Good day, and welcome to the Q1 2022 earnings release conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Mike Majors, Executive Vice President, Administration and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Joining the call today are Gary Coleman and Larry Hutchison, our Co-Chief Executive Officers, Frank Svoboda, our Chief Financial Officer, and Brian Mitchell, our General Counsel. Some of our comments or answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements that are provided for general guidance purposes only. Accordingly, please refer to our earnings release, 2021 10-K, and any subsequent forms 10-Q on file with the SEC. Some of our comments may also contain non-GAAP measures. Please see our earnings release and website for discussion of these terms and reconciliations to GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to Gary Coleman. Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. In the Q1, net income was $164 million or $1.64 per share, compared to $179 million or $1.70 per share a year ago. Net operating income for the quarter was $170 million or $1.70 per share, an increase of 11% per share from a year ago. On a GAAP reported basis, return on equity was 8.5%, and book value per share is $69.16. Excluding unrealized gains and losses on fixed maturities, return on equity was 11.5%, and book value per share is $59.65, up 10% from a year ago. In our life insurance operations, premium revenue increased 7% from a year ago to $755 million. Life underwriting margin was $150 million, up 10% from a year ago. The increase in margin is due primarily to an increased premium. For the year, we expect life premium revenue to grow around 6%, and at the midpoint of our guidance, we expect underwriting margin to grow around 23%, due primarily to an expected decline in COVID life claims. In health insurance, premium grew 8% to $317 million, and health underwriting margin grew 10% to $79 million. The increase in underwriting margin is due primarily to increased premium and improved claims experience. For the year, we expect health premium revenue to grow 6%-7%. At the midpoint of our guidance, we expect underwriting margin to grow around 5%. Administrative expenses were $73 million for the quarter, up 10% from a year ago. As a percentage of premium, administrative expenses were 6.8% compared to 6.6% a year ago. For the full year, we expect administrative expenses to grow 10%-11% and be around 6.9% of premium. That's due primarily to higher IT and information security costs, employee costs, a gradual increase in travel and facility costs, and the addition of the Globe Life Benefits division. I will now turn the call over to Larry for his comments on the Q1 marketing operations. Thank you, Gary. At American Income, life premiums were up 10% over the year ago quarter to $370 million, and life underwriting margin was up 13% to $111 million. A higher premium is primarily due to higher sales in recent quarters. In the Q1 of 2022, net life sales were $85 million, up 23%. The increase in net life sales is due to increased productivity, plus a gradual improvement in issue rates as some challenges in underwriting, such as staffing and speed of obtaining medical records and other information are resolving. The average producing agent count for the Q1 was 9,385, down 5% from the year ago quarter and down 2% from the Q4. The producing agent count at the end of the Q1 was 9,543. We are confident American Income will continue to grow. The agent count was trending up the last several weeks of the quarter. We also have seen improvement in personal recruiting, which generally yields better candidates and better retention than other recruiting sources. In addition, we have made changes to the bonus structure designed to improve agency middle management growth. At Liberty National, life premiums were up 7% over the year-ago quarter to $81 million, and life underwriting margin was up 35% to $13 million. The increase in underwriting margin is primarily due to improved claims experience. Net life sales increased 7% to $17 million, and net health sales were $6 million, up 6% from the year-ago quarter due to increased agent productivity. The average producing agent count for the Q1 was 2,656, down 3% from the year ago quarter and down 2% compared to the Q4. The producing agent count of Liberty National ended the quarter at 2,687. We've introduced new training systems to help improve agent retention and updated our sales presentations to help agent productivity. We are pleased with the continued growth at Liberty National. At Family Heritage, health premiums increased 7% over the year ago quarter to $90 million, and health underwriting margin increased 9% to $24 million. The increase in underwriting margin is due to increased premium and improved claims experience. Net health sales were up 19% to $19 million due to increased agent productivity. The average producing agent count for the Q1 was 1,100, down 14% from the year ago quarter and down 8% from the Q4. The producing agent count at the end