Kemper Corporation

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Kemper's fourth quarter 2020 earnings conference call. My name is Matt, and I will be your coordinator today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at this time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Christine Patrick, Kemper's Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Patrick, you may begin. Ms.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Kemper's discussion of our fourth quarter 2020 results. This afternoon, you'll hear from Joe Locker, Kemper's President and Chief Executive Officer, Jim McKinney, Kemper's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Dwayne Sanders, Kemper's Executive Vice President and the Property and Casualty Division President. We'll make a few opening remarks to provide context around our fourth quarter and full year results, and then open up the call for a question and answer session. During the interactive portion of the call, our presenters will be joined by John Buscelli, Kemper's Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, and Eric Sternberg, Kemper's Executive Vice President and Life and Health Division President. After the markets closed this afternoon, we issued our earnings release and published our fourth quarter earnings presentation and financial supplements. We intend to file our Form 10-K with the SEC on or about February 10th. You can find these documents on the investor section of our website at Kemper.com. Our discussion today may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, but are not limited to, the company's outlook and its future results of operations and financial conditions. These statements may also include impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our actual future results and financial condition may differ materially from these statements. For information on potential risks associated with relying on forward-looking statements, please refer to our 2019 Form 10-K as well as our fourth quarter earnings release. This afternoon's discussion also includes non-GAAP financial measures we believe are meaningful to investors. In our financial supplement presentation and earnings release, we have defined and reconciled all the non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP were required in accordance with SEC rules. You can find each of these documents on the investor section of our website at Kemper.com. All comparative references will be to the corresponding 2019 period unless otherwise stated. Finally, I would like to note that due to social distancing practices Kemper is following in response to the COVID-19 crisis, our call participants are not in the same location. This may cause the question and answer section of our call to feel disjointed at times. We apologize in advance and ask for understanding from our listeners. I will now turn the call over to Joe.

