Trupanion, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Trupanion fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Laura Bainbridge, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Good afternoon and welcome to Trupanion's fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results conference call. Participating on today's call are Daryl Rawlings, Chief Executive Officer, Margie Tooth, President, and Drew Wolf, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that during today's conference call, we will make certain forward-looking statements regarding the future operations, opportunities, and financial performance of Trupanion within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve a high degree of known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. A detailed discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties are included in our earnings release, which can be found on our investor relations website, as well as the company's most recent reports on forms 10-K and 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Today's presentation contains references to non-GAAP financial measures that management uses to evaluate the company's performance, including without limitation, variable expenses, fixed expenses, adjusted operating income, acquisition costs, internal rate of return, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow. When we use the term adjusted operating income or margin, it is intended to refer to our non-GAAP operating income or margin before new pet acquisition and development expenses. Unless otherwise noted, margins and expenses will be presented on a non-GAAP basis, which excludes stock-based compensation expense and depreciation expense. These non-GAAP measures are an addition to, and not a substitute for, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with the U.S. GAAP. Investors are encouraged to review the reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP results, which can be found in today's press release or on Trupanion's Investor Relations website under the Quarterly Earnings tab. Lastly, I would like to remind everyone that today's conference call is also available via webcast on True Panion's Investor Relations website. A replay will also be available on the site. With that, I will hand the call over to Daryl.

Thanks, Laura. Revenue for the year grew 29% year-over-year to $905 million, marking another year of strong growth. We ended the year with over 1.5 million total enrolled pets. The consistency of these results demonstrate the benefits of our monthly recurring business model in a large under-penetrated market. With inflation in veterinary medicine continuing to outpace that of a pet owner's disposable income, the need for our products will continue to grow. Total adjusted operating income grew 14% year-over-year to $89 million. As a percent of revenue, our subscription-adjusted operating margin was down 100 basis points year over year as the cost of veterinary care grew faster than we initially predicted. Long-term, expansion in our adjusted operating income will make it easier for us to deploy greater sums of capital at high rates of return. In 2022, we deployed $80 million of these funds, acquiring pets at an estimated internal rate of return of 30%. We also invested approximately $16 million on two acquisitions, that gained us access to continental Europe. In doing so, we nearly doubled the number of veterinary hospitals in our addressable market. Further, we added two new distribution channels in North America and continued to work on our new low and medium coverage brands, including significant investments in our infrastructure to support these growth initiatives. In 2022, our balance sheet and access to working capital provided us the funds to do so. Margie will provide additional commentary on the progress against our 60-month plan momentarily. Although these are very early days, we are pleased to have these initiatives in market with the majority of upfront spend behind us. As we've said before, we expect it will take years to build momentum. This is a characteristic we understand well with monthly recurring revenue. Our low margin other business segment grew revenue by 51% year over year. and adjusted operating income was approximately 10 million. As a reminder, we are required to hold cash in the form of capital reserves to support this growth. In aggregate, these capital reserve requirements totaled approximately 60 million, which is more than we have earned in our adjusted operating income for this business segment over the same time period. In effect, our other business segment has been limiting our ability to deploy capital at higher rates of return. With this in mind, we've been working towards a long-term agreement with our large partner and our other business to more effectively utilize our capital for our subscription business. Through our new agreement, existing policyholders will now stay with Trupanion for a minimum three-year period. We expect the majority of new business to be issued by a different underwriter as early as Q2. Any new pets that we underwrite moving forward will be at a more reasonable margin. Looking ahead, we will be prioritizing our capital deployment for our entire business in areas that deliver us the highest returns. In 2023, our focus will be on continuing to leverage our veterinary leads in North America and further strengthening our balance sheet as main drivers of value creation. With that, I'll hand the call over to Margie.

