Martin P. Klein
Analyst · UBS
Thank you, Tom. And good morning, everyone. Today, I'll provide an overview of results of the quarter, give an update on our 2013 goals and provide some perspectives on our use of reinsurance and captives. Let's begin with second quarter results. We reported operating income of $133 million for the quarter and net income of $141 million. Net income in the quarter included a $13 million after-tax charge related to our previously announced expense reduction plan, which ultimately should realize about $80 million to $90 million in annual pre-tax expense savings related to these actions. In Global Mortgage Insurance, reported net operating income was $102 million, flat to the prior quarter and up $51 million over the prior year. Let's cover Canada results first, where operating earnings were $43 million for the quarter. Unemployment in Canada was down slightly to approximately 7.1%, and there was modest sequential increase in home prices. Premiums were down slightly from the maturing of the larger 2007 and 2008 books of business. Flow NIW in the quarter was up 45% sequentially from normal seasonal impacts. NIW is lower than a year ago given the changes last year in eligibility rules for government-guaranteed mortgages. We completed several bulk transactions in the quarter of approximately $6.4 billion. These transactions consist of low loan-to-value prime loans, and we participate selectively in this market. The loss ratio improved sequentially by 6 points to 25% and improved 7 points from the prior year from lower net new delinquencies as a result of an improving economic environment and the strong credit quality of recent books. For Australia, operating earnings were $55 million versus $46 million in the prior quarter. Unemployment in Australia rose slightly to 5.7%, and home prices rose were flat sequentially. Premiums are up from the prior year, as the larger 2012 book matures and more premium is recognized. The low-interest-rate environment drove the origination market up approximately 10% sequentially, with flow NIW up 13% from the prior quarter. The loss ratio for the quarter decreased to 35%, down 12 points sequentially. The year-to-date loss ratio is 41%, at the low end of our expected range of 40% to 50%. Overall delinquencies were down 1% from the prior quarter, driven primarily by seasonally higher cures. Regarding Other Countries in the international Mortgage Insurance segment, the operating loss was up sequentially to $9 million, primarily from higher losses. Moving to U.S. MI. The business had another profitable quarter, with net operating income of $13 million. We're seeing strong NIW growth over the prior year from an increase in both refinance and purchase private MI penetration, a larger origination market and stable market share. Our total flow delinquencies fell by 23% from the prior year, with new delinquencies down 11% sequentially and down 22% year-over-year, reflecting the continued burn-through of the 2005 to 2008 books, as well as the new, better-performing books becoming a larger portion of our overall portfolio, now at 37%. Turning to capital in the division. The MCT in Canada was approximately 216% compared to our minimum target of 190%. In addition to paying an ordinary dividend in the quarter, the business generated proceeds as related to its normal course issuer bid share repurchase program, in which Genworth Financial participated to maintain our ownership at 57.4%. For Australia, the prescribed capital amount or PCA was 134%, just under our target of 135% but above regulatory requirements. In the quarter, the business paid most of the planned full year dividend and had strong new business volumes, factors which impacted the ratio. We anticipate achieving our PCA target by year end. In U.S. MI, at quarter end, the combined risk-to-capital ratio was approximately 22.4:1 and the risk-to-capital for GMICO was approximately 23.8:1. GMICO's risk-to-capital improved almost 3 points from the prior quarter and reflects both positive earnings as well as the $100 million capital contribution made to GMICO on April 1 as part of the comprehensive capital plan. In June, the FHFA announced strategic priorities for the GSEs and indicated there could be changes to GSE eligibility standards. These changes could increase capital or add some requirements for mortgage insurers. We don't know what these standards will be or when they would be implemented, but as we get more specific information, we will assess the impacts on our business and approaches to meet the standards. Turning to the U.S. Life Insurance Division. Reported operating earnings were $79 million. Results in the quarter reflect less-favorable mortality in life insurance and a favorable impact from our current rate actions in long-term care. Life insurance earnings were $27 million for the quarter. Sales were down sequentially, when you combine flat sales in our term product and the decline in universal life sales, and down significantly year-over-year as sales from our new products are not yet at levels seen in our discontinued term universal life product. As Tom mentioned, we will continue to make product and pricing changes to improve our competitive position and increase sales while meeting our return goals for the business. Term life mortality experience was better than pricing assumptions, and while more favorable than the prior year, it was not as favorable as the prior quarter. We