Annuity Earnings Before Fair Value Accounting for FIAs –Annuity Earnings Before Fair Value Accounting for FIAs were a quarterly record of $134 million in the first quarter of 2019, driven by growth in the business and the favorable impact of a very strong stock market, partially offset by the unfavorable impact of higher crediting rates and option costs.
Impact of Fair Value Accounting for FIAs –Under GAAP, a portion of the reserves for FIAs ($3.2 billion and $2.5 billion at March 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively) is considered an embedded derivative and is recorded at fair value based on the estimated present value of certain expected future cash flows. Assumptions used in calculating this fair value amount include projected interest rates, option costs, surrenders, withdrawals and mortality. Variances from these assumptions, as well as changes in the stock market, will generally result in a change in fair value. Items such as changes in interest rates and the performance of the stock market are not economic in nature for the current reporting period, but rather impact the timing of reported results.
The impact of fair value accounting for FIAs includes an ongoing expense for annuity interest accreted on the FIA embedded derivative reserve. The amount of interest accreted in any period is generally based on the size of the embedded derivative and current interest rates. We expect both the size of the embedded derivative and interest rates to rise, resulting in continued increases in interest on the embedded derivative liability.
In the first quarter of 2019, Corporate A2 rates decreased by approximately 49 basis points, compared to theyear-end market expectation (as indicated by the forward curve) that they would increase. This difference contributed to a significant unfavorable fair value accounting impact of $45 million ($0.39 per share). By comparison, a 13% increase in the S&P 500 Index contributed to a favorable fair value accounting impact of $15 million ($0.13 per share) for the first quarter of 2019, as shown in the table above. The majority of the impact of these two items isnon-economic and is expected to reverse over time. By comparison, in the first quarter of 2018, the benefit of significantly higher than expected interest rates was minimally offset by the impact of a decrease in the stock market.
For additional analysis of fair value accounting, see our Quarterly Investor Supplement, which is posted on AFG’s website.
Annuity Premiums – AFG’s Annuity Segment reported statutory premiums of $1.40 billion in the first quarter of 2019, compared to $1.15 billion in the first quarter of 2018, an increase of 22%; this increase was driven by higher sales of traditional fixed annuities in the financial institutions channel. However, as a result of decreases in market interest rates over the last several months, AFG has implemented several rate decreases to its annuity products, which are expected to slow sales.
Craig Lindner stated, “I am pleased to report record annuity earnings before the impact of fair value accounting for FIAs in the first quarter of 2019, providing a strong start for the Annuity Segment. Although we are pleased that premiums have grown by 22% year-over-year, interest rates have declined recently, which we expect will temper new sales as we remain committed to achieving appropriate returns on new business.”
2019 Annuity Outlook –Due to the strong stock market performance to date in 2019, AFG is raising its guidance for full year Pretax Annuity EarningsBefore Fair Value Accounting by $10 million, to a range of $445 million to $475 million in 2019. However, due to the impact of decreases in market interest rates to date in 2019, AFG expects that its Pretax Annuity Earnings (including the impact of fair value accounting) will remain as previously forecasted, in the range of $365 million to $425 million in 2019.
This guidance assumes (i) interest rates and the stock market rise moderately for the remainder of 2019, (ii) more normalized income from certain investments required to be marked to market through earnings, and (iii) a lower impact in 2019 from unusual investment income items such as prepayment of fixed income securities. Fluctuations in these items could lead to significant positive or negative impacts on the Annuity Segment’s results.
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