strong in the mid 90s supported by increased engagement from our enterprise client group as well as enhanced delivery of analytics and advisory powered by ABS. Net market impact which captures both rates and exposure was slightly positive and within our expected 0 to 2 point range despite a softer pricing environment in P&C and reinsurance. Importantly these results reflect the durability and differentiation of our business model across market cycles with organic growth continuing to be driven by business investments and client demands. As a final point on revenue, third quarter fiduciary investment income was $69 million, down 8% from prior year as higher average balances were more than offset by lower interest rates. On slide 8, Q3 adjusted operating income increased 5% to $1.1 billion and adjusted operating margin expanded 70 basis points to 27%. Adjusted margins expanded despite the impact of lower rates on investment income from fiduciary balances. This was offset by the benefit from the AAU restructuring program and, most importantly, continued operating leverage enabled by our scalable ABS platform. ABS continues to generate scale benefits through disciplined expense management and AI-enabled productivity gain, thereby lowering unit costs and creating operating leverage that funds growth investments and enables margin expansion. Restructuring savings were $20 million and a quarter, contributing approximately 50 basis points to adjusted operating margins, and we remain on track to deliver $100 million of savings in 2026, advancing towards our goal of $450 million program savings with 2026 representing the final year of our restructuring investment. Moving to interest, other income, and taxes on slide 9, interest income was $24 million in the third quarter, driven by interest earned on the proceeds from debt raised to fund the pending USI acquisition. Interest expense of $206 million was flat versus prior year, and $27 million higher than Q2, primarily due to a partial quarter of interest expense on debt raised to fund depending USI acquisitions. We expect Q4 interest expense to be approximately $410 million, driven by higher USI-related debt. Adjusted other expense was $2 million higher than last year, driven my re-measurements of balance sheet currency exposure. We estimate Q4 other expense to range between $12 million and $15 million. Our Q3 adjusted effective tax rate was 20.2%, and we continue to expect a full-year adjusted effective tax rate between 19.5% to 20.5%. Finally, adjusted EPS grew 10% year-over-year to $3.36. Turning now to free cash flow and capital allocation of slide 10. We generated $1.1 billion of free cashflow in the third quarter, up 2% year over year, with growth partially offset by working capital movements and USI related transaction costs. Q4 is historically a seasonally higher quarter of free cash flow growth excluding the impact of USI-related cash expenses, we continue to expect double-digit free cashflow growth on a standalone basis for 2026. As a reminder, the pending USI acquisition is expected to result in approximately 160 million in, or transaction costs, largely recognized in the third and fourth quarters of 26. Serving capital allocation on the right hand side of the page, the principles of our balanced capital allocation model remain the same. Deleveraging our balance sheet, funding a stable and growing dividend, followed by balancing investments for growth with the return of excess capital to our shareholders. I'll conclude my prepared remarks with a few thoughts on our full year 26 financial objectives. The underlying drivers of our growth are evident in another quarter of differentiated results. We are generating sustainable organic revenue growth through consistent new business generation and high retention, translating that growth into strong earnings through operating leverage and converting those earnings into free cash flow. On a standalone basis excluding cash and other transaction expenses from the impact of the USI acquisition, we remain confident in our ability to deliver our previously communicated full year 26 guidance across organic revenue, margin expansion, EPS and free cash flow growth. We continue to make progress towards the close of the USI acquisition in the fourth quarter and will provide more details on the combined financials after closing. As Greg mentioned, integration planning is well underway with the establishment of the integration management office with myself the executive sponsor and alongside leaders from Aon, NFP and USI. We are focused on planning for the next generation client experience, building on a unified culture, maintaining clear accountability and driving value creation objectives. Before we move to Q&A, let me underscore the Aon United Advantage, brought to life through risk capital, human capital, Aon client leadership and ABS. This strategy is delivering strong results today and positions us well for sustainable growth in the future, creating differentiated value for our clients, colleagues, and shareholders. So with that, let's open the line for questions. Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd love to ask questions. If you would like to remove your question from the queue, we ask that you each keep to one question and invite you to rejoin the queue for any additional questions thank you our first question comes from the line of andrew kliegerman with td cowan please proceed with your question thanks and good morning um as i think about aeon's exceptional organic growth for the You know, another consecutive quarter. Broker facilities come to mind. I hear about Aon doing a $10 billion data center facility, $2.5 billion energy facility, something with Blackstone and reinsurance. It just continues on. So my question is, what's the runway for data, not just data center, but facilities in general? Do you see that having a long runway at Aon and industry-wide for brokers? And then the second part of it is, with Aon's history of innovation, more broadly, I know you touched on a few specifics in your opening remarks, Greg, but more broadly, are there other innovations that are having the kind of impact at Aon like broker facilities? Well, first of all, Andrew, thanks for the question. I appreciate it. And listen, a lot to unpack there in terms of sort of the overall line. First, let me, this whole area around the data centers and evolution and bringing capital industry, all these innovations are here. And before us, Andrew, because of client need. We spent a huge amount of time understanding client need and how it's evolved and essentially structured the firm so we could respond to that. And you're seeing that. I do want to emphasize, though, before we get into the detail, and I want to also say it's just been, it's awesome to have Andy and Ann on the call with an in and I. You're getting a chance to get even more frontline color. So I'm going to go to both of them in a second to get their response. But I would start with foundationally, Andrew, this is another strong quarter of growth, as you highlighted, across and really think about the consensus from Q3-25 on top of a strong period. So this is growth on growth. And it really is, our team's excited about it, not because of the performance, really. It's really about what you're describing. It's client momentum. And it's really client momentum that continues to build. And it is beyond a single area. These innovation pieces are just steps. They're components. They're not the overall answer. They're important, but they're real. The fundamentals of our progress and the momentum has really been much more broad-based. It reflects really this response to client need I described. And at a foundational level, it comes back to the work of the three-by-three. Again, we listened to clients and years, you know, now for three years, broke down our firm and rebuilt it around alignment. We changed the organizational structure, risk capital and human capital, and AI business services, connected it in an aligned way and then frankly have amplified it with AI and this has really brought us to a place where we can respond I mean think about being able to sit across the table from you know a financial sponsor about bringing capital and you've got risk capital that means you've got commercial risk and reinsurance at the table or a data center at the table at cyber you know risk capital at the tables all these things sort of contribute to these pieces our view fundamentally under is the man is going up more volatility more complexity and our ability to respond and meet client need is the opportunity that's why we did AMB as the services that's what we did risk capital human capital that's while we invest sort of Hyman and three-by-three but I think you Andy you know perhaps some thoughts and views as you think about sort of the specifics on a couple of these areas we'll cover more in detail and then hand that they would the frontline field response has also been exciting to see because our colleagues are excited about this level of innovation but Andy maybe over you thanks Greg I mean our performance in commercial risk and reassurance being pretty broad-based particularly our core P&C business has exceptional results and in part that's driven by the further development and utilization of our analyzers globally in our risk diagnostics in fact in the third quarter 5600 clients you know used our risk analytics and utilization without year-on-year 30% so we're excited about that that's driving new business and retention in positive ways and when we think about you know facilities and data centers as an example we've created you capacity to meet the client needs whether it's operational programs whether it's whether it what we did with our power lifecycle program and even leading into shorty for us-based power contracts to meet the collateral requirements there so we're responding to client needs in that regarding the pipeline and development in the digital infrastructure is improving all the time so we're excited about that. M&A services was another double-digit growth for us in the quarter you know the pipeline remains strong and so you know that was broad-based to both geography, the rest of the warrants is intact, and across corporates and PE. But Anne, what are you seeing in the in the geographies there? Thanks Andy and as you mentioned the commercial risk organic growth has been broad-based on top of a very strong comp from the prior year period. The full year delivered 7% organic growth on top of 7% last year. In North America, the 7% organic growth over 10% last year. The fact is we're doing more, we're winning more, and we're keeping our clients for longer around the world. Our clients are sharing how our talent and technology are driving better outcomes for them. Just last month, we held our North American Client Council. This is a gathering of 50 of the largest global companies that are headquartered in the U.S., and the clients shared direct feedback, exceptionally positive direct feedback that our analyzers and diagnostic tools are enabling them to make different and more effective risk transfer decisions. In fact, one client explained how they moved their cyber program to Aon because of our team and capabilities and then had the confidence to restructure their program. Our AI-enabled tools are differentiated because they're built by Aon Business Services along with our colleagues in the business, and then we can