Horace Mann Educators Corporation (NYSE:HMN) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call May 6, 2022 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Marita Zuraitis – President and Chief Executive Officer

Bret Conklin – Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Mark Desrochers – Senior Vice President, Head of P&C and Corporate Chief Actuary

Ryan Greenier - Chief Investment Officer & Senior Vice President

Heather Wietzel – Vice President of Investor Relations

Conference Call Participants

Gary Ransom – Dowling & Partners

Matt Carletti – JMP Securities

Gregory Peters – Raymond James

John Barnidge – Piper Sandler

Meyer Shields – Keef, Bruyette & Woods

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Horace Mann Educators first quarter 2022 Investor call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded, I would now like to turn the conference over to Heather Wietzel, Vice-President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead heed.

Heather Wietzel

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Horace Mann's discussion of our first-quarter results. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release, investor supplement, and investor presentation. Copies are available on the Investor page of our website. Marita Zuraitis, President and Chief Executive Officer and Bret Conklin, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer will give the formal remarks on today's call. With us for Q&A, we have Matt Sharpe on Supplemental and Group Benefit, Mark Desrochers on Property & Casualty, Mike Weckenbrock on Life & Retirement, and Ryan Greenier on Investments.

Before turning to over to Marita, I want to note that our presentation today includes forward-looking statements as defined in the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and we assume no obligation to update them. Actual results may differ materially due to a variety of factors which are described in our news release and SEC filings. In our prepared remarks, we use some non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are available in our news release. I'll now turn the call over to Marita.

Marita Zuraitis

Thanks, Heather. And good morning, everyone. Last night we reported first quarter c ore earnings of $0.64, a decrease from prior year. While external events affected our bottom line, we are pleased with the sales momentum we continue to see. In fact, April was the strongest sales month we've had for P&C products since the beginning of the pandemic, and supplemental product sales were double last April. We're also pleased to have Madison National fully onboard and working with us to fulfill our long-term objectives of a sustained double-digit return on equity and a larger education market share.