of the quarter was 1,130. We have modified our agency compensation structure and are increasing our focus on agency middle management development to drive recruiting growth going forward. We are pleased with the record level of productivity at Family Heritage. In our direct-to-consumer division of Globe Life, life premiums were up 3% over the year ago quarter to $251 million, and life underwriting margin increased 3% to $9 million. Net life sales were $34 million, down 15% from the year ago quarter. We expected this sales decline due to the 22% sales growth experienced in the Q1 of 2021. Although sales declined from the Q1 of 2021, we are still pleased with this quarter's sales results. At United American General Agency, health premiums increased 13% over the year ago quarter to $133 million, and health underwriting margin increased 6% to $20 million. Net health sales were $13 million, flat compared to the year ago quarter. It's difficult to predict sales activity in this uncertain environment. I will now provide projections based on trends we are seeing and knowledge of our business. We expect the producing agent count for each agency at the end of 2022 to be in the following ranges: American Income, a decrease of 2% to an increase of 3%; Liberty National, flat to an increase of 14%; Family Heritage, an increase of 8%-25%. Net life sales for the full year of 2022 are expected to be as follows: American Income, an increase of 9%-17%; Liberty National, an increase of 4%-12%; direct-to-consumer, a decrease of 13% to a decrease of 3%. Net health sales for the full year of 2022 are expected to be as follows. Liberty National, an increase of 3%-11%. Family Heritage, an increase of 4%-12%. United American Individual Medicare Supplement, a decrease of 5% to an increase of 3%. I will now turn the call back to Gary. Thanks, Larry. We will now turn to the investment operations. Excess investment income, which we define as net investment income less required interest on net policy liabilities and debt, was $61 million, up 1% from a year ago. On a per share basis, reflecting the impact of our share repurchase program, excess investment income was up 5%. For the full year, we expect excess investment income to decline between 1% - 2%, but be up around 2% on a per share basis. As to investment yield, in the Q1, we invested $351 million in investment-grade fixed maturities, primarily in the municipal and financial sectors. We invested at an average yield of 3.97%, an average rating of A, and an average life of 27 years. We also invested $118 million in limited partnerships that have debt-like characteristics. These investments are expected to produce additional yield and are in line with our conservative investment philosophy. For the entire fixed maturity portfolio, the Q1 yield was 5.15%, down 9 basis points from the Q1 of 2021. As of March 31, the portfolio yield was also 5.15%. Regarding the investment portfolio, invested assets are $19.5 billion, including $18 billion of fixed maturities at amortized cost. Of the fixed maturities, $17.4 billion are investment-grade with an average rating of A-minus, and below investment-grade bonds are $583 million compared to $802 million a year ago. The percentage of below investment-grade bonds to fixed maturities is 3.2%, and I would add that this is the lowest ratio it has been for more than 20 years. Excluding net unrealized gains in the fixed maturity portfolio, the low investment-grade bonds as a percentage of equity are 10%. Overall, the total portfolio is rated A-, same as a year ago. Bonds rated BBB are 54% of the fixed maturity portfolio. While this ratio is in line with the overall bond market, it is high relative to our peers. However, we have little or no exposure to higher risk assets such as derivatives, equities, residential mortgages, CLOs, and other asset-backed securities. Because we primarily invest long, a key criterion utilized in our investment process is that an issuer must have the ability to survive multiple cycles. We believe that the triple-B securities that we acquire provide the best risk-adjusted, capital-adjusted returns, due in large part to our ability to hold the securities to maturity regardless of fluctuations in interest rates or equity markets. I would also mention that we have no direct exposure to investments in Ukraine or Russia, and we do not expect any material impact to our investments in multinational companies that have exposure to those countries. For the full year, at the midpoint of our guidance, we expect to invest approximately $1.1 billion in fixed maturities at an average yield of around 4.3%, and approximately $200 million in limited partnership investments with debt-like characteristics at an average yield of around 7.7%. We are encouraged by the recent increase in interest rates and the prospect of higher interest rates in the future. Our new money rates will have a positive impact on operating income by driving up net investment income. We're not concerned about potential unrealized losses that are interest