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Horace Mann Educators Corp (HMN -1.10%)
Q1Â 2019 Earnings Call
May. 01, 2019, 9:30 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Greetings and welcome to the Horace Mann First Quarter 2019 Investor Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Heather Wietzel, Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Heather Wietzel -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you, Christine and good morning everyone. Welcome to Horace Mann's discussion of our first quarter 2019 results. Yesterday we issued our earnings release and investor supplement, copies are available on the Investor page of our website along with our investor presentation, which was posted this morning.
Our speakers today are Marita Zuraitis, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Bret Conklin, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Bill Caldwell, Executive Vice President, Property and Casualty; Bret Benham, Executive Vice President, Life and Retirement; and Ryan Greenier, Vice President, Corporate Finance are also available for the question-and-answer session that follows our prepared remarks.
Before turning it over to Marita, I wanted to note that our presentation today includes forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and we assume no obligation to update them. Actual results may differ materially due to a variety of factors, which are described in our press release and SEC filings.
In our prepared remarks, we use some non-GAAP measures. Reconciliation of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are available in the supplemental section of our press release.
I'll now turn the call over to Marita.
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Heather. Good morning everyone and welcome to our call. Yesterday evening we reported first quarter core earnings per diluted share of $0.63 that's a 24% increase over prior year. Our results were strong across all lines without the outsized catastrophe losses of the past few quarters overshadowing underlying results, you can more clearly see the strategic value of our multi line business model and what it means to our company moving forward.
We reported solid profitability for P and C and continued growth in our Life and Retirement segments. We're confident that our strategic initiatives will get Horace Mann back to a double-digit return on equity. The first quarter's results were not only a strong start to the year, but illustrate how well positioned we are in the education market as we work to finalize our acquisition of National Teachers Associates. NTA will add in demand supplemental insurance products to our suite of solutions deepening our customer relationships. Compliment our agency force with additional trusted points of distribution, experienced in worksite marketing and diversify our revenue and earnings base. We are working diligently to complete the acquisition and continue to expect it to close mid-year.
Moving on to our quarterly results, our Property and Casualty segment produced a solid profit in the quarter with a combined ratio of 95.5, an improvement of 3.4 points over prior year. This is largely due to the improved profitability of our auto line. Auto loss ratio improvement is a significant driver of ROE and we have targeted 5 points of improvement by 2020. The progress we made this quarter puts us well on track to achieving that main objective on schedule. In our most profitable geographies, we are ramping up P&C growth. At the same time, in the less profitable geographies, our focus is on preferred educator business. We are comfortable that our current rate plan in the mid single digits in both auto and property will allow us to continue on our current profitable path for the full year. We have several exciting initiatives planned in P&C this year. This quarter, we are launching our safe driving HMDrive telematics app in a number of states. Although most of our educator customers are preferred risks, we are always interested in gaining further data to refine and segment our book.
The HMDrive app gathers data about driving behaviors and scores trips based on facts like speeding, hard breaking, cornering, phone distraction, and harsh acceleration. Drivers received personalized dashboards, score trends, trip details, and personalized driving tips. They can also compete for spots on city, state, and school district leader boards. We see this gamification approach as a draw for technologically savvy educators. Long-term, this data further enhances our pricing segmentation.
In the Retirement segment, we continue to make positive strides with retirement annuity sales up 9% for the quarter. Net investment income increased slightly for the quarter, almost entirely due to favorable alternative returns. Retirement earnings were up slightly, did a favorable back on locking. We closed on our acquisition of Benefits Consulting Group early in the quarter. If you will recall, in announcing this transaction last year, we outlined three reasons for this purchase. First, BCG improves our products by providing plan design and administration capabilities that are key to being competitive in the B2B space. Second, BCG brings a new well-respected and established network of distributors and finally BCG improves our infrastructure with an efficient and scalable ISO 9001 compliant platform that delivers solutions in a way that our employers prefer them. We are migrating our retirement advantage accounts to BCG's platform and should finish that product -- project this quarter. This will improve ease of doing business and customer experience.
