Welcome to the Aflac fourth quarter earnings conference call. Your lines have been placed on listen only until the question and answer session. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Robin Wilkey, Senior Vice President of Aflac Investor and Rating Agency Relations. Ma'am, you may begin.
Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to our fourth quarter call. Joining me this morning is Dan Amos, Chairman and CEO, Kriss Cloninger, President and CFO, Paul Amos, President of Aflac and COO of U.S. Operations, Kenneth S. Janke Jr. , Executive Vice President and Deputy CFO, Eric Kirsch, Executive Vice President, Global Chief Investment Officer, Tohru Tonoike, President and COO of Aflac Japan, who's joining us from Tokyo. Before we start, let me remind you that some statements in this teleconference are forward-looking within the meaning of Federal Securities Laws. Although we believe these statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that they will prove to be accurate because they are prospective in nature. Actual results could differ materially from those we discuss today. We encourage you to look at our quarterly release for some of the various risk factors that could materially impact our results.
Now I'll turn the program over to Dan, who will begin this morning with some comments about the quarter and year, as well as our operations in Japan and the United States. I will then follow up with a few financial highlights for the quarter and the year. Then we'll be glad to take your questions. Dan?
Thank you, Robin. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. The final quarter of 2012 concluded another great year for Aflac. Let me start in more detail about the accomplishments in 2012 and our outlook for 2013, beginning with Aflac Japan, our largest earnings contributor. Following five straight quarters of record-breaking production, Aflac Japan's new annualized premium sales in the fourth quarter were up slightly. Sales were JPY 49.3 billion, an increase of 1.5% over the fourth quarter of 2011. For the third consecutive year, Aflac Japan generated record sales results. Our full-year sales results rose 30.8% to JPY 210.6 billion. You'll recall that in the third quarter, we said that Aflac Japan sales would be challenging for the remainder of the year. That's exactly what we saw.
Three primary factors affected our results, two of which we discussed in the third quarter. The first and foremost factor was difficult comparisons to a year ago, which primarily reflected our expansion into the bank channel. Bank distribution has been a great benefit to us because about 70% of the bank customers are new to Aflac. However, after selling through the banks for over the last several years, we've already cycled through the first major pass at selling products to a large portion of the bank customers, particularly our higher premium WAYS product. Second, you'll recall we expected that the consumer's interest in WAYS would decline in the fourth quarter as we lowered the rate for the discount advance premium from 1% to 0.5% in October. We believe the impact from the lower DAP, which was essentially a premium increase, was much larger than we originally anticipated.
Third, over the last several months, we've seen some insurance companies and financial institutions offering more investment-type products that compete with WAYS. We believe competition amongst various companies selling investment-type products will not only continue but will actually intensify as we get closer to April the 1st and the repricing of these type of products will be implemented. We anticipate repricing will suppress sales. However, it's more important to note that the pricing revisions will benefit us overall from a profitability standpoint. When thinking of repricing for our first sector products like WAYS, our objective is to balance profitability and competitiveness. Our profitability will be enhanced by higher premiums we will be charging. However, to remain competitive, we just announced that we will raise the DAP from the current 0.5% back up to the 1% effective April the 1st.
After repricing the DAP change, we estimate the profitability of our WAYS product will range between 15% and 20%, which is an acceptable margin to us. We know the Aflac brand is strong throughout Japan, and this enhances the appeal of our products. In particular, our third sector, cancer and medical, have been and will continue to be our pillar products and the foundation of the product portfolio. In 2012, we maintained our position as the number one seller of third sector medical and cancer products in Japan. This number one status confirms the popularity of these products and also helps drive sales because consumers want to buy from the leading provider. Let me be clear, remaining the number one seller of cancer and medical sales in Japan is a top priority for me.
We mentioned in May at the analyst briefing that we are currently under-penetrated with the consumers who are in their 20s to 40s. That's the segment where we're going to focus our efforts on to increase sales of the third sector products. As you may know, banks have relationships with multiple insurance providers. This, combined with the changes in the competitive product landscape, make it more challenging than ever to accurately project future Aflac Japan sales through the banks. Clearly, bank channel sales will be challenging following five straight quarters of record-breaking sales results. Keep in mind, we won't gain insight into the bank's strategies or 2013 product offerings until closer to the start of Japan's fiscal year, which is April the 1st.
Hopefully by that time we release first quarter results, we'll be able to provide you with an update on what we've learned about bank plans to sell our products. We continue to have good visibility into the sales of our third sector, cancer and medical products. Our traditional channels has historically been the primary driver of third sector sales. For 2013, we expect Aflac Japan's sale of third sector cancer and medical products to be flat to up 5%. Achieving this target is a top priority for me and our management in Japan, and it affects Aflac Japan's bonus as well as those in the corporate management. Let me turn to the U.S. operation. From a financial perspective, Aflac U.S. performed very well in 2012. I think we've done a good job in managing our U.S. operations, including budgets and people resources.
