If the independent agent that we would send them to by saying no is any good, that independent agent is going to say, when was the last time somebody asked you about your life insurance, can I help you with an umbrella policy, or whatever the case may be. That early concept got us to a pretty decent size of premium with third party carriers. We leverage a lot of carriers, whether it’s high valued home, whether it’s non-standard auto, and that worked well for us. The concept has broadened a little bit as we think about is there a way in which we can broaden that in these types of environments when even a standard customer might be a customer that, for whatever reason in a given state, call it scale – you know, we use the example of Rhode Island.
When you’re writing K through 12 public educators in the State of Rhode Island, that’s not a large set of customers, would we be better off relying on industry data and companies that have bigger scale in that state rather than doing it ourselves. It really is broadening the concept that we originally had and have done quite successfully to maybe have a larger share of fee income, where we’re not taking underwriting risk but have the ability to be Horace Mann first when it makes sense to be Horace Mann first.
John Barnidge: That’s very helpful, thank you.
Marita Zuraitis: Do you have anything to add to that, Mark?
Mark Desrochers: Yes, the only thing I would add is I think there is opportunities, for instance when we’re taking underwriting actions, like we have a standard practice now, if we’re going to take underwriting action on a particular risk, right, we’re going to look to those third parties automatically rather than just sending the customer off on their own, especially in a tough environment on the property side, where it may be a challenge for them to find other coverage. I think there’s going to be, to Marita’s point, increased opportunities where places we’re pushing a lot of rate, that if we’re risking losing that customer, there may be an opportunity for us to keep that customer in the fold by leveraging our third parties.
Marita Zuraitis: And what we’ve learned with some good partner carriers is the ability to bring that customer back to Horace Mann, when and if that makes sense, we’ve had a lot of flexibility to do that because we’re doing this with a limited number of strategic partners. I’d say with improved process and the improved technology that comes with it, we believe we can probably by the end of next year begin to see a lot more scale than how we had attempted to do this in the early years. Think about if an agent had a customer, they’re going to an internal contact center, they’re working with our internal people, our internal people are placing that with another carrier. If we have better process and better technology, and we can do that with a smart algorithm and straight through processing, it becomes much easier to scale what I think was a good strategic start to this thought process.
John Barnidge: Thank you very much. A follow-up question, other companies have done voluntary retirements or workforce reductions given declines in fees on assets in some of their more AUM-sensitive businesses. Has that been completed, or are there thoughts for that? Thank you.
Marita Zuraitis: Do you mean for Horace Mann employees?
John Barnidge: Yes, with markets lower, assets lower as a result, fees on assets can be impacted by that.
