You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: Before we get into the results for the quarter, I want to make some high level comments.
They continue to be laser focused on delivering innovative solutions for our customers.
Operating in the current environment is not easy, but our team finds creative ways to serve and support our existing customers engage with new prospects.
I'm very impressed with how our teammates are leveraging the investments we've made in technology over the past few years to enhance our capabilities and customer interactions.
These include everyone from producers, service, marketing, brokers and underwriting teammates.
At this stage, we do not see face-to-face interactions returning to the pre-pandemic levels for quite some time and more than likely the new normal will be different than in the past.
As we navigate our way through the pandemic, I'm confident that we will continue to leverage innovation in our sales and service model to help further our growth and support our customers.
We've talked a lot in the past about how we're built for the long term and think about delivering shareholder value.
On Tuesday of last week, our Board of Directors increased our quarterly dividend by 9%.
With this increase, we are now on our 27th year of consecutive increases, something we're very proud of.
Now let's transition to the results of the quarter.
I'm on slide number three.
We had a great quarter and I'm very pleased with our results.
We delivered $674 million of revenue, growing 8.9% in total and 4.3% organically.
I'll get into more detail in a few minutes about the performance of our segments.
Our EBITDAC margin was 32.8%, which is up 130 basis points from the third quarter of 2019.
Our net income per share for the third quarter was $0.47, increasing 14.6% on an as reported basis.
On an adjusted basis, which excludes the change in acquisition earn-out payables, our net income per share was $0.52, an increase of 33.3% over the prior year.
Our team has done an outstanding job of growing our revenue while managing our expense base in response to the dynamics associated with COVID-19.
During the quarter, we completed another six acquisitions with annual revenues of approximately $31 million.
From a capital perspective, we issued $700 million of 10.5-year bonds in September.
We're very pleased with a coupon of 2.375%, particularly considering that we issued bonds in March of 2019 with a coupon of 4.5%.
Our insurance was very well received by the debt markets, which we believe is a true reflection of Brown & Brown's credit quality.
With this capital and our cash flow generation, we're well positioned to further invest in a disciplined manner in our business and deliver future results.
In summary, we're very pleased with the strong performance for the quarter as the strength of our operating model continues to perform well through these unprecedented economic times.
I'm on slide number four.
As you may remember, in April, we thought our third quarter would be the most challenging due to the expected decrease in exposure units for our customers.
And then we performed slightly better than anticipated in the second quarter and during our second quarter earnings call, we indicated that third quarter would not be as low as originally anticipated.
As a result of good new business, higher retention and rate increases, we had a really good third quarter.
We saw companies doing their best to restart their businesses, which included some rehiring of employees or taking them off furloughed.
We saw employers and we saw individuals who start to lose employee benefits coverage through layoffs or reductions in force, which would also drive a decline in workers compensation coverage.
We saw this in certain industries.
However, there are many industries that have been quite resilient or have even grown over the past six months.
As a result of our diversification across geography, customer size, industry lines of coverage and capabilities, we've continued to grow.
Please don't take my comments out of context.
We have customers that are struggling, and we're doing our best to help them.
We believe that there is going to be challenges over the coming quarters and consequently expect there will be ups and downs in the path to recovery.
During the quarter we saw rate increases similar to the last few quarters and in some cases, they've increased slightly.
For the most part admitted market rates are up 3% to 7% across most lines.
Commercial auto rates were the exception, as they remain up 10%.
There is a lot of talk about workers compensation rate starting to turn positive during the quarter.
We're not seeing this across the board.
Generally workers' compensation rate are not declining as fast as they were in previous quarters.
From an E&S perspective, most rates are up 10% to 20%.
Coastal property, both wind and quake are up 15% to 25%.
Professional liability is generally up 10% to 25%, depending on the coverage in the industry.
For both of these lines there can be outliers.
One area where we're seeing the most pressure right now is personal lines in California, Florida and the Gulf Coast States.
The continued reduction in carrier appetite has been caused by fires and tropical activity, resulting in a reevaluation of all CAT-exposed property.
We believe the reduction in personal lines capacity in CAT areas will continue to decrease in the near term.
In connection with the increasing rates, the placement of coverage for many lines, certain industries where customers with significant losses continues to be challenging.
This would include access or umbrella coverage where a carrier or carriers might want to reduce their limit by half, but keep the premium constant.
Just to give an example.
We do not expect this trend to change for the next few quarters.
We've been active in the M&A space closing six transactions during the quarter with annual revenues of approximately $31 million.
During the first three quarters, we closed 16 transactions with annualized revenues of approximately $117 million.
And in addition, we've already closed a few deals for the fourth quarter.
I'm now on slide number five.
Let's discuss the performance of our four segments.
Our retail segment, organic revenue grew by 4.1% in the third quarter.
It's a really strong performance recognized across substantially all lines of business, driven by a combination of good retention, improving new business wins and continued rate increases.
We're very pleased with how our team is prospecting new account in both the traditional face to face model, as well as virtually.
