Earnings Labs

The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (HIG)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 3, 2015

$138.79

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Tiffany, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to The Hartford’s Fourth Quarter 2014 Financial Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Sabra Purtill, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.

Sabra Purtill

Analyst

Thank you, Tiffany. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to The Hartford’s full year 2014 financial results and 2015 outlook webcast and conference call. Our news release, the Investor Financial Supplement and the fourth quarter Financial Results Presentation, which includes our 2015 outlook were all filed yesterday afternoon and are available on our website. At about 8:30 this morning, we posted the slides for today’s webcast, which are also available on the Investor Relations section of the website and which will also accompany the webcast today. Our speakers today include Chris Swift, CEO of The Hartford; Doug Elliot, President; and Beth Bombara, CFO. Following their prepared remarks, we will have about 30 minutes for Q&A. As described on page two of the presentation, today’s call includes forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results could be materially different. We do not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements and investors should consider the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from these statements. A detailed description of those risks and uncertainties can be found in our SEC filings, which are also available on our website. Our presentation today also includes several non-GAAP financial measures. Explanations and reconciliations of these measures to the comparable GAAP measure are included in our SEC filings, as well as in the earnings release and financial supplement. I’ll now turn the call over to Chris.

Chris Swift

Analyst

Thank you, Sabra. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. 2014 was an outstanding year for The Hartford. We continued the execution of our strategy and created value for shareholders. We accelerated the transformation of the company by expanding profit margins and increasing ROEs and P&C and Group Benefits and Mutual Funds. Our selling the Japan Annuity business and reducing risk in Talcott, returning over $2 billion of capital to The Hartford shareholder and executing a seamless leadership transition. I want to thank Liam, the Board, the management team and all our employees for contributing to a great year. Last night, we reported outstanding fourth quarter and full year 2014 results. Full year core earnings increased 9% to $1.55 billion. On a fully diluted per share basis, core earnings grew 16%, reflecting profitable growth and effective capital management. The core ROE increased to 8.4% in 2014, a full 1 point increase over prior year. Core earnings growth was driven by margin expansion in P&C, Group Benefits and Mutual Funds, and solid topline growth in P&C. We achieved an almost 3-point year-over-year improvement in underlying combined ratio in P&C. The Hartford’s pricing discipline and investments in new products and capabilities are producing strong results. Strong profitability recovery continued in Group Benefits, with the core earnings margin rising almost a point in 2014 to 5.2%. I'm very pleased with how our businesses are balancing margins and topline growth in this market environment. The Japan sale was another critical accomplishment in 2014. The transaction significantly improved the company's risk profile and enabled us to increase our capital management program. During the year we return more than $2 billion of capital to shareholders in the form of equity repurchases and dividends. We also reduce holding company debt by $200 million. Before we…

Doug Elliot

Analyst

Thank you, Chris, and good morning. Today I’ll cover the 2014 highlights for Commercial Lines, Personal Lines and Group Benefits, and then share some thoughts for 2015. First, let me quickly remind you that I'll be discussing our results under the new Commercial Lines business alignment we disclose several weeks ago. 2014 was another year of strong financial performance across the Board. Our results were achieved through sound risk selection decisions, outstanding execution across our product and field organizations, and our relentless focus on getting right all the small things that go into a market-leading franchise. Before I cover our results, I want to touch on a few broad themes affecting our businesses, both in 2014 and as we look forward to 2015. First, while 2014 accident year catastrophes and P&C were slightly higher than 2013, losses were below our expectations for second year. We will take the good news, but we won't plan for it to continue. We still follow our rigorous process to manager cat exposures over the long-term. Second is net investment income, which trended down for the year and recent movement in treasury yields suggest that we aren’t likely to see reversal anytime soon, this demand that we stay vigilant on our pricing and actively monitor competitive forces in 2015. Beth will have some additional perspective on our investment portfolio in her comments. Turning to our financial results, in Commercial Lines, we delivered $996 million of core earnings for the full year on an all -- all in combined ratio of 93.4. This was an earnings increase of $169 million from 2013, largely driven by 4.7 points of improvement in the combined ratio. The underlying combined ratio, excluding catastrophes and prior year development was 91.5 for the year, representing 3.6 points of fundamental margin improvement. On…

