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F500-207-Reinsurance Group of America

The company offers mortality risk services including life, health, and group reinsurance.

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F500-2020-225-Reinsurance-Group-of-America

St. Louis-based Reinsurance Group of America provides financial solutions and life and health reinsurance products.

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Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) is one of the largest global providers of life and health-related reinsurance. RGA’s history traces back to the 1970s when General American Life Insurance entered its first reinsurance arrangement, and after rapid growth saw RGA incorporated in 1981. In more recent years, RGA stepped up to the plate during the coronavirus pandemic, paying out $2.5 billion in COVID-related claims through 2022. In February 2025 it announced a $1.5 billion deal with Equitable to reinsure $32 billion worth of life insurance policies.

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Reinsurance Group of America (RGA): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Reinsurance Group of America

reinsurance group of america

Good day. Welcome to the Reinsurance Group of America first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal conference specialist by pressing the star followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jeff Hopson, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Welcome to RGA's first quarter 2026 conference call. I'm joined on the call this morning with Tony Cheng, RGA's President and Chief Executive Officer; Axel André, Chief Financial Officer; Jonathan Porter, Chief Risk Officer; and Jayson Bronchetti, Chief Investment Officer. A quick reminder before we get started regarding forward-looking information and non-GAAP financial measures. Some of our comments or answers may contain forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from expected results. Please refer to the earnings release we issued yesterday for a list of important factors that could cause actual results to differ from expected results. During the course of the call, the information we provide may include non-GAAP financial measures. Please see our earnings release, earnings presentation, and quarterly financial supplement, all of which are posted on our website for discussion of these terms and reconciliations to GAAP measures.

Throughout the call, we will be referencing slides from the earnings presentation, which again is posted on our website. Now I'll turn the call over to Tony for his comments.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's call. We appreciate your continued interest in RGA. As you've seen from our first quarter results, we delivered a strong start to the year with excellent performance across many regions and businesses. The quarter reflects disciplined execution, strong underlying fundamentals, and the benefits of the diversified global platform we have built over time. Building on our strong 2025 performance, we believe our results this quarter further demonstrates that we are successfully executing on our strategy. Our focus remains on well-balanced earnings growth, capital allocation, and delivering attractive returns over the long-term. Looking at the financial results, the strength in the quarter was broad-based across our regions and products. I'll highlight a few specifics in the quarter. Asia Pacific had another strong quarter, driven by ongoing growth and strong execution.

We closed a number of notable transactions in the region, particularly in Japan, spanning both in-force and flow deals that includes both asset and biometric risk. EMEA's earnings continue to reflect good new business, with results exceeding expectations. Performance was supported by favorable overall experience and continued momentum in longevity across the region. We closed additional longevity transactions during the quarter by leveraging deep, long-standing client relationships. We remain optimistic given our leadership position and differentiated competitive strength. In the U.S., adjusted operating performance was strong, supported by favorable claims experience and the contribution from recent new business. Activity in U.S. individual life remains robust, demonstrating sustained momentum in large part driven by our strategic underwriting initiative. I'm pleased with our U.S. Group results, which are in line with our 2026 expectations.

Moving to claims experience in the quarter, our economic claims experience was favorable across all regions. While one quarter of claims experience should not be overly emphasized, when considered as part of the cumulative experience since 2023, the favorable experience demonstrates the strength of our pricing, underwriting, and risk selection. Additionally, we continue to see profit emergence from business written and capital deployed over recent years. This profit emergence is tracking in line with expectations as asset portfolios are repositioned prudently over time and claims continues to be in line with expectations. This quarter was another demonstration of the strategic optionality in our global platform. Most of the deployment into in-force transactions was in Asia, where we saw the most attractive opportunities from a risk-reward perspective, primarily driven by our range of innovative solutions.

We continue to have very good momentum with our flow business in the U.S., where our value-added underwriting solution and outsourcing efforts sets us apart from competitors. Equally important to our flexibility is that we are comfortable not proceeding with transactions that do not meet our risk return trade-offs. That discipline continues to be a key feature of both our strategy and our culture. I want to take a brief step back from the details of the quarter and reinforce how we think about RGA's positioning and strategy. At its core, our approach is straightforward. We focus on life and health risk. We operate globally, and we deploy capital selectively where we believe we have competitive advantages and can earn attractive risk-adjusted return.

Specifically, RGA has several unique strengths, including strong biometric expertise, asset management capabilities, a global platform, market leading brand, and flexibility to partner across the industry. What is critical is that these strengths do not operate in isolation. They reinforce one another, creating a competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate. When we combine this competitive advantage with a proactive business approach, we create win-win transactions, generating higher returns for RGA and greater value for our clients. Let me share a few examples from this quarter. In North America, we extended a long-standing U.S. client relationship into Canada, where the client was seeking a reinsurer to partner on evolving product offerings. Our global platform enabled an exclusive relationship. While our biometric expertise and collaborative partnership model differentiated us and drove a successful outcome.

