Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Unum Closed Block update conference call . All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question- and- answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. Thank you.
I'd now like to turn the call over to Matt Royal, Investor Relations. You may begin.
Thank you and good morning. Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. Earlier today, Unum announced we have entered into an agreement to cede a portion of long-term care policies effective April 1st, 2026. The transaction is expected to close during 2026, subject to receipt of required regulatory approvals and satisfaction or waiver of other customary closing conditions. The press release announcing the transaction and supporting materials for today's call have been made available on the investors section of our website at www.unum.com.
Let me briefly take care of the safe harbor statement before we jump in. Today's call may include forward-looking statements a nd actual results may differ materially and w e are not obligated to update any of these statements. Please refer to our earnings release and our periodic filings with the SEC for a description of factors that could cause actual results to differ from expected results. Participating in this morning's conference call are Unum's President and CEO, Rick McKenney, and Chief Financial Officer, Steve Zabel.
Now, let me turn the call over to Rick.
Thanks, Matt. And good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us on short notice to discuss an exciting transaction for Unum. Earlier today, we announced that we have an agreement to enter our third major external reinsurance transaction and second with regard to long-term care . Following the success of last year's transaction, we are executing a similar structure to remove the risk of another significant portion of our long-term care exposure. This transaction covers an additional $3.8 billion of long-term care reserves, bringing the total reinsured to $7 billion, reducing our exposure by 40% compared to the beginning of last year. This also removes all of our individual long-term care that was originally written by Unum America and subsequently reinsured to Fairwind. The remaining liabilities in Fairwind are all group long-term care , which have a very different risk profile.
As we embark on this next transaction, we have spent the appropriate time to balance costs and risk mitigation. Although we ultimately landed with the same strong partners as our first LTC transaction, the evaluation process and the engagement with multiple parties has been extensive. A key part of this process has been to evaluate a price that makes sense given our desire to remove long-term care from the overall Unum story, and be sure to do so at a level that makes sense for our shareholders. When you boil it down, this transaction will cost us $650 million of holding company excess capital, which is well-balanced with the de-risking that we achieve. As we take you through the details, you will see that the remaining risk sensitivities have been greatly reduced, and the pricing is consistent with the cost of the first transaction.
An additional positive is that unlike the first transaction and others in the market, we did not include other lines of our core franchise. Looking forward, as we deploy some of our excess capital to back this transaction, we remain in a position of capital strength and our deployment plans of $1.3 billion returned to shareholders through dividends and share repurchase remains intact. As we discuss this transaction today, it's important to keep in mind the backdrop of our leading franchise and employee benefits that have been steadily and profitably growing while we have a dedicated team focused on reducing and managing this block. It is also important to give a sense of what the journey has looked like and an expectation that the work continues. So let me take a moment to set the context of where this transaction fits within the overall strategy.
Since stopping active marketing of LTC in 2012, we've taken significant actions to mitigate the risk of this block. In the years following closing the block, we established a successful and thoughtful premium rate increase program. To date, we have achieved billions of dollars of rate improvements through disciplined and persistent execution, and doing this by working closely with regulators and customers through the process. This continues to remain an important tool for us today. In addition, in recent years, we have accelerated actions to reshape this exposure for the company. It includes our ability to de-risk our position, including meaningful internal actions and the establishment of the risk transfer market. The timeline shown exhibits this with notable actions to reshape the block over the last five years.
Taking you back just a couple of years with the implementation of our interest rate hedge program and the fortification of our capital, we were able to make the commitment in 2023 that no further capital contributions would be needed for this block. While these actions were all significant, throughout this time, we were talking to counterparties about risk transfer. In the beginning of 2025, we were happy to execute on our first external risk transfer deal, removing $3.4 billion of reserves at disciplined pricing levels. Alongside this deal, we also restructured internally to optimize our First Unum LTC reserves and release $600 million of capital. Later in 2025, we made two additional important steps. We removed morbidity and mortality improvement assumptions, which significantly de-risked our assumption set.
