Good day, everyone, and welcome to the TriNet Q2 2021 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note that this event is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Alex Bauer, head of investor relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon. Welcome to TriNet's 2021 Q2 conference call. Joining me today are Burton M. Goldfield, our President and CEO, and Kelly Tuminelli, our Chief Financial Officer. Our prepared remarks were pre-recorded. Burton will begin with an overview of our Q2 operating performance. Kelly will review our financial results. We will open up the call for the Q&A session. Before we begin, please note that today's discussion will include our 2021 Q3 and full year guidance and other statements that are not historical in nature, are predictive in nature, or depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, such as our expectations, estimates, predictions, strategies, beliefs, or other statements that might be considered forward-looking.
These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and assumptions and are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and that may cause actual results to differ materially from statements being made today or in the future. Except as may be required by law, we do not undertake to update any of these statements in light of new information, future events, or otherwise. We encourage you to review our most recent public filings with the SEC, including our 10-K and 10-Q filings, for a more detailed discussion of the risks, uncertainties, and changes in circumstances that may affect our future results or the market price of our stock. In addition, our discussion today will include non-GAAP financial measures, including our forward-looking guidance for adjusted EBITDA margin and adjusted net income per diluted share.
For reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures to our GAAP financial results, please see our earnings release, our 10-Q filing, or our 10-K filing for our Q2 and full year of 2020 reconciliations, respectively, both of which are available on our website or through the SEC website. With that, I will turn the call over to Burton for his opening remarks. Burton?
Thank you, Alex. Simply put, TriNet's Q2 operating and financial performance was exceptionally strong, setting us up for a solid back half of 2021. These results reflect the resilience of our business and the continued execution by our team throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Solid financial growth, robust operating performance, and strong customer retention were highlights of the Q2 of 2021. Specifically, we delivered strong financial results highlighted by our professional service revenues growth. Our WSE volume grew nine percent year-over-year based on our approach to customer selection. We achieved historically strong retention, and our client base continued strong hiring throughout Q2. New sales grew nine percent year-over-year as measured by annual contract value, positioning us well for a second-half rebound. We launched our new TriNet Financial Services Preferred product.
By the end of the quarter, we saw health services utilization trend towards a more normalized pre-pandemic rate. During the Q2 , we grew total revenues 16% year-over-year to $1.1 billion. The year-over-year revenue performance was measured against the first full pandemic quarter, which included an accrual for the Employee Retention Credit. Additionally, when we compare the total revenues in the recent quarter to that of the Q2 of 2019, total revenues grew 18%. This reflects the strong underlying performance of our business throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Our revenue growth highlights that our value proposition continues to resonate with our target customer base and was further supported by a 29% year-over-year growth in professional service revenues. The growth in professional service revenues was attributable to our strong volume growth, especially in our core white-collar verticals.
We are now supporting the largest number of work site employees in TriNet company history for our technology, financial services, and life science verticals. During the quarter, the growth in professional service revenues saw a large contribution from rate. Kelly will go into greater detail describing this quarter's unique drivers of rate. The year-over-year compare also benefited from the Employee Retention Credit accrual taken in Q2 of 2020. Overall, I am very pleased with the performance of our professional service revenues as it positively reflects our customer selection process, strong value proposition, customer retention, and customer growth. Additionally, this professional service revenues creates a flywheel that will drive revenues for the second half of 2021. Our health plan enrollment also played an important role in these results. We now have the most WSEs enrolled in our health plans in our history. This exceeds our previous pre-pandemic peak.
TriNet is focused on price, choice, and user experience to drive this historically high number of WSEs enrolled in our medical plans. Our clients have responded to this focus by adopting these advantageous medical plans to attract and retain exceptional employees. Ultimately, our year-over-year revenue growth, as well as our revenue growth compared to the same quarter of pre-pandemic 2019, reflects the durability and vitality of our customers, the fit of our products and services to this customer base, and our steadfast commitment to evolving our offering and standing with our customers in this rapidly changing business and regulatory climate. Importantly, we expect to continue to grow our revenue at strong rates through the second half of 2021, which is reflected in our revised guidance, which Kelly will address. GAAP earnings per share declined 27% year-over-year - $1.37 per share.
