Good morning, welcome to the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Shareholders of American International Group. I am Chris Banthin, Corporate Secretary of AIG. Joining me is Peter Zaffino, our Chairman and CEO. Also joining us is Bob Sands from PricewaterhouseCoopers, our independent audit firm, and Christopher Woods, Inspector of Election. In the meeting materials portion of the meeting portal, you will find links to the agenda for today's meeting, the rules of conduct for the meeting, a certified list of shareholders entitled to vote at the meeting, our 2025 annual report, and our 2026 proxy statement. Today's remarks may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and are based on management's current expectations.
Our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission provide details on important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially. Except as required by applicable securities laws, we are under no obligation to update any forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change. In addition, today's remarks may refer to non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of such measures to the most comparable GAAP figures is included in our most recent earnings release, financial supplement, and earnings presentation, all of which are available at aig.com. I've received an affidavit of distribution certifying that on March 31, 2026, notice of this meeting was first sent to our shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 16, 2026.
The Inspector of Election has informed us that more than a majority of our approximately 535 million shares of common stock entitled to vote are represented at this meeting. With proper notice having been given and a quorum present, the meeting is duly convened to transact such business as may properly come before it. With that, I will turn over the meeting to our Chairman and CEO, Peter Zaffino.
Thank you and good morning, everyone. I hereby call to order the 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. The polls are now open. Shareholders who have not voted or wish to change their votes may do so by clicking on the voting button on the meeting portal. Shareholders who have voted already and do not wish to change their vote do not need to do anything further. We will now proceed with the agenda items. Following the presentation of all agenda items, we will pause to allow for final voting. The first item of business is the election of the 10 director nominees identified in the proxy statement to the board of directors. All director nominees have joined today's meeting. The board unanimously recommends a vote for each nominee. The second item of business is an advisory vote to approve the compensation of the executives named in the proxy statement.
The board unanimously recommends a vote for this proposal. The third agenda item is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers to serve as our independent auditor for 2026. The board unanimously recommends a vote for this proposal. The polls are now closed. Final votes will be tallied and then certified by the Inspector of Election. We will report the meeting results in an 8-K to be filed with the SEC. There being no other business properly before this meeting, the 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders is now adjourned. I will now make some brief remarks about AIG's exceptional performance in 2025. It was a milestone year of progress for our company. With an increasingly complex and operating environment marked by an evolving risk landscape, rising geopolitical tension, an active catastrophe market, and accelerating technological change, AIG delivered outstanding financial results and executed several strategic initiatives.
Let me share a few highlights. In early 2025, we hosted AIG's first Investor Day in more than a decade. We shared the results of our multi-year turnaround and demonstrated how the AIG of today is fundamentally stronger and a more disciplined organization. We set ambitious three-year financial objectives and presented a multi-year roadmap focused on profitable growth, improved ROE, disciplined capital management, and continued underwriting excellence. We also introduced our AI strategy. Our resulting momentum was recognized by all four credit rating agencies. This incredible milestone represents AIG's first upgrade from Moody's since 1990 and the first upgrade from S&P since 2013. During the year, we significantly advanced AIG's AI strategy through expanded partnerships with Palantir, Anthropic, AWS, and Google, and accelerated the deployment of AI by embedding capabilities across our core underwriting and claims processes.
We scaled our first AI solution, Underwriting by AIG Assist, which is enabling our underwriters to review more submissions and introduce Claims by AIG Assist, which is expediting our claims process and helping us deliver on our promise to be there for our clients when they need us most. By ingesting, organizing, and contextualizing data in real time, AI is enabling underwriters to have clearer, more comprehensive insights. With faster access to these insights, we can materially reduce cycle times for our underwriters and claims teams. We're continuing to advance our AI, data, and digital strategies at an accelerated pace. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we announced several strategic investments that have enhanced our growth potential and are expected to contribute to AIG's earnings.
We entered into a renewal rights deal for the majority of Everest Group's retail insurance portfolios worldwide, which expands our retail commercial footprint and distribution reach in the U.S., Europe, the U.K., Australia and Singapore. The market has been very supportive of AIG in our efforts to convert the portfolio, and we've been pleased with the high levels of engagement from brokers and clients. We announced the acquisition of a 35% equity stake in Convex Group, a privately held specialty insurer, and a 9.9% ownership stake in its majority shareholder, Onex Corporation, a publicly traded asset manager. As part of the Convex transaction, we took a 7.5% whole account quota share of Convex's business for 2026, which will increase to 12.5% by 2028.
Collectively, these initiatives expand our capabilities, position us well for meaningful premium growth and are expected to be accretive to earnings, EPS, and ROE in 2026. Turning to our financial results, 2025 was an exceptional year for AIG. Total net premiums written in 2025 were $23.7 billion, with strong new business growth across North America Commercial and International Commercial. We made strong progress reducing our expense ratio and moved closer to achieving our Investor Day target of a sub 30% expense ratio by 2027. Our full- year accident year combined ratio was 88.3%, and our calendar year combined ratio was 90.1%. Both outstanding results. For the first time since 2008, we generated more than $2 billion in underwriting income, a significant milestone in AIG's journey.
We delivered adjusted after-tax income per diluted share of $7.09, a 43% increase from the prior year. Our core operating ROE was 11.1%, which exceeded our 10%+ target for 2025 and was our first adjusted ROE metric above 10% in over 10 years. We end of the year with a debt-to-total adjusted capital ratio of 17.7%, and we returned $6.8 billion of capital to shareholders, including $5.8 billion of share repurchases and approximately $1 billion of dividends. On April 30, 2026, the AIG Board of Directors declared an 11% increase in AIG's quarterly dividend, marking the fourth consecutive year of a 10%+ dividend increase.
Importantly, we're making great progress towards the ambitious financial objectives that we laid out at our Investor Day. We are on track to achieve or exceed every metric. Turning to governance, I want to recognize Paola Bergamaschi and Jimmy Dunne for their significant contributions to the AIG board. Paola stepped down from the board in October in connection with her appointment to the board of our subsidiary, Talbot Underwriting. As previously announced, Jimmy's retirement is effective as of today. On behalf of the AIG board, I sincerely thank Paola and Jimmy for their counsel, commitment and insights. They've helped guide AIG's strategy. For that, we're immensely grateful. In closing, as we previously announced, Eric Andersen will become the CEO of AIG on June first.
Eric has extensive insurance expertise, significant industry relationships, and a strong focus on clients, risk issues and growth, which will serve AIG well as the company continues to execute against its strategic priorities. As Eric transitions to CEO, I'm looking forward to continuing in my role as executive chair and working with the AIG Board of Directors and Eric to advance AIG's strategy in the future. I'm very proud of the many milestones we have achieved. Together, we've made significant progress positioning AIG as a market leader recognized globally for its strategic, financial and operational strength. Just as important, we continue to make investments and strategic decisions that have set up AIG for long-term success. Our excellent performance was driven by our talented and committed colleagues. Their focus, discipline and dedication to our client, partners and each other continue to distinguish AIG in the industry.
I'm incredibly grateful for all that they do and remain confident that AIG is exceptionally well-positioned for the future. With that, I will now turn the call over to Chris to moderate the Q&A portion of the meeting.
Thanks, Peter. We did not receive any questions from shareholders.
Okay, great. Thank you, Chris, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Have a great day.
This concludes today's meeting. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.