Thank you, Christine. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. By any measure, 2020 was a challenging year, and the reasons why are well known at this point. I'd like to again acknowledge and thank everyone across our nation who stepped up during these challenging times. I'd especially like to thank our employees whose professionalism and commitment to our customers has been exceptional. Against this backdrop, I'm very pleased with our 2020 performance. We generated over $400 million of net income and nearly $440 million of adjusted, consolidated net operating income. more importantly a year ago we highlighted key metrics that guide our capital management and investment decisions we continue to believe you should use these to measure our long-term performance and when you do 2020 was a great success tangible book value per share increased 15 return on tangible equity excluding unrealized gains increased 16 we generated 425 million dollars of cash from operations and we continued to grow both top and bottom lines. Additionally, we've made investments to grow the strength of our franchise and further strengthen an already strong balance sheet. A few notable items include the acquisition of American Access Casualty Company, geographic expansion and increased levels of claims staff to support our expanding customer base, and the transfer of a significant portion of our pension liability to a third party. It was a strong year and we're well positioned for future success. I now like to turn to page four to discuss some specifics for the quarter. Net income was $98 million, or $1.46 per share. Adjusted consolidated net operating earnings were $106 million, or $1.59 per share. Turning to segment results, specialty auto had a solid finish to the year. Earned premiums increased 10% annually, adjusting for the credits issued in the second quarter. Customer growth continued and our position in the market strengthened as we were able to drive both new and same-store sales growth. Notwithstanding periods of COVID-related new business slowdowns across our portfolio, our customer base and demand for our products have been resilient and strong. We continue to invest in our specialty platform and capabilities, which we expect to continue to drive future market share gains. Turning to our life and health segment, Earnings continue to be impacted by COVID related mortality in line with domestic trends. Despite what is roughly equivalent to a one in a hundred year PNC catastrophe event, the business has generated positive operating earnings. Turning to page five, during the quarter, we announced the acquisition of American Access Casualty Company, that $370 million cash transaction. The addition of the AAC platform accelerates the expansion of our specialty franchise. It gives us increased scale in new and under-penetrated geographies where we have an opportunity to accelerate growth and expand our agency network. It enhances our customer reach with a focus on low-limit auto policies and further enhances our specialty capabilities within the Hispanic market. The acquisition also aligns with our previously communicated capital deployment guidance. In summary, we had a solid quarter a year. Our strategy is resilient and sustainable. and has consistently generated attractive returns for shareholders. We're also pleased that last week AMBEST upgraded our key financial strength rating to A and the holding company senior debt ratings to BBB. This is a further testament of our strong operating performance and ongoing progress. I'd now like to turn the call over to Jim to discuss our fourth quarter and full year operating results in more detail. Thank you. I would like to echo Joe's sentiment that we are pleased with our 2020 financial performance. Turning to page six, you can see the results of our focused and consistent strategy execution and the solid results it has yielded. For the quarter, we reported net income of $98 million and adjusted consolidated net operating income of $106 million, or $1.59 per diluted share, an increase of 10% over the prior year quarter. On page seven, we highlight that our business model continues to produce high-quality operating income. This is illustrated through an isolation of key sources of volatility that impact quarterly results. For the quarter, volatility items had a five-cent impact on adjusted consolidated net operating income. Turning to page eight. Building on Joe's previous comments, we are committed to always seeking new ways to improve the organization. This quarter, we took advantage of market demand to reduce Kemper's pension benefit obligation to $382 million from $660 million at the end of 2019. This included lump sum payments and the previously disclosed purchase of group annuity contracts. These actions removed a non-value-added risk, further strengthening an already strong balance sheet. On page 9, I would like to highlight some of the key capital metrics we use to track our performance, including growth intangible bulk value per share and tangible return on equity. Notably, we continue to outperform our stated long-term return targets. Excluding unrealized gains, return on tangible equity was 16% and our growth intangible bulk value per share was 15%. These metrics demonstrate the efficiency of our capital deployment decisions and our intrinsic value creation for shareholders. Continuing on page 10, our capital and liquidity positions remain strong, supported by a healthy balance sheet with well-funded insurance entities. For the year, we generated $425 million in operating cash flow and ended the year with a debt-to-capital ratio of 20% within our stated range of 17% to 22%. Our business model has performed as designed, generating solid cash flows and providing substantial financial flexibility to fund growth. Turning to page 11, net investment income for the quarter was 103 million, reflecting strong alternative investment income as financial markets rebounded. Our well-diversified portfolio continues to deliver solid results. Low market yields are a challenge for the industry, but our portfolio construction has alleviated some reinvestment risk. Over the next 12 months, we have approximately 100 million of assets maturing for roughly 1% of the portfolio. This low amount of maturities achieved through thoughtful asset liability management helps minimize net investment income volatility. In closing, we are pleased with the company's financial performance for the quarter and the year. Our strong balance sheet, financial flexibility, and stable operating results allow us to serve as a source of strength for all of our stakeholders. I would now like to turn the call over to Duane to discuss the results of our P&C segments. Thank you, Jim, and good afternoon, everyone. I would like to begin with the specialty segment on page 12. The segment continues to perform well, generating $91 million of operating earnings in the quarter. Turning to the top line, earned premiums increased 10 percent, and policies in force were up 4 percent. In the quarter, we saw increased state and local shutdowns, particularly in California. Similar to initial shutdowns, this resulted in reduced new business volume. We anticipate that just like we saw earlier in the year, this will be a short-term impact as states reopen and economies rebound. The underlying combined ratio was 91% in the quarter and 89% for the full year. We continue to experience largely COVID-related decreases in frequency, along with the industry. With another round of state shutdowns in the fourth quarter and varied reopenings, we've taken a cautious approach to our loss picks similar to our response to the initial shutdowns. Looking at expenses, the quarter saw noise coming from a couple of places. First, it was impacted by the mix shift, which comes from a few areas. The mix of new and renewal business and the largely anticipated geographic mix of state and product. These impacts on expense ratio are anticipated in our pricing. Beyond mix, we had a few one-time items. There was an increase in contingent commissions paid to agents due to higher than average profitability. We also made enhancements to our infrastructure, the cost of which was recognized this quarter. We continue to build our systematic sustainable competitive advantages and geographic footprint within specialty, which will be accelerated by our acquisition of American Access. AAC's customer profile is similar to that of our legacy Alliance United book in California. It expands the low limit customer focus to a broader geographic footprint and attractive specialty markets, including Texas, Illinois, Nevada, Arizona, and Indiana. The business model is scalable, providing growth opportunities in new and existing geographies. In addition, their distribution relationships strengthen our agency network and give us access to a captive channel with deep ties in Hispanic communities. We look forward to welcoming American access to the Kemper team. Let's turn to the preferred segment on page 13. In our preferred auto business, we continue to evolve the product, which is reflected in our results this quarter. As we position the business for target profitability, our results have been choppy. Additionally, we reported roughly 10 million of adverse development. The primary driver of development continues to be increased demand notices in uninsured motors and bodily injury as attorney involvement has increased over the prior year. Preferred Home and Other reported an underlying combined ratio of 78 percent in the quarter and 80 percent for the year. This improvement from the fourth quarter and full year 2019 of 83 percent and 85 percent respectively. Results this quarter also benefited from a reduction in expected losses from wildfires that occurred in the third quarter. Overall, for the preferred segment, we expect continued profit improvement actions taken through underwriting, pricing, and exposure management to bring us closer to our desired results. I'll now turn the call back to Joe. Thank you, Dwayne. Turning to our life and health segment on page 14, we're pleased to report that the segment was able to remain profitable while observing the protracted PNC catastrophe-like pandemic. Segment income was $9 million in the quarter and $60 million for the year. which is suppressed by increased COVID-related mortality. Our mortality experience remains largely in line with countrywide trends. Despite shutting off life new business sales for a handful of months this spring in response to the pandemic, we were able to grow overall life insurance premium. This is further evidence of the strength of our value proposition. While we have received positive COVID-related news in recent weeks with the rollout of vaccines, the situation remains dynamic with the timing of improvement difficult to predict with accuracy. We believe elevated pandemic-related benefit costs will continue during 2021. We also expect it will remain in line with nationwide mortality. Long-term, our outlook for the life and health business remains positive. Overall, Kemper has delivered a strong year. Our portfolio of specialty businesses produced sustainable earnings while delivering attractively priced products to our customers. We continue to build on our competitive advantages and core capabilities. This will allow us to continue solid top-line growth We believe this will also drive consistent book value growth and shareholder returns over the long term while maintaining our superior risk profile. I would now like to turn the call back to the operator to take your questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Greg Peters with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to focus on three areas to focus on. First is the top line and then some expense ratio questions. and the preferred auto. For the top line, you know, I was looking at your information you provide on slide 12 of the slide deck, and I was wondering if you could talk to us about, as we look out to 21 and 22, how you think the growth profile is going to look, you know, as we compare on a year-over-year basis? And can you include or incorporate into your answer any effects that any rate changes might have on your book of business?