rate-driven since we do not expect to realize them. We have the intent, and more importantly, the ability to hold our investments to maturity. In addition, our life products have fixed benefits that are not interest sensitive. Now, I will turn the call over to Frank for his comments on capital and liquidity. Thanks, Gary. First, I wanna spend a few minutes discussing our share repurchase program, available liquidity, and capital position. The parent began the year with liquid assets of $119 million. In addition to these liquid assets, the parent company will generate excess cash flows in 2022. The parent company's excess cash flow, as we define it, results primarily from the dividends received by the parent from its subsidiaries, less the interest paid on parent company debt. During 2022, we anticipate the parent will generate $350 million-$370 million of excess cash flows. This amount of excess cash flows, which again is before the payment of dividends to shareholders, is lower than the $450 million received in 2021, primarily due to higher COVID life losses and the nearly 15% growth in our exclusive agency sales in 2021, both of which result in lower statutory income in 2021, and thus lower cash flows to the parent in 2022 than were received in 2021. Obviously, while an increase in sales creates a drag to the parent's cash flows in the short term, the higher sales will result in higher operating cash flows in the future. Including the excess cash flows and the $119 million of assets on hand at the beginning of the year, we currently expect to have around $470 million-$490 million of assets available to the parent during the year, out of which we anticipate distributing a little over $80 million to our shareholders in the form of dividend payments. In the Q1, the company repurchased 880,000 shares of Globe Life Inc. common stock at a total cost of $88.6 million, and at an average share price of $100.70. Year to date, we have repurchased 1,097,000 shares for approximately $110 million at an average price of $100.76. We also made a $10 million capital contribution to our insurance subsidiaries during the Q1. After these payments, we anticipate the parent will have $270 million-$290 million of assets available for the remainder of the year. As noted on previous calls, we will use our cash as efficiently as possible. We still believe that share repurchases provide the best return or yield to our shareholders over other available alternatives. Thus, we anticipate share repurchases will continue to be a primary use of the parent's excess cash flows along with the payment of shareholder dividends. It should be noted that the cash received by the parent company from our insurance operations is after our subsidiaries have made substantial investments during the year to issue new insurance policies, expand and modernize our information technology and other operational capabilities, and acquire new long-duration assets to fund their future cash needs. As discussed on prior calls, we have historically targeted $50 million-$60 million of liquid assets to be held at the parent. We will continue to evaluate the potential impact of the pandemic on our capital needs, and should there be excess liquidity, we anticipate the company will return such excess to the shareholders in 2022. In our earnings guidance, we anticipate between $400 million and $410 million will be returned to shareholders in 2022, including approximately $320 million-$330 million through share repurchases. With regard to our capital levels at our insurance subsidiaries, our goal is to maintain our capital levels necessary to support our current ratings. Globe Life targets a consolidated company action level RBC ratio in the range of 300%-320%. For 2021, our consolidated RBC ratio was 315%. At this RBC ratio, our subsidiaries have approximately $85 million of capital over the amount required at the low end of our consolidated RBC target of 300%. At this time, I'd like to provide a few comments relating to the impact of COVID-19 on Q1 results. In the Q1, the company incurred approximately $46 million of COVID life claims, equal to 6.1% of our life premium. The claims incurred in the quarter were approximately $17 million higher than anticipated due to higher levels of COVID deaths than expected, partially offset by a lower average cost per 10,000 U.S. deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, reported that approximately 155,000 U.S. deaths occurred due to COVID in the Q1, the highest quarter of COVID deaths in the U.S. since the Q1 of 2021. This was substantially higher than the 85,000 deaths we anticipated based on projections from the IHME. At the time of our last call, we utilized IHME's projection of 65,000 Q1 U.S. deaths and added a provision for higher deaths in January as reported by the CDC, but that were not reflected in IHME's projection. IHME's projection anticipated a significant drop off in deaths starting in mid-February. Obviously, the decline in deaths did not occur as quickly as anticipated, especially during the