As a reminder, during the Q2 of 2020, our earnings per share was positively impacted by the precipitous decline in health services utilization. That decline led to significant health cost savings, which benefited our Q2 2020 earnings. I am very pleased with this past quarter's earnings performance, not only because of the results, but because of how the earnings were generated. We outperformed the top end of our GAAP earnings per share guidance by $0.63 per share. This beat was driven by strong volume performance, supported by continued health cost savings, even though the health cost savings moderated as the quarter progressed. Additionally, when you compare our most recent quarter's GAAP EPS versus that of the Q2 of 2019, a pre-pandemic quarter, we more than doubled our earnings per share.
We finished the second quarter with approximately 340,000 WSEs, up nine percent year-over-year and up four percent sequentially versus the Q1 of 2021. Our strong volume performance is attributable to the themes we saw emerge in the Q1 . We continue to have strong retention in the Q2 . In the last two years, we created two unique-to-our-industry credit programs in which we used our healthcare cost savings to help drive longer-term relationships with our customers. These programs highlighted our commitment to our customers, and our customers are rewarding us by staying longer. Our customer selection process has resulted in a customer base comprised of dynamic and durable companies. Our strategic decision years ago to pursue a certain set of customer attributes in specific verticals is paying dividends. Continuing a trend that began last year, this customer base hired new employees in the Q2 at historically high rates.
We believe these hiring trends can continue into the second half, although not likely at the same historically high rates. Finally, under new sales leadership, sales contributed positively with nine percent year-over-year growth in annual contract value. This growth occurred in our core verticals, adding to our already strong customer base. I am optimistic that the post-pandemic bottom is in, and we will see a recovery in new sales growth throughout the second half. Additionally, during the Q2 , we announced the arrival of our new Chief Product Officer. Under her leadership, I expect to further extend our customer commitment to an evolving value-added customer experience. An example of this evolution is that we launched our TriNet Financial Services Preferred product in the Q2 . We have always provided our financial services customers with excellent service, top-tier benefits, and support for partnerships and other entities.
This enhanced offering seeks to extend these capabilities. After having served nearly 5,000 different financial services customers, we applied our deep financial industry knowledge and unique customer insight to launch this new, exciting product. This product is designed to enable financial services firms to deliver a premier employee experience, efficiently manage HR administration, and comply with a complex set of employment-related risks and regulations. Financial services firms, however, have not escaped the pandemic's impact. Many are now faced for the first time with the added complexity of distributed or remote workforces as employees choose to work from different locations. TriNet Financial Services Preferred is well-positioned to address this emerging complexity on behalf of our customers. This value will be delivered by both new technology and an evolved service model.
Having nearly tripled our financial services customer base since 2014 and currently at our all time high in financial services WSEs, we look forward to driving continued strong growth through adoption of our Financial Services Preferred product. Sales and marketing are more critical than ever to our organization's growth. As we look to the second half, we expect to see a continued recovery in new sales buttressed by the powerful collaboration between our sales and marketing teams. During the pandemic, new business generation pivoted to channels where engagement and viewership increased. Our marketing team anticipated this new reality with enhanced web capabilities. Through the first half of 2021, new ACV originated by marketing is up 18% year-over-year. The vast majority of this business was driven through our omni-channel marketing efforts. As economic and face-to-face activity accelerates, we expect marketing to augment our efforts with increased program activity.
Historically, TriNet has benefited most from face-to-face selling with prospects referred to us. Our sales team is highly effective at cultivating strong referral networks by bringing together customers, prospects, and salespeople, and closing this business at faster and higher rates. In June, the successful rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines in California and New York empowered political leadership to reopen the states, which represent two of our core markets. In response, Jonathan LeCompte, our new sales leader, has spearheaded a staged return to face-to-face selling. We are excited for sales and marketing to reestablish our in-person program activity in support of our referral business. In the second quarter, we announced our largest and most prominent company program. TriNet PeopleForce, a four day virtual and in-person conference focused on business transformation, agility, and innovation for small and medium-size businesses, is scheduled to begin on September 13th.
PeopleForce has become our showcase event where our people, products, and services are on full display for prospects and customers. When we say we put our customers at the center of everything we do, there is no better event than PeopleForce for a prospect to see TriNet in action. This year's event will be a hybrid, in-person from New York City and virtual from anywhere. We are excited about the potential sales impact from PeopleForce, we expect our sales and marketing teams to leverage this event to drive new business throughout our fall selling season. As I reflect on our Q2 performance and look to the second half of 2021, I am proud of our entire team and what they've accomplished. We are delivering strong financial results and outstanding operating performance. Our execution has resulted in revenue, earnings, and volume growth in the quarter.
