We maintain office facilities around the world including in North America, Europe (including our principal executive offices in Switzerland), Bermuda, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the Far East. Most of our office facilities are leased, although we own major facilities in Hamilton, Bermuda, and in the U.S., including in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Wilmington, Delaware; Whitehouse Station, New Jersey; and Simsbury, Connecticut. Management considers its office facilities suitable and adequate for the current level of operations.
The following is a discussion of our financial condition and results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019 and comparisons between 2020 and 2019. This discussion should be read in conjunction with the Consolidated Financial Statements and related Notes, under Item 8 of this Form 10-K. Comparisons between 2019 and 2018 have been omitted from this Form 10-K, but can be found in "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in Part II, Item 7 of our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019.
•actual amount of new and renewal business, premium rates, underwriting margins, market acceptance of our products, and risks associated with the introduction of new products and services and entering new markets; the competitive environment in which we operate, including trends in pricing or in policy terms and conditions, which may differ from our projections and changes in market conditions that could render our business strategies ineffective or obsolete;
•losses arising out of natural or man-made catastrophes; actual loss experience from insured or reinsured events and the timing of claim payments; the uncertainties of the loss-reserving and claims-settlement processes, including the difficulties associated with assessing environmental damage and asbestos-related latent injuries, the impact of aggregate-policy-coverage limits, the impact of bankruptcy protection sought by various asbestos producers and other related businesses, and the timing of loss payments;
•uncertainties relating to governmental, legislative and regulatory policies, developments, actions, investigations, and treaties; judicial decisions and rulings, new theories of liability, legal tactics, and settlement terms; the effects of data privacy or cyber laws or regulation; global political conditions and possible business disruption or economic contraction that may result from such events;
•risks associated with being a Swiss corporation, including reduced flexibility with respect to certain aspects of capital management and the potential for additional regulatory burdens; share repurchase plans and share cancellations;
•loss of the services of any of our executive officers without suitable replacements being recruited in a reasonable time frame;
•management’s response to these factors and actual events (including, but not limited to, those described above).
You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Our insurance and reinsurance operations generate gross revenues from two principal sources: premiums and investment income. Cash flow is generated from premiums collected and investment income received less paid losses and loss expenses, policy acquisition costs, and administrative expenses. Invested assets are substantially held in liquid, investment grade fixed income securities of relatively short duration. Claims payments in any short-term period are highly unpredictable due to the random nature of loss events and the timing of claims awards or settlements. The value of investments held to pay future claims is subject to market forces such as the level of interest rates, stock market volatility, and credit events such as corporate defaults. The actual cost of claims is also volatile based on loss trends, inflation rates, court awards, and catastrophes. We believe that our cash balance, our highly liquid investments, credit facilities, and reinsurance protection provide sufficient liquidity to meet unforeseen claim demands that might occur in the year ahead. Refer to “Liquidity” and “Capital Resources” for additional information .
•Net income was $3.5 billion compared with $4.5 billion in 2019, including after-tax catastrophe losses of $2.8 billion compared with $966 million in 2019.
•Net premiums written were $33.8 billion, up 4.8 percent, or 5.5 percent on a constant-dollar basis with 9.3 percent growth in commercial lines and a decline of 0.9 percent in consumer lines. Refer to page 49 for more detail.
•P&C combined ratio was 96.1 percent compared with 90.6 percent in 2019. P&C current accident year combined ratio excluding catastrophe losses was 86.7 percent compared with 89.2 percent in 2019.
•Net investment income was $3,375 million compared with $3,426 million in 2019.
•Shareholders’ equity increased 7.4 percent during the year, principally reflecting strong underlying growth and realized and unrealized gains in our investment portfolio.
Looking forward, we are off to a good start to the year in the first quarter with both growth and the level of commercial P&C rate increases resembling the underwriting conditions of the fourth quarter. We expect the current market condition to continue which will allow us to continue to grow revenue and expand underwriting margins in our commercial lines. For consumer lines, growth globally in the fourth quarter of 2020 continued to be impacted by the pandemic's effects on consumer-related activities. Our international personal lines business and our global A&H business together shrank eight percent. We expect growth to return in these businesses as the year progresses.
