Earnings Labs

Horace Mann Educators Corporation (HMN)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 5, 2014

$46.15

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Arnica, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Horace Mann Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2013 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Ryan Greenier.

Ryan Greenier

Analyst

Thank you, Arnica, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Horace Mann's discussion of our fourth quarter and full year 2013 results. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release and investor financial supplement. Copies are available on the Investors page of our website. Our speakers today are Marita Zuraitis, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Dwayne Hallman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Steve Cardinal, Executive Vice President of Property and Casualty; and Matt Sharpe, Executive Vice President of Annuity and Life are also available for the question-and-answer session that follows our prepared comments. Before turning it over to Marita, I wanted to note that our presentation today includes forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Legislation Reform Act of 1995. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties and is not a guarantee of future performance. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and we assume no obligation to update them. Actual results may differ materially due to a variety of factors, which are described in our press release and SEC filings. In our prepared remarks, we may use some non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are available on the supplemental sections of our press release. And now I'll turn the call over to Marita Zuraitis.

Marita Zuraitis

Analyst

Thanks, Ryan. Good morning, everyone and welcome to our call. After yesterday's market close, Horace Mann reported fourth quarter operating income of $0.79 per share, a strong result that capped an excellent year. The quarter's P&C results reflect continual favorable year's development, catastrophe losses that were slightly more favorable than expected and most importantly, improving profitability with underlying margin expansion in both auto and property. Annuity earnings were once again better than expectations, reflecting strong spread management and continued growth in assets under management. Earnings in our life operations were also better than expected, largely on favorable mortality. We continue to post strong sales consistent with our strategic goal of increasing mortality-based earnings over time. Looking at the full year 2013, operating income of $2.32 per share was a record for the company. We outperformed our expectations in each of our 3 segments. Book value per share excluding net unrealized gains on investments grew by nearly 9%. Back in March, we increased our dividend by over 40%. Top line metrics continued to be positive. Our property and casualty business performed well in 2013. We achieved our rate plan of mid-single digit increases in auto and near-double digit increases in property. The combination of these rate actions in both 2013 and 2012 was the key contributor to the 4% increase in net -- in written premiums. Despite these rate actions, retention remained high at 85% in auto and 89% in property, a testament to the loyalty of our customer base, as well as the benefits of having high multiline and cross line sale percentages. Our full year combined ratio improved 2 points, reflecting underlying margin improvement. We are seeing the benefit of the changes we made over the past 1.5 years in our claims organization. Our loss ratios continued to improve…

Dwayne D. Hallman

Analyst

Thanks, Marita, and good morning, everyone. Fourth quarter operating income of $0.79 per diluted share was a very strong result, largely due to favorable results in our property and casualty segment. In P&C, we benefited from prior year's reserve development and catastrophe losses that were more favorable than expected. Annuity results included $0.03 of favorable DAC unlocking. Adjusting for these items, fourth quarter earnings were between $0.60 and $0.65 per share, clearly above our expected guidance range. P&C after-tax income of $19 million was $4.5 million higher than the prior year quarter. On a reported basis, the combined ratio of 87.4 improved 5 points. The majority of this change was related to improvement in our current accident year loss ratio as evidenced by the 3.5 improvement in our underlying combined ratio, which was 91. Our P&C results in the fourth quarter did benefit from some favorable non-cat weather, which isn't unusual. We are seeing margin expansion for both auto and property as the earn rate increases continue to exceed loss cost. Our current accident year developed more favorably than we expected earlier in the year. Fourth quarter annuity income, excluding DAC unlocking, was $11.6 million, $2.1 million higher than the prior year quarter, mainly on the favorable net interest margin. Life operating income excluding DAC unlocking, was $4.7 million, was $1.3 million lower than the prior year quarter on mortality levels that were more in line with our expectations. On a full year basis, operating income was $2.32 per share, reflecting results that exceeded our expectations in all 3 of our business lines. P&C results included a similar level of favorable prior year reserve development compared to last year. Like last year, this exceeded our original assumptions. In addition, strong equity markets resulted in $0.06 of favorable DAC unlocking comparable…

Ryan Greenier

Analyst

Thanks, Dwayne. Arnica, please open up the lines to begin the Q&A portion of the call.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Bob Glasspiegel with Janney Montgomery.

Robert Glasspiegel - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division

Analyst

I'm going to focus on the first quarter instead of the terrific fourth quarter. Your guidance incorporates the sort of crappy January as far as weather, stock market, interest rates. How much mark-to-market and mark-to-weather is your guidance?

Dwayne D. Hallman

Analyst

Bob, this is Dwayne. So far, in regards to the weather in the first quarter, we're not seeing anything that at this stage that we adjusted our entire year cat load of roughly 7 points. That doesn't mean that throughout the year, we don't have some variability between quarters and is it possible the first quarter might be a little higher than recent averages? It's possible, but as we look at the whole year, we didn't -- at this point, feel like it was enough to warrant a change in our total year cat load. As far as the market is concerned, in the month of January, once again, we look at our full year assumption of our returns. We're not jumping to any conclusions just based on the first 30 days. But I think you're familiar with the number that we've talked about in the past for roughly every 1 point off our assumed rate as per S&P performance it's worth about $200,000 to $300,000 of DAC unlocking.

Marita Zuraitis

Analyst

And back to the weather, Bob, just speaking for a minute to non-cat weather based on how early we all had to get up this morning to make it to this call, I can tell you the weather on a non-cat basis is just not stopping.

Robert Glasspiegel - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division

Analyst

So we should factor into the first quarter non-cat weather comparisons will be more severe than perhaps the rest of the year?