Looking ahead, we continue to take necessary steps to thoughtfully accelerate these efforts, and I look forward to updating you on our progress. I will now turn the call over to Kelly for a more detailed financial update. Kelly?
Thank you, Burton. I'll review our Q2 financial results before discussing Q3 and full year 2021 guidance. With respect to our Q2 financial performance, I'm extremely pleased with our results. We exceeded our volume projections, which drove top-line growth. We saw continued good health performance, and we delivered strong earnings. During the Q2 , total revenues increased 16% year-over-year, outperforming the top end of our guidance range by two points. The outperformance in total revenues was driven by nine percent year-over-year growth in ending WSEs and six percent year-over-year growth in average WSEs and our highest-ever health participation by our WSEs. Year-over-year growth in total revenues includes a benefit from a five percent accrual for the Employee Retention Credit, which reduced revenues in the second quarter of 2020. As a reminder, this accrual impacted both professional service revenues and insurance service revenues.
Professional service revenues in the quarter grew 29% year-over-year, exceeding the top end of our guidance range by 15 points. This growth was driven by the average volume growth of six percent I just mentioned versus last year, which exceeded our expectations. Importantly, this volume growth occurred in our core verticals, positively impacting mix. Professional service revenues also benefited from nine percent growth in rate. There were two unique drivers to year-over-year growth in rate specific to this quarter. First, we've updated pricing for our small customers to achieve a minimum price. Second, we had a higher volume of payrolls this quarter, which impacted our rate calculation. In practice, when compared to the same period last year, we saw customers run higher numbers of bonus payroll runs, which directly added to incremental professional service fees.
In the quarter, the growth of average WSEs to 332,000 highlighted the durability of our customer base as our installed base continued to hire at record rates and also reflected strong retention. For the Q2 , our net insurance margin, or NIM, as we historically have presented it, was approximately 15%, implying total insurance costs of approximately 85% of our insurance service revenues. This compared to our expectation of 89%-90%, implying a NIM of 10%-11%. Although we saw an increase in health utilization as preventative visits resumed, the insurance costs remained lower than our forecast as the level of elective procedures has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. We also benefited in the Q2 from more favorable development of our Q1 incurred health claims. Our Q2 effective tax rate was 22% in the quarter.
The rate was lower due to benefits associated with a favorable adjustment of our previously disputed receivable from the IRS and an increase in tax benefits related to equity compensation. Both our Q2 GAAP net income per share and our adjusted net income per share declined year-over-year as the extraordinary underutilization of health costs due to the pandemic in Q2 of 2020 did not recur at the same level during 2021. GAAP net income per share declined 27% - $1.37 compared to $1.87 per share in the same quarter last year, exceeding the top end of our guidance by $0.63. Adjusted net income per share decreased 23% - $1.56 compared - $2.03 per share in the same quarter last year, which exceeded the top end of guidance by $0.70.
Far this year, we've spent $74 million to repurchase approximately 925,000 shares of stock and have over $280 million of authorization remaining. We also generated $240 million in corporate operating cash flows during the first half as a result of our strong operating performance, ending the quarter with $464 million in corporate cash. Overall, performance in the Q2 continued many of the positive trends we saw emerge in the Q1 and we're positioned well for very strong full year operational and financial results. Let's turn to our Q3 and full year outlook. I will provide both GAAP and non-GAAP guidance. Before I begin, please note that we are changing how we discuss and present the performance of our insurance business and how we calculate adjusted EBITDA margin.
These changes are unrelated to the fundamentals of our business and reflect overall public company reporting trends, as well as our efforts to reduce our non-GAAP metrics as the company grows. Importantly, we are making no changes to the presentation of our financial statements. Regarding insurance, after this quarter, we will be discontinuing the use of net service revenue, net insurance service revenue, and the net insurance margin ratio. Given we are not changing our financial statements, the components will still be available in order to understand trends in insurance service revenues and insurance costs. Our adjusted EBITDA margin will now be calculated by dividing adjusted EBITDA by total revenues rather than net service revenues. Our plan going forward will be to provide guidance on total revenues, professional service revenues, expectations around insurance costs compared to insurance service revenues, GAAP earnings per share, and adjusted earnings per share.