New sales growth continued to be constrained, our top-line results have been consistently strong throughout the year, in part reflecting an improved persistency. Aflac U.S. new annualized premium sales were in line with our most recent guidance of flat for the year. We believe persistency has improved for a couple of reasons. First, we have enhanced our customer experience at critical touchpoints, which has resulted in better payroll retention. Second, with the economic uncertainty we've seen over the last several years, many employees are less likely to switch jobs and therefore are more likely to keep their current benefits. While there are external factors we can't control, we are driven to improve the factors we can influence. First, we continue to improve the structure of our marketing and sales area to maximize our future growth and focus on our distribution channels.
Within this new structure, we are working on new training initiatives we believe will benefit our sales force and help them be more productive in the evolving environment. Second, with a brand recognition of 94%, we continue to leverage this strength to capture the attention of consumers with the ultimate goal of driving sales. We want to continue to educate consumers on our products while at the same time entertaining them. Third, we evaluate and enhance our products to ensure we are in step with the needs of consumers, particularly in the economic landscape. In 2013, we are planning aggressive new individual and group product launches. With our strong brand recognition and reputation for paying claims quickly and fairly, we believe consumers are more receptive to our products, this can only benefit us in the future.
We will continue to evaluate other opportunities as it relates to the change in the current healthcare environment, specifically the Affordable Care Act. We do expect the changing healthcare environment to have an impact on how people choose to purchase insurance going forward. We are looking at ways that we can effectively operate within the environment of the state and federal healthcare delivery system. One thing we know from our nearly four decades in Japan is that even with the national healthcare system, consumers have significant out-of-pocket expenses, our products continue to be relevant to consumers. We believe a national healthcare actually presents Aflac with opportunities as consumers become better aware of the financial protection Aflac's products help provide. There are still external factors in the macro environment that affect our business.
While some aspects of the U.S. economy have shown slight signs of improvement in 2012, we continue to see the economic landscape in the U.S. is challenging. That is especially true for small business segment, where more than 90% of our products are sold. In fact, the National Federation of Independent Business, which focuses on small business owners, reported this month that the small business optimism index in December was the second lowest since March of 2010. This means more small employers are still very guarded with respect to their business outlook, including their hiring plans. This is important because gains or losses in employment impact our universe of potential policyholders. Before we can say we are optimistic about our sales opportunities, we need to see sustained optimism, particularly surrounding the employment levels of smaller businesses.
Taking all that into account for 2013, we expect Aflac U.S. sales through the traditional and broker channel to be flat to up 5%. I will point out that for the first quarter, we won't be surprised if sales are down, considering the first quarter of 2012 was our biggest percentage increase for the year. Having discussed our operations, let me give you an update on the investment function. I remain pleased with the continued progress in our global investment transformation. We continue to grow our investment team, and we've made excellent progress in the build-out that is ultimately designed to improve the risk adjustment returns and the profile of our balance sheet. As we've stated for many years, our greatest investment challenge has been to invest Aflac Japan's significant cash flows at reasonable investment yields.
The U.S. corporate bond program was initiated in the third quarter, continues to be an effective means for enhancing our new money yields in Japan. You will recall that our fourth quarter objective was to invest roughly two-thirds of our invested cash flow in U.S. dollar-denominated, publicly traded corporate bonds, and then hedge the currency risk. This successful investment program enabled us to surpass our budgeted new money yield for 2012. It has also provided greater liquidity, enhanced the flexibility of our portfolio, and increased the opportunities to diversify beyond JGBs. At December 31st, this program represented 6.2% of the total portfolio, which is well below our asset allocation target. In light of the success of the corporate bond program, the strong credit fundamentals of investment-grade corporate credits, we intend to continue the program in 2013.
Consistent with our asset allocation program, we will balance these investments with JGBs for diversification and liquidity, as well as other investment opportunities as they may arise. As I mentioned, Aflac's consolidated financial performance was strong for the quarter and for the year. Excluding the impact of foreign currency, operating earnings per diluted share rose 4.8% for the quarter and 5.1% for the year. As the program progressed, operating earnings per diluted share were better than expected, and we finished the year toward the high end of the objective of the 3%-6% increase before the impact of currency. I am also very pleased with the strength of the capital ratios, which demonstrates our commitment to maintaining financial strength and flexibility on behalf of the policyholders, the shareholders, and bondholders. Through strong surplus growth and improved portfolio risk profile and a weaker yen, our capital ratios improved significantly in 2012.
We previously conveyed that our goal was to end 2012 with an RBC in the range of 400-500. While we have not yet completed our statutory financial statements, we believe the RBC ratio at the year-end was significantly higher than our targets. Additionally, we expect that Aflac Japan's solvency margin at the end improved over the solvency margin ratio at September the 30th for 628%. That would put the year-end SMR well above our target range of 500%-600%. As we have indicated, given our capital structure, our ability to repurchase shares is largely tied to profit repatriation. In contemplating profit repatriation, our first consideration is protection of the policyholders as measured by the SMR. Next, we give consideration to the needs of the parent company and consult with Japan's management in making the determination.