latter half of the quarter. With respect to our average cost per 10,000 U.S. deaths, based on data we currently have available, we estimate COVID losses on deaths in the Q1 were at the rate of $3 million per 10,000 U.S. deaths, which is at the low end of the range previously provided. This reflects an increase in the average age of COVID deaths and a decrease in the percentage of those deaths occurring in the South. The Q1 COVID life claims include approximately $25 million in claims incurred in our direct-to-consumer division, or 10% of its Q1 premium income, approximately $4 million at Liberty National, or 5.5% of its premium for the quarter, and approximately $15 million at American Income, or 4% of its Q1 premium. We continue to experience relatively low levels of COVID claims on policies sold since the start of the pandemic. Approximately two-thirds of COVID claim counts come from policies issued more than 10 years ago. For business issued since March of 2020, we've paid 624 COVID life claims with a total amount paid of $9.3 million. The 624 policies with COVID claims comprise only 0.01% of the approximately 4 million policies issued by Globe Life during that time. These levels are not out of line with our expectations. As noted on past calls, in addition to COVID losses, we continue to experience higher life policy obligations from lower policy lapses and non-COVID causes of death. The increase from non-COVID causes of death are primarily medical related, including deaths due to lung ailments, heart and circulatory issues, and neurological disorders. The losses we are seeing continue to be elevated over 2019 levels due at least in part, we believe, to the pandemic and the existence of either delayed or unavailable health care and potentially side effects of having contracted COVID previously. In the Q1, the life policy obligations relating to the non-COVID causes of death and favorable lapses were approximately $7 million higher than expected, primarily due to higher non-COVID deaths in our direct-to-consumer division than we anticipated. For the quarter, we incurred approximately $22 million in excess life policy obligations, of which approximately $15 million relates to non-COVID life claims. For the full year, we anticipate that our excess life policy obligations will now be approximately $64 million, or 2.1% of our total life premium, two-thirds of which are related to higher non-COVID causes of death. This amount is approximately $11 million greater than we previously anticipated. With respect to our earnings guidance for 2022, we are projecting net operating income per share will be in the range of $7.85-$8.25 for the year ending December 31, 2022. The $8.05 midpoint is lower than the midpoint of our previous guidance of $8.25, primarily due to higher COVID life policy obligations related to higher expected U.S. deaths during the year. We continue to evaluate data available from multiple sources, including the IHME and CDC, to estimate total U.S. deaths due to COVID and to estimate the impact of those deaths on our in-force book. At the midpoint of our guidance, we estimate we will incur approximately $71 million of COVID life claims, assuming approximately 245,000 COVID deaths in the U.S. This is an increase of $21 million over our prior estimate. This estimate assumes daily deaths will diminish somewhat from recent levels, but remain in an endemic state throughout the year. With respect to our cost per 10,000 deaths, we now estimate we will incur COVID life claims at the rate of $2.5 million-$3.5 million per 10,000 U.S. COVID deaths for the full year, or approximately $2.8 million per 10,000 U.S. deaths over the final three quarters of the year. Those are my comments. I will now turn the call back to Larry. Thank you, Frank. Those are our comments. We want to open the call for questions. Thank you. To signal for a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Also, if you are using a speakerphone, please make sure that your mute button is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, it is star one at this time for questions, and we'll pause for just a moment to give everyone the opportunity to signal. We'll take our first question from Jimmy Bhullar with JPMorgan. Hi. Good morning. I had a couple of questions. First, if you could talk about the decline in the agent count, and I guess it's multiple factors, but to what extent is it difficulty finding new agents in this labor market versus just, sort of departures of people that you've hired over the past, couple of years, for other jobs? Secondly, how do you think this applies for sales? Do you think this is something that will pressure sales as you get into late this year and into next year? Give the second part. Jimmy, I'll address the first question first, unless you heard the second part. It's true that recruiting has been challenging because there's so many work opportunities. I'd also remind everyone that there's typically a decline in agent count sequentially from the Q4 to the Q1 because the seasonality of the