continue to iterate them based on that direct client feedback. Bottom line is it's working. got it um my my follow-up question is around um potential for divestitures i i understand i i just to confirm greg you said usi was going to close in the fourth quarter it sounds like everything's on track but i i think about nfp wealth and you raised 2.7 billion dollars from that divestiture. I wonder, are there places inside of Aon where, and obviously you're not going to point to anything specific on this question on the call, but are there areas where Aon could divest or would want to divest? Like, what do you think about on that front? Well, Andrew, appreciate the question. And as you step back and think about how we orient ourselves. Again, we're looking across our company around the deployment of capital. We treat this as sacred for us. And the approach we take is a pooled approach. And we're Looking for Return on Invested Capital. And we'll always be doing this. So we've made many, many acquisitions, many divestitures to optimize return on capital overall. So anticipate we're doing that. You're exactly right on USI. Everything's proceeding exactly as planned fully anticipate closing in Q4, as we described, and fully anticipate sort of deploying capital in the most optimal way over time as we pay down the debt that is out there and sort of move forward and we'll continue to look for these opportunities. But, Nadim, anything else you'd add on that on the capital allocation side? Yeah, I would, you know, I'd say that just as you mentioned, we're always looking at opportunities to optimize the portfolio, but when it comes back to capital allocation, our objectives and our methodology stays the same. We're focused on deleveraging our balance sheet, funding a stable and growing dividend, investing in growth opportunities and then returning excess capital to shareholders. So that's how we thought about it in the past and we continue to do so. We have to exercise discipline, enable for us to be able to get to the leverage ratios that we've talked about and we did that just with NFP and we expect to in this transaction. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just as a reminder, please keep to one question each. Our next question comes from the line of Elise Greenspan with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question. Hi, thanks. Good morning. My question is on the USI transaction. I just was hoping, now that it's been a little bit since you announced the deal, could you just provide us you know hopefully more color on just the drivers of the revenue synergies i know you know we previously touched on just uh the usi and like the wholesale component there and how that could be um you know you know could help drive the revenue strategies that you outlined can you just update on us you knows since you announced the deal the work that you've done the confidence you know that you potentially have in the revenue energies and the wholesale piece as well as anything else that you want to highlight that's going to drive the revenue synergies you're expecting with the transaction? Absolutely, Lisa. Really appreciate it. Listen, I have to start with the foundation, though. You know, we're here around with USI and the middle market opportunity, at least because the foundation has been set by the three by three, by risk capital, human capital, ABS, and now acceleration with AI. That success and momentum has been tremendous, and you see it in the results today. But, you know, in addition to that, we saw the opportunity in the middle market to literally deliver a premier U.S. middle market platform. And this is building on, really building on the USI capability, NFP capability, Aon capability. And it's frankly about greater value for clients through our frontline leaders, through our producers, through our client leaders. And we saw it, we could see it, we proved it with NFP. It was so clear. And now with USI and that combination, where, and it was 59 days ago, for those who are keeping track, we had high expectations then when we announced, you know, candidly, at least they're stronger now. We brought the team together. We've got the planning in place, fully in place for action on day one, once we close. And really, I want to get Nadin to talk about the synergy capture overall, but specifically around revenue. But listen, this opportunity for us builds on this foundational platform with another area of incremental substantial growth in the middle market and in E&S and with the data footprint we've got now sort of in the Middle Market so you know the expectation we have you should is high and you should have high expectations on us as well let's talk about a synergy capture and then and then we'll get some reactions from and Andy as we see it out in the field right yeah so let's take a step back and let me just explain we've identified three hundred ninety five million dollars in EBITDA run rate synergies and these come for 33 specific work streams that we've identified. 