Policy Claims and Benefits

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2019

Insurance [Abstract]

Short-Duration Insurance and Deposit Contracts [Text Block]

Policy Claims and Benefits

Rollforward of Claims and Claim Adjustment Expenses

The liability for unpaid claims is reported in future policy benefits and other policy-related balances within the Company’s consolidated balance sheet. Activity associated with unpaid claims is summarized below (dollars in thousands):

	Three months ended March 31,
	2019			2018
Balance at beginning of year	$	6,584,668		$	5,896,469
Less: reinsurance recoverable	(432,582		)	(455,547		)
Net balance at beginning of year	6,152,086			5,440,922
Incurred:
Current year	2,807,937			2,663,116
Prior years	31,447			6,255
Total incurred	2,839,384			2,669,371
Payments:
Current year	(186,601		)	(180,802		)
Prior years	(2,387,312		)	(2,111,275		)
Total payments	(2,573,913		)	(2,292,077		)
Other changes:
Interest accretion	6,556			6,115
Foreign exchange adjustments	9,630			26,676
Total other changes	16,186			32,791
Net balance at end the period	6,433,743			5,851,007
Plus: reinsurance recoverable	499,562			469,419
Balance at end of the period	$	6,933,305		$	6,320,426

Incurred claims related to prior years reflected in the table above, resulted in part from developed claims for prior years being different than were anticipated when the liabilities for unpaid claims were originally estimated.  These trends have been considered in establishing the current year liability for unpaid claims.