Sure, Greg. This is Joe. I'll take a shot at starting with that and then see if Dwayne wants to add anything to it. First, a quick reminder, we don't typically do forward-looking guidance, so I'm not going to give you exactly the answer you were looking for, but I'll try to provide a little color commentary maybe to help. In the quarter, in our specialty auto business, it tends to be a seasonally Especially auto-tents have more seasonality in it than preferred. So we expect normally to see a little bit less new business in the quarter. And that is there. We saw a slowdown in new business applications in the quarter that we think are heavily related to COVID. We saw more shutdowns, so the behavior started to look more like the second quarter. In particular, I think we're all aware California has been particularly locked down, so we saw some connection to what we saw there. If I was thinking about it, not necessarily giving you guidance, but as I would think about it, I would kind of expect that as the lockdowns unfold or unwind and people go back out, we're going to see a more traditional view of new business activity. I think we might see it seem a little bit of people going uninsured in the specialty auto space where they might not have historically because they weren't driving and they might be willing to take that. I think that will unwind the same way we've seen in historic patterns regardless of a recession or a growth economy. They don't typically go out of pattern from an uninsured perspective, so I'd expect that that would move back to a more normal state. And then from a rate perspective, we have not taken rate decreases. We've taken rate rollbacks or rate givebacks in certain geographies. I would expect at some point you're going to see frequency go back to a more normalized level, severity go back to a more normalized level. And we'll see what will hopefully be what looks like a long-term set of averages, which has been in that 3%, 4%, 5% range over the long term for auto. That would be my expectation. I can't really give you a great guess of when that's going to happen. you know, work its way out. That's a function of how fast folks get vaccinated and how fast the economy kicks back into sort of a more normal environment. But once it gets to that point, I would expect we'll see a more traditional status. Dwayne, anything you'd add? Yeah, the only thing in terms of the, I think you asked about the profile, I would say the You know, the likelihood is fairly consistent, certainly looking to accelerate the growth in the expansion states. But, you know, where we have our footprint today and how we're growing, you know, my belief is it's going to be fairly consistent with that. And then, again, just, you know, some acceleration in the expansion states.

