What was the ROE in the Global Housing segment in the third quarter of 2020 
heir announcement, a couple of the new models out by the way, but a couple of the new models are still not out. And so we'll see that over time. And I mentioned 5G earlier. This is the first year that the iPhone's really have 5G capability, which is a real positive. But when will consumers really get excited about 5G, we don't know for sure, but as I mentioned earlier, we're now well positioned to support our carrier partners with 5G when it happens.
Brian Meredith -- UBS -- Analyst
Great. And then two quick questions here on Global Housing. The first one, the underwriting initiatives that you guys intimated, maybe a little more color on what those were? And what the impact was on the underlying combined ratio? So I assume that's going to be sustainable here going forward.
Alan B. Colberg -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Richard, you want to might take that one.
Richard Dziadzio -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, sure. Sure. Good morning, Brian. Yeah. I think the changes that we made in the underwriting were across a couple of different products. So first would be, we've talked about it before, small commercial. We had gone into that. That didn't have a positive experience with it and then put it into run-off. So obviously that will persist in the future because we have no plans to get back into that, so that's one positive. And then within the sharing economy, I think we mentioned on a call earlier in the year, we hadn't had one type of product with one client, we weren't getting good experience with and that we underwrote to. So again, I think there we have -- we've gotten good results out of that and are moving forward with positive results.
The part of your question which is how -- what will persist or not. We have had within the non-cat loss ratio some positives this year that won't reoccur. For example, some reserve releases of a limited amount that we mentioned in our prepared remarks of about $8 million. Those won't continue, we don't think. We've also had a really good run in terms of lower frequency, severity and things like theft and vandalism. Will that continue, that's sort of a question mark in terms of how that will go in the future. So there are some things that will continue, some things that probably won't, the reserve releases, and then some things we'll wait to see what happens in the future with our experience.
Brian Meredith -- UBS -- Analyst
Great. And then just one last one on the Global Housing segment. It's been a fairly active year obviously for catastrophe losses, given what's going on with global warming and stuff, meaning some people expect us to be more the norm in the exception. I guess my question then is, does a year like this year make you kind of question your reinsurance program, changes to the reinsurance program may be meeting more aggregate cover to kind of mitigate some of the volatility in the business?
Alan B. Colberg -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Maybe I can offer a few thoughts and then Richard you should offer a few more. I mean if you look at the last few years, we've dramatically changed our exposure to cat. We've done things like taking the retention down to $80 million where it is today from $240 million five years ago. We've exited certain lines that we were participating in the Caribbean. We've reduced exposure by exiting the small commercial business and so we do feel very good about the portfolio and it's performing well. If you look at through the third quarter even with an active cat year, our ROE in housing is something like 14% or 15%. So it's still performing and delivering well. And with that said, every year we revisit how we think about the risk reward trade-offs on the cat program. And Richard, maybe you want to comment a little more on how we're thinking about that in 2021.
Richard Dziadzio -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Thank you. And I think, Alan, you hit on a lot of the very key points, which is part of cat is managing the exposure to cat. So we're very thoughtful in terms
heir announcement, a couple of the new models out by the way, but a couple of the new models are still not out. And so we'll see that over time. And I mentioned 5G earlier. This is the first year that the iPhone's really have 5G capability, which is a real positive. But when will consumers really get excited about 5G, we don't know for sure, but as I mentioned earlier, we're now well positioned to support our carrier partners with 5G when it happens.
Brian Meredith -- UBS -- Analyst
Great. And then two quick questions here on Global Housing. The first one, the underwriting initiatives that you guys intimated, maybe a little more color on what those were? And what the impact was on the underlying combined ratio? So I assume that's going to be sustainable here going forward.
Alan B. Colberg -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Richard, you want to might take that one.
Richard Dziadzio -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, sure. Sure. Good morning, Brian. Yeah. I think the changes that we made in the underwriting were across a couple of different products. So first would be, we've talked about it before, small commercial. We had gone into that. That didn't have a positive experience with it and then put it into run-off. So obviously that will persist in the future because we have no plans to get back into that, so that's one positive. And then within the sharing economy, I think we mentioned on a call earlier in the year, we hadn't had one type of product with one client, we weren't getting good experience with and that we underwrote to. So again, I think there we have -- we've gotten good results out of that and are moving forward with positive results.
 The part of your question which is how -- what will persist or not. We have had within the non-cat loss ratio some positives this year that won't reoccur. For example, some reserve releases of a limited amount that we mentioned in our prepared remarks of about $8 million. Those won't continue, we don't think. We've also had a really good run in terms of lower frequency, severity and things like theft and vandalism. Will that continue, that's sort of a question mark in terms of how that will go in the future. So there are some things that will continue, some things that probably won't, the reserve releases, and then some things we'll wait to see what happens in the future with our experience.
Brian Meredith -- UBS -- Analyst
Great. And then just one last one on the Global Housing segment. It's been a fairly active year obviously for catastrophe losses, given what's going on with global warming and stuff, meaning some people expect us to be more the norm in the exception. I guess my question then is, does a year like this year make you kind of question your reinsurance program, changes to the reinsurance program may be meeting more aggregate cover to kind of mitigate some of the volatility in the business?
Alan B. Colberg -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Maybe I can offer a few thoughts and then Richard you should offer a few more. I mean if you look at the last few years, we've dramatically changed our exposure to cat. We've done things like taking the retention down to $80 million where it is today from $240 million five years ago. We've exited certain lines that we were participating in the Caribbean. We've reduced exposure by exiting the small commercial business and so we do feel very good about the portfolio and it's performing well. If you look at through the third quarter even with an active cat year, our ROE in housing is something like 14% or 15%. So it's still performing and delivering well. And with that said, every year we revisit how we think about the risk reward trade-offs on the cat program. And Richard, maybe you want to comment a little more on how we're thinking about that in 2021.
Richard Dziadzio -- Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Thank you. And I think, Alan, you hit on a lot of the very key points, which is part of cat is managing the exposure to cat. So we're very thoughtful in terms