(Photo:Thinkstock)

Executives from Ameriprise Financial Inc.,Torchmark Corp., Anthem Inc. and Centene Corp. have releasedresults for the second quarter that look, overall, pretty good.

Jim Cracchiolo, the chief executive officer of Ameriprise, alife and annuity issuer, started his company's quarterly conferencecall with securities analysts by pointing out that the stock marketseems to have recovered from the turmoil at the end of 2018, andthat the economy looks as if it's improving.

“I feel good about our results and the ability to grow,”Cracchiolo said during his company's call, which,like other publicly traded companies earnings calls, wasstreamed live on the web.

Related: Insurers returning to pre-ACAprofitability

Reporters, securities analysts and credit analysts have tried tofind some drama by wondering how prolonged low interest rates mightaffect life insurers, but Gary Coleman, the CEO ofTorchmark, a company that writes and distributeslife and health products, shrugged off the idea that low ratesmight have much of an effect on Torchmark.

“While we would like to see higher interest rates going forward,we can thrive at a lower-for-longer interest rate environment,”Coleman said.

Torchmark has focused on selling protection insurance productsthat are not especially sensitive to changes in interest rates,Coleman said.

Michael Neidorff, the CEO of Centene, and Gail Boudreaux, theCEO of Anthem, mostly sounded equally happy about their companies'recent performance.

Centene sells some individual major medicalinsurance and is a major player in the Medicaid managed care planmarket.

Centene is expanding its Medicaid plan business in NorthCarolina and Oregon, and it's entering the Medicaid plan market inIowa, and it's pleased with its individual major medicalperformance, Neidorff said.

In some ways, he said, profit margins at the individual majormedical business are falling a bit simply because the company isholding on to the insureds longer and, in some cases, reachingtheir annual out-of-pocket spending maximums

The margin normalization in the individual major medical line“shows that this business is really growing and performing as weexpected it to,” Neidorff said. “The longer we retain a member, thebetter it is, because over time, we have demonstrated we're keepingfor a long period of time, we're bringing the cost down for thatperson.”

At Anthem, Boudreaux and other companyexecutives expressed happiness about the performance of itscommercial plans and Medicare plans, but some consternation aboutthe performance of Medicaid plan programs in some states.

One securities analyst asked Anthem executives whether thecompany is planning to exit from some states.

Boudreaux assured the analyst that Anthem's Medicaid program isstill performing within the expected range, even though it's at thelow end of that range.

“Overall, we still believe that the Medicaid is very goodbusiness,” Boudreaux said.

The numbers

Here's a look at the four insurers' earnings details. The stocksymbol link leads to the company's filings page on the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission's filing website. The companiespost their earnings releases and, in some cases, earningssupplements there.

Information about listening to the earnings call webcasts isusually available in the companies' earnings press releases.

Ameriprise Financial Inc., Minneapolis (Stocksymbol: AMP)

Ameriprise is reporting $492 million in net income for thesecond quarter on $3.2 billion in revenue, up from $462 million innet income on $3.2 billion in revenue for the second quarter of2018.

• Variable annuity ending account balances held steady at $78billion.
• Fixed deferred annuity ending account balances fell to $8.5billion, from $9 billion.
• The amount of life insurance in force fell to $195 billion,from $196 billion.
• Total sales of universal life insurance and variable universallife insurance fell 7%, to $70 million.

Torchmark Corp., McKinney, Texas (Stock symbol:TMK)

Torchmark is reporting $187 million in net income for the secondquarter on $1.1 billion in revenue, up from $184 million in netincome on $1.1 billion in revenue for the second quarter of2018.

Torchmark agencies' annualized life insurance sales increased1%, to $112 million.

Health sales increased 14%, to $44 million. Healthsales at the direct response unit fell 41%, to $582,000, but salesat the United American Independent Agency unit increased 24%, to$17 million.

The number of producing exclusive agents at the companies' threeagencies increased to 10,735, up 4.2% from the total for theyear-earlier quarter.

The company also announced a major branding change: It will bechanging its name to Globe Life Inc. Aug. 8. The company's stocksymbol will change to GL Aug. 9.

Anthem Inc., Indianapolis (Stock symbol:ANTM)

Anthem is reporting $1.14 billion in net income for the secondquarter on $25 billion in revenue, up from $1.05 billion in netincome on $23 billion in revenue for the second quarter of2018.

The health insurer ended the quarter providing oradministering major medical coverage for 41 million people, or 3.3%more people than it was covering a year earlier.

The number of people with Anthem Medicare supplement insuranceincreased 6%, to 877,000.

The number of people with Anthem Medicare Advantage coverageincreased 25%, to 1.2 million.

Medicaid plan enrollment grew 11%, to 7.1 million.

Local group enrollment increased 0.2%, to 16 million.

Centene Corp., St. Louis (Stock symbol:CNC)

Centene is reporting $492 million in net income for the secondquarter on $18 billion in revenue, up from $300 million in netincome on $14 billion in revenue for the second quarter of2018.

The health insurer ended the quarter providing or administeringhealth coverage for 15 million people, up from 13 million people ayear earlier.

Read more:

• Health insurers doing just fine, Moody'ssays
• ACA marketplace holding steady, despiteturmoil
• What can the ACA marketplace learn from MedicareAdvantage?