Ralph J. Nicoletti
Analyst · Barclays
Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone. In my remarks today, I will review Cigna's second quarter 2012 results and provide an update to our full year outlook. In my review of consolidated and segment results, I will comment on adjusted income from operations. This is also the basis on which I will provide our earnings outlook. Before I get into the specifics of the quarter, I wanted to highlight that the quarter reflects continued effective execution of our strategy, revenue growth and strong earnings, operating expense ratio improvement and strong contributions from HealthSpring. These results provide us confidence to increase our full year outlook for earnings and parent company cash. Now moving to results. Our second quarter 2012 consolidated revenues grew 35% to $7.5 billion, driven by contributions from the HealthSpring acquisition and growth in our targeted markets. Second quarter consolidated earnings were $444 million or $1.52 per share, excluding the after-tax loss of $0.03 per share from the results of the runoff VADBe business. Turning to the segments, overall Health Care results for the second quarter of 2012 were strong and reflect continued effective execution of our growth strategy highlighted by strong year-to-date customer growth of our ASO products, continued underwriting and pricing discipline, effective integration of the HealthSpring franchise, while making investments in future capabilities. Second quarter premium and fees for Health Care grew 52% to $5 billion, reflecting the first full quarter of HealthSpring revenues and organic growth in both our commercial and Medicare businesses. Excluding the effect of HealthSpring, premiums and fees grew 8%. Second quarter earnings for Health Care were $332 million, and reflect revenue growth including further specialty penetration and the impact of favorable prior-year claim development. As we highlighted last quarter, results also include strategic spending to support our business growth and service capabilities, as well as targeted investments that will deliver operating expense efficiencies beginning in the second half of this year. We ended the second quarter of 2012 with approximately 12.6 million U.S. medical customers, representing year-to-date growth of approximately 1.1 million customers. The year-to-date increase is comprised of organic growth of approximately 750,000 commercial customers, primarily in our priority markets and roughly 400,000 HealthSpring customers. Essentially all of our organic growth in commercial customers for 2012 has been ASO product offerings. Turning now to medical cost. In the quarter, we continued to deliver quality health care for our clients and customers. I would remind you that 85% of our commercial customers are in ASO funding arrangements where they directly benefit from these medical cost results. Across our commercial and Medicare risk books of business, our second quarter earnings include favorable prior-year claim development of $17 million after-tax, net of our rebate accrual, compared to $25 million after-tax in the second quarter of 2011. Specific to commercial guaranteed cost, our second quarter 2012 Medical Care Ratio or MCR was 80.1% on a reported basis. Excluding prior year claim development, the commercial guaranteed cost MCR for the second quarter was 81%. When we provided our initial outlook for 2012, we planned for an increase in medical cost in our commercial book of business over the course of the year and we began to see this emerge during the second quarter, primarily in outpatient and professional services. Importantly, these increases were contemplated in our pricing. Our second quarter 2012 MCR for Medicare Advantage was 80.4% on a reported basis or 80.9% excluding prior-year claim development. Overall, we are pleased with the results in our Medical Risk businesses and they continue to reflect good pricing and underwriting discipline, as well as sustained clinical quality for our clients and customers. For the second quarter, the total operating expense ratio is 22.6%, which is 380-basis-point reduction over second quarter of 2011's expense ratio and primarily reflects the change in business mix associated with the HealthSpring acquisition, inclusive of strategic spending to support our business growth and service capabilities. Now I'll discuss the results of our International business. International continues to deliver attractive growth and profitability. These results reflect targeted new sales, strong retention and further product penetration to existing customers. Premiums and fees grew 22% quarter-over-quarter, driven by strong customer retention and growth within our Health, Life and Accident business, particularly in Korea, and increased risk membership in our Global Health Benefits business. Second quarter earnings in our International business were $65 million, and reflect continued strong margins, in line with our long-term expectations for this business. For Group Disability and Life, results were strong overall in a difficult environment as this business continues to deliver value to our clients and customers through market-leading disability management and productivity management programs. Group premiums and fees increased 4% over the second quarter of 2011. Second quarter earnings in our group business were $89 million, which includes a net favorable impact of $35 million after-tax, related to a reserve study on our group disability business. Results for our remaining operations, including run-off reinsurance, other operations and corporate totaled to an after-tax loss of $52 million for the second quarter. Corporate results include a charge of $10 million after-tax for the termination of a vendor contract related to the previously discussed operating expense efficiency initiatives. Additionally, these results include a reserve strengthening of $10 million after-tax related to our run-off VADBe book of business. The reserve strengthening relates to the impacts of changes to our long-term lapse assumptions for a segment of the business. Overall, as a result of the continued effective execution of our strategy, our second quarter results reflect solid revenue and earnings contributions from each of our ongoing businesses and as a result, we continue to generate significant free cash flow. Turning to our investment portfolio, we