Frank Svoboda
Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Globe Life
Yes. Thanks, Matt. I am excited to work with Matt as we engage more deeply together in Globe Life's strategies, both financial and operational and to capitalize on the many opportunities we have for continued growth. I am confident that our collective knowledge of the business and its functions will help continue Globe Life's success and history of shareholders' value creation. I share Matt's view on our business model. It has served the company very well over the years and I firmly believe that it provides us the best opportunity to succeed in the future. I look forward to hitting the ground running as Co-CEO and getting even more involved in the business through the transition period and beyond.
Now looking at the quarter. Let me spend a few minutes discussing our share repurchase program, available liquidity and capital position. In the third quarter, the company repurchased 564,000 shares of Globe Life Inc. common stock at a total cost of $56 million at an average share price of $99.43. For the full year through September 30, we have utilized approximately $279 million of cash to purchase 2.8 million shares at an average price of $98.46. The parent ended the third quarter with liquid assets of approximately $141 million, down from $318 million in the prior quarter. The decrease is primarily due to the redemption in September of the $300 million outstanding principal amount of our 3.8% senior notes.
In addition to these liquid assets, the parent company will generate additional excess cash flow during the remainder of 2022. The parent company's excess cash flow, as we define it, results primarily from the dividends received by the parent from its subsidiaries less the interest paid on debt. We anticipate the parent company's excess cash flow for the full year will be approximately $360 million, of which approximately $32 million will be generated in the fourth quarter of 2022. This amount of excess cash flows which again, is before the payment of dividends to shareholders, is lower than the $450 million received in 2021, primarily due to higher COVID life losses in 2021, plus the nearly 15% growth in our exclusive agency sales, both of which resulted in lower statutory income in 2021 and thus lower cash flows to the parent in 2022.
Taking into account the liquid assets of $141 million at the end of the third quarter, plus $32 million of excess cash flows expected to be generated in the fourth quarter, we will have approximately $173 million of assets available to the parent for the remainder of the year, out of which we anticipate distributing approximately $20 million to our shareholders in the form of dividend payments. The remaining amount is sufficient to support the targeted capital within our insurance operations and to maintain the share repurchase program for the remainder of the year. As noted on previous calls, we will use our cash as efficiently as possible. We still believe that share repurchases provide the best return or yield to our shareholders over other available alternatives. Thus, we anticipate share repurchases will continue to be a primary use of parent's excess cash flows along with the payment of shareholder dividends.
It should be noted that the cash received by the parent company from our insurance operations is after our subsidiaries have made substantial investments during the year to fully fund new insurance policies, expansion and modernization of our information technology and other operational capabilities and acquisition of new long-duration assets to fund their future cash needs.
As discussed on prior calls, we have historically targeted $50 million to $60 million of liquid assets to be held as the parent. We will continue to evaluate potential capital needs and should there be excess liquidity, we anticipate the company will return such excess to the shareholders. In our earnings guidance, we anticipate approximately $415 million will be returned to shareholders in 2022, including approximately $335 million through share repurchases.
With regard to the capital levels at our insurance subsidiaries. Our goal is to maintain our capital at levels necessary to support our current ratings. Globe Life targets a consolidated company action level RBC ratio in the range of 300% to 320%. For 2021, our consolidated RBC ratio was 315%, providing approximately $85 million of capital over the amount required at the low end of our consolidated RBC target of 300%.
During 2022, the NAIC is adopting new RBC factors related to longevity and mortality risks, also known as C2 factors. While the longevity risk factors that primarily relate to life contingent annuities will have little impact on our subsidiaries, the higher mortality factors will apply to our products and will increase our company action level required capital by approximately $30 million or about 5% of our required capital.
We believe the conservative statutory reserve levels held for our life insurance products already provide for very strong capital levels. Given the consistent generation of strong statutory gains from operations from our product portfolio, these new factors will simply result in even stronger capital adequacy at our target RBC ratios. At this time, while we do not anticipate that any additional capital will be required to maintain the low end of our targeted RBC ratio, the parent company does have sufficient liquid assets available should additional capital be required to maintain our targeted levels.
Now, I'd like to provide a few comments related to the impact of excess policy obligations on third quarter results. In the third quarter, the company incurred approximately $7.6 million of COVID life claims related to approximately 40,000 U.S. COVID deaths occurring in the quarter as reported by the CDC. However, these incurred claims were fully offset by favorable true-up of COVID life claims incurred in prior quarters. Based on the additional clients payment data we now have available, we estimate that our average cost per 10,000 U.S. deaths in the third quarter was approximately $1.9 million, down from the $2.8 million average cost previously estimated on our last call, consistent with the shift in COVID deaths toward older ages in recent quarters.
Year-to-date through September 30, we have incurred approximately $44 million in COVID life claims on approximately 215,000 U.S. COVID deaths as reported by the CDC or an average of $2 million per 10,000 U.S. deaths. This average cost is similar to the average cost of our COVID life claims in 2020 and much lower than in 2021. As a result of downward revisions for prior quarters in both the number of U.S. deaths reported by the CDC and our average cost per 10,000 U.S. deaths, the net COVID life claims reported in the third quarter were not significant overall or at any of the individual distributions.