We now expect profit repatriation to be around JPY 50 billion for 2013, which is a reasonable estimate, assuming that we have no additional investment losses that would reduce Aflac Japan's operating income. Profit repatriation in 2013 could provide us with a significant amount of capital that could be deployed for share repurchase. As we've said for many years, when it comes to deploying capital for the benefit of our shareholders, we still believe that growing the cash dividend and repurchasing our shares are the most attractive means. That is something that we will continue to pursue. Our capital strength enables us to increase cash dividend to the shareholders in the fourth quarter for the 30th consecutive year. Our objective is to grow the dividend at a rate that is in line with the earnings per share growth before the impact of the yen.
Given the strength of our capital ratios and the parent company liquidity, we resume our share repurchase activities by buying approximately $100 million for the shares in the fourth quarter of 2012. Our current plan to purchase $400 million-$600 million of our shares in 2013. Understand, unless there's extraordinary event occurs, we intend to purchase at least $400 million of our shares. Remember, we're driving the company for increased profitability, not sales. Sales are important enough that our management is bonused on them, but they're still just one component of earnings. Let me also say that we haven't missed an earnings target because of lower sales, nor do we expect that to happen. This year's other components that feed into the profitability include persistency, investment income, claims management, and expense controls.
It's often difficult to foresee the specifics on how these factors ultimately produce our earnings. Sometimes one aspect of the business might be a little stronger and one might prove to be a little more challenging, but we anticipate these type of things in the budgeting process. Ultimately, the accomplishments of the fundamental facets of our business align and create another year in which we deliver on our financial growth objectives. I want to reiterate that our objectives for 2013 has not changed. To increase operating earnings per diluted share 4%-7%. This range reflects the impact of the portfolio de-risking and investing significant cash flows at low interest rates. I would also point out that we had a better year in 2012 than expected, in large part due to the receipts of the deferred coupon in the first quarter and lower annual effective tax rate.
This will make it a more challenging comparison in 2013, but we will achieve it. In addition to operating earnings growth, we've also focused on producing industry-leading return on equities. On an operating basis, 2012 ROE was 24.6%, and as we conveyed at our Financial Analyst Briefing for 2013, we believe it's reasonable to see our operating ROE in the range of 22%-26%. Overall, I am pleased with Aflac's position in Japan and the U.S., the two largest insurance markets in the world. First and foremost, we are focused on protecting our policyholders and providing value to our investors. We're fortunate that in the process of doing so, we have the privilege of providing financial protection to more than 50 million people worldwide. Robin?
Thank you, Dan. Let me go through some fourth quarter numbers, starting with Aflac Japan. Beginning with the top line in the internal revenues were up 10.5% for the quarter. Investment income was up 5.2%, excluding the effect of the weaker yen in the quarter on Aflac Japan's dollar-denominated investment income. Net investment income rose 3.6%. The persistency rate improved in the quarter, and the annualized rate, excluding annuities for the year, was 94.9%, compared with 94.4% a year ago. In terms of quarterly operating ratios, the benefit ratio to total premiums increased over last year, going from 72.9% a year ago to 74.5% in this quarter. This is primarily due to the growth of the net benefit reserves for our ordinary line of business, most notably our WAYS product. The expense ratio was 18.4%, down from 19.1% in the fourth quarter of 2011.
The decrease reflected tight general expense control, as well as lower commission costs associated with the sales of our first sector products, primarily WAYS again. Pre-tax profit margin declined during the quarter, going from 18.8% to 17.7%, with a contraction of the margin pre-tax earnings increased 4.1% in ye n terms. Now let me turn to Aflac US. Total revenues rose 5.8% for the quarter. The annualized persistency rate for the year improved from 76.2% a year ago to 77.1%. Looking at the operating ratios for the quarter, the benefit ratio to total premiums declined slightly from 57.7% a year ago to 57.4% in the quarter. The operating expense ratio increased slightly, going from 34.2% a year ago to 34.6%. The profit margin for the quarter was unchanged from a year ago at 14.6%. Pre-tax operating earnings increased 5.9% for the quarter.
Turning to the investment activity for the quarter, starting with Aflac Japan. For the quarter, approximately $3.1 billion of Aflac Japan's new cash flow was invested in the corporate bond program with a gross yield of 3.22% and an annualized hedge cost of 41 basis points. The yield net of hedge cost was 2.81%. Additionally, we invested $1.4 billion from the proceeds generated as the result of de-booking activities. This brings the total cash flow invested in the corporate bond program for the year to approximately $7 billion, with a total yield on the corporate bond program of 3.3%. Approximately 35% of our new cash flow was invested in JGBs in the fourth quarter for an average yield of 1.77%. In Japan, the total new money yield for the quarter was 2.73%, down three basis points from September 30th and up 65 basis points from a year ago.
The portfolio yield was 2.87% at the end of December, up three basis points from the end of September and 42 basis points lower than a year ago. JGB yields saw some increase toward the end of December. As of December 31st, 20-year JGB yields were 1.75%, 11 basis points increase from September 30th. 10-year JGB yields as of December 31st were 0.79 basis points, a one basis point increase from September 30th. In terms of U.S. investments, the new money yield for the quarter was 3.52%, a decline of 42 basis points from September 30th and 183 points from a year ago. The yield on the portfolio at the end of December was 6.35%, down 16 basis points from September 30th and 37 basis points from a year ago. Turning to some other items in the quarter.
