Business Description

Overview Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated (“RGA”) is an insurance holding company that was formed on December 31, 1992. The consolidated financial statements herein include the assets, liabilities, and results of operations of RGA and its subsidiaries, all of which are wholly owned. The terms “Company”, “we”, “us” and “our” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K refer to RGA and its subsidiaries. The Company is a leading global provider of traditional life and health, and asset-intensive reinsurance, with operations in the U.S., Latin America, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia. Reinsurance is an arrangement under which an insurance company, the “reinsurer,” agrees to indemnify another insurance company, the “ceding company,” for all or a portion of the insurance and/or investment risks underwritten by the ceding company. Reinsurance is designed to: i. reduce the net amount at risk on individual risks, thereby enabling the ceding company to increase the volume of business it can underwrite, as well as increase the maximum risk it can underwrite on a single risk; ii. enhance the ceding company’s financial strength and surplus position; iii. stabilize operating results by leveling fluctuations in the ceding company’s loss experience; and iv. assist the ceding company in meeting applicable regulatory requirements. The Company has the following geographic-based and business-based operational segments: • U.S. and Latin America; • Canada; • Europe, Middle East and Africa (“EMEA”); • Asia Pacific; and • Corporate and Other. Geographic-based operations are further segmented into traditional and financial solutions businesses. The Company’s segments primarily write traditional reinsurance and financial solutions business that is wholly or partially retained in one or more of RGA’s insurance subsidiaries. See “Segments” for more information concerning the Company’s operating segments. Traditional Reinsurance Traditional reinsurance includes individual and group life and health, disability, long-term care and critical illness reinsurance, as further described below: • Life reinsurance primarily refers to reinsurance of individual or group-issued term, whole life, universal life, and joint and last survivor insurance policies. • Health and disability reinsurance primarily refers to reinsurance of individual or group health policies. • Long-term care reinsurance provides benefits in the event a person is no longer able to perform some specified activities of daily living. • Critical illness reinsurance provides a benefit in the event of the diagnosis of a pre-defined critical illness. Traditional reinsurance is written on a facultative or automatic treaty basis. Facultative reinsurance is individually underwritten by the reinsurer for each policy to be reinsured, with the pricing and other terms established based upon rates negotiated in advance. Facultative reinsurance is normally purchased by ceding companies for medically impaired lives, unusual risks, or liabilities in excess of the binding limits specified in their automatic reinsurance treaties. An automatic reinsurance treaty provides that the ceding company will cede risks to a reinsurer on specified blocks of policies where the underlying policies meet the ceding company’s underwriting criteria. In contrast to facultative reinsurance, the reinsurer does not approve each individual policy being reinsured. Automatic reinsurance treaties generally provide that the reinsurer will be liable for a portion of the risk associated with the specified policies written by the ceding company. Automatic reinsurance treaties specify the ceding company’s binding limit, which is the maximum amount of risk on a given life that can be ceded automatically to the reinsurer and that the reinsurer must accept.…