Good morning and welcome to the Primerica Q4 2016 Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode [Operator Instructions]. After today presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kathryn Kieser, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Primerica's fourth quarter earnings call. A copy of our earnings release, financial supplement, presentation and webcast of today's call are available on our website at investors.primerica.com. Glenn Williams, our Chief Executive Officer and Alison Rand, our Chief Financial Officer, will deliver prepared remarks. Then we will open it up for questions. We reference certain non-GAAP financial measures in our press release and on this call. These non-GAAP measures have limitations and reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are attached to our press release. We will also make forward-looking statements in accordance with the Safe Harbor Provision of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The company will not revise or update these statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or changes in strategy. Risk and uncertainties that could cause actual events to differ material from those expressed or implied are discussed in the company's 2015 annual report on form 10-K, as updated by our quarterly reports on form 10-Q. Now I will turn the call over to Glenn.

Thanks, Kathryn and good morning, everyone. I’ll start with our 2016 achievements then move to fourth quarter results and wrap up with the opportunities ahead of us. For the full year 2016, we continue to execute our strategy to drive growth and improve performance by expanding distribution, deploying mobile technology and repurchasing shares. On page three, you can see our net operating income grew 13% and we achieved a 22% increase in operating EPS and a 210 basis point increase in operating ROE compared with 2015. The solid foundation we built over the last couple of years is focused on growing our sales force and its leadership to meet the expanding needs of middle income clients. At the same time we have been working on incremental enhancements across our business to produce positive financial results. Technologies played a significant role in the improved performance of our core model. Our commitment to developing mobile technology capabilities throughout our business has led to delivering and enhanced client experience, greater processing efficiencies, more comprehensive representative training and higher sales force productivity. New mobile sales also appeal to a broader spectrum of age groups and provide a platform for more effective interaction with perspective clients, recruits and our sales force. By utilizing robust communications we were able to deliver messaging that informed and motivated our sales force. We also encouraged real-time feedback from our senior leaders, which enabled us to achieve greater success with our sales incentives and real time recognition programs. These initiatives have created strong alignment between the sales force and the company. We also continue to work on every facet of life insurance licensing, including state and prudential processes, representative education and test preparation. Our objective is to increase licensing success for the broader spectrum of recruits. As an example, we…

Thank you, Glenn, and good morning, everyone. Today, I will share with you the key drivers behind our fourth quarter segment financial results, and then conclude with a companywide review of insurance and operating expenses. Starting on slide seven, in the fourth quarter, our Term Life segment’s operating revenue increased 13% and adjusted direct premiums increased 14% year-over-year, reflecting continued strength in Term Life production as well as growth in the in force business not subject to IPO related co-insurance. Operating income before income taxes grew 11%, while operating margins contracted modestly to 17.3% from 17.7% year-over-year. As we have typically seen in the fourth quarter, persistency was seasonally lower than in other quarters and in addition was weaker than in the prior year period. In the aggregate, claims were largely in line with the historical trends with higher life insurance claims being offset by lower disabled life claims. As we've historically done in the fourth quarter we finalized our new business assumptions for 2016 sales increasing the persistency assumption for later policy duration based on recent experience. The net impact of weaker persistency claims experience and finalizing business assumptions was approximately $3 million unfavorable for the quarter. The benefits and claims ratio improved slightly to 58% from 58.3% in the fourth quarter of 2015 as lower reserves from the weaker persistency were offset by higher reserves from the finalizing a business assumption. DAC amortization ratio increased to 17.9% from 17% in the prior year mainly due to the weaker persistency. The net insurance expense ratio was consistent with the fourth quarter a year ago. On a sequential quarter basis, both income before income taxes and the Term Life operating margins declined from the third quarter of 2016. These trends are driven by the seasonally lower persistency in the fourth…

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the Ryan Krueger of KBW. Please go ahead.

The next question comes from Dan Bergman of Citi. Please go ahead.

The next question comes from Mark Hughes with SunTrust. Please go ahead.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Sean Dargan of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

The next question is from Adam Klauber of William Blair. Please go ahead.

The next question is a follow up from Mark Hughes of SunTrust. Please go ahead.