SALT LAKE CITY, April 01, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Security National Financial Corporation (SNFC) (NASDAQ symbol "SNFCA") announced financial results for the year ended December 31, 2023.

For the twelve months ended December 31, 2023, SNFC's after-tax earnings from operations decreased 44% from $25,690,000 in 2022 to $14,495,000 in 2023, on a 18% decrease in revenues to $318,497,000.

Scott Quist, Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer of SNFC, said, "2023 was a year where the financial balance of our company demonstrated itself. With the increasing interest rates and improving premium margins our life insurance business segment had its best operational year ever, earning $25,000,000. As death rates stabilized throughout 2023, and as we implemented renewed emphasis on operational efficiencies, our Cemetery and Mortuary segment had its best year ever, earning nearly $8,500,000. Needless to say, we are very pleased with those results. However, the increased interest rates continued to have a devastating effect on our mortgage loan business with volumes falling roughly an additional 35% below 2022's already decreased markets, with the net result being that our Mortgage segment lost $17,500,000. Despite that loss, I thought our team battled the market conditions extraordinarily well and positioned us to take advantage of a very distraught mortgage loan market. I think it worthy to remember that in the three years 2020 to 2022 our Mortgage segment produced $98,000,000 of profit, so we think the goal is worthy of our current efforts.

"We remain committed to the task of growth and improved profitability. We view this current economic uncertainty as a time to improve and expand in all our segments. In this tough mortgage loan environment, we have necessarily greatly slimmed down our office staffs, both pruned and increased our number of producing loan officers, while emphasizing cost efficiencies and metrics. In our Insurance segment we have increased premium rates and initiated better measurement metrics for mortality, persistency, and acquisition costs. In our Memorial segment we have added key personnel, who we believe will drive growth and improve operations. To be sure, growth in this environment is expensive, but is nevertheless our goal."

SNFC has three business segments. The following table shows the revenues and earnings before taxes for the twelve months ended December 31, 2023, as compared to 2022, for each business segment:

Net earnings per common share was $.64 for the twelve months ended December 31, 2023, compared to net earnings of $1.12 per share for the prior year, as adjusted for the effect of annual stock dividends. Book value per common share was $14.11 as of December 31, 2023, compared to $13.88 as of December 31, 2022.

The Company has two classes of common stock outstanding, Class A and Class C. There were 22,177,828 Class A equivalent shares outstanding as of December 31, 2023.

This press release contains statements that, if not verifiable historical fact, may be viewed as forward-looking statements that could predict future events or outcomes with respect to Security National Financial Corporation and its business. The predictions in the statements will involve risk and uncertainties and, accordingly, actual results may differ significantly from the results discussed or implied in such forward-looking statements.

If there are any questions, please contact Mr. Garrett S. Sill or Mr. Scott Quist at:

Security National Financial Corporation
P.O. Box 57250
Salt Lake City, Utah 84157
Phone (801) 264-1060
Fax (801) 265-9882