We believe these metrics will continue to provide clear indication to investors of our views on revenue growth and profitability. Furthermore, we will continue to publish components of adjusted EBITDA with our quarterly and annual results. Now on to guidance. For the Q3 of 2021, we expect total revenues growth of 15%-17% year-over-year, and professional service revenues growth to be in the range of 15%-20% year-over-year. As a reminder, in the Q3 of last year, we accrued $48 million for our 2020 Recovery Credit Program, which represented approximately five percent of GAAP total revenues and professional service revenues for the period. This revenue range is an increase over our prior guidance, both based on the outperformance to date, along with the expectation of stronger performance in the second half.
This is driven by the significant volume growth we've seen to date and our optimism for the remainder of 2021 with new sales, hiring within our installed base, although slowing from 1st half levels, and continued strong retention. Our insurance costs, we are expecting our Q3 insurance costs to be 89.5%-91.5% of insurance service revenues. Our guidance assumes we are returning to normal levels of health utilization, but that there isn't a sizable snapback in elective procedures, nor escalation of expenses from delayed care over what we would consider normal during a non-pandemic year. We expect Q3 GAAP earnings per share to be in the range of $0.48-$0.72 per share, and we expect Q3 adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $0.62-$0.87 per share.
Turning to our full-year guidance, given our first half performance, we are raising our full-year guidance. We continue to expect health costs to normalize in the second half of 2021. We did experience a moderation in our health cost savings late in the Q2 , and we expect that trend to continue. As a reminder, we believe our full-year guidance remains partly de-risked by the fact that our 2021 credit program will be adjusted downwards by up to $25 million should we experience additional health costs above our current expectations. Furthermore, we continue to realize strong hiring and retention in our core verticals, which has improved our full-year outlook. We are now forecasting our year-over-year GAAP revenue growth to be 10%-12%, lifting the range by one percentage point.
With the strong growth to date and our continued optimism given the 2021 recovery, our professional service revenues forecast is now for 13%-15% year-over-year growth, an increase of five points. The increase in our professional service revenues growth forecast is a result of continued strong hiring growth, retention in our core verticals, and resilient pricing. We expect our 2021 insurance revenues to remain strong, while we would anticipate insurance costs to improve on a full-year basis to roughly 87.5%-88.5% of insurance service revenues. We will closely be watching the developments and trends given our expected increase in utilization of health services and potential to accelerate elective procedures in the second half of the year. With all these factors taken together, we now expect GAAP earnings per share to be in the range of $3.60-$4.03, or -10% - +1% year-over-year.
The new GAAP EPS range represents an increase to the top end of the range of $0.72. Adjusted net income per share is now expected to be in the range of $4.25-$4.70, or -4% - +6% year-over-year. The new adjusted net income per share guidance reflects an $0.80 increase to the top end of our guidance range. With that, I will return the call to Burton for his closing remarks. Burton?
Thank you, Kelly. In summary, I am very pleased with our Q2 performance, which demonstrates our commitment to putting our customers at the center of everything we do and focusing on leveraging our business model to drive value for all of our stakeholders. We are emerging from COVID-19 in a very strong position. Through our customer selection and vertical model, we have attracted a unique installed customer base, which is hiring at record rates. At the same time, our new sales are starting to pick up, and we expect to build sales momentum throughout the second half. Given the improving momentum in our business, coupled with our strong first half performance, I am pleased that we are raising our guidance for 2021. Our outlook is very positive as we build on our success and move forward in executing our plan in a recovering post-pandemic economy. Operator?
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question today will come from Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hey, Tien-Tsin.
Thanks so much. Hey, great to connect with you guys. Just a couple questions. One for you, Burton, one for Kelly, if that's okay. Just for Burton, the new sales plus nine percent , thanks for sharing that. I know that's a focus number for a lot of names we cover. Anything you can say in terms of where that came in versus planned? Where do you see that improvement to be, Burton, as you get back to a little bit more normalized sales? I know you have your big event coming up in September. How does it compare to your 2019 levels? Just hoping to get a little bit more on the ACV growth there.