also experienced less-favorable mortality sequentially in other life insurance product lines that drove earnings lower. Long-term care earnings of $26 million were up from $20 million in the prior quarter, benefiting from stable incurred loss performance, improved bond call and limited partnership performance and the impact of our most recent rate action which increased premiums and reduced benefits. The reported loss ratio for the current quarter was approximately 67%. This ratio declined 2 points from the prior quarter and is 4 points lower than the prior year when adjusting for the impact of the refined methodology in allocating components of reserve changes that we implemented as part of the system conversion and also when excluding reserve and premium adjustments in the prior quarter. With those same adjustments, the new-generation product loss ratio improved 2 points from the prior quarter to 55%, while the old-generation product loss ratio improved 6 points for the quarter to 95%. Individual long-term care sales were up sequentially as sales accelerated ahead of the implementation of pricing and product portfolio actions that we took in the first half of the year. As Tom said, we are making good progress on a recently initiated in-force rate action, with approvals representing approximately $115 million to $120 million against the total anticipated annual premium increase of $200 million to $300 million when fully implemented. We continue to anticipate an impact of $20 million to $30 million in premiums for 2013 from the price actions. As part of our strategic goal to improve financial strength and flexibility, receiving ordinary dividends from our U.S. life companies has been an important objective. I'm pleased to say that the life companies paid an ordinary dividend of $100 million during the quarter. The risk-based capital ratio is estimated to be about 445% and unassigned surplus was approximately $200 million, both down from the prior quarter primarily from the ordinary dividend payment. Fixed annuity earnings were $26 million, as SPIA mortality was unfavorable to the prior quarter. Sales were up from the first quarter from both pricing changes and the rising interest rates. This new business is expected to meet or exceed with the targeted returns. Shifting to the Corporate and Other division. The net operating loss for the quarter was $48 million. International Protection earnings were $1 million for the quarter. The business continues to navigate the tough European environment and is working on refocusing its footprint there, centered on key clients and on expense actions. Assuming the economies and the lending environment in Europe are stable and don't improve in the near term, we expect the business to produce only slightly positive earnings for the remainder of the year. The Runoff segment experienced less-favorable equity markets versus the prior quarter, but more favorable versus the prior year. Turning to investments. The global portfolio core yield was flat at 4.5%, while total impairments of $4 million were low. An increase in interest rates from the depressed levels we've seen is a positive for us, as it is for most other insurers, but the rise this quarter did, of course, impact the unrealized gain balance. We continue to take a conservative approach in our portfolio to balance yield, credit quality and duration matching in our investment decisions. Let me now cover some topics at the holding company. We continue to generate and maintain significant liquidity, with cash and highly liquid securities of approximately $1 billion at the holding company, in line with our target of 2x debt service plus the buffer of $350 million for stress scenarios. We continue to anticipate maintaining cash and highly liquid securities of at least 2x debt service plus the $350 million buffer. As I've said before, we will evaluate the target level of the buffer as conditions change, such as the stability and the predictability of business dividends, access to credit lines and near-term debt maturities. We're making good headway towards closing the sale of our Wealth Management business, which is an important step in our strategic plan to rebuild shareholder value. We expect to complete the transaction in the third quarter this year. Netting transaction costs and the all-taker's earnout payment from the sales price of $412.5 million produces proceeds estimated to be approximately $360 million. Net proceeds from the sale, along with cash already held in the holding company, will be used to address the remaining $490 million of 2014 debt maturities. As part of our goal of increasing financial strength and flexibility, we will continue to look for ways to extend our debt maturities and to pay down debt towards our medium-term leverage goal of 20% to 22%. Next I want to give an update on our 2013 goals. We continue to make good progress towards achieving the goals that we laid out back in February. Our U.S. life companies are on track to meet their full year dividend and capital goals, and the business remains focused on the long-term care insurance rate actions. Our Canadian and Australian Mortgage Insurance platforms are on target for their full year dividend and capital goals, and their loss performances improved. U.S. MI has benefited from a continued housing market recovery, driving lower new delinquencies, strong new insurance written and improved operating results, and has already met