UnumProvident Corp. Unveils Q1 Numbers; President Says Results Don’t Meet Expectations

Tennessee-based UnumProvident Corp. announced its results for the first quarter of 2005.

The company reported net income of $152.2 million ($0.49 per diluted
common share) for the first quarter of 2005, compared to a net loss of $562.3 million ($1.91 per diluted common share) for the first quarter of 2004.

“Although our operating results in the first quarter improved over the
year ago performance, they did not meet our expectations,” said Thomas Watjen, president and chief executive officer. “The majority of our operations met or exceeded our plans, but that was more than offset by adverse experience in our U.S. group income protection claims operations, which we believe has been temporarily disrupted by the implementation of changes made in response to the multistate regulatory settlement agreements we entered into at year-end and other process improvement initiatives undertaken in 2004.

“I believe we are seeing the effect on our claims operations of trying to absorb a considerable amount of change in a short period of time. We anticipated some disruption in claim processing and in the timing of claim decisions, but we experienced more in the first quarter than we expected.

“I believe that we will gradually restore our performance to more acceptable levels, and I am working very closely with our benefits area management team to assure that we are taking the necessary actions to improve performance while continuing to fully comply with our settlement agreements and maintaining the level of quality desired.”