Unum Group

Thank you. Matt Royal, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.

Wonderful. Thank you, Rob, and good morning to everyone. Welcome to Unum Group's fourth quarter 2023 earnings call. Today, we will be discussing full year 2023 results along with highlights from the fourth quarter. We will also use the time to discuss our outlook for 2024. Please note that today's call may include forward-looking statements. Actual results, which are subject to risk and uncertainties, may differ materially, and we are not obligated to update any of these statements. Please refer to our earnings release and our periodic filings with the SEC for a description of factors that could cause actual results to differ from expected results. Also, today's presentation may include non-GAAP financial measures, and a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and the investor relations section of our website. Also please note, references to Unum International sales and premium are presented in local currency and core operation sales and premium results are presented on a constant currency basis. Further, discussion of adjusted operating 2023 EPS growth of 23% or $7.66 compares to 2022 historically reported EPS of $6.21. Yesterday afternoon, Unum released our earnings press release, financial supplement, and webcast presentation. All of those materials may also be found on the investor section of our website. Participating in this morning's call are Unum's President and CEO, Rick McKinney, and Chief Financial Officer, Steve Zabel. Following the remarks from Rick and Steve, additional members of management will participate in Q&A, including Mark Till, who heads our Unum International business, Tim Arnold, who heads our Colonial Life and Voluntary Benefits lines, and Chris Pine for Group Benefits. Now I'll turn the call over to Rick. Great.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you all today, sharing the journey of Unum throughout 2023 and where we're headed in 2024. This is the first time we've shared our outlook in conjunction with our year-end results, and I think it works well given the consistency of our actions and performance across the company. As we reflect on our progress and look ahead, I am proud to affirm our unwavering commitment to our purpose of helping the working world thrive throughout life's moments. Steadfast focus and commitment to this purpose is delivering value to customers, employees, communities, and of course, to shareholders. 2023 was a year of exceptional results across the board, with a highlight being our decades-long leadership in disability insurance shining through and core business growth momentum building stronger with significant strides in accelerating our industry-leading digital capabilities. The capabilities we are bringing to market, such as HR Connect, Total Leave, Gather, and Help at Hand, are becoming connection points with employers and employees to bring greater customer satisfaction to the benefits experience. These advancements have been influential in attracting and retaining customers, setting us apart in a competitive landscape, and ultimately driving strong top line results, including sales of over 13% for the full year of 2023, and premium growth of over 5%. This top line growth has returned steadily throughout the year. and has us on the trajectory that we look for in our business model. As the top line has returned in 2023, our discipline with how we run the business has not wavered. Our pricing and underwriting has remained consistent to continue to deliver growth and high returns on equity. Overall, we grew EPS 23%, with most of our product lines delivering on our expectations throughout the year. I mentioned the highlight of group disability returns, but I would extend that to most of our products that continue to generate mid to high-teen returns. An area that understandably received attention in the third quarter was our closed block. We have seen volatility in the performance of that block, and today Steve will provide some ways to look at its overall health and performance outside of just its loss ratio. From a capital standpoint, we've executed our plans exactly how we described them coming into the year and with good results. So we exceeded expectations on value delivered to our shareholders. We raised our dividend by 10% and increased the pace of our share repurchases throughout 2023 and announced a plan to double the amount we repurchased in 2024 with our $500 million authorization. Most notably, we described the desire to fully fund the premium deficiency reserve and contribute the capital needed to support our long-term care block. Steve will discuss further, but let me emphasize, Given our current assumptions and capital buffers, we have stated that we believe long-term care will not need additional capital for five years. But in reality, our belief is that will be true for much longer. Across the company, the reason that we have been able to achieve such capital results goes back to the fact that our businesses steadily generate strong cash flow, and with a year of good results, we ended the year with financial metrics that were stronger than expected, including holding company cash, of $1.7 billion and RBC of 415%. Looking forward, we now expect to generate free cash flow between $1.2 and $1.4 billion per year. As we transition to think about 2024, the momentum from the past several years continues. We're witnessing both a market backdrop and economic environment that are highly supportive of our business, providing us with