Also notable at that time was our announcement that we would stop the enrollment of new lives on existing GLTC or group long-term care policies, which led to 7% of cases closing in the first quarter of this year, with continuing discussions with employers as they evaluate the cost and value to their employees of this legacy offering within their broader employee benefits package. That takes us to today. I am very pleased with what today's transaction represents for Unum. We have continued to work diligently to reduce the footprint and capital demands of the closed block, and today's agreement is another meaningful step in that strategy. All of our actions up to this point have highlighted our intense focus on limiting our exposure to this business.
I am appreciative of the Unum team that has gotten us to this point and continues to think about our next steps. Their tireless efforts have allowed the other 10,000 Unum associates to build an industry-leading benefits franchise across the U.S., U.K., and Poland.
And with that, let me turn it over to Steve for more details.
Great. Thanks, Rick, and good morning, everyone. Let me walk through the transaction in detail. I will cover the scope and characteristics of the block, the economics, the impact on the remaining LTC block, the sensitivity and protection picture, and our post-transaction capital position. Starting with the transaction itself, we are reinsuring $3.8 billion of LTC statutory reserves to Fortitude Re, with an effective date of April 1, 2026. Similar to the first deal, the biometric risk ceded to Fortitude Re will be retroceded to a highly rated global reinsurer. This represents 26% of our total LTC block and 52% of our individual long-term care business. Importantly, this is a standalone transaction that removes 100% of the remaining individual LTC reserves held in Fairwind. The reinsured block is comprised of approximately 50,000 policies with an average attained age of 76 years, compared to 86 years for last year's transaction.
The block is also concentrated in active life reserves at approximately 75% of reinsured reserves, with a materially richer benefit profile than what we retain. 83% of policies have inflation protection, and 43% have lifetime benefits. The block also carries best estimate reserves nearly $700 million higher than statutory reserves, reflecting a more adverse reserve profile than the block we reinsured in 2025. As you can see in the chart, this transaction reduces total LTC statutory reserves from $14.8 billion to approximately $11 billion. ILTC reserves decline meaningfully while GLTC remains stable, leaving the remaining block predominantly group long-term care , which has a more basic benefit profile. Turning to the economics on slide six, we believe the most appropriate way to evaluate and compare pricing across deals is relative to best estimate reserves because that reflects the underlying exposure being transferred.
This can differ compared to statutory reserves due to differing reserve margin profiles of each block. Neither last year's transaction or, importantly, the remaining block in PLA have negative reserve margins. When considering this, the cost of this transaction is approximately 12% of best estimate reserves and is closely aligned with the 10% we achieved on the 2025 transaction. Combined cost across both transactions is approximately 11%. While the absolute cost relative to statutory reserves is greater, that difference is driven entirely by the more adverse reserve profile of the ceded block. As you can see, the 2026 block carried a negative reserve margin of approximately $660 million, while the 2025 block carried a small positive margin. Similar to our deal last year, we also realized meaningful economic benefits as part of the transaction, including required capital release and tax benefits.
When considered together, these economic benefits offset a significant portion of the gross cost. The key takeaway is that pricing across both transactions is consistent when evaluated relative to best estimate reserves. The level of funding differs across transactions, reflecting differences in the underlying blocks and statutory reserve levels while maintaining consistent pricing.
So then turning to the remaining LTC block on slide seven, the most important point on this page is that this transaction materially improves the risk profile of what we retain. Following the transaction, group long-term care represents approximately 70% of LTC reserves and 95% of insured lives. That mix shift towards GLTC is structurally important as group long-term care carries materially less rich benefit designs, younger attained ages, and lower ultimate risk than individual LTC. To put that in context, the average daily benefit on GLTC is about 1/3 of ILTC. 77% of GLTC policies have no inflation protection, and only 7% have lifetime benefits, compared to 33% of retained ILTC.
