Q4 2023 Call Transcript
Horace Mann Educators Corporation NYSE:HMN
FQ4 2023 Earnings Call Transcripts
S&P Global Market Intelligence Estimates
-FQ4 2023- |
-FQ1 2024- |
-FY 2023- |
-FY 2024- |
|||||
CONSENSUS |
ACTUAL |
SURPRISE |
CONSENSUS |
CONSENSUS |
ACTUAL |
SURPRISE |
CONSENSUS |
|
EPS Normalized |
0.67 |
0.91 |
35.82 |
0.70 |
1.36 |
1.74 |
27.94 |
3.02 |
Revenue (mm) |
393.33 |
402.90 |
2.43 |
396.50 |
1482.33 |
1491.90 |
0.65 |
1629.37 |
Currency: USD |
Consensus as of Feb-08-2024
- EPS NORMALIZED -
CONSENSUS |
ACTUAL |
SURPRISE |
|
FQ1 2023 |
0.21 |
0.23 |
9.52 % |
FQ2 2023 |
0.02 |
0.03 |
50.00 % |
FQ3 2023 |
0.43 |
0.44 |
2.33 % |
FQ4 2023 |
0.67 |
0.91 |
35.82 % |
COPYRIGHT © 2024 |
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Contents
Table of Contents
Call Participants |
3 |
Presentation |
4 |
Question and Answer |
9 |
COPYRIGHT © 2024 |
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HORACE MANN EDUCATORS CORPORATION FQ4 2023 EARNINGS CALL
Call Participants
EXECUTIVES
Executive VP & CFO
Vice President of Investor Relations &
President, CEO & Director
Executive VP of
Benefits and Corporate Strategy
Executive VP & COO
ANALYSTS
Research Division
Research Division
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HORACE MANN EDUCATORS CORPORATION FQ4 2023 EARNINGS CALL
Presentation
Operator
Hello, and welcome to the Horace Mann Fourth Quarter and Year-End Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
I would now like to hand the call to
Vice President of Investor Relations
Thank you. Welcome to
Before turning it over to Marita, I want to note that our presentation today includes forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations, and we assume no obligation to update them. Actual results may differ materially due to a variety of factors, which are described in our news release and
I'll now tuthe call over to Marita.
President, CEO & Director
Thanks, Heather, and welcome, everyone. Yesterday, we reported full year 2023 core earnings of
I'll give an update on our strategic progress in a moment, but let me start with a look at 2023 across all three of our segments. Sales for the year were strong. Total revenue rose 8% for the year, with net premiums and contract deposits up 6% in total, including 11% growth in full year P&C premiums. All segments benefited from the 11% increase in net investment income to a record
Looking more closely at the results by segment. In P&C, there were many signs of progress. For the fourth quarter, segment earnings were
In property, the cumulative impact of rate actions and inflation adjustments of 25% through year-end, including about 15% in 2023, drove 13.2% growth in fourth quarter average written premiums. We continue to see auto earned premium growth ahead of loss cost growth and inflection point we reached in the third quarter, and weather activity in the quarter was more typical.
For the full year, results were in line with our updated guidance, reflecting the elevated weather losses experienced in the first 9 months of 2023. Life & Retirement was a solid contributor in 2023, delivering earnings of
Life sales were consistent year-over-year. Worksite agents enrolling educators and others who serve their communities in individual supplemental products are continuing to cross-sell our life products, contributing nearly 15% of sales for the full year. Supplemental
- Group Benefits segment full year net income was
$55 million at the top end of our updated guidance, providing valuable earnings diversification. Benefit ratios for both the worksite direct and employer-sponsored product lines still reflect lower than historic utilization, but continue to move closer to our long-term targets.