Non-insurance interest expense in the quarter was $50 million, compared with $42 million a year ago. The higher interest expense primarily reflected increased borrowing during the year compared to a year ago. Total company pre-tax operating margins declined, reflecting the increase in the benefit ratio in Japan caused by strong sales of ordinary line of business. Parent company and other expenses decreased from $20 million a year ago to $6 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. On an operating basis, the tax rate was 34.1% compared with 34.6% a year ago. Consistent with what we said last quarter, going forward, we expect the effective tax rate throughout 2013 to be between 34%-34.5%, excluding tax benefits recognized in 2012 and assuming FSA earned premiums decline year-over-year, which is in line with Dan's comments earlier.
As Dan mentioned, we've taken several actions during the year to utilize capital losses that would expire in 2013, we've significantly reduced the losses that are scheduled to expire in 2014. We expect to continue the actions we have initiated to utilize the remaining capital loss carryforwards in managing our investment portfolio. As reported, operating earnings per diluted share rose 2.1% to $1.48 in the quarter. Weaker yen decreased operating earnings by $0.04 per diluted share. Excluding the yen impact, operating earnings per share increased 4.8% for the quarter. Lastly, let me comment on the earnings outlook for 2013. As you heard Dan say, we've affirmed our guidance for 2013 of a 4%-7% increase in operating earnings per diluted share, excluding the impacts of the yen.
That you understand the significance of our 2013 EPS objective over 2012 actual results, let me put this in perspective for you. In 2012, we received tax benefits from a tax exam for the years 2008 and 2009, we made a revision for the full year effective tax rate. The unusual benefits received in 2012 totaled approximately $38 or $0.08 per share. We also recovered a previously written off coupon as part of a sales transaction executed during the year that resulted in a one-time benefit to operating earnings of $23 million or $0.05 per share. If you exclude the impacts of these benefits from the 2012 operating earnings results, operating earnings per diluted share in 2012 would've been $6.47. This year, we estimate that a one yen move on the average annual exchange rate will equal approximately $0.0430 per diluted share.
Considering the weakening of the yen in recent months, if we achieve our objective of 4%-7% increase in operating earnings per diluted share for the year and the yen averages JPY 90 for the full year, we would expect operating EPS to be in the range of $6.37-$6.57 per diluted share. We are ready to take your questions. To be fair to everybody, please remember to limit yourself to one initial question and only one follow-up that relates to the initial question. We would be happy to take your question. Thank you.
Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Please record your first and last name when prompted. To withdraw your request, press star two. Once again, to ask a question, please press star one. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Nigel Dally, Morgan Stanley.
Great. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. With the Japan benefit ratio, clearly quite a large increase this quarter on a sequential basis, at least historically, fourth quarters typically had some reserve recalibrations. Hoping to get some color on how much reserve recalibrations impacted the ratio this quarter and whether on the back of the trends we've seen emerge, whether we should be expecting a somewhat higher benefit ratio in 2013 than you're previously guiding to back in yesterday. Thanks.
Hey, Nigel. Kriss Cloninger. A bit of a scratchy voice this time, you are correct in that the fourth quarter benefit ratio was higher than those we experienced in the first three quarters, partly because of, as you characterize it, reserve recalibrations that we typically do in conjunction with reviews of primarily closed blocks of business in Japan and the U.S. where we look at the reserve balances that we forecasted relative to the interest rate used in valuing those blocks in the prior year. Our SOX procedures require that we do this in the fourth quarter as kind of a routine thing. This year we increased the benefit reserves on a Japanese block of business we call Dementia. You've probably heard of it before. It's similar to long-term care in the U.S., and that was approximately JPY 3 billion reserve increase in the fourth quarter.
I believe we had a similar adjustment in the fourth quarter of the prior year, and actually the fourth quarter of the prior year was up even more than the first three quarters. That doesn't indicate that that's going to have a trend going forward, Nigel.
The ratios excluding that reserve adjustment were right in the middle of the trends I had shown at the FAB meeting last May, where I broke out what the expected benefit expense ratios and profit margins were for the core health and other block and the ordinary block separately. Then I aggregated them in total, and all of our ratios fell within those ranges that I had guided to last May. I believe that those ranges will continue to prevail throughout 2013. As I indicated, last May, I did a two-year weighted average ratio I expected for 2012 and 2013 so we're still in good shape in that regard. As a matter of fact, our 2012 experience, the profit margin came in right in the middle of the range at 19.5%.
Benefit ratio is a little bit higher, expense ratio is a little bit lower in the aggregate because we produced more WAYS than we produced core health benefits, and so that affected the weighted average. The final thing I'll say is that I did caveat things last May saying, "Okay, these are ratios that'll prevail over the course of the two-year period, but you're going to see some seasonal fluctuations." I was thinking primarily of the fourth quarter adjustments that we make, that you saw and pointed out. I'll conclude just by saying, I believe everything's in line with what we had expected.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Jimmy Bhullar, JPMorgan.