The younger average attained age of the GLTC block also supports continued rate adjustments and block management actions over time. Considering these less rich benefits paired with the younger age of the block, there is the potential that lapse rates become structurally higher over time. Importantly, this risk profile improvement flows directly through to our sensitivity analysis. Across all key Fairwind assumptions, including premium rate increases, lapses in mortality, claim incidents, claim resolutions, and interest rates, sensitivities decreased by 28%-42%. The net result is a smaller, less risk benefit profile with materially lower sensitivities. So, then on slide eight, we walk through the protection picture across the two legal entities holding the remaining LTC reserves.
Following the transaction, Fairwind retains approximately $7.1 billion of GLTC reserves, supported by approximately $2.1 billion of reserve margin and total protection of approximately $1.9 billion. PLA or Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company continues to hold the remaining LTC exposure, supported by diversification from a broader and growing product portfolio. Total entity-wide protection of approximately $1.9 billion is the combination of asset adequacy margin plus entity excess capital above 350% RBC. The funding of this transaction modestly reduces absolute LTC protection in Fairwind by approximately $200 million, while Fairwind's RBC position remains strong at approximately 300%. Fairwind RBC will grow as margin in the group LTC reserves is realized through future runoff. Considering total LTC protections across both entities, we expect close to $2 billion in Fairwind alone to be more than sufficient to eliminate the need for future capital contributions.
We will be evaluating the protections going forward, including the rate at which excess capital builds. Importantly, following the transaction, we continue to be confident that no incremental capital contributions will be required to support the remaining LTC reserves. The remaining LTC block is self-supporting across both legal entities. So finally, I'll turn to capital on slide nine. As Rick noted, the transaction was funded in part by leveraging Fairwind excess capital to adjust for the remaining risk, limiting the use of holding company liquidity to approximately $650 million. As part of the funding mix, we are also utilizing temporary financing as we will realize the future tax benefits associated with the transaction over the next several years. As a result, leverage will be slightly higher in the near term and then decrease as we pay down this financing. Our year-end 2026 capital metrics remain robust.
We expect risk-based capital in the range of 400%-425%, holding company liquidity of $1.5 billion- $2 billion and leverage of approximately 25%. Our 2026 capital sources and uses are unchanged, including expected capital generation of $1.4 billion- $1.6 billion and expected uses of approximately $1.5 billion, inclusive of approximately $1.3 billion of buybacks and dividends. The bottom line is that sustained capital strength enables our continued capital deployment strategy. There is no change to our priorities, no change to our planned actions, and no change to our expected return of capital to shareholders this year as a result of the transaction.
With that, I will hand it back to Rick.
Great. Thanks, Steve. To wrap up, today's announcement reflects continued deliberate execution of our closed block strategy. This is the second external reinsurance transaction for LTC we have announced in just over a year. And it represents another meaningful step in actively managing this business. As a result of this action, we have further reduced LTC exposure, materially improved the risk profile of the remaining block, and reinforced the protection supporting our retained reserves, all while maintaining capital strength and our capital deployment priorities. Our focus remains on the strength and growth opportunities of our industry-leading core franchises. While managing the closed block, we will continue to be active, selective, and opportunistic over time.
And with that, we are looking forward to your questions, so I will turn it over to the operator.
Thank you. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one in your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Your first question today comes from the line of Joel Hurwitz from Dowling. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, and congrats. First, Steve, can you talk about future rate increases? Looking at slide six, it shows no benefit on this deal. I guess just why is that, and what is different from how this deal was structured versus the prior one in terms of rate increases?
Yeah. No, good question because there is a slight structural difference in the second deal versus the third. But let me back up. You know, I mentioned that we do get benefits that help to offset the growth cede, and we've done that in both the deals. And there was really three of those at the first deal. There was basically the capital released on the block that was reinsured, tax benefits that we're able to realize because there is a statutory lock on that. And on the first deal, it was rate increases that we expected over time.
