Exhibit 99.2
Item 1A. Risk Factors
You should carefully consider the following risks. These risks could materially affect our business, results of operations or financial condition or cause our actual results to differ materially from those expected or those expressed in any forward looking statements made by us or on our behalf. These risks are not exclusive, and additional risks to which we are subject include, but are not limited to, the factors mentioned under “Exhibit 99.4—Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements” and the risks of our businesses described elsewhere in this Current Report on Form 8-K.
Risks Relating to Our Businesses
Interest rate fluctuations could adversely affect our business and profitability.
Our insurance and investment products are sensitive to interest rate fluctuations and expose us to the risk that falling interest rates will reduce our “spread,” or the difference between the returns we earn on the investments that support our obligations under these products and the amounts that we must pay policyholders and contractholders. Because we may reduce the interest rates we credit on most of these products only at limited, pre-established intervals, and because some of them have guaranteed minimum crediting rates, declines in interest rates may adversely affect the profitability of those products.
During periods of increasing market interest rates, we may offer higher crediting rates on interest-sensitive products, such as universal life insurance and fixed annuities, and we may increase crediting rates on in-force products to keep these products competitive. In addition, rapidly rising interest rates may cause increased policy surrenders, withdrawals from life insurance policies and annuity contracts and requests for policy loans, as policyholders and contractholders shift assets into higher yielding investments. Increases in crediting rates, as well as surrenders and withdrawals, could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.
Our term life insurance products also expose us to the risk of interest rate fluctuations. The pricing and expected future profitability of these products are based in part on expected investment returns. Over time, term life insurance products generally produce positive cash flows as customers pay periodic premiums, which we invest as we receive them. Low interest rates may reduce our ability to achieve our targeted investment margins and may adversely affect the profitability of our term life insurance products.
Interest rate fluctuations also could have an adverse effect on the results of our investment portfolio. During periods of declining market interest rates, the interest we receive on variable interest rate investments decreases. In addition, during those periods, we are forced to reinvest the cash we receive as interest or return of principal on our investments in lower-yielding high-grade instruments or in lower-credit instruments to maintain comparable returns. Issuers of fixed-income securities also may decide to prepay their obligations in order to borrow at lower market rates, which exacerbates the risk that we may have to invest the cash proceeds of these securities in lower-yielding or lower-credit instruments. Interest rates during 2003 reached an historic low and have increased through 2006.
Downturns and volatility in equity markets could adversely affect our business and profitability.
Significant downturns and volatility in equity markets could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations in two principal ways. First, market downturns and volatility may discourage purchases of separate account products, such as variable annuities and variable life insurance, that have returns linked to the performance of the equity markets and may cause some existing customers to withdraw cash values or reduce investments in those products.
Second, downturns and volatility in equity markets can have an adverse effect on the revenues and returns from our separate account products. Because these products and services generate fees generally from the value of assets under management, a decline in the equity markets could reduce our revenues by reducing the value of the investment assets we manage. In addition, some of our variable annuity products contain guaranteed minimum death benefits and guaranteed minimum income payments tied to the investment performance of the assets held within the variable annuity. A significant market decline could result in declines in account values which could increase our payments under guaranteed minimum death benefits and certain income payments in connection with variable annuities, which could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.
Defaults in our fixed-income securities and commercial mortgage loan portfolio may reduce our income.
Issuers of the fixed-income securities and commercial mortgage loans that we own may default on principal and interest payments. An economic downturn or a variety of other factors could cause declines in the value of our fixed maturities portfolio and cause our net income to decline.
A downgrade or a potential downgrade in our financial strength or credit ratings could result in a loss of business and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
Financial strength ratings, which various ratings organizations publish as measures of an insurance company’s ability to meet contractholder and policyholder obligations, are important to maintaining public confidence in our products, the ability to market our products and our competitive position. We currently have financial strength ratings of “AA-” (Very Strong) from S&P and Fitch and “Aa3” (Excellent) from Moody’s. The “AA-” rating is the fourth-highest of S&P’s 20 ratings categories. The “Aa3” rating is the fourth-highest of Moody’s 21 ratings categories. The “AA-” rating is the fourth-highest of Fitch’s 24 ratings categories.