Absolutely. Thanks for the question, Tien-Tsin Huang. We're emerging from COVID-19 in a really strong position. This is the quarter I was looking for, as I assume you could tell from my remarks.
Yep.
What I believe is that we have the right focus on the verticals, the right customer base, and the continued customer selection. Sales is recovering. As I said, the bottom is in. My visibility at this point is to an incremental growth in sales throughout Q3 and Q4. The reason I'm saying this is. We have a great new sales leader. We're seeing high levels of activity, and we're seeing people beginning to make those decisions that have been deferred, frankly, for so long. The bottom line is, my expectation is for sequential growth in Q3 and Q4 in sales, setting us up very well for the rest of the year. I am pleased with the work being done both on the marketing side as well as the sales side.
Great. That's good to hear. For Kelly, just on the +9 on the rates. How much of that would you assign to the raising of the minimums for the smaller clients? I assume that was contemplated in guidance. Does the second half imply maybe a little bit of attrition impact from that change? I'm just trying to understand how sustainable or how much that can carry forward for the next 12 months.
No, I appreciate the question, Tien-Tsin. Really, of the nine percent rate increase, about three percent of it was raising the minimums in general. While the growth, you wouldn't see the same level of growth. We probably will see it for a quarter or two more because we delayed those rate increases due to COVID-19 and what our customers were going through. We probably will see some level of growth over the next couple of customers as those things get implemented with annual renewals.
Okay. That's a good question. Thanks for the update.
Hey, thanks, Tien-Tsin. Appreciate it.
Our next question will come from Andrew Nicholas with William Blair. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon.
Hey, Andrew.
Thanks for taking my question. First question I had was just hoping you could put some numbers to the sequential change in WSEs. I'm just wondering if there's any detail you could provide to kind of help us size how much of that growth was attributable to the client base versus maybe better-than-expected retention. Just trying to get a sense for what we can kind of extrapolate going forward.
Yeah. No, Andrew, this is Kelly. I'll be happy to take the question. In general, retention was around the range that we expected. Hiring was better than we expected, and new sales roughly in line.
Got it.
Yes.
Sorry, go ahead. Didn't mean to cut you off.
Oh, no. You're good.
All right. I guess for my follow-up, maybe bigger picture question. Q2 in a row with really strong upside to your expectations, really strong cash generation. I guess I'm just wondering at this point, maybe compared to how you were viewing the year back in December and January when you were budgeting and doing your full year planning, if there's anything in particular that comes to mind that you're planning to kind of lean into using kind of this upside. Are you planning to ramp up marketing spend a little bit more, technology investment, sales force hiring, whatever it may be? Just wondering if kind of spending plans are different today than they were six months ago, just given all the positive momentum in the business.
Yeah, I appreciate the question. They're definitely a little more back-end loaded. There are a few things we are investing in. Really trying to focus on growth and efficiency. We are investing in some sales and marketing efforts as well as technology improvements as we continue to roll out products like you saw with the FinServ Preferred. Obviously, given the strong performance to date, the compensation accrual goes up a little bit with that.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew.
Our next question will come from Kevin McVeigh with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks so much, and congratulations. Hey, you kind of referenced record high retention a couple of times on the call. Can you help us frame kind of where that retention fits? I guess what's interesting to me is I would've thought maybe that eased up a little bit as the pandemic eases, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Any thoughts as we work our way through the year on the retention?
Yeah. Hey, Kevin, this is Kelly. I'll take that one given that it's really guidance related and numbers related. In terms of retention, I guess the way I would say is 2020 was a record year. I think 2021's a very good year, not quite at the same record retention rate that we saw in 2020, but definitely in our window of expectation and where we think guidance will land for the full year. Really our assumption within guidance is that retention's not quite as good as people are a little more comfortable making back-office decisions, but that sales improved significantly and more than makes up for that. Is that helpful? Is that responsive?
Got it. Then Kelly, any sense of where that number is directionally? Can you give us a range maybe, if not the explicit number?
Yeah. I'd say it's up about a point.
Okay. I guess what drove the decision? It sounds like there's some enhanced functionality within financials. What drove that? Would you expect all kind of existing financial clients to cut over, or is this the new initiative or just any thoughts on that? It seems pretty interesting that you're going a little bit deeper within financial services.