23 revenue work streams and 10 cost work streams. If I start with the cost, that represents 280 million, 71% of the total synergies, and we have really high confidence in being able to achieve these because 90% of these are expected to be completed by 2028 and these are through our global capability centers, technology savings, and other efficiency actions that we plan to take as well. This is a proven playbook for us. This is part of what we've been doing with the 3x3 strategy and the AVS platform that we've developed over the years. And the NFP integration provides the muscle memory and the recency effect for our confidence in being able to achieve these. Now, if I move to the revenue synergies, Those actually represent 115 million, or 29% of the total, and that comes from placement optimization of wholesale flow, E&S segment opportunity, direct placement opportunity of USI premium volume, all with the client in mind, producing the best service. Another area is the high retention and producer productivity, and this is enabled by additional tools and capabilities that we've been developing. And then the third area is risk capital and the human capital cross-sell, which builds on a three-by-three strategy that we've had in place for many years now. So these work streams, many of them are tried and true strategies that we're working on and have good experiencing over the years. What we will be doing, because we have such high confidence, is that we'll provide quarterly updates on an annual net EBITDA synergies and the total program synergies as well. And we have the integration management office in place now. So, again, a lot of the planning is taking place, and we're excited to get started. Now, I'm going to hand you to Anne for some additional thoughts. Thanks, Nadine. The business is highly confident that we will deliver to the synergies that Nadine described, and we see potential for more. We've proven our ability to deliver on targeted synergies with the NFP combination, and we're exciting to build on the success of the NFPP foundation and to learn from the USI team members. and we are truly thrilled to deliver better outcomes for our clients and our colleagues it's about creating the premier middle market platform and bringing new content and capabilities to companies in the growing middle market and you want to comment on your on some of the broken pieces sure actually we were a CIA famous team in all the areas and the revenue opportunities that we identified are actually magnified by the feet from the feedback that we got from carriers we have real clear line of sight and what we're going to do and how it's benefiting the USI clients first and foremost and how we can avail ourselves of a global broking network which we're excited about so our degree of confidence whether it's around you know total specialty or MGA platform or sort of broking infrastructure is much stronger than it was we went into it so we're highly confident. Does that help all of these? That is. And then my second question, I wanted to pivot to reinsurance. You guys have seen strong growth there, and we've seen a little bit of a dispersion across the industry in just the organic growth trends. I know there was perhaps some one-time-ish revenue in the quarter, but even excluding that, there's still positive you know, in excess of the mid single digit target. So can you just give us a sense of what's been driving the reinsurance organic and how we should think about that trending into 2027 when it seems like, right, we'll probably see, you know another round of double digit price declines on the property cap side at 1.1. Absolutely, and I appreciate the question. Listen, we have an incredible team with a long record of performance really over time. and I admire about the team these guys this absolutely relentless pursuit of client impact but they also are constantly looking around on innovation and new ideas and new solutions to bring a market and so I want to get any just talk a little bit about sort of this history but this idea around diversification and all the ways we can support help clients really has sort of played a significant role also I just want to highlight the commercial risk result and the reinsurance result both really are a testament to risk capital you were literally putting content in the room that was different than it was before analytics that are different and people that are different reinforcing and supporting each other fully aligned that means a different set of solutions for clients better sort of solutions that shows up the reinsurance capability shows up in reinsurance and you're seeing it also shows up and commercial risk when you see it sort of in some of the some of the bigger more complex items that are other clients are facing you know you think data centers, et cetera. So it really is a unique combination that's come out of this alignment that we've worked so hard to create with risk capital. And you're, again, seen it in reinsurance with a great group of leaders. And this is 7% on top of, I think, 8% in the prior year period, Andy. So this is pretty unique, good momentum, as we talked about before. But your thoughts on sort of what's happening under the hood here? Okay, thanks, Greg. I think the The reinsurance story is, you know, it's a risk-capital story, and it's a diversification story, at least, which we spoke about at InVest today. And, you have a risk capital standpoint, you highlight two things. One would be a global fact platform in partnership with commercial risk, driving double-digit growth internationally, you know, which has been a superb success, a long-lasting, and we see a great future in that. And then I think about digital infrastructure, partnering with the carriers, alternative capital, to bring solutions to clients on the commercial risk side. And so that's been tremendously exciting. But it's not the diversification. Reinsurance at AR&RE has always been leading into innovation. And sure, we have great success and great teams with our treaty business, got a lot of new wins, particularly in the MGA space. But it is a story about diversification, we've been leading with capital advisory and handle securities, and the capital formations lawyers with the reshare deals or the sidecars that we've been involved in that's accelerating our cat bond business remains the leading capital business you know globally and we're having tremendous success there but we also knew that we had to diversify away from straight up transactional business and we sort of lent into the formation of the strategy and technology group and we were leading there with sort of advice to pnc insurance around strategy and analytics and actuarial services, but also broadening out with our proprietary, you know, pathwise tool, leaning into the life space, which is a growing part of our business, and that's really differentiating us, you knows, amongst competitors in the life advisory space, what we do in the back of the field, what do we do with actuarial advisory, so that's exciting for us. So overall, you now, it's a diversification thing that's driving, and it sets us up through the cycles. But I think we have set this up for single mid-digit growth or greater through the cycle. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rob Cox with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question. Hey. Good morning. Yeah, so when I think about the outcomes of Aon's strategy and all the innovative work in recent periods, a couple of those outcomes are this 100 basis points plus of organic contribution from talent and the really consistent 70 basis points plus of margin expansion, which goes back to the 2025 Investor Day, I believe. As we look through to 2027 and beyond, should we be thinking about those underlying drivers as sustainable underneath any impacts from USI and all the integration involved? Rob, thanks for the question. I'll start with an overview, then go to an addendum on the specific mechanics here. And we might even get into a field view around sort of the credibility of all this comes back to clients and client reaction. And that's the fuel. The answer is it's not only sustainable, we believe we've got greater momentum against those objectives than ever before. And it's no magic, right? It literally is client demand, client needs going up. Our ability to respond has been shaped literally to their request, what they're demanding, and we're seeing opportunity. opportunity. And we were attracting talent and building talent inside of Aon. But remember, it's not just, it's talent with technology. It's content, the capability around it. So it isn't, none of this is bigger. This is all about better. Better in the middle market, better in large corp, better enterprise client. Because we've got a set of solutions that we've come together and developed over time, we also can not just innovate, but innovate at scale more quickly and more effectively. So all these things are literally the reason, the goal, the objective we had when we set out on A&United over a decade ago, but really why we, over three years ago, dove in and said, we've got to do better. We changed structure, risk capital and human capital. That is alignment. Thatis reaction to the market. ABS, absolutely towering in terms of its connectivity. But as Anne said, it wasn't in isolation. It was with the field. All these things came together to give us capability that has enabled our current performance, and our view is the model we described at Investor Day is the model that literally you're seeing play out. But, Naden, thoughts? Yeah, let me build on that. So, you know, our full year objective in terms of priority revenue generating hires was 4% to 8% for the full year. And we've achieved 4% year-to-date, so we're already at the low end of the full-year expectation. And it's not just about head count, it's about the right head count which is why we have a range. And so we're really pleased with the performance that we're seeing coming through in our results today and as I mentioned in my remarks those will continue to grow as the individual season and mature in terms of their contribution and as we continue to bring on more cohorts that's just going to build on top of each other. So it's not really just about you know one quarter or one year it's a program that we've put in place that will drive sustainable growth into the future. So we will continue to prioritize these investments because they help fuel growth in our business. So I'm going to pass to Anne for a bit more color. Thanks, Nadim. And as you stated, our ability to attract and retain talent, best talent, has always been high. In fact, NFP producer retention is higher than the pre-acquisition numbers. And the enthusiasm with which external candidates are reaching out is profound. The candidates are keen to join our winning team and to serve clients with our AI-enabled capabilities. It's the analyzers, the diagnostic tools, certificate center. In addition to brokers and producers, we're attracting the best client leaders, and they are serving the most complex clients, the global clients. Our enterprise client leaders are joining from within the industry, but also we're attract client leaders from outside the industry – from technology, manufacturing financial institutions and they are joining because they want to solve client needs and deliver the integrated risk capital and human capital capabilities and the destination for choice for candidates and for clients our next question comes from the line of meyer shields with kvw please proceed with your question Thanks so much. I was hoping to sort of look at the USI acquisition in the context of NFPs. Specifically, I was helping you give us a timeline for accelerating legacy NFT production and what the timeline, whether the timeline would be the same for USI when they have access to Aon's tools. Love it, Myron. Listen, we have long thought about this middle market opportunity. with ABS we had the opportunity then to go in and really really address it in a way that we thought could be powerful for clients but also in creating for a on and all the above that comes with it NFP proved