Beth Bombara

Analyst

Thank you, Doug. I’m going to briefly cover the other businesses in key 2015 business metrics before turning to the capital outlook for Talcott and the holding company. Mutual Funds core earnings rose 17% in 2014, primarily due to an increase in fees from higher average assets under management, excluding Talcott related funds. As noted on slide 19, long-term fund performance remains solid with 64% of Mutual Funds outperforming their peers over the last five years. For the year, Mutual Fund sales were stable at $15.2 billion as a growth in equity fund sales was offset by reduced fixed income sale. During the year, we exited certain types of funds and transferred some funds to our investment operations, which resulted in negative Mutual Fund net flow of $1.4 billion. Adjusted for these items, net flows were about breakeven for the year. In 2015, we expect modest growth in core earnings as growth in Mutual Funds AUM will be partially offset by the continued runoff of funds included in Talcott’s VA product. Talcott’s core earnings summarized on slide 20 rose 5% for the year much better than originally expected due to higher limited partnership income and lower contract holder initiative cost. Contract counts continue to decline down year-over-year by 13% for variable annuities and 18% for fixed annuities. There has only been a modest decline in institutional covered life as the majority of the block consists of longer duration structured settlements and pension-related terminal funding liability. In 2015, we expect Talcott’s core earnings to decline about 15% to 20% to a range of $340 million to $370 million. Almost half of this decline is due to lower projected limited partnership returns, which were 10% in 2014 versus 6% projected in 2015. Excluding the excess 2014 return in limited partnership income, core…

Sabra Purtill

Analyst

Thank you, Beth. We have about 30 minutes for Q&A. And as usual, we would appreciate it if people could limit themselves to one question and a follow-up and then requeue so that others have opportunity to ask the question in the time we have available. Tiffany, could you please give the Q&A instructions

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Brian Meredith with UBS. Your line is open.

Brian Meredith

Analyst

Thanks. A couple questions here. First, for Doug, just curious with the underlying combined ratio improvement both in personal and commercial, how much of that is going to come from expense initiatives versus loss ratios still improving here given where rates are in line with loss trend?

Doug Elliot

Analyst

Let met tackle the Personal Lines first and then we will come back to Commercial. We still have very consistent approach in Personal Lines and we will be addressing loss trends through pricing in a very similar manner as we are in 2014. So I look at the strategy in 2015 with Personal Lines is very consistent with 2014. On the Commercial Lines side, obviously an evolving environment, and as we talked to you on this call and shared our numbers last night you know that the fourth quarter was down a little bit on the pricing side versus third quarter. So we’re being thoughtful about how 2015 will play out. We’ve got a number of strategies in different places. But much of our improvement is coming, number one, from the fact that our written prices in 2014 will earn their way into 2015. And I would say that much of the expense work we’re doing is being invested back inside the platform. So most of the work and most of what you see inside the combined ratio will be pricing and underwriting driven.

Brian Meredith

Analyst

Okay. And then the second question, just curious on capital management guidance here and you make the comment, the additional $500 million from Talcott, you’re expecting to look to use that for debt paid. I’m just curious, why that decision particularly given that debt capital is incredibly inexpensive right now? Why would you kind of make the decision to kind of continue to pay down your debt?

Chris Swift

Analyst

Hey, Brian. It’s Chris. I’ll ask Beth comment too, but I think what we said along is that this two-year plan is the balanced plan of equity and debt. If you look closely at our language, I mean, we have allocated up to billion dollars of debt prepayment this year, half of that is just maturing debt and the other half is what I’ll call, optionality to really look at our debts that continue to drive down. Basically, our debt to cap ratio is as about described. Beth, would you add anything else?