Thank you, Daryl, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll echo Daryl's sentiment that it was a strong growth year for Trupanion. We deployed $80 million to acquire nearly 260,000 pets at an estimated internal rate of return of 30% on a trailing 12-month basis. We also added approximately 29,000 additional pets in the fourth quarter through two acquisitions in continental Europe. Excluding these pets, our new pet growth of 15% benefited from robust leads led by the veterinary channel and a modest improvement in conversion rate year over year. We delivered this growth while maintaining our strong levels of member retention. Absent our new products, the average Trupanion pets stay with us for approximately 77 months in 2022, which we believe to be significantly higher than the industry's average. Drew will provide commentary on our overall book of business momentarily. With our charity partners consistently back in the field in 2022 and the rising cost environment making high quality medical insurance more relevant than ever, we saw good engagement and returns from the veterinary channel. Positively, we also saw a notable uptick in veterinary adoption and the use of our software solution that enables us to pay member invoices directly to the hospital at the time of checkout. This was especially prevalent in the second half of the year as inflationary pressures took hold and we ended 2022 with our software in approximately 8,000 hospitals across North America. This is up over 24% from the prior year, the highest rate of deployment yet. Our territory partners and their relationships with veterinarians and their staff is a core moat around our business. In November, we hosted our first in-person territory partner conference in three years. We were thrilled to be together again in person to celebrate wins and set up execution for the year ahead. As a reminder, our PAC spend is all-inclusive, and our estimated internal rate of return for the fourth quarter of 31% reflects the costs associated with the conference. Absent this spend, our estimated IRR would have been about 2% higher. This is a trade-off we're happy to make, with much of the anticipated benefits still to come. I'm encouraged by the discipline the team showed with PAC spend in the quarter, particularly in light of the margin pressure we face in the back half of 2022. We'll lean into this discipline even further in 2023 as we look to drive IRRs to the higher end of our guardrails. We also continue to take actions to get ahead of the changes we're seeing in veterinary medicine. Since we last spoke, we have an additional 4% pricing increase approved, including approvals in two key states. Absent the impact of changes in mix, we now have the total pricing increases of 15% flowing through our book exiting this quarter, with another 3% imminently planned. As a reminder, pricing changes are applied immediately to new pairs, but flow through our existing book over a 12-month period. In December, our average pricing increase was 8.5%. In January, it was 11.2%. In February, we expected to be 13.1% and March 14.4%. This will continue to build through the year. The team is working diligently to get back to our 15% margin target by the end of this year. With pricing actions taking effect, we're focusing on our member retention efforts to get ahead of the anticipated pressure on this metric. We've yet to see any material impact if these rate changes come through, given the 12-month roll-on, but we fully expect them to. Nevertheless, the ARPU increases resulting from these rate adjustments should more than offset any impact to revenue, More importantly, pricing increases will hold us to our pricing promise of 71%. Ultimately, it's this promise of value that will enable us to keep our members for the life of their pet. We remain steadfast in our mission to help pet owners budget and care for their pets. In the years ahead, the need for our product will only grow, and continued focus on our mission will ensure we're able to support as many pets as possible. And speaking of such support, In the final days of 2022, we surpassed the milestone of having paid out over $2 billion in veterinary invoices. This is a milestone no other provider has reached as quickly as we have, and it's a testament to the problem we're solving. How many of those pets would not have survived without Trupanion? The Trupanion brand, the main focus of my commentary thus far, remains the primary engine behind our reportable performance. As Daryl mentioned, in 2022, we also made progress against our other 16-month plan initiatives, including advancing our lower-cost products, PHI Direct and Firkin in-market, launching our Powered By suite of products with Aflac and Chewy, and building on our international efforts. Collectively today, these initiatives are small. In 2022, our new products in North America represented just 3% of our new pets. With these initiatives moving out of development, we now turn our attention to optimising these revenue streams for growth. We will be disciplined in our approach, rolling out in a way that allows us to step up into growth and operating well within our IRR guardrails. In 2022, we significantly expanded our addressable market, acquiring a foothold in continental Europe. With the addition of Europe, we estimate our reach to be doubled to over 50,000 veterinary hospitals. Based on the nature of its revenue, contribution from our European acquisitions is relatively modest. As a reminder, these two businesses currently operate like marketing organisations, selling insurance products that are papered through another underwriter. In the quarter, revenue from these two acquisitions was approximately $200,000. But more importantly, the acquisitions come talent, technology, licensing and relationships that will drive ease of entry in these regions. In addition, in November we announced our joint venture with Aflac in Japan and are working hard on a go-to-market plan. This will approximately add a further 10,000 veterinary hospitals to our addressable market. As a reminder, our goal is to bring a Trupanion-like product into Europe and Japan this year. With the first 24 months of our 60-month plan in the review mirror, we have made substantial strides across many of our strategic initiatives. Some areas are further along than others. but we have built a strong foundation for growth. Throughout this, we have demonstrated a solid track record of disciplined capital allocation, especially when faced with recent inflationary pressures. We still have work to do, but I expect that as we emerge from today's inflationary environment, we will do so from a position of competitive strength, having solidified our pricing promise and commitment to delivering the highest sustainable value proposition in the industry, both for the vets and the pets. With that, I'll hand the call over to Drew.