holidays that affect American Income and Family Heritage. You also have open enrollments at Liberty National. In addition to the holidays, people are focused on open enrollments during that period. I do believe in continued agency growth because our agency is selling in the underserved middle income market. Also, there's actually no shortage of underemployed workers looking for a better opportunity. You know, historically, we've been able to grow the agencies regardless of economic conditions. For example, during the economic downturn and high unemployment of 2008-2010, American Income had very strong agency growth. In 2018 and 2019, when the U.S. experienced record low unemployment, American Income, Liberty National, and Family Heritage had strong growth. Our long term ability to grow the agencies, Jimmy, really depends on growing middle management, expanding new office openings, and providing additional sales tools to our agents. During 2022, we anticipate opening new offices, increasing the number of middle managers in all three agencies. We're also providing additional sales technology to support our agents. Jimmy, can you repeat the sales question? I don't think I heard the sales question. It was just that, like, obviously, to the extent you are losing people who were recently hired, then you don't lose a lot of production from them 'cause they hadn't ramped up. How do you think that, like, does the decline in the agent count, both people leaving who are already agents and difficulty in hiring new agents, does that make you less optimistic about sales later this year and into next year? Well, it doesn't make me less optimistic. New agents were always less productive than veteran agents. As you look across the three agencies, the increases in sales are partially explained by the increase in productivity. For example, the largest decline is Family Heritage, but we had a 16% increase in the percentage of agents submitting business, also had a 22% increase in the average premium written per agent. That level of productivity, that comes from the veteran agents, the existing agents. In American Income, in the Q1, we saw personal recruits increase about 15% versus the Q1 of 2021. That's important because personal recruits are they stay twice as long and are twice as productive as the recruits from other sources. you know, I have confidence, even though the agent increase will be slower this year, we'll still have the sales within the range that I gave during the script. Okay. Then any comments on what you're seeing in terms of non-COVID mortality? 'Cause it seems like claims for a number of life companies have been elevated even beyond COVID because of other health issues or issues related potentially to COVID, but not direct COVID claims. Yeah, Jimmy. I mean, that is really consistent with what we're seeing right now as well. We are seeing, especially in the Q1, we really did see, you know, elevated levels, especially in our direct-to-consumer, but, you know, saw it across the distribution and really across all the, you know, several different causes of death. But, you know, primarily, as I've mentioned in the heart and circulatory, lung, you know, some of the neurological disorder type areas. You know, we really do attribute, you know, to the various side effects of COVID and whether just the, you know, not getting care when they needed it, you know, throughout 2021 or, side effects of having had it and, You know, declined health, you know, for the survivors of COVID. You know, looking at in 2022, you know, looking back, we saw some early trends back in December that kind of led us to believe that we would start to see the, you know, a decrease in those claims in 2022. We had originally anticipated, you know, those kind of trending back to more normal levels over the course of the year. In the Q1, it really wasn't worse than what, you know, we had seen in the past. It was a little bit elevated, but not substantially so. It was just, you know, greater than what we had anticipated. You know, we do think over time that these will, again, kind of revert back to normal levels, but probably a little bit more slowly, you know, than what we'd originally anticipated. Just lastly, on the accounting changes, do you have any, sort of initial commentary on what you expect the impact to be, both in terms of the balance sheet and on the income statement? Yeah, no updates from what we had talked about on the last quarter. You know, we do anticipate giving some more quantitative disclosure you know, here after the end of the Q2. We're still in the process of finalizing, if you will, our models, doing the testing, making sure our controls are in place, looking at you know, the various aspects of validating our numbers, if you will. As I said on the last call, you know, we do anticipate a favorable impact from an operating earnings perspective, primarily through you know, reduced the changes being made on the amortization side of the balance sheet or of the income statement. With respect to the equity on the