In Asia, we closed multiple co-insurance transactions by leveraging our ability to reinsure both sides of the balance sheet, combining asset management and biometric expertise. These wins across both flow and in-force transactions reflect the strength of our local presence and our position as a trusted counterparty. Lastly, in EMEA, we completed an exclusive transaction with an insurance company that leveraged our biometric expertise to unlock value from its in-force portfolio. The structure generates incremental capital to support the partner's growth, and we expect to replicate this model in EMEA and other parts of the world going forward. On the capital front, we again repurchased shares allocating $50 million this quarter. A balanced use of excess capital is an important part of our strategy to generate long-term shareholder value. Looking ahead, our confidence in the outlook for 2026 and beyond remains high.

The fundamentals of our business are strong. Our pipeline is healthy. Our competitive advantages are durable, and our strategy is consistent with what has driven value creation at RGA for the past five decades. We are confident that our disciplined execution of our strategy will enable us to deliver on our intermediate term financial targets and long-term value for shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Axel to walk through the financials in more detail.

Thanks, Tony. RGA reported pre-tax adjusted operating income of $611 million for the quarter, or $6.97 per share after tax. For the trailing 12 months, adjusted operating return on equity, excluding notable items, was 16.2%. We delivered another strong quarter reflecting disciplined execution across our businesses. Results were driven by continued earnings emergence from business written in recent years, favorable underlying experience, and solid investment performance. As Tony mentioned, we continue to leverage our strategic advantages, reinforcing our confidence in delivering on our targets in 2026 and beyond. We deployed $338 million into in-force transactions in the quarter. We remain selective in our capital deployment and are pleased with the quality and expected returns of new business generated.

On the traditional side, our premium growth was 5% compared to prior year, which benefited from good growth across EMEA and APAC. In the U.S., traditional premium growth was up approximately 1% over prior year as the strategic recapture of certain treaties as a result of management actions in the second half of 2025 impacted results. We continue to see very strong momentum in our strategic underwriting initiatives, including record volumes in the quarter and pipeline opportunities for block transactions which reinforce RGA's biometric expertise advantage. It's worth reminding everyone that the premium generated from the Equitable transaction last year is included in our Financial Solutions results and not reflected in the traditional premium growth metrics.

We completed $50 million of share repurchases in the quarter, bringing total repurchases to $175 million since we reinstated buybacks in the third quarter of last year. Our capital position remains strong, and we ended the quarter with estimated excess capital of $2.4 billion and estimated next 12 months deployable capital of $2.9 billion. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 24.4% on adjusted operating income before taxes, above the expected range due to the jurisdictional mix of earnings and an increase in the valuation allowance on tax credits. Turning to biometric claims experience. Economic claims experience was favorable by $117 million in the quarter, with a corresponding favorable current period financial impact of $4 million.

Over half of the economic experience was driven by U.S. individual life, and every region had favorable experience. Most of this experience was deferred to future periods due to uncapped cohorts, and the portion included in the current period income was partially offset by unfavorable experience in EMEA traditional capped cohorts. Claims experience in U.S. Group was in line with updated expectations, and we continue to believe that our remedial actions taken last year will generate solid results in 2026. Taking a step back, since the beginning of 2023, economic claims experience for the total company has been favorable by $343 million. As a reminder, the favorable economic experience that has not yet been recognized through the accounting results will be recognized over the remaining life of the business.

On Slide seven, we highlight certain key considerations for the quarter, including actual to expected biometric claims experience, variable investment income, and other key items. After considering these impacts, we view run rate EPS for the first quarter at approximately $6.70 per share. As a reminder, for 2026, we are assuming a 7% variable investment income return. This is below our longer-term expectations of 10%-12%, primarily due to a still muted environment for real estate sales, which is when income from these investments is recognized. As indicated in this table, there were no material in-force management actions in the quarter. We remain active in managing our in-force blocks, but the timing and size of these actions is difficult to predict. Moving to the quarterly segment results.

The U.S. and Latin America Traditional results reflected favorable claims experience in individual life and good individual health results. As mentioned, experience in U.S. Group was in line with expectations. The U.S. Financial Solutions results were in line with our expectations. Canada Traditional results reflected favorable individual life and group claims experience. While the Canada Financial Solutions results were in line with expectations. In the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, the Traditional results reflected the timing benefit on an annual premium treaty, partially offset by unfavorable claims experience in capped cohorts. Economic claims experience was favorable. EMEA's Financial Solutions results reflected the contribution from recent new business and favorable overall experience. Turning to our Asia Pacific region, traditional had another good quarter, reflecting favorable overall experience and the benefit of ongoing growth.

Financial Solutions results reflected the timing impact of new business portfolio repositioning and unfavorable foreign currency impacts. The Corporate and other segment reported an adjusted operating loss before tax of $65 million, primarily due to the timing of certain compensation expenses and slightly unfavorable variable investment income. Moving to Investments. The non-spread book yield, excluding variable investment income, was 4.85% in the first quarter. The new money rate was lower at 5.64% in the quarter, primarily driven by a tactical allocation towards high-quality public corporates, it remains above our portfolio yield, thus providing a continued tailwind to our overall book yield. Total company variable investment income was modestly below our 7% yearly return expectations by around $8 million. Our portfolio quality remains high, and credit impairments were favorable relative to our long-term expectations.