Beth Bombara

Analyst

Yeah. I just had a couple things. First of all, I think you referred to the $500 million dividend from Talcott being the same thing as the $500 million of debt reduction and they're not related, so I would separate the two. As Chris said, we announced our debt management plan last year and you may recall that in the fourth quarter we had anticipated using up to the $500 million to reduce debt and we decided to take a pause because interest rates had decreased at that time and they’re still low. And so we’ll continue over the course of '15 to look at opportunistically what makes sense for us to use that $500 million in a way that we think is in the most benefit to our shareholders.

Brian Meredith

Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Randy Binner with FBR. Your line is open.

Randy Binner

Analyst · FBR. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning. Thanks. I wanted to touch on -- I’m trying to understand the pace of the runoff and particularly through the trend that we’re seeing in VA surrenders. So that came in, I think, at 11% in the fourth quarter and trended down throughout the year, but the contract count for VA was down about 13% for the year. And so just trying to think about what’s the right way for us to think of how these liabilities runoff, is it more that full year result? Or is it something that could trend down as a single-digit as we look to 2015?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · FBR. Your line is open.

Thanks, Randy. It’s Beth. So a couple things I would say on that. As you know, we did have some initiatives in 2014, which impacted that VA count coming down, which is why you see the 13%. And as you point out, as we went into the fourth quarter, we did see a reduction. And our estimate for 10% for next year we feel very good about when we look at sort of historical trends and the fact that we don't have a plan in a significant initiative in '15 at this point. So as the year progresses, if we determine that there is something that we would do, we’d obviously update you. But we think right now from all that we can see in our analysis that a 10% is as a good place for us to plan for '15.

Randy Binner

Analyst · FBR. Your line is open.

Okay. And then this 10% I know initiatives and then on the fixed and institutional blocks, is there any anything initiative-wise or transaction-wise that would make sense there? It seems like maybe the window for transferring those kinds of risks to some institutions is not as open as it was in last couple of years. Any color you can provide on that side?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · FBR. Your line is open.

Yeah. So I think about it in two pieces that we have our fixed annuity block. And again, the surrender rate or contract decreases that we highlighted for the year were impacted by some of the initiatives that we had in that block and we’ll continue to look to see if that makes sense to do in the future. As it relates to the institutional block as we discussed before, given where rates are at this time we don't really see a transaction for that book to really be economical for us since we’d be basically locking into this very low level. If the interest rate environment changes as we said in the past, we’ll of course look to see if there's something more economical that we could do at that book.

Randy Binner

Analyst · FBR. Your line is open.

Okay. Great. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Nadel with Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

John Nadel

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Good morning, everybody. A couple of quick questions for you. So if I think about -- and Beth, I’m glad that you sort of commented on the $500 million from Talcott being above what was already embedded in your two-year capital management plan. So if I could get it the question maybe a little bit differently, I think you're targeting in the holding company cash levels by the end of 2015 at around $1.8 billion. I guess my question is what’s your target longer-term in terms of how much cash you want to keep at the parent on an ongoing basis?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Sure. Thanks. So when we look at the cash at the holding company, we typically start with looking at what our annual expenditure is for covering holding company obligations, so interest in shareholder dividends, which again you can see on our slide is about $600 million for '15. So we typically talk about a target in sort of the 1.5 times range for that and then of course we always want to have I think a little bit of cushion, but that’s kind of how we look at that.

John Nadel

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Okay. So it's fair to say, you've got a pretty sizable cushion versus that level?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Yeah. As I said in my comment, I think ending at $1.8 billion is a very strong position. Again, that doesn't include the $500 million that we anticipate to take out of Talcott in 2016.

John Nadel

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Yeah.

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

That positions us very well as we head into '16.