A downgrade in our financial strength ratings, or the announced potential for a downgrade, could have a significant adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations in many ways, including:
| • | | reducing new sales of insurance products, annuities and other investment products; |
| • | | adversely affecting our relationships with independent sales intermediaries and our dedicated sales specialists; |
| • | | materially increasing the number or amount of policy surrenders and withdrawals by contractholders and policyholders; |
| • | | requiring us to reduce prices for many of our products and services to remain competitive; and |
| • | | adversely affecting our ability to obtain reinsurance or obtain reasonable pricing on reinsurance. |
If our reserves for future policy claims are inadequate, we may be required to increase our reserve liabilities, which could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.
We calculate and maintain reserves for estimated future payments of claims to our policyholders and contractholders in accordance with U.S. GAAP and industry accounting practices. We release these reserves as those future obligations are extinguished. The reserves we establish necessarily reflect estimates and actuarial assumptions with regard to our future experience. These estimates and actuarial assumptions involve the exercise of significant judgment. Our future financial results depend significantly upon the extent to which our actual future experience is consistent with the assumptions we have used in pricing our products and determining our reserves. Many factors can affect future experience, including economic and social conditions, inflation, healthcare costs, policyholder persistency (resulting in adverse claims experience), and changes in doctrines of legal liability and damage awards in litigation. Therefore, we cannot determine with precision the ultimate amounts we will pay for actual claims or the timing of those payments.
We regularly monitor our reserves. If we conclude that our reserves are insufficient to cover actual or expected policy and contract benefits and claims payments, we would be required to increase our reserves and
incur income statement charges for the period in which we make the determination, which could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.
Intense competition could negatively affect our ability to maintain or increase our market share and profitability.
Our businesses are subject to intense competition. We believe the principal competitive factors in the sale of our products are product features, price, commission structure, marketing and distribution arrangements, brand, reputation, financial strength ratings and service.
Many other companies actively compete for sales in our protection and retirement income and institutional markets, including other major insurers, banks, other financial institutions, mutual fund and money asset management firms and specialty and capital markets providers. In addition, alternative products that leverage the capital markets could compete with traditional insurance products and reduce our market share.
In many of our product lines, we face competition from competitors that have greater market share or breadth of distribution, offer a broader range of products, services or features, assume a greater level of risk, have lower profitability expectations or have higher financial strength ratings than we do. Many competitors offer similar products and use similar distribution channels. The substantial expansion of banks’ and insurance companies’ distribution capacities and expansion of product features in recent years have intensified pressure on margins and production levels and have increased the level of competition in many of our business lines. In addition, in recent years, banks, insurance companies and other financial services companies, many of which offer products similar to ours and use similar distribution channels, have consolidated. Further consolidation among banks, insurance companies and other financial services companies could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations if the surviving entity requires more favorable terms than we had previously been offering to one or more of the combined companies or if it elects not to continue to do business with us following the consolidation.
Reinsurance may not be available, affordable or adequate to protect us against losses.
As part of our overall risk and capacity management strategy, we purchase reinsurance for certain risks underwritten by our various business segments. Market conditions beyond our control determine the availability and cost of the reinsurance protection we purchase. Accordingly, we may be forced to incur additional expenses for reinsurance or may not be able to obtain sufficient reinsurance on acceptable terms, which could adversely affect our ability to write future business.
If the counterparties to our reinsurance arrangements or to the derivative instruments we use to hedge our business risks default or fail to perform, we may be exposed to risks we had sought to mitigate, which could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
We use reinsurance and derivative instruments to mitigate our risks in various circumstances. Reinsurance does not relieve us of our direct liability to our policyholders, even when the reinsurer is liable to us. Accordingly, we bear credit risk with respect to our reinsurers. We cannot assure you that our reinsurers will pay the reinsurance recoverable owed to us now or in the future or that they will pay these recoverables on a timely basis. A reinsurer’s insolvency, inability or unwillingness to make payments under the terms of its reinsurance agreement with us could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.
