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: CNA's strategic discussion is hosted by its CEO, Dino Robusto and its interim CFO, Larry Haefner.
During the call today, we might also discuss non-GAAP financial measures.
Jim, over to you.
Andrew Tisch has decided to step away from his executive responsibilities at Loews Corporation at the end of December.
I could not have asked for a better partner than Andy who has served Loews with complete dedication for the last 50 years.
During his tenure, he has successfully led a number of our subsidiaries and functional areas, while also fostering open communication, collaboration and respect throughout the organization.
We are all fortunate to have been the beneficiaries of his wisdom and expertise and we are grateful that he will continue to serve as Co-Chairman of the Loews Board and as a member of the CNA Board.
Loews had another strong quarter across the board with good performance from each of our consolidated subsidiaries.
CNA continues to be a success story for Loews.
The company's underlying combined ratio decreased by 1.5 points, driven by the expense ratio, which was 30.7% compared to 31.8% in the prior year quarter.
The underlying loss ratio was also lower at 60.2% compared to 60.5% in the prior year.
CNA's P&C gross written premiums increased by 10% and net written premiums increased by 5%.
Note that the increase in net written premiums is lower than for gross written premiums due to additional reinsurance that the company has purchased in its strategy to protect the insurance portfolio from large loss events.
The value of this incremental protection was fully on display this past quarter with the mitigated losses CNA reported on Hurricane Ida.
CNA had pre-tax investment income of $513 million, pretty much flat with the prior year's quarter.
Limited partnerships had a great quarter and the fixed income portfolio continues to provide consistent earnings even with headwinds from the historically low interest rate environment.
We continue to be very pleased with CNA's results.
In other news, Loews Hotels made an exciting announcement in early October.
The company broke ground on the Loews Arlington Hotel and Convention Center, a new project in the tried and true entertainment hub of Arlington, Texas, which sits between Dallas and Fort Worth.
When it opens in early 2024, the hotel will have 888 rooms and over 250,000 square feet of meeting and event space.
For those not schooled in the hotel industry, that's a whole lot of rooms and a whole lot of meeting space.
Once again, Loews Hotels is acting both as the owner and the operator of this project.
Industry dynamics generally do not allow for companies in the hotel space to perform this double role, and as a result, Loews Hotels is a leader within this niche of the market.
Playing to these strengths has served Loews Hotels well and we believe it will continue to do so.
This will be Loews Hotels' second property in Arlington following in the strong footsteps of Live!
by Loews which has had a successful opening in 2019 and whose occupancy rate has generally remained strong throughout the pandemic; a testament to this market's resilience and the team's focus.
The new hotel is consistent with Loews Hotels growth strategy, which is built on two pillars.
The first pillar is owning and operating hotels associated with immersive destinations.
Loews Hotels' two decades long partnership with Universal Orlando is a great example of the strength of this pillar.
Our hotels in Arlington will also clearly benefit from built-in demand drivers since our guests will have access to all the sports and entertainment destinations close to the hotels, including the Dallas Cowboys AT&T Stadium and the Texas Rangers Globe Life Field.
The second pillar of Loews Hotels growth strategy is the company's focus on owning and operating hotels with 300-plus keys that have strong group business and ample meeting space.
Loews Hotels has a well-earned reputation for successfully operating hotels that cater to this type of business.
The two Arlington Hotels combined will offer nearly 1,200 guestrooms and more than 300,000 square feet of meeting and event space and these properties offer unique local experiences and are equally attractive to leisure and good customers.
Loews Hotels has continued to see strong demand for leisure travel and improving interest for group travel.
For the third quarter, the occupancy rate for owned and joint venture hotels was almost 72% as opposed to about 35% in the first quarter of this year.
Our resort hotels continue to do considerably better than our properties in urban settings, and about 60% of Loews Hotels' rooms are in resort destinations.
As the U.S. economy and the hotel industry continue their recovery, we are confident that Loews Hotels will once again be a growth engine for Loews Corp.
Next I wanted to talk about Boardwalk.
The demand for natural gas is increasing and Boardwalk is well-positioned to take advantage of this change.
We see the increased demand coming from increased domestic consumption and from international markets via LNG exports.
Boardwalk transports natural gas under fixed fee take-or-pay contracts with mostly investment-grade customers which limits its commodity and volumetric risk.
The company currently has $9 billion of revenue backlog with a weighted average contract life of seven years.
As the transition toward clean energy unfolds, we believe that gas will continue to be an important fuel used the world over.
Finally, let me update you briefly on share repurchases.
From July 1 through last Friday, we repurchased 6.2 million shares of Loews common stock for just over $337 million.
Year-to-date, we've bought back 15.7 million shares for $830 million, which is 5.85% of the shares outstanding at the beginning of the year.
As I've often said, we believe that Loews still trades at a significant discount to our view of its intrinsic value so we'll continue to let our share repurchase activity speak for itself.
And with that, let me hand the call over to David.
For the third quarter, Loews reported net income of $220 million or $0.85 per share compared to net income of $139 million or $0.50 per share in last year's third quarter.
Let me describe the quarter in a nutshell before getting into more detail.
CNA's performance was driven by strong property casualty underwriting income before catastrophe losses, healthy net investment income, and a net reserve release in the Life & Group segment.
