In 2015, White Mountains changed the accounting for its investment in Symetra from the equity method to fair value and recognized $259 of unrealized investment gains through net income. See Note 17 - “Investments in Unconsolidated Affiliates” on page.
See Note 14 - “Common Shareholders’ Equity and Non-controlling Interests” on page for a detailed breakdown of non-controlling interests by consolidated entity.
RESULTS OF OPERATIONS FOR THE YEARS ENDED December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014
The following table presents BAM’s total claims paying resources as of December 31, 2015 and 2014:
Symetra’s total revenues and net income through September 30, 2015 were $1.6 billion and $90 million. As of September 30, 2015, Symetra had total assets of $35.0 billion and shareholders’ equity of $3.1 billion. Symetra’s total revenues and net income for the year ended December 31, 2014 was $2.2 billion and $254 million. Since inception, White Mountains received a total of $149 million in cash dividends recorded as a reduction of White Mountains investment in Symetra under the equity method. White Mountains received a cash dividend of $2 million in the fourth quarter of 2015 recorded within net investment income.
In addition, Split Rock has the ability to pay dividends without the prior notification of regulatory authorities of up to 25% of its previous financial year’s total statutory capital and surplus, subject to meeting all appropriate liquidity and solvency requirements as specified in the Insurance Act of 1978 and the Companies Act of 1981. As of December 31, 2016, Split Rock had $210 million of statutory capital and $60 million of statutory surplus for total statutory capital and surplus of $270 million.
During 2016, OneBeacon Ltd. repurchased and retired 850,349 shares of its Class A common stock for $11 million.
Adjusted comprehensive income is a non-GAAP financial measure that, for periods that White Mountains accounted for its investment in Symetra under the equity method, excludes the change in equity in net unrealized investment gains (losses) from Symetra’s fixed maturity portfolio from comprehensive income. White Mountains accounted for its investment in Symetra under the equity method until November 5, 2015, when it changed its accounting to fair value. In the calculation of comprehensive income under GAAP, fixed maturity investments are marked-to-market while the liabilities to which those assets are matched are not. Symetra attempts to earn a “spread” between what it earns on its investments and what it pays out on its products. In order to try to fix this spread, Symetra invests in a manner that tries to match the duration and cash flows of its investments with the required cash outflows associated with its life insurance and structured settlements products. As a result, Symetra typically earns the same spread on in-force business whether interest rates fall or rise. Further, at any given time, some of Symetra’s structured settlement obligations may extend 40 or 50 years into the future, which is further out than the longest maturing fixed maturity investments regularly available for purchase in the market (typically 30 years). For these long-dated products, Symetra is unable to fully match the obligation with assets until the remaining expected payout schedule comes within the duration of securities available in the market. If at that time, these fixed maturity investments have yields that are lower than the yields expected when the structured settlement product was originally priced, the spread for the product will shrink and Symetra will ultimately harvest lower returns for its shareholders. GAAP comprehensive income increases when rates decline, which would suggest an increase in the value of Symetra - the opposite of what is happening to the intrinsic value of the business. Therefore, White Mountains’s management and Board of Directors historically used adjusted comprehensive income when assessing Symetra’s quarterly financial performance. In addition, this measure is typically the predominant component of change in adjusted book value per share, which is used in calculation of White Mountains’s performance for both short-term (annual bonus) and long-term incentive plans. The reconciliation of GAAP comprehensive income to adjusted comprehensive income is included on page 37.
As OneBeacon starts up new businesses, its initial loss estimates and development patterns are often based on industry data. As actual losses develop OneBeacon will revise its initial expectations with its actual experience. However, depending on the tail for the specific business, it can be a few years before OneBeacon has sufficient internal data to rely on. As of December 31, 2016, OneBeacon has $311 million of inception-to-date premium from its newer businesses (Programs, Environmental and Financial Institutions). A 10% error in OneBeacon’s initial loss ratio estimates could result in approximately $31 million of adverse net variance in loss reserves.
White Mountains uses brokers and outside pricing services to assist in determining fair values. For investments in active markets, White Mountains uses the quoted market prices provided by outside pricing services to determine fair value. The outside pricing services White Mountains uses have indicated that they will only provide prices where observable inputs are available. In circumstances where quoted market prices are unavailable or are not considered reasonable, White Mountains estimates the fair value using industry standard pricing methodologies and observable inputs such as benchmark yields, reported trades, broker-dealer quotes, issuer spreads, benchmark securities, bids, offers, credit ratings, prepayment speeds, reference data including research publications and other relevant inputs. Given that many fixed maturity investments do not trade on a daily basis, the outside pricing services evaluate a wide range of fixed maturity investments by regularly drawing parallels from recent trades and quotes of comparable securities with similar features. The characteristics used to identify comparable fixed maturity investments vary by asset type and take into account market convention.