•infection rates and severity of COVID-19 and related risks, and their effects on our business operations and claims activity, and any adverse impact to our insureds, brokers, agents, and employees; actual claims may exceed our best estimate of ultimate insurance losses incurred through December 31, 2020 which could change including as a result of, among other things, the impact of legislative or regulatory actions taken in response to COVID-19;
•changes in the distribution or placement of risks due to increased consolidation of insurance and reinsurance brokers; material differences between actual and expected assessments for guaranty funds and mandatory pooling arrangements; the ability to collect reinsurance recoverable, credit developments of reinsurers, and any delays with respect thereto and changes in the cost, quality, or availability of reinsurance;
•developments in global financial markets, including changes in interest rates, stock markets, and other financial markets; increased government involvement or intervention in the financial services industry; the cost and availability of financing, and foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; changing rates of inflation; and other general economic and business conditions, including the depth and duration of potential recession;
•the availability of borrowings and letters of credit under our credit facilities; the adequacy of collateral supporting funded high deductible programs; the amount of dividends received from subsidiaries;
•changes to our assessment as to whether it is more likely than not that we will be required to sell, or have the intent to sell, available for sale fixed maturity investments before their anticipated recovery;
•actions that rating agencies may take from time to time, such as financial strength or credit ratings downgrades or placing these ratings on credit watch negative or the equivalent;
•the effects of public company bankruptcies and accounting restatements, as well as disclosures by and investigations of public companies relating to possible accounting irregularities, and other corporate governance issues;
•acquisitions made performing differently than expected, our failure to realize anticipated expense-related efficiencies or growth from acquisitions, the impact of acquisitions on our pre-existing organization, or announced acquisitions not closing; risks and uncertainties relating to our planned purchases of additional interests in Huatai Insurance Group Co., Ltd. (Huatai Group), including our ability to receive Chinese insurance regulatory approval and complete the purchases;
•the ability of our technology resources, including information systems and security, to perform as anticipated such as with respect to preventing material information technology failures or third-party infiltrations or hacking resulting in consequences adverse to Chubb or its customers or partners; the ability of our company to increase use of data analytics and technology as part of our business strategy and adapt to new technologies; and
We have grown our business through increased premium volume, expansion of product offerings and geographic reach, and acquisitions of other companies. Refer to Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for our most recent acquisitions.
Our product and geographic diversification differentiate us from the vast majority of our competitors and has been a source of stability during periods of industry volatility. Our long-term business strategy focuses on sustained growth in book value achieved through a combination of underwriting and investment income. By doing so, we provide value to our clients and shareholders through use of our substantial capital base in the insurance and reinsurance markets.
◦Net catastrophe losses included a COVID-19 charge of $1,396 million pre-tax ($1,193 million after-tax), generated primarily from entertainment and commercial property-related business interruption, liability insurance products, and workers’ compensation. These COVID-19 losses added 4.5 percentage points to the P&C combined ratio.
◦Net premiums written in consumer lines globally declined by 1.9 percent, or 0.9 percent on a constant-dollar basis, principally reflecting the impact of COVID-19. A&H lines experienced negative growth globally and were down 10.6 percent for the year. Partially offsetting the decline was our U.S. high net worth personal lines business, which grew 2.8 percent in 2020.
•Net premiums earned were $33.1 billion, up 5.8 percent, or 6.5 percent on a constant-dollar basis with growth in commercial lines of 8.9 percent and consumer lines of 2.5 percent.
•Total pre-tax and after-tax favorable prior period development were $395 million (1.2 percentage points of the combined ratio) and $357 million, respectively, compared with $792 million (2.7 percentage points of the combined ratio) and $624 million, respectively, in 2019.
Our premium growth in 2020 reflected increases in commercial P&C lines globally from new business, positive rate increases and higher renewal retention. This growth was tempered by decreases in consumer lines, primarily from outside North America, reflecting the adverse impact of the economic contraction resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2019, Chubb entered into agreements to acquire an additional 22.4 percent ownership interest in Huatai Group through two separate purchases. The first purchase, which was for a 15.3 percent interest, was completed in July 2020. We expect that the second purchase, which was for a 7.1 percent interest, will be completed in the future, contingent upon important conditions. Separately, in November 2020, we completed the purchase of an incremental 0.9 percent ownership interest in Huatai Group, bringing Chubb’s aggregate ownership interest to 47.1 percent as of December 31, 2020. We continue to apply equity method accounting until we complete the 7.1 percent purchase, which will result in majority ownership at which point we expect to apply consolidation accounting.
•the valuation of value of business acquired (VOBA) and amortization of deferred policy acquisition costs and VOBA;
•the valuation of our investment portfolio and assessment of valuation allowance for expected credit losses;
As an insurance and reinsurance company, we are required by applicable laws and regulations and GAAP to establish loss and loss expense reserves for the estimated unpaid portion of the ultimate liability for losses and loss expenses under the terms of our policies and agreements with our insured and reinsured customers. At December 31, 2020, our gross unpaid loss and loss expense reserves were $67.8 billion and our net unpaid loss and loss expense reserves were $53.2 billion. With the exception of certain structured settlements, for which the timing and amount of future claim payments are reliably determinable, and certain reserves for unsettled claims, our loss reserves are not discounted for the time value of money. In connection with such structured settlements and certain reserves for unsettled claims, we carried net discounted reserves of $68 million and $74 million at December 31, 2020 and 2019, respectively.
