Welcome everybody. During today’s call, we will discuss the expected performance at Citizens, Inc. which will constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking information provided in this call and such information involves significant risk and uncertainties. A complete disclaimer is included in Citizens, Inc.’s press release dated November 6, 2008, and incorporated by reference into this call. We are not responsible for transcripts of this call made by independent third parties. I will now turn the call over to Rick Riley, our President.

Good morning and welcome. We appreciate the opportunity to share with you the activities of last quarter and the results, and the things that we have been involved in lately. We, obviously as I am sure everyone will understand, the quarter has been – and actually the days following the quarter had been quite an interesting period of time for us. We have experienced really some, I guess, extraordinary experiences in the marketplace and yet where we are and where we are positioned we are excited what our future opportunities hold and where we were and will get into little more detail on that as we walk through the call. During this period we have seen really a (inaudible), I think the portfolio that Citizens has maintained over the years and continues to keep as part of our investment philosophies have proven now through this downturn. We see now that the approach to maintaining government guarantee or government sponsored entities involved in the investments that we make has made a huge difference as the market is reevaluated and the credit markets are frozen [ph] up and things that occurred we have actually been pretty well insulated from a lot of that activity and of course, we believe with where we stand, I am not really trying to be (inaudible) about it but we really feel like a lot of what we have done over the years and certainly throughout my career that we have now been proven that the conservatism that we have operated with is in a positive thing, a negative thing. The other activities during the last 60 to 90 days really the focus upon the short-trading and the things that have taken place in terms of short-trading rules and how that has affected and impacted us. We…

Good morning. As Rick said, you will hear us talk about third quarter operating results and we will try to highlight some of the significant financial and operational events of the quarter and year-to-date through September. We can cover anything in more detail as requested. But if you have questions, please hold them until the end, and we'll be happy to discuss them then. Net income during the third quarter – during the third quarter we recorded a net loss of $814,000. Earnings per share were $0.14 lower than they were in the same quarter of 2007. For the year, net income is $4.9 million, which equates to earnings per share of $0.07 per share compared to $0.22, year-to-date September through September 2007. The loss in the quarter is primarily due to expenses related to the two hurricanes that hit our Louisiana business totaling $1.3 million and expense related to the change in the liability of our loans on our preferred stock of $1.7 million. Those were the two big items. I will talk about some of the other items, you know, as we go through. During the quarter premium revenue decreased slightly and that was mainly due to the hurricanes and disruption to our domestic business in Louisiana. International business, as Rick indicated was flat for the quarter. New business – new international business is down but it is offset by renewal business in which persistently exceeding expectations. Our first year of production was down all three months in the quarter, but we had an upswing in October. Traditionally, the fourth quarter is our largest quarter for new business as our agents are trying to qualify for their sales convention and we have also initiated some extra sales incentives for the fourth quarter to start new sales. For the…

All right the call is now open for questions or Q&A or anything that we can do to help provide additional insight. We are happy to do that? Beth Malone – KeyBanc Capital Markets: Okay, this is Beth Malone.

Hi Beth Malone. Beth Malone – KeyBanc Capital Markets: Hi, how are you.

Very well. Beth Malone – KeyBanc Capital Markets: Just a couple of questions. On the dollar, the strength or weakness of the dollar and how important is that in your sales, I mean when we track demand by how the dollar is changing.

Well it certainly was – the logic of it would imply that you could advance based on our experience over the years has been that is not been significant. I think once the Euro gets stronger than the dollar and things go up and down and you would expect that would have an impact on our international sales operation and certainly it generates more discussion and more interest of our sales operations sales folks, as well as types of things occur, but when it comes back to actually quantifying in terms of the direct impact on the sales. As I said earlier, I wouldn’t say that you couldn’t say it doesn’t affect us but we can’t quantify in a material way what that would be and I don’t think you could take a metric and track it and suggest that it does (inaudible) because frankly, we are not seeing in any of how we do, what we do in terms of one on one sales with our clients. Beth Malone – KeyBanc Capital Markets: So, if that wasn’t the case and the slower sales is that more due to just the uncertainty that the world is experiencing right now.

Generally yes, but I would also tell you that some of the lower sales have occurred just because of the transition that we made in the year from an older portfolio to a new portfolio. We did not launch that as cleanly or as efficiently as we should have and that is, I think we talked about that a little in the second quarter that we were lagging where we should have been or thought or though where were probably should have been in terms of sales because of that transition from the old portfolio to the new. The positive side of that is that the newer portfolio has been received well and has been adopted well in the field. We are just – the way we view the downturn this year, is it is more geared to what we have done in terms of product adjustment then it is in what is actually happening around the world economically. Beth Malone – KeyBanc Capital Markets: Okay, thank you. And then on the acquisitions, with so many out there and the opportunity is expanding everyday, what limitations do you have on the capital perspective to be able to make new acquisitions?

Well, currently there are some limits in terms of a debt limit because of the preferred holding that we have, has a $30 million debt limit cap in it. So we are working under those constraints currently. We have been in contact with the preferred holders about the possibility of relinquishing that or changing that dynamic but at this point, I would be – it wouldn’t be prudent to say one way or the other how it is working, but it is not. Well, I don’t expect to see that change short-term. I would expect it – that whole issue comes in the tiers in July 2009 and so that particular constraint that we have got is really a limited constraint less than 12 months in duration. Otherwise our limits are going to be just the capital available that we have got and what I would think is a bigger issue is going to be the condition that some of these entities are in. What we are seeing is that the downturn in the market has literally wiped out capital surplus [ph] of some companies because of their investment strategies. So, having the capital available to be able to go in and either merge them and absorb them without creating capital issues for yourself or having the capital available, raising the capital, to be able to go out and make additional acquisitions, those are all things we are looking at and things that we are entertaining as far as how we would position ourselves to go forward. We have had some capacity to do things. I would think it is the smaller type deals that we could easily do. If you get into 100 or 100 million plus deals, it becomes a little more challenging as far as what we think we are capable of doing. Beth Malone – KeyBanc Capital Markets: Okay, and one last question, do you think given the condition of some of these companies that you can get some kind of help from the regulators as being a white knight on some of these or is that not allowed at all?

It certainly would be a possibility. We are strongly capitalized, so we have some ability to do that but I can assure you the regulators are going to be looking on both sides of that and determining that on the back side, what you are going to look like after you do it and whether or not you are going to be as well positioned as you were going in terms of the transaction but certainly we could be considered in certain situations a white knight. We are not trying to do that as much as we are trying to assimilate and identify the best possible prospects and those are compatible with our business model that fit well with what we are doing so that we can continue to grow and build the company and generate the future profitability on the same basis that we have been working in the past. Beth Malone – KeyBanc Capital Markets: Okay, thank you very much.

You bet. Are there other questions? If not again we appreciate very much the opportunity to share with you where we are, and where we have come, and we look forward to talking with you again in the next quarter.

We will also be filing our 10-Q this afternoon.

Thank you.

The moderator has disconnected. The conference will now end.