Thanks, Margie, and good afternoon, everyone. As Daryl and Margie covered many of our 2022 financial highlights, I'll focus my commentary on our fourth quarter performance as well as discuss our outlook for the first quarter and full year of 2023. Total revenue for the quarter was $246 million, up 27% year over year, and led by strong pet enrollment in our subscription business in addition to growth in our other business. Within our subscription business segment, revenue was $158.6 million in the quarter, up 18% year-over-year. Our business experienced a larger than typical year-over-year impact from the U.S. to Canadian exchange rate. On a constant currency basis, subscription revenue would have been up 20% year-over-year or $161.1 million in the quarter. Total enrolled subscription pets increased 24% year-over-year, to over 869,000 pets as of December 31st. This includes approximately 29,000 new pets that were added in the fourth quarter as a result of our European acquisitions. Excluding the new pets from acquisitions, total enrolled subscription pets increased 19% compared to the prior year period. Across all of our products, our average monthly retention, which is calculated on a trailing 12-month basis, was 98.69%. compared to 98.74% in the prior year period, equating to an average life of 76 months. Monthly average revenue per pet was $63.11, which is up 0.5% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. On that same basis, cost of veterinary invoices per pet increased 2.8% over the same time period. As we've noted in previous quarters, ARPU and cost of veterinary invoices continue to be impacted by a change and mix of business included accelerated growth in our lower ARPU areas. Our loss ratio was 72.7 percent in the quarter, which is down 80 basis points from Q3. This reflects a seasonally lower claims period. Variable expenses as a percentage of subscription revenue were 9.6 percent, down from 9.8 percent in the prior year period. Fixed expenses were also down to 4.1 percent of subscription revenue in the quarter, compared to 4.9% in the prior year period. Combined variable and fixed expenses as a percent of subscription revenue declined 100 basis points year over year as the team continued to drive efficiencies throughout our business to offset our elevated loss ratio. As a result, subscription-adjusted operating income was $21.5 million, an increase of 6% over the prior year period. On a constant currency basis, this would have been an increase of 9%, or adjusted operating income of $22.2 million. For the quarter, our adjusted operating margin was 13.6 percent, up sequentially from 12.8 percent in the prior quarter. Now I'll turn briefly to our other business segment, which is comprised of revenue from other products and services that generally have a B2B component and different margin profiles than our subscription business. Total other business revenue was $87.4 million, an increase of 45% over the prior year period, led by growth in new pets. We anticipate growth in our other business segment to slow in 2023 as our partner transitions to an additional underwriter for their new book of business. We currently expect growth in this segment to approximate 10% in 2023, but keep in mind that timing may shift. Adjusted operating income for our other business segment was $3.3 million in the quarter. In total, Adjusted operating income was up 11% over the prior year period to $24.8 million. We invested $20.3 million, or 15% more year-over-year, to acquire approximately 66,000 new subscription pets, excluding those added from acquisitions. This resulted in a pet acquisition cost of $283 and an estimated internal rate of return of 31% for a single average pet, as calculated on a trailing 12-month basis. We also invested an additional $2.1 million in the quarter, or $7.8 million for the full year of 2022, on development costs. As Margie noted earlier, 2022 was a significant foundation-setting year for our long-term efforts, including international expansion as well as new products and distribution channels. Moving into the first quarter, some of these expenses will shift out of development into variable or fixed within our subscription business. Adjusted EBITDA was 2.2 million, as compared to 3.5 million in the prior year quarter. Depreciation and amortization was 2.9 million for the quarter. Total stock-based compensation was 8.4 million for the quarter, in line with our expectations. Net loss was 9.3 million, or a loss of 23 cents per basic and diluted share, compared to a net loss of 7 million, or a loss of 17 cents per basic diluted share, in the prior year period. Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the year with over $230 million in cash and investments. We held approximately $69 million in debt with $75 million available under our long-term credit facility. Shifting to full-year cash flow, operating cash flow was a negative $8 million for the year compared to a positive $7.5 million in 2021. Capital expenditures totaled $17.1 million in 2022 a step up from $12.4 million in 2021, largely reflecting investments in our next-generation policy administration platform. As a result, free cash flow in the year was negative $25.1 million. Since 2020 and the approximate $200 million strategic investment from AFLAC, we've been able to operate outside our previous guardrails of positive free cash flow and invest in increasing our addressable market. With much of our foundational investments now in place, we intend to prioritize cash flow generation in 2023. With this in mind, I'll turn to our outlook. Keep in mind that our revenue projections are subject to conversion rate fluctuations, most notably between the U.S. and Canadian currencies. For our first quarter and full year guidance, we used a 75% conversion rate in our projections, which was the approximate rate at the end of January. We expect this will amount to 1% to 2% year-over-year foreign exchange headwind, particularly in the first half of 2023. For the full year of 2023, we're now planning to grow revenue in the range of $1.32 billion to $1.64 billion. This is approximately 16% growth at the midpoint. We are planning to grow subscription revenue in the range of $700 million to $720 million, representing 19% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. We expect total adjusted operating income to be in the range of $99 million to $108 million, or 16% growth at the midpoint. As Margie noted, it will take time to flow our pricing through our book. Because of this, we expect to see a step back in adjusted operating margin sequentially in Q1 before building back towards our 15% subscription adjusted operating margin target by year end as our pricing actions take hold. Of our adjusted operating income, we'd expect to invest approximately 80 to 85 million in acquiring pets within our subscription business. We intend to closely monitor the broad market environment and leverage the team's strong track record of adjusting PAC spend up or down in relation to market opportunities as needed. Development expenses are expected to be around $5 million in 2023. As for the first quarter, Total revenue is expected to be in the range of $249 million to $253 million. Subscription revenue is expected to be in the range of $164 million to $165 million. This is 18% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. Total adjusted operating income is expected to be in the range of $21 million to $23 million. Thank you for your time today. With that, I'll hand it back over to Daryl.