John Nadel

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Okay. And then just a bigger picture question, given where rates are and you guys I think are obviously taking that into account in some of your outlook here investment income related and other. But with all the mix shift in the company, particularly the reduction in the risk and size of Talcott? Can you give us an update on how we should think about the longer-term earnings pressure and maybe balance sheet risk from a sustain sort of 2% or sub 2% tenure environment?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Yeah. So if you think about the projections that we have for year and maybe what I’ll do is, I’ll just talk more about our P&C book. If we look at our outlook right now for ’15 and if rates sort of remained at current levels and didn't follow the forward curve. For ‘15 we probably see a very modest impact kind of in the $7 million to $10 million range. Obviously, if they stayed there longer and you go into ’16, you start to see a compounding effect of that.

John Nadel

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Yeah.

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

I think the counterpoint to that though is what would happen on P&C pricing. So there is, obviously, the NII impact, but then there is also just what does that mean for the broader environment, if we were to remain in a low interest rate environment. But that kind of gives you a sense for the P&C portfolio.

John Nadel

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

And then related to Talcott or Group, maybe if anything we should be thinking about, I mean, discount rate on the Group disability side or spread pressures within Talcott?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Yeah. So, again, if I look at that same measure sort of putting in all in HIG, which would include the Group and Talcott piece. And again, if rates remain flat from kind of where they are now, that $7 million to $10 million impact rises to $16 million-ish. So, again, there is obviously some impact on that. I don't have a breakout between Talcott and Group. And obviously, Group, I would say there again -- there is a pricing dynamic that would also have to be taken into consideration.

John Nadel

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Okay. That’s really…

Chris Swift

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

John, its Chris. The only…

John Nadel

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Yeah.

Chris Swift

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Just to offer from a Group Benefits side, I mean, we’ve been discounting reserves for ’14 and we plan in ’15 in the 3.5% range.

John Nadel

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Okay.

Chris Swift

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

So I think our liability structures are already reflecting that lower interest rate environment.

John Nadel

Analyst · Sterne, Agee. Your line is open.

Really helpful. So we are looking at maybe 1% earnings pressure from sustained low rates at least for one year. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jay Cohen with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Jay Cohen

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Yes. Thank you. Just, I guess, more of a business question. I was interested to hear that you are -- through the AARP relationship going to be selling small commercial business? I am wondering, do you have any sense of what percentage of the Hart members own small businesses, how bigger population are we talking about here?

Doug Elliot

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Jay, good morning, its Doug. We are aware that there are more than a million members that have small businesses. These -- I would characterize them largely as micro small businesses Jay, employees, less than five. But there is a sizeable component. I think it will take us time to work at that but we are excited about the opportunity and look forward to partnering with AARP and broader ways going forward.

Jay Cohen

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

That’s great. My other questions are answered. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jay Gelb with Barclays. Your line is open.

Jay Gelb

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open.

Thank you. First, I just want to clarify on a previous statement from Beth, that $500 million of flexibility to repurchase additional debt? Did you say that could also go into share buybacks?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open.

No. I did not say that, what I said was that, we had year marked $500 million and that we would look at through the course of ’15 when the appropriate time is for us to use that for our debt management.

Jay Gelb

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open.

Okay. The other point I wanted to come back to is, I believe after second quarter there was some outlook with regard to ROE potentials and previously it was low 9% in 2015 and I believe 30 to 50 basis point expansion in both 2016 and ’17? So that prior guidance would have gotten you right around 10% in 2016, is that still a reasonable expectation?

Chris Swift

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open.

Jay, it’s Chris, I’ll ask Beth also to comment. I think some of those comments you are attributing to me. So I still see and buy them, but I would say that, I think, the headwinds were just a little bit more than six, seven months ago honestly, low rates, P&C pricing cycles gotten a little more challenging as Doug and I’ve been saying. So it's not beyond, the realm of possibility, but it is a higher degree of difficulty as we sit here today. And if you really think about it, I -- once we get beyond ’15, which again, we -- I think given fairly tight guidance, as far as ROE. I think then we are in that 20 to 40 basis point annual improvement from there. So, Beth, would you add any other color?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open.

No. I think you said it very well. As we talked about before, we had -- we did -- we do expect to see in ‘15 a larger increase than that 20 to 40 that Chris just mentioned, because of the capital management actions that are working in from the sale of Japan, but I think that’s our reasonable expectation.