Prior to the completion of Genworth’s IPO, we ceded to UFLIC effective as of January 1, 2004, policy obligations under our structured settlement contracts, which had reserves of $0.3 billion, and our variable annuity contracts which had general account reserves of $2.5 billion and separate account reserves of $7.6 billion, in each case as of December 31, 2003. These contracts represent substantially all of our contracts, excluding the Retirement Answer product that was not reinsured, that were in force as of December 31, 2003 for these products. UFLIC has established trust accounts for our benefit to secure its obligations under the reinsurance arrangements, and General Electric Capital Corporation (“GE Capital”), an indirect subsidiary of GE, has agreed
to maintain UFLIC’s risk-based capital above a specified minimum level. If UFLIC becomes insolvent notwithstanding this agreement, and the amounts in the trust accounts are insufficient to pay UFLIC’s obligations to us, our financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. See note 5 in our consolidated financial statements under “Exhibit 99.6—Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this Current Report on Form 8-K.
In addition, we use derivative instruments to hedge various business risks. We enter into a variety of derivative instruments, including options, interest rate and currency swaps with a number of counterparties. If our counterparties fail or refuse to honor their obligations under the derivative instruments, our hedges of the related risk will be ineffective. Such failure could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.
We are heavily regulated, and changes in regulation may reduce our profitability and limit our growth.
As an insurance company, we are subject to a wide variety of laws and regulations. State insurance laws regulate most aspects of our insurance business, and we are regulated by the insurance department of the state in which we are domiciled and the states in which we are licensed.
State laws grant insurance regulatory authorities broad administrative powers with respect to, among other things:
| • | | licensing companies and agents to transact business; |
| • | | calculating the value of assets to determine compliance with statutory requirements; |
| • | | mandating certain insurance benefits; |
| • | | regulating certain premium rates; |
| • | | reviewing and approving policy forms; |
| • | | regulating unfair trade and claims practices, including through the imposition of restrictions on marketing and sales practices, distribution arrangements and payment of inducements; |
| • | | establishing statutory capital and reserve requirements and solvency standards; |
| • | | fixing maximum interest rates on insurance policy loans and minimum rates for guaranteed crediting rates on life insurance policies and annuity contracts; |
| • | | approving changes in control of insurance companies; |
| • | | regulating the payment of dividends and other transactions between affiliates; and |
| • | | regulating the types, amounts and valuation of investments. |
State insurance regulators and the NAIC regularly reexamine existing laws and regulations applicable to insurance companies and their products. Changes in these laws and regulations, or in interpretations thereof, can be made for the benefit of the consumer at the expense of the insurer and thus could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.
Legal and regulatory investigations and actions are increasingly common in the insurance business and may result in financial losses and harm our reputation.
We face a significant risk of litigation and regulatory investigations and actions in the ordinary course of operating our businesses, including the risk of class action lawsuits. Our pending legal and regulatory actions include proceedings specific to us and others generally applicable to business practices in the industries in which we operate. We may become subject to class actions and individual suits alleging, among other things, issues relating to sales or underwriting practices, payment of contingent or other sales commissions, claims payments and procedures, product design, product disclosure, administration, additional premium charges for premiums paid on a periodic basis, denial or delay of benefits, charging excessive or impermissible fees on products,
recommending unsuitable products to customers and breaching fiduciary or other duties to customers. In our investment-related operations, we are subject to litigation involving commercial disputes with counterparties. We are also subject to litigation arising out of our general business activities such as our contractual relationships. Plaintiffs in class action and other lawsuits against us may seek very large or indeterminate amounts, including punitive and treble damages, which may remain unknown for substantial periods of time. We are also subject to various regulatory inquiries, such as information requests, subpoenas and books and record examinations, from state and federal and other authorities. A substantial legal liability or a significant regulatory action against us could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Moreover, even if we ultimately prevail in the litigation, regulatory action or investigation, we could suffer significant reputational harm, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We cannot assure you that these investigations and proceedings will not have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. It is also possible that we could become subject to further investigations and have lawsuits filed or enforcement actions initiated against us. In addition, increased regulatory scrutiny and any resulting investigations or proceedings could result in new legal precedents and industry-wide regulations or practices that could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operation. For example, the NAIC and certain state insurance departments have adopted or proposed additional reporting and disclosure requirements relating to finite risk reinsurance.
