Q4 2022 Unum Group Earnings Call
Okay.
Hello, and welcome to today's Union Group fourth quarter 2022 earnings results and conference call. My name is Bailey and I'll be disappointed for today's call.
Your lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end.
I'd like to ask a question. Please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad.
I would now like to pass the whole principle.
Not Royal Senior Vice President Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you Bailey good morning, and welcome to the fourth quarter 2022 earnings call for Unum Group.
Our remarks today will include forward looking statements, which are statements that are not of current or historical fact, as a result actual actual results may differ materially from results suggested by these forward looking statements.
Information concerning factors that could cause results to differ appears in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are also located in the sections titled cautionary statement regarding forward looking statements and risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31 2021.
Don.
And our subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, or SEC filings can be found in the investors section of our website at www Dot Dot com I'll remind you that the statements in today's call speak only as of the date. They are made and we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise it.
Any forward looking statements a presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP measures and reconciliations of any non-GAAP financial measures included in today's presentation can be found in our statistical supplement on our website in the investors section.
Yesterday afternoon, Unum reported fourth quarter 2022, net income of $279 6 million or $1 39 per diluted common share an increase from $159 million $159 7 million or <unk> 78 per diluted common share in the fourth quarter of <unk>.
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Net income for the fourth quarter of 2022 included the after tax amortization of the cost of reinsurance up $12 million or six cents per diluted common share and a net after tax investment gain on the companys investment portfolio of $4 9 million or <unk> <unk> per diluted common share.
Net income in the fourth quarter of 2021 included the after tax amortization of the cost of reinsurance of $15 5 million or <unk> <unk> per diluted common share and a net after tax investment loss on the company's investment portfolio of $6 8 million or <unk> <unk> per diluted common share.
Excluding these items after tax adjusted operating income in the fourth quarter of 2022 was $286 7 million or $1.43 per diluted common share an increase from $182 million or <unk> 89 per diluted common share in the year ago quarter.
Participating in this mornings conference call are <unk>, President and CEO Rick Mckenney.
Chief Financial Officer, Steve Zabel, Chief operating Officer, Mike Simonds, as well as Mark <unk>, who heads our Unum International business and Tim Arnold who heads our colonial life and voluntary benefit lines now I'll turn it to Rick for his opening comments.
Thank you, Matt and good morning, everyone.
As we head into 2023, we couldnt be more pleased with the performance and trends of our company throughout 2022.
Our team of more than 10000 dedicated employees are delivering on our purpose of helping and protecting the working world.
These record results have been tremendous.
Highlighted by an accelerated recovery to pre pandemic operating levels.
The strength of our industry, leading employee benefits franchise is driven by a singular focus on serving employers and their employees.
It is driven by a combination of our longevity and expertise in managing this business along with innovation that recognizes the needs of a changing workforce.
The fourth quarter was a good continuation of this progress.
We built on the momentum from the first nine months of the year with a total annual growth on adjusted operating earnings per share of <unk>, 43%.
After tax operating earnings were $287 million in the fourth quarter and a record $1 two 5 billion for the full year.
This is an increase of 41% over full year 2021.
Looking at the topline our premiums at our core businesses grew at a rate of nearly 4% on a constant currency basis for the fourth quarter.
This is trending to our long term expectations of 4% to 6% per year.
Persistency of our in force business was healthy across all products and strong sales performance further aided the top line growth and premium momentum.
For the full year consolidated sales grew at a rate of 16% again on a constant currency basis, driven by <unk> and Unum International.
We are also encouraged to see colonial lifes growth with 6% sales growth and growth in 2022, as they get back to high single digit growth rates.
Our margins remain healthy across our lines of business prudent underwriting and customer oriented management of our claims have kept our benefit ratios at very good levels.
And despite some expense pressure from the inflationary environment, our core businesses. All finished the year, earning mid teen to low 20% Roe.
Combined our ROE for the core businesses was 17% for the full year 2022 up from 10% in 2021.
These results from top line growth to bottom line management would not be possible without relentless attention on our customers in every aspect.
How we connect with and serve our customers are critical in building, our leading market positions.
A couple of examples include services that have been in the market for several years like HR connect and more recently unit totaled.
They are excellent examples of how we have continually improved our service to both the employer and employee.
With total leave which we rolled out at the beginning of 2022 employees and employers utilize a modern digital platform to help better manage all aspects of employee leaves a benefit that has taken root and importance with employees.
It is also important an important part of the overall value proposition to employers as they look at the broader benefits package.
While our core operations are running well, we continue to execute actions, which effectively manage the financial risks of the closed block.
For long term care, we've been very pleased with the continuation of our interest rate hedging program, which we began earlier in 2022 and continue to build upon.
These are actions, which reduce exposure to future rate changes.
We have also stayed focused on working with regulators on achieving appropriate premium rate increase approvals.
Approvals remains on our expectations and we have received multiple approvals throughout 2022 and even into 2023.
Steve will provide additional details of recent activity on both the hedging program and premium rate increase approvals in just a moment.
The many positive operating trends that help drive our GAAP earnings improvement also helped drive strong statutory income.
Which on a run rate basis is back to our pre pandemic level of close to $1 billion a year.
This is another reflection of our business model resiliency and its cash generation capabilities.
A strong core business and prudent closed block management have also created and outstanding capital position, which continued to strengthen in the fourth quarter risk.
Risk based capital for our U S. Traditional insurance companies increased to approximately 420% at the end of the fourth quarter and our holding company liquidity of $1 6 billion.
As some of the highest levels we've seen.
Both remain well in excess of our targeted levels.
