Globe Life Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Globe Live, Inc.' 's third quarter 2020 earnings release conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Mike Majors, Executive Vice President, Administration and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Joining the call today are Gary Coleman and Larry Hutchison, our co-chief executive officers, Frank Svoboda, our chief financial officer, and Brian Mitchell, our general counsel. Some of our comments or answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements that are provided for general guidance purposes only. Accordingly, please refer to the third quarter earnings release we issued yesterday along with our 2019 10-K and any subsequent forms 10-Q on file with the SEC. Some of our comments may also contain non-GAAP measures. Please see our earnings release and website for discussion of these terms and reconciliations to GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to Gary Coleman.

Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. First, I'll point out that the company continues to effectively conduct business and our operations are running smooth. In the third quarter, net income was $189 million, or $1.76 per share, compared to $202 million, or $1.82 per share, a year ago. Net operating income for the quarter was $188 million, or $1.75 per share, a per-share increase of 1% from a year ago. On a GAAP-reported basis, return on equity was 9.4%, and book value per share was $77.60. Excluding unrealized gains on fixed maturity, return on equity was 13.6%, and book value per share grew 10% to $52.39. In our life insurance operations, premium revenue increased 7% to $674 million, while life underwriting margin was $171 million, down 6% from a year ago. With respect to premium revenue, we have been pleased to see persistency in premium collections improve since the onset of the crisis. However, the decline in margin is due primarily to approximately $18 million of inferred claims related to COVID-19. For the year, we expect live premium revenue to grow approximately 6%, while live underwriting margin is expected to decline 2% to 3%, primarily due to the impact of COVID-19 claims. At the midpoint of our guidance, we anticipate approximately $56 million in COVID-19 claims for the full year. In health insurance, premium revenue grew 7% to $288 million and health underwriting margin was up 20% to $73 million. The increase in underwriting margin is primarily due to lower acquisition costs. For the year, we expect health premium revenue to grow approximately 6%, and health underwriting margin to grow 11% to 12%. Administrative expenses were $63 million per quarter, up 4% from a year ago. As a percentage of premium, administrative expenses were 6.6% compared to 6.7% a year ago. For the full year, we expect administrative expenses to grow around 5%. I'll now turn the call over to Larry for his comments on the third quarter marketing operations.