Good day, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Release Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mike Majors, Executive Vice President, Administration and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Joining the call today are Gary Coleman and Larry Hutchison, our Co-Chief Executive Officers; Frank Svoboda, our Chief Financial Officer; and Brian Mitchell, our General Counsel. Some of our comments or answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements that are provided for general guidance purposes only. Accordingly, please refer to our earnings release, 2020 10-K and any subsequent forms 10-Q on file with the SEC. Some of our comments may also contain non-GAAP measures. Please see our earnings release and website for discussion of these terms and reconciliations to GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to Gary Coleman.

Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. In the third quarter, net income was $189 million or $1.84 per share compared to $189 million or $1.76 per share a year ago. Net operating income for the quarter was $182 million or $1.78 per share, an increase of 2% per share from a year ago. On a GAAP reported basis, return on equity was 8.9% and book value per share is $84.52. Excluding unrealized gains and losses on fixed maturities, Return on equity was 12.5% and book value per share is $57.11, up 9% from a year ago. In our life insurance operations, as we've noted before, we have seen improved persistency since the onset of the pandemic. In the third quarter, life premium revenue increased 8% from a year ago to $729 million. Life underwriting margin was $162 million, down 5% from a year ago. The decline in margin is due primarily to higher-than-expected COVID-related claims resulting from the impact of the Delta variant. Frank will discuss this further in his comments. For the full year, we expect life premium revenue to grow 8% to 9% and underwriting margin to decline about 5%. In health insurance, premium revenue grew 4% over the year ago quarter to $299 million, and health underwriting margin was up 6% to $77 million. The increase in underwriting margin was due primarily to improved claims experience and increased premium. For the year, we expect health premium revenue to grow 5% to 6% and underwriting margin to grow around 11%. Administrative expenses were $68 million for the quarter, up 8% from a year ago. As a percentage of premium, administrative expenses were 6.6% same as the year ago quarter. For the full year, we expect administrative expenses to grow 8% to 9% and be around 6.7% of premium due primarily to higher IT and information security costs, higher pension expense and a gradual increase in travel and facilities costs. I will now turn the call over to Larry for his comments on the third quarter marketing operations.

Thank you, Gary. I'm very pleased with the overall agency results. Looking forward, the addition of virtual recruiting and selling opportunities will continue to enhance our ability to grow. I will now discuss current trends at each distribution channel. At American Income, life premiums were up 12% over the year ago quarter to $356 million, and life underwriting margin was up 11% to $111 million. The higher underwriting margin is primarily due to improved persistency and higher sales in recent quarters. In the third quarter of 2021, net life sales were $74 million, up 9%. The increase in net life sales is primarily due to increased agent count. The average producing agent count for the third quarter was $9,959, up 7% from the year ago quarter but down 5% from the second quarter. The producing agent count at the end of the third quarter was 9,800. I've often mentioned the stairstep nature of our agency growth it is normal for to see a decline in agent counts after periods of high growth as attrition occurs and more emphasis is placed on training new agents. I remain optimistic regarding our ability to grow this agency over the long term regardless of economic conditions. At Liberty National, life premiums were up 6% over the year ago quarter to $79 million, and life underwriting margin was up 10% to $16 million. The increase in underwriting margin is due primarily to higher sales in recent quarters and lower policy obligations. Net life sales increased 33% to $18 million and net health sales were $7 million, up 19% from the year ago quarter due primarily to increased agent count and increased agent productivity. The average producing agent count for the third quarter was 2,706, up 6% from the year ago quarter but flat compared to…

Thanks, Larry. We'll now turn to our investment operations. Excess investment income, which we define as net investment income less required interest on net policy obligations and debt was $59 million, flat compared to a year ago. On a per share basis, reflecting the impact of our share repurchase program, excess investment income grew 5%. For the full year, we expect excess investment income to decline approximately 2% and but be up 1% to 2% on a per share basis. In the third quarter, we invested $325 million in investment-grade fixed maturities, primarily in the municipal, industrial and financial sectors. We invested at an average of 3.19%, an average rating of A plus and an average life of 29 years. We also invested $56 million in limited partnerships that have deadline characteristics. These investments are expected to produce incremental additional yield and are in line with our conservative investment philosophy. For the entire fixed maturity portfolio, the third quarter yield was 5.21%, down 10 basis points from the third quarter of 2020. As of September 30, the fixed maturity portfolio yield was 5.20%. Invested assets were $19 billion, including $17.6 billion of fixed maturities at amortized cost. Of the fixed maturities, $16.8 billion are investment grade with an average rating of A minus. And below investment grade bonds are $782 million compared to $840 million a year ago. The percentage of below investment-grade bonds at fixed maturities is 4.4%, and excluding net unrealized gains in the fixed maturity portfolio below investment-grade bonds as a percentage of equity or 13%. Overall, the total portfolio is rated A minus compared to BBB plus a year ago. Bonds rated BBB are 54% of the fixed maturity portfolio. While this ratio is in line with the overall bond market, it is high relative to…