Combined with leverage below 25% the strength of our balance sheet gives us tremendous flexibility to pursue our strategy and continued to return capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchase.
To summarize our purpose driven profitable EDA industry, leading employee benefits business is building momentum as we come out of 2022.
Coupled with a favorable operating environment strong capital position and prudent risk management, we are in position to continue advancing on our leading market positions as we head into 2023.
We look forward to take you through a more depth on our business and why we are optimistic at our upcoming investor meeting at the end of February .
Now I'll ask Steve to cover the details of the fourth quarter results, Steve Great. Thank you <unk> and good morning, everyone.
We're encouraged by our strong fundamental performance in the fourth quarter and financial strength, which provides solid momentum headed into 2023 as expected strong group disability loss trends continued into the fourth quarter with the group disability loss ratio remaining in the mid sixties, a trend we expect to continue into 2023.
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We also achieved strong consolidated sales growth of 16, 8% on a constant currency basis and maintained steady persistency across all product lines, while advancing our renewal pricing programs.
Externally the favorable operating environment continues to aid results.
Natural growth, which comes from increase in employment levels and rising wages continues to support top line growth for our group lines.
As Rick mentioned, we ended the year with an after tax adjusted operating EPS growth rate of 42, 8% over full year 2021.
This includes after tax adjusted operating income in the fourth quarter of $286 $7 million or $1 43 per diluted common share.
When foreign tax dynamics, our corporate effective tax rate was 22, 4% for the fourth quarter.
The difference between our effective tax rate and the expected rate up 21% equates to approximately <unk> <unk> of after tax EPS.
For the full year, our effective tax rate was 19, 4%.
Included in our results. We have also the impact of a critical illness reinsurance treaty recapture which added $8 2 million to operating expenses.
Earnings in future periods will benefit from this action, providing an attractive rate of return rigs.
Regarding operating expenses the full year 2022, adjusted operating expense ratio was 21, 3% or 150 basis points above 2021, excluding the reinsurance recapture in the 2020 to resolve would've been closer to the low end of our estimated range.
As I review adjusted operating results I will primarily focus on analyzing our fourth quarter results compared to the third quarter of 2022.
This will allow me to describe how our business lines have been progressing.
For items, such as premium and sales growth I will continue to focus more on year over year comparisons.
I expect to return to focusing on year over year results for business line performance with our first quarter of 2023 results. Given the continued endemic progression of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I'll begin my review of our operating performance with the Unum U S segment adjusted operating.
Operating income decreased to $228 7 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to $275 million in the third quarter. This was driven primarily by lower earnings in the supplemental and voluntary lines. Despite very strong levels of operating income from the group disability line.
The group disability line reported another strong quarter with adjusted operating income of $114 6 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to $129 8 million in the third quarter.
Favorable claim recoveries continued to drive earnings and a benefit ratio of 64, 1% for the fourth quarter for the full year of 2022, our adjusted benefit ratio was 66, 7% compared to 76, 7% in 2021, we are very pleased with how this block.
<unk> is performing and given improved incidence trends expect the group disability benefit ratio will continue in the mid 60% range in 2023, given our stable staffing levels and supported return to work environment.
Results for Unum U S group life, and <unk> declined modestly from last quarter with adjusted operating income of $29 3 million for the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to $30 9 million in the third quarter.
The adjusted benefit ratio increased slightly to 78, 2% compared to 78% in the third quarter as overall mortality continued to pressure results with average claim size remaining on the higher end of our long term expectation, we estimate that COVID-19 related impacts were close to our expectation of approximately 10 million.
Per quarter.
Adjusted operating earnings for the Unum us supplemental and voluntary lines in the fourth quarter were $84 $8 million.
<unk> decreased from the resolve of $114 3 million in the third quarter.
As mentioned this result was driven by the recapture of a critical illness reinsurance treaty of $8 2 million as well as the change in estimate within the individual disability unearned premium reserve of $9 million.
Results for the dental and vision line, we're slightly above third quarter results as the benefit ratio decreased to 65, 9% compared to 74, 5% in the third quarter and 65, 6% in the same period a year ago.
Turning now to premium trends and drivers we thought the strong momentum experienced in the first nine months of the year for Unum U S continues.
Growth in premium income in the fourth quarter was 4% on a year over year basis adjusted for the change in estimate within the individual <unk>.
Individual disability unearned premium reserve with particularly strong performance in the group disability business.
Natural grows a tailwind for our group products helped support year over year premium growth in group disability, a seven 3% in the fourth quarter compared to seven 4% in the third quarter sale.
Sales growth for Unum US was solid with an increase of 23, 7% year over year in the fourth quarter and 18, 4% for the full year.
Persistency continued to remain generally stable with only minor variation by line of business with our total group block at 89, 6% for the fourth quarter.
So moving on the Unum International segment experienced exceptional results with adjusted operating income for the fourth quarter, increasing to $45 million from $29 9 million in the third quarter.
Adjusted operating income for Unum UK improved in the fourth quarter to $37 7 million pounds compared to $23 6 million pounds in the third quarter.
<unk> benefit ratio for Unum, UK lowered to 76% in the fourth quarter compared to 78, 6% in the third quarter as has happened in the past few quarters, the highest levels of inflation experienced in the in the U K distorted the reported benefit ratio this quarter.
As a reminder, a significant portion of our policies in the U K have an inflation writer, which are backed by inflation linked.
The inflation linked benefits are capped that the income we receive from the linked gilts is not which benefits earnings levels in periods of very high inflation.
When removing the direct inflationary impact the Unum U K adjusted operating income was closer to our long term target of 20 million pounds per quarter for the first quarter of 2023 were expecting a muted inflationary impact in Unum UK.
