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: Actual results could differ materially from expected results.
Last night, we reported a loss of $1.24 in adjusted operating EPS, which included $474 million in COVID-19 impacts or $5.31 per share.
In the context of a quarter that saw pandemic related deaths reached their highest peak in some of our markets.
This was obviously a challenging quarter for us.
But if I take a step back, our core business performed well overall, and we consider this another solid quarter, further demonstrating the resilience of our global business platform and franchise.
Both our Asia Traditional and Financial Solutions businesses had excellent results.
U.S. Group and individual health performed well, and Australia was breakeven.
During the quarter, we completed a number of in-force transactions, deploying $100 million in capital, which will further add value to our underlying earnings engine.
The transaction pipeline remains very good with opportunities in all our regions.
Our approach to capital deployment during this crisis remained balanced and disciplined as we seek opportunities to deliver long-term value.
I'm also proud to announce that for the 10th consecutive year, RGA has been ranked #1 for business capabilities on a global basis by NMG in their 2020 global reinsurance report.
Leveraging our capabilities and being a trusted partner as well as a thought leader, has allowed us to deliver value to our clients throughout the past year.
A point of personal pride in this organization and a tribute to all our employees and our culture of client centricity.
Results in our U.S. Mortality business were significantly impacted by the certain COVID-19 claims seen in the first three months of the year.
Considering the elevated level of population depth, these results are not unexpected.
Our large claim experience was in line this quarter after being very favorable in the previous two quarters.
And our mortality performance over the past 12 months, after adjusting for COVID-19 claims, has been in line with our expectations.
Todd and Jonathan will provide additional information on COVID-19 impacts for all our businesses.
As we look forward, there is reason for optimism as increasing vaccination rates in the U.S., U.K. and Canada should reduce the level of COVID-19 deaths through the remainder of the year.
And other markets should follow, as vaccine availability continues to expand.
RGA's business fundamentals are strong, our business prospects are robust and we are taking appropriate actions to protect our business and position RGA for profitable growth.
As a final point, it is worth reflecting that through the end of the first quarter, RGA has incurred over $1.2 billion in COVID-19 claims since the pandemic began.
Our ability to absorb these claims is a testament to our financial strength, but it also serves as a reminder of the important purpose that our industry and RGA play in helping millions of families around the world who have been affected by this pandemic.
RGA reported a loss for the quarter of $115 million on a pre-tax adjusted operating basis.
Adjusted operating earnings per share was a loss of $1.24 per share, which includes COVID-19 impacts of $5.31 per share.
Our trailing 12-month adjusted operating ROE was 3.7%, which was reduced by COVID-19 impacts of 8.8%.
Reported premiums increased 3% in the quarter.
Growth was 5%, excluding the premium decline in Australia, reflecting our continued caution in that market.
The effective tax rate on pre-tax adjusted operating loss was 26.9% for the quarter, above the expected range of 23% to 24% due to the geographical mix of the earnings.
Beginning with the U.S., the U.S. and Latin America traditional segment reported a pre-tax, adjusted operating loss of $344 million in the quarter, including COVID-19 claim cost of $358 million.
Let me spend a minute providing a little bit more detail.
For individual mortality, approximately $340 million of claim costs are attributed to COVID-19.
The approach used to estimate COVID-19 claims is consistent with that used throughout 2020.
We also experienced some excess mortality claims in the quarter that is likely directly or indirectly related to COVID-19.
Which is not unexpected, given the excess mortality experience that has been observed in the general population throughout the pandemic.
It is important to note that our mortality experience over the past 12 months, excluding COVID-19, was in line with our expectations.
Our group and individual health business both performed better than our expectations in the quarter.
Variable investment income was strong in the quarter as the limited partnership investment performance was favorable.
Our asset-intensive business reported results modestly below the expected run rate due to some unfavorable policyholder experience.
U.S. Capital Solutions reported results that were in line with our expectations.
The traditional segment, first quarter results reflected COVID-19 claim cost of approximately $26 million.
Our Financial Solutions segment performed well in the first quarter, reflecting favorable longevity experience, which we attribute to COVID-19.