Jay Gelb

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open.

Beyond 2015 would you expect the capital management mix to be more weighted towards buybacks as opposed to evenly split in ‘15 between share repurchase and debt pay down?

Chris Swift

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open.

Jay, if you give us a little time, we’ll talk about that in due course. But right now we are focused on, obviously, executing the plan here in ’15 and when we get to really developing the ‘16 plan, we’ll give you views. But we've always said balanced, so balance could mean within a range. But also keep in mind sort of debt-to-equity ratios that we want to keep them balanced too.

Jay Gelb

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open.

Makes sense. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Erik Bass with Citigroup. Your line is open.

Erik Bass

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning. Excuse me. And thank you for providing the updated Talcott stat capital breakdown, I guess in addition to the stat capital, do you believe there's a level of redundant reserves at Talcott that could be freed overtime?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open.

Yeah. So, obviously, there are reserves that we hold on especially in our institutional and fixed book for things that impact interest rates. And so when you look at our margins in favorable scenarios and baselines, you could expect to see some decline there but nothing that we are expecting sort of in any significant manner in the near term.

Erik Bass

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open.

Okay. And could you provide an update on the present value of the expected earnings from Talcott which I’d think you’d given probably most recently at the end of last year?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open.

I think you are talking about our MCV analysis, yes. So again where we stand today with the VA book, we would estimate that the MCV is still very positive and about 1.1 billion at the end of December.

Erik Bass

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Thomas Gallagher with Crédit Suisse. Your line is open.

Thomas Gallagher

Analyst

Good morning. Just -- Beth just a few points of clarification. So the new news we are getting here today on the whole capital management plan is the extra funds coming out of Talcott. And just remind me though the ‘14 and ‘15 estimates for buybacks and dividend -- and debt repayment that hasn't changed at all, right. Like so the ‘14, ‘15 total capital return plan, is it same as it was but you're taking more money out of Talcott. And so my question really is if I'm right on that what are those funds being used for, is it just more money sitting at the holding company?

Chris Swift

Analyst

Tom, it’s, Chris let me start, and then Beth could share. I think you got the fact pattern right. So the only new news here is the -- we’ve defined the amount of excess capital in Talcott at the end of 2014. And we plan to take that out basically over the next 12 to 14 months. As we really head into the second half of ‘15, we’ll work on call it what's next related to our capital management program. But I think what we are trying to convey and hopefully you see it, is we will have additional flexibility particularly as the cash comes out of Talcott to think about what is the most accretive use of that capital going forward. But we’ve really haven't pinpoint it saying exactly, what we are going to do. But that's what we are going to work on and communicate it in the second half of ‘15.

Beth Bombara

Analyst

Yeah. And then the only thing I would just add just to be -- perfectly clear is you are correct, we are not making any changes to the plan that we announced in July that we are currently executing on.

Thomas Gallagher

Analyst

Okay that's…

Chris Swift

Analyst

And just one last point, Tom, do you mind -- and just philosophically, I just want to be crystal clear that there really hasn't been any change in our philosophy, and how we think about excess capital. You’ve heard us say it before and we reiterated here. I mean we are going to continue to be balanced with that in equity, paydowns and repurchases. We still think it's a good use of our capital to buy in shares. We’ll always have an appropriate dividend policy geared towards growing our operating earnings in P&C and Group Benefits. And then we’ve said repeatedly, I mean, we are investing in our capabilities and investing for growth and expansion as we go forward, really with the eye of creating additional revenue streams that create recurring value for shareholders. So that’s how philosophically we were approaching our excess capital.

Thomas Gallagher

Analyst

That makes sense to me, Christy. I guess my follow-up is simply -- of the $1.5 billion plan dividends out of Talcott, it sounds like you’re describing that as the excess capital, that you believe exists in that block. But then it also generates earnings of, I guess roughly $300 million a year. What about the extra $600 million or so of capital that you should get from retained earnings in that block? Should we also expect that, so it would be $2.1 billion all in or is the $1.5 million also contemplate the money that's being earned their?