Thanks, Gary. First, I want to spend a few minutes discussing our share repurchase program, available liquidity and capital position. In the third quarter, the company repurchased 1 million shares of Globe Life Inc. common stock at a total cost of $96.5 million at an average share price of $94.13. For the full year, we have utilized approximately $310 million of cash to purchase 3.2 million shares at an average price of $97.17. The parent ended the third quarter with liquid assets of approximately $280 million, down from $545 million in the prior quarter. The decrease is primarily due to the redemption of the $300 million outstanding principal amount of our 6 1 8 percent junior subordinated debentures due 2056. In addition to these liquid assets, the parent company will generate excess cash flow during the remainder of 2021. The parent company's excess cash flow, as we define it, results primarily from the dividends received by the parent from its subsidiaries, less the interest paid on debt and the dividends paid to Globe Life's shareholders. We anticipate the parent company's excess cash flow for the full year to be approximately $360 million, of which approximately $25 million will be generated in the fourth quarter of 2021. Taking into account the liquid assets of $280 million at the end of the third quarter, plus $25 million of excess cash flows expected to be generated in the fourth quarter we will have approximately $305 million of assets available to the parent for the remainder of the year. As I'll discuss in more detail in just a few moments, this amount is sufficient to support the targeted capital levels within our insurance operations and to maintain the share repurchase program for the remainder of the year. As noted on previous calls, we will…

Thank you, Frank. Those are our comments. We will now open the call up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Jimmy Bhullar with JPMorgan.

First, I just had a question on margins in the Life business. And it seems like Direct Response margins have declined a lot more than in other channels. And obviously, COVID has something to do with it. But is the makeup geographic and age group for Direct Response that much different than the other channels that the only reason causing it? Or is it something other than COVID that's driving the sharp drop in margins that drive this cost?

Well, Jimmy, as you think about direct-to-consumer, remember that they just have a higher mortality aspect to their business than our other channels. But when you look at the impact of COVID, in the third quarter, they did have about a 7%, but Liberty National had at 10.6%, which really reflected, one, it's a little bit higher concentration in the southern part. And then they also had -- in the ages that were impacted a little bit more by the Delta variant, which tend to be in the -- maybe like in the 40s to 50-year-old, they just have a little bit more exposure proportionately than direct-to-consumer debt. But direct-to-consumer is also being hit pretty hard with, if you will, with the excess COVID or compared to the other lines of business. And the -- for the full year with direct-to-consumer, we kind of expect to have maybe like 5.7% higher policy obligations, which most of that is due to losses or a little over half of that is due to lapses versus the excess non-COVID claims, whereas Liberty National and American Income, there excess non-COVID claims range from pretty flat to 1.5% or so.

And then how do you think about your ability to be able to sort of retain the agency that you've hired through the pandemic, especially early on, you had seen a big pickup in recruiting because of the tight labor or weak labor market. And now it seems like the labor market has improved even in some of the previously troubled sectors, such as travel and hospitality. So is there a risk that if as the economy recovers further, that agent growth becomes an issue beyond this year and any sort of metrics you're able to share on retention would be helpful as well.

In terms of major retention, we think the ability to sell with the digital presentation has made that agent opportunity more attractive. And therefore, we've seen an increase in retention and particularly the American income versus the prior two years. Agents are now going to make more presentations spent less time away from home and they incur far fewer travel expenses. The digital presentation is also with the geographic restriction for the agents sales leads. So in addition to that, virtual recruiting will continue to be effective. We can reach more recruits and virtual training has proven to be well accepted and efficient. This at right now that 80% to 85% of the sales of American income are virtual. We think that will continue past the pandemic.