These positives were partially offset by significant weather-related catastrophe losses.
Boardwalk's operating results benefited from strong transportation revenues generated by its growth projects and increased utilization throughout its system.
And Loews Hotels continue to emerge from the COVID-induced downturn with its resort properties, especially those in Florida, leading the charge.
Loews Hotels generated positive net income for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2019.
Let me now dig more deeply into the third quarter and the year-over-year comparison.
All three of our consolidated subsidiaries, CNA, Boardwalk and Loews Hotels, recorded materially higher year-over-year net income contributions, with CNA leading the charge.
I would encourage you to review the transcript for more details.
In the meantime, let me provide a few highlights.
CNA contributed net income of $229 million, up from $192 million in Q3 2020.
The main drivers of the year-over-year increase were higher property casualty underwriting income before cat losses and the absence of three charges that occurred last year, two of which were in the Life & Group segment, a charge from the unlocking of the long-term care active life reserve, a charge from strengthening the structured settlement claim reserve, and a less significant charge from the early retirement of debt.
Conversely, higher catastrophe losses than in last year's third quarter detracted from the year-over-year comparative results.
Focusing on property casualty underwriting income.
The combination of a 6% increase in net earned premium and a 1.5 point improvement in the underlying combined ratio led to a 27% increase in CNA's underlying underwriting gain, which excludes cat losses and prior year development.
Net cat losses in the quarter were $178 million pre-tax, including $114 million for Hurricane Ida.
Last year's Q3 cat losses were modestly lower at $160 million pre-tax driven by three Southeast hurricanes and the Midwest derecho.
CNA's expense ratio, which just a few years ago hovered in the mid-30s, came in below 31%, down from 31.8% in Q3 2020 and 31.6% last quarter.
This is the lowest expense ratio posted by CNA in about 13 years.
CNA's consolidated after-tax net investment income was essentially flat year-over-year as returns on limited partnership and common stock investments were robust in both periods.
CNA conducts its annual reserve reviews for its Life & Group segment in the third quarter.
Last year, the company booked a net reserve charge of $83 million pre-tax for its long-term care and structured settlement books of business.
This year, the comparable number was a net reserve release of $38 million pre-tax as CNA had no change in its long-term care active life reserve, a $40 million pre-tax release from its long-term care claims reserve, and a de minimis charge related to structured settlements.
We consider this favorable outcome a further indication of CNA's enhanced insight into and prudent reserving around the long-term care business.
CNA ended the quarter with total assets of $66.5 billion, shareholders' equity of $12.7 billion and consolidated statutory surplus of approximately $11.1 billion.
Boardwalk contributed net income of $38 million, up from $20 million in Q3 2020.
The main driver of the year-over-year increase was higher natural gas transportation revenue, driven, like last quarter, by growth projects recently placed in service and higher system utilization.
Boardwalk's EBITDA, which is shown and defined in our quarterly earnings supplement, was $186 million in the quarter and $635 million year-to-date.
Through nine months, natural gas transportation throughput increased by more than 11% year-over-year across the system.
Turning to Loews Hotels.
Loews Hotels contributed net income of $13 million; a dramatic improvement from the $47 million net loss posted in Q3 2020.
Adjusted EBITDA, which is defined in our earnings supplement and excludes non-recurring items, rebounded from a $38 million loss last year to a positive $59 million in Q3 2021; close to $100 million swing.
The year-over-year improvement was driven by a dramatic revenue increase as all properties, including all 9,000 rooms at the Universal Orlando Resort, were open for the full quarter.
This was the first time all 9,000 rooms in Orlando were open for a full quarter.
On Page 11 of our quarterly earnings supplement, there is a good snapshot of Loews Hotels year-over-year and sequential operational improvement, which highlights the drivers of the company's revenue increases during this COVID period.
With more available rooms, higher occupancy and healthy average daily rates, revenues have climbed markedly since the depths of the pandemic.
We have invested $32 million in Loews Hotels year-to-date, all in the first quarter.
Given the company's stronger than expected cash flow, the parent company does not expect to invest any further cash in Loews Hotels during the remainder of this year.
Turning to the Corporate segment.
The parent company's investment portfolio generated a pre-tax net investment loss of $30 million as compared to income of $23 million last year.
The loss stemmed from the performance of the equity portfolio.
The parent company portfolio of cash and investments stood at $3.6 billion at quarter end with about 80% in cash and equivalents.
During the quarter, as Jim mentioned, we repurchased 6.2 million shares of our common stock for $333 million and we received about $92 million in dividends from CNA.
After quarter end, we spent less than $5 million repurchasing our stock.
As of last Friday, there were under 254 million shares of Loews common stock outstanding, down about 6% since the beginning of the year and about 25% over the past five years.
Loews continues to be characterized by strong cash flow into the parent company and an extremely liquid balance sheet with cash and investments far exceeding parent company debt.
I will now hand the call back to Jim.
We've got plenty more time with David as CFO, so more about him and Jane at a later date.
And now, Mary, back to you.

user
compname reports net income of $220 mln for the third quarter of 2021.
compname reports net income of $220 million for the third quarter of 2021.
q3 earnings per share $0.85.

assistant