DirectPath operates directly nationwide through approximately 7,000 benefit broker partners.
It serves 400 employers of all sizes from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies, which reflects a covered employee base of more than 2.5 million individuals.
The purchase price of $50 million was funded out of holding company cash.
The transaction is expected to add $0.01 per share to our earnings beginning in 2022.
We reported operating earnings-per-share growth of 37% for the full year, $387 million of free cash flow or 107% of our operating income and we returned $330 million to shareholders in the form of buybacks and dividends, which reflects 12% of our market cap at the beginning of 2020.
For the full year, virtual sales comprised 23% of total production.
Operating earnings per share were up 17%.
Our book value per diluted share excluding AOCI was up 8%.
We issued $150 million in subordinated debt in November and ended the quarter with an RBC ratio of 411% with $388 million in cash at the holding company.
Life sales were up 6% for the quarter and 12% for the full year, fueled by both continued strong direct-to-consumer growth and a sharp increase in sales from our exclusive field agents.
Collected life premiums were up 3%, reflecting solid growth in NAP in recent quarters and the continued strong persistency of our customer base.
Collective health premiums were down 4.7%, largely resulting from the impact of softer in-person health sales in recent quarters.
Annuity collected premiums were up 6% for the quarter, reversing the trend in recent quarters.
Client assets under management grew 18% to nearly $1.8 billion.
Fee revenue was up a healthy 19% to $36 million, reflecting growth in third-party sales and growth within our broker-dealer and registered investment advisor.
Health sales remained challenged, down 22% over the prior year, driven by a 29% decline in Medicare supplement sales.
Sales of life insurance remained strong, up 17% for the quarter and up 19% for the full year.
Direct-to-consumer life sales, which comprised about half of our total life sales, were up 10%.
Life sales generated by our exclusive field agents were up 26% supported by leads shared from our direct-to-consumer channel.
During this year's Medicare annual enrollment period, consumers were able to purchase Medicare products from us online or from one of 2,800 tele-sales and local exclusive field agents certified to sell Medicare plans.
As a result, our Medicare Advantage policies sold in the fourth quarter increased 3% over the prior year and total third-party policies were up 5%.
myHealthPolicy.com accounted for 14% of our third-party health sales in the quarter.
Our producing agent count was down 3%, which makes our sales momentum and productivity even more impressive.
Our total exclusive agent count, which includes our field and tele-sales agents was actually up 3% for the full year.
We saw continued sequential improvement in our Worksite sales in the fourth quarter with sales up 61% over the third quarter.
Relative to the year ago period, however, sales were down 41%.
Web Benefits Design delivered solid results in 4Q, including a 3% increase in the average per employee per month charge.
WBD cross-selling activities drove 5% of overall NAP in the quarter.
We returned $117 million to shareholders in the fourth quarter, including $100 million in share buybacks.
For the full year, we deployed $263 million on buybacks at an average price of $18.17.
We intend to deploy 100% of our excess capital to its highest and best use over time.
To date, we have invested a total of $21 million in five companies, including HealthCare.com, Human API and Kindur.
Operating earnings per share were up 17% in the fourth quarter and up 21% excluding significant items, benefiting from favorable health insurance product margins, driven by continued customer deferral of care related to COVID and by strong net investment income, resulting from significant outperformance of our alternative investments.
Earnings per share also benefited from our share repurchases, which reduced our fourth quarter weighted average share count by 7%.
We deployed $100 million of excess capital on share repurchases in the fourth quarter and $263 million for the full year.
In the 12 months ended December 31, 2020, we generated operating return on equity excluding significant items of 12%, which compares to 10.4% in the prior year period.
Separately, as part of the assumption update, we lowered the new money rate assumption to 3.5% in 2021 and 3.75% in 2022, but that did not create material unlocking impacts.
Our overall margin in the fourth quarter was up $30 million or 15%.
Excluding significant items, it was up $9 million or 4%.
This included a net favorable COVID impact of $18 million, driven by the deferral of care in our healthcare products and reflects modest spread compression in our annuity product and generally stable results in our life and health products ex-COVID.
Investment income allocated to products was essentially flat in the period as the favorable impact of the 4% increase in net insurance liabilities was largely offset by a 19 basis point year-over-year decline in the average yield on those investments to 4.83%.
Investment income not allocated to products increased $32 million year-over-year to $58 million driven by strong alternative investment performance.
This translates to an annualized return on our alternative investments of 24% as compared to a mean expectation of between $7 million and 8%, reflecting outperformance driven by private equity realizations and strong private equity -- excuse me, private credit results.
Our new money rate of 3.58% was down 50 basis points both year-over-year and sequentially with the sequential change driven primarily by tighter credit spreads.
At quarter end, our invested assets were $27 billion, up 9% year-over-year.
Approximately 95% of our fixed maturity portfolio is investment-grade rated with an average rating of single A. The BBB allocation comprised 42% of our investment-grade holdings, up slightly from the prior quarter.
We continue to generate strong free cash flow to the holding company in the fourth quarter with excess cash flow of $122 million or 142% of operating income this quarter and $387 million or 107% of operating income on a trailing 12-month basis.
At quarter end, our consolidated RBC ratio was 411%, down from 428% at September 30.
This represents approximately $55 million of excess capital relative to the high end of our targeted range of 375% to 400%.
Our Holdco liquidity at quarter end was $388 million, which represents $238 million of excess capital relative to our target minimum Holdco liquidity of $150 million or approximately $185 million of excess net of the capital deployed this quarter on the DirectPath transaction.

Summary:
Excluding significant items, it was up $9 million or 4%.