Yahoo Finance CNO Financial's (CNO) Q2 Earnings Beat Estimates, Fall Y/Y
CNO Financial Group, Inc.’s CNO second-quarter 2020 adjusted earnings per share of 43 cents beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 30.3%. However, the bottom line declined 10.4% year over year on account of fall in annuity collected premiums and lower margin in life insurance products, partly offset by reduced costs.
Nevertheless, the company’s total revenues improved 3.5% year over year to $1.01 billion due to higher insurance policy income, improved income from policyholder and other special-purpose portfolios, and increased fee revenue and other income. The top line also outpaced the consensus mark by 23.4%.
Quarterly Operational Update
Annuity collected premiums plunged 29% year over year to $242.7 million due to pricing discipline.
New annualized premiums for life and health products were $69.4 million, down 19% from the year-ago period.
Total insurance policy income inched up 1% year over year to $625.3 million.
Operating return on equity for the second quarter was 10.5%, contracting 40 basis points (bps) year over year.
Total benefits and expenses fell 2.5% year over year to $908.8 million, primarily on account of lower insurance policy benefits and interest expense.
CNO Financial Group, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
CNO Financial Group, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | CNO Financial Group, Inc. Quote
Financial Update
Unrestricted cash and cash equivalents held by CNO Financial were $521.1 million as of Jun 30, 2020, down 10.2% from the level at 2019 end.
As of Jun 30, 2020, total assets were $34 billion, up 1% from the level at 2019 end.
Debt-to-capital was 17.3% as of Jun 30, 2020 compared with 17.5% at 2019 end.
Securities Repurchase and Divided Update
In the second quarter, the company returned $47.4 million in the form of share buybacks and dividends.
Zacks Rank & Performance of Other Insurers
CNO Financial carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Among other insurance industry players, which have reported second-quarter earnings so far, the bottom lines of Arch Capital Group Ltd. ACGL, Markel Corporation MKL and AXIS Capital Holdings Limited AXS beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate.
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