Regulatory Requirements

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2019

Insurance [Abstract]

Regulatory Requirements [Text Block]

Regulatory Requirements

The Company’s insurance subsidiaries are required to prepare statutory financial statements in accordance with the accounting practices prescribed or permitted by the insurance departments of their respective states of domicile. RiverSource Life received approval from the Minnesota Department of Commerce to apply a permitted statutory accounting practice, effective July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2019, for certain derivative instruments used to economically hedge the interest rate exposure of certain variable annuity products that do not qualify for statutory hedge accounting. The permitted practice was intended to mitigate the impact to statutory surplus from the misalignment between variable annuity statutory reserves, which are not carried at fair value, and the fair value of derivatives used to economically hedge the interest rate exposure of non-life contingent living benefit guarantees.

The permitted practice allowed RiverSource Life to defer a portion of the change in fair value, net investment income and realized gains or losses generated from designated derivatives to the extent the amounts do not offset the current period interest-rate related change in the variable annuity statutory reserve liability. The deferred amount could be amortized over ten years using the straight-line method with the ability to accelerate amortization at management’s discretion. As of June 30, 2019, RiverSource Life elected to accelerate amortization of the net deferred amount associated with its permitted practice.