Reinsurance

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2021

The Company reinsures a portion of the insurance risks associated with its traditional life, DI and LTC insurance products through reinsurance agreements with unaffiliated reinsurance companies. During the third quarter of 2021, RiverSource Life reinsured 100% of its insurance risk associated with its life contingent immediate annuity policies in force as of July 1, 2021 through a reinsurance agreement with Commonwealth. Policies issued after July 1, 2021 are not subject to this reinsurance agreement. See Note 1 for more information on the fixed deferred and immediate annuity reinsurance transaction.

Reinsurance contracts do not relieve the Company from its primary obligation to policyholders.

The Company generally reinsures 90% of the death benefit liability for new term life insurance policies beginning in 2001 and new individual UL and VUL insurance policies beginning in 2002. Policies issued prior to these dates are not subject to these same reinsurance levels.

However, for IUL policies issued after September 1, 2013 and VUL policies issued after January 1, 2014, the Company generally reinsures 50% of the death benefit liability. Similarly, the Company reinsures 50% of the death benefit and morbidity liabilities related to its UL product with LTC benefits.

The maximum amount of life insurance risk the Company will retain is $10 million on a single life and $10 million on any flexible premium survivorship life policy; however, reinsurance agreements are in place such that retaining more than $1.5 million of insurance risk on a single life or a flexible premium survivorship life policy is very unusual. Risk on UL and VUL policies is reinsured on a yearly renewable term basis. Risk on most term life policies starting in 2001 is reinsured on a coinsurance basis, a type of reinsurance in which the reinsurer participates proportionally in all material risks and premiums associated with a policy.

For existing LTC policies, the Company has continued ceding 50% of the risk on a coinsurance basis to subsidiaries of Genworth Financial, Inc. (“Genworth”) and retains the remaining risk. For RiverSource Life of NY, this reinsurance arrangement applies for 1996 and later issues only. Under these agreements, the Company has the right, but never the obligation, to recapture some, or all, of the risk ceded to Genworth.

Generally, the Company retains at most $5,000 per month of risk per life on DI policies sold on policy forms introduced in most states starting in 2007 and reinsures the remainder of the risk on a coinsurance basis with unaffiliated reinsurance companies. The Company retains all risk for new claims on DI contracts sold on other policy forms introduced prior to 2007. The Company also retains all risk on accidental death benefit claims and substantially all risk associated with waiver of premium provisions.

As of December 31, 2021 and 2020, traditional life and UL insurance policies in force were $198.6 billion and $195.7 billion, respectively, of which $145.1 billion and $143.6 billion as of December 31, 2021 and 2020 were reinsured at the respective year ends.

The effect of reinsurance on premiums for the Company’s traditional long-duration contracts was as follows:


	Years Ended December 31,
	2021		2020		2019
	(in millions)
Direct premiums	$	490	$	565	$	621
Reinsurance ceded	(1,361)		(224)		(224)
Net premiums	$	(871)	$	341	$	397

Cost of insurance and administrative charges for non-traditional long-duration products are reflected in premiums, policy and contract charges and were net of reinsurance ceded of $152 million, $140 million and $132 million for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

The effect of reinsurance on premiums for the Company’s short-duration contracts was as follows:


	Year Ended December 31,
	2019 (1)
	(in millions)
Written premiums
Direct	$	864
Ceded	(23)
Total net written premiums	$	841
Earned premiums
Direct	$	841
Ceded	(24)
Total net earned premiums	$	817

(1) 2019 amounts include AAH premiums as of September 30, 2019 prior to the sale.

The amount of claims recovered through reinsurance on all contracts was $404 million, $400 million and $407 million for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Receivables included $4.5 billion and $3.4 billion of reinsurance recoverables as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively, including $2.6 billion and $2.7 billion related to LTC risk ceded to Genworth, respectively.

Policyholder account balances, future policy benefits and claims include $413 million and $440 million related to previously assumed reinsurance arrangements as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.