Premium income for our international business segment increased slightly on a year over year basis dampened by exchange rate movements.
<unk> continued to show strong growth on a local currency basis.
U K generated premium growth of 15, 4% on a year over year basis in the fourth quarter.
Our Poland Operation grew 13, 6%.
Both businesses continue to generate positive levels of annual year over year sales growth with Unum, UK up 43, 5% and Unum, Poland up 26, 3% in local currency.
Next adjusted <unk> adjusted operating income for the colonial life segment increased to $93 million compared to $94 million in the third quarter. The increase was driven by a benefit ratio of 45% in the fourth quarter compared to 46, 8% in the third quarter.
For colonial life topline, we have previously indicated and it will take premium growth a couple of years to return to pre pandemic levels.
This quarter's result, trended slightly downward with premium income.
7% lower than prior year, However, full year premium income did grow by 7%.
Sales in the fourth quarter were two 3% higher compared to the prior year quarter and five 9% higher for the full year 2022 compared to 2021, we.
We continue to feel very good with the progress we've made to build back premium income to pre pandemic levels for this business with full year 2022 premium levels now 1% higher than in 2019.
And the closed block segment adjusted operating income, excluding the amortization of cost of reinsurance related to the closed block individual disability reinsurance transaction was $40 4 million compared.
Compared to $34 1 million in the third quarter, driven by favorable benefits experienced in individual disability within our all other product line.
This quarter. We also saw lower miscellaneous investment income, which includes earnings from alternative investments and bond call premiums of $12 2 million compared to $14 8 billion in the third quarter I will speak more to our investment portfolio in a few moments.
For benefits experienced long term care remains stable with the interest adjusted loss ratio at 86, 3% compared to 85, 7% in the third quarter and 82% on a 12 month rolling basis.
Our level of performance for LTC. This quarter is consistent with our long term expectations of an interest adjusted loss ratio between 85% to 90%, while our rolling 12 month month ratio remains below the range due to pandemic related claimant mortality.
And early 2022.
I would also like to take a moment and provide an update on our long term care premium rate increase program.
We continue to make good progress with our regulators and achieving actuarially justified rate increases for long term care.
In 2022, our total rate increase approvals totaled just over $100 million of net present value and since the start of 2023, we received approval for another significant increase in a single state worth roughly $200 million of net present value. This program is an important tool.
And managing the risk of this block and we are very pleased with the progress we are making.
So wrapping up my commentary on the quarter's financial result, the adjusted operating loss in the corporate segment was $37 5 million compared to $49 5 million in the third quarter, primarily driven by higher investment income on shorter duration corporate own assets and lower interest in that.
Moving now to investments, we continued to see a good environment for new money yields and risk management.
<unk> made in the quarter continued to be at levels above our portfolio yield and we experienced an overall increase in portfolio yield in the fourth quarter.
In addition, we are pleased with the ongoing progress with our interest rate hedge program for long term care.
Since the start of 2023, we continued to expand the program and entered into an additional $200 million of treasury hedges, bringing the program to approximately 25% of near term estimated investable cash flows in Unum America.
We expect to continue expanding the hedging program over the coming quarters, we will provide additional details on our interest rate risk management strategy at our outlook meeting.
Miscellaneous investment income decreased in the fourth quarter to $13 9 million.
Compared to $18 million in the third quarter.
Last quarter, we set expectations for alternative income to moderate below our longer term expectation of 20% to $25 million due to market volatility.
This volatility income from our portfolio remained positive posting $11 $5 million of earnings as our diversified portfolio of real assets.
And equity demonstrated its resiliency.
So looking ahead alternative asset income will remain directionally correlated with market performance.
For the first quarter of 2023, we estimate alternative asset income of $10 million to $15 million.
Likewise traditional bond call activity and the results in miscellaneous investment income reduced with a rapid rise in interest rates in 2022.
While lower bond calls pressure net investment income in the short term.
Maintaining higher yielding securities is beneficial to our portfolio yields in the long run.
As discussion continues around the likelihood of a recession I wanted to take a few moments to again highlight the strength of our investment portfolio and management.
Our investment portfolio is well positioned if we move into a weaker economic period, and we have a long history of outperforming benchmarks through cycles.
Stress testing is performed at the individual issuer level and the model impact of a mild to moderate recession is not material.
Further we experienced net upgrades of over $500 million in the fourth quarter and estimate net neutral rating actions in 2023 within our portfolio.
Also as mentioned last quarter since the end of 2020, we brightly decreased our exposure to below investment grade securities from just under 9% of fixed maturity investments at amortized costs to under 6% at the end of 2022.
As expected our capital levels are well in excess of our targets and operational needs offering tremendous flexibility.
The weighted average risk based capital ratio for our traditional U S insurance companies remained robust at approximately 420% and holding company liquidity was $1 6 billion at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 415% at $1 1 billion respectively.
At the end of the third quarter.
The increases were primarily attributable attributable to the <unk> mortality factor changes, which added approximately 25 points of RBC and strong dividends from our subsidiaries specifically, we paid dividends from first unit for the second straight year in the amount of $39 million dividends.
Dividends paid from our Unum UK business were $37 million in the fourth quarter and totaled $66 million for the full year.
Our capital metrics that benefited from the rebound we saw in our statutory earnings this year.
Tori after tax operating income was $244 million for the fourth quarter and nearly $1 billion for the full year.
Looking at capital deployment in the fourth quarter, we paid $65 $8 million in common stock dividends and repurchased $62 6 million of our shares in this quarter.
For the full year, we play we paid $255 3 million in dividends and purchased $200 million of our stock.