Hi, good morning. I had a question on capital repatriation. Just wondering how you think about, actually, capital deployment. How do you think about the pickup in RBC and the solvency margin, given the weaker yen? Would you be willing to deploy the extra points for buybacks or something else, or is that unlikely given that the currency can move around? Then related to that, just maybe, Dan, if you could comment on, or Chris, just the pace of buybacks expected for 2013. Should it be more front-end loaded, or would you do it evenly through the year?
Jimmy, this is Ken. Let me start out with the RBC SMR question. Clearly, we're benefiting from a weaker yen. The one yen move probably adds about three to four points on the SMR and about four or five points on the RBC. What we'll do is we'll have to evaluate it as we get a little bit closer, especially with respect to repatriation. We've always discussed our RBC and SMR in terms of yen sensitivity. We do want to make sure that we provide for some kind of buffer if we see a reversal in the yen weakening, because a strengthening yen would penalize it a little bit.
What was the other question? I forgot.
Just the pace of buybacks.
Yeah. I think, if there's an opportunity in the first quarter, we'll take advantage of it a little bit more so than we would in the second half because it just ensures earnings growth, and it benefits us.
I'd add to that, Jimmy, we do have pretty good liquidity at the parent company. Our operating cash balance was about $770 million at the end of 2012. Clearly, buying earlier in the year has a greater benefit to EPS for the year.
You mentioned $400 million at a minimum on buybacks, but the top end of your range is $600 million. How likely is a $600 million number, given that if you look at current exchange rates, your repatriation amounts actually implies $500-some million at current exchange rates?
We have no problem with that additional capital at the corporate level if we need it to be able to do that. We're going to take it as it evolves, but I think the way you should view this is that $400 million , we're trying to, unless some cataclysmic event, guarantee, and we'd like to do more than that, and we'll watch it as the year goes on and make a decision accordingly.
Okay. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Eric Berg, RBC Capital Markets.
Thanks very much. I apologize for the background noise. I'll go on mute if necessary after asking my question. You've had your discounted advance premium, and it was a great boon to sales. But then it sort of crimped profitability, so you took it away. But that hurt sales terribly, so now you're bringing it back. Two questions. Sort of one, where does this leave you from a profitability point of view? In other words, why did you do this, and why was this the right decision to take it away and then bring it back? Don't you run the risk of confusing customers and distributors by, well, flip-flopping like this? Thank you.
Well, it's actually not so much flip-flopping because we're only putting it in effect when the rate increase goes into effect. In essence, we didn't want a double rate increase to them. What we've done is we've put the rate increase in effect by the DAP going from 1% to 0.5%, and then we're bringing it back because we've got another rate increase on top of that.
Chris can talk about that, but the actual rate increase was more appropriate last year at this time with a declining interest rate than an increasing interest rate that we're moving into right now. Chris?
Well, I'll just say, Eric, as we saw declining interest rates throughout 2012, we felt like we were being pressured on profitability from the immense popularity of the 1% DAP rate and the significant impact on production WAYS. We were getting extraordinary volumes of WAYS production, and we felt like maybe we were selling dollar bills for 50 cents kind of thing. We felt like in order to protect the margins going forward, we needed to diminish some of the perhaps above average market appeal for the WAYS product by cutting the DAP rate to the level that most other companies were crediting, which was in the neighborhood of 0.5%. We implemented that in October. We did several other things during that same period of time when interest rates were declining during 2012.
We put some production caps on child endowment, and we redid the 5-pay WAYS and things like that. We were trying to protect the profitability that the analyst community and we were concerned about. We try to protect our core profitability. We made those changes. Now, come April 1st, we're going to reprice products, given the change in the standard valuation interest rate down to 1%. The premium rates on the WAYS products are going to go up 15%-20%. The margins are going to go up toward 20% as a percent of premium. We felt like we needed to restore some of the market appeal of the discount advanced premium rate, so we decided we could easily afford to change it back from 0.5% to 1% in order to better posture us competitively in the industry.
It's not a flip-flop, it's a reaction to changes in market conditions, is how I would characterize it.
Let me say this, Eric. We knew when we introduced cutting the DAP that this was a possibility we might do in April. We told the banks that was always a possibility that it could happen.
Given is my follow-up. Let's not call it a flip-flop. That's too harsh a word. It is what it is. You made one decision, and now you've changed course. By taking the path that you have, I guess I'm interested, it sounds like you will not be as well off from a profitability point of view, a margin point of view, as would have been the case if you kept this DAP in place. Net net, where will all these actions leave you? I mean, the bottom line is total dollar profits, not margins, right? It's about total dollar profits and not about sales, not about margins, about total dollar profits.
Net net, when you have the price increase in April to restore the full DAP, where will that leave you relative to what would have been the case if you had kept the DAP in place? Thank you.
