Globe Life Inc.

Good day and welcome to Globe Life second quarter 2023 earnings release conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. For the duration of the call, your lines will be in listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions and this can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star 0 and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to Stephen Mota, Senior Director, Investor Relations.

thank you good morning everyone joining the call today are frank sabota and matt darden our chief executive officers tom kombach our chief financial officers mike majors our chief strategy officer and brian mitchell our general counsel some of our comments or answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements they're provided for general guidance purposes only accordingly please refer to our earnings release 2022 10k and any subsequent forms 10q 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 Frank.

Thank you, Stephen, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter, net income was $215 million, or $2.24 per share, compared to $224 million, or $2.26 per share, a year ago. Net operating income for the quarter was $251 million, or $2.61 per share, an increase of 3% from a year ago. On a GAAP-reported basis, return on equity was 22.4%, and book value per share is $41.44. Excluding Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income, or AOCI, return on equity was 14.6%, and book value per share is $72.09, up 10% from a year ago. In our life insurance operations, premium revenue for the second quarter increased 3% from the year-ago quarter to $782 million. For the year, we expect life premium revenue to go around 4%. Life underwriting margin was $296 million in the second quarter, down 1% from a year ago. At the midpoint of our guidance, we expect life underwriting margin for the full year to grow around 5% and as a percent of premium to be in the range of 37% to 39%. In health insurance, premium grew 3% to $329 million and health underwriting margin was up 1% to $92 million. For the year, we expect health premium revenue to grow around 3%. At the midpoint of our guidance, we expect health underwriting margin to be relatively flat and, as a percent of premium, to be in the range of 28% to 30%. Administrative expenses were $75 million for the quarter, up 2% from a year ago. As a percentage of premium, administrative expenses were 6.8%, same as the year-ago quarter. For the full year, we expect administrative expenses to be up approximately 3% and be around 6.9% of premium. Higher labor and IT costs are expected to be largely offset by a decline in pension-related employee benefit costs. I will now turn the call over to Matt for his comments on the second quarter marketing operations.