Beth Bombara

Analyst

Yeah, Tom. It’s Beth. I would think about this way. So again the $1.5 billion, we defined by the valuating the actual tax rate surplus at 12/31/14. And again and showing that we would have adequate resources in a stress. So that $1.5 billion at Dec. 31, 2014, would obviously have taken into consideration any previous earnings that we generated on the book. But you are right as we think about it going forward to the extent a stress doesn’t happen, and each year we generate statutory surplus as we evaluate our statutory position at the end of any given year, we could anticipate that there could be upside to that if we generate the earnings. I would say sitting here today and looking at just a lot of the pluses and the minuses that happen with statutory surplus, I would guide you to think about a range of $200 million to $300 million because it does sometimes bounce around a little bit for variety of items. But again that would be the something we’d evaluate at the end of ‘15, because obviously if a stress doesn’t happen, you have one more year of earnings, one more year of the book running off and then you’d kind of evaluate it from there.

Thomas Gallagher

Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bob Glasspiegel with Janney Capital. Your line is open.

Bob Glasspiegel

Analyst · Janney Capital. Your line is open.

Good morning, Hartford. Life analyst, I shouldn’t be dominating. Doug, I got a PC question for you. Commercial auto, you said you are raising rates. That's a source of sort of margin improvement in 2015. Where is the sort of underwriting base that you’re operating from a net line and how much are your raising rates?

Doug Elliot

Analyst · Janney Capital. Your line is open.

Bob, good morning. We’ve been disappointed in our commercial auto performance, primarily in the middle market but also in small commercial as well. This year, back half of the year, our pricing has been in a mid-single to higher single-digit range and I expect that to continue, maybe even strengthen a bit as we move into the early half of 2015, so disappointed. Feel like we have some very strong initiatives, both on the pricing side and also on the underwriting side to address it, looking for progress in ’15 for sure.

Bob Glasspiegel

Analyst · Janney Capital. Your line is open.

Okay. And, Beth, just a clarification on your answer to John on sensitivity of Talcott to interest rates here. You’ve talked a little bit about earnings in general terms but how different of a presentation on capital, which you’ve been given if the 10-year was 50 basis point higher where it was at the beginning of the year?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Janney Capital. Your line is open.

Yes. So we -- obviously in the scenarios that we show for a stress we are, stressing interest rates in that scenario. And you can see kind of the impact that we see from capital that comes from that. So, I think that as we evaluated the $1.5 billion of access today, I think we appropriately took into consideration additional stress in interest rates.

Bob Glasspiegel

Analyst · Janney Capital. Your line is open.

So -- I’m sorry. I didn’t quip all the stresses. The current environment is stressing it or its 50 basis points from here which stress it?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Janney Capital. Your line is open.

So the stress scenario, as we outlined in the appendix, would have the 10-year at the end of 2016, I believe and like the 1.6 range. So, again, that would have been lower in ’15, as you go through ’16. I don’t know if it was exactly the same sensitivity that you are highlighting but that’s how we look at the stress.

Bob Glasspiegel

Analyst · Janney Capital. Your line is open.

Got you. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ian Gutterman with Balyasny. Your line is open.

Ian Gutterman

Analyst · Balyasny. Your line is open.

Hi. Thank you. I guess I wanted to clarify a couple things. First on the P&C dividend, if you are setting off ordinary capacity till Q3, what stops you in Q3 from taking a full year's worth of ordinary dividend, why does it have to be much less in earnings?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Balyasny. Your line is open.

Yes. So the way to think about it is, if you look at the dividend over ’14 and ’15, we typically take out about $800 million a year. And so what we did in ’14 is we just frontloaded on that dividend that we normally would've taken out in ’15. So over the two years, we kind of get back to our normal level.

Ian Gutterman

Analyst · Balyasny. Your line is open.