The estimate of the liabilities includes provisions for claims that have been reported but are unpaid at the balance sheet date (case reserves) and for obligations on claims that have been incurred but not reported (IBNR) at the balance sheet date. IBNR may also include provisions to account for the possibility that reported claims may settle for amounts that differ from the established case reserves. Loss reserves also include an estimate of expenses associated with processing and settling unpaid
Due to the relatively short-tailed nature of many of the coverages involved (e.g., homeowners property damage), most of the incurred losses in Personal Lines are resolved within a few years of occurrence. As shown in our loss triangle disclosure, the vast majority (approximately 95 percent) of Personal Lines net ultimate losses and allocated loss adjustment expenses are typically paid within five years of the accident date and over 80 percent within two years. Even though there are significant reserves associated with some liability exposures such as personal excess/umbrella liability, our incurred loss triangle also shows a roughly consistent pattern of only relatively minor movements in incurred estimates over time by accident year especially after twenty-four months of maturity. While the liability exposures are subject to additional uncertainties from more protracted resolution times, the main drivers of volatility in the Personal Lines business are relatively short-term in nature and relate to things like natural catastrophes, non-catastrophe weather events, man-made risks, and individual large loss volatility from other fortuitous claim events.
Certain long-tail lines, such as casualty and professional lines, are particularly susceptible to changes in loss trend and claim inflation. Heightened perceptions of tort and settlement awards around the world can increase the demand for these products as well as contributing to the uncertainty in the reserving estimates. Our reserving methods rely on loss development patterns estimated from historical data and while we attempt to adjust such factors for known changes in the current tort environment, it is possible that such factors may not entirely reflect all recent trends in tort environments. For example, when applying the reported loss development method, the lengthening of our selected loss development patterns by six months would increase reserve estimates on long-tail casualty and professional lines for accident years 2018 and prior by approximately $590 million. This represents an impact of 15.4 percent relative to recorded net loss and loss expense reserves of approximately $3.8 billion.
At December 31, 2020, net unpaid losses and loss expenses for the Global Reinsurance segment aggregated to $1.5 billion, consisting of $772 million of case reserves and $740 million of IBNR. In comparison, at December 31, 2019, net unpaid losses and loss expenses for the Global Reinsurance segment aggregated to $1.4 billion, consisting of $769 million of case reserves and $664 million of IBNR.
For our catastrophe business, we principally estimate unpaid losses and loss expenses on an event basis by considering various sources of information, including specific loss estimates reported by our cedants, ceding company and overall industry loss estimates reported by our brokers, and our internal data regarding reinsured exposures related to the geographical location of the
•Typically, a lag exists between the reporting of a loss event to a ceding company and its reporting to us as a reinsurance claim. The use of a broker to transmit financial information from a ceding company to us increases the reporting lag. Because most of our reinsurance business is produced by brokers, ceding companies generally first submit claim and other financial information to brokers, who then report the proportionate share of such information to each reinsurer of a particular treaty. The reporting lag generally results in a longer period of time between the date a claim is incurred and the date a claim is reported compared with direct insurance operations. Therefore, the risk of delayed recognition of loss reserve development is higher for assumed reinsurance than for direct insurance lines; and
•The historical claims data for a particular reinsurance contract can be limited relative to our insurance business in that there may be less historical information available. Further, for certain coverages or products, such as excess of loss contracts, there may be relatively few expected claims in a particular year so the actual number of claims may be susceptible to significant variability. In such cases, the actuary often relies on industry data from several recognized sources.
On occasion, there will be differences between our carried loss reserves and unearned premium reserves and the amount of loss reserves and unearned premium reserves reported by the ceding companies. This is due to the fact that we receive consistent and timely information from ceding companies only with respect to case reserves. For IBNR, we use historical experience and other statistical information, depending on the type of business, to estimate the ultimate loss. We estimate our unearned premium reserve by applying estimated earning patterns to net premiums written for each treaty based upon that treaty's coverage basis (i.e., risks attaching or losses occurring). At December 31, 2020, the case reserves, net of retrocessions, reported to us by our ceding companies were $762 million, compared with the $772 million we recorded. Our policy is to post additional case reserves in addition to the amounts reported by our cedants when our evaluation of the ultimate value of a reported claim is different than the evaluation of that claim by our cedant.
The A&E liabilities principally relate to claims arising from bodily-injury claims related to asbestos products and remediation costs associated with hazardous waste sites. The estimation of our A&E liabilities is particularly sensitive to future changes in the legal, social, and economic environment. We have not assumed any such future changes in setting the value of our A&E liabilities, which include provisions for both reported and IBNR claims.