Thanks, Drew. I want to take a moment to remind you that we're quickly approaching two of our marquee investor events for the year. On May 6, we will once again be hosting our annual Q&A in Omaha. On June 7, Margie and I will be joined by our team at our headquarters in Seattle for our annual shareholder meeting. This once-a-year event is your opportunity to hear directly from the leaders responsible for executing the initiatives in our 60-month plan in a Q&A-focused format. Additional details for both events can be found on our investor relations website. We hope to see many of you there. In the next few weeks, we will also be publishing my annual shareholder letter for 2022. For those looking to better understand our business and how we think, I encourage you to read it. With that, we'll open up the call for questions. Operator?

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Elliott Wilbur with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.

Hello, Elliott. You there?

Yes. Can you hear me?

We can now. Thanks, Elliott. Okay.

Thanks. First question for Margie. I guess given that you just came out of your national sales or territory partners meeting, wondering if you could just talk in general terms about the plan in terms of territory partners for 2023, number of targeted hospitals that you expect to be calling on, and whether or not you anticipate any changes in calling patterns meaning territory, reshuffling, or reallocation of resources.

Hi, Elliot. So yeah, so Territory Partner Conference, first one in three years. It was great to have everyone back together, and the real cause for having that conference is both to celebrate what we achieved in the year prior, but also really to look forward to this year. In terms of our strategy, we're absolutely fixed on doing what we know we do well. We've been nine months back in the field since back in last March. And the consistency of that core pattern, the development and deepening of those relationships and those modes of those hospitals has really led to seeing a big uptick in vet lead, a big uptick in software install rates. And so for us, we know that works and we're continuing on that same path. The territories are overseen by the general managers, and the general managers and the territory partners are doing a great job working in partnership together to continue to deepen that moat. So no difference to what we've always been doing. I think we can look forward to 12 months of solid vet activity. We get to 25,000 vet hospitals several times in any given year. So the way that the market is carved up, it really allows us to have one-on-one conversations, direct discussions to support those hospitals when they need us, and they do. And we'll continue to do the same thing as we've always done. It's working for us right now. And we're happy to get back into that groove.

Okay. And then I know we'll see the numbers in a couple of weeks with the shareholder letter. But just thinking about call frequency and engagement, I guess, where are we now or exiting the year versus pre-pandemic levels?

Yeah, so yeah, there is a little bit more detail in the shareholder letter, which will be coming out, as you say, in just a few weeks. In terms of our overall call patterns, we are back on track, actually a little bit ahead of where we were prior to the pandemic. So now we have more people in the field than ever before. We've crossed 160 mark, which is fantastic. So it means we're able to get out there more frequently and have those, like I said, more frequent conversations. Just in terms of the Overall number of hospitals we're hitting, we just said that we're at over 8,000 hospitals with our software. We have been working with over 16,000 hospitals on a regular basis, I think. And when we think about those numbers as they continue to build, that's really through that ongoing education conversation dialogue that we're having. And you can expect to see that continue to ramp up as we make sure that we have all territories occupied over the next, I would say, six months, six to nine months.