In the Life segment, our sales continue to be robust with the first quarter result consistent with a strong prior year. We are encouraged by the strong growth in our reoccurring premium products such as the 35% growth in our Indexed Universal Life product year-over-year. This quarter's results reflect a culmination of a focused multiyear plan to build the products, distribution, and infrastructure needed to provide educators with financial solutions at each stage of their lives. We now have the products that educators want tailored to meet their unique needs. Our distribution channels aligned with the way our customers want to do business and we have made major infrastructure improvements that improve the ease of doing business for both agents and/or customers. Adding NTA products distribution and infrastructure to our strong foundation will allow us to accelerate our pace of growth and introduce our unique brand to their educator households. At the same time, we are advancing our strategic agenda. We also believe that having a strong social purpose is an integral part of who we are. We continue to prioritize being a good corporate citizen. Our first recent corporate social responsibility report was named to the list of the top 100 annual reports worldwide by the League of American communications professionals, who cited the quality of the message and the creativity and clarity of information as differentiators.
To close, our first quarter results were a strong start to the year. They highlighted the earnings power of providing tailored solutions to a niche market built on customer-friendly infrastructure and delivered through trusted distribution channels. As we worked to bring NTA on-board, I'm excited about where this combination of respective strengths will take us. Thanks. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bret.
Bret A. Conklin -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Thanks Marita and good morning everyone. First quarter core earnings were $0.63, a $0.12 cent increase over last year. First quarter annualized core return on equity was 8.8%. The results illustrate the substantial progress we are making on strategic initiatives to drive consistent performance, long-term profitable growth and a return to double digit ROE. Earnings drivers in Q1 were largely consistent with our expectations. As a result, we remain comfortable with our full year 2019 EPS guidance of $2 to $2.20 without any contribution from NTA.
So let's look briefly at investment results before turning to the specific drivers of each of the businesses. In the first quarter, the annualized pre-tax portfolio yield was 5% with net investment income up 900,000 primarily due to better than expected alternative investment returns. As you know, these returns typically vary from quarter-to-quarter. Our alternative portfolio had a fair value of $330 million at March 31st. That said, we still expect full year 2019 net investment income to decline about $5 million to $6 million from what we reported for full year 2018. Our new money rate of 4.3% remains below our current portfolio yield and we expect lower prepayment activity compared to 2018. Our portfolio strategy also remains unchanged with the overall credit quality of the portfolio steady at 8 plus. We continue to believe our prudent investment positioning will serve us well to avoid significant impairment and credit losses in the challenging environment we expect over the next several years. At March 31st, our book value excluding AOCI had risen slightly from year end to $29.47.
Turning to Property and Casualty segment for the quarter, core earnings were $15 million versus $9.7 million with the combined ratio at 95.5% versus 98.9% in last year's first quarter.
The significant rate increases we have implemented were the primary factor driving better underlying underwriting performance. Net written premiums rose modestly on the higher rate and we continue to expect rate increases will drive a low single digit increase in total net written premium for the year.
These increases largely already filed and approved average in the mid single digits across the book. In the few markets that aren't yet meeting our profitability targets particularly in the southeast, we continue to shed monoline auto and on educator business.
In many of these cases, we are placing these customers with partner carriers allowing us to maintain the household and relationship. At the same time, in geographies that are outperforming, we are working with agents to support their sales efforts.
We are beginning to see positive trends in new business count and expect it will accelerate over time. In Property, rate increases are tied to the higher cap and non-cap weather we saw in many geographies over the past few years.
We continue to expect the full year underwriting property loss ratio to improve 3 or so points over 2018. Auto rates being filed are keeping us ahead of loss cost. We continue to see the trends of recent quarters continuing with elevated severity although the increases have moderated somewhat and lower frequency.
