Unum Group

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to Unum First Quarter 2026 Earnings. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Matt Royal, Investor Relations. Matt, please go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you and good morning to everyone. Welcome to Unum Group's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Please note today's call may include forward-looking statements and actual results 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. Yesterday afternoon Unum released our earnings results and financial supplement for the first quarter of 2026. Materials are also available on the investors section of our website. Also please note references made today to core operations sales and premium, including Unum International, are presented on a constant currency basis for improved comparability period to period. Participating in this morning's conference call are Unum's President and CEO Rick McKinney and Chief Financial Officer Steve Zabel. Following remarks from Rick and Steve, additional members of management will join and participate in Q&A, including Tim Arnold, who heads our Colonial Life and Voluntary Benefits lines, Chris Pine for Group Benefits, and Mark Till, who heads our Unum International Business. Now let me turn the call over to our President and CEO, Rick McKinney.

Great. Thank you, Matt. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. We are very pleased with a solid and encouraging start to 2026. It is one that reflects strong execution across the business for both the top and bottom line, greater capital deployment, and continued progress in management of our close block. Core operations performed well, with earned premium growth of over 5% adjusting for the transactions. After-tax adjusted operating earnings of $353 million and after-tax adjusted operating EPS of $2.14 is up nearly 10% from a year ago. Leading the way, our U.S. group business had a standout quarter with sales up 22% and persistency strong at 92%. Combined, this drove premiums up approximately 5% specific to our group lines. The top line also translated to the bottom line as we saw record earnings in group life, bringing total U.S. group earnings to over $220 million and with a very high ROE. Within the group portfolio, this quarter it was clearly the group life business which outperformed. But not to be overshadowed, our group disability business showed consistent strength with high returns and good long-term disability fundamentals. As we pay careful attention to pricing and risk selection at the employer level for new and existing customers, our team continues to do an excellent job helping people get back to work and fulfill our purpose. These results reinforce what has long been true for us. We have built our business on disciplined pricing and underwriting, strong customer relationship management, which is key to high persistency, and continued focused investments and capabilities that differentiate Unum in markets. It is particularly important where technology and human support come together at moments that matter most. It is also another quarter in which we delivered on the consistency and execution that our customers and shareholders expect from us. To achieve this, we have been deliberately investing in technology-enabled solutions that help us win, retain, and grow business by making it easier for employers and their employees to engage with their benefits. This is evident in this quarter's results with the success we're having in providing solutions and services that resonate with our customers. In recent years, employers have placed increasing importance on managing employees' leaves. The expansion of state family and medical leave programs has provided another avenue to leverage our leave management leadership position and reach more people. Our digital-first total leave platform, combined with our traditional insurance products and technologies such as HR Connect, delivers a best-in-class experience to our clients, which in turn contributes to the high levels of satisfaction and persistency exemplified this quarter. Extending from our leading group businesses is a very successful and broad-reaching supplemental and voluntary product business. These lines of business saw 20% sales growth in the quarter. We see employers looking at the broader benefits package more often as these products leverage the same digital tools and employers know they can depend on Unum across their benefit needs. Taking our Unum U.S. business in totality, we delivered strong before-tax earnings of $338 million and an ROE of 25% in the quarter. At Colonial Life, momentum continues to build. The business delivered a record earnings quarter supported by premium growth in line with expectations, attractive returns, and continued benefit from disciplined execution and strong relationships in the worksite markets. Colonial life is an important component of our reach, and able to get to employers of different sizes that are looking for high-quality solutions to help take care of their employees. Looking internationally, after significant growth on top and bottom line over the last several years, Unum International produced mixed results this quarter. Strong performance in Poland, where growth continues at an exceptional pace, was offset by benefits pressure in the UK. Our market position and know-how gives us confidence that we can actively address macro market dynamics, and we are excited about the long-term value growth and contribution of our international businesses. Overall, core operations are in excellent shape heading into the rest of the year. As we refine how we present and focus our earnings on an ongoing basis, we'll also continue to provide transparency into our close block. This remains an area of active and deliberate management. Importantly, results this quarter reflect tangible progress in reducing both the size and the risk profile of the block. As we announced late last year, we discontinued new employee coverage on existing group cases. The response was well received by clients, particularly among employers who had not recently evaluated the cost and value to their employees of this legacy offering within their broader employee benefits package. Because this product was last marketed in 2012 and provides benefits well beyond an employee's working years, our engagement this quarter led some employers to voluntarily cease their coverage. As a result, 7% of all group LTC cases closed during the first quarter, meaningfully reducing our exposure. Importantly, this reduction in footprint was achieved with clarity and transparency for our clients. As our customers' evaluation continues, we expect additional case closures going forward. Beyond that, our fair wind protection remains at a robust $2.2 billion. The external reinsurance transaction we completed last year continues to perform well, and the elimination of new employee tail risk is fully in place. We continue to evaluate a broad set of options to further mitigate LTC exposure, including risk transfer. and we are encouraged by our progress and the opportunities ahead. The actions we are taking are methodical, deliberate, and effective. Each step improves the risk profile and allows us to keep our focus where it belongs, growing and strengthening our core business. Turning to the balance sheet, our portfolio continues to perform well in the current environment and remains solidly investment-grade. Our team has done a good job over the last several years increasing our overall credit quality. at a time when you weren't getting appropriately paid for the inherent credit risk. Additionally, our capital position remains very strong, with RBC at 460%, which is over 100 points above our target range, and holding company liquidity is strong at approximately $1.7 billion. With solid capital generation, we remain committed to our capital deployment framework. Investing in our business for growth, both organically and inorganically, and then returning capital to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Our outlook calls for the redeployment of roughly $1.3 billion, which is roughly what we generate in a year. During the first quarter, we repurchased approximately $400 million of shares, taking advantage of attractive prices to accelerate a portion of our planned repurchase. This reduced our public float by approximately 3% in one quarter. After paying out $78 million in dividends in the first quarter, we will also look to increase our dividend rate in the coming month heading into our annual meeting. Our delivery of investing and growth and deployment plans are intact. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our 2026 outlook, which consists of delivering 4% to 7% top line growth, 8% to 12% EPS growth, attractive returns on equity in our core operations, and continues strong capital generation and deployment. The environment remains supportive. Our sales pipelines are building as we move through the year. Digital connections with our customers continue to deepen, and our teams remain intensely focused on execution. Most importantly, our purpose of helping the working world thrive throughout life's moments continues to guide our teams, our growth, and our culture over the long term. This year, we were pleased to be named one of the world's most ethical companies for the sixth straight year. This all comes together to generate the results of today and the long-term value creation we are building for customers, employers, and shareholders. I'm happy now to turn the call over to Steve to walk through the numbers in more detail. Steve. Great.

Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. The first quarter of 2026 was a strong start to the year. with many of the expectations we laid out at our Outlook meeting emerging across our businesses, resulting in after-tax adjusted operating income per share of $2.14. Notably, group life and AD&D, along with colonial life, had record levels of earnings, and group disability met our expectations. Alongside the strong margins we saw, top-line trends were ahead of our expectations, with sales growth of 14.4%, through persistency increasing 2.7% year-over-year to 92%, and core premium growth of 3.9%. While premium growth is slightly below our 4% to 7% full-year expectation, we had expected this to accelerate and build throughout the year. Adjusting for the runoff of the stock loss business and the transactions executed last year, core premium growth would have been just over 5%. Before moving on to our segment results, I will remind you that this is the first quarter reporting under our new definition of after-tax adjusted operating earnings, which excludes the closed block. While the closed block earnings are no longer represented in our headline adjusted after-tax operating income, I will spend some time later in the call to talk about key trends in that business. Diving into our quarterly operating results across the segments, The UNMUS segment produced adjusted operating income of $337.9 million in the first quarter of 2026 compared to $329.1 million in the first quarter of 2025. Group disability adjusted operating earnings of $106.6 million in the first quarter of 2026 reflect a benefit ratio of 63.7% compared to 61.8% in the year-ago period and an improvement from 64.2% in the fourth quarter of last year. Overall, long-term disability results are consistent with the assumptions embedded in the models that underpinned our guidance last quarter and reflect continued progress as the line continues to normalize. With that said, the quarter did include higher incidents in the short-term disability product line compared to the same period a year ago. Specifically, Paid family and medical leave experience was somewhat elevated in newer PFML states and modestly pressured in existing jurisdictions, reflecting continued investment in the attractive leave opportunity discussed earlier. As PFML remains a maturing market, our standard one-year rate guarantees provide flexibility to respond quickly. Excluding PFML, group disability experience was solid and within expectations, supported by stable incidents strong recoveries, and a rational pricing environment. Results for UNMUS Group Life and AD&D include adjusted operating income of $115.1 million for the first quarter of 2026 compared to $69.2 million in the same period a year ago. The benefit ratio decreased to 61.8% compared to 69.3% in the first quarter of 2025, driven by lower incidents. This result was extremely favorable compared to our outlook of 70%, and we've now seen multiple years of better than expected results, averaging in the mid to high 60s. We believe that this moderate level of outperformance could continue to persist. Adjusted operating earnings for the Unum U.S. supplemental and voluntary lines were $116.2 million in the first quarter, a decrease from $140.7 million in the first quarter of 2025. decline in earnings was driven in part by last year's long-term care transaction, which seeded a portion of our IDI business, but also by unfavorable underlying experience in that line. Turning to premium and sales, our top-line trends remain healthy. Unimus premium grew 3.3% with support from high levels of persistency. Excluding the impact from the runoff of the stop-loss business and our transaction last year, U-M-U-S premium grew just over 5% year over year. Our pipeline for future growth remains strong. U-M-U-S quarterly sales were $335.1 million compared to $277.5 million in the first quarter of 2025. Total group persistency of 92% increased sequentially from the fourth quarter and from the same period last year. reflecting the enduring relationships we are able to create with our customers. Moving to Unum International, adjusted operating income for the first quarter was $30.9 million compared to $38.7 million in the first quarter of 2025, and below our outlook for earnings in the low $40 million range. The international segment's benefit ratio was 71% compared to 66.5% in the year-ago period, driven by unfavorable experience in the UK business. Adjusted operating income for the Unum UK business was £20.4 million in the first quarter, compared to £29.5 million in the first quarter of 2025. The results reflect underlying claims performance, including a benefit ratio of 72.9%, compared to 76.1% a year ago. The change in benefit ratio was primarily due to larger average claim size in our group long-term care disability business in 2026. International premiums continue to show growth, increasing 8.1% and are supported by healthy persistency levels and sales growth of 5.5%. Premium growth was broad-based, with UK premium growing 6.5% and Poland premium growing 15.2%. Next, adjusted operating income for the colonial life segment of $127.8 million in the first quarter was a record and increased from $115.7 million in the first quarter of 2025, driven by strong benefits experience and underlying premium growth. The benefit ratio of 46% compared to 47.7% in the year-ago period and was better than our expectation of the range of 48% to 50%. Premium income of $472.7 million compared to $457.3 million in the first quarter of 2025 and was driven by strong sales in the prior year and stable persistency. Sales in the first quarter of $106.3 million were up slightly from the prior year. Colonial life produced strong returns, including ROE of 19.2%. I will now provide an update on the closed block, focusing less on the earnings results and more on key business trends and balance sheet health. Long-term CARES results this quarter were largely influenced by employers' decisions to cease coverage following the discontinuation of new employee enrollments on existing GLTC cases that we announced in the third quarter of last year and that was effective in February of 2026. As a result of these decisions, we saw elevated GAAP accounting volatility from these closed cases which is acutely seen in the headline segment earnings results. Despite the margin in these closed cases, which reduced current period gap earnings, we are very pleased to reduce the associated exposure and tail risk in the block. In addition, first quarter results included amortization of reinsurance costs related to the LTC reinsurance transaction that closed in July of 2025, which did not impact the year-ago period. Outside of these impacts, underlying experience trends remain in line with expectations. Combined with the underlying benefits experience, the NPR increased 10 basis points to 97.6% on a sequential basis. Other key considerations for monitoring the block's health include our fair wind protection remaining stable at approximately $2.2 billion and continued success with our premium rain increase program with our achievement rate sitting at approximately 15% for our current program. Then lastly, for the closed block, our alternative investment portfolio, which mainly supports LTC, had an annualized yield of 6.7% in the quarter, below our long-term expectation of 8% to 10%. We typically see seasonality in first quarter marks due to the timing of receiving year-end statements, and therefore remain confident in the construction and resiliency of this portfolio i'll end by covering our capital position in the quarter capital metrics across the board remain robust holding company liquidity stood at 1.7 billion dollars and traditional rbc at 460 percent both above our long-term targets and consistent with our expectations these levels keep us on track to achieve our full year outlook of 400 to 425 percent rbc and $2 to $2.5 billion of holding company liquidity. Our robust capital position is supported by statutory after-tax operating income of $314 million in the first quarter, positioning us for our full-year expectation of $1.4 to $1.6 billion of total capital generation. This cash generation model paired with our strong position enables our durable approach to deploying capital to our shareholders. In the quarter, we took the opportunity to execute a dynamic approach to share repurchase, buying back around $400 million of stock. While we are constantly evaluating our capital deployment plans, we view these actions as a pull forward of our plan and remain on track to repurchase $1 billion of stock this year, representing all of the free cash flow we plan to generate. Our thoughtful share repurchase paired with our common stock dividend of $78.4 million put first quarter deployment just under a half a billion dollars, underscoring our ongoing focus of executing prudent capital management. So all in all, it is a solid start to the year for the company. The encouraging top line trends and strong margins across many of our products illustrate the high quality nature of our business. This, paired with our continued active management of the closed block and opportunistic acceleration of share repurchases, provides us with healthy optimism for the remainder of the year and positions us well to execute against our goals. I will now turn it over to Rick for his closing comments before going to your questions.