Okay. Then I want to ask a question on inflation trends as well. I mean, it sounds like pricing flow-through is essentially consistent with what you discussed in connection with 3Q results. Maybe slightly different in terms of tithing, but I guess sort of the aggregate level is roughly consistent. But in looking at some of the inflation numbers out over the last couple of months, I mean, clearly – annualized increases have continued to decline. So I'm wondering what you're seeing in your book of business versus what you discussed last call and sort of, you know, relative to what you're planning to do in terms of rate increases.

Sure. Yeah, I can start this off and then hand over to Drew as well to provide some more context. But just in terms of where we were, as we mentioned before, So, you know, there are no surprises going into this year. I would say that everything is as we expected. When we went through with our pricing changes towards the back half of last year, they roll on gradually, as you know. So what we see is we'll see a kind of slower roll out of the gate, as I mentioned in the call. By the end of this quarter, we look to be about 15% with another three points coming through through the rest of the year. That is what we forecast there is in line with what we're seeing. And we're trying to get a little bit ahead of that to make sure that we had to had enough room in there to grow into any potential future increases. I would say that it is as expected right now, which is good, and we'll be paying particular attention to this, especially after last year. We're watching it very closely, and I'm really kind of making sure that we're looking at our frequency and severity on a very regular and very granular level basis. So I think all things being equal, we're in good shape here. We've got good data. We've got good lens on where things are going. Typically, vets will raise their rates once a year, usually in January, February, March. So kind of seeing those trends come through. And I think we're poised now to both take action if anything changes. But at the moment, we feel happy with that 18% that we've got through the book. Drew, what would you add?

I guess the only thing I'd add is just that dynamic that Margie describes. Our rates come through linearly. And we tend to see step changes in bet pricing and that where they take prices early in the year is one big dynamic. And so that's why we take a step back in margin, but that's totally consistent with the outlook that we gave in Q3 and the pricing that we talked about. That is all in line as expected.

Okay. And just last question on monthly or retention rates, you know, another very modest question. sequential decline, can you just maybe talk about sort of what you think is driving that? Is it in fact related to the level of price increases in the book of business? I mean, I know, you know, you've discussed, you know, sort of, and again, in the annual letter, the bucket with 20% plus increases being, you know, more negatively impacted. in terms of churn, but, you know, not sure necessarily if those levels that we're seeing are impacting the churn rates. And I guess just sort of given the, you know, the context of just, you know, higher inflation levels, are you actually seeing more policyholders present and, you know, look to or explore any option of canceling policies? And you've just been able to more effectively, address those and retain the business? Or has that actual number of policyholders presenting or considering potentially canceling not really changed with recent increases? Thanks.

Yeah. So, I mean, really, I would say highest level, there'd be no surprises. It's going as we expected from a retention perspective. And to your point, you know, when you look at the macro environment, we have seen a slight decline. But let's, you know, for context 77 months we believe is is probably 2x the industry average so you know we're coming at a very high retention level anyway um you know i would say that as we look at the overall volume that we've got coming in the pipeline it's not it's not dramatically different hence that just that slight drop there but we also haven't yet rolled through all of those pricing changes so as they come on we do expect to see some some impact to retention um and you know we we've still believe we'll be keeping our pets twice as long as the industry average. That said, you know, we are expecting to see a, over the course of the next six to 12 months, as we get to the bulk of the book, seeing those increases roll through, we'll see a little bit of a hit there. Just in terms of, I mean, Drew can speak to the numbers in terms of what that impact actually is. I would say overall though, anything that we are putting through for retention, sorry, from an RP perspective, as those prices increase, we do believe it's going to offset the retention.

and and it's necessary for us to make sure that we're living up to that value proposition and we can sustainably price to keep our membership for the life of the pet uh drew i just add you know um one good data point is if we look back in our history in 2019 we had almost 20 percent of members got a price increase greater than 20 percent um and back then we had a retention rate at in 70 months, roughly, in the low 70s. And we've gotten a lot better at retention since then. But that gives you a point of contact, you know, a reference point of what it might look like.

I think one of the other tactics the teams are thinking about as well to add to that is we see the rates come through and we see more of our members falling into that 20% plus bucket. We do have what we internally refer to as our pricing promise. And what this is is basically a We're trying to price to stay in line with the expenses that are coming through vet invoices. In the event that we price ahead of that, we are committed to being able to rebate to our members in some shape or form. So we're, again, true to that value proposition. So as a retention message, we're not trying to change anything from our member and our promise that we make to our members. And that commitment is holding true as we roll these prices through.

Operator, you want to take the next call? Operator, are you there?

