Good morning, and welcome to the Horace Mann Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Heather Wietzel, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Horace Mann's discussion of our fourth quarter and full year 2021 results. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release, investor supplement and investor presentation, all of which are available on the Investor page of our Web site. Marita Zuraitis, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Bret Conklin, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer will give the formal remarks on today's call. With us for Q&A, we have Matt Sharpe on Supplemental and Group Benefit; Mark Desrochers on Property &Casualty; and Mike Weckenbrock on Life and Retirement; plus Ryan Greenier on Investments. Before turning it to over to Marita, I want to note that our presentation today includes forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees 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 news release and SEC filings. In our prepared remarks, we use some non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are available in our news release. I'll now turn the call over to Marita.

Thanks, Heather, and good morning, everyone. Last night, Horace Mann reported fourth quarter core earnings of $0.97, and full year 2021 core earnings of $3.59 per diluted share. This marks our second consecutive year of record earnings and core return on equity of over 10%. It also positions us well for strong results in 2022 and achievement of our longer-term targets of 10% average annual EPS growth and sustained double-digit ROEs. Today, I will briefly discuss our 2021 results, which Bret will cover in more detail. He will also discuss our commitment to accelerating shareholder value creation, as we continue to execute on our strategic roadmap, which is driving significantly greater earnings power for the company. Since 2018, we have more than doubled our expectations for capital generation to $50 million in 2022 and beyond. While our first priority for excess capital remains supporting profitable growth, which further drive shareholder value. We will continue to utilize our share repurchase program and continue our track record of annual shareholder dividend increases. I want to focus the majority of my remarks on the steps we're taking to achieve our targets as well as comment on how this aligns with the strategy we executed to bring us to where we are today positioned to be the company of choice to help all educators protect what they have today, and prepare for a successful tomorrow. In the fourth quarter, all segments finished ahead of expectations, reflecting our solid underlying performance as well as strong net investment income due to the very strong returns on our limited partnership portfolio. Across the board the results illustrate the value of our multiyear focus on products distribution and infrastructure to better serve the education market. In particular, we continue to be very pleased with the results of our…

Thank you, Marita, and good morning, everyone. As Marita noted, Horace Mann reported record core EPS as well as core ROE above 10% for the second consecutive year. Fourth quarter 2021 core EPS was $0.97, significantly above the top end of our guidance for the quarter. Every segment exceeded our expectations, largely reflecting strong net investment income growth driven by the performance of our limited partnership portfolio. More importantly, the value of the revenue and earnings diversification we've accomplished in recent years was clearly demonstrated as we achieved these results even while the auto loss ratio returns to pre-pandemic levels, which wasn't a surprise to us. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone else, based on the resumption of more normal driving patterns across the country. In a moment, I'll talk more about our outlook with Madison National as part of Horace Mann. But first, let me run briefly through the highlights of 2021. 2021 property and casualty premiums were $608 million. Retention remained strong, although new business volume continues below historical levels. Underlying segment results for the year were impacted by auto loss frequency returning to near pre-pandemic levels as miles driven has increased. Further, severity is elevated for both auto and property. Nonetheless, with a healthy contribution from investment income, T&C core earnings were strong. For the fourth quarter, P&C segment earnings were $50 million and our combined ratio was 99.9%, a solid result considering cat losses were almost double last year's fourth quarter. Our retention rose 2.5 percentage points for auto policies and 1.5 percentage points for property in 2021. In auto, the fourth quarter underlying loss ratio was 79.3%, an increase of 11.9 points compared to the prior year quarter when loss activity was unusually low due to the pandemic. Auto loss levels increased mainly due…

Thank you, Bret. Operator, we're ready for questions.

The first question is from Gary Ransom of Dowling & Partners. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. I wanted to focus on this rate versus loss trend and personal auto. Obviously, severity happens immediately and rates happen over time. So, your guidance of a slightly worse loss ratio probably has a lot more front end loaded in '22. I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about what you're seeing on severity and sort of the timing of the corrective actions.

Yes, Gary, thanks for your question. Very thoughtful. And as usual part of the answer is embedded right there in the question. Before I turn it over to Mark, on the specifics, I want to go back just a little bit and remind everyone of our focus on building a company with a sustained long-term double-digit ROE. And one of the key levers of that ROE improvement was our auto loss ratio improvement. And we did the hard work, which included reduction of in some difficult places like Florida and Colorado, and brought our underwriting action that shrunk auto units, but it put us in a better position. So, to give you a plug on your Dowling IBNR, number 49, not that I read that -- not that I read it. Compared loss ratio improvement among the auto players and notice that -- and noted that Horace Mann had strong improvement compared to our peers. Of course, folks are starting to drive again. Of course, the lack of rate appropriately over the last few years in the industry would begin to catch up. And we're not that far off from where we said we would be and where we thought we would be. Let me turn it over to Mark with some of the specifics regarding severity. Mark?

