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CNO Financial Group, Inc.

For the period ended Sep 30, 2026. Filed Nov 5, 2026.

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About this filing

A company's report for each of its first three quarters. The financial statements are not audited. It shows how the business has moved since the last annual report, and what management says changed.

Sep 30, 2026 · Filed Nov 5, 2026

CNO$55.45-1.7%Stored close · as of Nov 6, 2026

Extracted filing text, with the paragraph anchors used by the comparison.

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Overview

We are a holding company for a group of insurance companies that develop, market and administer health insurance, annuity, individual life insurance and other insurance and financial services products. We focus on serving middle-income pre-retiree and retired Americans, which we believe are attractive, underserved, high growth markets. We sell our products through exclusive agents, independent producers (some of whom sell one or more of our product lines exclusively) and direct marketing.

We view our operations as three insurance product lines (annuity, health and life) and the investment and fee income segments. Our segments are aligned based on their common characteristics, comparability of profit margins and the way the chief operating decision maker ("CODM") makes operating decisions and assesses the performance of the business. Our CODM is the Chief Executive Officer.

Our insurance product line segments (annuity, health and life) include marketing, underwriting and administration of the policies our insurance subsidiaries sell. The business written in each of the three product categories through all of our insurance subsidiaries is aggregated allowing management and investors to assess the performance of each product category. When analyzing profitability of these segments, we use insurance product margin as the measure of profitability, which is: (i) insurance policy income; and (ii) net investment income allocated to the insurance product lines; less (i) insurance policy benefits; (ii) interest credited to policyholders; (iii) amortization of deferred acquisition costs and present value of future profits; (iv) non-deferred commissions; and (v) advertising expense. Net investment income is allocated to the product lines using the book yield of investments backing the block of business, which is applied to the average insurance liabilities, net of insurance intangibles, for the block in each period. Net insurance liabilities for the purpose of allocating investment income to product lines are equal to: (i) policyholder account values for interest sensitive products; (ii) total reserves before the fair value adjustments reflected in accumulated other comprehensive income (loss), if applicable, for all other products; less (iii) amounts related to reinsured business; (iv) deferred acquisition costs; (v) the present value of future profits; and (vi) the value of unexpired options credited to insurance liabilities.

Income from insurance products is the sum of the insurance product margins of the annuity, health and life product lines, less expenses allocated to the insurance product lines. It excludes the income from our fee income business, investment income not allocated to product lines, net expenses not allocated to product lines (primarily holding company expenses) and income taxes. Management believes insurance product margin and income from insurance products provides an additional understanding of the business and a more meaningful analysis of the results of our insurance product lines.

We market our products through the Consumer and Worksite Divisions that reflect the customers served by the Company. The Consumer and Worksite Divisions are primarily focused on marketing insurance products, several types of which are sold in both divisions and underwritten in the same manner.

The Consumer Division serves individual consumers, engaging with them on the phone, virtually, online, face-to-face with agents, or through a combination of sales channels. This structure unifies consumer capabilities into a single division and integrates the strength of our agent sales forces with one of the largest direct-to-consumer insurance businesses with proven experience in advertising, web/digital and call center support.

The Worksite Division focuses on the sale of voluntary insurance benefits, including supplemental health and life insurance products in the workplace for businesses, associations, and other membership groups, interacting with customers at their place of employment and virtually. Through our Optavise brand, we guide employers and their employees through their healthcare choices with a suite of voluntary insurance products. In November 2025, we announced our intention to exit the fee services business (which included benefits administration technology, education, and advocacy, and communications services) within our Worksite Division to sharpen our focus on the core insurance business. The exit of the fee services business was substantially complete as of June 30, 2026.

The investment segment involves the management of our capital resources, including investments and the management of corporate debt and liquidity. Our measure of profitability of this segment is the total net investment income not allocated to the insurance products. Investment income not allocated to product lines represents net investment income less: (i) equity returns credited to policyholder account balances; (ii) the investment income allocated to our product lines; (iii) interest expense on notes payable, investment borrowings and financing arrangements; (iv) expenses related to the FABN program; and (v) certain expenses related to benefit plans that are offset by special-purpose investment income; plus (vi) the impact of annual option forfeitures related to fixed indexed annuity surrenders. Investment income not allocated to product lines includes investment income on investments in excess of amounts allocated to product lines, investments held by our holding companies, the spread we earn from our FHLB investment borrowing and FABN programs and variable components of investment income (including call and prepayment income, adjustments to returns on structured securities due to cash flow changes, income (loss) from COLI and alternative investment income not allocated to product lines), net of interest expense on corporate debt and financing arrangements. The spread earned from our FHLB investment borrowing and FABN programs includes the investment income on the matched assets less: (i) interest on investment borrowings related to the FHLB investment borrowing program; (ii) interest credited on funding agreements; and (iii) amortization of deferred acquisition costs related to the FABN program.