it we saw it we can see we do it we could see it happen by the way it was the front line of NFP to made it happen it was producers the client leaders as they picked up and by the we learned a huge amount from NFP you know hopefully they picked up a few things from Aon together, and together we're just stronger as we work together. And so we proved it. We learned a lot, though, in two plus years. We learned a Lot. So not only do we see the opportunity now with USI at the table, with NFP, with Aon, together, and I want to emphasize this, together a single platform that's going to make a difference under the leadership of Mike Sicard, who's watched us for 20 years, been in this game. Our view is that opportunity is even greater than we anticipated when we came in with NFP, even greater. We've seen it. We proved it. Now we've got all the capability around the table to make it happen. So, you know, listen, we have high expectations on what this might be and what it will play out to be. We're highly confident on the synergies, as Nadine described, but really the place we're most excited is the impact, you Know, with our colleagues sitting across the table from clients around how they can help them succeed. So you know I think, Nadine, the performance of, you Now, NFP we're not reporting it externally is as strong as it's, you know, maybe the highest quarter it's been over the last, since they've joined. And we see that opportunity playing out in an even faster fashion over time together with the platform with USI. That's exactly right. You know, we're really pleased with the NFP performance, a really, really strong quarter for Q3. And, we have confidence that that performance is going to continue to grow. Okay, Mario. Thank you. Thank You. Our next question comes from the line of bob wang with morgan stanley please proceed with your question good morning uh i want to unpack a little bit about the sidecar uh initiatives you have uh i know you mentioned about this a little but earlier but if we were to think about your proposed partnership with blackstone on cortina with advancement in ai risk modeling a higher yield environment that we're in today and then just the amount of capital that is available to deploy um do you foresee sort of like a proliferation of sidecars going forward not just really uh gradually but to the point where it could have private equity capital displace carrier capacity at a significant fashion going forward and if that is the case if you were to you know put your consulting hat on what is the aeon's opportunity here going forward well i i want to just start with a big emphasis here this is really this is not about the capital it's about the clients uh what we're responding to and what what andy's going to describe a little bit is around the innovation on analytics and content if you've got analytics and content and capital can see a way to come in and make a return and be protected you're going to attract capital our goal is to you know think about our four and a half five trillion dollar industry right now with absolutely cherished market partners to serve clients and we're going gonna reinforce and support that capital pool but that capital pool you know four and a half to five trillion doesn't it needs to grow over time needs to be bigger over time imagine if it was twice the size and it was it was closer to 10 billion than 5 billion we're talking about net creation not a zero-sum game net creation so now you're talking the ability to actually address data center issues address cyber address the evolving AI risk address you mean think about the tide catastrophe arrangement I described this is a country now we're actually supporting just like we did with Jamaica so for us this is really Bob about a much bigger industry that evolves over time and the analytics is the way to unlock that if they've got competence then you can deploy new capital to do that and by the way this has been a history of our industry and Andy should talk a little bit about how it's evolved over time and so this is another step by the not an easy one the content and analytics required to move money to move capital to move someone else's balance sheet to bet on our industry is a big deal I mean this is not easy to do but when you can pull it off you know we are creating more capacity more more ability to serve client need and this should not be a zero-sum game it should be opportunity to really make a difference with clients in unique ways but Andy pots yeah thanks Greg I mean our role as an intermediary is to bring in a choice to find durable meaningful quality choice to find durable capital and we've done that historically at a already I think by 25 years the beginning of the capital market that is now what we're leaving that in a category but that that now is beyond the US and Japan and you know more common in Europe and so we're helping clients with their needs have to relate to cap on but if you think of you know the side cars there's been 98 cycles created since 2020 and 163 in the last 10 years but very few new capital balance sheet formations in the reinsurance market and so this is the way the capital is entering the business we are part with that capital to resolve the time means and it's great you know pointed out the risk is elevated around the world prices may be down at this particular juncture but risk is elevating whether it's from climate whether it is from social inflation whether it is from technology uh socioeconomic disruption in particular rights in uh in france so over time we anticipate the needs of our clients and and the need for risk transfer is going to increase and the cost of that risk transfer over time will increase and we want to you know expand the