CNO Financial Group, Inc.

for questions and answers at the end. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, Adam Avil, with CNO. Adam, you may now proceed.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on CNO Financial Group's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Today's presentation will include remarks from Gary Bujwani, Chief Executive Officer, and Paul McDonough, Chief Financial Officer. Following the presentation, we will also have other business leaders available for the question and answer period. During this conference call, we will be referring to information contained in yesterday's press release. You can 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 Form 8K yesterday. Let me remind you that any forward-looking statements we make today are subject to a number of factors which may cause actual results to be materially different than those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Today's presentation contains 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 refer to changes between third quarter 2024 and third quarter 2023. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Gary.

Thanks, Adam. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. CNO delivered another excellent quarter. Operating earnings per diluted share were $1.11, up 26%, and 94 cents or up 27% excluding significant items. Our results were broad based across operating earnings, production, investment results, and capital. Our diverse and integrated distribution model and broad product portfolio differentiate us in the marketplace. They enable our momentum and baseline of consistent and repeatable results. CNO posted our ninth consecutive quarter of strong sales momentum and our seventh consecutive quarter of growth in producing agent count. Total new annualized premium was up 1% across the enterprise. Excluding direct-to-consumer, total NAP was up 7%. I'll cover the factors impacting the D2C business later in my remarks. Green shoots from our strong sales growth are translating into earnings growth, establishing a solid foundation for future results. Earnings continue to benefit from favorable insurance product margin and strong investment results reflecting growth in the business and expansion of the portfolio book yield. Our new money rate exceeded 6% for a seventh consecutive quarter. Capital and liquidity remain well above target levels after returning $107 million to shareholders. Book value per diluted share excluding AOCI was $35.84 up 6%. Each component of our business continues to deliver strong performance as demonstrated by sales momentum in both consumer and worksite, a growing distribution force, solid and sustainable earnings, our excellent capital position, our strong free cash flow generation, and raising full-year guidance for earnings and cash flows. As we advance our growth strategy, we continue to optimize the balance between production, profitability, and capital management. Turning to slide five, our growth scorecard focuses on three key drivers of our performance, production, distribution, and investments in capital. We are pleased that all of our growth scorecard metrics are up once again. I'll discuss each division in the next two slides. Paul will cover investments and capital in more detail during his remarks. Beginning with the consumer division, excuse me, on slide six, we delivered our eighth consecutive quarter of sales momentum. Solid execution and sustainable sales growth remain the hallmark of the consumer division's strong performance and in large part are a result of our broad product portfolio. Our middle market consumers continue to embrace our differentiated capabilities that marry a virtual connection with our established in-person agent force to complete the critical last mile of sales and service delivery. Total NAP was up 1% for the quarter. NAP from field sales was up 9%. Health NAP was up 11% led by strong results from new and enhanced products. Our Medicare portfolio continues to deliver strong sales growth. Medicare supplement NAP was up 15% and Medicare Advantage policies sold were up 26%. As a reminder, Medicare Advantage sales are not reflected in NAP. By offering both Medicare supplement and Medicare Advantage products, we provide more coverage options for customers. The balance and diversification of our Medicare portfolio is an important part of how we serve the middle-income market. We are in the midst of Medicare annual enrollment period, which began on October 15th and runs through December 7th. We are off to yet another strong start. Our thousands of dedicated field agents across the country are uniquely positioned to help customers make an informed decision about how they receive their benefits. This season, we have more than 3,400 agents certified to sell these plans, up 10% over last year. Our agents can enroll consumers in Medicare Advantage and Medicare prescription drug plans from 21 different plan sponsors, an increase of seven carriers over last year. For the third consecutive year, we also expanded the number of offices participating in our Medicare Advantage inbound referral program. As part of this program, customers who contact us by phone or online can be connected in real time to an agent in their local office who can assist them. Long-term care NAP was up 31% on the strength of our Long-Term Care Fundamental Plus product. This quarter represents the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth for this product, reflecting the strong consumer demand for practical long-term care solutions. As a reminder, our LTC products are designed for the middle market consumer. 99% of the policies sold have benefit periods of two years or less, and more than 90% have benefit periods of one year or less. These plans cover essential costs for one to two years and offer a balanced, affordable approach to funding care. Life production was down in the quarter, driven by lower spend on direct-to-consumer marketing. As we shared last quarter, we manage our D2C business based on advertising efficiencies. Consistent with last quarter, we reduced our television marketing spend in response to higher lead costs. This stems from competition for television media space, which tends to spike during presidential election cycles. We continue to grow non-television direct response channels, such as web and digital, which now account for over 30% of sales generated by D2C leads. Annuity collected premiums posted record results in the quarter, up 25%. Account values were up 6%. Our strong annuity performance is led by Number of policies sold up 9%. Higher premium per policy up 14%. Demand for these products continues to benefit from favorable demographic tailwinds and the growing need from clients to protect against outliving their retirement savings. Stability in our block benefits from our captive distribution and the meaningful long-term relationships that our agents establish with their clients. This quarter reflects our seventh consecutive quarter of brokerage and advisory growth. Client assets in brokerage and advisory were up 35% for the quarter to a record $3.9 billion. New accounts were up 11%. When combined with our annuity account values, our clients now entrust us with more than $16 billion of assets, up 12%. Recruiting continues to be favorable and reflects our ninth consecutive quarter of year-over-year gains. Producing agent count was up 5%, our seventh consecutive quarter of growth. Next, slide seven, and our worksite division performance. We delivered a record third quarter performance for insurance sales with NAP up 4%. This represents our 10th consecutive quarter of growth. Fee sales were up 108% off a small base. As a reminder, this metric reflects the annual contract value of benefit services sold in the quarter and is a leading indicator of fee revenue growth. Our benefit services strategy remains a priority for 2024 and beyond. Recruiting was up 7% for the quarter. Producing agent count was up 17%, our 10th consecutive quarter of growth. First-year producing agent count was up 16%. Agent retention remains strong across all cohorts. New products and strategic growth initiatives are key drivers of our worksite NAP growth. I'll comment briefly on three programs. First, new products continue to perform well. In the third quarter, we introduced a new hospital indemnity insurance product, which helps provide supplemental coverage for hospital stays. sales of this product are up 66 percent in the first few months our critical illness product which was introduced last year was up nine percent second our geographic expansion initiative accounted for eleven percent of total worksite nap growth in the quarter this initiative targets areas where we've identified strategic opportunities to grow our market share and footprints this is the fourth consecutive quarter of growth generated by this program and we're bullish on the results that these new markets can deliver. Lastly, in 2023, we launched an initiative to help agents cultivate and acquire new employer groups for insurance sales. NAP from new group clients was up 164%, and we continue to experience solid momentum from this program. And with that, I'll turn it over to Paul.