Stock Compensation (Notes)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2018

Disclosure of Compensation Related Costs, Share-based Payments [Text Block]

Stock Compensation

In January 2018, the Company's Board of Directors approved awards of restricted stock units under the Citizens, Inc. Omnibus Incentive Plan for non-employee directors and the executive management team, with grant date fair values totaling $10,500 per director and $976,000 in total to the executive management team. The grant date was February 15, 2018, with a one-year vesting schedule for the directors and a two-year vesting schedule for the executive management team. Vesting of the units is subject to the recipient’s continued service or employment with the Company through the applicable vesting date. In addition, the Board also approved equity grants for 2018 not to exceed $1.2 million for other employees with a delegation to the President and Chief Executive Officer to determine the participant and values to be awarded.



	Restricted Stock Units
	Units		Aggregate Fair Value ⁽¹⁾

Outstanding at January 1, 2018	—		$	—
Granted	148,883		1,070,500
Less:
Vested	—		—
Forfeited	(30,111	)	(216,498		)
Outstanding at December 31, 2018	118,772		$	854,002

⁽¹⁾ Fair value per share of restricted stock units on December 31, 2018 was equal to Grant Date fair value per share, which was calculated based on the closing price of the Company's Class A common stock on the NYSE on the grant date, in accordance with ASC Topic 718.

Restricted stock unit awards give the participant the right to receive common stock in the future, subject to certain restrictions and a risk of forfeiture. Compensation expense of $410,000 was recognized as of December 31, 2018 related to these awards.