Well, you're exactly right, Eric. It's a question of a trade-off in volume versus margin. That's what I said when we went into WAYS in the first place relative to the third sector health. We're going to write a higher volume of products with a lower margin. We finally decided, okay, the margins got too low given the interest rate environment. We took the repricing action of lowering the DAP in order to restore some margin. When we did that, we knew we were going to lose some volume, which we did here in the fourth quarter. As you say, the impact on total profitability, you can get as much profit with a lower volume of higher margin products than you can with a higher volume of lower margin products.
Now, come April 1st, we're being forced by market changes to increase the base policy premium rates on the WAYS. In order to stay competitive, we believe that it's necessary to go ahead and increase the DAP rate so that we don't lose so much volume associated with being uncompetitive that we don't achieve the margin. You're right. If we maintain DAP at a half a percent, our margin would have been higher, but it would have been closer to 25% than say the high teens to 20% that we expect after we raise the DAP back to 1%. We think that that'll posture us in the market to be competitive and we'll achieve a higher volume of production at a reasonable margin and enhance the overall profitability of the company.
I want to say one thing. This is not uncommon in the life insurance area when you're dealing with these type of issues. We knew it going in. We knew that when we decreased the DAP, we could raise it back because of the other, depending on what was happening. If we'd have been in an environment where between October and now we saw interest rates going down, we certainly would have kept it in force. It gives us flexibility to monitor and adjust to ultimately help. It's nothing that our competitors are not doing too, and we're totally aware of it. Now, from your standpoint, it's new in that in the third sector products, we never had these issues. We're very aware of it. We're on top of it, and we understand what we're doing.
Thank you for your very complete answer.
Your next question comes from Christopher Giovanni, Goldman Sachs.
Thanks so much. I guess first question around the independent agency count in Japan, which showed a significant decline quarter-over-quarter and is now down to, I think, levels seen in 2008. Just really curious, what's going on there, and is that really what you're kind of playing for and focusing on with the focus now on cancer and typical third sector product sales?
Tohru, you want to answer that?
Yes. Thank you. Yes. Let me say that the decline in the number of the recruits of the individual agents is something we intended to do because from the experience of the past couple of years, we found that recruiting too many agents and to train them are not effective, efficient enough for us to do it. Instead, we decided to shift some of the resources used for that purpose to other more productive areas, including the bank channel development. We shifted the people and money from that to the other areas. As a result, as you may see, the number of the recruits dropped substantially. We made more efforts in training them, training the smaller number of the new recruits so that they can be productive in a short period of time.
Even though the number of recruits declined over more than 30%, I would say the success rate of the first year recruits, the ratio of the newly recruited agents becoming productive within a year increased by 13%. Net-net, the annual premium sales produced by these first-year recruits were down around more than 20%. In terms of the yen, the decline was somewhat less than JPY 600 million. Put it in the perspective, that is only less than 0.3% of our total annual premium. We believe that decline was more than made up for by the growth in other areas to which we shifted our resources. I can't tell how much was increased by them, but we did it on purpose, and we are confident that we did the things right.
Okay. Just my follow-up question. You obviously talked about raising the DAP now. You did make a number of other changes to kind of restrict some sales in the bank channel. Curious if, now that Eric's getting better new money rates over there, if you guys would consider loosening up any of those other changes as well if sales don't come through.
We have loosened up the restrictions on the child endowment. We have put some production limits in place that we've loosened up. We're not changing the 5-pay WAYS decision. We feel like that was a good decision to put the emphasis more on the 10-pay WAYS that has a 10-year surrender charge. We're not changing that, but we are staying with the whole life WAYS and making changes to the discount advanced premium rate and the gross premium levels on WAYS in general. We're also looking at sales incentives to certain banks and to address competitive situations where other companies have come in and given incentives and the like. The market response to competitive conditions is multifaceted, shall I say, and we're trying to stay on top of it all because we have relationships with virtually all the banks in Japan.
We get the feedbacks, what's going on, and we're continuing to emphasize staying competitive.
I think the message that I would give you is that the foundation that had built Aflac Japan, which is cancer and now medical, is what we're concentrating on. It was somewhat of an anomaly the way it happened with the banks and our ability to write that first sector product, specifically WAYS, we took it because it was there, and it was a great profit for us. We're now shifting money and resources back to the traditional channel, which we believe is we want to stay number 1 in both medical and cancer, and that's what we plan on doing going forward. That's where the bonuses are tied, and now we just get back to it. It was a strategic decision we made at the time. We told you that we didn't know how long it would last.
We now see it coming more to an end, and we see us concentrating on banking the profit margins we've discussed in the past and going back to doing that on the third sector.
Thanks so much.
Your next question comes from Randy Binner, FBR.
Great. Thanks. I just want to pick up on the repatriation conversation from a different angle. I think Jimmy was asking about how the currency impacts it, but I was more curious to kind of understand what the methodology was that led to these impairments this quarter on Tunisia and UniCredit. Just to clarify if those were impaired or sold. I guess what I'm trying to get to is to understand if there's other bonds that are still kind of in low mark-to-market positions, if those could be at risk in the next couple of quarters, and if that would work against potential repatriation.