We expect autos to be profitable on an underlying basis by year end with a cumulative 5 points of improvement in the underlying loss ratio since 2017. That loss ratio improvement is a key driver of ROE. Underwriting results benefited from $2 million and favorable reserve releases evenly divided between property and auto primarily from exit year 2018. Cap losses for the quarter were up slightly from last year's first quarter due to the more frequent Midwest storms in January and February, but within the parameters we expected. Our estimate for 2019 catastrophe losses is $45 million to $55 million or 7 points to 7.5 points, up 20% from what we initially included in 2018. We are more heavily weighing more recent years in our forecasting to reflect the impact of sustained elevated catastrophe loss trends. Looking at those historic loss trends, we typically had incurred about half of our annual cap losses in the second quarter.
Our target range for the expense ratio is to be a half point plus or minus of 27% and the first quarter ratio was right in line at 27.2%. In last year's first quarter, the ratio benefited from an expense recovery that lowered the auto expense ratio by about 2 points.Our target for the combined ratio for the P&C business for the full year remains at the high 90s.
Turning to the Retirement segment, we completed the purchase of Benefit Consultants Group on January 2nd. The sales and expenses of their retirement plan and record keeping business are now included in our Retirement segment results beginning this quarter. As a result, we've made a few updates to the way we show the segment data in the release and financial supplement. The changes help distinguish between managed assets and assets under administration, which only generate these.
As you recall, acquiring BCG was a strategic move. They bring infrastructure capabilities through their efficient and scalable ISO 9001 compliant platform, which delivers solutions in the way that employers prefer them. As Marita said, we are actively working to integrate our existing retirement advantage accounts onto BCG's platform to gain efficiencies and improve the customer experience. But another way, BCG's capabilities bolster the value proposition we provide to school districts nationwide. While their contribution to retirement net income is expected to be immaterial for the next several years, they will be integral to achieving our growth objectives.
Turning back to retirement results, annuity sales were up 9% for the quarter and continue to be an important part of our product set. As they appeal to the financial objectives identified by our customers while complementing our growing suite of fee-based products. Positive DAC unlocking for the quarter was due to favorable equity market performance reversing a portion of the negative DAC unlocking in the fourth quarter of 2018. As anticipated, core earnings excluding DAC unlocking were down about $1 million for the first quarter to $11 million due to the lower investment spread. We remain on track to our full year guidance of earnings on the same basis in the range of $39 million to $41 million. Turning to the Life segment, our agents continue to introduce educators to the right products to address their financial needs, while leveraging our recently introduced ease of doing business initiatives to cross-sell more policies into our existing customer base.
First quarter sales were solid and even with last year's equally strong first quarter. We expect growth throughout the remainder of the year, as we help more of our customers see how life insurance can contribute to the financial well-being of their families. Mortality costs rose in line with the growth and aging of our in force policy book and expenses were up slightly. As a results, core earnings were $3.3 million compared with $3.8 million last year. For the full year, we continue to expect earnings excluding DAC unlocking of $15 million to $17 million with full-year sales growth in the double digits.
In summary, we are making important progress in the key drivers of ROE improvement. In particular, improving underlying performance in our P&C business. We believe the results of the first quarter hold very well for the remainder of 2019 and beyond, even before we take into account the opportunities that NTA brings. As Marita discussed, NTA will strengthen our ability to meet the product distribution and infrastructure needs and expectations of the nation's education market. We expect our progress will continue and we're very excited about what the future holds for Horace Mann. Thank you.
And with that, I'll turn it back to Heather for Q&A.
Heather Wietzel -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Thanks, Bret. Christine, we're ready to take questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instruction) Our first question comes from the line of Matthew Carletti with JMP Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Matthew Carletti -- JMP Securities. -- Analyst
Hey. Good morning. Just a couple of questions, I think Marita, maybe we'll start with -- you touched a little bit on NTA, but I was hoping you might be able to expand a little bit on -- A, if there's any update on you know kind of when do you expect the close, I know you said mid-year, but do you expect Q2 could it be Q3 and bigger picture, if you can just talk a little bit about you know four months have kind of passed since the deal is announced, I'm sure you've had some time to progress your plans. Is the thinking still that you know Horace Mann agents pretty quickly should be able to sell the NTA products, it might take a little bit longer for NTA agents to sell some of the Horace Mann P&C products, and then maybe if you could talk a little bit about just if I'm understanding it right how historically Horace Mann has had a pretty rough footprint, NTA is a bit more urban. Can you talk about that opportunity a bit?