Our computer systems may fail or their security may be compromised, which could damage our business and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operation.
Our business is highly dependent upon the effective operation of our computer systems. We rely on these systems throughout our business for a variety of functions, including processing claims and applications, providing information to customers and distributors, performing actuarial analyses and maintaining financial records. Despite the implementation of security and back-up measures, our computer systems may be vulnerable to physical or electronic intrusions, computer viruses or other attacks, programming errors and similar disruptive problems. The failure of these systems for any reason could cause significant interruptions to our operations, which could result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operation.
We retain confidential information in our computer systems, and we rely on sophisticated commercial technologies to maintain the security of those systems. Anyone who is able to circumvent our security measures and penetrate our computer systems could access, view, misappropriate, alter, or delete any information in the systems, including personally identifiable customer information and proprietary business information. In addition, an increasing number of states require that customers be notified if a security breach results in the disclosure of personally identifiable customer information. Any compromise of the security of our computer systems that results in inappropriate disclosure of personally identifiable customer information could damage our reputation in the marketplace, deter people from purchasing our products, subject us to significant civil and criminal liability and require us to incur significant technical, legal and other expenses.
The occurrence of natural or man-made disasters or a disease pandemic could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operation.
We are exposed to various risks arising out of natural disasters, including earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes, and man-made disasters, including acts of terrorism and military actions and disease pandemics (such as could arise from the avian flu). For example, a natural or man-made disaster or a disease pandemic could lead to unexpected changes in persistency rates as policyholders and contractholders who are affected by the disaster may be unable to meet their contractual obligations, such as payment of premiums on our insurance policies and deposits into our investment products. They could also significantly increase our mortality and morbidity experience above the assumptions we used in pricing our insurance and investment products. The continued threat of terrorism and ongoing military actions may cause significant volatility in global financial markets, and a natural or man-made disaster or a disease pandemic could trigger an economic downturn in the areas directly or indirectly affected by the disaster. These consequences could, among other things, result in a
decline in business and increased claims from those areas. Disasters or a disease pandemic also could disrupt public and private infrastructure, including communications and financial services, which could disrupt our normal business operations.
A natural or man-made disaster or a disease pandemic also could disrupt the operations of our counterparties or result in increased prices for the products and services they provide to us. For example, a natural or man-made disaster or a disease pandemic could lead to increased reinsurance prices and potentially cause us to retain more risk than we otherwise would retain if we were able to obtain reinsurance at lower prices. In addition, a disaster or a disease pandemic could adversely affect the value of the assets in our investment portfolio if it affects companies’ ability to pay principal or interest on their securities. See “—We may face losses if there are significant deviations from our assumptions regarding the future persistency of our insurance policies and annuity contracts.”
We may face losses if mortality rates differ significantly from our pricing expectations.
We set prices for our insurance and some annuity products based upon expected claims and payment patterns, using assumptions for, among other things, mortality rates, or likelihood of death, of our policyholders and contractholders. The long-term profitability of these products depends upon how our actual experience compares with our pricing assumptions. For example, if mortality rates are lower than our pricing assumptions, we could be required to make greater payments under annuity contracts than we had projected. Conversely, if mortality rates are higher than our pricing assumptions, we could be required to make greater payments under our life insurance policies and annuity contracts with guaranteed minimum death benefits than we had projected.
We may be required to accelerate the amortization of deferred acquisition costs and the present value of future profits, which would increase our expenses and reduce profitability.