Hey, Kevin, this is Burton. Thanks for the compliment up front, by the way. I am really passionate about these verticals that we're in, and my goal is frankly to go deeper and add more value, more connectivity for these verticals, and to listen to the customers as we evolve the products. I'm thrilled to have a new product leader on board who's going to help in adding the capabilities and the attributes of our new products. It's about going deeper in the verticals that we're serving. It's not about finding 10 more verticals to serve. Our TAM is large enough, our focus is right, and I believe we're in the right geographies. I want to double down on our customer selection.
I want to double down on the fact that retention is so high, we need to make sure that we're adding capabilities, which gets to your point of why focus deeper in something like FinServ. I also want to double down on enabling our channel, both marketing and sales, to go deeper within these verticals and serve them in a way that they haven't been served before.
Helpful. Thank you, Burton.
Thank you, Kevin.
Thanks, Kelly.
Thank you.
Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star and one. Our next question will come from Sam England with Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. The first one, you talked about volume growth, especially within the white-collar verticals. I suppose around the sort of mix shift, do you think that will be permanent, or is there still some blue-collar business that you're expecting to return as we sort of exit the pandemic? I suppose what are your broader thoughts on where mix will go over the next sort of two-three years?
Hey, Sam, this is Burton. Thanks for the question. From my vantage point, the Main Street vertical has not recovered the loss that they had in both layoffs and furloughs like our other verticals, but it is coming back to almost even as to what it was prior to the pandemic. I also believe there's a tremendous amount of pent-up demand in these verticals, and there's a lot of pent-up demand in Main Street. A scenario that may end up coming true is the hiring as people become available will increase in Main Street. I don't believe it'll go in the direction that our technology and financial services has gone, but I do believe that you will see some change in existing at a more normalized rate from Main Street. I also see a tremendous amount of new quotes to the select groups that we quote in Main Street.
I believe there is upside in Main Street that we have not seen yet and could be upside that goes into next year.
Great. Thanks very much. The second one, could you just talk a bit about the M&A environment at the moment? How the, I suppose, the sort of pipeline or frequency of potential acquisitions that you're seeing is developing as we exit the pandemic.
Great. Yeah. No, Sam, I'll take that one. Our focus on M&A really hasn't changed. It's still our second highest capital priority. We're still looking towards geographies or verticals that really fit our mix, technology that fits our client base or other tuck-in type acquisitions. Valuations are really elevated right now, and we want to make sure that the acquisitions we're targeting are going to be accretive to our shareholders. That's the lens we're going to continue to use and definitely be selective as we look at that.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you, Sam.
Our next question will come from David Grossman with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, and congratulations on some of the nice results.
Yeah. Thanks, David.
I'm wondering if maybe I'm sorry, I think my line cut out when you were answering Tin-Tsin's qu estion about the nine percent rate increase. Was it three percent from raising the minimum on the smaller clients and six percent from more payrolls that were higher than expected number of payroll, year-end payrolls and special reports at year-end? Did I get that right?
Yeah. I guess the way I would look at it is, of the nine percent , really, about three percent was our smaller clients. one percent -two percent was really the extra payrolls in May, really reflecting May and June, reflecting the strong performance our clients have seen to date.
So-
Probably a four percent -five percent underlying rate increase.
Oh, I got it. Okay. The balance of the difference between guidance then was the volume growth. Is that the way to think about that? The nine percent rate increase plus six percent volume growth?
Yeah. Pretty much. There was a little bit of noise around timing between Q1 and Q2 in terms of the mix of insurance service revenues and professional service revenues. That was about a three percent variance year-over-year, just as we were looking at that mix shift as well.
Got it. Just while, could I have you, Kelly, just a moment? The net insurance margin obviously is running well above your guidance of 10%-11%, if you will. I know that utilization rates are down and elective procedures are down. Is there anything that you're seeing in the business that would make you rethink what that may look like in '22 and '23? You don't have to get into specifics about those years, but is it really just too early to know? Are you seeing some just fundamental changes in the business that would make you think that you could do better than that? As you know, that business hasn't run at 10%-11% for quite a while now.
Yeah. As you saw, David, we raised our guidance this quarter on the 2021 view.
Right.
