CNO Financial Group, Inc.

My name is Jordan, and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you'd like to register an audio question, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I'm now going to hand over to Adam Orville to begin. Adam, please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on CNO Financial Group's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Today's presentation will include remarks from Gary Bajwani, Chief Executive Officer, and Paul McDonough, Chief Financial Officer. Following the presentation, we will also have other business leaders available for the questions and answers period. During this conference call, we will be referring to information contained in yesterday's press release. You could obtain the release by visiting the media section of our website at cnoinc.com. This morning's presentation is also available in the investor section of our website and was filed in the form 8K yesterday. We expect to file our form 10Q and post it on our website on or before November Let me remind you that any forward-looking statements you make today are subject to a number of factors that may cause actual results to be materially different than those contemplated in a forward-looking statement. Today's presentations contain a number of non-GAAP measures which should not be considered as substitutes for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. You'll find a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the corresponding GAAP measures in the appendix. Throughout the presentation, we'll be making performance comparisons, and unless otherwise specified, any comparisons made will be referring to changes between third quarter 2023 and third quarter 2022. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Gary.

Thanks, Adam. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. CNO again delivered a solid financial performance for the quarter. Operating earnings per diluted share were up 88 cents excuse me, were $0.88, up 31%. Excluding significant items, operating earnings per share were up 10%. The fundamentals of our business remain sound, including double-digit growth in total new annualized premium, continued sales momentum balanced across product lines, strong net investment income, a robust capital position, and continued strong free cash flow generation. For the third consecutive quarter, new money rates exceeded 6%, continuing the positive trend in our earned yield. Variable investment income improved for a second consecutive quarter. Health claims moderated in the quarter as expected. Sales production and agent recruiting and retention delivered strong balanced results across both our consumer and worksite divisions. Total new annualized premium was up 13%. We reported sales growth in nearly all product categories, including field and B2C life sales, Medicare supplement, long-term care, annuity collected premiums, and worksite insurance sales. Producing agent counts were up meaningfully at both divisions. Capital and liquidity improved over the second quarter and was above target levels even after returning $57 million to shareholders. Book value per diluted share excluding AOCI was $33.75 up 6%. We are pleased to announce that we established our Bermuda affiliate and received all necessary approvals related to our initial reinsurance transaction. Paul will go into further detail during his remarks. We applaud and thank our CNO team for their exceptional work and commitment to helping us establish CNO Bermuda Reef. Turning to slide five in our growth scorecard. Our consumer and worksite divisions delivered strong overall results, including a second consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in life and health now. Strategic investments and product enhancements in both divisions have positioned us well to capture important year-end sales and enrollment opportunities. I'll discuss each division in the next two slides. Beginning with the consumer division on slide six. Sales momentum accelerated in the quarter with results balanced across the product portfolio. Life and health map was up 9%. Life production was up 8% with field sales up 6% and B2C life sales up 9%. Strong B2C sales reflect our measured and opportunistic approach to advertising spend. HealthNAP was up 11% in the quarter and is up 11% year-to-date as our growing agent counts and new product introductions support sustained sales growth. Long-term care NAP was up 48% following the launch of our new long-term care fundamental plus product in 45 states in August. This launch continues our strategy to offer plans to the middle market that cover essential costs for the first one to two years of care. As the US population ages and we are living longer, the need for practical long-term care solutions continues to rise. Our long-term care policies with shorter duration benefit periods provide a balanced, affordable approach to funding long-term care. More than 98% of the policies we sell have benefit periods of two years or less. Medicare Supplement NAP was up 9% as consumers continue to embrace our new plans. Presently, we are in the midst of the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period, which began on October 15 and runs through December 7. Using our MyHealthPolicy.com online platform, our agents can enroll consumers in Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription drug plans from 14 different plan sponsors. This season, we have nearly 3,200 agents certified to sell these plans, which is up 14% over last year. We are off to a