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October 30, 2017 at 07:38 AM
CNO Financial Group Inc. is trying energize sales at its Bankers Life unit by experimenting with four different strategies for sourcing agents.
Gary Bhojwani, the insurer’s president, talked about the Bankers Life efforts briefly last week, during a conference call CNO held to go over third-quarter earnings with securities analysts.
“I’m being very general, by designed, because some of this is a competitive issue,” Bhojwani told the analysts.
(Related: Bonach to Leave Top CNO Post at Year End)
The company is seeing good results from two of the four agent recruiting strategies it’s been testing, and it’s still supporting the other two strategies, Bhojwani said.
So far, however, CNO has been seeing faster returns on life insurance cross-selling efforts at the Washington National unit. Washington National, a smaller business than Bankers Life, has traditionally focused on supplemental health products, Bhojwani said.
Washington National is “a good example of some early results that are actually showing up today,” Bhojwani said.
CNO as a whole is reporting $101 million in net income for the third quarter on $1.1 billion in revenue, up from $19 million in net income on $1 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2016.
Here’s a look at earnings call gleanings for CNO and three other insurers that offer a mix of non-major medical health insurance products along with life insurance and other products.
CNO News
Bhojwani is on track to succeed Ed Bonach as CNO’s chief executive officer at the end of the year.
Bonach, who became CNO’s chief financial officer in 2007, and its CEO in 2011, said he’s still bullish on CNO’s leadership team. “It’s been an amazing 10 years at CNO,” Bonach said.
Bonach also said that CNO is continuing to talk to interested parties about transactions that could reduce the Bankers Life unit’s exposure to long-term care insurance.
Erik Helding, the chief financial officer, said one way the company could use its capital would be to pay another company to reinsure some of its long-term care insurance business.
Aflac, a company best known in the United States for the Aflac Duck, sells cancer insurance and other health insurance products in Japan. It also sells individual health-related products, such as accident insurance, hospital indemnity insurance and critical illness insurance, at the worksite in the United States.
Aflac also has substantial U.S. worksite life insurance sales.
The company is reporting $716 million in net income for the third quarter on $5.5 billion in revenue, compared with $629 million in net income on $5.7 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2016.
