Life Policy And Investment Contract Reserves

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2014

Liability for Future Policy Benefits [Abstract]

Life Policy And Investment Contract Reserves

Life Policy and Investment Contract Reserves

We establish the reserves for traditional life insurance policies based on expected expenses, mortality, morbidity, withdrawal rates, timing of claim presentation and investment yields, including a provision for uncertainty. Once these assumptions are established, they generally are maintained throughout the lives of the contracts. We use both our own experience and industry experience, adjusted for historical trends, in arriving at our assumptions for expected mortality, morbidity and withdrawal rates as well as for expected expenses. We base our assumptions for expected investment income on our own experience adjusted for current economic conditions.

We establish reserves for the company’s universal life, deferred annuity and structured settlement policies equal to the cumulative account balances, which include premium deposits plus credited interest less charges and withdrawals. Some of our universal life policies contain no-lapse guarantee provisions. For these policies, we establish a reserve in addition to the account balance, based on expected no-lapse guarantee benefits and expected policy assessments.

This table summarizes our life policy and investment contract reserves:



(Dollars in millions)	At December 31,
	2014		2013
Ordinary/traditional life	$	875	$	815
Deferred annuities	863		862
Universal life	530		508
Structured settlements	182		189
Other	47		16
Total life policy and investment contract reserves	$	2,497	$	2,390

- Definition

The entire disclosure for the present values of future benefits to be paid to or on behalf of policyholders and related expenses less the present value of future net premiums using assumptions such as estimates of expected investment yields, mortality, morbidity, terminations and expenses, applicable at the time the insurance contracts are made and unpaid claim costs relating to insurance contracts including estimates of costs relating to incurred but not reported claims based on the estimated ultimate cost of settling the claims (including effects of inflation and other societal and economic factors), using past experience adjusted for current trends and any other factors that would modify past experience by element such as business segment, country and interest rate range.

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