Sorry. Our next question is from John Barnage, please proceed with your question.

Thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity. I had a question around the term loan and plans to draw it. I know in the prepared remarks there was a comment about increased reserve requirements with state regulators. So curious about that and plans to draw on that term loan, please. Thank you.

sure i'd remind everybody what we have is a revolving credit facility it's a long-term five-year facility that totals 150 million has a 15 million dollar line of credit feature and then any draw that we do on it becomes a term loan so and we view this as a a lower cost way to fund our reserve requirements versus equity and that's that's kind of our internal debt management guardrails. And so, yes, over time, we'll continue to draw on that to fund reserves. Now, the agreement that we've reached with a large partner in our other business really is about more efficient capital usage and frees up reserves inside our insurance company to allocate towards our higher margin subscription business. We do that as a significant upside there. But, yes, over time, that's how we'll fund our reserve requirements.

Great. Thank you for that. And then I had a question about open enrollment season for the worksite. There's times where a new medical product can get introduced and there's a lapse and reissue dynamic that begins to emerge as someone switches maybe from a vet-driven channel to a worksite-driven channel. Can you maybe talk about how you're thinking about that for 1Q as that open enrollment begins to take effect, please? Thank you.

Yeah, sure. Let me just make sure I understand the question. So we're talking here about potential cannibalization of one channel to another. Is that fair?

Cannibalization might be too strong, but, yes, essentially someone that might have had it through the vet channel now has it offered through their employer.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. So, I mean, just in general, when we think about the penetration rate, I agree with you. Cannibalization is quite a strong word to use when we've got 3% penetration. Definitely in terms of the products and the distribution channels, the partnership with Aflac is really allowing us to reach a new type of pet owner, if you will, than we typically would through the vet channel. So, we don't... We anticipate seeing a huge crossover in terms of the people that we're speaking to. We're using our brand because our brand is known in the vet channel and it's known for being able to pay the veterinarian directly at the time of checkout. And we believe that through Aflac, we will not necessarily be hitting that same person. So we're not at this point concerned about seeing any overlap or crossover. And we believe the products are designed very specifically for the purposes of which the consumer is shopping. So if they're in the work site, they're going to be looking for something a little bit different than if they're in the hospital. And I think, you know, for now it's very early days with worksites. We've seen a handful of enrollments coming through businesses, and really we're kind of long-term looking to see how it can become a meaningful part of what we're doing. But nothing more to share really at this point related to it, but we'll obviously be watching it to make sure that we can capitalize on the benefit that we have through that new distribution channel and that strategy.

Thank you very much. Appreciate the answers.

Yep. Our next question comes from Corey Grady with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, thanks for taking my question. I might have missed this in the prepared remarks, but did you provide any color on subcount contribution from the PetExpert acquisition in Q4? And then what are you expecting in terms of contribution in 2023 from the European acquisitions?

Yes, the two acquisitions, brought in 29,000 pets that came with those two acquisitions. As we mentioned in the prepared remarks, once again, they are marketing companies. It's not the fully underwritten model that we have on our other business. And so the revenue stream from them currently is just the marketing commission. Now, our intent is to move to a full underwriting model. And that's why they're in our subscription business. They're direct to consumer businesses. And we'll eventually have them on a fully underwritten basis. So their revenue contribution is relatively modest. We had one month of PetExpert, which is by far the largest of the two, and that was $200,000. And so they're growing, and we intend to bring a Trupanion-like product to them this year. But for 2023, you can kind of back into what the contribution would be if you grow off that basis.

Yeah, if I can add some context in terms of the overall impact. So we would expect to see around 10% to 20% of our new pets coming from all of our new initiatives. So that would be inclusive of international and our new distribution channels as we look through 2023. And as we're referring to Drew's earlier comments, we think about our pet count in the coming year. What we expect to see is a 20% increase in our pet count overall in terms of gross ads, but at the same pack spend. So that kind of really tells you that we're being very disciplined with our approach. We believe that having our international expansion allows us a great opportunity for success. And we're excited to be able to hold all of our general managers across all of the different countries we're involved in to the same guardrail. So we'll be looking to deploy that capital agnostic of where they are, of the location, but at the same levels of a higher rate of return.

That's really helpful. Thank you. And I wanted to follow up on John's question on the term loan. Just on capital reserves, can you talk about plans to fund the higher capital reserves, and do you feel like you have enough cash on hand, or do you need to tap the term loan further?