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. As usually Matt, you know as well I think you answered your own question there, but I can try to give you a little more color, I'm not sure how much more detail we have than what we've already shared. The transactions pending approval, we're waiting for New York and Texas, although conversations with the department are going extremely well and we do anticipate that we will close at that mid year time frame that we have already given you. In the time that has passed since we announced, it's actually given us even more time to plan so that we can hit the ground running as you can imagine. Our first strategic priority has always been our Horace Mann agents selling NTA products. So it's given us time to kickoff that training and get our agents well-trained, so that literally at the day of close, these agents already have schools and appointments lined up to begin to sell those products.
So we feel good that you know they'll be able to hit the ground running, but also some time to build some of the future plans as to what the other cross-sell opportunities will be as we round out the households. But that's clearly where we're starting. You know we had talked early on about the lack of significant overlap between our agents and their's, obviously there's a few places where they're both strong and we're strong and we're working through how those agents can effectively work together, but those are really few and far between pretty much you know across the board, they're very strong in some places where we're not and we're very strong in some places where they're not, which we think gives us considerable opportunity, as we work through those long-term cross-sell plans.
So again, I feel that the more time we spend together the more time it convinces us that this is going to be a good clean fit and really gets us ready to hit that ground running upon close. I feel even more confident now than I did when we announced the acquisition.
Matthew Carletti -- JMP Securities. -- Analyst
Great. That's really helpful and then then maybe one other question, this might be for Bill Caldwell. You know just looking at the P&C segment, both both auto and property I mean and particular auto, I mean the -- actually your loss ratio recovery has been great to see and accelerating. I guess the question is now that you can kind of see profitability in sight and definitely getting traction. How do you start to think about balancing kind of the rate increase levels with what's needed for profitability and and with stabilizing the PIF count or is PIF something that you're not overly focused on and you just want to get the pricing and the returns right and that will fall out where it is?
William J. Caldwell -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PROPERTY AND CASUALTY
Yeah, Matt. This is Bill. We think about both obviously and we're where we expected to be. Just a reminder, as we went through the cycle in the third and fourth quarter of last year, we took over three points of rate in those two quarters combined or each and when you think about in a normalized environment, that's typically 1 to 1.25 points, in fact in the first quarter of this year we took 0.8 rates.
So it gives you a little bit of color around how much rate was in the back half of the year and that works through the system are mostly six-month policies. So through June, we expect those policies to renew. So you're seeing a little bit of hits retention, certainly as we come out of June and we're in a more normalized environment, we expect growth to emerge in profitable markets. We are starting to see that now, unfortunately it's overshadowed by some of our defensive actions in unprofitable markets. But things like telematics, we are offering a discount in preferred markets for the use of telematics that will help accelerate growth. And also, we have guide wire being launched in October in our pilot state of Illinois with four additional big states coming in 2020. So I'm very optimistic about growth but certainly -- and certainly we're focused on both and we're very pleased with the underlying improvement that was on auto this year.
Matthew Carletti -- JMP Securities. -- Analyst
Great. Thanks a lot. Very nice start to the year and best of luck for the rest of it.
William J. Caldwell -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PROPERTY AND CASUALTY
Thanks, Matt.
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Matt.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Gary Ransom with Dowling and Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Gary Ransom -- Dowling Partners -- Analyst
Yes. Good morning. I wanted to follow up on the PIF growth question maybe a longer term well and if I look back over the last 10 years or so, there hasn't really been any period of PIF growth of any significance, it was thought of a decline in the -- right after the credit crisis and flattish and now we've had this last decline. And, I just -- is the things you're talking about now or whether it's Guidewire, telematics and is that really the solution or is there some other -- what I'm thinking in the back of my mind is that we've got a lot of competition out there and you've got you know a teacher who has been helped by your retirement plans and your life insurance and they learned from you how to save money and then they decide to go call up Geico, when they're doing their homeowners or auto. And I just -- is this -- is what you're doing enough is kind of what I'm asking for and you know is there more you might be thinking about to turn that PIF growth around?