Our National Programs segment grew 8.4% organically, delivering another impressive quarter.
Our growth was driven by continued strong performance from many of our programs, including our lender place, our commercial and residential earthquake and our wind programs, just to name a few.
Our Wholesale Brokerage segment grew 8.2% organically for the quarter.
We realized improving new business and continued rate increases for most lines of coverage.
Brokerage was the fastest growing, while our binding authority business delivered modest growth as many main street businesses are not back to full operation and we experience continued headwinds in the personal line space.
We expect this rate pressure to continue for at least the next few quarters until carriers reevaluate the risk appetite or allocate more capacity to this challenged area.
The organic revenue for our services segment decreased 13.1% for the quarter.
The main drivers of the decline were lower claims volume for our social security advocacy businesses, a prior year terminated customer contract and lower claims for many of our other businesses related to COVID-19.
We expect organic revenue in the Services segment will be down in the low to mid single-digit range for the fourth quarter.
Like previous quarters, we'll discuss our GAAP results and certain non-GAAP financial highlights, including our adjusted results, excluding the impact of the change in acquisition earn-out payables.
We're over on the slide number six.
For the third quarter, we delivered total revenue growth of $55.3 million or 8.9% and organic revenue growth of 4.3%.
Our EBITDAC increased by 13.2%, growing faster than revenues as we were able to leverage our expense base and further manage our expenses in response to COVID-19.
Both of these factors were able to offset the headwinds associated with certain non-recurring items related to legal cost, the write-off of uncollectible receivables for one of our programs, increased non-cash stock-based compensation and a gain on the disposal of businesses recognized in the prior year.
A quick comment regarding our employee compensation and benefits and other operating expenses as a percentage of revenues.
The employee compensation and benefits ratio increased slightly as compared to the prior year, driven by higher non-cash stock-based compensation cost as we were performing above the targets for our long-term stock incentive plans.
In addition, with the market recovery during the quarter, there was an increase in the value of deferred compensation liabilities.
Please remember, the impact on EBITDAC margin is substantially zero as this increase was offset within other operating expenses.
The ratio of other operating expenses decrease due to the continued management of our variable expenses in response to COVID-19 and to a lesser extent, the benefit of the aforementioned change in deferred compensation cost.
Our income before income taxes increased by 4.3%, growing at a slower pace than EBITDAC.
This was driven primarily by the $21 million year-over-year increase in the change in estimated acquisition earn-out payables.
On the next slide, we will discuss our results, excluding this adjustment.
Our net income increased by $18.4 million or 15.9% and our diluted net income per share increased by 14.6% to $0.47.
Our effective tax rate for the third quarter was 15.5%, compared to 23.9% in the third quarter of 2019.
The lower effective tax rate, which was in line with previous guidance was driven by the tax benefit associated with the vesting of restricted stock awards.
Our weighted average number of shares increased slightly compared to the prior year and our dividends per share increased to $0.085 or 6.3% compared to the third quarter of 2019.
Moving on to slide number seven.
This slide presents our results after removing the change in estimated acquisition earn-out payables for both years.
During the third quarter of 2020, the change in estimated acquisition earn-out payables was about $15 million, representing an increase of approximately $21 million as compared to the third quarter of 2019.
Remember that we adjusted certain earn-out liabilities down in the first quarter of this year at the onset of the pandemic, based on our estimates at the time.
Since then, certain businesses have rebounded faster than anticipating causing us to increase the estimated earn-out liabilities in the third quarter of this year.
On a year-to-date basis, the net impact of the change in estimated earn-out payables that they charge of about $5 million as compared to a credit of approximately $7 million for the same period last year.
Excluding the change in acquisition earn-out payables in the third quarter of both years, our income before income taxes, grew $27.2 million or 18.6% growing faster than EBITDAC due primarily to lower interest expense.
Our net income on adjusted basis increased by $35.3 million or 31.6% and our adjusted diluted net income per share was $0.52, increasing 33.3%.
These grew faster than income before income taxes due to the lower effective tax rate for the quarter.
Overall, it was a strong quarter.
Moving to slide number eight.
This slide presents the key components of our revenue performance.
For the quarter, our total commissions and fees increased by 8.7% and our contingent commissions and GSCs were substantially flat.
Our organic revenues, which exclude the net impact of M&A activity increased by 4.3% for the third quarter.
Over to slide number nine.
Our Retail segment delivered total revenue growth of 6.5%, driven by acquisition activity over the past 12 months and organic revenue growth of 4.1%, which was driven by growth across most lines of business and slightly lower contingent commissions and GSCs.
For the quarter, retail realized about a 100 basis points of incremental organic revenue growth from the timing of new business and certain renewals we expected to recognize in the fourth quarter of this year.
Our EBITDAC margin for the quarter increased by 250 basis points and EBITDAC grew 16.2% due to higher organic revenue growth and cost savings achieved in response to the pandemic, both of which were partially offset by a prior year gain on disposals, higher non-cash stock compensation cost and higher inter-company IT cost.