Let me handle it first, and I'll hand it off to Drew. The changes that we've recently announced is going to lower our need for capital reserves, not increase them. the in our other business area where it's been growing uh at a healthy clip it has required us to hold about 60 million dollars uh of reserve capital in an aggregate we've earned about 20 million dollars of adjusted operating income um so obviously not a super efficient use of funds as that area slows down our our total capital requirements will lower and give us an opportunity to reinvest that same capital at places with higher rates of return. Trudy, anything you want to add there? No.

I mean, our – you know, there's a big growth penalty in insurance reserve calc, so that – you know, which penalized our entire book. And so that's helpful in terms of more efficient use there. Our capital needs are totally linked with how fast we grow. As we've outlined, we're being disciplined in allocating capital to our highest return areas. And should we get margin expansion as we go through the year, then we'll look at deploying more capital. But right now, going into the year, that's our posture.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Ryan Tunis with Autonomous Research. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, thanks. Good evening. First question, I guess, for Drew. You gave first quarter adjusted operating earnings guidance. What are you contemplating in that subscription invoice ratio?

I think in loss ratio, I think you'll see a step back up. But then, you know, building back towards and, you know, a step down and a subscription adjusted operating margin. But so starting lower in the year and then building up to 15 in the back half of the year. So embedded in our full year guidance is a 13 to 14% subscription operating margin. And that's with that is, you know, very consistent year over year growth in subscription revenue and subscription AOI. And there's a lot more of the year to go, so as we go through it, if we see margin expansion coming through, then we will deploy more capital for more growth.

And I think if I can add to that as well, Ryan, when we think about the overall cost of goods, we expect to see that coming up about 10% to 12%. So, you know, at the moment, as a reminder, the amount of rate we have flowing through is between 15% to 18% in ARPU. So not only does that get us back to kind of where we should be from a catch-up from last year, it actually puts us nicely in line or slightly ahead of that curve in terms of the COGS.

Got it. I guess following up on that, I guess I was a little bit surprised that that ARPU didn't increase a little bit more. Yeah, how should we interpret that? It looked like ARPU was sort of flat on the adjusted basis. How should we interpret that given the rate you put into the book?

Yeah, we've been talking about this dynamic all year, and it's the healthy mix. So from the headline like-for-like rates that Margie was talking about, mix drives it down to the lower rates. We also have significant FX year-over-year headwinds that we typically don't talk about unless they're over 1%. Well, in the first part of the year, they're 2%. But what we see for the full year 23 for an ARPU growth rate is, on average for the whole year, 3% to 3.5%. Once again, consistent with our outlook back in October, nothing's really changed other than we've updated our mix assumptions. Now, bear in mind, mix also plays through to claims because we're a cost-plus model. If we have lower ARPU, we're also going to have lower claims. So those two go together, and that's why we're focused on, you know, at the end of the day, it's about margin. And so full year, 13% to 14%. margin on average is what's embedded in our guidance.

And then just lastly, Drew, that was helpful. You mentioned the 2019 experience. I think you said 20% of the book got 20% rate. But you gave us like a 70-month retention number that was low 70s. How should we think about that in terms of reconciling it to kind of that monthly retention number that you give?

Yeah, so that's a sterile answer. It's in my shareholder letter. So you're looking at about a 98.6% monthly retention rate equals about 70 months. And that's referencing back to 2019 where we saw about 20% of our new pets at that rate. So it's just a place in time for people to go back and take a look at it. We've been there before. We've been through it. And we'd expect something similar.

Thanks so much.

Our next question comes from John Block with Steeple. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks, guys. Good afternoon. First question, Daryl, maybe for you, just the change in the other revenue strategy, I guess those are my words, but why now? Was it to free up capital? And also, was anything in response to regulations changing? I thought there might have been some regs that were, changing or had changed in California. So maybe you can elaborate on that.

Yeah.

No, these conversations started over two years ago and it was to free up capital. I think if COVID didn't happen, it might've occurred a little bit quicker. If we had not got the 200 million cash infusion from Aflac a couple of years ago, it probably would have moved a little bit quicker. But we were able to spend the time with our partner to come up with a solution that was beneficial to us and allowed them to kind of, you know, have a smooth transition. So long-term in the planning.

