Shareholders overwhelmingly OK Conseco name change

Conseco Inc. officially changed its name to CNO Financial Group Inc. at its annual shareholders meeting Tuesday morning with
near-complete approval from stockholders.

Stockholders who hold 99.8 percent of the company's shares voted for the name change.

Company executives said the new name marks a turning point in the troubled history of the Carmel-based life insurer.

“The majority of our legacy issues are behind us,” declared CEO Jim Prieur in a brief presentation in an auditorium
in the company's J building on its Carmel corporate campus.

That building is now stamped with the new name—CNO Financial Group—and a new logo, which greeted board members
and shareholders as they filed into the meeting. A rainstorm early Tuesday morning blew off a tarp meant to conceal the new
signage until after the meeting.

The new logo—which combines the letters CNO in a square and is meant to invoke an American quilt, was designed by New
York-based Infinia Group LLC. It is red, white and blue, and is supposed to remind people that CNO Financial’s market
focus is on working- and middle-class Americans.

“Those people really define our company,” Prieur said, standing behind a lectern stamped with the new logo and
wearing a lapel pin decorated with the new logo.

The company will launch its new Web site, CNOinc.com, on Wednesday.

Also due to change is the name of Conseco Fieldhouse, the basketball arena where the Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever play.
CNO Financial is in the 11th year of a 20-year, $40 million naming-rights deal with the Pacers organization.

CNO Financial has posted five straight profitable quarters. Last week, it announced first-quarter profit of $33.9 million,
more than 38 percent higher than the same quarter a year ago. Nearly all of that increase was due to lower losses on investments
and debt modifications. The results barely exceeded the expectations of Wall Street analysts.