And that was simply a factor of the COVID virus had a much more significant spread in the US than what it did have in Japan. In Japan, you really had a big spike in the third quarter of 2022. But outside of that, it was a significantly lower spread than what we had in the US. And that is why you’re now seeing that having a much more pronounced impact on the morbidity experience that is feeding into our actuarial models that is then leading to the outcome that you saw this quarter.
Tom Gallagher: Okay. Thanks.
Operator: Our next question will come from Jimmy Bhullar with JPMorgan. You may now go ahead.
Jimmy Bhullar: Hi, good morning. So Fred, I’m sure we’ll be dealing with you a little bit more over the next year, but good luck in the future. I had, first, a question on just any updates you have on the potential tri-agency rules. And in sort of the worst-case scenario, what are the products that are in scope and what could be the impact on your business, assuming that the industry does not get any concessions from the rule as it’s initially written?
Virgil Miller: Good morning. This is Virgil Miller from the US. I’ll take that question for you. So we continue to advocate on behalf of our policyholders to provide them the protection when they need it most. The comment period is closed, but you can see and review our comments out there as well as others. I’ll just say that we saw no impact in the third quarter to our sales. If you think about it, our hospital indemnity product could be one that’s impacted. We had relatively flat sales in third quarter. But you’ve heard Dan mention in his comments about our cancer insurance protection plan. We saw our cancer sales up in the third quarter. I would say this also that remember, one of the considerations as part of the proposal is around pretax implications. Aflac has been selling, we were selling our policies without those pretax benefits long before it actually occurred years ago. So I think we’ll be positioned well even if the rule were to pass.
Dan Amos: Let me make one other comment. I was in Washington for three days about three weeks ago and met with probably 18 senators and congressmen to just see their positions on it. I want to go back to the pretax situation that Virgil was talking about because it was an anomaly. What actually happened was it ended up being passed. And we, as a company, back 20-something years ago, we didn’t sell pretax for the first two years because the Congress said it was a mistake and it was never really meant to happen. And so once it was in the bill, then when they tried to take it, thought about taking it out, there would — it looked like it was a [free tax] (ph). If they took it out, it became a tax on the average American. And you take, for example, a school teacher that has come down with cancer to, all of a sudden, say you’re going to tax their benefits will not sit well with the contingency of people that they deal with.
And so we were able to talk to a lot of people about it, and we had no feedback that thought that it should be the opposite. Now saying that, we know that this has been submitted by the branch outside Congress through the executive branch, and we’ve got to handle it and we plan on talking to them. But it is — it will absolutely be a direct tax. But we sold in that environment. I’m one of the ones — one thing about me being around a long time is I remember a lot of things. And we saw — I was around when we sold in a pretax environment. In fact, I was in the sales force for 10 years and saw it. And so it’s a matter of adjustment no matter what happens. And what I’ve always said is with change comes opportunity. And so no matter what happens, we’re going to find a way to do well in that environment.