strong start. Our local agents are a key differentiator in making these sales and reducing churn. Agents bring local knowledge that is uniquely suited to help customers with their enrollment decisions. They build enduring relationships while assisting with the additional insurance and retirement planning needs. Our capabilities to market nationally and complete the vital last mile of the sale through a local agent is a unique and valued strength. We also recognize the need to supplement human interaction with technology. Two new initiatives illustrate how we're using technology-enabled tools to gain operational efficiencies and improve customer value. In preparation for the AEP, we invested in our Medicare health insurance technology platform to expand, scale, and enhance our capabilities. Over 95% of all Medicare Advantage and prescription drug plans are now submitted through our myhealthpolicy.com portal. Earlier this year, we also implemented accelerated underwriting on a portion of our simplified life products. This quarter, approximately 75% of those applicants received an instant decision. Annuity account values were up 4% year over year and collected premiums were up 1%. As noted previously, a proprietary distribution model and the long-term relationships that our agents build with customers provide stability to this block and persistency remains within expected levels. Client assets and brokerage and advisory were up 18% year over year to $2.9 billion. Total accounts were up 7% in the quarter and clients continue to entrust us with strong net inflows. We are very pleased with our agent performance in the quarter. Recruiting was up 22%, our fifth consecutive quarter of growth. And we posted our best overall recruiting quarter since the third quarter of 2020. Through these efforts and good agent retention practices, our producing agent count continues to grow up 9%. Next, slide seven in our worksite division performance. I'd like to first congratulate two members of our management team, Mike Byers and Karen DeTorel. We recently announced that Mike Byers, the president of our worksite division, will be retiring early next year. We named Karen DeTorel, currently our chief actuary, as Mike's successor to lead CNO's worksite business. This news reflects CNO's ongoing commitment to and investments in our worksite business and Optivise. Karen's deep knowledge of our business and the employee benefits and insurance space is well matched for the next stage in the evolution of this division. We remain bullish on this business, and I look forward to the continued success we can achieve under Karen's leadership. I would also like to congratulate Jeremy Williams, who will succeed Karen as our chief actuary. All three of these internal moves are testament to our deep bench strength of leadership talent at CNO. Karen, Mike, and Jeremy will work closely over the coming months to ensure a seamless transition. Turning to our third quarter results. Worksite life and health insurance sales were up a record 36%, which represents a 14% increase above pre-pandemic sales levels. In four of the past five quarters, insurance sales growth has exceeded 20%. As a reminder, immediately prior to the onset of the pandemic, our worksite insurance business posted record sales with eight consecutive quarters of growth. Last quarter, our worksite insurance sales exceeded pre-pandemic levels for the first time since 2020. This quarter, we expanded those gains by double digits. Total producing agent counts were up 24%, and agent productivity was up 5%. Among our first year agents, producing agent counts were up 58% and productivity on that cohort was up 41%. As a reminder, agents must reach a certain level of production to be considered a producing agent. Our successful worksite agent referral program and enhancements to our new agent onboarding program are credited for driving these meaningful agent productivity gains. In the third quarter, we advanced several initiatives and partnership programs that focused on accelerating growth and adding value to our employers and employees. Our geographic expansion initiative is experiencing early success in key markets where we've identified strategic opportunities to grow our market share and footprint. Late in the quarter, we also launched a nationwide training program focused on helping agents identify and cultivate new worksite accounts. Two new third-party technology partnerships will bring enhanced tech-enabled services to our benefits enrollment offerings. Through these partnerships, we recently added enhanced decision support to our benefit administration platforms and clinical advocacy and virtual care options to our current advocacy services. Both the sales initiatives and the technology partnerships received a positive initial reception. Additionally, the new accident insurance product that we introduced in June continued to perform well with sales topping more than $4 million in NAP. Year-end benefits enrollment season is a critical time for employers and our worksite business. Our team is well prepared to serve and support our clients. As I shared last quarter, we are squarely focused on three strategic worksite growth priorities. Continuing the integration of our worksite capabilities under the Optivise brand. Expanding distribution capabilities. in our national and regional employer markets through new broker relationships and strategic alliances, and accelerating momentum in agent recruiting to grow producing agent counts. And with that, I'll turn it over to Paul.