Thank you, Steve. And overall, you heard from both Steve and I that we delivered a strong first quarter. It reinforces both our near-term momentum and our confidence in the company's long-term positioning as we move through the year. Before we move to Q&A, I want to recognize an important leadership transition for our company. After more than four decades at Unum, Tim Arnold has decided to retire in July. Tim has been a highly respected leader with a significant impact on our voluntary benefits businesses, particularly at Colonial Life, where he has been the president for the past 11 years. Tim is one of the few people who has lived in each of our four major locations and has impacted the people and the communities he has served. We are grateful for his many contributions and the legacy he leaves behind. We're also very pleased with the planned leadership transition, including the appointment of Steve Jones, currently Colonial Life's head of market and field development, as the next president of Colonial Life. This reflects the depth of our management team and our focus on continuity and long-term growth. We will look forward to Steve joining us on this call in the future. So with that, operator, we'd be happy to take questions we have out there.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you're muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question from the line of Alex Kott with Barclays. Your line is open.

Please go ahead. Thanks, and good morning. First one I had is on the paid family medical leave. I wanted to see if you could provide a little more color on what you're seeing in that product line as you're moving into new states, and just help us understand if we should continue you know, expect to continue to see some pressure there until we hit another renewal cycle or, you know, what you saw in first quarter is a little more, you know, one-off in nature.

Yeah, thanks, Alex, for the question. It's Rick. I just wanted to say that this is an important part of the overall mix. And so when we think about it, you know, we think about it, it's been consolidated in our group disability results, which, as you can see, very high returning business. And so this is a new developing area. It's one we've been talking about for a long time. But certainly, we can give us some more details behind that, which is just an extension, as I mentioned, of our leave business. But maybe, Chris, we can give some more context in terms of the dynamics in the paid family medical leave currently. Sure. Thanks, Rick. And thanks, Alex.

You know, ultimately, this is an exciting time in our business. If you think about PFML and the states that have come on over time, and, you know, most recently, Minnesota and Delaware were, you know, added one-on-one, and then they will come up in the first quarter this year. This is an expansion of a business we're in, giving more employers the requirement to be covered for short-term disability on the employee side, but also adding coverage for family events where people need to be away from work. So it really fits the work and the investments we've made in the lead business where you bundle products and services to make sure that we can be that partner to employers as they manage their workforce for both regulated events and also just what they want to provide in terms of flexibility for their employee population. You know, Wednesdays come on. We deal with it like any other new line of business coming on in a state. And you can see some pressure from pent-up demand that happens at times. We manage it. The good thing about PFML is it is high-frequency type coverage like short-term disability. It gets credible quickly. You can see how the experience emerges, and it is short in terms of rate guarantee. So normally a one-year rate guarantee gives us the opportunity to reprice, and we've been doing that. at current and will continue to do that. It also can give you a little bit of lift in sales. Normally that's been small enough to just be absorbed into our business because it's one state at a time. And, you know, obviously our disability business is quite large. When you have two or more or it's a larger state, it can show up a little bit. And that does provide a little bit of tailwind in sales. But I would bring you back to, you know, this is the business we're in. This is the business that employers need our help with. So it's an exciting time. When new states come on, that is part of it. As prior states mature in terms of how the experience plays out, that's given us, you know, more information. And we'll continue to adjust price and manage that business very well, which is part of our heritage.