Our fee income segment includes the earnings generated from sales of third-party insurance products (primarily Medicare Advantage), services provided to employers through our Worksite Division and the operations of our broker-dealer and registered investment advisor. As a result of exiting the fee services business within our Worksite Division, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2025, the net results of this business are no longer presented within the fee income segment, but are presented within net loss related to divested business within non-operating income. The exit of the fee services business was substantially complete as of June 30, 2026.

Expenses not allocated to product lines primarily include the expenses of our corporate operations, excluding interest expense on debt.

The following summarizes our earnings for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2026 and 2025 (dollars in millions, except per share data):

Three months ended · Nine months ended
September 30,September 30,
2026202520262025
Insurance product margin
Annuity margin$87.9$72.9$207.0$182.2
Health margin149.1157.0428.9417.2
Life margin96.070.6233.0202.4
Total insurance product margin333.0300.5868.9801.8
Allocated expenses(161.0)(151.0)(473.8)(461.6)
Income from insurance products172.0149.5395.1340.2
Fee income(1.1)(3.9)8.3(3.9)
Investment income not allocated to product lines68.139.5159.2111.3
Expenses not allocated to product lines(18.8)(22.3)(61.5)(67.9)
Operating earnings before taxes220.2162.8501.1379.7
Income tax expense on operating income(41.1)(35.6)(101.2)(83.9)
Net operating income (a)179.1127.2399.9295.8
Net realized investment losses from disposals, impairments and change in allowance for credit losses(48.3)(8.8)(77.1)(43.8)
Net change in market value of investments recognized in earnings(16.4)5.8(25.0)15.6
Fair value changes related to agent deferred compensation plan10.0—10.0—
Changes in fair value of embedded derivative liabilities and market risk benefits69.7(18.1)61.9(62.5)
Expenses related to TechMod initiative(10.1)(7.2)(33.5)(10.4)
Goodwill and other asset impairment—(96.7)—(96.7)
Net loss related to divested business——(3.0)—
Other1.3(1.6)0.10.1
Net non-operating income (loss) before taxes6.2(126.6)(66.6)(197.7)
Income tax (expense) benefit:
On non-operating income (loss)(2.1)22.513.538.3
Valuation allowance for deferred tax assets(22.1)—(22.1)—
Net non-operating loss(18.0)(104.1)(75.2)(159.4)
Net income$161.1$23.1$324.7$136.4
Per diluted share
Net operating income$1.90$1.29$4.20$2.94
Net non-operating loss(0.19)(1.05)(0.79)(1.58)
Net income$1.71$0.24$3.41$1.36

(a)Management believes that an analysis of net income applicable to common stock before the following items (each net of tax, except as noted) is important to evaluate the financial performance of the Company, and is a key measure commonly used in the life insurance industry: (i) net realized investment gains or losses from disposals, impairments and the change in allowance for credit losses; (ii) net change in market value of investments recognized in earnings; (iii) changes in fair value of embedded derivative liabilities and MRBs related to our fixed indexed annuities; (iv) fair value changes related to the agent deferred compensation plan; (v) gains or losses related to material reinsurance transactions; (vi) loss on extinguishment of debt; (vii) changes in the valuation allowance for deferred tax assets and other tax items; (viii) costs related to our project to modernize certain elements of our technology ("TechMod") that are incremental to our normal spend and will not recur following implementation; (ix) goodwill and other asset impairment expenses; (x) gains or losses related to divested business; and (xi) other non-operating items including earnings attributable to variable interest entities (collectively, "net operating income," a non-GAAP financial measure). The income tax expense or benefit allocated to the items included in net non-operating income (loss) represents the current and deferred income tax expense or benefit allocated to the items included in non-operating earnings. Management believes this information provides a better understanding of the business and a more meaningful analysis of results of our insurance product lines. The table above reconciles the non-GAAP measure to the corresponding GAAP measure.

In addition, management uses these non-GAAP financial measures in its budgeting process, financial analysis of segment performance and in assessing the allocation of resources. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures enhance an investor's understanding of our financial performance and allow them to make more informed judgments about the Company as a whole. These measures also highlight operating trends that might not otherwise be apparent. However, net operating income is not a measurement of financial performance under GAAP and should not be considered as an alternative to cash flow from operating activities, as measures of liquidity, or as an alternative to net income as measures of our operating performance or any other measures of performance derived in accordance with GAAP. In addition, net operating income should not be construed as an inference that our future results will be unaffected by unusual or non-recurring items. Net operating income has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider such measure either in isolation or as a substitute for analyzing our results as reported under GAAP. Our definition and calculation of net operating income are not necessarily comparable to other similarly titled measures used by other companies due to different methods of calculation.

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