Yes, of course, I think it'd be good to give some context to our auto results. When I look at the full year and the quarter, results were actually fairly consistent with our expectations. I think, as we noted, in some prior calls, we expected the loss cost to return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2021 or early 2022. Clearly, we're at that point. If we look at the underlying loss costs in Q4, about low single digits, above where we were and 2019, before the pandemic. However, without the pandemic, normal -- with normal inflation, we would have expected loss costs to be up probably mid-single digits over the prior 2 years. But clearly, I think the components of how we've got to this point, are a bit different than we expected. The overall accident frequency does remain somewhat lower than pre-pandemic levels, which I would attribute to two things. One, we still see some continued changes in driving patterns that haven't returned completely to normal, from pre-pandemic patterns. And second, as Marita pointed out, a lot of the effort that we put in to improving our book of business leading up to the pandemic. We're starting to kind of realize some of that. Some of the actions we've taken, she noted, Florida as an example, where our share of our countrywide was about 7% -- reached a high of nearly 7% of our being in Florida and now today, we're down to just about 1%. So those kinds of actions have driven some additional frequency improvement. That was a little bit harder to see I think during the pandemic. But as you appropriately pointed out, Gary, offsetting that, clearly, we've seen the same kind of severity trends, that many in the industry are seeing, inflationary driven factors, whether it be increased pricing on used cars, supply chain issues, labor cost, and such. So, we're definitely seeing that. We do expect the inflationary pressures to continue into 2022. And as Bret mentioned, we're taking some rate actions to address those. We're in the process of filing and implementing rate increases in over 30 states, represented by 75% of the premium, rate increases ranging between 5% and 10%, averaging in that 6.5% to 7% range as Bret mentioned within those states. However, even with 70% of our policies being 6-month policies, it's going to take some time for that rate to earn in and as you point out, the severity inflation is here today. The rate we will earn in a little bit later, and therefore, we do expect some margin compression throughout 2022. And as you pointed out, yes, it will be definitely more front end loaded as the rate burning starts to accelerate towards the back half of the year.

Can you …

And just to …

I just wanted to make sure …

Sorry, Gary.

… that you said 70% of your policies are 6-month following?

6 months. That's correct.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Yes, and just two quick clarifications or additions to that, Mark. Thank you for that detail. All that is included in our guidance. So, we're contemplating that. And it would be remiss of me not to say you got to remember our educator niche, insulated, but not immune, that doesn't change. So, the risk characteristics, the driving habits, the predictability, everything that comes with that educator niche is there, but they're not immune from some of the broader trends that we see. So, I just wanted to add those two points, Gary.

Right. Okay. There are other things that you can potentially do, that are beyond rate. And I -- most of what I hear from other companies, they're talking about an independent agency system. So that's one set of actions that are non-rate you could do with your distribution. On the one hand, maybe there are limits what you can do to some extent, but on the other hand, maybe you can have a more coordinated action. I just wondered whether your distribution system helps you in any way to put in additional changes, whether it's getting a rate on tiering, somehow getting less new business, kind of underwriting a little bit better. Any comments, there would be helpful.

Yes, Gary, I'll turn it over to Mark if he has any specifics in a minute. But what I would say is we control our distribution, right? We set the levers, we set the underwriting and we control those yes and no decisions, we control the geographies and the levers that we pull in those geographies. So, I do believe we have a lot more control over that distribution. And in addition to that, we also leverage through third-party vendors, when it might not be appropriate for Horace Mann to take that risk, or price that particular account. And that allows us to continue to do our full value proposition and be present almost everywhere. We have some smaller states that may be over time, it doesn't make sense for us to be the paper in those states. And you may see us take some action in places when it doesn't make sense. We have Massachusetts where we clearly decided not to manufacture our own auto and to leverage another company in that regard. We use progressive for nonstandard so that we don't have to be in the world of trying to price nonstandard business. Do we have a lot more control over our desk distribution and a lot more flexibility in what we accept when we accept it? And how we price it? I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Mark?

