Gary Bhojwani
Analyst · Autonomous Research. Please go ahead
Thanks, Jennifer. Beginning with Slide 5, I am very pleased with our performance in the third quarter, which reflects the continued progress our team has made executing on our strategic priorities. All three of our segments posted sales growth in the quarter and drove all growth scorecard metrics up over the prior period. While we would like to see a few more quarters of this growth before calling it a trend, our results reconfirm our faith in our strategy. Operating earnings per share were $0.53, up 18%, reflecting benefits from tax reform. Book value per diluted share was $19.28, down 10% from year end 2017 due to the impact from the previously announced reinsurance transaction. This quarter we closed on the transformative long-term care reinsurance transaction. Following the close, Moody’s upgraded CNO to investment grade, which reflects our significantly de-risked balance sheet as well as our ability to fund the transaction within the capacity of our existing balance sheet, while maintaining capital metrics that are at or better than what we disclosed as part of our 2Q earnings call. Moody’s also highlighted our expectations for annual free cash flow generation of approximately $350 million. With the long-term care transaction now complete, our full attention is focused on growing the franchise. Turning to Slide 6, I want to take a moment to discuss the updated growth scorecard. You will see that we have divided our measures into categories of drive growth and expand to the right to more clearly allow our stakeholders to track our progress against our growth strategy. As CNO expands to the right refers to our goal of reaching customers still within the middle market that are slightly younger and have higher income and wealth. During the third quarter, we delivered growth in life and health NAP and total collected premium. Tied to our initiatives to drive growth and expand to the right, Bankers Life annuity collected premiums, client assets at our broker dealer registered investment advisor and fee revenue, all generated double-digit growth this quarter. Now, let’s move to Slide 7 in our segment results. Starting with Bankers Life where we are pleased to report meaningful progress across our major initiatives and strong results for the quarter. Life and health NAP increased 2%, which was driven by a 6% increase in health sales. Total collected premiums increased 7% driven by a 14% increase in annuity collected premiums. These strong annuity sales, coupled with higher persistency, drove a 5% year-over-year increase in annuity account values. We also made progress in our effort to expand to the right. You will recall that in 2016 we launched our own broker dealer and registered investment advisor. I am pleased to announce that these businesses are now entrusted with over $1 billion in client assets. Net client inflows totaled $70.5 million this quarter and $185 million year-to-date. Our fee revenue was up 15% over the comparable quarter due to growth in securities, sales and fee-based investment management services, combined with an increase in Medicare Advantage sales. The number of Bankers Life financial advisors has grown 25% over the prior year. Currently, 13% of our agent force is duly registered, which leaves us with significant runway for growth. Insurance agents that become duly registered as financial advisors are able to offer more services to our clients, manage a greater share of their assets, and ultimately build deeper relationships. And because they are able to offer more asset accumulation and income protection products, they help drive sales of our retirement products, such as annuities. In fact, these duly registered agents were responsible for 48% of the Bankers Life annuity sales during the quarter. Our producing agent count increased 1% this quarter. This growth was generated from gains made in first year agent retention, which reduces our reliance on new agent recruiting and is consistent with our strategy to build a more tenured and productive agent force. Moving to Slide 8, Washington National has generated growth in 6 of the past 7 quarters due to the success of our strategic initiatives. Total NAP in the third quarter was up 2%, driven by a 28% increase in worksite life sales. Total collected premiums were up 2% driven by increases in supplemental health sales. Our geographic expansion efforts have delivered over $3 million of incremental NAP in 2018, while our diversification initiatives are showing promising results. Life sales were up 25% in the third quarter, while our short-term care pilot delivered its best results to-date. The short-term care initiative is particularly encouraging, since it leverages the breadth of the diverse CNO product portfolio and distribution capabilities. Total worksite sales were up 12% driven by a record-breaking quarter in the PMA worksite channel, which posted its sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Successful new agent recruiting, combined with strong experienced agent retention, contributed to an overall increase of 3% in the average producing agent count in the quarter. Turning to Slide 9, Colonial Penn delivered its strongest rate of sales growth in more than 3 years. NAP was up 19% due to increased cost effective advertising spend and strong sales productivity. We always remain price disciplined in our approach and acted on attractive lead investment opportunities during the third quarter. Total collected premiums were up 2% driven by growth in the block and stable persistency. We continue to see success with our initiatives to diversify our lead sources. Web and digital sales were up 40% in the third quarter driven by investments in enhancing our website and expanding our online lead generation activities. We have also implemented various technologies to enhance lead processing, improve the customer experience and speed the sales closing process. This has led to higher quality lead generation, improved tele sales agent productivity and stronger sales conversion rates. Finally, we are committed to expanding our product offerings within Colonial Penn and plan to pilot new products in 2019. I will now turn the call over to Erik to discuss our financial results. Erik?