Total segment sales were up 63% with improved persistency. Our relationship with the
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HORACE MANN EDUCATORS CORPORATION FQ4 2023 EARNINGS CALL
to show signs of acceleration as we saw the total number of covered lives increased by more than 6% in 2023, and we introduced
In summary, we are pleased with the progress we saw throughout the year and are very confident with what comes next. Although Bret will discuss details of our 2024 outlook later in the call, let me give you a high-level overview. First, we expect the business to deliver core earnings of
Second, full year core ROE should be around 9% on track to achieving a sustained 10-plus percent ROE in '25 and beyond. Year- over-year improvement in the P&C segment is the key to our continued progress. Rate and non-rate actions already implemented or approved as well as stabilizing auto loss trends gives us a high level of confidence in our outlook for this segment. Both auto and property are on track to underwriting profits in 2024 and to our target combined ratios in 2025.
Our filing plan for 2024 adds 10% to 15% of additional rate for both auto and property, and we will continuously review emerging trends and adjust appropriately, just like we did in 2023. In property, there will also be 4% to 5% of additional premium impact from the change in coverage amounts related to this year's inflation factor. The most significant non-rate impact in 2024 will be our roof rating schedules, a change occurring across most of the industry to mitigate the volatility of convective storm activity. We've already introduced our roof schedules in both
Once in place, roof claims are settled using a predetermined schedule based on the age and construction material of the roof. About 1/3 of the ultimate benefit of this change will be earned in 2024. In addition to introducing the roof settlement schedules in our most wind-prone states, we will be increasing all peril deductibles and requiring percentage-based wind deductibles in selected markets. We are also leveraging some of the insights from more advanced modeling to take specific underwriting actions or very aggressive price increases at a local market level. Taken together, the impact of these non-rate actions will be important to reaching our targets in 2024 and beyond.
With a profitable P&C book on the horizon, we're very excited about the ways we're working to increase our share of the educator market. First is the strength of our exclusive agent network. In the schools, online or in their communities, our agents help us reach and retain educator customers. Auto quote activity from our agents was up more than 15% in the fourth quarter over last year as we are encouraging more sales-driven activity in states where we have a clear line of sight to target profitability.
And importantly, more than 95% of our 2023 P&C new business has been in these geographies. Combined with our multiline approach, our EA distribution model allows us to work with our agents in more challenging markets to maintain their focus on educator clients as well as shift their focus to life and retirement opportunities. Our agent's role as trusted financial adviser in the schools and districts they serve, clearly distinguishes them from the agents representing many of our peers and aligns well with our advancing digital strategy.
Among his many contributions,
The team recently enhanced the Horace Mann website. Although it's still early, we have seen an uptick in the number of people who start a quote online. Among the changes are enhanced ways to leaabout our broad suite of product offerings as well as the value- added offerings of our Educator Advantage program. A recent update alerted customers to add a discounts on home monitoring and security products.
The Worksite Division is also enhancing digital capabilities, rolling out the WISE Benefits website several months ago. This site addresses the information needs of districts and municipal representatives, working with brokers and benefit consultants, these decision-makers investigate Horace Mann offerings to leamore about our suite of employer paid or sponsored products and our company, the new website enhances their experience.
And finally, another reason why I'm confident in continued acceleration of our growth momentum is the success we're seeing in agent recruiting across the business. Retail agent recruiting was up 30% in 2023 as we are successfully bringing on board a diverse group to our unique value proposition. Our multiline product offering and homogeneous customer set are attractive to potential retail agents.
And on the worksite side, we've added new relationships with key brokers and benefit consultants as well as increased our individual supplemental agent team by over 20%, which bodes well for continued strong sales growth in this segment.
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As we look into 2024 and beyond, we're very confident in our outlook for each segment and the value of our multiline business model. Property & Casualty is on track to retuto historic profitability. Life & Retirement to continue to provide a solid earnings contribution. And Supplemental & Group Benefits to deliver the diversification value we have created. Further, we're augmenting the way educators can interact with us. Making certain we're meeting the needs with solutions that help them protect what they have today and prepare for a successful tomorrow. We will continue to strive to offer a fair price through varied market conditions, creating long- term value for our customers and for our company.