Capital contributions into the <unk> subsidiary were $50 million in the fourth quarter, which brings the total for the year to $515 million, which is below our original expectations of $550 million to $600 million coming into the year.
Looking ahead, we plan to provide our views across the business on 2023 during our outlook meeting on February 23.
Next year's results and outlook will be the first under the new long duration targeted improvements accounting pronouncement as.
As we've described in the past this applies only to GAAP basis financial statements and has no economic statutory accounting or cash flow impacts to the business.
While we will discuss in more detail at the meeting I'll provide two reminders about <unk> impact to unit first.
First there will be an adjustment to accumulated other comprehensive income and adoption, which we have estimated in previous filings based on the difference in our investment portfolio and a single a rated bond yield as of reporting as of the reporting period date.
Second based on recasting prior year financials.
2021, and 2022, we will see higher earnings under <unk>, and we expect a favorable earnings relationship to continue based on our current forecasts.
In closing I wanted to reflect on the incredible year Unum has had in 2022.
Our 42, 8% growth in after tax adjusted EPS vastly exceeded the initial expectations, we laid out at last year's Investor day, a 4% to 7%.
Capital metrics ended the year at historically strong levels, and we took the opportunity to reduce risk in the LTC through our hedging program, which narrows the range of outcomes for that block.
Excellent execution of these items helped drive a sector, leading total shareholder return of 74%.
Now I'll turn the call back to Rick for his closing comments and I look forward to your questions great. Thank you, Steve and I do appreciate everyone, taking the time to join US. This morning, but let me put out one more advertisement for our outlook meeting scheduled for later this month at that meeting we will dive deeper into a discussion of our business strategy, but our updated capital plan.
Looked like for the year and provide additional outlook for the entire exciting year ahead. So we.
We are here to respond to your questions I will turn it over to the team and the operator for the Q&A session.
Thank you.
I would like to ask a question. Please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to leave that question. Please press star followed by two again to ask a question. Please press star followed by one as I remind you. If you are using speaker phone. Please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question.
The first question today comes from the line of <unk>.
From Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hey, Good morning, you discussed strong LTC premium rate increases and my question is are there more opportunities in the pipeline.
Deregulators seem more open to approving rate increases due to inflation.
Great. Thanks, a lot whether it's Steve I'll take that question and probably the first thing I'll do is just step back and just talk about our expectations for a rate increase program.
If you go back to 2000 22020, when we reset our reserve assumptions for GAAP basis behind LTC, We had set an estimate of right at $800 million of net present value for that program. If you carry that forward then through the end of 2022, including the year 2020 to the $100 million.
We achieved during that year that I mentioned, we are at around 44% achievement against that estimate if you carry that forward to then the approval that we received in the first month of this year that added another $20 to 25% of achievements of that so we feel really good about where we are.
Tell you threw out the pandemic we've seen good responsiveness, we haven't really seen a change in the tone from our regulators. There was a period of time operationally that they were dealing with COVID-19, but philosophically. They are still on board for approving actuarially justified rate increases and we really haven't seen that change with the change in interest rate.
Any states actually prescribed the interest rate that you use for those calculations and so it has probably less of an impact in those states and how states view those but we feel very good about where we are we still have a ways to go and theres quite a few states that.
These and phased in amounts and so we'll keep working those and it will continue to take US a few years to work work through the rest of the program, but are very good feel very good about where we are today.
Thank you makes sense and then is the LTC block exposed to inflation risk.
It's it's not well, it's not so inflation risk obviously, we work with new money rates that we put into the portfolio, but when it comes to cost of care itself.
98% of our block is indemnity and so the benefits are contractual on a daily basis, and so we're not really subject to what the cost of care actually is an inflationary periods. So we feel pretty good about that it just really eliminate the variable as we think about our cost of claims going forward.
Thank you.
Thanks Shlomo.
Sure.
Thank you. Our next question today comes from the line of Erik Bass from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, Thank you.
Maybe you could talk a little bit more about what's giving you the confidence to projected group disability benefits ratio remaining in the mid 60% range for 2023 and is this being driven by structural factors that you expect to persist over time or do you expect some upward pressure on the ratio in the future as pricing adjust some of the labor market and if it's normalized.
Great. Thanks, Eric.
Overview of who will kick it over to Mike I think you have.
Highlight of.
And part of our franchise in our group disability line and so we saw very good results over the course of the year and as we've talked about today, we see some of those factors certainly can persisting into 2023, as well and Mike maybe you can give a broader perspective of that line of business. Okay. Thanks. Good morning.
Just to maybe go one click down.
Incidents that we saw elevate a bit.
This environmentally sensitive claims through the Covid period have just continued to abate.
And where we see them today is really where they were pre COVID-19 on a pretty sustained basis. So that gives us a little bit of confidence that.
That's a good point estimate for us going forward on new claims coming in and then recoveries have been really strong third straight quarter that those have outperformed our expectations at this point.
We really feel like it has stabilized.
At the levels that we're currently achieving and believe that that's something that is likely to recur in the coming quarters. So the combination of those two things lands us in the mid <unk>. We think that's good point estimate as we can come up with for the next several quarters and you said a little bit in your question Eric.
Over time, our target for the group disability segment would be kind of in that high <unk> to low <unk> range.
As experience comes through at the client level at renewal time, we would expect that to moderate.
That kind of a level over the next two to three years or so.
We do find ourselves in a good spot from a growth point of view as a healthy.
Book of business, so sort of where we are relative to competition and market. We think we're in a good <unk>.
Not to be able to tell our story about some of those capabilities that highly.
Highlighted at the outset.
