Richard Blackley
Analyst · Jessica Tassan with Piper Sandler
Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. This morning, we reported strong second quarter results, and we are raising our full year 2026 outlook to reflect our operating performance. Through the first half of the year, we delivered record profitability of approximately $1 billion of net income or $3.16 per diluted share. The fundamentals of the business are strong, and our results are favorable to our plan. Let me now turn to details on second quarter performance. We ended the second quarter with 2.96 million effectuated members, an increase of 46% year-over-year, driven by above-market growth during open enrollment and solid retention. Total revenue was $4.9 billion, an increase of 70% year-over-year, driven by higher membership and rate increases, partially offset by higher risk adjustment payable accrual. The second quarter medical loss ratio was 79.2%, an improvement of nearly 12 points year-over-year. Recall that in the prior year period, we recorded the entire first half impact of the 2025 risk adjustment true-up in the second quarter. The year-over-year MLR improvement was driven by our disciplined pricing strategy and a strong current year performance compared to the market reset experienced a year ago. We also benefited from favorable prior period reserve development in the quarter. Now I'll spend a moment on risk adjustment. In the second quarter, we received the final 2025 CMS risk adjustment report, which was approximately $160 million favorable to our first quarter accruals and fully recognized in the quarter. We also received the first risk adjustment report for 2026, covering claims through April, which showed market morbidity tracking quite favorable to both our pricing and first quarter accruals. With only 4 months of claims in the data, we recognized only a small portion of that favorability, which we believe is appropriate at this stage in the year. Through the first 6 months of the year, risk adjustment as a percentage of direct premiums was approximately 20%, consistent with our expectations for the full year. Overall year-to-date utilization was moderately favorable to our expectations. By category, inpatient, professional and pharmacy utilization were favorable, while outpatient was elevated through the first 6 months of the year. On administrative expenses, we delivered another record low SG&A expense ratio. The second quarter SG&A expense ratio was 14.2%, a 450 basis point year-over-year improvement and the lowest in the company's history. The improvement was primarily driven by disciplined expense management, including an increasing impact from technology and AI initiatives, fixed cost leverage and lower risk adjustment as a percentage of premium. We reported earnings from operations of $389 million in the second quarter, a $619 million year-over-year improvement. Operating margin was 8%, a 16-point improvement year-over-year. Net income was $362 million, a $590 million increase year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was $415 million in the quarter, an increase of $615 million year-over-year. Through the first 6 months of 2026, our results reflect disciplined execution and strong year-over-year improvement across all key metrics. Shifting to the balance sheet. Our capital position remains very strong. We ended the second quarter with approximately $10.2 billion of cash and investments, including $462 million of cash and investments at the parent. As of June 30, 2026, our insurance subsidiaries had approximately $1.9 billion of capital and surplus, including $994 million of excess capital, which was driven by our strong operating performance. Let me now turn to updates on our 2026 full year guidance. Based on our first half performance, we are raising our full year earnings from operations guidance to a range of $500 million to $700 million, an increase of $250 million from our prior outlook. We continue to expect total revenues of $18.7 billion to $19 billion. We now expect full year MLR in the range of 81.5% to 82.5%, an improvement of 90 basis points at the midpoint from our prior outlook. On administrative expenses, we now expect our SG&A expense ratio to be in the range of 15.6% to 16.1%, an improvement of 20 basis points at the midpoint. We continue to expect adjusted EBITDA to run roughly $115 million above earnings from operations. Our improved outlook reflects our strong first half performance, including favorable prior period development and market morbidity trends and an expectation of increasing membership churn in the back half of the year as CMS program integrity processes continue. As I mentioned, the market morbidity data that we received for claims through April was quite favorable to our expectations. Given this early stage in the year, we have not taken full credit for that favorability in our outlook. If the favorability holds as claims develop, that could present a tailwind to our full year outlook. In closing, our disciplined execution drove strong operating results and record profitability through the first half of the year. We are confident in our improved 2026 outlook and are on track to deliver our strongest performance to-date. With that, let's turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A portion of our call.