CNO Wants More Agents With Securities Licenses

Bankers Life agents' annuity sales have been growing steadily, and the agents with securities licenses have been getting into younger and, generally, wealthier homes, Bhojwani said.

"They're developing deeper relationships," Bhojwani said. "I think that has the potential for a lot of benefits down the line."

Bhojwani said that CNO needs to work at rebuilding its agent force in rural areas, and that sales in rural areas have been suffering lately, because of concerns such as flooding and the effects of trade wars.

"There's been a lot of pressure on that population," Bhojwani said.

Earnings

CNO is reporting $52 million in net income for the first quarter on $1 billion in revenue, compared with $84 million in net income on $1 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2018.

Here's what happened to sales, expressed in terms of first-year collected premiums, for some types of products CNO sells, between the first quarter of 2018 and the latest quarter:

• Indexed Annuities: $300 million (up from $235 million).
• Medicare Supplement Insurance: $14 million (down from $15 million).
• Supplemental Health Products: $1.1 million (unchanged).
• Long-Term Care Insurance: $4.4 million (up from $3.7 million).
• Traditional Life: $16 million (down from $18 million).
• Interest-Sensitive Life: $9.6 million (down from $11.7 million).

Agent Counts

Here's what happened to the average number of three different types of producers that CNO had during the latest quarter, when compared with the year-earlier quarter:

• Bankers Life Agents: 4,125 (up 3.2%).
• Bankers Life Financial Advisors: 583 (up 21%).
• Washington National Agents: 682 (up 2.1%).

Resources

Links to CNO's latest earnings documents are available here.

A link to a recording of CNO's conference call with analysts is available here.

— Read Anthem's CEO Refers to 'Brokers' 4 Times, on ThinkAdvisor.

— Connect with ThinkAdvisor Life/Health on LinkedIn and Twitter.