We had a very healthy net written premium growth of 12% and net earned premium growth of 13% for the quarter. A key contributor to those numbers was our Commercial Lines organization that showed quarter-over-prior-year quarter growth of 21% and 23%, respectively. Our Commercial Lines combined ratio has increased each quarter this year with the third quarter reporting a 99.3 combined ratio, bringing the year-to-date through September to 94.5. We have taken both rate and underwriting actions to get this very important part of our business back in line with our profit goals and while our new rates will take some time to earn in, based on annual policies, we recognized what we needed to do early and did so post-haste. We will continue to watch this closely.
In the third quarter, we also had solid growth in new policy applications in both the Agency and Direct auto channels. We have seen a deceleration in Direct auto, which we expected based on some of our actions designed to ensure we meet our profit goal. Total Personal Lines generated a 96.2 combined ratio for the quarter, reflecting greater losses from catastrophes. For the first nine months of 2016, Personal Lines reported a 95.8 combined ratio.
The third quarter was busy on the catastrophe front. We incurred nearly three points of losses, primarily driven by the Louisiana floods. For the quarter, our companywide combined ratio was 96.6, bringing our year-to-date right at 96.0 through September.