That's all, Paul. Thank you. Second one I had is on long-term care. Can you talk about those enforced management actions that you're taking? And just the 7%, can you tell me about what portion of the policies had that renewal that occurred this quarter? And how much are you expecting to renew that you're working on some of these actions with through the rest of the year? So how do we think about that 7% potentially growing to a larger percentage of the total? group LTC.

Yeah, thanks, Alex. Let me just provide a little bit more context around our LTC actions. We've been taking them now for several years. As we've said, it's been methodical addressing different parts of our book of business. That includes rate increases, which we've been doing now for a long period of time. Also includes the capital actions we've taken behind Fairwind over the last several years, and then most recently last year on the risk transfer that we did as part of that And then in the third quarter, we took some actions around new lives on group cases, and I think that that has some impacts that we've started to see coming out there. And, Steve, maybe you can take us through some of the details about what we saw specific to this quarter.

Yeah, yeah. So I would go back to last year when we notified our employer base that we were going to be no longer accepting new lives on existing cases. And what that did is it really – It really started a lot of conversations with our employer groups just about the value of the program, the future of the program. You get into the discussions about kind of what we're looking for going forward around our rate increase program. And it's just a point in time where they evaluate things. their entire employee benefits package and how the LTC plans might fit into that. And so as a result of some of those discussions, we did have much higher levels of employer level terminations of those cases. We did quote that about 7% of our cases did terminate in the first quarter. That equates to approximately 30,000 actual lives on a net basis that would have ceased coverage during that period of time. And so, you know, as we think about just ongoing communications with our customers, that's part of the conversation. We will continue to have those going forward. I would say as we look forward, first quarter is probably the most acute that we'd feel the impact, but we could see, you know, future terminations on some cases as those conversations continue. I would just pull it back up, though. I know there's a lot of gap accounting noise on this one. But at the end of the day, we're having good conversations with our clients. As a result, we've reduced risk exposure, tail risk on that book of business, and we just view it as another part of us thinking about how to manage this business going forward.

Your next question from the line of Tom Gallagher with Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. First question is just on how to think about guidance over the balance of the year. I heard your comment on group life in AD&D, how you think that's probably going to trend somewhat favorable relative to initial assumption. I don't know. Can you just mention, have you changed anything for the other businesses? It does seem like international is running somewhat adverse and I guess group disability The loss ratio sounds like it might be more toward the high end of the range, if I'm reading you correctly on this PFML issue, assuming that persists for a bit. But can you just talk about how are you thinking about the different businesses over the balance of the year? Thanks.

Yeah, this is Steve. I mean, I would zoom up and just say we feel very comfortable in the guidance range that we've given, you know, based on what we've seen in the first quarter, the drivers of some of the margins in the first quarter and how we look to the back half of the year. I'd start with we feel great about growth within our core businesses, and that's a real driver then of bottom line. So everything we're seeing commercially would very much support the top line growth that will drive the earnings that we have in that outlook. We did have some variances against kind of original expectations in the first quarter. You mentioned group life. That was a great result for us. We do think that there's a possibility that'll continue to be somewhat favorable to the 70%. But as you know, group life can be very volatile. So we just have to see how the year plays out. International benefit ratio was a little bit higher. There was kind of some one-off things around just the average size of new disability claims. Um, we don't believe that will persist, uh, that that'll be why cherry for us though. And, you know, we'll monitor that as the year goes on colonial had a great quarter. Um, really everything from a benefit ratio perspective was very positive. We have a lot of different products within that, and there's usually a little bit of offsetting of performance, but this quarter, everything was very positive. And then there's some other lines where we had some variations, including group disability, but they were all within our range. going into kind of planning for that ultimate outlook. So, Tom, at this point, we're one quarter in. And so I'd say we still feel very good about the broad outlook range that we gave at the beginning of the year.

Gotcha. Thanks for that color, Steve. My follow-up also, long-term care. Can you give a little bit of color for how big are the – How big are the group LTC reserves relative to the total of, we'll call it 14 billion or so? And did you, when you had a 17% reduction from non-renewals, can you provide a little more transparency? What did that do to reserve levels versus the capital that make up the 2.2 billion of access over best estimates in Fairwind? Thanks.

Yeah, Tom, so it wasn't 17%. We had a 7% reduction in cases in the first quarter due to employers ceasing the coverage in their plans. What I would tell you is kind of from a statutory reserving perspective, we did release reserves in the first quarter of the year and felt very good about that. I kind of zoom back a little bit and just think about the protections that we have in Fairwind generally. And mechanically, what happens is we release those statutory reserves and those, in essence, flow into excess capital and fair wind. And when you think about our definition of protections in fair wind, it's a combination of the margins that we have in the reserves and the excess capital. It was pretty much neutral. And so the way I think about it is we still have $2.2 billion of protections in fair wind on a block that's smaller. And so net on net, feel like we have more relative protection in Fairwind for the remaining block there. We haven't really disclosed the split between group and individual statutory reserves. And so that's something we consider going forward. There is a lot of demographic information about the split between individual and group in our annual investor packet that we send out as part of that call.

