Horace Mann Educators Corporation

Good morning and welcome to the Horace Mann Educators First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. All participants will be in the listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal your conference specialist by pressing the star, then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, you may press star and then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rachel Lubark, Vice President of Investor Relations, thank you, and over to you.

Thank you. Welcome to Horace Mann's discussion of our first quarter 2026 results. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release, investor supplement, and investor presentation. Copies are available on the investors page of our website. Our speakers today are Marita Zaraitis, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ryan Grenier, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before turning it over to Marita, I want to note that our presentation today includes forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations, and we assume no obligation to update them. Actual results may differ materially due to a variety of factors, which are described in our news release and SEC filings. In our prepared remarks, we use some non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are available in our investor supplement. I'll now turn the call over to Marita.

Thanks, Rachel, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday, Horseman reported record first quarter core earnings per share of $1.28, 20% above the record level of the first quarter earnings we reported last year. Insurance and fee-based revenue increased 6% year over year, reflecting growth across our businesses. Life sales were up 17%. Individual supplemental increased 11%. and group benefits delivered a record quarter with sales more than tripling year over year. Core shareholder return on equity for the trailing 12 months was 12.7 percent. These results highlight the strength of our multi-line business model and our ability to deliver consistent profitable growth across a range of economic and industry conditions. We are maintaining our 2026 core EPS guidance of $4.20 to $4.50 and remain confident in achieving our three-year strategic goal of a 10 percent compound annual growth rate in core earnings per share and a sustainable 12 to 13 percent shareholder return on equity. Today, I will discuss the highlights of the quarter and provide an update on our growth progress. Let's start with segment results. Property and casualty profitability remains strong. The combined ratio of 83.3%, a five-point improvement over the prior year, reflects lower catastrophe costs and improved underlying performance. P&C written premiums increased 5%, and auto and property policyholder retention remains stable and consistently high relative to industry benchmarks. Segment sales reflect our disciplined focus on profitable growth in a competitive auto market. We are prioritizing growth in markets where we see the strongest returns. Excluding California, which remains a more complex and highly regulated market for the industry, auto sales increased at a high single-digit rate. Countrywide, property sales increased 11%. In life and retirement, core earnings increased 16% year-over-year, benefiting from lower mortality costs. Life sales increased 17%, and persistency across both life and retirement remained strong. The individual supplemental and group benefits segment continued to deliver strong growth this quarter. We continue to invest where we see meaningful long-term opportunity. Our approach is to build internally where we can deliver a differentiated best-in-class experience and to partner with leading third parties where it enhances our capabilities and speed to market. In individual supplemental, we are investing in our distribution and product portfolio to support growth. Our enhanced cancer product continues to be a key driver of growth, with sales doubling year over year, and building on record performance last year. Across all products, individual supplemental sales increased 11% year-over-year. This high-margin, high-persistency business also supports strong cross-sell opportunities. Life is a natural adjacency for benefit specialists selling individual supplemental products, and today approximately 10% of our life sales are consistently generated through that channel. In group benefits, we are leveraging partnerships to expand our capabilities, including the recent implementation of a third-party technology platform that supports a fully integrated end-to-end leave management experience for employers and educators. This investment underpins our paid family medical leave enhancement to our short-term disability offering introduced earlier this year in Minnesota. We will evaluate opportunities to expand these capabilities into additional markets over time as adoption continues to grow. Thirteen states have enacted paid leave mandates, with more proposals currently under consideration. Employers offering paid leave benefits report higher retention, a key priority for school administrators. Consistent with this, our research shows that one quarter of educators would be more likely to stay in their role with improved healthcare and protection benefits. Against this backdrop, group benefit sales more than tripled year over year to 11 million. While results can vary from quarter to quarter, given the size and timing of our business, our first quarter sales nearly matched our total group benefit sales for all of 2025, highlighting the momentum we are building. Our corporate expense ratio is up slightly over the prior year, but down sequentially. We manage our expenses closely and continue to expect a 25 basis point reduction over the course of 2026. Turning to how we are expanding our relationships across the educator market. We are reaching more educators than ever before and continuing to build meaningful relationships across our target market. As we have noted, unaided brand awareness among educators has increased to 35%, reflecting the impact of our investments over the past several years. We are building both awareness and affinity through partnerships with well-known, trusted national brands and educational institutions. In January, we sponsored Crayola Creativity Week, reaching more than 1 million educators through classroom and professional development activities. We are also excited about our new partnership with Disney. We recently launched a continuing education program, A Heart for Service in Education, developed in collaboration with Disney and delivered through the Disney Institute with multiple sessions scheduled throughout the year. Each session brings together educators from across the country to participate in immersive, service-focused development experiences. We are seeing strong early engagement with the Horseman Club, our centralized platform providing financial wellness tools, classroom resources, and educator benefits. Since launching earlier this year, thousands of educators across the country have already enrolled. We are also in the midst of Teacher Appreciation Month. where we continue to connect with educators through our Beyond Grateful campaign. Last year, we engaged 55,000 new educators during this event and expect another strong outcome this year. In addition, we have expanded our digital reach through targeted audio campaigns on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, meeting educators where they are. Over the past year, we have grown our points of distribution by 8 percent and continue to enhance the effectiveness of our marketing efforts as we scale these initiatives. Before I turn the call over to Ryan, I want to underscore our commitment to disciplined capital management and long-term shareholder value. In March, our Board of Directors approved a 3 percent increase to our quarterly shareholder dividend, marking the 18th consecutive year dividend growth in the quarter we returned 33 million of capital to shareholders including 18 million of share repurchases a significant increase relative to recent periods as we've said before our highest priority remains investing in profitable growth and we remain confident in our ability to continue creating long-term value for our shareholders in closing our strong start to the year is reflects solid underlying performance and continued momentum across the business. We are investing where we see the most attractive returns and where it strengthens our ability to deliver a best-in-class experience for our customers while maintaining expense discipline and executing against our strategy. We remain confident in achieving our three-year strategic goals of a 10% compound annual growth rate in core earnings per share and a sustainable 12% to 13% shareholder return on equity. Thank you, and now I'll turn the call over to Ryan.