Kemper Corporation (NYSE:KMPR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Kemper Corporation (NYSE:KMPR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript August 7, 2023

Operator: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Kemper’s Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is JP and I will be your coordinator today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference call, Karen Guerra, Kemper’s Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Guerra, you may begin.

Karen Guerra: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Kemper’s discussion of our second quarter 2023 results. This afternoon, you’ll hear from Joe Lacher, Kemper’s President and Chief Executive Officer and Chairman; Jim McKinney, Kemper’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Matt Hunton, Kemper’s Executive Vice President and President of Kemper Auto. We’ll make a few opening remarks to provide context around our second quarter results, followed by a Q&A session. During the interactive portion of our call, our presenters will be joined by John Boschelli, Kemper’s Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. After the markets closed today, we issued our earnings release and published our earnings presentation, financial supplement and Form 10-Q.

You can find these documents on the Investors section of our website, kemper.com. Our discussion today may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, but are not limited to, the company’s outlook and its future results of operations and financial conditions. Our actual future results and financial condition may differ materially from these statements. For information on additional risks that may impact these forward-looking statements, please refer to our 2020 Form 10-K as well as our second quarter earnings release. This afternoon’s discussion also includes non-GAAP financial measures we believe are meaningful to investors.

In our financial supplement, earnings presentation and earnings release, we defined and reconciled all the non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP were required in accordance with the SEC rules. You can find each of these documents on the Investor section of our website, kemper.com. All comparative references will be to the corresponding 2022 period unless otherwise stated. I will now turn the call over to Joe.

Joe Lacher: Thanks, Karen. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. The industry continues to operate in, what I believe, is the most disrupted personal lines environment we’ve ever experienced. Recent competitors’ earnings reports underscore this. While our financial results through the first half of 2023 fell short of our targets, we believe the actions we’ve taken and continue to take had positioned us to succeed in this difficult environment. Before talking about our results, I want to take a moment to explain a bit about this operating environment. Traditional historical patterns are used by the industry to predict future behavior – excuse me, used by the industry to predict future behavior and they are producing patterns outside their historical norms.

This variance is seen in broad aspects of consumer behavior. A few examples include buying triggers, price elasticity and changes in driving patterns, propensities to file claims, seek medical treatments and repair vehicles and their willingness to litigate. These pattern changes are exacerbated by subsequent broad swings in competitors’ action. We believe this environment will continue for at least the next couple of years. Correspondingly, it has created a hard market that will likely persist for an extended period of time. Our specialty market expertise and our nimble and efficient operating model position us to effectively navigate this environment. We’re continuing to evolve our capabilities. This includes investing in broad enhancements and business intelligence and accelerating the speed that we digest and execute on insights.

We have and continue to increase the forward-looking predictive analytics we used to operate our business. At the same time, we’ve increased our execution margin of safety. Our ultimate priority is to achieve target returns and we are continuing to focus ourselves and our business to facilitate this. And ultimately, to position ourselves, to grow profitably and safely at the right time. Against this backdrop, let’s discuss our results. Turning to our presentation, I hope you’ll take away the following. First, we had strong sequential improvement in the underlying profitability of each of our businesses. Second, the strategic initiatives we announced last November, are on track to realize their anticipated benefits and produce meaningful value for our stakeholders.

Third, we reiterate our guidance. We expect to achieve an underwriting profit in the second half of 2023. And for 2024, we expect to generate a return on equity equal to or greater than 10%. Moving to Page 4, the consolidated results included strong underlying profitability improvement against the backdrop of elevated catastrophe losses and adverse prior year development, largely related to the second half of 2022. The six-point sequential improvement in Specialty P&C was the result of accelerating impacts of earned rate and non-rate actions exceeding loss trend as well as the normalizing of the episodic items we experienced last quarter. This improvement demonstrates that our actions are taking hold and producing the anticipated benefits. One final financial highlight I’d like to point out is our recent approval of approximately 30 points of rate by the California Department of Insurance for our Specialty P&C private passenger auto book.

The collaborative effort between our teams and the CDI enabled the successful outcome. The rate change was effective August 4th. I’d like to now move to our strategic projects. As a reminder, last November, we announced a series of initiatives to unlock additional shareholder value. All these programs are on track to be completed on time and produce or exceed their financial targets and operational benefits. Key updates on these initiatives include we received approval from the Illinois Department of Insurance for the formation of our reciprocal, Phase 2 of our Bermuda optimization effort is outperforming initial benefit projections. We completed the strategic review of our Preferred P&C segment and announced our decision to exit that business.

This action will enhance our return on capital and support profitable growth in our core businesses. And finally, we are achieving the expected expense savings with our cost structure initiatives. We are highly focused on maximizing shareholder value and this begins with returning the business to profitability. The solid progress we achieved this quarter is proof that the actions we’ve taken are generating the intended outcomes. All the while, we are advancing our long-term initiatives to enhance Kemper strategic and financial profile. I’ll now turn the call over to Jim to talk about more details.

