Primerica, Inc.

and I'll be coordinating today's call. You have the opportunity to ask a question at the end of the presentation. If you would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host, Nicole Russell, Head of Investor Relations at Primerica, to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Daisy, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Primerica's third quarter earnings call. A copy of the press release, along with materials that are relevant to today's call, are posted on the Investor Relations section of our website. Joining our call today are our Chief Executive Officer, Glenn Williams, and our Chief Financial Officer, Allison Rand. Glenn and Allison will deliver prepared remarks, and then we will open the call up for questions. During our call, some of our comments may contain forward-looking statements in accordance with the safe harbor provisions of the Securities and Litigation Reform Act. The company assumes no obligations to update these statements to reflect new information. We refer you to our most recent Form 10-K, as modified by subsequent Forms 10-Q, and the press release filed with our form 8K, dated July 1st, 2021, for a list of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed or implied. We will also reference certain non-GAAP measures, which we believe will provide additional insight in the company's operations. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to their respective GAAP numbers are included at the end of our press release and are available on our investor relations website. I would now like to turn the call over to Glenn.

Thank you, Nicole, and thank everyone for joining us today. Our strong results continue to reflect our ability to adapt to the changing business environment. Since the emergence of COVID-19, Primerica has been educating and assisting clients in choosing the right protection products to meet their family's insurance needs. As reaction to the pandemic fades, we are helping guide clients' investment decisions and assisting families as they prepare for a more financially secure future. These last 18 months are a perfect example of the balance and resilience of our business model. I'm proud of how quickly our sales force has adapted to a combination of virtual and in-person client interactions to continue serving middle-income families when they need us most. Over the same 18 months, we've delivered on our strategic goal of expanding our product offerings. We have moved from pilot to full rollout of a new mortgage business, which continues to grow as we gain experience. We also launched our senior health referral program during the third quarter, further rounding out a balanced product platform to help clients through every financial step of their life journey. Looking at the third quarter, we continue to set new records with investment and savings sales up more than 50% year over year. At $8.7 billion, total sales during the first nine months of 2021 have already eclipsed full year 2020 levels. and we're on pace to break $10 billion in annual sales for the first time in our history. As anticipated, sales in our term life segment have started to normalize versus their COVID peak, and while sales are down versus their record levels, we forecast full-year sales to be about 10% above pre-pandemic levels. We also expect to surpass $900 billion of face amount in force by the end of the year, another milestone in our corporate history. Starting on slide three, adjusted operating revenues of $692 million increased 22% compared to the third quarter of 2020, and diluted adjusted operating income per share of $2.98 increased 7%. These results include an adjusted net operating loss of $4.6 million, or 12 cents, per diluted adjusted operating earnings per share for a newly acquired interest in eTeleQuote. Allison will expand on the financial impact of eTelequote in her prepared remarks. ROAE at 24.1% during the quarter remains strong. Turning to slide four, we added nearly 92,000 new recruits during the quarter, down from the third quarter of last year when focus and urgency driven by the pandemic created a tailwind. It's worth noting that recruiting remains strong compared to pre-pandemic levels. We believe our success and proven track record continue to make our business opportunity attractive to aspiring entrepreneurs. Disruption and discontent in the job market create more people looking for alternatives to their current career paths, and these individuals may be interested in joining our business. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the process for licensing new recruits has been impaired. Early on, the impact was overshadowed by states implementing short-term accommodations. Now that these programs have ended, current licensing numbers reflect the difficulties. Key among the issues is the difficulty in getting new recruits to complete training class. In-person classroom training provides the greatest completion rates. However, distractions associated with the reopening of the economy and a degree of hesitancy by some to congregate in classrooms is impeding progress. Online training alternatives offer ease of access but often do not have high completion rates due to their lack of discipline and accountability. We continue to adapt in order to overcome this dilemma by offering more classroom options that appeal to a variety of schedules, increasing our messaging and incentives, and better equipping our field leaders to overcome resistance. A total of 9,381 individuals obtained a new life license during the quarter, which is below our historical pull-through rate. We believe this is a reflection of the current COVID environment rather than an underlying challenge in our ability to get new recruits licensed. A key part of our messaging to the field leadership includes the importance of keeping new recruits engaged and moving toward a permanent license. We ended September with approximately 130,000 life license representatives. Included in the total were about 800 individuals with either a COVID temporary license or a license with an extended renewal date. As we noted last quarter, we now expect the majority of these licenses to age out, placing the normalized size of the sales force around 129,200. Normalizing all periods to provide an apples-to-apples comparison, we ended June 2021 with 129,600 life licenses and December 2020 with 130,700 life licenses. At this time, we expect to end 2021 with a salesforce size roughly equal to the prior year end's normalized number, which would be a significant achievement given the numerous challenges we've navigated. Turning to the next slide to review our life insurance segment, while a pullback from COVID heightened sales levels was expected, we also believe that clients continue to place a higher value on financial protection for their families as sales remain above their pre-pandemic levels. During the third quarter, we issued nearly 76,000 new life insurance policies with productivity at .19 policies per life license representative per month, well within our historical range. Total face amount of $894 billion in force rose 6% year over year. We project fourth quarter sales to decline between 13% and 15% year over year. While full-year results would be down approximately 8% versus 2020's elevated levels, it would still represent more than a 10% increase over pre-COVID 2019 full-year results. Highlights from our investment and savings product segment are presented on slide six. Sales of $2.8 billion were at 52% year-over-year. The strength of equity markets continues to support investors' confidence to invest for the future. Solid demand persisted across all our investment products, including mutual funds, annuities, and managed accounts. Net inflows at $1 million during the quarter remained well above historical levels. Despite these robust inflows, significant equity market volatility during the quarter kept ending asset levels largely unchanged versus June levels. Barring an unexpected change in market sentiment, we expect the fourth quarter investment sales to grow between 20% and 25% year-over-year, and more than 40% full year 2021 versus 2020. As I noted earlier, we've made significant strides in expanding our product offering over the last two years. In our new mortgage business, we continue to make steady progress and are now actively doing business in 17 states through more than 1,200 licensed representatives. We have closed nearly $1 billion in US mortgage volume through the third quarter of this year, eclipsing the $442.5 million closed in the entire 12 months of 2020. During the third quarter, we started to roll out the Senior Health Referral Program to Primerica representatives. We've had broad acceptance of the launch from field leaders, and Primerica reps are excited about how well the program serves their clients' needs. We're seeing encouraging lead generation results since the Medicare annual election period began in mid-October. After our first quarter of ownership, we're excited by the opportunities and are gaining experience in leading our senior health business. Current headwinds caused by labor market issues have caused eTeleQuote to experience recruiting and retention issues with the senior health sales center employees. Given the lower staffing levels coming into AEP, we expect fourth quarter approved policy levels to be around 36,000 to 40,000 or approximately double third quarter levels. We believe this labor market imbalance is temporary and expect the return of more favorable conditions, which will improve our ability to attract quality agents that are essential to scaling the eTeleQuote business. We're investing in technology and talent consistent with our pre-acquisition plans. We believe in the long-term attractiveness of both eTeleQuote and the senior health industry, and we are positioning ourselves to take advantage of this growing market. As we look forward to 2022, we have confidence that we will continue to thrive in any business environment and be better positioned for ongoing success. Our plans for the new year include a powerful live senior field leader event in early January to set an energetic tone for the year. In June, we return to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium for our biennial convention and the opportunity to cast our vision for the future, introduce product improvements, and recognize our success. With that, I'll now turn it over to Allison.