Steve Zabel: Yes. Jimmy, I’d just go back to the statements and made before. We’ll go through our normal process, our annual process in the third quarter. We’ll look at all of our assumption sets and we’ll look at that over the long-term. So, I wouldn’t comment on kind of any individual trends that we’re seeing in a certain quarter. We’ll take a long-term view of that when we go through and we did just go through a pretty comprehensive review back in the third quarter of last year. So, we’ll take into account what we’ve been seeing more recently, but I think it’s premature to really discuss that.
Jimmy Bhullar: Okay. And then on buybacks, I realize you’ve increased the amount a decent amount this year. You’re raising the dividend as well. But if we look at your stat income generation, and then Holdco liquidity RBC levels, it suggests that you have the flexibility to do more than what you’re doing. So, is the $500 million sort of the number that you’ll do this year, and it sort of set in stone and you review it next year? Or is there a possibility that if your results continue to surprise on the upside that you might revisit that later this year?
Rick McKenney: Yes, it’s a good question, Jimmy. And so when you think about the overall capital generation, I think both Steve and I reiterated, very happy with how we started the year, both from a generation perspective. And I think important different than it’s been in previous years is there’s not a use that will be going towards long-term care. So, what we generate is for us to be using. Right now, we’re seeing, as we talked about in our outlook meeting, we’re going to see the capital levels grow, particularly in terms of holding company cash, I saw that in the first quarter, and so that’s a trend we put out there. We’ve increased the pace of redeployment of capital to shareholders, and so we’re happy about the $500 million.
You asked, is that locked in stone. I think capital is something that needs to be managed on a daily basis. And so we’ll keep obviously looking at that. But we’re very happy with the plans that we have in place and what the execution on the first quarter looks like towards those plans. I’d go back to our uses, we still want to grow. So, in terms of growing the business at the rates we have, with the returns we have, that’s first and foremost, both from an organic perspective. And then on the M&A side, we’ve talked about the types of capabilities that we’d like to bring on to continue to grow that core business. So, that probably gives you some sense. We’re tracking as we had not a lot of different message than we had in the first quarter, but we think about capital, we think about its uses frequently in terms of what it can be.
So, nothing locked in stone. We’re very happy with where we are today.
Jimmy Bhullar: Okay. And then fair to assume that the lapse of the LTC case is a slight headwind for earnings going forward for that division?
Steve Zabel: Yes, it’s immaterial for earnings. It was kind of a large impact in the period, but really not material for ongoing earnings.
Jimmy Bhullar: Okay. Thanks.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Wilma Burdis with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Wilma Burdis: Hey good morning. RBC and stat earnings were strong in the quarter. Could you just talk about the capital generation deployment trajectory for the remainder of the year?
Steve Zabel: Yes, Wilma, this is Steve. I can take that one. I would say very consistent with the ranges that we would have given at Investor Day. We’re not really changing our view of that. We are happy that we started off — and I would say first quarter results were a little bit above what our expectations would have been. But at this point, don’t feel like the need to really change any of the guidance for either GAAP earnings trajectories or statutory earnings trajectories or the relevant capital metrics.
Wilma Burdis: Okay. Thank you. And is $37 million of earnings in international, a good run rate. And talk a little bit about how much that figure was boosted by U.K. inflation benefits and what you’re seeing there. Thank you.
Rick McKenney: Mark, do you want to talk about that?
Mark Till: Yes, I’ll take that. I mean if we look at local currency, then the earnings we produced this year put us in a range of £25 million to £30 million for the quarter, and we think that we can continue to produce in that sort of range. And in terms of the inflation impact, we’ve seen a reduction of about $5 million or $6 million in the quarter, and it’s now largely disappeared. So, there’s a small amount of inflation that will continue through the year, but largely, it’s out of the way now.
Steve Zabel: Probably the other way to think about that, Wilma, is the performance for the current quarter is probably something that’s sustainable because the impact of inflation was pretty minimal.
Wilma Burdis: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mike Ward with Citi. Please go ahead.
Mike Ward: Thanks. Good morning. Maybe more for Chris, but just curious about what you’re seeing across the key benefits product lines. Trying to think if you have any sense of pricing between different employer sizes?
Rick McKenney: Yes. Thanks Mike. Good question. I think that the small end of the market price is probably a little less sensitive. When you get into mid and large, there’s probably a little bit more of a sharp eye on how price plays. That said, we do feel it across all angles on the market. Everybody is trying to make a good decision. It gets back to we do a specific offering and strategy for market segments, small, medium and large. When we bring that to the conversation. It helps us get a fair price. It helps us renew at a fair price. That’s consistent across. We just get there in different ways. So, again, up market, you’re talking heavily about lead management, you’re talking heavily about HR Connect. Down market, it’s some of the things that Tim talked about in terms of a GATHER type offering where our group insurance shows up.
that gets a little bit less price sensitive because you’re solving a different problem. And we can do that in a couple — a couple of different ways with our MyUnum platform, GATHER or connecting with [Indiscernible] of choice in that small of market.
Mike Ward: Thanks Chris. And then one last one just on the Closed Block termination just because it is a little bit unique. But Steve, your tone sort of suggests that it was one-off. But I guess if you could you confirm that? Or should we think about it may be as like a risk management tool that we hadn’t really thought of before for LTC? Thanks.