The difference with the second deal is we did get paid for those up front, so that would have been reflected in the actual ceding commission itself. And so, it's kind of embedded in the growth cede to begin with, and so that's not something now that we've reflected as a benefit over time. So what we were kind of indifferent in how that was structured as long as we were able to get the economic benefit of us executing that strategy. But obviously, getting paid for it up front we view as very favorable in this deal.
Yeah, Joel, I'd say that's a positive development when you think about structuring of deals over time, and the fact that we can get paid up front with that shows the confidence in the counterparty that that's going to come through as well.
That makes sense. And then just on the funding of the deal, I guess I thought that Fairwind had had over $1 billion of excess capital at year-end, so I would have thought that would have covered most of the net negative cede, but you guys mentioned you need $650 million from the holdco. Can you just sort of take me through what Fairwind's excess capital position was, how much of that is being moved to Unum of America, and why the $650 million is needed?
Yeah. Joel, it's Rick. Just to step back a little bit onto the $650 million . We're very happy with that number to bring that from the holding company. I think when you get into the details of the funding sources, I'll let Steve do that, but there's multiple sources that that comes from. And so, the $650 million , we think, overall, in terms of what the company's going to spend to take this risk off the books is a very good deal. But there are some moving parts, Steve, which maybe you can take through.
Yeah. Think about the Fairwind protections pre-transaction, and it totaled just over $2 billion, and it was really comprised of two things, the excess margins that would have been on the reserves within Fairwind and then also the excess capital. That was split about 50/50. The one thing to note is those protections were on a pre-tax basis. When you think about excess capital being about half of that, you have to haircut that for the tax. That's one funding source that we were able to use there. And then the other important thing here is that this was a block where our statutory reserves were lower than our best estimate. Just if you think about funding sources themselves, we did not have the assets back in the statutory reserves to back this specific block.
It was a more risky block. And just the dynamics of this block, that's where the reserving levels were. So we had to fund that. And then, obviously with any of these deals, you have to fund the return for the counterparty. That's something that would not have been contemplated in our best estimate reserves and how we feel about the protection. So you put those three things together, and it did require a little bit of holding company cash, which when you look at the risk reduction and just how we feel about the balance sheet and really what's remaining in Fairwind having pretty significant reserve margins, we thought that this was, you know, a good trade. We look at it versus best estimate and was the pricing fair based on what our view of the liability was. We think about that always.
And then we just think about it. Is this a fair deal for shareholders? And we felt that it was.
Got it. That makes sense. Thank you.
Thanks, Joel.
Yeah. Thanks, Joel.
Your next question comes from the line of Wes Carmichael from Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Hey, thank you. Good morning. And congrats on the transaction. Just thinking about the remaining $3.5 billion of individual LTC reserve post-transaction. I think a portion of that is New York business from First Unum that you reinsured, but can you maybe just comment on contrasting that profile, that block, versus the two that you've done, just directionally? I'm just trying to figure out if you wanted to transact on it, any help with how to think about a directional ceding commission relative to the first two.
Wes, this is Steve. I'll take that one. You're right. The majority of what's left in Provident Life at this point is the New York business that we reinsured. We also have an individual block that was written out of Provident Life. I would say the characteristics of that New York block is probably pretty consistent with kind of the collective two blocks where we've had transaction. You know, the Fairwind blocks one was a little bit older, this one is a little bit younger, so it's probably pretty representative of what's left in that First Unum block. The one thing that I would say that is different is just the level of reserves. We do not have kind of negative reserve margins on that New York block when we compare it to best estimate in Provident Life.
I think one thing, Wes, you're trying to take it forward to what the next transaction, I'd caution you from doing that. We talked about the market continues to evolve and there's more dynamics there, but I think what Steve says, right, about what it looks like from a liability perspective, but I wouldn't extrapolate that into what future pricing might look like. We really won't know until we have such transaction.