Great. Thank you and then maybe switching to the LTC hedging I was just hoping you could talk a little bit more about the tangible benefits for the company and is this just protecting NII in the event that rates decline in the future or do you also get some benefits in your reserve calculations and sort of how you think about the level of capital you might need.
The stress scenario I E does this give you more confidence to deploy some of the current excess capital that you have.
Eric This is Steve I can take that one.
If you boil it down to the real purpose of the hedging program like this its risk management, we want to reduce uncertainty with the new money yields that we're able to get in the future specifically around long term care. So it's a risk management tool that we think is very important now if you think about how that then plays through to.
Some of our reserving construct.
For first Unum. It was more clear that that did have benefit upfront because we were able to incorporate that into some of the scenarios that they have with pop down rates and those types of things. So that was kind of an immediate benefit to how we thought about our asset adequacy testing reserve there with the premium deficiency reserve it really just protects us from downside scenarios.
As you know our new money rate assumption works off of a trailing three year treasury rate.
Experience and so we're able to really take those hedges and get more certainty around what our new money rate assumption is for those portions of the cash flows coming off of that block. So I would view that as downside protection one of the things that we wanted to do as part of Investor Day is really quantify that a little bit more for the market to really show.
So what the impact of that is under different scenarios different interest rate paths and I think that will give you a better idea of really what the benefit is but again fundamentally we're doing this for risk management purposes.
Perfect. Thank you if I could just squeeze one more in is there a target for how much you want the hedge program to build too. So I think you've said you've done about 25% of.
Cash flows for the next five years or so is there a level that you could see that building too.
Yes, I would say that's something that we're just planning on expanding over time not trying to set a bright line target. We can talk a little bit more about how we're thinking about that later in February but really don't want to get locked down to a specific number. We're just happy with where we are today and we do think we can continue to expand.
Got it thank you.
Thanks, Eric Thanks, Sir.
Thank you.
The next question today comes from the line of Jimmy <unk> Mueller from J P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is now live.
Hey, good morning.
First a question just on competition in the disability market. So your results obviously have been very good and so have most of your peers did you see any of that reflected in the.
Renewables through one one.
Did you see any indication of prices going down a little bit.
Just given the strong margin and what did you do with your prices in your own book.
Yes.
Hey, Jimmy it's Mike I'll take that one and we talked a little bit about it last quarter because.
Have a good line of sight on those January 1st renewals, but.
It was a successful program year, both in terms of placing the desired increases that we need to put through.
As you just kind of actively managing that block and having persistency rates that were integra to above where our expectations. So we see sort of aggregate pricing levels in the market as.
As being pretty rational.
In line with sort of how we would have an outlook on the major cost that make up the prices that we set.
In terms of the outlook for the coming year.
We are looking.
Looking at our pipeline of new business feel like we're in a pretty good position to continue to sort of build on the momentum that we've established here in 2022 from a new.
Sales standpoint, we try not to make dramatic changes to our pricing stance, we thank our clients really value consistency in their budgeting processes.
Year to year, so any changes that we make will be more so at the margin versus wholesale.
Okay, and then just on the labor market, obviously, it's been a big tailwind for results across a number of your product lines.
Sure.
There have been.
More signs of layoffs or unemployment picking up a little bit and I realize that <unk> is not a big part of your business mix, but are you seeing.
It should be assumed that the tailwind from the labor market has.
The benefit on your results has already peaked or are you still viewing it as a tailwind into 2023.
Yes, Jimmy it's Rick I think you have to step back and think about it holistically in terms of what the.
Yes look like if you look at what we've seen in the news and the particular layoffs I don't think I'd isolate any of those things you think about the broader base of employees that we have a range as in all sizes from the very small case with 10 employees all the way up to the very large case and Thats. What you are hearing about more or some of the large cases, and so we haven't felt that impact today, but.
We're also very thoughtful about what may be coming over the horizon and when you think about talk certainly of recession, and what that looks like to our overall premium growth. We have benefited over the last certainly over the last 12 months plus 18 months from a an increasing amount.
And the labor markets from both wages as well as from good employment and so that may wane, but what I would take you back to we are fundamentally an underwriting business and so although you'll see that on the margins. We still feel very good about our opportunities to grow and work through that and maintain good premiums levels, good persistency and so suddenly.
We're cognizant of but nothing that we pay too much attention to in any daily type of announcement that we see.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question today comes from the line of Tom Gallagher from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Good morning.
The first question I had was on group life.
The higher average claim size would you say that's.
Is that at all a function of wage inflation, meaning.
Your insurance face amount of coverage per life has gone up or is it actually coming in worse. If you do that kind of analysis to look at whatever the natural inflationary coverage you have in that block looks like.
Yes, Tom it's Steve I can take that one I wouldn't attribute it to inflation necessarily I would just attributed to normal volatility in the average size, we tend to see some volatility there and when you think about how those products are structured we charge for higher salaries, because a lot of those benefits are in.
Next to salaries themselves and so we're getting paid for it so it shouldn't really affect our loss ratio unnecessarily. So I'd just attribute to normal volatility in the loss ratio. This period was up around 78%.
If you take out the impact of that we think something in the mid Seventy's is probably more realistic and then as Ian.
Pandemic endemic wears off hopefully over time, we do ultimately think that that loss ratio would be down more in the low seventies, but it will take probably a bit longer to that I mentioned in my remarks, we still had $10 million of life claims in group life I think just under 200 deaths in that block so.
That is still that is still attributed to our performance, but hopefully that will wane over time.
Got you and then.
International I, just want to make sure I understand the way. This is likely to play out there was a big spike in earnings related to inflation.
I heard those comments did you say you expected it to revert back to 20 pounds.
