CNO Financial Group, Inc.

We are raising our full-year operating earnings per diluted share guidance, representing a 9 percent increase at the midpoint from our previously disclosed 2026 guidance, as discussed below.

We expect operating earnings per diluted share to be in the range of $5.05 to $5.15, excluding any significant items in the year (as compared to our previous guidance of $4.60 to $4.80). We expect our expense ratio to be in the range of 18.6 percent to 18.8 percent (as compared to our previous guidance of 18.8 percent to 19.0 percent), reflecting improved operating leverage from continued strong sales results. We expect fee income of approximately $25 million (compared to our previous guidance of $30 million), primarily reflecting the continued shift from Medicare Advantage to Medicare Supplement. We expect the effective tax rate to be approximately 20.5 percent (as compared to our previous guidance of 21.5 percent), which excludes the impact resulting from the valuation allowance recognized during the current quarter.

Our 2026 operating ROE is expected to exceed the three-year target of 12 percent we had previously established for year-end 2027. We expect to establish new operating ROE targets when we update our outlook in February 2027.

CNO's wholly owned Bermuda reinsurance company executed its third transaction, reinsuring approximately $270 million of inforce graded benefit life statutory reserves from Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company ("Colonial Penn"), a CNO subsidiary, effective October 1, 2026.

We are narrowing the range of our expected free cash flows to a range of $220 million to $240 million (as compared to our previous guidance of $200 million to $250 million). We expect to continue to manage to: (i) a consolidated RBC ratio in the range of 360 percent to 390 percent for our U.S. based insurance subsidiaries; (ii) minimum holding company liquidity of $150 million; and (iii) a target debt to total capital, excluding accumulated other comprehensive loss, in the range of 25 percent to 28 percent.

In the second quarter of 2025, we began TechMod, an initiative to modernize certain elements of our technology, enabling continued growth of the business over the long-term. We expect to spend approximately $70 million in 2026, which is largely consistent with our 2026 expectations. The outlook metrics previously described include the expected impact of this initiative. During the nine months ended September 30, 2026, we incurred approximately $45 million related to this initiative, of which approximately 74 percent is classified as non-operating expenses, 11 percent is classified as operating expenses, and 15 percent is capitalized.