Deferred acquisition costs (“DAC”) represent costs which vary with and are primarily related to the sale and issuance of our insurance policies and investment contracts that are deferred and amortized over the estimated life of the related insurance policies and investment contracts. These costs include commissions in excess of ultimate renewal commissions, solicitation and printing costs, sales material and some support costs, such as underwriting and contract and policy issuance expenses. Under U.S. GAAP, DAC is subsequently amortized to income, over the lives of the underlying contracts, in relation to the anticipated recognition of premiums or gross profits. In addition, when we acquire a block of insurance policies or investment contracts, we assign a portion of the purchase price to the right to receive future net cash flows from existing insurance and investment contracts and policies. This intangible asset, called the present value of future profits (“PVFP”) represents the actuarially estimated present value of future cash flows from the acquired policies. We amortize the value of this intangible asset in a manner similar to the amortization of DAC.
Our amortization of DAC and PVFP generally depends upon anticipated profits from investments, surrender and other policy and contract charges, mortality, morbidity and maintenance expense margins. Unfavorable experience with regard to expected expenses, investment returns, mortality, morbidity, withdrawals or lapses may cause us to increase the amortization of DAC or PVFP, or both, or to record a charge to increase benefit reserves.
We regularly review DAC and PVFP to determine if they are recoverable from future income. If these costs are not recoverable, they are charged to expenses in the financial period in which we make this determination. For example, if we determine that we are unable to recover DAC from profits over the life of a block of insurance policies or annuity contracts, or if withdrawals or surrender charges associated with early withdrawals do not fully offset the unamortized acquisition costs related to those policies or annuities, we would be required to recognize the additional DAC amortization as a current-period expense.
We may be required to recognize impairment in the value of our goodwill, which would increase our expenses and reduce our profitability.
Goodwill represents the excess of the amount we paid to acquire our subsidiaries and other businesses over the fair value of their net assets at the date of the acquisition. Under U.S. GAAP, we test the carrying value of
goodwill for impairment at least annually at the “reporting unit” level, which is either an operating segment or a business one level below the operating segment. Goodwill is impaired if the fair value of the reporting unit as a whole is less than the fair value of the identifiable assets and liabilities of the reporting unit, plus the carrying value of goodwill, at the date of the test. For example, goodwill may become impaired if the fair value of a reporting unit as a whole were to decline by an amount greater than the decline in the value of its individual identifiable assets and liabilities. This may occur for various reasons, including changes in actual or expected income or cash flows of a reporting unit, generation of income by a reporting unit at a lower rate of return than similar businesses or declines in market prices for publicly traded businesses similar to our reporting units. If any portion of our goodwill becomes impaired, we would be required to recognize the amount of the impairment as a current-period expense.
Medical advances, such as genetic research and diagnostic imaging, and related legislation could adversely affect the financial performance of our life insurance and annuities businesses.
Genetic research includes procedures focused on identifying key genes that render an individual predisposed to specific diseases, such as particular types of cancer and other diseases. Other medical advances, such as diagnostic imaging technologies, also may be used to detect the early onset of diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. We believe that if individuals learn through medical advances that they are predisposed to particular conditions that may reduce life longevity, they will be more likely to purchase our life policies or not to permit existing polices to lapse. In contrast, if individuals learn that they lack the genetic predisposition to develop the conditions that reduce longevity, they will be less likely to purchase our life insurance products but more likely to purchase certain annuity products. In addition, such individuals that are existing policyholders will be more likely to permit their policies to lapse.
If we were to gain access to the same genetic or medical information as our prospective policyholders and contractholders, then we would be able to take this information into account in pricing our life insurance policies and annuity contracts. However, there are a number of regulatory proposals that would make genetic and other medical information confidential and unavailable to insurance companies. The U.S. Senate has approved a bill that would prohibit group health plans, health insurers and employers from making enrollment decisions or adjusting premiums on the basis of genetic testing information. This legislation is now pending before a committee at the House of Representatives. Legislators in certain states also have introduced similar legislation. If these regulatory proposals were enacted, prospective policyholders and contractholders would only disclose this information if they chose to do so voluntarily. These factors could lead us to reduce sales of products affected by these regulatory proposals and could result in a deterioration of the risk profile of our portfolio, which could lead to payments to our policyholders and contractholders that are higher than we anticipated.