Let me start by reminding everybody that the strategy throughout 2012, particularly after the first quarter, when we did a very specific de-risking program, was to look at our portfolio throughout the year and be opportunistic with respect to when good opportunities presented themselves to improve the quality of the balance sheet, that we would do that, but only do that when it represented good value for our policy and shareholders. We did not sell anything in a panic throughout the year. We were very careful, and we had a very successful year altogether, reducing about JPY 4.6 billion of multiple positions throughout Europe and the financials. We do not have a specific de-risking strategy going forward.
Having said that, we will always look for opportunities to improve the risk-return profile of this balance sheet for the long term. If we see something of value, then of course, we'll take advantage of that. With respect to your two specific questions, with respect to UniCredit, that's a good example. That's an example of a credit we could have been comfortable holding, but amongst our holdings, we felt there was some risk with respect to UniCredit itself and its knock-on effects to our particular holdings. I can tell you, early in 2012, we saw values for those particular assets that did not represent good value for our shareholders or policyholders, and we said, "Thanks, but no thanks." In an improved market as we've had, we saw particularly good value, and in fact, that impairment is associated with the sale of those securities.
Tunisia, on the other hand, is slightly different in terms of the risk that we see. As you may know, in December, it got downgraded by one of the agencies. In our view, the risk with Tunisia is more geopolitical risk as opposed to credit risk. Nevertheless, because of the situation in the Middle East, it's a risk we're cognizant of. With those things in mind, we did decide to take an impairment reflecting our current views on Tunisia, which we thought that was the conservative thing to do. On a forward-looking basis, there is no specific de-risking program. Of course, we'll always look at our holdings. We'll react to credit ratings, we'll react to market conditions, and take appropriate actions when we feel necessary. I think as you look over the next 12 months, Europe is still, of course, a concern.
Our positions in Europe have decreased. As you look at that as a percent of the portfolio, it's gone from about a year ago, 30% to 20%. I have said, as that bucket of assets continues to decrease, the quality of what we hold in Europe is actually increasing vis-à-vis the total bucket of what we had in Europe. I don't expect Europe to become volatile as it did during 2011 and 2012, but you can't rule that out. Assuming anything from a stable environment, we wouldn't expect much activity or impact to our holdings. Of course, if Europe should become more volatile, that would create for our holdings perhaps some rating pressures. Again, the size of our assets in Europe, the financials have all been reduced substantially. It's much lower risk than we faced when I arrived a little over a year ago.
Thank you for that. That was very comprehensive. One quick follow-up. There's a little bit of overlap or timing issues with the FSA year and then the way we look at the company. Just to clarify, the risk to the repatriation would be whatever credit losses could happen in the first and second quarter of 2013. Is that correct?
This is Ken, Randy. Yeah, that's correct. It's really until we file our FSA financial statements, which is typically kind of early, mid-June.
Perfect. Thanks.
All the losses that we incurred through the fourth quarter of 2012 are reflected in our current outlook for FSA results.
Understood. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Thomas Gallagher, Credit Suisse.
Good morning. I guess for Dan or Chris, if you're not able to give us WAYS sales guidance for 2013, how confident are you for 2013 EPS guidance? Just asking that, obviously, because WAYS were about 45% of your sales in Japan last year.
I'm extremely confident. I've never missed an earnings guidance since I've been CEO going on 23 years. Saying that, it's harder now than it used to be. In my mind, I have a number for what I think bank sales will be. I'll remind you that last year I told you it would be down 10% on this call, and we were up 30.
To make a projection when there was that much volatility last year just seems like it would not be a realistic number. I just want to wait till I get a little closer and see what's going to happen. With all the things we have been going on in terms of persistency, the controls we've had over the budget, the claims, and how they've tracked exactly where we said we would, the new money rate on an upward trajectory, all those things make me confident that we will achieve it. Again, it's a little harder because of different things.
Tom, this is Ken. Let me add one thing because you've seen this story before. You'll recall in the early 2000s, we had sales pressures in Japan following the liberalization of that market. We had sales pressures in the U.S. following our dot-bubble when sales had done so well for a period of a few years. In all those times, we didn't miss earnings, and largely that's because the vast majority of our revenues and earnings come from a renewable source. When you consider the persistency rates, about 90% of Japan's premium income comes from renewals, and investment income is largely from a renewal source. We have a pretty good idea right now what about 80%-85% of our revenues are going to look like for 2013.
With the stability and predictability of the benefit and expense ratios, that's what gives us visibility into earnings. The bottom line is we have more visibility into the income statement than we do right now for the sales through the bank channel.
No, that's helpful. My follow-up is the 15%-20% acceptable margin. I just want to make sure I understand the parameters of that. Chris, that's 15%-20% versus premium, or is that total revenues?
It's like present value of profits to present value of premiums. It's kind of an actuarial thing, but it's really representative of a GAAP profit margin as a % of, well, it'd be of revenues.
When you say present value, are we going to see any accounting disconnect from that in the first year or two that those products come on the books, meaning is it lower in the initial years, or will we see that level of profitability emerge from a GAAP accounting standpoint kind of right out of the gate?