Jim McKinney: Thank you, Joe. I’ll begin on Page 5 with our consolidated financial results. We are pleased that each of our segments had strong underlying improvements that position us for profitability in the back half of the year. Several factors offset this progress including goodwill impairment, catastrophes and prior year development. For the quarter, we had a net loss of $1.52 per diluted share and an adjusted consolidated net operating loss of $0.26. The net loss included approximately $46 million of goodwill impairment charge connected to the strategic review of the Preferred P&C segment. The non-cash charge represents the full value of the goodwill associated with this business. The net loss and adjusted consolidated net operating loss included $39 million of current year catastrophe losses, the result of a very active cat quarter for the industry and $26 million of adverse reserve development.

Turning to the prior year reserve development on Page 6. The adverse development was primarily driven by bodily injury and property damage activity that occurred during the second half of 2022. This was caused by pattern changes between the second and the third quarters of 2022. These include an extension in claim reporting timelines and more claims closing with payment. The first quarter of 2023 and accident quarters prior to the third quarter of 2022 generally aligned with over favorable to our prior loss selections. The short tail nature of our business and the speed with which we collect and assess data provide us with high confidence in our reserving processes and their continued ability to react quickly to evolving conditions. Turning to Page 7, as Joe mentioned, we are reiterating our previous financial guidance.

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Despite the dynamic environment, we are committed to producing an underwriting profit in the second half of 2023 and achieving an ROE equal to or greater than 10% in 2024. Turning to Page 8, here we outlined Specialty Autos path to underwriting profitability. Our second quarter underlying combined ratio guidance was 103% to 107%. We reported an underlying combined ratio of 102%, slightly below the low end of our range. In the third quarter, we expect further improvement and to generate an underlying combined ratio between 99% and 101%. Assumptions and risks are outlined on Pages 7 and 8. Pages 9 and 10 provide an update on our strategic initiatives. Each program is on track to be completed on time and produce or exceed its targeted financial and operational benefits.

Starting with the reciprocal, the Illinois Department of Insurance approved the formation of Kemper Reciprocal. We expect to write business within the reciprocal in the third quarter. We will provide additional program schedule details during our third quarter call. Our Bermuda Optimization initiative launched in 2022 is expected to unlock a higher amount of life dividend to the parent. We expect at least $200 million to be released before year end, up from $100 million as previously indicated. As Joe mentioned, we recently completed our review of the Preferred P&C segment. The business will be wound down and the focus will be on our people, policyholders and working with our regulators to achieve the best possible outcome. The wind down of the business will enable the redeployment of more than $300 million in capital to our core segments.

This will simplify the business and enhance capital deployment efficiency. As a result, starting in the third quarter, our segment reporting will only reflect our Specialty P&C and Life and Health businesses. And finally, our cost reduction initiatives are on track to produce their intended benefits consistent with our timing expectations. Since the programs’ inception, we have achieved approximately $117 million in run rate savings, a roughly 80% of the intended run rate savings goal previously anticipated to be achieved by 2025. Once completed, we expect these initiatives will significantly enhance Kemper’s financial profile including enhancing cash flow generation and reducing volatility. Moving to Page 11, our insurance companies are appropriately capitalized and have significant sources of liquidity.

At the end of the quarter, we had approximately $1 billion in availability. We continue to have the capital needed to navigate this environment while continuing to appropriately invest in advancing our core capabilities. Further, as previously disclosed, we are committed to reducing debt outstanding by $150 million and bringing our debt to capital ratio back to our long-term target of 17% to 22%. Moving to Page 12. Net investment income for the quarter was $106 million. Our pretax equivalent annualized book yield was 4.5%. Average investment grade new money yields for the quarter were 5% to 6%. I’ll now turn the call over to Matt to discuss the Specialty P&C business.

Matt Hunton: Thank you, Jim, and good afternoon, everyone. Moving to Page 13 in our Specialty P&C business. We closed the second quarter with an underlying combined ratio improvement of 6 points. This was driven by the combination of incremental earned rate, tightened underwriting actions, the normalizing of episodic items and expense efficiencies. We observed loss trend continuing to moderate, frequency was flat year-over-year and severity was up 2% sequentially. Catastrophe losses in the quarter were elevated to 2 points or $17 million we experienced was above average and included a higher level of events from Florida flood to Texas hailstorms. Including the recent California rate approvals Joe mentioned, the cumulative written rate since the second quarter of 2021 is expected to increase to 54 points next quarter.

Of this rate, 17 points have earned in and that will increase to approximately 23 points by the end of the third quarter. We expect earned in rate to accelerate as the California book renews in future quarters. We will continue to file for additional rate in all states as needed. Shifting to the commercial vehicle business, our underwriting and rate actions are continuing to positively impact loss performance. In the second quarter, the underlying combined ratio was 93.9%. The business is expected to deliver strong underwriting profits in the second half of 2023. The loss environment continues to be volatile and we are being appropriately cautious in writing new business. We expect to continue to suppress new business throughout the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, we plan to selectively write incremental new business to test new customer cohort buying and claim behavior. Particular items of interest include price elasticity, reporting patterns and treatment and repair propensity. This will enhance our ability to optimally manage customer acquisition in a more disruptive operating environment. We will make monthly and quarterly evaluations on the gradual expansion of new business based on, first, our current view of underwriting profitability as well as the learnings from these tests. In summary, we expect a continued volatile operating environment for at least the next couple of years. We believe our actions will provide continued improvement to underwriting performance, delivering on our profitability targets during the second half of 2023 and 2024.