But our work goes even further. Our representatives continue to provide financial wellness workshops on topics like student loan forgiveness and state teacher retirement systems. They also help our customers create financial plans which places our representatives firmly in the role of trusted adviser. On a larger scale, we also support administrators and municipal employers looking to augment recruiting and retention by bolstering benefit packages with employer paid and sponsored coverages.
As we continue to meet the needs of customers and all of our stakeholders, the strength of our value proposition, combined with the outlook for each segment gives us confidence that we will reach our targets in 2024 and beyond.
Thank you. And with that, I'll tuthe call over to Bret.
Executive VP & CFO
Thanks, everyone, for joining our call today. Marita highlighted the value of our diversified business model and the momentum that we are seeing across our businesses. Now I'd like to walk you through the details of the business segment performance and specifics of our outlook for 2024.
Starting with P&C. Including a profit of
This estimate is in line with our 5-year average. It clearly shows the impact of the inflation-driven increases in weather-related losses over the past several years. It also reflects the expected benefit of our new roof schedules and other underwriting actions we are taking to mitigate convective storm volatility. As a reminder, our cat losses tend to be weighted to the second quarter, which typically represent about half of our annual cat losses.
For 2024, we are expecting a segment combined ratio near 100% with segment earnings of
For auto, net written premiums rose 11% in 2023 with retention flat versus 2022. The underlying loss ratio improved 1.1 points for 2023 and a solid 15.1 points in this year's fourth quarter versus a year ago. Those improvements reflect our cumulative rate increases over the past 2 years of 23% with an additional 10% to 15% currently anticipated in 2024. As those rates eain during 2024, keep in mind, about 2/3 of our auto book is on 6-month policies, we're confident we can reach our targeted combined ratio of 97% to 98% in 2025. As we noted last quarter, earned premium growth moved ahead of loss cost growth in the late summer of 2023.
Turning to property, net written premiums rose 10% in 2023, with retention improving slightly versus 2022. The cumulative 2- year premium impact of our rate increases and inflation adjustments was 25% through year-end 2023 and we are also planning an additional 10% to 15% in this line in 2024 to address the loss environment. The underlying loss ratio improved 3 points in the fourth quarter over last year's fourth quarter, but was up slightly in 2023 over 2022 due to the elevated non-cat weather losses during the first 9 months of 2023.
Weather frequency was 10% higher in 2023 than the 10-year average. As rates eain, along with the additional benefit from this year's inflation guard change, we're confident we will reach our target property combined ratio of 92% to 93% in 2025. Just a quick note that the renewal process for our 2024 property cat treaty was more orderly this year. Our 2024 retention is slightly higher at
Turning to Life & Retirement. The segment continues to deliver a strong performance with 2023 core earnings of
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The 2023 net interest spread on our fixed annuity business declined to 218 bps compared to 246 bps in 2022. It remains near our longer-term targeted range of 220 to 230 bps. The spread was affected by lower limited partnership returns as well as higher FHLB borrowing costs as credit spreads tightened year-over-year. The net dollar contributions from our FHLB funding agreements remained stable compared with 2022 with FHLB borrowing costs reflected in interest credited.
Our 2024 outlook anticipates the spread will be above our targeted range. Commercial mortgage loan returns are expected to exceed our historic averages driven by higher floating rates and stabilized valuations while limited partnership returns are expected to move back toward their historic averages. For the segment, total benefit expenses, the total of mortality costs and change in reserves was stable in 2023 versus 2022. Results reflect the relatively modest impact of the required LDTI assumption review. In 2024, our outlook reflects mortality rising modestly from the levels of the past several years.
For the Retirement business, net annuity contract deposits were up 6% to
Now let me tuto Supplemental and Group Benefits segment, where we are continuing to see the earnings diversification value of this higher growth, higher ROE and less capital-intensive business.