As stated on prior calls, we also continue to incur excess deaths as compared to those expected based on pre-pandemic levels from non-COVID causes, including deaths due to lung disorders, heart and circulatory issues and neurological disorders. We believe the higher level of mortality we have seen is due in large part to the pandemic. As the number of COVID deaths has moderated, so has the number of deaths from other causes.
In the third quarter, we estimate that our excess non-COVID life policy obligations were approximately $15 million, down from $28 million in the second quarter. For the full year, we anticipate that our excess life policy obligations will be approximately $70 million or around 2% of our total life premium. Substantially, all of these higher obligations relate to the direct-to-consumer channel.
With respect to our earnings guidance for 2022, we are projecting net operating income per share will be in the range of $8 to $8.20 for the year ended December 31, 2022. The $8.10 midpoint is consistent with the guidance provided last quarter. For the full year and at the midpoint of our guidance, we now estimate we will incur approximately $50 million of COVID life claims. This estimate assumes approximately 35,000 U.S. COVID deaths in the fourth quarter at an average cost per 10,000 deaths of approximately $1.9 million. While our estimated COVID losses are lower than we previously anticipated, our estimate of total excess clients from all causes of death has remained largely consistent with last quarter. For the year ending December 31, 2023, excluding the impact of the adoption of the new LDTI standard, we anticipate that our guidance that our excess mortality will be substantially reduced from 2022 levels.
While still very early and levels of claims activity in the fourth quarter could influence our views, at the midpoint of our guidance, we estimate total excess obligations will be around 1.5% of life premium, down from approximately 4% expected in 2022. This includes an estimated $20 million relating to COVID which we currently anticipate will exist in an endemic state through 2023. Due to the reduced impact of excess mortality in 2023, we anticipate our life underwriting margins, again, before any impact of the new LDTI accounting, to grow in the 13% to 17% range and be approximately 27% to 29% of life premium. Driven by the anticipated growth in life underwriting margin and the favorable impact of higher interest rates on excess investment income noted by Gary, we estimate our 2023 net operating earnings will be in the range of $9 to $9.70 under current accounting guidance, representing 15% growth at the midpoint of the range.
As noted on prior calls, we will adopt on January 1, 2023, the new LDTI accounting guidance relating to long-duration contracts. Under the new standard, we expect our GAAP earnings will be higher in 2023 than what would be reported under existing guidance. The largest driver of the increase is lower amortization of deferred acquisition costs, or DAC, than under current guidance due to changes in the treatment of renewal commissions, the treatment of interest on DAC balances, the updating of certain assumptions and the methods of amortizing DAC. Due to the treatment of deferred renewal commissions in our captive agency channel, we do expect that acquisition costs as a percent of premium will increase slightly in the first few years after adoption.
In addition to the changes affecting the amortization of DAC, the new guidance changes the manner in which policy obligations are determined. Under the new guidance, life policyholder benefits reported for 2021 and 2022 will be required to be restated to reflect the new guidance and are expected to be significantly lower in those years than under the current guidance due to the treatment of COVID life claims and other fluctuations in claims experience as well as changes in assumptions in those years. This is expected to result in slightly higher policy benefits as a percent of premium in 2023 than what would otherwise be expected under current guidance. Overall, we currently estimate that the changes required from the adoption of the new LDTI guidance will increase 2023 net operating income after tax in the range of $105 million to $130 million, almost all of which relates to the lower amount of DAC amortization.
Of course, 2022 is not yet complete and actual sales, claims experience and other events in the fourth quarter this year could impact our assumptions and projected impact of 2023 results. Going forward, fluctuations in experience and changes in assumptions will result in changes in both future policy obligations and amortization of DAC as a percent of premium.
With respect to changes in the balance sheet and AOCI, we noted last quarter that the new guidance adopts the new requirement to remeasure the company's future policy benefits each quarter, utilizing a discount rate that reflects upper medium grade, fixed income instrument yields with the effect of the change to be recognized in AOCI, a component of shareholders' equity.
The upper medium grade fixed income instrument yield generally consist of single A-rated fixed income instruments that are reflective of the currency and tenor of the insurance liability cash flows. The expected impact of the adoption of the new guidance with the transition date for January 1, 2023, will be an after-tax decrease in AOCI of $7.5 billion to $8.5 billion. Since that time, our weighted average discount rate has increased and we estimate that the after-tax impact on AOCI at September 30, 2022, all else being equal but using current discount rates as of the end of the third quarter, would be only approximately $1 billion to $1.6 billion.
While the GAAP accounting changes will be significant, it is very important to keep in mind that the changes impact the timing of when our future profits will be recognized and that none of the changes will impact our premium rates, the amount of premiums we collect, nor the amount of claims we ultimately pay. Furthermore, it has no impact on statutory earnings, the statutory capital we are required to maintain for regulatory purchases, or the parent's excess cash flows. Nor will it cause us to make any changes in the products we offer. As such, the accounting change will in no way modify the way we think about or manage our business.
Before I turn the call back to Larry, I want to once again thank Gary and Larry for their many years of service to Torchmark and Globe Life. While both of them have been part of these earnings calls for a number of years, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Gary has participated in every earnings call since February of 1995, a string of 112 straight quarters. Truly impressive. It has been a pleasure working with both of them and I think they have done a remarkable job.