MediaAlpha, Inc. (NYSE:MAX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Pat Thompson: Yeah. So on that question, Meyer, I would say that, we have been managing the business pretty tightly through the hard market. And so I think if you were to look back at where we were on April 1st after we closed the CHT acquisition, we have got fewer people working at the company now and I think we are in a spot where we feel like we are adequately resourced now. I think as we get further into the hard market, could I see us needing a bit more help on some of the account teams? Yes, I could. Could I see us investing to unlock some capacity in some other teams? Yes, I could. But I don’t think that’s imminent in the next quarter or two. And as we think about the investment profile of the business over the next couple of years, our view is that we are very focused on running efficiently. As Steve mentioned in his prepared comments, we are a bootstrap company and efficiency is in our DNA and we don’t plan on losing that focus over time.

Meyer Shields: Okay. Perfect. And if I can sort of one more question, you mentioned, I think, Steve, that the Health Insurance brokers were pulling back and I think that’s very consistent with what we are seeing broadly. Do you have any sensing conversations with them, whether that’s like a one-year, two-year phenomenon or this is a new reality for them?

Steve Yi: That’s a great question. I will say that — I think right now it’s too early to tell. One encouraging sign that we saw in the last enrollment period was that, click spend from the broker segment held up reasonably well. And the reason that we see that as an encouraging sign is that, that used to support their own assisted online enrollment channel, which we increasingly see as the future shopping experience for Medicare Advantage and so that was a really encouraging sign. I think some of the early results that you are seeing have also been encouraging from the broker segment. But in terms of where they are in terms of working through their LTV and profitability issues, I think, it’s a little bit too early to tell whether that’s a one-year or a two-year thing.

But what we do expect over the long term that, the demand mix within our marketplace, particularly within our Medicare marketplace, will be a pretty healthy blend of direct carrier spend, which we see as a long-term secular trend as we saw within the auto insurance space. And a good mix of broker demand as well. It’s going to be — that’s what the distribution channel of this marketplace is going to look like going forward and we think that, that’s going to be reflected in the marketplace as well.

Pat Thompson: Yeah. And Meyer, this is Pat. Again, I would just going to follow-up on your G&A question. So the big driver of it being down was in or being up was in Q2 and Q3 we had some noncash write-offs of an earn-out related to an acquisition. And so they were noncash items and that’s why it appears as if it was up, but on a cash basis and cost of operating the business, it was pretty non-consistent.

Meyer Shields: Got it. Perfect. Thank you so much for the help.

Steve Yi: Sure. Thanks, Meyer.

Operator: We will take our next question from Andrew Kligerman with Credit Suisse.

Andrew Kligerman: Hey. Good evening. Follow-up on the last questions, so the — in health, the trend with the brokers. We cover a few companies that have these Med Advantage brokers and they are hurting a lot on these customer acquisition costs. Is that the spot that’s really just making it too difficult for them, is it customer acquisition costs, is it getting your bid, like, when they have to bid on something in your channel, is it just too expensive for them? What’s kind of holding them back from being more impactful?