Globe Life Inc. has cut its full-year 2026 earnings guidance. The drag is not its core life insurance business but a group health unit that sells through brokers and has yet to turn a profit.
The McKinney, Texas-based insurer lowered its full-year 2026 net operating income guidance to a range of $15.35 to $15.65 per diluted share, down from $15.55 to $15.95, the range it had raised just one quarter earlier. Management attributed the revision specifically to two items at the United American General Agency division: an underwriting loss of approximately $16 million at Evry Health, the group health business Globe Life announced it would acquire in October 2023, and approximately $7 million in excess Medicare Supplement claims tied to a processing delay at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The United American division’s Q3 2026 result is striking in context. The unit generated $219 million in health premium revenue during the quarter, up 29% from a year earlier, and health net sales nearly doubled year on year, rising 95% to $47.7 million. Yet it posted a $6.4 million underwriting loss, compared with a $16.1 million underwriting profit in Q3 2025. That is a swing of more than $22 million in a single quarter.
The Evry loss accounts for roughly $16 million of that swing. Evry, founded in 2017 and acquired by Globe Life for an undisclosed sum, is a Dallas-based digital-first group health provider that sells to mid-size employers and markets its products through brokers. It sits inside the United American division and represents Globe Life’s push into a broker-distributed group health segment that differs significantly from its traditional agent-led, direct-to-consumer model.
The Q3 result extends a multi-year trend. United American’s health underwriting margin as a percentage of premium has compressed steadily from 11% in 2023 to 8% in 2024 to 6% in 2025, before turning negative in Q3 2026. Management has described Evry as a business “growing and scaling to a size that will enable stable results.” That language signals the book is not yet large enough to absorb claim volatility without material earnings impact.
Globe Life’s core businesses of American Income Life, Liberty National, and Family Heritage delivered steady results in the quarter. American Income Life life premium grew 4% and life underwriting margin increased 3%. Liberty National life net sales rose 7% and its average producing agent count expanded 9%, recovering from a 7% decline a year earlier. Family Heritage posted a 12% rise in health underwriting margin and a 5% increase in health net sales. Total premium revenue across the company grew 7% to $1.31 billion.
Against that backdrop, the United American result stands apart. Globe Life said the guidance reduction reflects the United American items rather than any change in the underlying business, and maintained its 2027 net operating income guidance at $16.10 to $17.10 per share, which Globe Life described as a 7.1% increase at the midpoint. Globe Life used similar language at Q2 2026, when management first addressed Evry’s losses directly in a public earnings call. The Q3 result suggests the problem is proving harder to ring-fence than that language implied.
Brokers placing Evry group health business are working with a book that generated $219 million in quarterly premium while losing money on underwriting. The CMS delay is a one-time item Globe Life can isolate, but the Evry loss is structural: a startup-scale group health carrier that is growing faster in premium than it has been able to manage in claims. That gap tends to close through rate increases, product adjustments, or tighter underwriting, and any of those responses affects the terms brokers can offer employers at renewal.
Globe Life also repurchased 1.1 million shares at a total cost of $185 million during the quarter. The company now expects to spend $725 million to $775 million on buybacks for the full year 2026, up from previous guidance of $670 million to $700 million, signalling that management remains confident in the broader business even as it works through the United American situation. The company’s Q3 2025 results, when United American generated a $16 million underwriting profit and total health margins rose 25%, provide a direct before-and-after comparison.