AOCI, that there will be some decrease there clearly from just the changes in the interest rates and the impact that has. Okay. Thank you. Moving on, we'll go to Andrew Kligerman with Credit Suisse. Hi. Good morning. I thought I'd go back to the producing agent count numbers. The new targets for American Income are -2 to +3. That's versus three-eight at your last quarterly guidance. Liberty National 0-14 is versus two-30 last time. I guess the question is, was it the tight labor market that's primarily driving this change in guidance? Is there something else? You know, what are some of the key drivers of this new guidance? I think for American Income, one of the key drivers is just the amount of agent growth we had in 2020 and 2021. As you recall, we had greater than 20% agency growth. Agency growth is always a stair-step process. I wouldn't expect the same level of agency growth in 2022 that we had in 2020 through 2021. I think the uncertainty really is around the other two agencies. It has to do with COVID. Now, as you recall, Liberty National really sells the majority of the sales at worksite presentations, and those take place at the place of business, and those appointments have been more difficult to set during the pandemic. If COVID continues to decline, then the agent count growth at Liberty National would be at the upper end of the range because they'll be able to recruit to an at-business sale. If COVID doesn't decline, I'd expect our guidance to be at the lower end of the range. Likewise, with Family Heritage, they don't sell life insurance with leads. They sell in the home, physically in the home or at the business, and those appointments were very difficult to set during the pandemic. Again, if COVID continues to decline, then the agent count growth of Family Heritage will be at the upper end of their range because they're better able to recruit to an at-home or at-business sale. If COVID doesn't decline, I'd expect Family Heritage to be at the lower end of the range. What's encouraging, I think, is the sales levels we had in the Q1. With a 19% sales growth at Family Heritage, that's fairly easy to recruit to because the agents are having such success. Likewise, we saw worksite sales increase 10% quarter-over-quarter, Q1 of 2022 versus 2021. That's easy to recruit to when there are more prospects in the worksite market. That makes a lot of sense, particularly Liberty and Family Heritage. I guess again on American Income, you know, you knew about the agency growth that was so strong in 2020 and 2021, and yet you gave the guidance of 3%-8%. Now it's just off a bit sharply. Anything else, Larry, you know, that changed your thinking in the course of two or three months? Well, not in the two or three months. I'd remind you with American Income, we had a large number of offices open in 2018 and 2019, and that resulted in the higher agency growth for those new offices. During COVID, it was more difficult to open those new offices, and so we have lower new office openings- I see. in 2022 than we had in 2021 and 2022. Excuse me, in 2021 and 2022. Oh, I see. versus 2018 and 2019. Again, I would say that when you look at American Income with approximately 10,000 agents, a 3% increase is 300 agents. That's a large number of agents to bring in and train and, you know, enter into your systems. Again Referring back to the stair-step process, we always have slower agent growth following the faster growth. If you go back to 2017 and 2018, you would see that at American Income and Family Heritage, we had almost zero agent growth in those two years. Then in 2019 and 2020, we had the accelerated agent growth. This follows a pattern that historically we've seen in all three agencies. I see. Okay. You know, you talked a little bit about going forward, some building out the middle management and increasing the offices further as we go through 2022. Could you put any numbers around it or any further color? For the year, for all three agencies, we expect to increase middle management from 5%-8%. That's so important because middle management really drives most of the recruiting in all three agencies. You know, the lack of agent growth at Family Heritage, quicker middle management growth during 2022 as we see the agent growth accelerate, more people will take that opportunity and move into middle management. Again, we've had such rapid agent growth at American Income, I think the 5%-8% growth is certainly a reasonable number to assume for a reasonable range to assume for 2022. At Liberty National, as we see the worksite sales increase, we'll see that same increase in middle management. Got it. You know, I guess lastly, you were just touching on how, sort of those elevated, you know, sort of non-COVID, but COVID-related claims reverting back over time. We've heard that from some of the big U.S. life reinsurers as well. Anything further there? Is it just, you know, once COVID subsides, all these kind of situations where people aren't getting medical checkups, et cetera, that'll just kind of subside with