Thank you for the color. That's helpful. On slide 31 of your presentation, and I know you addressed some of the expense ratio issues in your commentary. I was just looking, you know, the adjusted expense ratio for specialty, you know, was tracking, let's call it 160 basis points higher. on a year-over-year basis in the fourth quarter. Is all of that related to those sort of the one-time call-out items, or is, you know, are we entering a period where because, you know, the economy reopens, et cetera, that maybe, you know, expenses could be up a little bit on an adjusted basis as we think about going forward?

Dwayne, you want to start with that? Yeah, I think, you know, we did highlight, I think, some of those, some of the drivers underneath there. You know, one of the things for sure is the mix. continues to move on us. The geographic mix, you know, certain states' fee components are unique to them. So as we move to states and growth states where the fee component is not as great, we'll certainly have an impact. New and renewal business also differentiate themselves on the expense side. where new business has more expense. So hopefully, excuse me, has more fee income on it. So hopefully as we return to normal growth rates, you'll start to see that move there. Then we did have you know, some of the higher commission this year because of the profitability component with some of our agents, you know, with the COVID and the frequency drop allowed them to earn a little bit more. So those are the dynamics that I would look to see kind of reverse themselves and move as we, you know, as we move into next year. Okay. And Greg, if I could add to that, because I think you're trying to back into, you know, how should you think about this kind of over the long or medium term and what should be your base to kind of set it aside. And so not trying to, you know, give forward guidance, but what I might think of is if you look at the year-to-date number, I think that becomes a reasonable proxy at, you know, kind of these profitability levels in terms of what you might expense from both the geographic shift that Duane is referencing, as well as some of the difference in kind of, you know, contingent commissions that, you know, are also in the book at these levels in terms of how those plans are defined. And then I think, you know, You know, you can then potentially change or think about what might be the change, you know, short, you know, half point, point type things. You know, if you got more of a return to a normal environment, it would likely, you know, kind of roll through on a year over year basis, given kind of our historical, you know, profitability levels.

Got it. The final question is just on the preferred segment. I was looking off of the information you provide on slide 13. It looks like, you know, the home and other business, you know, the underlying combined ratio, you know, is generally trending in the right direction and looks pretty strong. I'm surprised that we haven't seen more improvement in the auto side, considering all the variables that, you know, whether it's COVID, reduced miles frequency, miles driven, accident frequency, et cetera. And on top of it, we're seeing this decline in the top line. So I'm just curious. what your perspective is regarding, you know, the results that you posted. I'm sure, you know, you're not happy, entirely happy with them, and I'm sure you're trying to implement some corrective actions.