In the Europe, Middle East and Africa segment, our traditional business results reflected a meaningful level of COVID-19 claims in both the U.K. and South Africa.
We estimate the COVID-19 claim cost for the EMEA traditional segment in the quarter were $98 million.
EMEA's Financial Solutions business results -- reflect the negative effects of model updates and the longevity offset from COVID-19 was lower-than-expected as a result of longer reporting lags, but we expect that benefit to come through in future periods.
Turning to our Asia Pacific traditional business.
In the first quarter, Asia had favorable underwriting experience across most of the region.
While we did see some COVID-19-related impacts, they were modest and within our expectations.
Australia results were breakeven for the quarter.
While there remains some uncertainty in the Australian market, we are continuing to see progress and remain prudent in our approach to new business and focused on actions to improve results.
Our Asia Pacific Financial Solutions business continued to produce good results in the first quarter, benefiting from organic growth and favorable experience on existing treaties.
The Corporate and Other segment reported pre-tax adjusted operating income of $94 million.
Adjusting for that, the results were better-than-expected from our run rate and reflected lower overall expected expenses.
Going forward, there is the potential for additional volatility and variable investment income from the change in unrealized gains and losses on our equity method investments.
Moving on to investments.
The non spread portfolio yield for the quarter was 5.67%, reflecting strong variable investment income.
Excluding the previously mentioned accounting correction, the yield was 4.52%, as we had strong contribution this quarter from the limited partnership investments.
Our overall investment portfolio, average quality of A was maintained and credit impairments were negligible.
We continue to have ample liquidity as we continue to prudently manage capital during the remainder of the pandemic.
RGA's global platform, strong balance sheet and effective capital management strategy have been vital to RGA's success during this pandemic.
While we expect to have some additional COVID-19 claims in 2021, we feel confident about RGA's ability to produce attractive financial results in the future.
As Anna mentioned, Q1 COVID-19 general population deaths were at their highest levels in many countries, notably the U.S. and the U.K.
Our models continue to track well to actual results and our overall COVID-19 mortality claim costs, which only include claims that we believe will ultimately be reported with the COVID-19 cause of death, were within our expected range based on the level of general population deaths.
The U.S. continues to be the driver of our mortality claim costs, accounting for 74% of our global total.
This was approximately $17 million per 10,000 U.S. general population deaths at the lower end of our model estimates and very consistent with the prior quarter.
Both the U.K. and Canada had Q1 COVID-19 mortality claim costs in excess of our model ranges, which we are attributing primarily to short-term volatility.
The U.K. and Canada had a greater number of larger COVID-19 claims in the quarter relative to what we saw in 2020.
After considering this quarterly volatility, we are reiterating our previous rules of thumb for claim cost estimates in these markets as shown on slide 12.
All other markets combined, accounted for approximately 10% of our COVID-19 mortality claim costs in line with our expectations, with the majority of this coming from South Africa, consistent with the high level of general population death they experienced this quarter.
India accounted for less than 1% of our COVID-19 claim costs in the quarter.
Both countries have experienced a significant level of excess mortality beyond what is being reported in general population COVID-19 figures, much of which we believe is likely COVID-19.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, over the last 12 months, South Africa has accounted for approximately 5% of our COVID-19 mortality claim costs and India approximately 2%.
The majority of our Q1 longevity experience is based on reporting from Q4 2020 and the significant increase in U.K. general population mortality in Q1 of 2021 is not yet reflected in our results.
We do expect to see this impact over the next several quarters as reporting is received.
Going forward, the ultimate longevity offset to our global mortality claim costs may be lower than our 10% rule of thumb, given our concentration of this business in the U.K. and the success of their vaccination efforts to date.
The significant reduction in general population mortality rates as vaccination levels rise in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada is expected to reduce our COVID-19 mortality claim costs over the remainder of 2021.
At the same time, we continue to closely monitor the impact that the pandemic variants are having and countries that are at earlier stages of vaccine rollouts where higher mortality could persist for a longer period of time.
Let me hand it back to Todd.

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q1 adjusted operating loss per share $1.24.
in q1, consolidated net premiums totaled $2.9 billion, an increase of 3% over last year's q1.

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