Our income before income tax margin increased 50 basis points and grew slower than EBITDAC, due primarily to a change in estimated acquisition earn-outs.
Over to slide number 10.
Our National Programs segment increased total revenues by $25.1 million or 17.6% and organic revenue by 8.4%.
The increase in total revenue was driven by strong organic growth, recent acquisitions and an increase in profit sharing contingent commissions.
EBITDAC growth of 12.7% was slower than total revenue growth due to the write-offs of certain receivables in one of our programs.
Combined with higher inter-company IT charges, these items more than offset margin expansion from strong organic growth, as well as variable cost savings in response to COVID-19.
Income before income taxes increased by $600,000 or 1.3% with the growth primarily impacted by increased acquisition earn-out payables and higher intercompany interest expense.
Over to slide number 11.
Our Wholesale Brokerage segment delivered total revenue growth of 16.2% and organic revenue growth of 8.2%.
Total revenues grew faster than organic revenue due to recent acquisitions.
EBITDAC grew by 21.1% and the margin improved by 160 basis points as compared to the prior year due to strong organic growth and the delivery of reduced variable expenses in response to COVID-19, which more than offset higher inter-company IT charges and higher non-cash stock-based compensation cost.
Our income before income taxes, grew by 21.1%, substantially in line with EBITDAC growth.
Over to slide number 12.
Total revenues and organic revenues for our services segment declined by 13.1%, driven by the items Powell mentioned earlier.
For the quarter, EBITDAC declined by 22.8%, driven by lower organic revenue and higher inter-company IT expenses.
These were partially offset by reducing certain variable expenses in response to the pandemic.
Income before income taxes decreased 59.5% due to a credit of $6.3 million recorded in the third quarter of 2019 for the change in estimated acquisition earn-out payables and there was no adjustment in the third quarter of this year.
Few comments regarding cash conversion and outlook for certain items.
Regarding cash flow from operations, as a percentage of revenues, it decreased as expected for the third quarter due primarily to about $50 million of second quarter taxes that were paid in the third quarter as permitted by the Cares Act.
For the first nine months of 2020.
Our cash flow from operations as a percentage of revenue was approximately 27% as compared to 25% realized at the same period of the prior year.
The increase is driven by our expanded margins, lower cash taxes, and continuing to manage our working capital.
Regarding liquidity and interest expense, Powell mentioned earlier that we issued $700 million of 10.5 year senior notes in late September with spread decreasing materially and the receptivity of the debt markets we thought it was prudent to access the additional capital at long-term rate materially below our prior issuances.
Our incremental debt is $500 million as we repaid $200 million on the revolving line of credit.
With the additional debt, our interest expense will increase by approximately $3 million per quarter.
With this additional capital, our revolving line of credit and strong generation of cash, we are well positioned from a capital perspective to fund in a disciplined manner, additional investments to help further grow our business.
Through 10 months, we've seen 6.4 million acres burn in California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado with 4.3 million of those acres in California alone.
There have been 27 tropical storms and 10 hurricanes with five of these hurricanes hitting the Gulf Coast region and one may hit this week.
Rates are also increasing in most instances and interest rates are at historic lows.
All of this is in addition to COVID-19 and the related choppy economic environment.
We have customers laying off large numbers of employees and others are the busiest they've ever been.
Even under these extraordinary circumstances, our diversified businesses performed very well.
For the first nine months, we grew our business 3.5% organically, delivered improving EBITDAC margins of 32.4%, adjusted earnings per share was up 21.4%.
Overall, we'd say our performance and financial results have been strong.
With rates continuing to rise, you'll see new capital coming to the marketplace opportunistically.
This will be in certain lines of coverage, but not universally across the board.
In addition, very few senior leaders at insurance companies will discuss if rates are exceeding loss costs.
When that happens, they usually point to rates moderating or flattening.
We're not sure if we've reached at this point yet.
The acquisition space continues to be hot.
There's a lot of competition between private equity and long-term strategics.
We don't see this competition slowing down anytime soon.
Our ability to continue investing in our business was further bolstered by our recent bond offering.
Quite honestly, I didn't think our cost of borrowing for 10-year money would ever be 2.375%.
Our pipeline is good, but as you know, we don't count anything till it's signed.
Finally, we continue to drive our technology agenda across the company through digitization, data and automation and prioritize technology investments around the following.
One, continually optimizing and enhancing our data and analytics program.
Two, expanding our digital delivery capabilities around products and services.
And three, engaging an initiatives designed to drive greater efficiency and velocity through our underlying processes.
We are constantly thinking about how we can serve our customers better and faster.
In closing, we thought it was a really good quarter.

user
compname announces quarterly revenues of $674.0 million, an increase of 8.9%, and diluted net income per share of $0.47.
q3 earnings per share $0.47.
q3 revenue rose 8.9 percent to $674 million.

assistant