In terms of the competitive environment out there as well, we do reprice every year based on our expectation of medical cost trends and annualization. We'll continue to work with our clients to try to keep their increases down as we work on things like, for example, we issued or we released a new product in May, Health Advocate, to really help our WSEs be able to manage their health utilization and get the best service for the lowest cost for them, which really will help their employers overall reduce their medical increases. We expect to be competitive. We plan on that driving growth as well. We're targeting 10 - 11, but there's some level of variability around that.
Right. Maybe Burton, if you could just comment on the ACV that you signed in the quarter. You mentioned several times, and we have in the past, about a conscious effort to rethink the type of customers that you wanted to sign. Maybe could you give us a kind of a view under the hood, if you will, in terms of the demographic of some of that ACV, in terms of size of customer and the types of services that they're taking, and also maybe some insight into why, in this kind of new world that we're living in, why they're choosing the PEO option?
Great question, what I'll say to you is that the verticals we chose, for years this has been a passion of mine, and I believe, David, it is coming home to roost favorably. They value our partnership as they grow their companies. With the pandemic and the multi-state approach, where people are not coming back to work, where small companies now have employees in three, four and 10 states, our value proposition really resonates. If you have a manufacturing plant, they have to come back to your manufacturing plant to produce their product. If you're in a financial services company, and you're valuable to that company, you can pretty much live anywhere you want. The complexity has gone up exponentially, and you've heard me talk about the PEO is a great place to reduce complexity around employment in your business. That's particularly strong.
The customer size is getting larger. If you look at the install base, it's coming from two areas. One is record hiring. The customers who were 10 or 11 are now 20 or 21. The new sales is coming in with a higher average customers or WSE size to begin with, and those customers are growing as well. In choosing the verticals, which are well-funded, we're seeing, you didn't ask the question, but funding has not abated. New company formation in technology and life sciences is strong. Spin-offs of financial services organizations with new hedge funds or focused funds of some sort are being created on a regular basis. What I would say is that the customer base is getting bigger.
The vertical strategy is working in that I'm keeping blinders on to make sure that we are going deep in the verticals, and with the products following that strategy, I believe we will continue to keep those customers longer and deliver unparalleled value that can't be delivered either with another PEO or by doing it in-house.
Has anything changed, Burton, in terms of the economics of leaving the PEO model at a certain scale?
Good question. Let me think about that for a minute. I think the economics are you would need a lot more expertise in-house on HR if you're operating in seven states versus having a single location. I think the economics around hiring, which is ridiculously hard right now to get the right people, you're better off having 13 medical plans in one state versus one medical plan in attracting folks. Also, as you're well aware, people have high expectations of not filling out a lot of paperwork, onboarding in a paperless environment, and being able to access their information in a very timely fashion. I do believe if you're going to go from a PEO to bringing it in-house, the bar is higher today in terms of multi-state user experience and complexity around reporting than it was two years ago.
That's probably the way I'd approach it as far as the exit velocity from a PEO to in-house.
Right. Just one more. Sorry that so many questions here.
Sure.
I just wanted to pick up on one thing you mentioned a moment ago, is that your kind of gut sense is that as benefits run out, the summer ends, you haven't really seen a big rebound in hiring in your Main Street book, but that with the benefits running out, the summer ending, that you could in fact see some re-acceleration in that business in the last fourth of the year, if you will, last third of the year?
The scenario is the benefits can go to normal because we're pricing to risk. The question really is whether there'll be an acceleration above the normal trend for medical benefits. From my standpoint, I don't see that happening. I think it's coming close to normalized, which is just fine from my standpoint. Part of my reticence after Q1 is I didn't know what Q2 would look like. I'm very pleased with where we got to from a medical cost trend in Q2, but I probably, obviously, don't have a crystal ball into Q3 or Q4. I believe they will go to normalized.
Yeah. David, I think your question was really around unemployment benefits, correct?
Right. That's right.
With those going away and Main Street hiring. Yeah. Our forecast, while we talked about hiring moderating, Q2 was just unprecedented in our biggest verticals. Really our moderating of that really does assume somewhat of a higher level hiring for Main Street. You do have to remember as well, we're very selective in terms of our Main Street customers, and we don't have a lot of service sector hospitality within our Main Street verticals. You probably will see more of a rotation for those that have higher concentration to hospitality than you will for us.
Right. Got it. All right, that's it for me. Thanks very much.
Thanks, David. Appreciate it.
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