ample opportunities to grow and thrive. Our focus is to continue building on our solid foundation. We're dedicated to enhancing our core operations, maintaining our discipline approach, and continuing to innovate in ways that resonate with our customers and the market. When we look across the company, we are hitting the ground running, and our teams are looking to build on some very strong growth rates with consolidated sales growth of high single digits and combined with good persistency, yielding premium growth in the 5% to 7% range. Consistent margins and the purchasing of shares will deliver growth of 7% and 9% on top of the 23% adjusted EPS growth we delivered in 2023. Our customer-centric approach remains at the heart of our strategy. We're constantly adapting our services to meet changing market needs, ensuring we remain the preferred choice for our clients. When we met last February, we outlined our strategy and plans to build on our market-leading positions. We can report that we are advancing along all fronts, and we are seeing the results. For Unum in the U.S., we are leveraging our go-to-market expertise to connect benefit solutions to HR platforms effectively, while also ensuring our leave management is a differentiator. With over 1,500 customers and counting, we've reached the notable sales milestones with our HR Connect capability, which deeply integrates with leading human capital management platforms, and we now cover over 1 million employees through Unum's total leave offering. In addition, we saw strong momentum in the trend of customers bundling products. Our efforts are geared towards seamless enrollment, billing, and administration via MyUnum, and establishing robust connections with select third-party platforms. These efforts to leverage technology to improve the customer experience are paying off. And in 2023, we saw record levels of employer satisfaction for customers on the MyUnum platform. In Colonial Life, the focus is on continuing to build and support our independent sales force with enhanced tools and solutions, such as our proprietary industry-leading agent assist technology, which enables automated lead generations, CRM, and workflow, boosting agent productivity. Another key development in our arsenal is Gather. which modernizes enrollment and benefits administration and streamlines the client experience. The offering has been building as evidenced by the annual premium associated with it increasing from $10 million to $50 million over the course of 2023. And finally, enabling Colonial Life agents to offer Unum employer paid products ensures they have the solution for any employer or broker. For Unum UK, our approach has been to redefine the broker experience. setting a market-leading standard that is distinctively Unum, and enhancing our relationship management model. We are dedicated to providing value-added services that drive customer engagement and loyalty, such as through Help at Hand, which offers integrated value-added services, and by delivering comprehensive management information that yields actionable insights. Moreover, we're expanding our product set to encompass a broader spectrum of risk and well-being solutions. ensuring we meet the diverse needs of our clients. And finally, in Unum Poland, we're forging ahead with a robust strategy tailored to the local market. We're scaling our direct-to-SME sales team and fortifying partnerships with local brokers, thereby extending our distribution network and geographical reach. All these efforts will drive growth in the number of employers and customers we serve, and in turn will generate the growth of premiums and earnings we have articulated. Looking forward, we will also remain disciplined stewards of our capital and franchise value, and the consistency of our capital priorities remains intact. First, we ensure investments directly supporting our business. We have a clear growth strategy to continue to build out our offerings and capitalize on our well-positioned and profitable products. Second, we will look externally to identify and pursue selective M&A that supports our internal initiatives and that are in line with this strategy. And third, we will continue to return capital to shareholders via regular dividend increases and share repurchases as we have demonstrated through our actions in increasing both commensurate with our plans. Summing it up, our strong capital generation, $500 million of share repurchases and no LTC contributions will leave us in a position of greater than 400% RBC and holding company cash greater than $2 billion. For 2024, our commitment to innovation, prudent capital allocation and shareholder returns remains steadfast. As a result, we are on track to surpass the objectives we established a year ago, and our fortified position in the market is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our teams across the globe. The strides we've made in our digital footprint, customer engagement and capital management are the very engines of our growth. In closing, we enter 2024 with confidence in our position and ready to build off of our achievements of 2023. With our customer-first mindset, agile operations, and comprehensive financial strategies, we are not just anticipating the future, we are actively shaping it. 2024 is going to be an exciting year for Unum. I'd like to now hand it over to Steve to provide further insights into our financial strategy and outlook, as well as provide insight into the closed block. Thanks for your attention once again today, and Steve, I'll turn it over to you.