Business, Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2021

Business, Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies

Business

Voya Financial, Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively the "Company") is a financial services organization in the United States that offers a broad range of retirement services, investment management services, mutual funds, group insurance and supplemental health products.

On January 4, 2021, the Company completed a series of transactions pursuant to a Master Transaction Agreement (the “Resolution MTA”) entered into on December 18, 2019 with Resolution Life U.S. Holdings Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Resolution Life US”), pursuant to which Resolution Life US acquired all of the shares of the capital stock of Security Life of Denver Company ("SLD") and Security Life of Denver International Limited ("SLDI"), including the capital stock of several subsidiaries of SLD and SLDI. The Company will continue to hold an insignificant number of Individual Life, and non-Wealth Solutions annuity policies which together with the businesses sold through divestment or reinsurance will be referred to as "divested businesses".

Concurrently with the sale, SLD entered into reinsurance agreements with insurance subsidiaries of the Company. Pursuant to these agreements, the Company's subsidiaries reinsured to SLD certain individual life insurance and annuity businesses. The sale of SLD, SLDI and several of their subsidiaries along with the aforementioned reinsurance transactions are referred to herein as the "Individual Life Transaction". The Individual Life Transaction resulted in the disposition of substantially all of the Company's life insurance and legacy non-Wealth Solutions annuity businesses and related assets.

On March 15, 2021, the Company announced several updates to our operating model and leadership team. In conjunction with those updates, the Retirement and Employee Benefits segments were renamed to Wealth Solutions and Health Solutions, respectively. The Company will continue to provide its principal products and services through three segments: Wealth Solutions, Investment Management and Health Solutions. In addition, the Company includes in Corporate activities that are not directly related to its segments and certain run-off activities that are not meaningful to the Company's business strategy. See the Segments Note to these Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements.

On June 9, 2021, the Company completed the sale of the independent financial planning channel of Voya Financial Advisors (“VFA”) to Cetera Financial Group, Inc. (“Cetera”), one of the nation's largest networks of independently managed broker-dealers. In connection with this transaction, the Company transferred more than 800 independent financial professionals serving retail customers with approximately $38 billion in assets under advisement to Cetera, while retaining approximately 600 field and phone-based financial professionals who support our Wealth Solutions business. In addition, the sale resulted in a gain, net of transaction costs of $275, before income taxes, which was recorded in Other revenue in the accompanying Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations for the nine months ended September 30, 2021. The net gain decreased $4 in the third quarter as a result of the completion of negotiations related to the sales price true-up process consistent with the deal terms.

Basis of Presentation

The accompanying Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of the Company have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States ("U.S. GAAP") and are unaudited. The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities as of the date of the Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. The inputs into the Company's estimates and assumptions consider the economic implications of COVID-19 on the Company's critical and significant accounting estimates. Those estimates are inherently subject to change and actual results could differ from those estimates, and the differences may be material to the Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements.

The Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements include the accounts of Voya Financial, Inc. and its subsidiaries, as well as other voting interest entities ("VOEs") and variable interest entities ("VIEs") in which the Company has a controlling financial interest. See the Consolidated and Nonconsolidated Investment Entities Note to these Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements. Intercompany transactions and balances have been eliminated.

The accompanying Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements reflect adjustments (including normal, recurring adjustments) necessary to present fairly the financial position of the Company as of September 30, 2021, its results of operations, comprehensive income and changes in shareholders' equity for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020, and its statements of cash flows for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020, in conformity with U.S. GAAP. Interim results are not necessarily indicative of full year performance.

Certain reclassifications have been made to prior-period amounts to conform to current-period reporting classifications. These reclassifications had no impact on net income or total stockholders’ equity.

The December 31, 2020 Consolidated Balance Sheet is from the audited Consolidated Financial Statements included in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, filed with the SEC. Therefore, these unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements should be read in conjunction with the audited Consolidated Financial Statements and related notes included in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Significant Accounting Policies

Investments

Fixed Maturities and Equity Securities: In the second quarter of 2021, the Company established a trading portfolio of fixed maturity debt securities. Trading securities are valued at fair value with the changes in fair value recorded in Other net realized capital gains (losses) in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations, and interest income is recorded in Net investment income in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations.

Adoption of New Pronouncements

The following table provides a description of the Company's adoption of new Accounting Standard Updates ("ASUs") issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") and the impact of the adoption on the Company's financial statements.


Standard	Description of Requirements	Effective Date and Method of Adoption	Effect on the Financial Statements or Other Significant Matters
ASU 2019-12, Simplifying the Accounting for Income Taxes	This standard, issued in December 2019, simplifies the accounting for income taxes by eliminating certain exceptions to the general principles and simplifying several aspects of ASC 740, Income taxes, including requirements related to the following: • The intraperiod tax allocation exception to the incremental approach, • The tax basis step-up in goodwill obtained in a transaction that is not a business combination, • Hybrid tax regimes, • Ownership changes in investments - changes from a subsidiary to an equity method investment, • Separate financial statements of entities not subject to tax, • Interim-period accounting for enacted changes in tax law, and • The year-to-date loss limitation in interim-period tax accounting.	January 1, 2021 on a prospective basis, except for those provisions that required retrospective or modified retrospective method.	Adoption of the ASU did not have an impact on the Company's financial condition, results of operations, or cash flows.

Future Adoption of Accounting Pronouncements

The following table provides a description of future adoptions of new accounting standards that may have an impact on the Company's financial statements when adopted:


Standard	Description of Requirements	Effective Date and Transition Provisions	Effect on the Financial Statements or Other Significant Matters
ASU 2020-04, Reference Rate Reform	This standard, issued in March 2020, provides temporary optional expedients and exceptions for applying U.S. GAAP principles to contracts, hedging relationships, and other transactions affected by reference rate reform if certain criteria are met. In January, 2021, the FASB issued ASU 2021-01, which clarified the scope of relief related to ASU 2020-04.	The amendments are effective as of March 12, 2020, the issuance date of the ASU. An entity may elect to apply the amendments prospectively through December 31, 2022.	The Company expects that it will elect to apply some of the expedients and exceptions provided in ASU 2020-04; however, the Company is still evaluating its options under this guidance as the reference rate reform adoption process continues. Therefore, the impact of the adoption of ASU 2020-04 on the Company’s financial condition and results of operations has not yet been determined.
ASU 2018-12, Targeted Improvements to the Accounting for Long-Duration Contracts	This standard, issued in August 2018, changes the measurement and disclosures of insurance liabilities and deferred acquisition costs ("DAC") for long-duration contracts issued by insurers.	In November, 2020, the FASB released ASU 2020-11, which deferred the effective date of the amendments in ASU 2018-12 for SEC filers to fiscal years ending after December 15, 2022, including interim periods within those fiscal years. Initial adoption for the liability for future policy benefits and DAC is required to be reported using either a full retrospective or modified retrospective approach. For market risk benefits, full retrospective application is required.	The implications of these requirements, including transition options, and related potential financial statement impacts are currently being evaluated. While it is not possible to estimate the expected impact of adoption at this time, the Company believes there is a reasonable possibility that implementation of ASU 2018-12 may result in a significant impact on Shareholders’ equity and future earnings patterns.