Your next question from the line of Sunit Kamath with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. Just wanted to start out congratulating Tim Arnold on his retirement, but I did want to ask him a question. Just on the voluntary business, you know, we're starting to see some reports of states telling insurance companies to lower premiums on certain products. Just wondering if you're seeing any of that in terms of your business?

Yes, this is Tim. Thank you so much for the congratulations on the retirement. I appreciate that. You know, there have been states throughout the last 10, 15 years who've had loss ratio requirements that differ. And so it's not something new that we're working through, but we are seeing a couple of additional instances where states are inquiring about loss ratios and just trying to make sure that the products are performing as they were originally priced.

Got it. Okay. And then I guess turning to Unimus, I mean, the 20% sales growth was pretty strong. I think most of it's from the core market, but can you just kind of unpack that a little bit? How much of that is, you know, sales to existing customers versus new customers and, you know, any comment on kind of the natural growth that you typically talk about on these calls? Thanks.

Yeah, Sunid, actually, we'll let Chris get into that, but I think it would be helpful to actually talk about sales around the horn because I think we had a really good sales quarter and In the US, but I think that that was other places as well, so Chris you want to start us off maybe we'll ask mark and TIM talk a little about sales as well great.

Thanks indeed yes strong sales in the quarter 20% growth and you know we're thrilled as we look at that sales growth that we continue to tie back. To where we've made investments and capabilities, no surprise HR connect, and you know connecting to the platforms of choice. hugely popular with our new sales and also growing existing sales when that type of connection is in place. Total Leave is a huge driver of decisions that people make, and they buy a bundle when they do that for both Total Leave and HR Connect-type platforms. I want to also reinforce that we've got a very strong marketing alignment in terms of going out and finding the right types of prospects. so that we know where to spend time and energy and our brokers and consultants are focused on the right things when it comes to making a difference for their client base. That's an exciting partnership. It's nice to see that alignment all the way through the sales funnel. You referenced that new sales for small and mid customers are really strong. There's a little bit of tailwind with PFML in that space, but even when you strip that out, new sales for small and mid customers are really strong. Nice to see that growth year over year. First quarter is a little bit more volatile. It's a small quarter for us in terms of our national client group. And, you know, again, we did see some tailwind from PFML in the large space with Maine coming on 5-1, which we see in the quarter. But, you know, overall, the fundamentals of where we're winning tied to capabilities, winning on new and growing our business have been really positive. Great start to the year. So thanks for asking.

Tim, you want to follow up? Yes, Gerald. I'll start with the Unum VB side of the house. Extremely strong sales in the first quarter, up 24% year over year. New sales were at a record level. And the VB business on the Unum side, the first quarter is the biggest quarter of the year, so it's particularly comforting to see the business get off to a plus 24% start. It bodes well for the remainder of the year. On the Cloning Life side, sales were a little sluggish in the quarter. However, I would just bring you back to the fourth quarter where sales growth was almost 10%. I think we had a little bit of a soft pipeline coming into 2026. But I would tell you the fundamentals and the leading indicators remain very strong. Recruiting is very strong. We like the number of sales managers we have in the organization and the performance that they are demonstrating. We saw strong sales in the quarter from new clients and also from large case clients. had a little bit of weakness in the existing client sales base. And Ashley Motter and the sales team were working hard to get that back on track. And we believe that the remainder of the year, there's reason to be optimistic. If you look at the gap between where we finished the first quarter at Colonial Life and where we thought we would be, it's about 1% of total annual sales. So we certainly think that that is recoverable. And then if I may, Suneet, since you started the question with my retirement, I'd be remiss not to say I'm extremely excited about Steve Jones. I've had the opportunity to work with him now for two and a half years since he joined Colonial Life as the head of sales and marketing support, field and market development. He is an incredibly strong leader. He's led two other P&Ls in his career. And I think this transition is going to be extremely smooth. He's very much aligned to all the things that we've been doing and he's got some ideas of his own that I think are pretty exciting. And so really, really happy to have Steve in the role moving forward.

Mark Broughton- Good good thanks TIM and mark let's talk a little bit about international.

Mark Broughton- Thanks for it. Mark Broughton- If you look at international as a whole in dollars sales were up 14% as we know, the UK is the predominant part of that so if I perhaps touch on on local currency sales in the UK, they were at 15% on the quarter. I always think sales are a function of the proposition that you have and the way in which the brokers in the UK market view you. We've been investing hard in broker service, digital propositions. It was last week that actually an independent survey by NMG on brokers rated us the number one for Net Promoter Score, and we led the market in pretty much every major capability, whether that's relationship management, claims management, absence management, rehab, product value-added service. Those are the things that contribute Those are the things that contribute to the growth in the business. We also got some data last week that said that in 2025, we were the number one writer of new business in the UK market. So I think we've got some confidence that we have the support of brokers and the propositions to be able to drive the growth and sales in the business over time.

Good, thanks, Mark. There you have it. I mean, I think it is a broad-based story, and so I didn't want to focus on just the USP. Sales looked very good across the enterprise and the quarter. Thanks for the question.

Your next question from the line of Jack Madden with BMO. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Just one follow-up on the group LTC actions. I guess what you said is that Unum is incentivizing its group customers in any way to terminate their cases, or do you plan to offer any incentives there? Or is it really just these terminations are an outcome from more normal course conversations around things like rate increases?