Our Consolidated Financial Statements include amounts that, either by their nature or due to requirements of generally accepted accounting principles in the U.S. (GAAP), are determined using best estimates and assumptions. While we believe that the amounts included in our Consolidated Financial Statements reflect our best judgment, actual amounts could ultimately materially differ from those currently presented. We believe the items that require the most subjective and complex estimates are:
•unpaid loss and loss expense reserves, including long-tail asbestos and environmental (A&E) reserves and non-A&E casualty exposures;
•the assessment of risk transfer for certain structured insurance and reinsurance contracts;
•the valuation of derivative instruments related to guaranteed living benefits (GLB); and
We believe our accounting policies for these items are of critical importance to our Consolidated Financial Statements. The following discussion provides more information regarding the estimates and assumptions required to arrive at these amounts and should be read in conjunction with the sections entitled: Prior Period Development, Asbestos and Environmental (A&E), Reinsurance Recoverable on Ceded Reinsurance, Investments, and Net Realized and Unrealized Gains (Losses).
claims (loss expenses). Our loss reserves comprise approximately 78 percent casualty-related business, which typically encompasses long-tail risks, and other risks where a high degree of judgment is required.
While we believe that our reserve for unpaid losses and loss expenses at December 31, 2020, is adequate, new information or emerging trends that differ from our assumptions may lead to future development of losses and loss expenses that is significantly greater or less than the recorded reserve, which could have a material effect on future operating results. As noted previously, our best estimate of required loss reserves for most portfolios is judgmentally selected for each origin year after considering the results from a number of reserving methods and is not a purely mechanical process. Therefore, it is difficult to convey, in a simple and quantitative manner, the impact that a change to a single assumption will have on our best estimate. In the examples below, we attempt to give an indication of the potential impact by isolating a single change for a specific reserving method that would be pertinent in establishing the best estimate for the product line described. We consider each of the following sensitivity analyses to represent a reasonably likely deviation in the underlying assumption.
Given the long reporting and paid development patterns for workers' compensation business, the development factors used to project actual current losses to ultimate losses for our current exposure require considerable judgment that could be material to consolidated loss and loss expense reserves. Specifically, adjusting ground up ultimate losses by a one percentage point change in the tail factor (i.e., 1.04 changed to either 1.05 or 1.03) would cause a change of approximately $910 million, either positive or negative, for the projected net loss and loss expense reserves. This represents an impact of about 9.5 percent relative to recorded net loss and loss expense reserves of approximately $9.6 billion.
As is the case for Workers’ Compensation above, given the long reporting and paid development patterns, the development factors used to project actual current losses to ultimate losses for our current exposure require considerable judgment that could be material to consolidated loss and loss expense reserves. Specifically, for our main U.S. Excess/Umbrella portfolios, a five percentage point change in the tail factor (e.g., 1.10 changed to either 1.15 or 1.05) would cause a change of approximately $546 million, either positive or negative, for the projected net loss and loss expense reserves. This represents an impact of about 19.7 percent relative to recorded net loss and loss expense reserves of approximately $2.8 billion for these portfolios.
Approximately 59 percent of the reserves for this segment are from the crop related lines, which all have short payout patterns, with the majority of the liabilities expected to be resolved in the ensuing twelve months. Claim reserves for our Multiple Peril Crop Insurance (MPCI) product are set on a case-by-case basis and our aggregate exposure is subject to state level risk sharing formulae as well as third-party reinsurance. The majority of the development risk arises out of the accuracy of case reserve estimates and the time needed for final crop conditions to be assessed. We do not view our Agriculture reserves as substantially influenced by the general assumptions and risks underlying more typical P&C reserve estimates.
Within Corporate, we also have exposure to certain liability reinsurance lines that have been in run-off since 1994. Unpaid losses and loss expenses relating to this run-off reinsurance business resides within the Brandywine Division reported within Corporate. Most of the remaining unpaid loss and loss expense reserves for the run-off reinsurance business relate to A&E claims.