Yes, I think you hit at all the right points, Marita. The only thing I would add to it is that, if I'm in an independent agency environment and I'm taking a lot of rate, or I'm pushing underwriting actions to -- we underwrite or do premium pursuit type actions. In an independent agency environment, that agent quite often will just move the business to another company. One of the advantages, I think, in our distribution system, is that, our agents need to work with us to keep that business and keep that customer. And I think that does give us an advantage when we do need to take action to improve the overall profitability profile.

The other point is where we put agents, right? We have complete control over that. We're not adding new agents in Florida. As a matter of fact, the good strong agents we have in Florida are focusing on Retirement and Supplemental. And that's been extremely helpful to our bottom line. So, we also have control over where we put them, and how many we have. It's a good lever to have.

All right. Thank you very much. That's good color.

Thank you, Gary.

Thanks.

The next question is from Greg Peters of Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for getting me into the queue this quarter. I wanted to step back and have you give us an update on the expense structure of the organization. We hear so many other companies commenting on how they're trying to through technology transformation and other initiatives, improve the expense ratio component of their operations and clearly, the acquisition will help to leverage your expense structure. But I'm -- I was looking for further color as we think about the outlook for expenses not only just in property casualty, but the other businesses and how you how you're thinking about it for this next year?

Yes, Greg, this is Bret Conklin. Very, very well stated question. I guess, as it relates to expenses in general, with you tracking us, I think we do a very good job of managing our expenses. And if you go back to our journey, if you will, in addition to improving the auto profitability, that Marita mentioned a little bit and responded to Gary. We also -- a couple years back, had an initiative to, if you will, right size, our expenses and took out about $30 million over a couple year period. And as you mentioned, yes, we have done some additional acquisitions, and there will be additional expenses that come from adding Madison National. And obviously, we do target ratios as a percentage of revenues. And one of the things that we have planned for 2022 is we're always going to have some strategic spend in our budget. And as I think Marita had in her prepared remarks, obviously, we do want to spend strategically in the areas of auto growth, cross-sell, digital capabilities. We still are completing our full modernization of CMC i.e., guidewire. And also, Mike Weckenbrock and his team are undertaking some life modernization as well. But all the while keeping that under control, if you will, I would say, I hope we always have a certain amount of strategic spend every year might be different strategic spend. But obviously, with growth, we can absorb some. So, yes, we'll -- I think we've talked about Madison National is just bolted on in our 2022 plan numbers from premium expenses, et cetera, we'll look at making the most efficient use of the consolidated entity. But I think you'll see that, the expenses. Yes, we are going to spend a little bit more strategically, certainly in the growth area.

Yes, Bret, very, very well said. One thing to add is I'm actually very proud of our expense work, and the discipline we've had on expenses. When I think about the transformational stage of our journey, I think about three acquisitions, and all the expenses that come with those acquisitions absorbed. I think about a reinsurance transaction that could have potentially put some pressure on ratios. I think about the strategic investments that Bret talked about all funded for, rather than coming, out to the street and saying, here's what it's going to cost and expect ex percent increase in our expenses. We kind of did it in the normal course of our strategy. And I'm proud about that. And I think we've been pretty transparent on our expense picture on our spend, and the value of those spends. So, thanks for the question.

That's good color. The second question I had pivoting to your guidance on investment income. I was looking at, I think, it's Slide -- Page 30 portfolio in '21 and you suggested is going to return to normal. How do we look at, say, the market volatility on a year-to-date basis and sort of factor that into our assumptions. We're going to see some increased volatility on a quarterly basis because of this as we've mapped out '22 or just give us some added perspective. That was my last question.

Sure. This is Ryan Greenier. Thanks for the question. We model us in guidance, we model our returns for the limited partnership portfolio very similar to how we think about P&C catastrophes. We take historical average just given the inherent lumpiness, if you will, of the third of the portfolio that is more equity sensitive. So, that number is in the mid 8% range for the limited partnership portfolio. When you speak of volatility, most of our outperformance in 2021 came from private equity and venture capital strategies, which obviously, those returns are highly correlated to the equity market. When I think about that third of the overall portfolio that is more volatile, that is probably the largest driver, Greg, and to a lesser extent high yield spreads. But when we think about it, we will as we move through the year up -- when we provide guidance updates, we bake in outperformance or underperformance in the LP portfolio, but we always use a forward-looking assumption that reflects our historic average performance.

Got it. Thanks for the color.

The next question is from Meyer Shields of KBW. Please go ahead.

Thanks. I was hoping for an update on agent retention in terms of whether the great resignation or the legitimate questions of the stresses on educators? Does that having an impact on the ability to attract and retain agents?