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Gary, I think it's an excellent question and I would say that you started to get to the answer there. I think the strength in our Retirement segment and the products that we've built in retirement and the traction there, I think the life back in our life segment and what you've seen there, I think bringing on another 150,000 households with NTA that without overlap there that there is a fair amount of those households that aren't with Horace Mann today that we will be able to eventually cross-sell our auto products to.
All of those things give us more opportunity with a captive audience to cross-sell our auto. But I think Bill's previous answer is right. I think restoring the profitability to our auto line getting to a more stable rate environment, giving our agents the tools and solutions and ability to have more reasons to be in that school in the marketplace gives us more at-bats and with more at-bats with a relatively consistent conversion rate in our book, I think it is about quoting more and you'll begin to see that PIF growth emerge.
William J. Caldwell -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PROPERTY AND CASUALTY
Yeah and Gary, this is Bill. I'll just add a little bit more about Guidewire, because it does enhance more than just our rate capabilities, we'll be able to segment better. The access to data will be more robust, but also from a customer experience perspective, there'll be more online servicing, more digital capabilities. So again, the number of at-bats continue to increase.
Gary Ransom -- Dowling Partners -- Analyst
Just on the telematics product, is that -- are you -- I'm not sure I heard it right. Are you using that in pricing or are you using that in just customer experience more or less at this point?
William J. Caldwell -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PROPERTY AND CASUALTY
Both. We're offering a discount for those who sign up in preferred markets, where we're at rate adequacy but in other markets it will be available for more of the gamification and education perspective.
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
And then in the long-term, that data certainly helps with pricing segmentation as it does you know for other markets.
Gary Ransom -- Dowling Partners -- Analyst
Are you a believer that the gamification changes behavior?
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
I'm a believer that certainly the placebo effect, if nothing else is helpful those that sign up for this tend not to be those people who know that they don't want people having their data. So there certainly is at least a placebo effect and because these aren't deep discounts and because we're thinking about this in a homogeneous set of auto customers that we've had for a long period of time, it allows us to watch the data and be able to determine the answer to that question for ourselves.
William J. Caldwell -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PROPERTY AND CASUALTY
And Gary, we've tested this internally for quite some time, and I will say there is an impact to knowing -- it's a very cool application and it gives you very detailed information along your route, where you picked up your phone, where you were speeding, that information and the score that comes out every day. We took all types of our watches and what our watch tells us, it's similar with application and the people that have tested it have reported back that they -- they work to improve their scores.
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
And in the past, we've talked to you about the distracted driving education that we're bringing to our school districts and how much time and attention we've spent with both students and educators you know educating on the effects of distracted driving. This is one more way in which through the gamification, through presenting, you know these game boards and these score cards, it draws attention to that distracted driving factor that we all know isn't good for our long-term results over time. So I like an additional spotlight on that. You know put your cellphone down kind of approach.
Gary Ransom -- Dowling Partners -- Analyst
Okay. That's -- that's helpful. Just another little small item on the development, on most favorable development, I realize it's not that big of a number but I was just observing that you basically did zero in all of last year and I might describe that as holding your lost ticks and I'm just wondering if that -- if you look at that shift to more favorable development as a -- as some manifestation of better lost trends that you were describing in your ongoing book?
Bret A. Conklin -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Gary, this is Bret Conklin. Let me take that. Let me just start off by saying, our reserving philosophy has not changed. We continue as we have in the past to hold our reserves at the upper end of our independent actuarial range. You know we watch our reserves closely and have remained conservative in our lost ticks, particularly with elevated auto loss levels that we've had over the past few years.