No, that's very helpful. And maybe just following up on that, is there any help you can give us with how this market is evolving? I guess maybe the logical question is, are you seeing any interest in GLTC? I know you don't want to get too far ahead of the next transaction, and I don't want to discount this one, but just curious if you have thoughts there.
Yeah, no, I think it's very consistent, Wes, with what we've been saying. You know, even after the first transaction, we saw an uptick. Even as another party did a transaction, that's when we started the momentum to build, to being able to parse these blocks into assets and liabilities in the morbidity side. That's good developments. Getting to this next transaction with younger lives, more active life reserves, as Steve said, all important. Two things that we—o ne we talked about, one we haven't really yet is the price increases being paid for that upfront. That's a good development. And then, this is standalone, so I'd highlight that piece. Steve and I both mentioned that in our comments. We think that's a good development. Previous transactions have had an ongoing piece of business, part of our core franchise for us being part of that. This did not.
And so that's all about evolution of a market, and that's how we've talked about this market. And so, there's still counterparties out there looking at both sides of this, the morbidity side as well as on the asset side. And, you know, no predictions as we haven't all along, and we'll continue to talk to counterparties, but the market is developing in some small ways.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Alex Scott from Barclays. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning. I wanted to circle back on comments you made about the Fairwind capital and how it may build over time. One of the things that I thought was notable about this transaction was the best estimate reserve was actually worse than the stat reserve. And so getting rid of it might help the capital generation on a go-forward basis. And I just wanted to understand how you're viewing that. How quickly does that $2 billion margin progress, just given that it's longer group LTC?
Yeah, this is Steve. I can handle that. You're thinking about the model right. If you looked at the block pre-transaction, we still thought that Fairwind was going to be kind of capital self-sufficient. We felt good about that with a combined block. Given that we've reinsured a block that had negative margin and therefore would run off if we hit our best estimate assumptions going forward, needing a little bit of capital for that part of the block, we are going to generate more capital in Fairwind with what's remaining than pre-transaction. So, it's going to run off over the life of the block. So, it's, you know, it's going to be over, you know, several decades.
But what I will tell you is, we did bring RBC down to 300% to execute on this, which is below the 350%. That's going to build back up in just the coming years. It's not going to take long for that reserve margin to come through earnings and build capital back up in Fairwind . So we feel like that's a pretty temporary situation, and then we will build excess capital. It was kind of implied in my comments, but that is something, given the remaining block is even less risky, that is something we'll have to evaluate down the road, just how much of that excess capital we'll want to build when those margins release.
Got it. That's helpful. When I think through holdco cash, still at a strong level, even after paying this RBC ratio, Unum America is still in a strong place relative to where it's been over time. How do you think about capital deployment and the opportunities there, particularly when you consider continued risk reduction in long-term care ?
Yeah, thanks, Alex. A couple of things there I made comments on. One is we still have to get to close this transaction, that will take place later in the year. These are estimates of where we'll land. We still will sit in a strong excess capital position either way. I think the building capital coming from our core franchise has been good. The generation is good across the franchise. As you've seen us do, putting it back to work is important. One of the things that you saw in this transaction is we used some of that holding company cash to execute on long-term care . I think we've also said around that with the excess capital position, it gives us flexibility in terms of managing this exposure. We chose to do that with this transaction.
I think as you've seen the risk profile change or the liabilities we have, we may not need to do that next time around. But once again, those are things in the future that we'll have to deal with. This was a unique block that we were very happy to transact on, and we're very happy that we still sit in a very good holding company capital position.
Yeah. The only thing that I'd add, Alex, is, you know, we came into the year saying we wanted to really replicate the deployment strategy that we had last year, where we look at how much we're going to generate during the year. We deployed that much capital last year. We're still planning on deploying that much capital this year. So I don't think our deployment strategy itself changes at all with our view of it coming in. We're just going to have a little less excess capital as we get to the end of the year.