Generally, we use a default analysis to estimate uncollectible reinsurance. The primary components of the default analysis are reinsurance recoverable balances by reinsurer, net of collateral, and forward looking default factors used to estimate the probability that the reinsurer may be unable to meet its future obligations in full. In 2020, we adopted new guidance on the accounting for expected credit losses of reinsurance recoverable. For additional information, refer to Note 1 s) to the Consolidated Financial Statements under Item 8. The definition of collateral for this purpose requires some judgment and is generally limited to assets held in a Chubb-only beneficiary trust, letters of credit, and liabilities held by us with the same legal entity for which we believe there is a right of offset. We do not currently include multi-beneficiary trusts. However, we have several reinsurers that have established multi-beneficiary trusts for which certain of our companies are beneficiaries. The determination of the default factor is principally based on the financial strength rating of the reinsurer and a corresponding default factor applicable to the financial strength rating. Default factors require considerable judgment and are determined using the current financial strength rating, or rating equivalent, of each reinsurer as well as other key considerations and assumptions. Significant considerations and assumptions include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:
•For reinsurers that maintain a financial strength rating from a major rating agency, and for which recoverable balances are considered representative of the larger population (i.e., default probabilities are consistent with similarly rated reinsurers and payment durations conform to averages), the judgment exercised by management to determine the valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance of each reinsurer is typically limited because the financial rating is based on a published source and the default factor we apply is based on a historical default factor of a major rating agency applicable to the particular rating class. Default factors applied for financial ratings of AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB, B, and CCC, are 0.8 percent, 1.2 percent, 1.7 percent, 4.9 percent, 19.6 percent, 34.0 percent, and 62.2 percent, respectively. Because our model is predicated on the historical default factors of a major rating agency, we do not generally consider alternative factors. However, when a recoverable is expected to be paid in a brief period of time by a highly-rated reinsurer, such as certain property catastrophe claims, a default factor may not be applied;
•For balances recoverable from reinsurers that are either insolvent or under regulatory supervision, we establish a default factor and resulting valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance based on specific facts and circumstances surrounding each company. Upon initial notification of an insolvency, we generally recognize expense for a substantial portion of all balances outstanding, net of collateral, through a combination of write-offs of recoverable balances and increases to the valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance. When regulatory action is taken on a reinsurer, we generally recognize a default factor by estimating an expected recovery on all balances outstanding, net of collateral. When sufficient credible information becomes available, we adjust the valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance by establishing a default factor pursuant to information received; and
The following table summarizes reinsurance recoverables and the valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance for each type of recoverable balance at December 31, 2020:
(1) The valuation allowance for uncollectible reinsurance is based on a default analysis applied to gross reinsurance recoverables, net of approximately $3.5 billion of collateral at December 31, 2020.
Accounting guidance defines fair value as the price to sell an asset or transfer a liability (an exit price) in an orderly transaction between market participants and establishes a three-level valuation hierarchy based on the reliability of the inputs. The fair value hierarchy gives the highest priority to quoted prices in active markets (Level 1 inputs) and the lowest priority to unobservable data (Level 3 inputs). Level 2 includes inputs, other than quoted prices within Level 1, that are observable for assets or liabilities either directly or indirectly. Refer to Note 4 and Note 13 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for information on our fair value measurements.
Each quarter, we evaluate current expected credit losses (CECL) for fixed maturity securities classified as held to maturity and expected credit losses (ECL) for fixed maturity securities classified as available for sale. Because our investment portfolio is the largest component of consolidated assets, CECL and ECL could be material to our financial condition and results of operations. Refer to Notes 1 e) and 3 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for more information.
At December 31, 2020, our net deferred tax liability was $892 million. Our deferred tax assets and liabilities primarily result from temporary differences between the amounts recorded in our Consolidated Financial Statements and the tax basis of our assets and liabilities. We determine deferred tax assets and liabilities separately for each tax-paying component (an individual entity or group of entities that is consolidated for tax purposes) in each tax jurisdiction. The realization of deferred tax assets depends upon the existence of sufficient taxable income within the carryback or carryforward periods under the tax law in the applicable tax jurisdiction. There may be changes in tax laws in a number of countries where we transact business that impact our deferred tax assets and liabilities.
At each balance sheet date, management assesses the need to establish a valuation allowance that reduces deferred tax assets when it is more likely than not that all, or some portion, of the deferred tax assets will not be realized. The determination of the need for a valuation allowance is based on all available information including projections of future taxable income, principally derived from business plans and where appropriate available tax planning strategies. Projections of future taxable income incorporate assumptions of future business and operations that are apt to differ from actual experience. If our assumptions and estimates that resulted in our forecast of future taxable income prove to be incorrect, an additional valuation allowance could become necessary, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations, and liquidity. At December 31, 2020, the valuation allowance of $83 million reflects management's assessment that it is more likely than not that a portion of the deferred tax assets will not be realized due to the inability of certain subsidiaries to generate sufficient taxable income.
Chubb reinsures various death and living benefit guarantees associated with variable annuities issued primarily in the United States. We ceased writing this business in 2007. Guarantees which are payable on death are referred to as guaranteed minimum death benefits (GMDB). Guarantees on living benefits (GLB) consist mainly of guaranteed minimum income benefits (GMIB). For further description of this product and related accounting treatment, refer to Note 1 j) to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
Our GLB reinsurance is classified as a derivative for accounting purposes and therefore carried at fair value. Changes in fair value are reflected in Net realized gains (losses) in the Consolidated statements of operations.