Company: AIZ
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001267238-25-000008
Chunk: 67

Company: ASSURANT, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 67
---
 persistently low or rapidly increasing interest rates, disruptive geopolitical events, including the Israel-Hamas war, China-Taiwan relations and supply chain disruptions, and other events outside of our control, such as a major epidemic or a pandemic, political or civil unrest, or the possibility of a U.S. government shutdown or default on its debt obligations, could contribute, and in some cases have contributed, to increased volatility and diminished expectations for the economy and the financial markets, including the market for our stock.  In addition, there is uncertainty concerning potential and recent actions by the incoming U.S. administration, including increased or new tariffs that could increase the cost of claims, disrupt supply chains, and impact inflation. These factors may materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Specifically, during periods of economic downturn:

27

•individuals and businesses may (i) choose not to purchase our insurance products, extended service contracts and other products and services, (ii) terminate existing policies or contracts or permit them to lapse and (iii) choose to reduce the amount of coverage they purchase; 

•conditions in the markets in which we operate may deteriorate, impacting, among other things, consumer demand for the mobile devices, electronics, appliances, automobiles, housing and other products we insure, including the rate of introduction and success of new products, technologies and promotional programs that provide opportunities for growth;

•clients are more likely to underperform expectations, experience financial distress and declare bankruptcy, which could have an adverse impact on the remittance of premiums from such clients and the collection of receivables from such clients for items such as unearned premiums and could otherwise expose us to credit risk; 

•claims on certain specialized insurance products tend to rise; 

•there is a risk of fraudulent insurance claims; 

•there may be an impairment in the value of our tangible and intangible assets and our investment portfolio may be adversely affected; 

•there may be fluctuations in the labor market and a negative impact on employee retention; and

•our ability to access the capital markets on favorable terms or at all may be negatively impacted.

General inflationary pressures and supply chain disruptions, including within the current environment, has and may continue to increase the costs of paying claims, including for materials and labor, particularly in our Global Housing and Global Automotive businesses. In addition, inflationary pressures and shortages in the labor market have increased, and may continue to increase, our labor costs, including employee wages, and changes in interest rates has impacted, and may