Well, for all of our business, we've got certain costs that are non-deferrable and have to be expensed in the first year. Other than those non-deferrable expenses, the margins tend to be level for each year of the product life as a % of revenue.
Got it. For year two, that's when you see it emerge. Year one, you get the sales strain.
Right.
Okay, thanks.
Okay.
Your next question comes from Erik Bass, Citigroup.
Hi, good morning. Robin touched a little bit on the deferred tax assets, I was just hoping you could provide a little bit more color on what you're doing and kind of what the cash tax benefit is to the company. Then I guess related, is there any potential to accelerate some of the tax assets that are maturing in future years?
Eric, this is Ken. That allowed us to offset all of the tax-based losses that we incurred for 2012, as well as to eliminate all of the carryforwards to 2013, which amounted to $214 million, and a substantial portion, about 60%, of the tax loss carryforwards that expire in 2014, about 60%. We feel like we're in pretty good shape. We're going to continue to explore transactions that make economic sense to the company first and foremost. That would benefit our operations, and hopefully we'll be able to address those in the process.
Okay. Can you just remind us what the aggregate amount of future potential deferred tax assets you have remaining?
We've got about $2 billion, a little less than $2 billion, the most significant portion of which is the $1.3 billion of losses that were generated in 2011 that would expire in 2016.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Eric. We have time for one more question. Your last question comes from John Nadel, Sterne Agee.
Thank you. Maybe I'll follow up a little bit on WAYS. In the second half of 2012, your new money investment rate in Japan was considerably above the 2.50% level, where I think in the past you've indicated you need that level of investment rate to be able to hit that 17%-21% targeted margin on your prior WAYS design. If we ignore, Kriss, the impact of those non-deferrable costs that you mentioned in the response to Thomas, would you say that your WAYS sales in the second half of 2012 were achieving those targeted margins?
Yes. I believe they were, John, particularly with the higher Investment yield and the like, combined with the reduction in the discounted advanced premium rate. Actually, if we could continue at, let's say, the 2.5% net investment yield on new money, I wish we didn't have to change anything as far as discounted advanced premium and gross premium rates. I wish we didn't have to go through this repricing activity we've got to go through April 1st. The margins were good in my mind, but we have no choice relative to the repricing April 1st, because if we don't reprice, there's going to be significant regulatory surplus drain associated with the higher reserves associated with the 1% standard valuation rate.
I was comfortable with the fourth quarter margin, given the higher net investment yield, that's why we feel confident that we can restore the discounted advanced premium rate come April 1st.
Just a quick follow-up. If we're thinking about hitting that targeted margin with a 2.5% or better new money investment yield, in year one, with taking into account the non-deferrable costs, how much does that cut into that margin in year one? I'm thinking about it this way: you had massive WAYS sales in 2011. They more than doubled in 2012. Is it possible that with those non-deferrable costs behind you, at least on those two big years of sales, that the margin jumps in 2013?
Well, it certainly will on that block of business, that's for sure.
Order of magnitude, Chris, can you give us a sense for how much those non-deferrable costs drag that margin in year one?
Yeah, let me think for just a second. I would say they could drain it 20%-30% of premium. We might be looking at virtually zero to slightly negative margin in the actual reported in the first 12 months of the businesses in effect. Actually, it pretty much occurs at issue, at the time of issue, because when the business goes on the books, we first put up the deferred acquisition cost, and that's an offset to the expenses incurred. The asset we establish is not as high as the actual expenses that we incur, particularly under the new DAC standard that we had to implement recently. It's a bit of a drain, but it happens all the time, we got a mixture of second-year business coming in with a higher margin and new business going on the books with a lower.
You're right, the big volume of WAYS we put on the books depressed the margin in particularly the third and fourth quarter.
I'm sorry if I could sneak one more follow-up on this, because I think it's important. It sort of comes back to the question around expectation for sales of this product in 2013. If the year one margin is zero to slightly negative, but the year two margin can be mid-teens or higher, then it seems pretty important to understand or to have some expectation as to whether WAYS sales are going to be down, up, or flat in 2013 versus 2012.
Yeah, well, you're right. It'll relieve some of that strain associated with non-deferrable acquisition costs, the new business will come on at a higher margin. That's what I was trying to get to back to Eric Berg's question. If you write a higher volume, a lower margin business, you achieve one level of profit. Subsequently, if you write a lower volume, a higher margin business, you can be similar in total profitability. I think that's what you're getting at, is that even though sales are going to be down, profits aren't going to be down nearly as much and may, in fact, be up.
Well, in fact, it seems based on your answers around the non-deferrable costs, Chris, that if WAYS sales are indeed down year-over-year in 2013, that profits have to be up, all else equal.
You get to Ken's point about 90% of the profits being associated with renewal business.
Well, plus the lack of the non-deferrable costs.
Yeah. Well, on the margin, you're correct.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thanks. All right. Thank you very much. If you want to call later on the office to ask any follow-up questions, please do so. If not, we have everything out on our website. We appreciate you attending this conference call. Thank you.
This does conclude today's conference. Thank you for attending. You may disconnect at this time.