Darryl Rawlings
Analyst · Stifel. Please go ahead
Thank you, Kim. Good afternoon and thank you for your continued interest in Trupanion. I look forward to providing you with the 2014 results and our 2015 outlook. Starting with our growth, we had a strong year as we continue to build the new category of medical insurance for cats and dogs in North America. Total revenue for the year increased 38% to $116 million. Our direct-to-consumer monthly subscription revenues comprised over 90% of our total revenue in 2014. This means we have a highly visible recurring revenue business model. We continue to experience exceptional renewal rates with average monthly retention of 98.68% for the full year. Trupanion and its affiliates had 232,000 enrolled pets at the end of 2014. 218,500 of these came from our subscription business segment. Our direct-to-consumer monthly subscription pets, this is up 29% from the end of 2013. Average monthly revenue per pet our version of ARPU increased slightly over 4% for the year to $44.27. This was affected by the Canadian foreign exchange rate. Our ratio of LVP to PAC for the year was 5:1, which was in line with our target. Gross margin excluding stock based compensation expense for our subscription business was 18.1% for the year, down 1.6% from the previous year. In Q4, this segment delivered a 300 basis point improvement over Q3 and came in as expected at 18.2%. We expect our subscription business to reach gross margins of 18% to 21% in Q4 of 2015. The first half of the year will have lower gross margins in our subscription business as we realize a greater impact from our pricing increases in the second half of the year. Our overall gross margin is slightly lower as it includes our other business segment. This segment which is our B2B segment averages a 7% to 10% gross margin. In 2014, we had a combined gross margin excluding stock compensation expense of 17.4% a 1% miss to our 2014 target. Although it creates a near term pressure on gross margins we remain committed to the roll out of our direct pay initiative. In 2015, we expect to double our deployments of Trupanion Express as we continue to learn how to effectively roll out this technology and member experience. Adjusted EBITDA came in as planned for 2014 at a loss of $10.3 million, with our large addressable market in North America we will continue to invest in our foundation, technology and member experience all well ahead of the curve. But unlike 2014 where we saw our fixed expenses increase to 18% of revenue in 2015 we expect to see these fixed expenses swing in the other direction and begin to reduce as a percentage of revenue. Long term our goal is to reduce our fixed expenses to approximately 5% of revenue. One of the biggest differentiators for Trupanion is our approach to the market. We fundamentally believe that the support from veterinarians is critical to driving broader acceptance of medical insurance for pets in North America, garnering the support is not without challenges. There are over 28,000 vet hospitals in the U.S. and Canada, 2000 of which are owned by corporate MDs. The remaining 26,000 vet hospitals are independently owned and operated. Reaching this audience will take considerable time and resources. In 2014, we estimate that we made 85,000 face to face visits with veterinarians and their staff. In total, we estimate that we’ve made approximately 360,000 face to face visits since we entered the U.S. market through our national sales force of territory partners. Equally as important to expanding our reach with veterinarians is enhancing the Trupanion experience, for both veterinarians and the consumer. At the heart is our direct pay efforts, but we are trying to eliminate the outdated, ineffective and unloved reimbursement model. We are using the relationships we have with our active hospitals, our technology and a change in process to roll [ph] a member experience where we pay the veterinarians directly. Usually within 5 minutes of the invoice being created and before the pet owner departs the hospital. With Trupanion Express we will be removing a major point of friction that has been permeating the traditional reimbursement pet insurance category, and for Trupanion by integrating with the veterinarian practise management software we get access to better data. We reduce our claims handling expense and delight our members with a significantly better experience. Our ability to price across 1.2 million price categories is a key differentiator and one of Trupanion’s most important competitive advantages. Our goal is to price everyone fairly based on the unique characteristics of their pet. If a member has an average pet within their price category, we should pay 70% of their money on claims for their pet. If their pet is unlucky they will receive considerably more than a 100% and if they have a lucky pet they will subsidize the unlucky group. We have built this capability over the past 14 years and investing in data analytics has been and will continue to be a key focus for us. Investment in our marketing infrastructure and technology will continue to be a prevailing theme in 2015. Data analytics and eliminating the reimbursement model and the expansion of our territory partners are all strategic investments aimed at scaling our business and building our foundation as we continue to build a new category in North America. We are frequently asked what our business model looks like at operation of scale. And since we think about it slightly different than others, I want to take this opportunity to walk you through our margin profile. As we have discussed previously, we believe we will reach operational scale at 650, 000 to 750,000 pets. At this level, our goal is to have a discretionary margin which is gross margin minus our fixed expenses before sales and marketing of approximately 15%. Looking at the components of revenue more closely, approximately 70 points of revenue is used to service and pay veterinary invoices, our cost of goods. We incur another 10 points of revenue and variable expenses. And finally, at operational scale we expect to incur another five points of fixed expenses in technology and G&A. The result will be 15 points of discretionary margin before sales and marketing from our direct-to-consumer monthly subscription business. This is our long term target. With these 15 points of discretionary margin we could choose to add more geography, acquire more paths, pay dividends or buy back stock. Today, and for the foreseeable future we will grow by cost effectively acquiring pets, which we measure by understanding the ratio between our life time value of a pet to our pet acquisition cost. When we reach scale at 650,000 to 750,000 enrolled pets and assuming we maintain a 35% market share we project that North America market will still only have a 1.2% penetration rate. With time, a high value of proposition, a great member experience and the support from veterinarians, I believe the North American market is also capable of reaching the 25% market penetration rate found today in the U.K. Remember, the U.K. took 20 years to hit 5% penetration rate and another 20 years to grow to today’s 25% penetration rate, it’s not going to happen overnight. So how do we get there? We’ve been laying the ground work over the past 14 years, but 2014 we saw the advancement of several strategic initiatives. We will build upon these foundations in 2015 and have already made good progress. Trupanion is the only company in North America with a national sales force, a key competitor of differentiator in an area we’ll continue to invest. Just last month we announced the partnership with VCA in which Trupanion was named the preferred vendor of medical insurance for cats and dogs across VCAs approximate 600 hospitals throughout the United States. It’s a great validation of Trupanion’s business model and we are thrilled that our territory partners will now have a direct line of communication with the VCA’s hospital. Building those relationships will take time and as we expect minimal revenue impacting 2015, but expect to scale the relationship more meaningfully in 2016 and beyond. In summary, our performance in 2014 was largely as expected. We met our revenue, LVP to PAC ratio and cash flow goals but we missed our target gross margin by approximately 1%. Our foundation continues to strengthen as build more relationships with veterinarians, improve our member experience and maintain our already high retention rates. This momentum continues into 2015 which is off to a strong start. As Mike will cover, we expect 2015 will show strong revenue growth and improve operating margins. Continuing to cultivate relationships with veterinary hospitals will remain our focus in 2015 and 2016. And with that, I hand the call over to Mike Banks to discuss our financial results in greater detail. Mike?