Yes, thanks for the question. It's certainly been a very volatile year, four or two years almost now for our agents. But I think that in some strange way, it's increased their resolve, it's reminded them of why they do what they do. It's allowed them to make an even bigger impact in the lives of the educators. And I think they jumped into this environment as they usually do with both feet. What we saw in 2021, quarter-over-quarter-over-quarter were pretty consistent, almost to the numbers, steady numbers, agency count, throughout the year. Certainly, in this world, you see retirements that maybe you didn't expect. We didn't see as many as we actually expected. When you think about the great Retirement, the great resignation, the great rotation, regardless of the label people are putting on it. What we're seeing is maybe in our own way, this mission driven, cost centric, world that we live in as a company has really given people purpose, and really bound them to what we do as an organization. And we've seen our numbers hold. We also said, on the last call that we felt good about our recruiting efforts, those are continued -- continuing. We did focus on the integration of NTA agents, getting them to know Horace Mann or other products, potential cross-sell down the road, concentrating on learning and building with Madison National's distribution partners. So, we had plenty to do, but our overall EA plant has remained probably more steady than we would have anticipated.

Okay. That's fantastic. Also, early, Rudy, you mentioned that you use progressive as your nonstandard underwriter and they can communicate that in the past. What's the impact to two Horace Mann, when progressive temporarily doesn't want to grow because of its own concerns about rate adequacy?

Yes, I mean, it's a great question. We don't just have progressive in the Horace Mann, general agency, we have other options. But there are times where you would say to an educator, you truly have a nonstandard risk, and we're not a non-standard company. Our agents have relationships locally with other agencies that might be able to help that customer out. But we don't ever feel compelled to take that on. And there's plenty of other things we're doing with that customer, right? We're having, student loan discussions, we're having donors choose discussions, we're doing financial wellness. And sometimes we're just not the right place for the auto, but we don't get extra pressure. And we haven't really found a lot of cases where progressive wouldn't be there, they would normally have a price point, that would be appropriate, because you've got to remember, there's non-standard, and then there's educator non-standard. And I would say that, progressive is happy with our loss ratio and happy with our book of business. And for the most part they want, whatever we'd be willing to send their way. It's been a good relationship.

Okay, perfect. Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

The next question is from John Barnidge of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I wanted to go back to your comment in the guidance about 35% loss ratio for voluntary products and 50% for employer paid products. Can you maybe talk about the mix between those two different products, so we can maybe arrive at a blended number? Matt, do you want to take that?

Sure. Happy to. Thanks for the question, John. In 2021, roughly half of the new sales came from each one of those products. Looking forward, looking forward to 2022 that mix is likely to change a little heavier towards the individual product versus the group product. But the other thing to note between the two products is both of those products are priced for a double-digit ROE and what you're seeing in the difference between those loss ratios, it's just the product structure and the distribution methodology that happens between those two products.

That's very helpful. Thank you very much. And then maybe sticking with Supplemental, if we think about the commentary around continued supplemental sales improvement. Can you maybe talk about what the assumed sales growth is and legacy supplemental for the contribution from Madison National for 22? Thank you for the answers.

I'll yeah, I'll be happy to answer that question. If it's okay, Merida, absolutely the.

Yes, as you look forward to sales in 2022, we're eager to return back to the pre-COVID levels. It looks like momentum is on our side and public sentiment appears to be on our side in terms of keeping the school buildings open. As long as the school buildings remain open, and our access starts to improve, I would expect the individual product sales to continue to progress back towards the pre-pandemic levels. Whether we reach the pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year is yet to be seen. Only time we'll be able to tell, but we're optimistic that we'll be making significant progress back towards that -- towards that number. On the Madison National side, we don't have any numbers this quarter, because they're not -- they weren't part of the company in the last quarter. But as you look forward, they're not an individual sales, environment or corporate sales environment, meaning they sell from the top of the district down and their employer paid benefits. So, they're not really impacted as significantly as we were impacted due to the lack of access to the district buildings on an individual basis.

It's very helpful. Thank you very much. Best of luck.

Thank you, John.

Thanks, John.

Thanks, John.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference over to Heather Wietzel for closing remarks.

Thank you, and thank you, everyone for joining us today. We look forward to talking to everyone. Students, feel free to reach out if you have additional questions. I would point out we are at this point planning to attend in person, both the AICPA and Raymond James conferences and it will be a great chance to catch up with people again in person for the first time in a few years. So, reach out to questions. Otherwise, have a great day and thank you.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.