And moving on, we'll go to Andrew Kligerman with Crédit Suisse.

A couple of questions. On the direct-to-consumer, and I know you've been touching on a number of pieces of it. Notably, that only 231 of the COVID claims came from business written post 2019, and that was for all the businesses. So with that as a backdrop, I'd like to know what the portion of claims from 29 new -- I'm sorry, post 2019 vintages in direct-to-consumer were. And your thoughts around whether these claims in direct-to-consumer that spiked up were a function of the adverse selection? Or as you were talking about, I'll use the term adverse persistency.

Yes, Andrew, really of the 230-some additional claims, roughly half of that is that direct-to-consumer. So it's not substantially all just within that line. With respect to second part of your question that I'm not sure exactly what -- if you will, I think that's just more of the numbers there. It's -- I don't have any particular reason as to why from their total claims or where that's coming from.

So you wouldn't -- I guess -- and again, I need to kind of sharpen my pencil after the call, but -- so let's say it's half of 231 claims at direct-to-consumer. Is that a number that would appear to be adverse selection on the amount of business written post 2019? Or would that be a normal number relative to everything else on business written post 2019 or into the pandemic. Does it seem like a normal COVID number relative to everything else?

Yes, I'm going to say that might be just a little bit higher, but that's not a number that gives us great pause with respect to looking at that level of claims over that period of time on that business. We're always going to have some claims that come in, especially in our direct-to-consumer business. There'll always be some claims that will happen in the first and second durations, if you will, after the policy has been issued. And for that level, really doesn't give us any real concern, if you will.

This is Larry. You've been talking about close to March '20 or '19 that COVID begin March of '20. In terms of adverse selection, since that time, we've monitored income and insurance applications or an indication of the changes in the risk profile that monitoring includes factors like age, amount of insurance and geography. And at this point, we've not seen any material change in the risk profile, and so we're comfortable with those direct-to-consumer sales to date.

That's good to hear. And then just one follow-up on American income. Year-over-year, the agent count looked fine. It was up 7%. But sequentially, the American income ending agents were down 5% in the third quarter. And I'm wondering if this implies any recruiting or retention concerns, would love to have your feedback on that.

Sure. The decrease in agent count is primarily driven by lower new agent recruiting. There's been a negative impact on recruiting across the 3 agencies because there's so many work opportunities in this current economy. And we believe the COVID declines in economic conditions normalize, our recruiting will return to normal levels. And again, as I stated earlier to Jim, the ability to sell the digital presentation has made that agent opportunity much more attractive as agents are now able to make more presentations. They can utilize leads better. It's -- they can work from home, they cure far fewer travel expenses. We think that will help with retention and recruiting as we go forward.

And next, we'll go to Erik Bass with Autonomous Research.

Can you talk about your expectations for 2022 free cash flow and what you have assumed in your guidance for share repurchases?

Yes. Our free cash flow was actually going to be down a little bit. We anticipate in 2022 and be in the range of around $280 million to $320 million, down from roughly the $360 million that we're seeing in 2021, really do primarily to $50 million of higher COVID losses, COVID claims that we're seeing here in 2021 versus 2020 but also really due to the significant growth that we've had in the agency businesses and their sales. And so of course, we've talked about it in past calls that when you have especially double-digit growth in those agencies, that's going to have an additional strain in that first year, but of course, very good long term. So it doesn't surprises that, that's down a little bit. But -- so again, kind of at that midpoint around $300 million there, then we've assumed for buybacks somewhere in the range of $340 million to $380 million over the course of the year, anticipating that we would use some of that -- of those excess cash at the holding company.

And then just to clarify for the health business, the growth in margin that you talked about, does that include the Beazley business?

It does.

So the $11 million?

Yes. And on the premium side, the $50 million of premiums as well.

And then I guess, lastly, just around expenses. Can you talk about what your assumption is for admin expenses, which I think were a bit elevated this year from some of the IT investments and other things. Do you see that continuing? Or will that start to revert to a more normal level?

Yes. Erik, administrative expenses for 2017, we expect to be up around 8%. That includes about $4 million for easily. Excluding that, the expenses will be up 7%. And it's again, we were still we'll see higher information technology and information security costs, also slightly higher travel facility costs as well.

