CNO Financial Group, Inc .'s CNO third-quarter 2017 net operating earnings of 45 cents per share surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 15.4%. The bottom line also improved 21.6% year over year on higher revenues.
CNO Financial's total revenues increased 6.2% year over year to $1,079 million. The top line also beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $997 million by 8.2%.
Total collected premiums were $882.4 million, down 2% from the prior-year quarter.
New annualized premiums for life and health products amounted to $77.4 million, down 10% from the year-ago quarter.
First-year collected premiums totaled $319.2 million, down 5% from the last-year quarter.
Quarterly Segment Update
Bankers Life
Total collected premiums were $641.7 million, down 4% year over year. New annualized premiums decreased 14% year over year to $36.6 million due to lower sales of life products.
Pre-tax operating earnings grew 21% from the last-year quarter. The upside reflected higher net investment income and favorable incurred claims in long-term care and Medicare supplement blocks of business.
WashingtonNational
Total collected premiums were $164.2 million, up 3% year over year. This was primarily due to higher sales of supplemental health products.
New Annualized premiums from life and health products were $24.8 million, up 0.8% from the last-year quarter.
Pre-tax operating earnings were up 9% year over year due to higher margins on the supplemental health block.
Colonial Penn
Total collected premiums were $72.6 million, up 2.7% year over year.
New annualized premiums were $16 million, down 13% from the year-ago quarter.
The pre-tax operating earnings were $9 million, up from $0.9 million in the prior-year quarter. The rise was primarily driven by reduced marketing expenses and $3 million related to a favorable out-of-period adjustment and refinement to liabilities for insurance products identified in conjunction with periodic updating of assumptions.
Long-Term Care
Total collected premiums were $3.9 million.
The long-term care business was recaptured in September 2016. This segment recognized pre-tax earnings of $1 million in the third quarter. The company expects this segment to report normalized earnings before net realized investment gains (losses) of approximately breakeven over the long term.
Corporate Operations
The segment includes performance of the investment advisory subsidiary and corporate expenses.
Pre-tax loss was $13.9 million, wider than a loss of $4.4 million in the year-ago quarter. This was primarily due to higher expenses.
CNO Financial Group, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
CNO Financial Group, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | CNO Financial Group, Inc. Quote
Financial Update
Unrestricted cash and investments held by CNO Financial's holding company were $380 million at Sep 30, 2017, up 4.4% from year-end 2016.
Book value per common share increased to $29.10 from $25.89 year over year. Book value per diluted share, excluding accumulated other comprehensive income, increased to $23.19 from $20.80 as of Sep 30, 2016.
Consolidated risk-based capital ratio was 450% as of Sep 30, 2017. This reflects estimated statutory operating earnings of $257 millionand insurance company dividends to the holding company of $286.8 million during the first nine months of 2017.
Securities Repurchase and Divided Update
During the quarter, the company repurchased $28.2 million of common stock.
During the first nine months of 2017, it bought back shares worth of $140.1 million.
During the third quarter, dividends paid on common stock totaled $15.2 million.
Zacks Rank and Performance of Other Multiline Insurers
CNO Financial currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here .
Among other players in the Finance sector that have reported their third-quarter earnings so far, Brown & Brown, Inc. BRO , RLI Corp. RLI and The Progressive Corporation PGR beat their respective Zacks Consensus Estimate.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
