Nov 2, 2026 earnings call — Record quarter and raised guidance
Ethos reported record Q3 revenue of $235 million, a 151% year-over-year increase.
Next-quarter revenue outlook $0.2B–$0.2B
Key quotes
"Our virtuous data cycle fuels products and marketing gains, driving consistently improving efficiency and scalable unit economics."
"Our revenue growth further accelerated on the back of triple-digit growth in both of our channels."
"The majority of our spend is in top-of-funnel brand-building channels like TV, radio, social media, et cetera."
Analyst Q&A 6
third-party channel growth outlook
Q (Eric Sheridan · Goldman Sachs): The analyst asked how durable the third-party acceleration is beyond Q4 and what factors from industry partnerships like Liberty Mutual will contribute to incremental growth.
A: Management said their agent value proposition is unmatched and ongoing platform improvements are structural and support durable growth. They explained the agency model is recurring and new partners roll out to all agents, and Liberty Mutual is early but contributing nicely.
"I think generally, we believe that our value proposition for agents is unmatched." — Peter Colis (CEO)
carrier capacity and operating leverage
Q (Colin Sebastian · Baird): The analyst asked how carrier relationships are evolving around capacity and funding more growth and products, and how management thinks about acquisition spending, brand, funnel, and operating leverage as revenue scales.
A: Management said demand and capacity for Ethos premiums exceed current supply and they have 6 carriers and 13 products with redundancy. They noted strong operating leverage: OpEx fell to about 13% of revenue from 19% a year ago, and expect further margin expansion from brand building and new product introductions.
"So on carrier -- on our carrier panel, there's much more demand and capacity for Ethos premiums than there is supply of Ethos premiums today." — Peter Colis (CEO)
third-party economics and growth outlook
Q (Kunal Madhukar · Deutsche Bank): The analyst asked about the economics of the third-party segment and how to visualize durable growth into 2027 and 2028.
A: Management said they have not changed the expected profitability profile of the third-party business and that their go-to-market is organic and repeatable, showing strong product-market fit. They said they'll preview 2027 in February and that growth has come from a repeatable formula: the DTC data cycle plus acquiring agencies, more agents per agency, and higher agent productivity.
"If you look at the formula that's delivered the top line growth and profitability throughout 2026, it's largely been a formula of more of the same." — Christopher Capozzi (CFO)
handling outage and margin drivers
Q (Ross Sandler · Barclays): The analyst asked what happened during a partner's cyber outage, whether Ethos helped keep policies and payments flowing and if that created a halo effect, and also asked about puts and takes for margins given channel shifts.
A: Management said a carrier had an internal outage in July but Ethos systems were not affected and their end-to-end infrastructure allowed them to continue production and servicing without material interruption; they view that resiliency as a reason carriers partner with them and said any impact is already in the financials. They added that EBITDA margins will fluctuate with channel and product mix, and that operating leverage, new products, and brand building are key drivers of longer-term margin expansion.
"That infrastructure spans applications, underwriting, policy administration, and it really allowed us to continue delivering record levels of production and servicing without material interruption as kind of like an end-to-end self-contained system." — Peter Colis (CEO)
why return on ad spend fell
Q (Michael McGovern · BofA): The analyst asked how much of the drop in year-over-year return on ad spend was due to external market forces versus internal choices like policy mix or ad formats.
A: Management said the change was all self-determined. They noted ad spend was consistent in Q1 and Q2, had seasonal softness in Q3, and they continue to invest in the brand while seeing strong top-of-funnel response and planning to scale in Q4 and 2027.
"I think I would characterize it as all self-determined." — Christopher Capozzi (CFO)
marketing mix and brand channels
Q (Ronald Josey · Citi): The analyst asked which marketing channels are benefiting from top-of-funnel spending, how exposed they are to search, and how brand awareness has changed over the past year.
A: Management said most spend is in top-of-funnel brand channels like TV, radio, and social, so they are not overly exposed to search and are building a consumer brand. They said they monitor LLM and agent usage but see no material LLM origination today, use geo optimization for intent-based clients, prefer top-of-funnel spend at equal efficiency, and can convert some customers in about 10 minutes.
"So the majority of our spend is in top-of-funnel brand-building channels like TV, radio, social media, et cetera." — Peter Colis (CEO)