In Q1 or would you expect.
That inflation benefit.
To last a bit longer.
Into early 2023.
Yes, I appreciate that question, so I'm going to turn it over to Mark <unk>, who runs our international operations Mark.
Yes, Thank you Rick.
The.
Well I was thinking about is firstly, we've got a strong underlying performance in the business secondly in the UK. We have had very high inflation building through the course of 2022 in the U K inflation benchmark, we use to 14, 2% in October .
Because we cap out benefits, where they are inflation linked to the 5% to create some margin for us we expect that to decline during the course of 2023.
The inflation rate starts to trend downwards, we have a government stance of Harvey inflation in the U K. So therefore, you should start to see coming off.
This probably during the first half of 'twenty three.
And we think our long term position with this business should be generating something in the low 20 millions.
Got you and just just related to that though would you expect some label of favorability to persist into the earlier part of 2023.
Yes.
<unk> to 'twenty three is it starts its trend down from what's now thats, even a bit towards more long term, which we will get that benefit is probably in the first half of the year.
Got you. Thanks, and then if I could just sneak one more in the 100 I thought the rate increase comments on long term care where interesting I.
I guess I was a little surprise, you only got $100 million of NPV of rate increases in 2022.
Which then makes your January success of 200 million for one state.
A very big number certainly in proportion but.
Can you just give a little bit about.
What's going on there was there a big backlog would you expect other meaningful increases or do you think this is the big one for most of 2022.
Yes.
Sure.
Sorry, I meant for most of 2023 2023, yes. This is the big one.
We have a lot of outstanding requests and a lot of states that are meaningful but in most of those stay their annual approvals that are phased in over time.
And so they really approved portions of it on a year to year basis, and Thats, mostly what we have left and so we were very happy with the $100 million in 2022, that's just kind of where we are with the program that what we're down to it's going to take multiple years to get it through the process, but what I would say is that they are getting through the <unk>.
Process States are approving them, we continue to make progress and so we have no reason to believe that our best estimate is not a not a good estimate ultimately.
Okay. Thanks.
Thanks, Tom.
Thank you.
Our next question today comes from the line of Mark Hughes from <unk>. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes. Thank you good morning.
Natural growth few times could you give a specific number for that in the fourth quarter.
Okay.
Yes, Mike Good question sort of range is a bit by product line, but you are placing it somewhere in the 5% to 6%.
Range for group insurance is a pretty good number for us pretty evenly split mark in terms of new employees coming on as well as the wage increases that are coming through.
I think it's important mark.
That is as Mike as Mike mentioned that as the group lines. So we have premiums coming through all of our voluntary lines et cetera, which just don't feel that immediate benefit like we do get to see on the group side.
Yes exactly.
Could you talk about the benefit ratio and the colonial life.
Obviously, some improvement here through the year.
What's the what should we expect 2023 or what.
We will run rate.
Okay.
Yes, I would say that.
A normal run rate for that business is anywhere between 45 and 50% benefit ratio.
Pretty consistent with what our estimates would be it's performed very well in the last few quarters and I would say it's been broad based there hasnt been one product line.
Significantly over performed its just that all of them are running pretty well right now so but longer term, but more closer to 50% I think it would be our expectation, but feel great about how they've been performing over the last few quarters I just kind of step back and you think about over the last three years. The colonial business has been extremely stable from a profitability perspective.
And it's really aided us in provided stability both in our statutory earnings as well as our GAAP earnings. So just feel really good about that business.
And then the sales within within colonial the accident sickness disability the core product.
This quarter down a point.
A little bit softer than what we saw earlier in the year and anything to that.
Hello to hear some commentary Tim.
Okay. Thanks, Erik and Mark I. Appreciate the question, we sit back and personal start talking about the market opportunity, we still see very strong interest in volunteers as its products from employers.
They are dealing with wage pressure.
Still trying to attract talent and I appreciate the question earlier about the.
The job market and whether unemployment is the fact that we're not seeing that yet at all in fact, we're still seeing it Pete.
Pete.
Our talent and as wage pressure as an issue.
The benefits of recent Virginia on surveys at 58% of employers.
Benefits being very very important in terms of attracting new employees, including voluntary benefits and when you think about employees that same surveys at 47% of millennials, who are our largest customer segment at the moment.
Your benefits available at work as being more important than they were before the pandemic, but they also want education around their benefits and normalized pretty uniquely positioned to provide that education across the portfolio, including products that we can.
Robert.
Some headwinds coming out of the pandemic small businesses were significantly impacted by the pandemic and they represent about 75% of colonial life's customer.
Customer base going into the pandemic nearly 100%.
Our sales occurred physically face to face.
I think we have the tools and technology to enable people to enroll digitally.
<unk> and other meats and so now that number is actually down to about 40% that are digital and.
Steve.
Face to face so we've been able to deal with for the most part.
It was pointed out earlier on the colonial life side, you don't really get the benefit of natural growth and there have been some recruiting headwinds, but let me talk about why we're excited about the future. We have a number of technology solutions currently being introduced including <unk>.
Modern enrollment in benefits administration.
Form that we're seeing.
Really strong excitement and our field force around that.
We introduced the opportunity in certain market segments for agents to begin marketing group employer paid products, which we think is significant.
In the marketplace.
Number of years ago, we introduced an agent productivity tools, we've invested in significant enhancements to that tool and we see strong adoption and utilization of it so.
Ended the year with 6% sales growth a little bit below our long term expectations.
But given everything that we just talked about.
Sorry about the future, we're really pleased as Steve pointed out earlier that.
We're about a point.
In total premium where we were going into the pandemic.
But it gets to your question Mark.