You know, I think that's a great question, Greg. And, you know, a couple of things that I would point you to that I think were important in our comment that we kicked off with. One, I think, you know, Duane did a nice job, and we've highlighted – what we've hopefully capped here in terms of the UMBI item that we chatted a little bit about over the previous two quarters. Those numbers, as well as just having a very limited data set here to assess kind of the seasonality associated with fourth quarter, increased some of the error bars associated with the loss picks. In line with our historical practices and how we would look at things, we tend to try to, you know, come at things from a 60%, 65%, you know, confidence level. And so no change of that. So when you, with that increase kind of in the airbar, what you likely surmise is that we've been a little cautious as we've looked to recognize some of those elements. And, you know, as we get more data, I think that will give us a better, you know, I would take this as a data point that is, you know, again, it's our best estimate, but let's see how that, you know, continues to develop it as we go forward because we have baked in and thought about kind of the, you know, 18, 19-year trend in there, and we thought about having very limited data for the fourth quarter to essentially understand how the product enhancements and the other elements that we've got working through there. We certainly have thoughts, but there becomes a question of seeing it actually roll through the data um that i think will give us additional perspective here for a couple of quarters long way of saying it's a little frustrated but also monitoring and thinking that i don't think we're displeased at all with the progress that we've had today but there's a time period for which that will work in and work through the data got it well thanks for the answers our next question comes from matt carletti with jmp securities please go ahead Hey, thanks. Good afternoon. Joe or Duane, I was hoping you might be able to kind of go up to 30,000 feet and give us your thoughts on kind of what's going on in the competitive landscape in your core non-standard auto specialty market. You know, there's been a lot of moving pieces in terms of, At the large end, you know, one of your similar-sized competitors being acquired. Obviously, you guys have been at Cleveland over the years, and we know there's lots of, you know, smaller private companies that we don't get as good insights into.

So, can you help us understand just from a competitive dynamic what's going on and how you see the market?

Yeah, I'll – let me jump in, and Joe, certainly, if there's anything else you think is worth adding. I would say this, that Certainly not a lot of new entrants. Those that are kind of participating in the space today are continuing to do so. You know, you'll see varying degrees of actions across the states in terms of some of the things they might be doing for increased, you know, volume or increased top line as, you know, as the shutdowns are negatively impacting the growth. You'll see some CSR, which is your agent sales reps, and those folks getting different types of incentives to write business. You'll see commission lines move a little bit. You'll see some actually taking some rate decreases, which I find interesting. So the participants are largely the same, and then you see a varying degree of activity for top line. And, you know, of course, we watch it closely and pay attention to that. And, again, it does vary by state. So it's hard to say consistent actions across. But nothing I would say is, you know, guys, I guess, highly unusual or unexpected at this point in time based on, you know, where some of them are. Yeah, that's a great answer, Dwayne. And Matt, I'll maybe add one more thought to it. I know you were asking for sort of the 40,000-foot view. You know, I'd echo Dwayne's point that you're not seeing a lot of new entrants there. There's a lot of small players there. Really, you saw none of them do a premium giveback. So what they got was some COVID-positive frequency, which was probably a little good news for their results. So they're probably... about as enthusiastic now as they are in any period of time, which is a little bit what's putting a little new business pressure around the market, and we're still growing. I fully expect as the pandemic unwinds and people are driving again, whatever that short-term good news and help was for them dissipates, and they're back to the dynamic where we're stronger, more effective. competitors and business models will win. And so I would expect that that will create a more attractive market as the pandemic moves back to normal. Great. That was very helpful. Great. Then just a couple numbers questions if I could. In the preferred personal auto, Dwayne, you gave some good color on the little bit of the prior year there. Can you give a little color on the accident year? It upticked a bit. kind of the underlying loss ratio in the quarter? Is it similar stuff and you're adjusting the full year 20 for the same trend? I'm just trying to get a feel for kind of where the year ended kind of X COVID benefits, however we adjust that. Just trying to get a real read on kind of the jumping off point as we go forward. Hey, Matt. This is Jim. So I tried to provide some good, you know, commentary to Greg. I think from a jump off, again, not providing guidance, but if I were to try to think about it, understanding that, you know, some of the things that we looked at for UMBI, all the elements that I mentioned before, you know, likely, you know, lead to some intra-quarter, you know, development that's inside there. So if you want to get a good base, what I would do is kind of look at the four-quarter average for look-out loss ratio, and I would be building off of that, understanding that we continue to enhance the business and we feel better today about the mix than we did six months ago and than we did 12 months ago. Sorry, I might want to add, but I wanted to make sure that we connected these couple of things. Perfect. Very helpful. And then last one, if I can, the commercial auto line, same sort of thing, just the accident year loss ratio, still a good number, upticked a little bit. Are you just seeing activity come back in that commercial auto space? Is that what's going on there? It's more miles and frequency, or is there something else? No, yeah, thanks. More just a little bit of seasonality, not really a significant, you know, change or underlying difference across the curve, but you get a little bit of seasonality, you know, inside there, just as we do with some of the other business units. Again, I think about that kind of, again, as a baseline, those year-over-year, you know, the full-year results and kind of be building off of that. Okay, great. Makes sense. Thank you, Peter Tuller, and, you know, congrats on the end of the upgrade. Thanks, Matt. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from Paul Newsome with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Good evening. Congrats on the quarter year. On the pension change, was there an expense that was in 2020 that might not be recurring with the buyout or was it pretty neutral?