Yeah, this is Steve. Absolutely no incentive. This is a unilateral decision that a group HR director makes. when they're looking at their entire benefit package for their employees and just evaluating the value of the different pieces of that package. And so we're obviously here to have that conversation with them and discuss their options with their plan. But there's absolutely no incentive coming from us. And from our perspective, the key is for us to continue to serve those customers that remain in force. And that's what our team's focused on. But we're also there to help give customers a little bit of education and, you know, help an administrator through their decision.

Got it. That makes sense. And then my thoughts on the international business and I think some of the pressure you talked about in UK group LTD. Can you just unpack it a little bit more? Was that more frequency or severity issue? And do you view any of the trends there as something that could persist for a period of time? Or do you view it more as just a one-off this quarter?

Yeah, this is Steve. I can cover that one. It definitely was, for the quarter, an average size for the long-term disability business over there. And really, the size of new claims is a function of just those individual claims that come in based on diagnosis, based on occupancy, based on you know, based on the industry. And so we have a lot of data to say those types of claims when they come in, this is the reserve that we need to set up. And so you just, you get into some of these quarters where just the mix of those claims drive a higher expected size of claims than what you would have expected. So really, really nothing to do with the incidence counts specifically there. I will say we've seen that in the U.S. business as well over time. And they tend to just be kind of anomalies that you see in a quarter. And so right now, we would view it as just some first quarter volatility. But obviously, we're going to need to look at that as the year plays out and see how that impacts our view of the outlook for the business.

Your next question from the line of Joel Hurwitz. with Dowling. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. First, Rick, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned that you were encouraged by opportunities and progress that's been made on further risk transfer. Can you just elaborate what you're seeing in the market and I guess any optimism in getting another deal done this year?

Yeah, thanks, Joel. And as I talk about that, I look back to the transaction last year. It's been just over a year since we announced the transaction closed at mid-year last year. Very happy with how that performed, how that went through close, and we think it's just a good overall impact to the risk transfer. We've talked a little bit about what's happening on the group side today, but we are looking across the book with different counterparties to think about what are other ways that we can use reinsurance and risk transfer to help mitigate that. So coming off of a successful 2025, we also at that time said we're deal ready. We're ready to go for the next tranche. It's just about finding the right counterparty. So we have the preparation and the teams are ready to do that. We have a strong desire to remove this risk, which we have been very consistent on, and that's in multiple forms in terms of taking the risk across the enterprise. And on the risk transfer side, the market is constructive. I think we've used that term constructive before. There are a number of players out there that – might take on this type of risk. Lots of interest that's out there, but getting interest to be actionable takes some time because it does take a good qualified counterparty who's willing to do the work. But there are a number of people out there willing to take the biometric risk. And I think part of the development we saw a couple of years ago is the ability of companies to parse the risk between the biometrics and the asset management side, which is such an important piece as well. And there are a number of players out there thinking about the biometric side. There are many players out there thinking about the asset side of it. And then how do you bring it all together? So I'd put it with the same category. It's constructive where the team is active, does not necessarily mean any deal will come to fruition. This is still complicated, hard work, and we're going to do the right thing in terms of shareholders as well when we take off that risk. And so, but we're working hard at it. And I think that, you know, we'll continue to continue to have this to be a priority in the company to remove the risk of LTC from the balance sheet.

Great, thanks. And then just shifting to group life, just I guess, can you unpack the experience? Was it all essentially frequency and then just given, I think it's been a little over two years now of continued strong results in group life. When does that get reflected back in pricing or is the benefit ratio in in the 60s for this line, sort of the new normal now?

Yeah. So in the quarter, it was definitely just incidents. These tend to be lower face amount type policies and group lives. So normally when you see kind of fluctuations in overall benefit ratios, it's just going to be driven by the number of claims that we receive in a period. And that's definitely what we saw in the first quarter, very, very low number of claims submitted. When I kind of zoom back a little bit, You know, if you go back and you look at the average benefit ratio in this line, going back many quarters, it's been kind of in that high 60% range. So this quarter was really an anomaly and doesn't necessarily, you know, change our view of the block significantly. I did make a comment that, you know, if we're looking forward, it may be in that high 60% range benefit ratio. But I would say from a market and a pricing perspective, we'll take it into account, but it is just one quarter of very, very good performance. And we'd have to see that play out for longer really before it impact pricing in a big way. And like all of our products, we look at this in a bundled way as we're working with our cases. And so we'll look at the overall economics of the case. And over time, it could factor in, but right now I think it's too early.

Yeah, I think that's an important point, Joel. When you think about it, it is that bundling factor. We've been talking about that a lot in the group disability and the great results we've seen there. It's more than just the standalone product line, what it's doing. It's more about the relationship, our risk selection, all those different things that come in. And as we've talked about leave management and the wrapper around that, that's all important. So it's good to look at. We're very happy with the results, but it's really hard to predict in terms of where that's going to go or how the market will factor some of that in.

Your next question from the line of Wes Carmichael with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Wes Carmichael, Wells Fargo, Hey, thank you. Good morning. I wanted to come back to Group LTC for a second on the terminations and the 7%. Just looking at the statutory annual filings, I think the Group LTC reserves are around $7.5 billion at the end of 2025. So I'm just curious, Steve, does that imply that the reserve releases are in the neighborhood of call it $500, $525 million? Is there any help you can give us on the impact on the statutory front?

Yeah, what I'll tell you on that one, you can't just kind of use averages to think about what a statutory reserve release might look like just because the policies are in different ages, there's different benefit coverages, and so it's kind of hard just to do that. What I'll tell you is on a net basis, the statutory reserve release It was less than $100 million. It was significant, but it wasn't something that would change a capital plan or change the way we think about protections on the balance sheet. We're very happy. For us, the main thing is we're very happy reducing the risk exposure, but not a big capital impact, I would say, in the quarter. But as you said, the reserves on these are going to be positive for statutory purposes, so there will always be a reserve release.