Got it. Thank you.
Thanks, Alex.
Your next question comes from the line of Tom Gallagher from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.
Good morning. So just another question on the holdco cash. Since this was a use of $600 million or so of holdco cash, should we assume future deals would also draw down some of that excess? Because I'm thinking about it specifically with Fairwind, the buffer looks even larger now relative to what it had looked like. You know, is that going to be excess that might fund future deals? Anyway, yeah. So, if you can comment on how do we think about the Fairwind versus the holdco in the plan going forward. Thanks.
That's fair enough, Tom. I think, you know, as we've said all along, transactions will look different, and we have plenty of funding sources from different spots. This transaction, given the nature of what Steve took through around the reserves and capital in Fairwind, we had to bring some holding company cash. That may not be true next time because when you look at Fairwind, the excess position we sit in is pretty significant. Not a lot less than what we had going into the transaction. So it's hard to say exactly how it will look because it's hard to say what the block will look like. But we're in a different spot now after this transaction, I should say, after we close this transaction, than today.
So, in today's transaction, $650 million holding company cash, still think it's a great use. Doesn't necessarily mean we'd have to bring that kind of money or any money to the next transaction.
Yeah. It kind of gets back, Tom, to what we've been talking about. We think about pricing based on our view of the best estimate, but you have to think about the funding based on just the stat reserves that you have stacked up relative to that best estimate. And, you know, this was just a block that had statutory reserves that were about $700 million less than our view of the economic reserve. So that capital had to come from somewhere. If you look at the remaining block in Fairwind, that is not the case. We have considerable funding sources in that, given the relationship between the statutory reserves and our best estimate for what's left.
Just for my follow-up, is it reasonable to think you would look to execute group LTC deals going forward? It's a different type of risk, much longer duration, probably a lot lower risk, but more out in the future. So it's a little hard for me to wrap my head around to think about how counterparties would look at that. And is that something that you're making progress on, I guess is my question. And is that a block that's profitable? And if you kind of peel back the onion, is that generating positive cash flows within Fairwind?
Yes. Let me start with the overall and then I'll turn it over to Steve. But when you think about overall in terms of where we are, we look across all our blocks, and including up until the point where we got to this transaction, talking to counterparties across all the different liabilities. And o ne of the things the team has done a good job on over the last couple of years is being able to parse the different liabilities with different counterparties, both the asset side and the morbidity side. That continues. So that's not something that's going to start newly. That continues over time. It is a different dynamic, and you highlighted the two things, Tom, which is one, it is a younger book of business. Two, the risk profile is very different. And so, you've got to look at your counterparties, and they have to get the same sense of what you have out there today.
And then also on the group side, I just go back to the announcement last year in terms of shutting off new lives, and that has caused a different set of dynamics in that block where we saw more lapses than we have seen in the past. So there is something organically that's happening in that block of business as well. Steve alluded to that in his comments. We'll have to just monitor how that goes. So those are the three things I'd say about group long-term care that just makes it very different. I'm sure we'll have more discussions on that.
Yeah. The only thing I'd add, Tom, is just to kind of think, picture the financial model for that group business, what's left. When you set a best estimate reserve, that pretty much would say that going forward, that's about a breakeven block. That's really how you're going to set your best estimate reserve. And so, given that we have pretty significant reserve margin on a statutory basis, that does imply that there'll be stat earnings on that block if it plays out consistent with our best estimate reserve, which obviously is always a big if. But that is why we think that RBC will build in Fairwind over time, because what we do believe that there will be some statutory earnings in that legal entity.
Okay, thanks.
Thanks, Tom.
Your next question comes from the line of Tracy Benguigui from Wolfe Research. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning. I'm curious if the $125 million PLA volatility cover was a prerequisite for Fortitude Re to take this more risky block or if you did this to push down the negative cede given this go around, you're not doing an internal dividend restructuring and IVI risk transfer.