We lost you a little bit on our end, Paul. I think it was our audio in this room. You're asking about the pension, but I missed just the question part.

Was there an expense for the pension that might not reoccur given the buyout in 2020?

Yeah, so high level, I think you're thinking about, you know, we traditionally get a couple million dollars over the last few years of benefit that's going through the results as essentially our investment performance in recent years has exceeded essentially the crediting rate that's inside that. I wouldn't think about results really changing up or down relative to this. I would look at it as a reduction in non-strategic risk for us and that effectively the redeployment in capital, other things that we would maintain from an economic capital standpoint, will support other higher-earning assets, and as a result, wouldn't expect any change to the bottom line as a result of our decisions to reduce the pension risk.

Great. With the... With the last couple of days of announcements from companies selling their life companies, multi-line companies, getting questions about whether or not Kemper would be a similar company, obviously don't want to ask you specifically if you're going to do something or not, but maybe you could just talk about some of the pros and cons and review with us what Pros and cons of being a multi-line and maybe what makes Kemper fairly unique with that relationship?

Happy to. First of all, I would not describe us as a multi-line and wouldn't use that. That has a context for people. We're a portfolio of specialty businesses. I realize we have multiple lines, so it may grammatically be correct. But these are businesses where we look for each one of them to have a systematic, sustainable, competitive advantage and to be able to organically grow and produce appropriate returns on their own. And then to be part of the portfolio, either they need to enhance the portfolio, the rest of the companies in the portfolio, or be enhanced by being part of the portfolio. And as an example, if you just take our life insurance business and our specialty auto business, they're great examples of that. The capital diversification benefits that we get from having the two businesses inside of the same portfolio are significant. If we were to break them apart, we would require incremental capital to be deployed in those now two separate businesses. There's a plus for having them. I can't speak completely to other folks and why they wouldn't have done it, but I would assume that if somebody had a sale and had a multibillion-dollar write-off on it, it wasn't because they had a systematic, sustainable, competitive advantage. It was because of decades of errors or problems, and they were cauterizing the wound. That's a different spot than where we are now. It actually adds value to us. and makes us better as a place, which is why we're doing it, and we have a competitive advantage. So I think it's our focus.

Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from Brian Meredith with UBS. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Most have been asked already, but just quickly here, is it possible to quantify at all what the COVID mortality rate negative was in the life insurance business in the quarter? We don't typically break out that number for you, Brian. Hold on a second. Let me check something. I know what you're trying to do. This is not going to be perfect, and there's some error bars around it, but what I might do is look at the U.S. mortality rate, and it's in the neighborhood of $10 million for every 100,000 lives lost in the U.S., somewhere in that zone. That's not perfect, and there's probably a plus or minus 15% or 20% error bar around it, but I think that's probably going to get you close enough to what you're looking for. Gotcha. And you realize that's not a cash question because the issue becomes um unfortunately people pass away the the charge to the income statement is the net amount at risk not just not the full face amount so depending on who and where and the ages it moves around a little bit which is what gives it a little volatility gotcha interesting okay great and then i just wanted to just go back just quickly on the um specialty policies enforced in the drop Was there any big drop in retentions or anything as well? I was just surprised that you could have a sequential drop in PIF. That's the first time I've seen that in a while. Yeah, no, retentions were actually up. We've got a couple of things going on. The fourth quarter tends to be the seasonally low shopping period for specialty auto. The last couple of years for us, we've had competitors that have been blowing up and pushing business into the market, like Access in California and Windhaven in Florida, which created a little bit of an anomaly in those time periods. This year, you would have had that seasonally lower shopping period. pushed down more so by the COVID stay at home. And what we definitely saw is in those COVID new business shopping reduction periods, we saw retention upticks. And we saw that here as well. Great. Helpful. Thank you. I appreciate it. Sure.