Yep, that's helpful, and I totally acknowledge the reduction in risk along – sorry, was it something else? No. Okay. Just a second question. I guess moving to Unum U.S., just on expenses, and I think I asked about this last quarter, and you guys had hinted that maybe there is some potential operating leverage coming, but any thought on how you can improve the expense ratio going forward in Unum U.S.? ?

Yeah, I mean, we kind of think about it in the aggregate and kind of take it to the top of the house of the consolidated operating expense. You know, I think the comments that we made is our expectation for 2026 is going to be, you know, that that's going to be relatively flat with maybe some improvement as we work our way through the year. We are driving productivity within the organization, which we think is important, but we're also investing back into what we're trying to do commercially. And so I think if, you know, if you want to look for the this period in 2026. I think it'll be a pretty neutral story, all things being considered.

Your next question from the line of Ryan Krueger with KBW. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Morning. I had a question on the traditional group persistency improvement of about three points year over year. Can you talk about the, I guess, the dynamics that you think led to that, both from a market perspective and maybe anything unit specific?

Yeah, thanks, Ryan. It's Chris. Persistency is really strong. We're thrilled with the beat we had with persistency, and we do think it reflects very directly the investments we've made in capabilities. You know, we've got historical evidence that continues where there's a spread and persistency in terms of higher persistency where you've got either HR Connect technology investments and or total leave. And we expect, you know, that trend to continue. So a couple of that, you know, with the fact that we talk about consistent and transparent discussions around price and, you know, when things are going really well, we'll make sure we set the price on a go forward basis in a way that reflects, you know, good value to us and fair value to the to the consumer um employers appreciate that it shows up in terms of persistency and we can keep customers with a you know modest rate reduction going forward at very high margins that's a good day and uh when you tie that to uh you know Full bundle, lots of different products, lots of services that we provide, including fairly significant and, from a volume perspective, intense things like managing leave. Customers' value are what we do for them, and we feel the persistency. While not always going to hit the high that we had this quarter, it is going to be a real kind of key to growth in the future. Great. Thank you.

Your next question from the line of Mark Hughes from Truist. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. On the flip side of that, I think supplemental and voluntary persistency, perhaps down a little bit, I think still within normal range. Any strategies to see similar improvement like you've seen in those core group disability, life, and AD&D?

You want to take that? Go ahead, Chris. Talk about the voluntary business. I would start with the wrapper, though, because those things that Chris talked about are important overall in terms of the digital connections we have, et cetera. But, you know, our voluntary business does have a little bit lower persistency at the employee level. Tim, maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, Rick, that's right on. That's exactly where we experienced the pressure in the quarter. So as we continue to attach the voluntary benefits business on the UNM side to our LEED program, And to our platform partnerships with through HR Connect and Broker Connect and things of that nature, we're seeing improving persistency on the employer choice side. We had what I would describe as volatility in the first quarter on what we call member lapses. So policyholders who are either changing employers or for whatever reason dropping their coverage, the overwhelming majority of those are changing employers. And so we're taking a deeper look at that just to make sure that we are fully understanding it, and then we'll put together any actions that are necessary to bring that back. But we think a big part of it was just some volatility in the quarter.

Yeah, and I might just underscore Tim's point. It's a really good one. Those conversations when you're in talking holistically about human capital management platform and the full portfolio, we have the chance to talk about you know, how to make sure that ongoing enrollments remain strong and we get persistency left over time. So glad Tim led him with that.

Appreciate that. Thank you. And then the corporate outlook for the balance of the year, what do you expect in terms of the corporate loss? Yeah, this is Steve.

I would say mid-40s loss is probably about where I peg it. You know, it was a little bit light. The loss was, I think, a little bit light this quarter, but that would be probably where I would estimate it being going forward for the year.

Your next question from the line of Pablo Singson with JPM. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. One more question on the Union International, where you referenced macro dynamics in the UK. Was that related to inflation potentially picking up again, economic outlook, or something to do with underlying risk experience that you had already commented on? Thanks.

Mark, I don't know if you picked up the question, but it was talking about just the macro environment and if that's causing some of the benefits, and you specifically highlighted inflation, so it's a little hard to hear.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say that the macroeconomic environment in the UK is not as strong as it has been for the last couple of years. We have some slightly higher inflation. The Bank of England has yet to respond with higher interest rates and actually sent some very calming messages saying that it wasn't going to do that. But there has been a little bit of a slowdown in, we saw in 2025 in existing employers adding lives to schemes, but actually that picked up in quarter one 26. So at the moment I would say, I think there's a mood is a little bit lower, but not lots of sign that the economic activity is much lower.

Yeah. The other thing that I'd add, Pablo, because I think you maybe have a specific question about was the benefit ratio somehow influenced by some of our policies that are inflation-linked? And I would say that that's not a significant contributor this quarter. It's more just around the average size of some of the claims submissions.

Yep, thank you for that. And then second question, U.S. supplemental. One key was below the quarterly run we get provided before. I think it was 120 to 130, and the loss ratio was a high enough year range. Can you give us an updated auto clear? Thank you.

Yeah, you know, there's not really anything in there specific that I would say would be recurring. We still feel really good about kind of the quarterly outlook that we get for supplemental and voluntary. IDI claims were a little bit high for the quarter. We saw a little bit of volatility in voluntary benefits, but nothing that we're looking to really continue as we proceed through the remainder of the year. So not really changing our viewpoint on ongoing earnings there.