And like you said, we actually had a small amount about $300,000 of favorable lost reserve development last year and the last two years prior to that, were about $2.5 million and $7 million, so I wouldn't weigh into the favorable development too heavy. I mean, we book it when we see it. As I mentioned, we're on the conservative end of the spectrum so -- and I think as I communicated it last year and going into our guidance for this year, we do not factor in any significant loss reserve development in our guidance. So like you said, it's only $2 million, it was $1 million in auto and $1 million in property, so I wouldn't read a whole lot into that.
Gary Ransom -- Dowling Partners -- Analyst
All right. Thank you. At the risk of over my welcome, can I ask something about the Retirement growth also? When I look at your numbers, I see a shift toward more deposits going into variable versus fixed in your supplement disclosures. Are we seeing the change in product in those numbers, is that basically what we're seeing there?
Bret L. Benham -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, LIFE AND RETIREMENT
Thank you. This is the other Bret. Overall, I mean I probably wouldn't read a whole lot into that, just off the first quarter. We're still concerned you see pretty much the same types of flows in. Certainly if the market is up, you know you're going to see a little bit more attention there, but overall we just we're pleased to have both a fee-based business and the variable annuity and fixed business growing as well at the same time.
Gary Ransom -- Dowling Partners -- Analyst
Actually, it wasn't so much the first quarter, it's sort of the sweep of the last 12 months or so I think it's been -- much more has been going into variable. But I can follow up on that later. That's fine.
Bret L. Benham -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, LIFE AND RETIREMENT
Sure.
Gary Ransom -- Dowling Partners -- Analyst
Thank you very much then. That's it for me.
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Gary.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from line of Christopher Campbell with KBW. Please proceed with your question.
Christopher Campbell -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Hi. Good morning. Congrats on the quarter.
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, Chris. Thanks.
Bret A. Conklin -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Thanks.
Christopher Campbell -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
All right. I guess kind of my first question is -- you know given the strong P&C results, the retirement income with the DAC benefit, I'm just surprised guidance didn't increase. So I guess just any color on why you didn't up the guidance this time?
William J. Caldwell -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PROPERTY AND CASUALTY
Chris. I think as I mentioned you know briefly even in my prepared remarks, I mean the the quarter performance, you know all in was pretty consistent with our overall expectations. So you know really all -- all segments you know even ex DAC unlocking. Yes, we had a $2 million benefit from the quarter, but that's totally market performance driven, but you know all in it's one quarter doesn't make a year. Yes, we're happy with the solid results of the first quarter, but you know obviously our business is seasonal and but here again, it was relatively consistent with what we expected for the first quarter.
Christopher Campbell -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Great. And then, just I have a few kind of on like the Retirement segments I'll get outside of my wheelhouse for a little bit, but I guess just when you have the $39 million to $41 million guidance, what underlying spread in the interest rate movement assumptions do you have built into that guidance? And then, just as those move, how would you review those assumptions over time?
Bret A. Conklin -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
So Chris, this is Brett Conklin. With respect to the spread, the guidance that we gave going into '19 was the mid 140s and actually where we ended the first quarter was basically at about 142, so you know we're in that zone with respect to that. So, you know, as we communicated at year end, I think we ended last year at about 170 and the decrease really driven by lower prepayments is a significant piece of that. Obviously, we took our new money rate assumption up to 450 for this year in my prepared remarks, we're running a little bit below that at 430 for the quarter. But obviously, you know we were anticipating over a $10 million decrease in prepayments which is the big driver.
So, I mean the new money rate will impact the Retirement segment, but not as significantly as that reduction in the prepayments that were part of the guidance that we issued. But our guidance for the full year was mid 140s.
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah and Chris, the only thing -- this is Marita. The only thing I would add is if you remember when we outlined the three strategic levers for improving our ROE, we talked about number one being the improvement in our underlying performance driven primarily by auto and you're seeing that coming through, we obviously expect that to continue and are right on track with what we said we needed to do with that lever. We talked about expenses and we continue to run this place efficiently and continue to look for ways to tighten our belts as related to expenses. You did see some acquisition expenses come through, but for those we are right on track with where we said we needed to be from an expense ratio perspective.