Full year 2023 premiums and contract charges earned were
For 2024, we expect core earnings to be between
20% to 21%. However, this segment does have a fair amount of seasonality, both in sales and benefit costs. The first quarter of any year can be expected to be the highest sales quarter for employer-sponsored products to align with the start of annual benefit years, but is potentially the lowest earnings quarter because of the timing of benefit utilization in our market.
The benefit ratio for employer-sponsored products should typically be at its lowest in the third calendar quarter. For this segment's business lines, 2023 sales in our worksite direct business, the supplemental products were up 64% to
For 2023, total net investment income rose 11% and net investment income on the managed portfolio increased 14% ahead of recent guidance due to strong fourth quarter results. The full year increase reflected the benefit of the higher interest rate environment on floating rate investments, which benefited all segments. Pretax investment yield on the portfolio, excluding limited partnerships, was 4.74% for 2023, rising to 4.94% in the fourth quarter, with new money yields continuing to exceed portfolio yields in the core fixed maturity securities portfolio.
The A+ rated core portfolio remains concentrated in investment-grade corporates, municipals and highly liquid agency and agency MBS securities, positioning us well for a potential recessionary environment without sacrificing income.
Looking to 2024, we expect total net investment income to increase to between
We use adjusted book value when we talk about core retuon equity. The ratio of debt to capital on a similarly adjusted basis was 26.9% at year-end. It remains at a level appropriate for our current financial strength ratings even after the issuance of
As a reminder, we used
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In summary, we're pleased with the progress we've made in 2023, putting us on track to our long-term target of sustainable double- digit ROEs. Fourth quarter 2023 core earnings of
Adjusted book value at year-end 2023 was
Our guidance also shows our confidence in our outlook with earnings expected to be about twice what we reported for 2023 and on track to our long-term objectives. More significantly, we continue to expect our progress toward our objectives will accelerate over the coming quarters as we remain focused on providing strong returns to shareholders.
We're excited about Horace Mann's future. Thank you. And with that, I'll tuit back to Heather.
Vice President of Investor Relations
Thank you. Operator, we're ready for questions.
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HORACE MANN EDUCATORS CORPORATION FQ4 2023 EARNINGS CALL
Question and Answer
Operator
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Today's first question comes from
Sorry, a little hiccup there. I know we've talked about this in the past. I want to go through the question that we've discussed in -- from a slightly different perspective. I know you've talked about the ability to either act as an agent for third-party insurers or retain business on the Horace Mann balance sheet really based on this expected profitability. And I was wondering, given, I guess, two things. One, the significant volatility that we've seen maybe twice in the last decade in particularly auto insurance. And second, the differentiated multiples that investors need to attach to distribution companies instead of underwriters, the long-term-- whether there's any change in the long-term thought of where Horace Mann should participate in the risk transfer.
President, CEO & Director
Yes. Thank you, Meyer. It's Marita. I appreciate the question. And you've asked that question from several different angles, and I really appreciate it. I mean, for us, I think it starts with at the very core, we're an educator company. We're not just a P&C company, and that's how we think about ourselves. So for us from the very beginning, it's been about household acquisition, how do we attract and retain educators, and now others who serve the community to the Horace Mann value proposition. And for us, we have many, many ways now to do that.
I mean you saw us build product and build solutions. We've done that. You've seen us acquire capabilities with NTA and MNL. You've seen us partner with other carriers like what you're talking about with our third-party strategy. And we've done that in many ways, and I still think there's more ways to do it. When you think about progressive for motorcycles and boats, you think about Chubb for higher-valued homes, those were products that made a lot of sense for us not to manufacture, right? But there's other uses as well, and you've seen some of that this year and clearly in the fourth quarter.
Our approach in
I mean, if you look at the investor deck, we've reached 1 million educator households. That's a lot more than we had just 2 or 3 years ago. And roughly 15% or so market share of the K-12 educators in our footprint. So we've used a lot of levers. But for me, it really is about finding more, winning more and keeping more. We've got good sales momentum in the fourth quarter. We have solid retention and persistency, we're not a distributor, but we certainly can use those capabilities to find more, win more and keep more. I get your comment about multiples.
