The Company has outstanding equity awards under the Primerica, Inc. Second Amended and Restated 2010 Omnibus Incentive Plan (“2010 OIP”), which expired in 2020 in accordance with its terms and under which no future awards will be made, and the Primerica, Inc. 2020 Omnibus Incentive Plan (the “2020 OIP”, and together with the 2010 OIP, the “OIP”), which was approved by the Company’s stockholders on May 13, 2020. The OIP provides for the issuance of equity awards, including stock options, stock appreciation rights, restricted stock, deferred stock, RSUs, PSUs, and stock payment awards, as well as cash-based awards. In addition to time-based vesting requirements, awards granted under the OIP may also be subject to specified performance criteria. Under the OIP, the Company issues equity awards to our management (officers and other key employees), non-employees who served on our Board of Directors, and sales force leaders. For more information on equity awards granted under the OIP, see Note 14 (Share-Based Transactions) to our consolidated financial statements within our 2020 Annual Report.

In connection with our granting of equity awards to management and members of the Board of Directors, we recognize expense over the requisite service period of the equity award. We defer and amortize the fair value of equity awards granted to the sales force in the same manner as other deferred policy acquisition costs for those awards that are an incremental direct cost of successful acquisitions of life insurance policies that result directly from and are essential to the policy acquisition(s) and would not have been incurred had the policy acquisition(s) not occurred. All equity awards granted to the sales force that are not directly related to the successful acquisition of life insurance policies are recognized as expense as incurred, which is in the quarter granted and earned.

	Three months ended June 30,				Six months ended June 30,
	2021		2020		2021		2020
	(In thousands)
Equity awards expense recognized	$	2,539	$	2,357	$	14,192	$	13,518
Equity awards expense deferred		2,730		2,599		5,179		4,958

On February 24, 2021, the Compensation Committee of our Board of Directors granted the following equity awards to employees as part of the annual approval of management incentive compensation:

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21,845 PSUs awarded under the 2020 OIP to our four top executives with a measurement-date fair value of $143.04 per unit. The PSUs will be earned on March 1, 2024 contingent upon the Company achieving a targeted annual average three-year return on adjusted equity (“ROAE”) and average EPS growth for the period from January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2023. The actual number of common shares that will be issued will vary based on the actual ROAE and average EPS growth relative to the targeted ROAE and average EPS growth and can range from zero to 32,767 shares.

All awards granted to employees on February 24, 2021 vest upon voluntary termination of employment by any employee who is “retirement eligible” as of his or her termination date. In order to be retirement eligible, an employee must be at least 55 years old and his or her age plus years of service with the Company must equal at least 75. The number of PSUs that will ultimately be issued for a retirement eligible employee is equal to the amount calculated using the Company’s actual cumulative three-year ROAE and average EPS growth, if applicable, for the relevant performance period ending on December 31, 2023, even if that employee retires prior to the completion of the three-year performance period.