Marita Zuraitis

Analyst

I don't think we know that yet, but I would tell you just looking out the window and I'm sure you're looking out a similar window where you are, there continues to be a fair amount of weather.

Robert Glasspiegel - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And Dwayne, you didn't comment on the decline in interest rates year-to-date?

Dwayne D. Hallman

Analyst

Only in that our assumed reinvestment rate for 2014 is 4.25%. And that is down from our '13 assumptions and down about 0.5 point from our fourth quarter actual reinvestment rate.

Robert Glasspiegel - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division

Analyst

What your by and probably isn't down as much as treasury is as spreads have widened a little bit, right?

Dwayne D. Hallman

Analyst

That'd be correct, Bob.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Vincent DeAugustino with KBW. Vincent M. DeAugustino - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division: So I guess, to just start off with first question being more on the auto side. So definitely some good year-over-year margin expansion there and even not withstanding the non-cat weather comments I'll expect that to be less of an impact on the auto line. So I'm just curious if there's been any incremental changes in the auto loss cost trend side of things here, or maybe first half of '13 versus second half of '13, just to give us a little bit of insight into maybe what to expect as we head into 2014?

Stephen P. Cardinal

Analyst

Yes, Vincent, this is Steve Cardinal. Yes, we look at our auto, we're very pleased with the performance of the underlying trends that we saw in 2013. Based on the rate actions that we took, the underlying loss ratio is coming down, a couple of points was a positive issue for us. We look into '14, we see our loss cost trends around 2 to 3 points and I mean -- in our conservative educator niche, we find that that's a good pick for us as we kind of move into this year. Our rate, as Marita and Dwayne mentioned, will be this year, mid-single digits. So that should be above our loss cost trends. So we see a further improvement in our underlying and some -- margin expansion moving forward.

Marita Zuraitis

Analyst

Yes, thanks Steve. The only thing I would add to that is looking at the numbers from my perspective and having them be new to me, it's clear that this company recognized an industry trend of increase in severity earlier than I would submit many. And it speaks to the conservative nature of how we run the business and how we make our picks. Vincent M. DeAugustino - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division: The color there's really helpful. And one of the things that I noticed was that there was no share repurchases this quarter and just like a modest amount I think in the past quarter. Clearly here, year-to-date [ph] versus the market financials and particularly P&C companies have been hit. So I'm just curious, here in 2014, if maybe the appetite has changed a little with the share price coming down or if we should just continue to think about you being opportunistic and balanced in your capital management plan?

Dwayne D. Hallman

Analyst

This is Dwayne. I think your latter comment is accurate. We'll be opportunistic holding share repurchases, employing capital. As we mentioned before, we're holding onto the capital for our growth opportunities knowing the life business. As you start to grow, that will be, I guess, a major contributor to the use of excess capital. As I mentioned earlier, we have a board meeting in March where we'll review our annual capital management. Not that we're not talking about it every quarter, but that is a formal process as we look at the dividend opportunities. You're absolutely correct that in the fourth quarter, very, very strong performance in the market as the market gets beat up a bit. If that continues it will certainly provide an opportunity for us. But I would assume for your assumptions going forward, assume something modest as far as share repurchases. Vincent M. DeAugustino - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division: Okay. And then one last one if I may. From the investments in the business, particularly within P&C. As far as impact on your expense ratio, I mean, I completely view that as an investment in the business with more than offsetting returns as far as loss ratio improvement. But just through a modeling standpoint, I know looking pretty far out to ask about 2015, but would I be too far off base to expect, maybe 2015 expense ratios to be fairly in line, maybe a hair better than 2014 but to see [ph] anymore of that accident year loss ratio improvement start to come through.

Marita Zuraitis

Analyst

Yes. I think that is extremely well stated. Obviously, if we saw an opportunity for an investment, that might change that, but we would be very transparent in advance of that. But I think that's probably a really good way to think about it.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Paul Thrane [ph] with [indiscernible] Financial.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

Could you expand a bit just on where your top priorities lie in terms of the different strategic initiatives you have going on in the different areas of the business? And then, if you could some sense of how you see it playing out in terms of timeline over the next, what's falls in the 1-year, 2-year, 3-year bucket trend?

Marita Zuraitis

Analyst

Yes. Thanks for the question, Paul. I think we've talked an awful lot about the educator lifecycle. And thinking about the needs of an educator from a product standpoint, from a distribution support standpoint, and from an infrastructure standpoint, and we have been looking at that educator lifecycle. It's obvious to us that a good portion of our customer, a good portion of our assets are sitting in that mid-career educator bucket. And for us, it's really thinking about how we find them a little sooner, how we support new educators with things like financial literacy seminars and product offerings, as well as keeping those educators all the way through the lifecycle. And as we talked about -- talk about a fixed indexed annuity product that used to be a third-party vended product and now bringing it in-house, I think you'll see more and more of that. So whether we look at that lifecycle and we supplement with things that we manufacture or things that we bring to our agents with third-party vendors, it really is all about giving our agents more opportunity to say yes at the point of sale. From an overall agency perspective, we have a group of our agents with very high cross-sell percentages, very high multiline percentages, and taking those really good stats and replicating them throughout the whole agency plant and bringing training and sales support to the remainder of our agents is also another way for us to supplement the new activity we're doing as well. So we're actually excited by the headroom that we have and the opportunities that we have across the business. And we are also excited by the fact that we're obviously seeing good results in 2013, so it's a great platform. And we're going into '14 with sales momentum in all 3 of our businesses.

Operator

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions.

Ryan Greenier

Analyst

Thank you, Arnica. Thank you everyone for joining us this morning on Horace Mann's fourth quarter earnings call. If anyone has any additional follow ups, don't hesitate to reach out to me. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.