Your next question from the line of Tracy Van Gogh with Wolf Research. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Most of my questions are asked, so just one for me. I appreciate you clarifying that $100 million of reserves for the group LTC case exits was not material enough to move the needle on capital. So just taking a step back, can you share what you need to see to reallocate some of your $2.2 billion of LTC protection? into excess capital?

Yeah, Steve, we feel really good about leaving the protections down in Fairwind right now. We don't really have any other needs for that capital necessarily. We would have the ability to dividend some of that up to the holding company, but as everybody knows, we have plenty of excess capital at the holding company to have flexibility to do what we need to do. So right now, we think the most prudent thing is to leave that protection down in Fairwind, that also possibly, you know, could support a transaction in the future. So we just think it's good use of capital right now, Tracy.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Your next question from the line of Mike Ward with UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks for squeezing me in, guys. Just wanted to go back to the paid family medical. Um, I'm just wondering if you're able to kind of like help us size the actual underwriting, uh, you know, business that you've gotten from the state, these management programs, um, just cause it, you know, you've spoken about this for a couple of years, but I, you know, kind of understood it was like a fee for service kind of model.

Yeah, Mike, Chris, thanks for the question. And when you talk about leave, there is an element that is fee-for-service, and that's somebody can have us outsource their corporate leaves and FMLA, which is the federal leave job protection component. But the PFML that generally gets most of the discussion, and there are different flavors, is when a state has a mandatory plan and they provide for a private option. We very much like to play in those spaces, and we have an offering that will be compliant with the state requirements, and we can incorporate that into the broader program. short-term disability and long-term disability play. It ties in with lead management in total, helping employers keep track of what their different employee populations are eligible for because inside of one employer, obviously you have multiple states frequently and different rules apply to different people. But really it's the insured component of not just a paid leave associated with a medical claim the employee has, but also an event that a family member may have where they need to take time away, and they also get insurance cover for that. When you, you know, maybe to just size it, you know, it's still less than 10% of our overall disability book, and normally when one state comes on at a time, it doesn't have that much impact. You know, I think this quarter, as we referenced, you know, we had two larger states that, excuse me, Minnesota being a little larger and Delaware, That showed up a little bit in the loss ratio and also new sales coming on can have an effect in a smaller quarter like the first quarter for when Maine comes on. But in general, that's the element of PFML that we're talking about outside of the fee-for-service lead management business that you historically know.

Okay, thanks. And then is it, like are you seeing, is it parental leave or is it more so that sort of family member that is ill that needs care? And is there anything that prevents that from becoming a long-term claim if it's a family member?

Great question. So think about, so your short-term disability long has forever been, maternity has been the most prominent claim in short-term disability. That now gets extended for the birth mother and also the paternity leave associated with it. So a mother can go longer than historically, just the, you know, the element of giving birth and the time after birth. There are, you know, frequently there are a set number of weeks that they're eligible to stay out. And then there is a paternity factor, which has become, you know, a very meaningful bonding element of family medical leave that is real. But there's also a cap on that. Same with family members. So if you have a sick parent or a sick child or some reason you're taking time away from work, all of these things are capped. So they're eligible to be used, but they very much have a tail. That's part of what we do for employers is we actually keep track of how long somebody has been away from work, what they're eligible for, how long they can be paid. And then part of our job is to tell them when they've exhausted that cover.

And I think, Mike, the important thing is all of that can be priced for. And so that's how you respond to changes that might emerge in that book. It's a very short tail, and the pricing cycle is very short as well.

Our next question from the line of Wilma Burtis with Raymond James. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. The lapses in group LTC are Can you just go into a little bit more detail? Was it one large account that left or was it a lot of small accounts? Maybe just kind of give us some visibility there. We're trying to evaluate just, you know, is the product just not as attractive as it once was? I know you mentioned that it is still attractive, but maybe just give us a little bit of color there. Or was it just kind of one big account and just help us think about how we should think about it going forward? Thanks.

Yeah, Steve, I think kind of a good articulation of it is we did have 7% of cases terminate, so it was definitely broad-based. It wasn't that there were, you know, a couple major accounts in there that terminated their plan. It was more broad-based. And it's just based on, you know, kind of the value that an HR director views with their budget of how they spend their money because many of these tend to be funded by the employer, and so that's just a decision that they're making. as they think about the broader benefit package.

Thank you. And then we haven't seen as many of your peers lean into buybacks to the extent that UNM did this quarter. Can you just talk about how you guys view that kind of tactical buybacks going forward? Thanks.

Yeah, when we think about it, I appreciate that, Wilma. You know, it's very consistent with the things that we've talked about overall in terms of taking our overall generation and then with a similar amount of deployments. Billion dollars over the course of the year was our plan is our plan currently and we just saw the opportunity to actually buy more we sit in excess capital, so it was not it was not challenging to make that decision. and we were opportunistic in the market. But I think one of the things we said, we want to be dynamic in that share repurchase. We showed that in the first quarter. We're not changing the longer-term outlook on that, but we want to make sure we're taking advantage of different things that we see in the market, and we did that in the first quarter. So very happy to retire 3% of our shares in the quarter, and we'll see what future quarters look like as well.

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back over to Rick McKinney for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you for joining us today. We do appreciate the engagement. So we will be out there upcoming opportunities to connect. We would note that our annual meeting will be held on May the 21st. You can all dial in for that as well or send questions. Thanks for your time. Please do send Tim Arnold a note. I'm sure he would appreciate it. And congratulations to him. And that concludes today's call. Thanks, everyone.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.