Okay, but just to push you a little bit, REGS didn't change in California on that. It just seems like you took this business from 4% of revenue to 30%. Part of the reasoning was to get leverage and fixed expenses down to 4%, which you did. It seemed to work out. I thought I came across REGS changing in California. That didn't play a role in this? no we had we'd come to this agreement and uh before any reg changes in california just took us a while to get it all papered um so in the reg changes in california did not drive this decision okay um and then drew for you um you know my same sentiments to the prior question on our poo i guess it's an offline i just always struggle with a base of 800 000 you add 70 000 pets how it's that dilutive i'm guessing there's also a component where higher ARPU pets must be churning off to get the suppression. But maybe just looking forward, do we still think ARPU in 2023 is up 5%? I know Margie went through some of the big increases that's on the come, you know, in February and March that we'll see start to roll through. But call it realized after we take this mixed dynamic into play, do we think about ARPU up 5% 23 versus 22 in the P&L?

Yeah, no, we're looking at for the full year, three to three and a half percent. And that, you know, is driven by mix. Geography is the biggest driver of that, which then goes hand in hand with claims. And so parts, you know, new businesses above the portfolio and parts new businesses below. But that's we're pricing to the value proposition and not just to the top line. And so that's what's driving that dynamic. It gives us this growth. You know, we continue to have ongoing strong growth, which is driven by this positive mix.

Okay. I'll be respectful, ask two questions, and take the rest offline. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Shweta Kajuria with Evercore. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, thanks. This is Jan for Shweta. I guess maybe not to belabor this point further, but on ARPU, I guess more conceptually, beyond this year, how should we think about the progression of this line? Do you expect this mix to continue to drive ARPU down? Is there anything that could kind of balance that out if you can kind of talk about the long-term thinking on ARPU progression.

Yeah, mix is an interesting dynamic. You know, the more successful we are in certain areas has lower ARPU. For example, we are about one decade into penetration rate into the United States. We've been in Canada for two decades. Our growth rate in Canada is faster than our growth rate in the United States. The longer we've been in market, the faster we grow, the more veterinarians recommend us. The cost of veterinary care in Canada is lower than it is in the United States. So every time we're growing a higher percentage in Canada versus U.S., that lowers our mix. When you layer on top of that currency exchange and the U.S. dollar has been growing a lot faster than the Canadian dollar, that's another factor. But now you've got to take into effect, we've now added... New distribution channels. All those distribution channels have lower cost products and lower coverage. We've also added two new lines of products. Both of them have lower coverage. And that's before we get into going into Europe. And the average cost of veterinary care in Europe is lower. So once again, we are a cost plus model. And our job is to cost appropriately. It is also to understand the lifetime value of each of those streams of pets. and to make sure that we're spending appropriately on pet acquisition to get those strong rates of return. You know, Margie mentioned earlier, in Drew's implied guidance for the year, we're looking to be growing pets 20% year over year, but basically at the same amount of PAC dollars. That shows you that as mix is changing, so is the discipline around our PAC spend. So our pack spend is getting also equal. I know it's hard for modeling, but as Drew said, in our forecast, we're currently looking at about 3% in ARPU, although the underlying increase for existing clients can be 15% to 18% as the year goes on. But it's the nature of our business. Lots of categories of pets, lots of distribution channels, and now multiple levels of products. So hopefully that helps.

Got it. Yeah, very helpful. And one other question, if I may, just on the new distribution channels for this year, I think Mark, you said like 10% to 20% contribution from these channels. Does that include the Chewy partnership? And also, if you could just kind of rank order, which channel do you expect to be, which of the new channels do you expect to be the more significant channels? And what's kind of the linearity of that, especially just given, I'm just thinking that Chewy, you know, I guess the size of this base is quite significant for Trupanium. But if you can riff on that.

Yeah, no, of course I can. So you're right. I do say we expect to see somewhere between 10% and 20% for all of those new channels combined. So that would be inclusive of the European acquisitions, Chewy, Aflac, and other price plans, so PHI and Birkin. In terms of the contribution, when we're operating within the same margin profile for all of them, we're looking at the same guardrails. So, you know, for us, we're totally agnostic. And the expectation is we've got to get better in all instances at learning how to generate leads. In some instances and others, it's about conversion retention. You know, I would say that all of them have got huge opportunities. You know, all of them are things that we felt were as we mentioned in our 60-month plan, going back a couple of years now, something that we would be able to get to $100 million worth of revenue within five years of starting. I think that's still absolutely true. And for us, we're really kind of getting out the gate this year and putting the pedal to the metal and making sure that we're in a position to start to generate revenue. But I wouldn't want to rank one above the other. I think overall, we can expect to see that 10% to 20%. And as we go through the year, we'll have a little bit more color to share on which ones are leading the pack. But they're all in good position to go forward and actually start to contribute to revenue quite meaningfully over the next couple of years, which is part of the plan.

Great.

Thanks a ton, guys. Yeah, thank you.

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