Yahoo Finance CNO Financial's (CNO) Q1 Earnings Beat Estimates, Surge Y/Y
CNO Financial Group, Inc.’s CNO first-quarter 2020 adjusted earnings per share of 58 cents beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 45%. The bottom line also improved 41.5% year over year on the back of growth in health and life production along with stable margins and expense management.
However, the company’s total revenues declined 29.9% year over year to $717 million due to realized losses and negative policyholder and other special-purpose portfolios. The top line also missed the consensus mark by 24.8%.
CNO Financial Group, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
CNO Financial Group, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | CNO Financial Group, Inc. Quote
Quarterly Operational Update
Annuity collected premiums declined 7% year over year to $292.2 million due to pricing discipline.
New annualized premiums for life and health products amounted to $85.1 million, up 7% from the year-ago period.
Total insurance policy income inched up 2% year over year to $628.7 million.
Operating return on equity for the first quarter was 11.1%, expanding 60 bps year over year.
Total benefits and expenses decreased 17.7% year over year to $788.2 million, mainly on the back of lower insurance policy benefits, amortization and other operating costs.
Financial Update
Unrestricted cash and cash equivalents held by CNO Financial were $482 million as of Mar 31, 2020, down 16.9% from the level at 2019 end.
As of Mar 31, 2020, total assets were $32.7 billion, down 2.7% from the level at 2019 end.
Debt-to-capital was 20.8% as of Mar 31, 2020 compared with 17.5% at 2019 end.
Securities Repurchase and Divided Update
In the first quarter, the company returned $99.2 million in the form of share buybacks and dividend.
Zacks Rank and Performance of Other Insurers
CNO Financial carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Among other players from the insurance industry, which already reported first-quarter earnings, the bottom-line results of Assurant, Inc. AIZ and The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. HIG beat the respective Zacks Consensus Estimate while that of American International Group, Inc. AIG missed the mark. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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