Okay. But P&C start excess capital at the end of 2014, right. So why couldn’t they take a full year of earnings in ’15?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Balyasny. Your line is open.

So typically the way we managed the P&C balance sheet and making -- ensuring that we are providing enough capital for the P&C business to continue to invest in its operation. We target annual dividends of $800 million each year.

Ian Gutterman

Analyst · Balyasny. Your line is open.

Right.

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Balyasny. Your line is open.

And so that’s again how we looked at it.

Ian Gutterman

Analyst · Balyasny. Your line is open.

Okay. And then just quickly on Talcott, sort of the stress scenario. Am I remembering correctly? In the past, I think you’ve talked about the Holdco cushion being for the stress scenario. Now that Talcott on its own can handle its own stress scenario, do we need to think of any Holdco capital being held for a stress, or is that really held for something other than a Talcott stress?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Balyasny. Your line is open.

Yes. So as we have said, going all the way back to April of 2013, we see that the capital within the Talcott entity is sufficient to handle a stress. So we are not looking to fund any deficit with holding company cash. And so when we think about the holding company requirements, we tend to focus on the actual obligations for interest and dividend. And then as I said, to have some buffer but obviously much less than what would have been needed in the past.

Ian Gutterman

Analyst · Balyasny. Your line is open.

Got it. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Scott Frost with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Scott Frost

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Hey. Can you hear me, okay?

Chris Swift

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Yes, we can.

Doug Elliot

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Yeah. We can, Scott.

Scott Frost

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks for taking my call. Just to talk about the -- thanks for clarification on the debt management program. This is the same issue announced in mid last year. So, $0.5 billion is potentially available for tenders and over market repurchases that -- just to clarify that's correct, right?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Yes. That is correct.

Scott Frost

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Okay. Could you tell us how you think about junior sub, also the Glen Meadows in terms of attractiveness to your capital structure? Does it factor into considerations in terms of ratings? Also agencies have talked about improvement, I think in P&C operations is one catalyst. Is that all -- is it your sense that they also are -- have already taken into account this plan to capital management that you’ve talked about?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Yes. I will handle the second part first. So, obviously our plan that we have for capital management we share with rating agencies, so they're very aware of what our intentions are and expectation for this plan. As it relates to other resources that we have like Glen Meadows, we obviously look at that as additional capital, that we would have available to us. And as we get -- go through ’15 and in ’16, we’ll take a look at what that means for us and how we might use that capital.

Scott Frost

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Okay. So just to clarify, I mean, your capital management plan, is it something the agencies would have to see you execute before they would act in your sense? And again with your capital position being the way it is, do you need those capital securities really just attractive from a rate perspective and are you sensitive to serve loss on debt extinguishment or is it more of an interest coverage issue that you're working toward?

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

It’s kind of probably a little bit of all of the above of what you’ve asked.

Scott Frost

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Okay.

Beth Bombara

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

First of all, it relates to rating agencies. We have had a record, a track record now for a couple years of laying out a plan and executing on that. We continue to share with them our expectation and all of that is considered as they look at evaluating the ratings of the various entities. And as it relates to just overall debt management, we’re very sensitive to balancing all of those needs. So we are looking at reducing our debt-to-capital ratios as Chris and I have talked about. But we’re also very sensitive to looking at interest coverage and want to make sure that we’re making the right trade-off there. So part of the reason why we held off of a bit on using that $500 million that we've been talking about is we felt the charge that we’d have to take given the current interest rate environment wasn’t a good trade-off. So we’ll continue to evaluate that as we move forward and as rate change.

Scott Frost

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions in queue at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Sabra Purtill.

Sabra Purtill

Analyst

Thank you Tiffany and we’d like to thank you all for joining us today and your interest in The Hartford. Please note that Chris and Beth will be at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Insurance Conference in New York City on February 11th at 8 AM. We look forward to seeing you there, hopefully with no snow storm. And in the meantime, please feel free to contact either Sean or myself by phone or e-mail if you have any follow-up questions on our financial results and outlook. Thank you and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.