We are building a nice bucket of fee income. It's not yet to the point where we would think about that the way you're asking the question, but I'll take those fees all day long as we build that as well.
I don't know if there's anything, Steve, you want to talk about as it relates to our momentum and some of the things we're doing to expand that momentum.
Executive VP & COO
Yes, sure. Thanks, Marita, and thanks for the question. I think what I'd like to do is just really provide a little context and then sort of address the issue Marita raised. So context, most of our new business, the majority within retail comes from our agency force. And that's important to know because we think our agency force is very healthy. We navigated through -- continue to navigate through a challenging market. And one of our guiding principles was let's insulate our agents as best we can from the effects of what I would say, profit restoration.
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HORACE MANN EDUCATORS CORPORATION FQ4 2023 EARNINGS CALL
When you look at the numbers, I actually think we have a pretty healthy engaged agency plant. We look at things like new business production, growth in the number of agents and growth in agency income. And so for me, I look at this and say our starting point, our current position is quite strong.
Now as we look to the future, we're making investments in both the agency force, and in what I would call digital/lead management capabilities, and I'll just give you a little color for the agency plan, we're going to keep doing what we're doing. So that means, as Marita spoke earlier, we're going to continue to appoint new agents. We'll continue to thoughtfully enhance our incentive plans to drive new business growth. And obviously, we'll advance our analytic capabilities, helping agents to be even more effective than they are today, and they're quite effective today.
At the same time, we're going to build new capabilities to allow educators to work with us when and where they want. And so in terms of the things we're building, I'd break it down into three areas: first, building out lead generation or marketing capabilities driving educators to Horace Mann. Second, we're upgrading our digital quote capabilities to capitalize on educators that really come to us digitally and want to interact with us digitally. And lastly, we're building analytics and process to ensure that we get educators to the channel of their preference when it comes time for them to buy.
And so we think these capabilities we're building are important because we obviously know that consumers want to -- most of them shop online, but they actually want to buy off-line. So building bridges, providing seamless interactions across all the channels, we think is critical. That's really a win-win for all parties. And so easy to kind of get caught up in the details. And what I'll do is just summarize by saying, I think we have a really good set of agent-based tactics that are tried and true that are going to get us growth but we're also building a digital presence that we think will be integrated with the agency channel and should further bolster our ability to drive sustained profitable growth as we move forward.
Okay. That was very helpful, very thorough. Second question, and I apologize if I missed this. But we're in the sort of weird situation right now where the level of earned rate increases changed dramatically over the course of the year just because of the pace of written increases. And I'm wondering if we take out catastrophe losses, how much of a differentiator was that in the seasonality of the underlying loss ratios in auto and home?
President, CEO & Director
Yes. I mean, Meyer, you know typically, the second quarter is our largest cat quarter. I think for us and the industry, when you look at 2023, it may have been slightly touched in all the quarters, if you will. I mean, just think of the amount of hail, which is why roof scheduling across the industry is so important and a bigger lever for us and many others. I don't think there was a quarter other than maybe the fourth quarter that was lighter for the industry in 2023. It did seem you get sick of listening to the evening news and get worked up, but there was a fair amount of water where there isn't normally a lot of water and certainly heightened hail that the industry has been talking about and writing about.
So I think what you see as it relates to cats for us and the industry, kind of spread out a little bit more than you might normally see. But historically, the second quarter is still our highest quarter, and that's how we planned in 2024 as well that we would expect that to be a higher quarter.
It will be interesting in 2025. with the full impact of rate, the roof schedules in the majority of places where you need roof schedules with broader use of deductibles and percentage, wind deductibles, what that will look like prospectively for the second quarter for us, but that's how I'd answer that question.
Executive VP & CFO
Yes. And Meyer, just looking at the actual cats, to echo Marita's comment, the second quarter of 2023, we have like basically
President, CEO & Director
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