are pleased with the results of the second quarter. Our commercial mortgage loan portfolio is performing well in a challenging economic environment. During the quarter, we completed our annual review of the $3 billion loan portfolio, which indicated there has been an improvement in the average loan-to-value ratio to 66%, compared to the previous estimate of 70%, along with improvements in our average debt service coverage ratios. Overall, our strong investment management capabilities, diversification of the portfolio and disciplined approach to risk management continue to deliver solid results. Now turning to our outlook. Based on the strength of our second quarter results, we are confident in our ability to achieve our increased full year outlook. We now expect consolidated adjusted income from operations in the range of $1.53 billion to $1.63 billion, and consolidated EPS of $5.25 to $5.60 per share, reflecting continued strong underlying results in each of our ongoing businesses. This increased outlook represents an increase of $0.05 per share over our previous expectations. I remind you that consistent with prior practices, our outlook excludes any contribution from additional prior-year reserve development or capital deployment. I will now discuss the components of our 2012 outlook, starting with Health Care. We now expect full year Health Care earnings to be in the range of $1.21 billion to $1.27 billion, which is an improvement of $15 million from our previous expectations, at the midpoint. This increased outlook for Health Care reflects the impact of favorable prior-year claim development recognized in the second quarter and continued effective execution. Regarding U.S. medical customers, we continue to expect full year 2012 growth of approximately 1.2 million people, of which 800,000 is in our commercial book of business. This year's growth is essentially all in our highly transparent ASO funding arrangements and across all of our targeted customer segments, including national accounts, middle market and select size employers. We expect to provide additional value to our larger clients by expanding our suite of solutions over time, which will drive increased revenue and earnings for these relationships. Overall, we are pleased that employers of various sizes continue to value our consultative approach and differentiated health and productivity programs. Turning to medical costs. Our outlook continues to assume an increase in medical costs during 2012, which we began to see during the second quarter. For our total commercial book of business, we continue to expect full year medical cost trend to be in the range of 6% to 7%. These expected medical costs have been reflected in our pricing for 2012. We continue to expect the full year MCR to be in the range of 80% to 81% for our commercial guaranteed cost book of business. And we now expect the full year Medicare Advantage MCR to be in the range of 81% to 82%, which is an improvement of 50 basis points from our previous expectations, the majority of which is driven by favorable claim development. We continue to expect the operating expense ratio for the full year 2012 to be in the range of 22.5% to 23.5%. Now moving to the other components of our outlook. For our International business, we continue strong top line growth and continue to expect earnings in a range of $265 million to $285 million, which represents earnings growth of 19% to 28% versus full year 2011. Regarding group disability and life business, we continue to expect full year 2012 earnings in the range of $260 million to $280 million. And regarding our remaining operations, including run-off reinsurance, other operations and corporate, our outlook is now an expected loss of $205 million for 2012, reflecting second quarter run-off VADBe reserve strengthening, as well as the vendor contract charge recorded in the second quarter in corporate results. So all in, for full year 2012, we now expect consolidated adjusted income from operations of $1.53 billion to $1.63 billion, and consolidated EPS in the range of $5.25 to $5.60 per share. As we indicated on the first quarter call, we expect our quarterly earnings pattern will be different than prior years. Regarding our outlook for earnings per share for the second half of 2012, I would note that there are a number of moving pieces, including a meaningful step up in Medicare Part D earnings in the fourth quarter, as well as the absence of the second quarter favorable impacts of prior year claim development and the disability reserve study. As a result, we expect a quarterly earnings per share pattern similar to the first half of this year. I will now discuss our updated capital management position and outlook. Overall, we continue to have good financial flexibility as our subsidiaries remain well-capitalized and are generating significant free cash flow to the parent, reflecting strong return on capital in each of our ongoing businesses. We ended the quarter with parent company cash of approximately $650 million. We now expect to have approximately $800 million in parent company cash by the end of 2012, with approximately $350 million available for capital deployment, after considering all sources and uses, including approximately $400 million for our 2 pending strategic acquisitions. This represents a $200 million increase compared to our previous capital outlook, primarily reflecting the increased subsidiary dividends due to improved business fundamentals. Overall, our capital position and updated outlook remain strong and our capital deployment strategy and priorities remain unchanged. Now to recap. Our second quarter 2012 consolidated results reflect the strength of our global differentiated portfolio of businesses and effective execution of our focused strategy with solid growth in our targeted customer segments. Our second quarter results represent another strong performance, reflecting good progress on the integration of HealthSpring and strong organic revenue and customer growth, which are expected to deliver an increase in $0.05 per share for 2012 -- in earnings per share for 2012, and an additional $200 million in capital available for deployment. Based on the strength of our results, we are confident in our ability to achieve our increased full year 2012 outlook. With that, we will turn it over to the operator for the Q&A portion of the call.