total addressable market so we need capital to come in and so we're excited about our position in that we feel that we're leading it whether it's with the reshare deal deloitte whether it is the side cars and our capital advisory team partnered with our m security team is creating with the uh you know with the account teams is really putting us in the driving seat and solving kind issues and you saw rob or bob the the opportunity to do this uh was with the market uh you know even the example you highlighted. It's with market partners as well. So, I appreciate the question. Hopefully, that's good color and background for you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Mountmaiden with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question. Hey, thanks. Good morning. I was hoping you guys could talk a little bit about the construction growth in North America. It sounded like, you know, that may be moderated a little bit. I think last quarter you guys were talking about double-digit growth there, and this quarter I did not hear that. But at the same time, you spoke about a strong pipeline. So I was hoping maybe you could just unpack that a little bit and your outlook for contributions to growth from, you know, AI infrastructure, just given all the focus on that? David, appreciate the question. And listen, I would just highlight, it's never about a single quarter. As you know you've heard us talk about before, it truly trend over time. I would also highlight, you knows, construction continues to be, you kno, an incredibly important investment area for us, opportunity area for u, we've got tremendous team uh sort of on this broad-based topic uh and not just the construction but also the operation over time all that comes with this we just see tremendous uh tremendous opportunity um and i would say the pipeline looks strong but i also want to emphasize as i did at the beginning the story you've seen in this quarter you've see in previous quarters isn't just construction or data centers and all it really is the broad-base story we're talking about these are amplifiers of that but maybe the specifics on the quarter uh because david asked but then more broadly andy how you're seeing this evolve over time yeah let me start with just commenting on commercial risk overall and um just you know how happy we are with the high quality growth and what we mean by that is it's always starting with new business generation and we actually had 12 12 points of new business come through for the quarters again that's the area that's leading it's high quality retention remains in the mid 90s and market impact overall continues to be slightly positive despite pricing pressures. So again, strength was broad-based, ongoing strength in core P&C, M&A services and construction, and across regions, organic growth was mid single digits or greater for this quarter. So I'm going to pass over to Andy with a little bit more color. Thanks, Dylan. You know, we grew over, you know, construction in the US and globally over a really strong quarter in, third quarter in 2025, and so that's like a tremendous achievement. When we look at our, you construction business globally and we have a big share of the global infrastructure project so that that momentum is continuing our pipeline in the US and afford digital infrastructure remains strong and expanding all the time and so we're we're highly confident about the future of that business and how we're how we are sort of partnering across with capital with the insurers and the reinsurance actually in some cases in even bringing in alternative capital to meet those needs and they're changing all the time but we look at the pipeline and how it's expanding where we're really confident about the needs individual infrastructure they are global so we've had a ton of success in Australia Europe we've have success there are permitting slowdowns and there's energy costs that affect you know the timing of particular projects and that's that's happening all the time but overall the pipeline is expanding the investment from the hyperscalers and others is not slowing down so we see a tremendous opportunity across risk capital and also working with our in human capital and how they can bring some of those solutions, you know, to bear there. So we remain really optimistic about what we're doing in that space. Thank you. Our next question will be our final question this morning from Yaron Kinnar with Mizuho Securities. Please proceed with your question. Good morning. Thanks for allowing me on. My first question relates to margins. So when we adjust for the 50 basis points of restructuring cost saves and fiduciary income headwind of, I think, about 20 basis points by my calculation, the residual margin expansion was in the 30 to 40 basis point range. I'm curious why with 6% organic growth, that residual expansion wouldn't be higher. Is it that you're capitalizing on strong growth to increase platform investments or are there other offsetting headwinds? Yeah, let me take this one. So that's exactly right. If you think about the margin expansion that was actually created, it's well over 100 basis points. But we chose to invest into the business, which is how we ended up with the 70 basis points on a net basis. It's all about creating durable growth for the long term. And so, those are the decisions that we make every quarter and for the year. Thank you. That concludes our question and answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Cates for final comments. Thanks very much. Thanks very much. I just want to thank everyone for joining the call this quarter and look forward to our discussion next quarter. Thanks so much. Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.