We'll take our next question from Ryan Krueger with KBW.

Couple more numbers questions. Can you give us your excess net investment income guidance for 2022?

Yes. At the midpoint of the guidance, we're looking at excess investment income being down around 2%. On a per share basis, it will be up 1% to 2%.

On the -- in the Life business, the 28% margin, excluding COVID, was that just excluding direct COVID claims? Or do you also make an adjustment for any indirect impacts?

That is just the direct COVID claims, excluding that for the year.

Okay. And did you assume -- or can you quantify what you assumed for any sort of indirect COVID impact for 2022?

Yes. For 2022, in total, about 1.5% of premium is what we're anticipating at the midpoint with about half of that roughly 0.8% or so due to the continued higher lapses and then the other 0.7% being still a little bit of elevated claims predominantly still at the DTC market or the channel.

So if you excluded that, too, you would actually expect a 29% plus margin in life.

That's exactly right. So yes, excluding both the COVID and what we've seen in other higher policy obligations, we would say around 29.6%, 29.5%, a little bit higher than where we were in 2019. Really because with the strong persistency again and the higher premium base, then the amortization percentage is of being a little less as a percent of premium. And that's probably elevated, that will probably be 1% to 1.5% lower than from those historic levels. So the 2019 levels anyway.

Our next question will come from John Barnidge with Piper Sandler.

Most of my questions have been answered, but I do have one. Sadly, COVID remained around longer than we thought where we sat probably at the beginning of the year and a year ago. Given that what are you doing to encourage maybe wellness programs among your life insurers to maybe better deal with it from a long-term perspective.

I will say that we do continue from an organization perspective, continue to support those organizations that are around good health practices and helping to support those types of lifestyle. But I would say nothing specific, if you will, around some of the more sensitive areas around masking and some of those politically charged topics.

[Operator Instructions] Moving on we'll go to Tom Gallagher with Evercore.

Just had a few follow-up questions on free cash flow. The -- I just want to confirm the $280 million to $320 million you mentioned for 2022. That does not include your common dividend. So I should add that back to think about total shareholder wholesale capital generation. Is that...

That's correct. And we would anticipate somewhere in the $80 million to $82 million of common dividends in 2022.

So I guess my question is when I look at your free cash flow conversion and I heard your comment on the overall, the sale -- the COVID impact and then the sales stream. But when I just look at the ratio and I compare it to the proportion of GAAP earnings, it's now drifting below 50%. And I guess, historically, it's been a little bit higher, but that number has actually been coming down. Have you thought about that as a corporate strategy at all improving on that ratio. Now part of it is a high-class problem, right? When you're growing, there's sales stream and you have to pay for that. But when I compare how your ratio looks versus peers, like the net life of the world that are now up to 70% your -- I guess, your proportion of cash flow relative to GAAP earnings is looking like an outlier on the lower side. Is that something you thought at all about as a way to maybe enhance that?

Well, we do think -- I mean, we do think about that and we do recognize that. But I do recognize that in -- it was down from historic levels where we've been more in that 70% to 80% pretax law change back in 2018. And as we've talked about really in the past, what that tax law did was the reduced -- or it increased our GAAP earnings because of the lower tax rate, but it really didn't change our statutory income very much because our statutory taxes largely as they change the tax base, it really didn't change the amount of cash taxes that we're paying out. So it didn't have a big statutory impact. So then that knocked down a little bit from those levels because we're our statutory capital didn't change significantly. With the onset of COVID, during the last couple of years, coupled with really low interest rates, our basic statutory income is not growing as much. And when you look at the -- and this is the part that none of us here want to change, which is that growth in sales. And when you look at that statutory drain and the money that we're investing in those new sales, that's going to maintain really strong premiums for the long term. It does kind of have in the near term an adverse impact on our ability to return some of that excess cash flow as a percentage of our GAAP earnings. But we think in the long term, those statutory earnings will, once we get past COVID, we feel really good about where we're at from a statutory income perspective and would expect that to improve in future years as we get out of this.

There are no further questions. I'd like to turn it back to management for any additional or closing comments.

All right. Thank you for joining us this morning, and we'll talk to you again next quarter.

Thank you. And that does conclude today's conference. We'd like to thank everyone for their participation. You may now disconnect.