Most of our current products permit us to increase charges and adjust crediting rates during the life of the policy or contract (subject to guarantees in the policies and contracts). For example, effective April 1, 2010 we implemented an increase in the cost of insurance rates for certain universal life policies. However, this adjustment, any other permitted adjustments or any additional steps taken to manage our in-force business may not be sufficient to maintain profitability. In addition, increasing charges on in force policies or contracts may adversely affect our relationships with distributors, future sales and surrenders, and may result in claims against us by policyholders. Furthermore, some of our in force business consists of products that do not permit us to adjust the charges and credited rates of in force policies or contracts.
These negative developments highlighted the continued possibility that unexpected events may adversely affect future financial projections. Accordingly, although we project earnings in the core life subgroup business beyond 2010, we did not rely on these projections when assessing the realizability of our deferred tax assets.
Our net loss from continuing operations improved $171.4 million to $24.6 million, or ($0.21) per share, for the year ended December 31, 2010 compared to a net loss from continuing operations for the year ended December 31, 2009 of $196.0 million, or $(1.68) per share. The improvement in results from continuing operations reflects increased net investment income, lower net realized investment losses, lower policy benefits and lower income tax expense. These improvements were partially offset by lower premiums, higher policyholder dividends, and higher policy acquisition cost amortization.
equity risk, which relates to the volatility of prices for equity and equity-like investments, such as venture capital partnerships.
Certain life and annuity products sold by our Life Companies contain guaranteed minimum living benefits. These include guaranteed minimum accumulation, withdrawal, income and payout annuity floor benefits. The GMAB guarantees a return of deposit to a policyholder after 10 years regardless of market performance. The GMWB guarantees that a policyholder can withdraw a certain percentage for life regardless of market performance. The GMIB guarantees that a policyholder can convert his or her account value into a guaranteed payout annuity at a guaranteed minimum interest rate and a guaranteed mortality basis, while also assuming a certain level of growth in the initial deposit. The guaranteed payout annuity floor benefit (“GPAF”) guarantees that the variable annuity payment will not fall below the dollar amount of the initial payment. We also offer a combination rider that offers both GMAB and GMDB benefits. We have established a hedging program for managing the risk associated with our guaranteed minimum accumulation and withdrawal benefit features. We hedge our GMAB and GMWB exposure. We continue to analyze and refine our strategies for managing risk exposures associated with all our separate account guarantees. The liabilities related to these benefits totaled $32.0 million and $41.8 million at December 31, 2010 and 2009, respectively.
The following table rolls forward the amount of credit losses recognized in earnings on debt securities held at the beginning of the period, for which a portion of the OTTI was recognized in other comprehensive income.
Liquidity refers to the ability of a company to generate sufficient cash flow to meet its cash requirements. The following discussion includes both liquidity and capital resources as these subjects are interrelated.
Cash from discontinued operations decreased $72.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2009 compared to the year ended December 31, 2008. This was primarily driven by a $34.8 million decrease in financing cash flows resulting from the sale of a portion of our asset management business in 2008.