COVID? Anything else that gives you confidence that will revert over time? No, I think, Andrew, that that's, you know, largely when you think about getting back to access to, you know, healthcare, and, you know, just generally people feeling, you know, getting more comfortable with, you know, getting out of their homes and getting back into the doctor's office and getting the care that they need to take care of their conditions. You know, I think as time goes on, obviously we'll start to see, you know, get more experience in the numbers and be able to get a little better sense of that. I think, you know, at this point in time, it's, you know, where you look at this elevated level and you kind of see the situation and it's more from, you know, the belief that over time as we get past the COVID pandemic and just again, use of healthcare gets back to normal levels, that's where we would anticipate that the non-COVID deaths would get back into kind of normal levels as well, at least until we start to see, you know, some something in the numbers that would indicate otherwise. Yeah, that seems very encouraging for 23, in 2023 and 2024. Anyway, thank you very much for answering the questions. Sure. Thanks. Once again, it is star one for questions. Next, we'll go to Erik Bass with Autonomous Research. Hi. Thank you. It looks like the lapses ticked up a little bit from where they've been running in the life business. I was just wondering, are you starting to see persistency begin to normalize? Is that something you would expect to continue? Eric, I think that's true of Liberty National. It appears that we're getting back more towards the pre-pandemic level lapses. On the direct-to-consumer side, the lapse rates were a little bit higher. The first year lapse rate was a little bit higher than it had been in late 2020 into 2021. It, along with the renewal lapse rates, are still favorable compared to where we were pre-pandemic. American Income, I think we've had a fluctuation there this quarter. The first year lapse rate was a little over 10%, which is normally, you know, less than 9%. I think that'll settle down as we go forward. I think, like direct-to-consumer, the rates there at American Income will be a little bit higher than what we experienced in 2021, but still favorable versus the pre-pandemic level. Got it. Thank you. Can you remind me, I think one of the other factors driving the excess life claims that you're assuming is the better persistency you're assuming there and how that works through? Yeah. You know, about a third, you know, I've mentioned in the opening comments that, you know, for the year as policy obligations, you know, we're estimating at around $64 million, and about a third of that is, you know, due to the higher lapses. Just over time, I mean, we are bringing that down, if you will, over the course of 2022. As Gary, you know, indicated, we still anticipate having favorable persistency, you know, versus pre-pandemic levels, but we are kind of grading that back, over time. By the end of the year, still anticipating some favorable persistency, and then that favorable persistency does result in some higher policy obligations, than normal. Over time, again, we're kind of just grading that down slowly, though, over the course of the year. Thanks. If I could just sneak one more in. On your excess investment income, I think it was up year-over-year this quarter, and your guidance is still for it to decline on kind of a dollar basis. Was there anything unusual in the investment income this quarter? Yeah, Erik, we had our income from the limited partnerships that we had was about $2.5 million higher than expected. I think that's a little bit of a timing thing. That investment income was weighted heavier towards the Q1 than it will be later in the year. Got it. Thank you. Moving on, we'll go to Ryan Krueger with KBW. Hi, good morning. On the $15 million of non-COVID excess mortality claims from the quarter, can you give that by division? I guess I'm curious if it was more concentrated in direct-to-consumer like your direct COVID claims were. Yeah, I was thinking. The total excess obligations, I think I indicated were about $7 million higher, you know, for the Q1. I was looking for the $15 million of the. I think you said there was $22 million of indirect policy obligations, and $15 million was from mortality. Yes. Okay. Yes. About $10 million of that was related to DTC, and, I guess, about $11 million DTC and $2 million each from AIL and LNL. I think that's. Got it. I guess, as you dug into the data, are there any conclusions as to why you think you're seeing more concentration in both direct and indirect COVID claims in direct-to-consumer relative to the agent-driven divisions? Yeah, you know, I think just in general, as we look at it, you know, remember that direct-to-consumer is just a higher mortality, you know, business. You know, just in the normal course of time, you know, their policy obligations make up about 54%-55% of their of their total premium, whereas for both Liberty and American