Through this period, we will continue a test and learn approach to safely and profitably managed new customer acquisition. I will now turn the call over to Joe to cover the Preferred and Life businesses.

Joe Lacher: Thanks, Matt. Moving to Page 14 and our Preferred P&C segments. This quarter, the benefits of profit restoration actions, including the continuation of lower frequency from non-rate actions offset higher catastrophe losses of $21 million. Both auto and home and other had sequential improvement in their underlying combined ratios. Through the second quarter, our personal auto book had 10 points of rate earned that will increase to approximately 14 points in the third quarter. As previously discussed, our strategic review is complete. Going forward, the segment will be noncore. Turning to our Life and Health business on Page 15. I think we’re all still getting used to how to read and interpret Life financial statements post LDTI adoption.

To help provide clarity and items that impact distributable cash flow trends, my comments will focus on the drivers that impact this measure. These items had not been impacted by LDTI adoption. This quarter, we saw the lowest level of mortality frequency in at least the last 10 years. It is 12% below the 2018 and 2019 averages. Year-over-year, the average incurred gross death benefit is down over 1%, issued premium is up 0.5%, life persistency is aligned with pre-pandemic levels. The combination of these items positions the business for continued improved profitability and attractive distributable cash flow. Turning to Page 16. In summary, I’ll leave you and remind you of this. The strong sequential results we generated this quarter demonstrate a meaningful step in the right direction.

I continue to be confident about our ability to return the business to underwriting profitability in what is a difficult and dynamic operating environment. Highlights for the quarter again include significant rate progress in the State of California receiving approximately 30 points of specialty personal auto rate, strong progress in our strategic initiatives including our Bermuda Optimization effort and the establishment of the reciprocal exchange, the realization of over half of the desired benefits from the restructuring and integration initiatives and the completion of the strategic review of our Preferred P&C segment. In closing, I’d like to thank our entire Kemper team for their continued dedication to executing our strategic priorities to generate consistent long-term shareholder value.

With that operator, we may now take questions.

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Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Greg Peters from Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Greg Peters: Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. So I’ll ask a couple of questions [technical difficulty]

Joe Lacher: Greg, I’m not sure – unfortunately, we can’t hear you.

Operator: It seems like Greg’s line got removed from the podium. [Operator Instructions]

Joe Lacher: So why don’t we go ahead and move to the next question and we’ll get Greg back in queue when he is back.

Operator: Okay, thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Paul Newsome from Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Paul Newsome: Hello. Thanks for the call. So, I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about the impact of non-rate actions in the quarter on the underlying business, whether we’ve seen the full impact there? It’s just going to be sort of impact of rate prospectively or if there’s some other things that are happening under the hood that would be helpful?

Joe Lacher: Sure, Paul. And maybe I’ll take a start and we’ll tag team this a little bit. I’m going to give you a broad comment and then you guys can talk a little bit specifically. We’re going to continue to have a set of non-rate actions that are going on and they’re going to have different potential impacts. As an example, we significantly slowed down new business last quarter and we’ll likely have that slow down largely in the third quarter. That provides – it’s a non-rate action that provides an immediate benefit to calendar year losses. When we think about a cohort or its experience, it tends to have higher losses in its first year and lower losses in subsequent years. So if you slow that new business down in the period to do it, it gives you a little juice.

Eventually we’re going to be writing more new business and that will expand. Matt was very careful in his comments and so was I that we are likely to do some gradual expansion in the fourth quarter, but very much with a test and learn orientation to look at the patterns of what’s going on in the environment. That may provide a nominal pressure, but we’re going to be focused first on underwriting profitability and making sure that it’s not a significant driver there and that we’re using it to learn what patterns are going on. That will likely cause us to add underwriting tools to our toolbox or how we use them given the volatile nature of the current environment. So I’m going to expect we’re going to continue to find different non-rate actions to manage things going forward.

I think what you’re asking is how to model in what you’re looking for. And what I might guide you to is, you might want to take an earned rate measure for improvement for a while until we target or we get close to target profitability. And then you’re going to work off our guidance from there. The measures should be focus you on our guidance and the timing that comes from that. As we hit those targets, we don’t anticipate dropping to a 75 combined ratio. We anticipate that once we’ve clearly and solidly and comfortably gotten there with our expanded margin of safety, we’ll move towards growing. Again, I’m not signaling a growing in the third or the fourth quarter, but we’ll move in that direction, so it will start offsetting some of that.

Paul Newsome: Makes sense.

Jim McKinney: Yes, Paul, this is Jim. The only thing I would add on to what Joe said is, I think you have a couple, a little bit of incremental benefit that you might see coming in, in the third quarter from underwriting actions. But most of what you’re going to see at this stage is going to be incremental earned rate that will flow into the book. And that will again similar aligned with Joe’s comments, that will begin to offset and take the place of some of the underwriting actions that have been put in place today to help us get to this position as we move forward.