Yeah. Thanks, Tracy. It's Steve, I'll take that. You know, it's hard to look at one component of the transaction and say that that's the one thing that allowed us to execute on transaction. It's really the collective. And so, yeah, we do have a cover, that you did see in the materials. It's really there were a couple assumptions where we couldn't quite get into agreement on that assumption set with the counterparty. And so, in essence, as we look at it, we were open to do that to get the deal completed. What I will say is that's more of a long-term structure. Really looks at the experience over a very long period of time. In fact, the first settlement is five years out, and then from that point, you kind of monitor it going forward.
So I would say it was kind of a long-term protection that the counterparty wanted and was just part of the overall economics that we looked at and that they looked at to be able to get a deal signed.
Okay. I'm also curious if it's the same or a different retrocessional reinsurer versus the last deal. I'm just thinking if it's the same counterparties, was it quicker to get the deal done given familiarity?
Well, I'd just take you back to the—w e went into this process looking and talking to all counterparties. Multiple asset managers, multiple people focused on morbidity risk. Those are people we still talk to today. So this was not just a go back and do the second round with them. And when you talk about the retrocessionaire being with Fortitude Re, is certainly we're familiar with them in terms of how they managed the first block, and so, I think that does give us some comfort, but we did not preclude other counterparties as part of that transaction. Ultimately, we got to the best deal was with them as a counterparty, and that's where we ended up.
No, I guess I just need to clarify, did Fortitude Re use the same retrocession partner for the biometric risk?
Yeah, they did.
Okay, thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Nathan Satterfield from Jefferies. Your line is open.
Thank you. When looking at this transaction and the last one, they seem to be similarly sized. What's really the binding constraint here? Is that you guys and your comfortability in transacting on these blocks? Is it Fortitude Re and other counterparties? I guess the genesis of my question is why not do a bigger transaction?
Yeah. It's a fair question. I think when we look at it, as we said, we're looking at all different parts of the block of business and what we go into. Ultimately, the size, which did end up being similar, was to reinsure all of the rest of the ILTC in Fairwind. So it was much more about what that profile looks like as opposed to we weren't limited by size. I don't think our counterparties were necessarily limited by size. It just made sense in terms of that's a block of business that you can get your arms around specifically because of the entity it sits in, because of the legal entity, all the details behind it. So that's why it happened at that size around that was it was complete in terms of the ILTC and Unum America, it ultimately ended up in reinsurance at Fairwind.
Yeah. The only thing on that one is it's not always just size. It's also just the complexity of underwriting the deal. When you start to get into multiple legal entities and expand the block, you start to have to look at a lot of different policy forms and just kind of legal requirements of those policy forms. They can all be a little bit different. And so, a counterparty really has to underwrite all of that. And so, this was kind of that nice bringing together the complexity, the size, and the price we were able to get that this was kind of the right deal for us to be able to execute.
Makes sense. And then, following up on a question that was asked earlier, I have to rephrase it. At what point could LTC be just retained? Or to say another way, what's the long-term view of LTC now that you've gotten rid of one of your riskier blocks?
Yeah, I appreciate that question, it's something that we evaluate. I think we've been very consistent to say long-term care is very different than everything else we do. So, we would like to remove that risk from our balance sheet overall. So we've taken a couple of steps into that. At the same time, we've also been very clear to say we'll only do so if it makes sense from a shareholder perspective. And so, you balance those two together.
And so, we feel good about where we are in the franchise overall, how we're able to manage it, what we're doing in the closed block. So we don't think we have to do something here, but it's something we would like to do given the right market conditions. And so, I appreciate the question, but I think this is something we'll continue to manage going forward and continue to talk about our closed block as something that's just very different than the Unum franchise, which just had a—continues to grow and be a very strong entity.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from a line of Mike Ward from UBS. Your line is open.