its full year loss mitigation goal. And finally, as I mentioned before, will-be-coming cash is in line with our target. I want to turn now to our use of captives in our U.S. Life Insurance Division, a topic which we know is of interest to investors. I will focus on how captives are used by our U.S. life companies and describe some of the corresponding financial details. Later this year, we also plan to provide more details on our long-term care balance sheet, including reserves and important underlying assumptions. Our U.S. life division has used captives almost entirely for its life insurance and its long-term care businesses. We do not use reinsurance for captives for our variable annuity business, which is in Runoff, and we've used captives only on a limited basis on our fixed annuity line. For our life insurance business, we use captives primarily to finance excess reserves from Regulations XXX and AXXX. Here, I would make the following key points: All economic reserves are fully funded by our U.S. life companies. Excess reserves are financed by various diversified third-party funding sources and/or nonrecourse, with only one exception. In that one case, Genworth Holdings provides no more than $400 million of capital support with respect to our term life business, less than 10% of our financed reserves overall. I should also note that Genworth Holdings provides through our universal life captive structure a limited auxiliary guarantee, which is valued at $1 million at the end of 2012. All of our entities are structured to meet the requirements of and are approved by various U.S. domestic regulators. I will now move from XXX and AXXX structures and provide more details behind our Bermuda captives and relationships through the long-term care business. But first, let me provide some context on our organizational structure. Our Bermuda-based subsidiary Brookfield owns our Australia MI entities, approximately 41% of Canada MI and the Brookfield Life and Annuity Insurance Company Limited or BLAIC, which in turn owns the International Protection group of companies. This organizational structure, when it was created, helped us more efficiently manage capital across our operating entities. For our long-term care business, in recent years, we've been reinsuring 40% of our business to a third-party reinsurer. Of the business that we retained at Genworth Life Insurance Company or GLIC, one of our U.S. domicile life companies, 50% has been reinsured on a proportionate quota share basis to BLAIC. Here, I would note the following important points. The BLAIC treaty is coinsurance of funds withheld, which means that U.S. debt share reserves are backed by a high-quality portfolio of assets that are held by, and under the exclusive control of, GLIC, giving it direct assets to all the assets that back the statutory reserves. Long-term care reserves represent an approximately 75% of BLAIC's reserve exposures. Reflecting only the close to $900 million of capital made up of hard assets in BLAIC, consisting predominantly of cash and investment-grade bonds, the corresponding RBC ratio was approximately 390% at year-end 2012. We estimate the RBC ratio at the end of the second quarter to be in line with the year-end 2012 level. Given the capital levels that we were holding BLAIC at the end of 2012, if we were to repatriate the long-term care business from BLAIC into GLIC, we would anticipate a minimal impact to the U.S. life company RBC ratio. This reinsurance relationship in our LTC business goes back many years and had originally been set up to mitigate the capital strain created by our growing long-term care block. The reinsurance also had provided capital benefits, as we used to manage to a minimum RBC ratio of 250% in Bermuda for our long-term care business versus our current minimum of at least 375% in our U.S. life companies. However, capital levels in BLAIC have been significantly higher than its 250% management threshold for the last couple of years, as we've built capital levels more commensurate with long-term care insurance risks to increase our financial strength and flexibility. In Bermuda, we complete annual regulatory filings and are required to provide an annual appointed actuarial opinion. The laws and regulations in Bermuda do not specifically require that U.S. asset adequacy analysis to be performed, as in the U.S. However, we have always applied the same valuation and analysis techniques of asset adequacy analysis used in GLIC, as required by U.S. regulations, to validate that the assets supporting the reinsurance obligations of BLAIC are adequate. We believe the reserves held in BLAIC for both GAAP and stat are adequate, as is the case for the reserves in our U.S. life companies. Finally, I would note that the ACLI and the NAIC have stated that they believe captive reinsurance transactions represent an important and positive element of a competitive life insurance market while also supporting greater transparency through disclosure. We agree with the ACLI and the NAIC on those points. And as our use of captives evolves, we will continue to work closely with the regulators and seek to provide relevant information to investors as well. Let me wrap up by saying that we have made good progress on our goals for 2013 as we cross the halfway point, but we have much work ahead of us as we continue to execute our strategic plan and rebuild shareholder value. With that, let's turn it over for questions.