YouSaid · the spoken record

John Schlifske

lines on the record: 62
first: 2021-04-09
most recent: 2021-04-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Much younger people. And so that's muted the mortality cost, let's say, at the mortality expense of COVID as it relates to our policy owner base. And so as we've told our board, we're in business to pay claims. We pay death claims because people need that, their families need it, their loved ones need it. And we're proud to pay out our COVID claims. But at the end of the day, it's been something that hasn't been nearly as bad from a financial perspective as many people thought a year ago today.”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“COVID, of course, is a tragedy for this country. And it's obviously many, many, many hundreds of thousands of deaths due to COVID. What we found for our company is that the average age of our COVID claims has been around 80, 81 years old, and the average duration of those policies is over 40 years. So what that's telling us is that by and large, at least for northwestern mutuals policy owner base, the COVID impact has been relatively negligible. These are obviously much older people who have had these policies in force for a long period of time. And if you look at sort of the difference, but just in terms of death rates with COVID and who's dying versus, let's say, the Spanish flu back in the 1920 area, it tends to negatively impact much older people rather than.”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, you know, the increased longevity of Americans over the last century has been a huge positive for the life insurance industry, and mortality continues to improve, although not at the same pace it did, let's say, in the twenties and 30s. But in general, Americans tend to be living longer, living healthier lives, and that has a huge benefit to the value of their policies, obviously. And one of the reasons Northwestern Mutual stands out is that our mortality experience is actually better than the industry average. We underwrite very well. And so all of that mortality improvement really is return to our customers, our policy owners, in the form of dividends. We paid out over $6.2 billion in dividends in 2020. And that's a huge proof point on the economic value that we create and mortality is a huge component of it.”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's low rates that have been the biggest headwind on the company, and they've had the single biggest impact on the economics of our industry.”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not necessarily the premium per se, but for permanent life insurance, a huge component of the value is the cash value that builds over time. And when interest rates are low, that cash value builds at a much slower rate. And so that's what I mean when I say it becomes more costly. So with rates coming down in the dramatic way they have really over the last 15 years, that's had a very important sort of headwind on the value of life insurance. And so if you think about it this way, policies issued in the mid-90s had interest rates in the 8% range. And now we're in a period where interest rates are down around 3%. So that's a huge difference in terms of the value that's created in these policies over time. The good news is”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the economics have changed in a material way, and it's really tied to what's going on in the marketplace. The fundamentals that create value for our policy owners haven't changed. It's how well the investment portfolio performs. It's what's your mortality experience. It's how persistent are the policies, how long do the policy owners keep their policies, and then ultimately can you manage the expenses of the business and be a low-cost provider? So those things haven't changed, and they're the core to creating value for our policy owners who happen to be our customers at the same time. But what's really been, I would say, the most dramatic in the last, let's say, 15 years or so is the role of interest rates. They obviously have a huge impact on pricing when interest rates go down. The cost of life insurance goes up.”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And people who sell our products, which we call our field, they all have a long-term stake in the value of this enterprise.”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“160 years old. And if you look at this company, we started as a life insurance company that we're now number one in terms of market share in the country. And you mentioned we have over $2 trillion of life insurance in force. But we've evolved. We now sell a variety of risk products, including disability income, annuities, long-term care. But we also are a major wealth management player. We have over 200, close to 200 million, excuse me, billion dollars of assets under management for our wealth management clients. We're growing swiftly in that business. We're integrating insurance and investments at the client level to create better outcomes. And those are all proof points, I think, around how this company has evolved and how is the leader, you feel this tremendous responsibility to steward the company for the next generation of employees, policy owners,”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People who aren't even born yet, there's a sense of responsibility to taking care of that. And I think that's one of the things I love about this job, that as a CEO, you can think in three different time directions. We obviously have to deliver, and I call them near now and far. So we have to deliver near. We have to do what's required today to deliver value to our policy owners today. But we also have to be effective and relevant both in the near term, let's say two to four years out, and in the far, you know, five, ten, 15, 20, 30 years out. We're selling products today in which people will own them for 60, 70, 80 years. And so that notion of working over decades, creating relevance over decades, creating economic value over decades, evolving over decades is really one of the sort of legacies that goes with running a company that's over.”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I would start off with the notion that it's both an honor and a responsibility. So it's sort of like take your favorite sports team, the Packers, the Yankees, whatever team has this unbelievable legacy. When you're running the place, you can't lose sight of not just what a great job it is, but the huge responsibility that goes along with it and this notion that we've been around for generations, we've taken care of people for generations and that we have to do that for years and years to come. I say I always like to tell this story. So we're a mutual company. That means we're owned by our policy owners. We're not a stock company. And we don't really have an end date. There's no notion that at some point this company will get sold to somebody else or that we need to find a different ownership structure or anything like that. We are in business for past generations, our current customers and generations yet to come.”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was doing the right thing and being rewarded for it. So I think over my over as you're growing up in your twenties and thirties and forties every now and then, headhunters would call. But I always wanted to stay at Northwestern Mutual really for two reasons. One, I love the culture. I love what the company stood for. And then the second is, I mentioned, I always felt it was a true meritocracy where you were rewarded for what you did. And I think ultimately, if you had told me in 1987 that in 2021 I'd be still here, I don't think I would have believed you. But when you start stringing together year after year of this feeling about good about the company, its culture, and its mission, and good about your career and your bosses and the way you're treated, I just think that growth was amazing. And so here I am 20, whatever it is, 34 years later in 2021 feeling really privileged to have been able to make most of my career at this great company.”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, as I said, I started out in what we call our private capital area. So that was doing private placements of, so privately placed debt, privately placed equity, leveraged buyouts. The 80s were the leverage buyout glory days in Northwestern Mutual was a huge participant in it. So it was a fun experience because we were looking at so many different companies, so many different industries, so many different kinds of capital structures. And I was learning so much. So we had that growth in the company. And then I was growing as a professional. And one of the things I've always appreciated about Northwestern Mutual, and I think it's still true to this day, it was a true meritocracy. And by that, I mean, I always thought the people who got promoted, including me, obviously, were being rewarded for what we did, what we knew, how we were growing. And I never felt it was there was a club. I never thought connections were the way to the top.”
2021-04-09 · Masters in Business · John Schlifske on the Legacy of Northwestern Mutual (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source