Medical advances also could lead to new forms of preventative care. Preventative care could extend the life and improve the overall health of individuals. If this were to occur, the duration of payments under certain of our annuity products likely would increase, thereby reducing net income in that business.
We may face losses if there are significant deviations from our assumptions regarding the future persistency of our insurance policies and annuity contracts.
The prices and expected future profitability of our insurance and deferred annuity products are based in part upon expected patterns of premiums, expenses and benefits, using a number of assumptions, including those related to persistency, which is the probability that a policy or contract will remain in-force from one period to the next. The effect of persistency on profitability varies for different products. For most of our life insurance and deferred annuity products, actual persistency that is lower than our persistency assumptions could have an adverse impact on profitability, especially in the early years of a policy or contract primarily because we would be required to accelerate the amortization of expenses we deferred in connection with the acquisition of the policy or contract. For our life insurance policies, increased persistency that is the result of the sale of policies to third parties that continue to make premium payments on policies that would otherwise have lapsed, also known as life settlements, could have an adverse impact on profitability because of the higher claims rate associated with settled policies.
For our other health insurance policies, actual persistency in later policy durations that is higher than our persistency assumptions could have a negative impact on profitability. If these policies remain in-force longer than we assumed, then we could be required to make greater benefit payments than we had anticipated when we priced these products.
Because our assumptions regarding persistency experience are inherently uncertain, reserves for future policy benefits and claims may prove to be inadequate if actual persistency experience is different from those assumptions. Although some of our products permit us to increase premiums during the life of the policy or contract, we cannot guarantee that these increases would be sufficient to maintain profitability. Moreover, many of our products do not permit us to increase premiums or limit those increases during the life of the policy or contract. Significant deviations in experience from pricing expectations regarding persistency could have an adverse effect on the profitability of our products.
Regulation XXX may have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations by requiring us to increase our statutory reserves for term life and universal life insurance or incur higher operating costs.
The Model Regulation entitled “Valuation of Life Insurance Policies,” commonly known as “Regulation XXX,” requires insurers to establish additional statutory reserves for term life insurance policies with long-term premium guarantees. In addition, Valuation of Life Insurance Policies Regulation, as clarified by Actuarial Guideline 38 (more commonly known as “Regulation AXXX”) requires insurers to establish additional statutory reserves for certain universal life policies with secondary guarantees. Virtually all our newly issued term and universal life insurance business is now affected by Regulation XXX and AXXX, respectively.
In response to this regulation, we have increased term and universal life insurance statutory reserves and changed our premium rates for term life insurance products. We also have implemented reinsurance and capital management actions to mitigate the capital and tax impact of Regulation XXX and AXXX. However, we cannot assure you that there will not be regulatory, tax or other challenges to the actions we have taken to date. The result of those potential challenges could require us to increase statutory reserves or incur higher operating and/or tax costs. Any change to or repeal of Regulation XXX or AXXX could reduce the competitive advantage of our reinsurance and capital management actions and could adversely affect our market position in the life insurance market.
We also cannot assure you that we will be able to continue to implement actions to mitigate the impact of Regulation XXX or AXXX on future sales of term and universal life insurance products. If we are unable to continue to implement those actions, we may be required to increase statutory reserves, incur higher operating costs than we currently anticipate, or reduce our sales of these products. We also may have to implement measures that may be disruptive to our business. For example, because term and universal life insurance are particularly price-sensitive products, any increase in premiums charged on these products in order to compensate us for the increased statutory reserve requirements or higher costs of reinsurance may result in a significant loss of volume and adversely affect our life insurance operations.