Thanks, Mark Thank you for that.
Okay.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Ryan Krueger from <unk>. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, Thanks, Good morning, I had a question on expenses.
It's when you think about 2003 would you do you view the full year expense ratio for 'twenty. Two is a reasonable starting point or should we think more about a more elevated level in the fourth quarter.
Yeah.
Yes, it's Steve I'll take that one and then maybe kick it over to Mike for a little bit more detail. So just stepping back when we came into 2022, we set the expectation that our expense ratio is going to be anywhere between 125% to 175 basis points higher than what we saw in 2021 and that was mostly driven by <unk>.
The full employment and.
Starting backup with travel and different things that we do to engage with our customer and so we had expected that and then as we got into the year. We just feel really good about being able to have a sustainable stable workforce and really rewarding those employees because it's just so important for us to be able to serve our customers. So.
We ended up pretty much in the middle of that range as far as what we saw the expense ratio grow too I would tell you that we expect that to be pretty much be at a high point peak a little bit more maybe in 2023 as we have full year of some of those compensation increases.
Then definitely think beyond that we're going to be able to work that back down like we always do through adoption of digital tools productivity and so that would be our expectation, but maybe Mike can talk a little bit more specifically about where where we're investing.
Thanks, Ryan for the question and just again gone down under what Steve says with linked the results we're seeing in the business and the momentum we built with the investments that we're making I think Steve appropriately highlighted our team.
No.
We're the most biased youre going to find but we feel we've got.
The best talent and the benefits industry and you see that in things like 16% growth across.
All of our core operation sales, that's really strong sales client management and underwriting teams you see that in our benefits organization in the recoveries, we talked about just an exceptional team.
Team in terms of helping people get backfill productive lifestyle and back to work and so making sure that we are fully staffed and appropriately rewarding folks is really important to us and the second item, that's driving OA as the technology investments and so Tim just mentioned, our new colonial life enrollment and engagement.
<unk> platform, we are very excited about what that's going to mean for our small business clients and what it's going to mean for growth Rick at the outset mentioned total leads our HR connect capability and the way we're winning on workday on ADP workforce now in UK G platforms, we re platform.
Our dental business and we're very encouraged with the growth that is helping US drive here you saw that in sales in the fourth quarter and that's probably the last thing I'd say Rod is as you think about those investments in technology.
And as we have success with those in market. They have a dual benefit. The first is on the growth side. It is helping us differentiate and drive high levels of client satisfaction, but importantly, either more efficient ways of doing business and so like Steve said as these take hold and more and more of our transactional volumes are coming.
Digitally and through self serve we would expect that OE ratio to start coming down in the second half of next year and Thats, both because our expenses will be growing at a slower rate and we see that acceleration back into that 4% to 7% long term growth rate that we have for the top line.
Great. Thanks, and then just on the supplemental and voluntary.
So expect quarterly earnings more in that $110 million to $115 million range going forward.
Yes, that's probably it.
Diesel marker Ryan I would say if you if you take out the two one time items that we had in the quarter that are non recurring.
It's around 105 would have been the earnings and so.
There is still a little bit of.
Unfavorable benefits results that are embedded in there specifically with probably rib.
But thats probably somewhere in that range is probably a decent planning.
Planning estimate.
Got it thanks a lot.
Thanks Ryan.
Thank you.
The next question today comes from the line of Alex Scott from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, This is marley.
Sure.
I was wondering if you guys could provide an update on your capital deployment priorities on a go forward basis.
Yes. Thanks barley, good talk to you. This morning, let's talk a little bit about capital I would just start with the capital generation that we saw in the recovery we saw post pandemic.
It's tremendous to see the $1 billion statutory earnings as that comes in you saw that flow all the way through our RBC ratios and our capital at the holding company.
At current.
We haven't seen the levels like this before and so I think when you think about how we're going to put that money to work first of all great conversation around the investments that we're making in the franchise, we're going to continue to put it back behind our business. So we think there's still good growth opportunities, that's where it's going to go first sometimes we can enhance that with some acquisitions.
<unk>, so think about capabilities that are growth oriented who are the types of businesses out there that can help us to accelerate that path and so we want to put money back there and that's the growth trajectory, where we want to put our capital today now at the same time, we are certainly responsive to our shareholders watching our dividends grow.
So we've increased it at a pretty steady clip over the last several years, we will expect to do continue to do that.
And then buybacks I think we had $60 million 60, plus in the quarter on a 200 million annual run rates. So so those are two ways that were responsive to shareholders and then in the background. I'd also talk about the PDR that we have the premium deficiency reserve, we want to get that funded and behind us and so I think thats an important use of our <unk>.
Capital as we look forward so all of those things in balance we feel really good about our capital position, we've got great flexibility to attack on all those fronts and we'll see how we do that in 2023, and we'll talk about that a lot more here at the end of this month.
That sounds good and then I have one follow up it looks like you guys had some pretty strong sales in the U S.
And I was wondering if you guys could just go into a little bit of what is driving that.
Yes. Thanks for the question of Spike and so it's pretty it's pretty broad based for us and.
You talked a little bit about the capabilities, we are definitely seeing for the unum brand in the mid and large employer market the need for a really strong.
Leave and administrative solution. So again, our total lease up platform, we set some pretty.
The goals for this year is our first year in a national rollout phase and we significantly exceeded those goals and <unk>.
As a reminder, we offer leave only in combination with insured products. So when you see the really strong short term and long term disability growth for instance, a good amount of that in the mid and large cases coming through on a package.
<unk> is a good amount is coming on those platforms that I referenced earlier.
The smaller end of the market.