As a reminder, if you have a question, please press star then one. Our next question comes from Jeff Schmidt with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Yeah, most of my questions were answered, but I guess just one on the overall expense ratio is pretty close to 22% for the year. Obviously elevated, you know, from how you had the premium credits flowing through, but what's the run rate there, I guess, excluding that impact? And, you know, will the American access deal have much impact on that? I mean, are there synergies there?

I'll give you an overall comment, Jeff, and then let Jim work the components. You're looking at the overall expense ratio for the entire company? Is that what you're looking at? I would suggest to you that that's not a particularly useful number to look at. I think you need to break up the specialty businesses and look at them separately. Because if one of them were growing and one of them were shrinking, you could expect that expense ratio would change and it would be exactly the right answer. You need to break them apart because that matters a lot inside of these businesses. Yeah, I mean, big picture, I think what you're asking about is there really been any fundamental change to expense ratio or not. When you think about this in terms of the totality of the company, there are three big items, right, that are inside that that are different than prior years that are a little wonky and kind of distort what is really intrinsically happening and whether or not there's really any true change. One is the premium credits. Understand that there's about $100 million rolling through the financial results associated with that, right, which effectively changes what that underlying ratio would be. It's not as if we, you know, change commissions or outcomes are associated with those things. So, you know, that was something that we chose and thought was the right thing to do. So that is going to lead to a little bit of pressure, but it's not long-term or systemic pressure. It's related to what was the right answer for the environment across, you know, our company and our customers. Then you've got bad debt that is associated with the environment that is in line with us providing kind of free insurance, which we don't traditionally do, but you've got a little bit more of that, again, regulatory provided. And then you've got a change in the fee income, right, that offsets and some of the mixed elements that Duane referenced. These things are largely environmental related. If anything, as you continue to move forward and kind of think about the business, I think we're building on the competitive advantages and the disciplines we have. you're just going to have a little bit of noise in kind of the short-term COVID environment where you get some of these things that occur that aren't indications, again, of what your long-term run rate would be and are more, again, kind of subject to the environment and the right way to navigate the environment and just what kind of comes through. So I'd tell you no real change to long-term positioning or other that you should be thinking about in my mind, but you could continue to have some noise here for the next, I don't know, 12 months or so, you know, whatever we remain kind of in this environment and as we work through it.

Okay. And just on the higher mortality in life book, is it pretty safe to say, I mean, it seems like, The majority of those losses, and I think I've heard others say maybe it's as high as 90%, would be losses you would have expected anyway in the next, call it three years, four years, five years. Is that the case where you could see lower benefit payments, I guess, in a couple years?

Yeah, I understand the question, and I don't mean this to be glib, but everybody's going to die at some point. So if they died sooner, it by definition is an acceleration of the process. There's probably some from an accounting perspective when those benefits move up, but I'm not sure – I'm not sure. I assume what you're trying to do is trying to model it, to try to figure out what to put in as the good guy in the next couple of years. I think you're going to have an offset between those mortality costs. You're going to have an offset around the underlying profitability that you were getting from those businesses. There will be a little bit over a couple of years, but I'm just not sure we know how to measure it quite yet. Okay. I don't think it's big enough to be a big driver. I wouldn't take the $10 million per $100,000 and then say I'm going to take whatever that ultimately comes out to be and I'm going to divide that by two or three and roll that back into the two years following. I think you'd get a bad estimate from doing that. I think probably you're better off looking at our pre-COVID run rates and working more around those, adjusting for the different investment income environments.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Joe Locker for any closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thank you everybody on the call for your interest today and for your questions. Look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.