Thanks, guys, and congrats. Forgive me, I don't think we've gone through this, but can you just sort of quantify the expected impact on operating rates? I think there's some lost NII.
Yeah, Mike, it's Steve. I can take that one. You know, first of all, we need to evaluate the total impact once we get closed and run it through everything. But, the two things that are kind of obvious based on how we're structuring the deal, one is we are using hold co cash, and so there is going to be some foregone net investment income on that. And then, also, we are going to take on some additional debt service. We're planning on financing the tax benefit. That's going to roll off over the next two to three years, and we're able to realize that tax benefit, but that will also be a little bit of drag. Both those things would be in corporate.
What we'll do, though, is as we get closer to close and all the numbers are completely settled down, we'll give a new view as we go into 2027, kind of what the profile is.
Okay. And then just on the retained ILTC business, it sounds like potentially the New York domicile is kind of what may have separated a chunk of the business you're retaining from this deal. And should we think about the New York business as conceivably transactable or not?
Yeah. I think, Mike, from your perspective, you know, it's a different part of where the organization is. We were focused on the Unum America liabilities that were ceded through Fairwind. But beyond that, these are all things that we'll look at overall. It's hard to say something. We think that all of it can be addressed. And then, in fact, last year, as we ceded that to our PLA entity, we thought that that was a good move overall, which we would have talked about back later last year. And so we continue to think about all these blocks in terms of what are the actions that are appropriate for those blocks of business, and we'll continue to do so.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Krueger from KBW. Your line is open.
Hey, thanks. Good morning. You know, on the group LTC, we can now see the reserve margin independently, and it's pretty significant. Can you give us some, I guess, at least at a high level, what are the really big differences between your best estimate reserve assumptions and the statutory required reserve assumptions that are, I guess, specifically for group LTC, given the level of reserve margin that you hold?
Yeah. Right. Honestly, that's pretty tough to quantify, because if you think about those two reserves, they really at this point operate completely independent. When you look at the best estimate, that is our current best view of the liability. So we keep that current with our claims experience and what we're seeing within the block over time. The statutory reserves, those were set at pricing, and so, some of that pricing is going to be decades ago, and so, it's fair to say most the assumptions are going to be different at this point between what was locked in in the statutory reserve versus what's in our best estimate reserve. I think the important thing is in aggregate, the mechanics of that locked-in reserve is building a reserve that's well in excess of our current view of the liability.
But it's tough to do an attribution of really the components and to quantify that.
Understood. I guess maybe thinking about it, I guess, one other way. I mean, in terms of the excess reserve margin, and if your best estimates are correct, your ability to release that will come through really, I guess, slowly over time. But when it does get released into excess capital in Fairwind, that would be when you would have I guess you could consider taking some of the excess capital out in the future. Is that the best way to think about it? I assume it won't get released until it becomes excess capital.
That's right. I mean, pretty much if you think about the protections that we had before in Fairwind, about half of it was excess capital that was more fungible in the moment versus the reserve margin. Kind of what we've done with this deal is we've almost monetized some of the negative margins that was in there, and we've used the excess capital to help do that. Looking forward, you can see really all the protection is in margin at this point. So that's less fungible, but will come out just over the life of the block, and then that will convert to excess capital, and then we'll have more discretion over what we want to do with that.
I think the key is we view both of those things as protections of any changes we might have in our best estimate assumption or just any deviation of experience versus what our best estimate is. We can use that for both of those situations to help protect us, and keep the balance sheet where we want it to be.
Understood. Thank you.
Thanks, Ryan.
We've reached the end of our question- and- answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Rick McKenney for closing remarks.
Great. Thank you. I'd like to appreciate everyone joining us this morning on short notice. Clearly very excited about this transaction. We'll look forward to talking to you in roughly three weeks as we take you through our second quarter results and as we follow up with questions around that. But thank you for joining us this morning, and operator, that ends today's call. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.