We issue contracts in our Overseas General Insurance and Life Insurance segments that are classified as long-duration. These contracts generally include accident and supplemental health products, term and whole life products, endowment products, and annuities. In accordance with GAAP, we establish reserves for contracts determined to be long-duration based on approved actuarial methods that include assumptions related to expenses, mortality, morbidity, persistency and investment yields. For traditional long-duration contracts, these assumptions also include a provision for adverse deviation (PAD), and are “locked in” at the inception of the contract, meaning we use our original assumptions throughout the life of the policy and do not subsequently modify them unless we deem the reserves to be inadequate; while for non-traditional long-duration contracts, the assumptions do not include a PAD and are unlocked at each reporting date. The future policy benefits reserves balance is regularly evaluated for a premium deficiency. If experience is less favorable than assumptions, additional liabilities may be required, resulting in a charge to policyholder benefits and claims.
Reinsurance recoverable includes balances due to us from reinsurance companies for paid and unpaid losses and loss expenses and is presented net of a valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance. The valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance is determined based upon a review of the financial condition of the reinsurers and other factors. Ceded reinsurance contracts do not relieve our primary obligation to our policyholders. Consequently, an exposure exists with respect to reinsurance recoverable to the extent that any reinsurer is unable or unwilling to meet its obligations or disputes the liabilities assumed under the reinsurance contracts. We determine the reinsurance recoverable on unpaid losses and loss expenses using actuarial estimates as well as a determination of our ability to cede unpaid losses and loss expenses under existing reinsurance contracts.
The recognition of a reinsurance recoverable asset requires two key judgments. The first judgment involves our estimation based on the amount of gross reserves and the percentage of that amount which may be ceded to reinsurers. Ceded IBNR, which is a major component of the reinsurance recoverable on unpaid losses and loss expenses, is generally developed as part of our loss reserving process and, consequently, its estimation is subject to similar risks and uncertainties as the estimation of gross IBNR (refer to “Critical Accounting Estimates - Unpaid losses and loss expenses”). The second judgment involves our estimate of the amount of the reinsurance recoverable balance that we may ultimately be unable to recover from reinsurers due to insolvency, contractual dispute, or for other reasons. Estimated uncollectible amounts are reflected in a valuation allowance that reduces the reinsurance recoverable asset and, in turn, shareholders' equity. Changes in the valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance are reflected in net income.
To estimate the valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance, the reinsurance recoverable must first be determined for each reinsurer. This determination is based on a process rather than an estimate, although an element of judgment must be applied. As part of the process, ceded IBNR is allocated to reinsurance contracts because ceded IBNR is not generally calculated on a contract by contract basis. The allocations are generally based on premiums ceded under reinsurance contracts, adjusted for actual loss experience and historical relationships between gross and ceded losses. If actual premium and loss experience vary materially from historical experience, the allocation of reinsurance recoverable by reinsurer will be reviewed and may change. While such change is unlikely to result in a large percentage change in the valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance, it could, nevertheless, have a material effect on our net income in the period recorded.
•For balances recoverable from reinsurers that are both unrated by a major rating agency and for which management is unable to determine a credible rating equivalent based on a parent or affiliated company, we may determine a rating equivalent based on our analysis of the reinsurer that considers an assessment of the creditworthiness of the particular entity, industry benchmarks, or other factors as considered appropriate. We then apply the applicable default factor for that rating class. For balances recoverable from unrated reinsurers for which our ceded reserve is below a certain threshold, we generally apply a default factor of 34.0 percent;
•For captives and other recoverables, management determines the valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance based on the specific facts and circumstances.
At December 31, 2020, the use of different assumptions within our approach could have a material effect on the valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance. To the extent the creditworthiness of our reinsurers was to deteriorate due to an adverse event affecting the reinsurance industry, such as a large number of major catastrophes, actual uncollectible amounts could be significantly greater than our valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance. Such an event could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations, and our liquidity. Given the various considerations used to estimate our uncollectible valuation allowance, we cannot precisely quantify the effect a specific industry event may have on the valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance. However, based on the composition (particularly the average credit quality) of the reinsurance recoverable balance at December 31, 2020, we estimate that a ratings downgrade of one notch for all rated reinsurers (e.g., from A to A- or A- to BBB+) could increase our valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance by approximately $81 million or approximately 0.5 percent of the gross reinsurance recoverable balance, assuming no other changes relevant to the calculation. While a ratings downgrade would result in an increase in our valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance and a charge to earnings in that period, a downgrade in and of itself does not imply that we will be unable to collect all of the ceded reinsurance recoverable from the reinsurers in question. Refer to Note 5 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information.
We intend to hold these derivative contracts to maturity (i.e., the expiration of the underlying liabilities through lapse, annuitization, death, or expiration of the reinsurance contract). To partially offset the risk of changes in the fair value of GLB reinsurance contracts, we invest in derivative hedge instruments.