Look to provided administratively easy button bundle for the small employers so the strength of the dental offering which is a really important benefit, particularly in that small employer market and our my unum administrative platform that has really started to take off and so as we success in dental that's pulling other lines with.
As well.
And then in the sub involved category. Good continued strengthen our individual disability business that is that is often buy up to the group long term disability. So again as we have really strong.
The premier disability and leave franchise in the industry, that's very often bringing.
Opportunities for that very steady and profitable individual disability business.
And as you look forward, it's taking a little bit longer, but as our voluntary lines like Tim talked about under both the unum and colonial life brand.
And so we're seeing really strong underlying.
Strength in the distribution pipeline and so that bodes well as we sort of think again about 2023 sales growth and then again getting back into a topline 47%.
Range over the next couple of years.
That's great. Thank you.
Thank you Marlene.
Thank you.
Next question today comes from the line of Mike <unk> from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thank you guys. Good morning, maybe just a quick clarification.
So no change to the $200 million run rate for buybacks into 2023.
Yes, I will talk about that at our upcoming meeting I think we were looking backwards more talking about the $200 million we've done over the last.
18 months or so at least on pace for that so feel good about that we'll talk about different types of flexibility we have going into 2023 at our outlook meeting here in a few weeks.
Awesome. Thanks, and then maybe just curious about the commentary around credit and wondering if you guys could expand on the.
The commentary for net neutral rating activity in the investment portfolio.
Yes, Steve I can take that one just stepping back a little bit and we haven't really talked about.
Cessionary pressures, specifically, but we do a lot of work around our credit just around sensitivity testing scenario planning and as.
As we look forward and we think about kind of a moderate recessionary scenario of GDP down low single digits, and we run that through our portfolio. We feel really good about the fact that we don't see any material impairments within the portfolio, we do think that.
For the positions we have the net neutral is a pretty good planning estimate for us, but clearly we have a lot of capital flexibility to manage.
Sue most scenarios.
Other thing that I'd say is we have over the pandemic and ahead in my remarks, we've reduced our high yield portfolio quite a bit during the pandemic as it has gone from just under 9% just under 6% and we took the opportunity to redeploy a lot of that money, obviously in the other asset classes, but specifically into our alternative investment class.
Thats performed very well throughout the pandemic that was that was a great move that we made we do not think though going forward, we're going to need to make significant shifts in how we think about our asset strategy and our investment strategy and just feel really good.
We are a credit shop. This is what we do we've I.
I think proved through a lot of different recessionary actual experience that we manage this portfolio well and can really mitigate impacts on our portfolio. So we show very good against.
Benchmarks as you go through those types of those types of scenarios.
Awesome. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Mike Thank you Mike.
Thank you.
Our final question today comes from the line of <unk> Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Great. Thanks for sneaking me in here.
Just wanted to talk about the disability claims so if I think back to the industry's experience. It does seem like when we head into periods of economic weakness.
Disability claims tend to pick up a little bit. So just curious if that something that you guys are you agree with a and then b kind of how are you thinking about that as we kind of move through 2023, particularly given your kind of guidance on the benefit ratio.
Yes.
Anthony It's Mike really good question opportune and.
I guess, where I'd start is is you do see a linkage when you think about disability.
One thing I'd say is it varies a little bit recession to recession, but on average it's usually with a four to six quarter lag. So you do have lead time between the turn and some of the macroeconomic employment and any impact on disability. So that lag I think is important.
Second is where that impact itself you can sort of see the brightest line when you look at.
Social security disability, and the private industry tends to be a bit muted, but it is there and our experience at least in the last three recessions at Union Thats been a bit muted still so not that its inconsequential.
It's not terribly terribly significant.
I think for us you'd sort of look at it and say certainly with respect to 2023, you do have a little bit of a line of sight given that short term disability tends to be integrated with LCD with a high high level of frequency that you can sort of see some of those incidents trends come through early.
As you play out the next again, 4% to six quarters could there be some pressure that emerges I think there could be.
I just kind of go back to where this most recent recession that we've come through even with some of those environmentally sensitive.
Diagnoses coming through.
Recoveries really.
Quite strong and it really strong offset to it so.
What it looks like in 2023 again I think the mid $60 is a pretty reasonable estimate where it ends in 2024 as you think about different scenarios economically it's a little bit more uncertain, but again based on our experience through the last three recessions, we feel like we've got a pretty resilient franchise here.
Got it and then maybe just one quick follow up.
As interest rates decline you guys were taking action on that new claims discount rate kind of lowering it have you started to increase that now that rates have risen and how do you think about that vis vis pricing.
Yes, I would say, we did increase and I forget what the percent was but we did increase it over the past year. When we saw rates go up but what's really interesting is when we get into the new <unk> accounting basis, those discount rates are going to be based more on the locked in kind of market rates.
That you see and so it's going to be a little bit more prescribed and so that will create a bit of a different dynamic going forward with how we think about discount rates I am not sure its going to really change how we philosophically think about pricing and what we want to earn on our portfolio, but there is going to be there is going to be kind of that difference without the gap.
Counting takes place.
Got it okay. Thanks.
Yes, thanks, Tony Thanks Nate.
Thank you Eduardo.
And with no additional questions waiting at this time, so I'd like to pass the conference back over to Kenny for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you Betty and thanks, everybody for joining us today appreciate it.
<unk> had some very good results over the course of 'twenty two we're very happy about the momentum we carry into 2023, and we look forward to taking you through some of the details around that as we look out over the next year and several years at our upcoming Investor Day meeting I look forward to hearing from you then and that ends today's call. Thank you very much.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation you may now disconnect your lines.
[music].
Yes.