And then that last lever was about fee income. And what I'm excited about in the Retirement space, not only with the acquisition of BCG, but about across our portfolio is an increase in fee income predominantly driven by that Retirement Advantage product. So for me all three of those levers and you know the strategic vision around you know some very intense focus around that, I feel comfortable about working toward to restoring that double digit ROE.
Christopher Campbell -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Okay. Got it. And then, just kind of a follow up question on BCG. I'm looking at page 9 in the supplement, where you have the -- where you've added a few lines for like the brokerage and advisory assets and the record keeping assets under ad man for BCG. So big spike up in those. Where in the financials are the results of BCG coming in, I mean, I see kind of a bump up in other income to $2.4 million from like $1.7 million, $1.8 million, you had a run rate there. Is that where that's getting -- is that where?
William J. Caldwell -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PROPERTY AND CASUALTY
Chris, the results of BCG are actually embedded in the Retirement segment. So I'm going to oversimplify this, but as it relates to BCG you know kind of the revenues are being offset by the expenses I think I mentioned in my remarks that the next couple of years will be you know not a significant boost to earnings in the ROE, but that business if you will is part of the Retirement segment and we're going to -- as we weave through time and experience in this you know this was our first foray if you will to disclosing some of the metrics that we're going to be looking at as it relates to the fee-based business. So you know over time as this becomes a bigger part of us, we probably will break out more information. But it's -- right now, it's resident within the Retirement segment.
Christopher Campbell -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Got it. And then just, I mean in terms of like now that you've broken out some of the assets that are being driven like what are -- what are your plans for asset growth in that segment? And then, when does it start becoming -- when do you start getting positive operating leverage, like what does the AUM have to be in those -- driven by that business so that it's NPV positive?
Bret L. Benham -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, LIFE AND RETIREMENT
This is Bret. I'll try to take a stab at that. You know their business is much more on a fee basis, so we tend to look in terms of you know do we see growth in participants and that's something that we'll be monitoring. But right now, it's a little too early although you know as Bret said, you know we expect it to be in net neutral to earnings results, but we are starting to see some of the opportunities to grow that business, but also to extract some of the benefits we thought that would come from the acquisition, migrating our existing platform over which we think we'll have done here by midyear hopefully by the end of Q2.
And then, we've actually already introduced our stable value, which is our fixed account into their portfolio and have had a piece of even I think one sell on it. So those are where we'll really start turning that from a net neutral to to start positive earnings and flows, but that's how we'll -- got it right now.
Christopher Campbell -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Okay. Great. And then, just one last one on the the NTA acquisition, have you guys nailed down your financing plans, just what the mix of like cash, debt, all that that'll be, so we can update the model?
Bret A. Conklin -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Yeah. Chris, this is Bret Conklin. We're obviously working diligently on that, but but no we have not finalized that I would say, very active in that space. You know as we communicated at year end, you know we can execute that transaction with cash and incremental debt issuance, but there's obviously alternative finance arrangements that we look at constantly, but that will be forthcoming, it'll all come ahead here in the -- hopefully by the time of the close, which as Marita communicated earlier, mid year is really where we're targeting that to happen.
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
And the only thing I'd add is that it's coming together well and we feel really good about where we are.
Christopher Campbell -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
Well, great. Thanks for all the answers. Best of luck in the second quarter.
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Bret A. Conklin -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. It appears we have no further questions at this time. So Heather Wietzel, now I'd like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.
Heather Wietzel -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you, Christine and thank you everyone for joining us today. I think we're off to a great start for 2019 and I look forward to talking to you as the year progresses and as well we're available in the office if there are follow up questions, feel free to touch base. So thank you all.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day.
Duration: 41 minutes
Call participants:
Heather Wietzel -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Marita Zuraitis -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Bret A. Conklin -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Matthew Carletti -- JMP Securities. -- Analyst
William J. Caldwell -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, PROPERTY AND CASUALTY
Gary Ransom -- Dowling Partners -- Analyst
Bret L. Benham -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, LIFE AND RETIREMENT
Christopher Campbell -- Keefe, Bruyette & Woods -- Analyst
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