Income, you know, they're in that 30%-35% range, you know, kind of on a pre-pandemic level. You know, just from a proportion perspective, DTC is just a, you know, has just that higher mortality. You know, other than just being part of that, there just tend to be a broader swath of the U.S. population, if you will, and just tends to, I'm gonna say, just be a little less healthy group of policyholders just because we do less underwriting, you know, simplified underwriting and direct-to-consumer. You know, we don't really see anything else in the numbers, if you will, that specifically point to, you know, anything specific for DTC. Thanks. When I look at, if I take your life underwriting income in both 2021 and in the Q1, and if I add back the direct and indirect COVID and mortality impacts that you cited, it looks like the margin would have been about 29% of premium if you add everything back, which is higher than it was running pre-pandemic, which I think was more in the 27%-28% range. Is 29% more indicative of what you'd expect once the pandemic fully ends, or are there some other offsets? Yeah. Ryan, I think one additional piece there is that we're seeing improved or lower amortization of deferred acquisition costs because of the improved persistency. That's the piece that gets you from the 20, what we would say, a normal 28 to you know, the 29 that you came up with. Okay. Understood. Thank you. As a final reminder, star one at this time if you do have a question. Next, we'll go to John Barnidge with Piper Sandler. Thank you very much. Can you maybe talk about how inflation changes the dynamics for distribution of products into your targeted demographic? Maybe asked a bit differently, how do you think through sales persistency holding up in a soft economic environment driven by inflation? I'll first talk about the impact of inflation. It's really different in each distribution. For the agency channels, we expect little impact on the level of sales due to inflation. Remember, we sell on a needs basis. Sales may favorably be impacted if customers need a larger face amount. Should a client need to purchase additional coverage, the low monthly premiums associated with the products we sell should result in only a slight increase in premiums. Our premiums are designed to comprise only a small percentage of the agent's budget. For direct-to-consumer, inflation could be a negative for the mail and insert channels. Inflation increases overall cost of insert and mail media due to postal rate and paper cost increases. As such, we'll probably need to adjust mail volumes to maintain profit margins. However, we can expand the use of the internet and email channels to offset those decreases. For Medicare Supplement at United American, inflation can lead to higher medical trend. This higher trend will be offset with rate increases over time to achieve the lifetime loss ratios. To the extent medical trends are higher than assumed, profit margins may actually improve as the fixed dollar acquisition costs become a lower percentage of premium. That's very helpful. Then, maybe on the investment portfolio as a follow-up, the rate environment's clearly changed a lot. Does this change maybe interest in floating rate securities versus fixed at all? Or maybe talk about how rates have changed your view on investments. Well, John, as you know, we primarily invest long, and that's the reason we do that because our liabilities are long. Yeah, we have seen, especially in Treasury rates, we've seen, you know, in the quarter from the beginning of the quarter to the end of the quarter, the curve flattening. However, when you take into consideration spreads, you know, the longer, the 25-year bonds that we're buying still provide a substantial yield enhancement over the shorter bonds. We don't, you know, we're trying to look for the best opportunities. We don't rule out investing short, you know, there's especially times that we want to improve diversification or quality or whatever, we do go shorter. In fact, we are going short to a certain extent. When you talk about the alternatives that we're investing in, as I mentioned, we're gonna invest approximately $200 million in 2022 in these, you know, limited partnerships that they're structured credit type of arrangements. Yeah, they're shorter and they still give us a good yield. But for the most part, you know, when we're investing for assets to support our policy liabilities, we need to invest long. We're, you know, where we stand today, as I mentioned, 15% will be going to the shorter investments, but that means 85% are still gonna be in the longer investments. Thank you very much for answering. Best of luck in the quarter ahead. There are no further questions. I'd like to turn it back to Mr. Mike Majors for any additional or closing comments. All right. Thank you for joining us this morning. Those are our comments, and we'll talk to you again next quarter. Thank you. That does conclude today's call. We'd like to thank everyone for their participation. You may now disconnect.