Before moving on, I want to spend a couple of minutes discussing our private credit strategy. We included updated information on our portfolio in the earnings presentation. Our allocation to private credit has been a measured and important part of our long-term investment strategy for many years, and we manage this exposure through a rigorous asset liability management framework. We invest selectively in a diverse range of private credit assets when they are a good match for our stable liability profile and deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns through incremental illiquidity premiums with greater downside protection. Private credit represents approximately 9% of our total portfolio and is highly diversified across many issuers and multiple asset categories, including investment-grade private placements, private asset-backed securities, fund finance, infrastructure debt, and middle-market loans. The majority of our private assets are rated investment-grade.

In addition, the vast majority of our below investment-grade private assets are comprised of first lien senior secured loans underwritten by our experienced internal team, which provides better visibility into underwriting, tighter governance, stronger downside protection, and more control over credit selection. Overall, fundamentals across the portfolio remain healthy. Credit performance has been in line with expectations, and we manage this portfolio with the risk discipline you expect from RGA. Turning now to capital. Our excess capital ended the quarter at an estimated $2.4 billion, and our next 12 months deployable capital was an estimated $2.9 billion. It's important to note that we manage capital across multiple frameworks, including internal economic capital, regulatory capital, and rating agency capital frameworks. We maintain ample regulatory capital across jurisdictions we operate in while supporting strong ratings that underpin our counterparty strength.

Across these frameworks, we remain very well-capitalized. Additionally, we will continue to balance capital deployed into the business with returning capital to shareholders through quarterly dividends and share repurchases. We intend to remain opportunistic with share repurchases and expect total shareholder return of capital to range between 20%-30% of after-tax operating earnings over the long-term. We also expect to allocate $400 million of excess capital to reduce financial leverage during 2026. During the quarter, we continued our long track record of increasing book value per share. As shown on Slide 16, our book value per share, excluding AOCI and impacts from DIG B36 embedded derivatives, increased to $167.92, representing a compounded annual growth rate of 9.9% since the beginning of 2021.

To summarize, this was another strong quarter for us, and we are confident in our ability to achieve our intermediate-term financial targets. The underlying fundamentals across our business are solid. New business momentum is healthy, and investment performance continues to support earnings growth. Capital deployment remains disciplined, focused on transactions that meet our return thresholds and fit our risk framework while continuing to return capital to shareholders. Our priorities are unchanged. Deliver attractive, sustainable returns while appropriately managing risk and deploying capital where we see the best long-term value. With that, I thank you for your continued interest in RGA. This concludes our prepared remarks. We would now like to open it up for questions.

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please limit yourself to only one question and one follow-up. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Suneet Kamath with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Just wanted to start on capital deployment. I guess in the past, we've spoken about needing $1.5 billion of deployment to hit the 8%-10% EPS growth. Even if we consider the debt maturity that's coming, I mean, your excess is $2 billion, your deployable is $2.5 billion. Do you think you have enough opportunities to meet that or exceed that $1.5 billion? Is that still the base case for this year? Thanks.

Thanks, Suneet. This is Axel. When we look at capital deployment for the quarter, we're tracking right in line with our expectations. You know, as always, we're going to continue prioritizing quality over quantity, just as we did this quarter. We are pleased with the types of transactions and the return expectations that we're generating. We have strategic optionality embedded in our platform, and we will continue to allocate capital towards the most compelling opportunities across the globe, as well as returning capital to shareholders. We believe that we can achieve our financial targets through this combination of capital deployment and return of capital to shareholders.

Okay. Then I guess on the Equitable transaction, now that Equitable and Corebridge are planning to merge, does that impact your flow reinsurance agreement that you have with Equitable? Are there any other sort of concentration issues that we should think about as those two companies come together? Thanks.

Hey, Suneet, thank you for the question. Look, we don't wanna comment too much on any one client. Obviously, we have a strong partnership with Equitable and expect this to continue. Look, we remain very pleased with the transaction executed last year. Do not expect any impacts as a result of this news, either on the in-force or the flow transaction. Just to bring it up a level. Look, for the U.S. overall, we remain very optimistic as we continue to benefit from our strategic positioning around our biometric and underwriting strengths.

The next question comes from Mike Ward with UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you. Good morning. Just wondering if you guys could dig into the mortality favorability in the U.S. at least. It's, you know, persistently been, I think, just surprisingly favorable. I feel like you guys must have among some of the best data across the space, right, in terms of the underlying trends. I was just wondering if we could, you know, dig into that a little bit.

Yeah. Hi, Mike. This is Jonathan. I'm happy to address that. You know, speaking of our own experience, our Q1 claims experience was favorable, and that was due to a lower frequency of claims, both large claims and non-large claims. Uncapped cohorts were favorable, capped cohorts were in line. I would say there are no other significant trends to call out in our own data or experience that we saw in the quarter. When I bring it up to a population level, the flu season was more moderate this year than last year based on CDC data and peaked at the end of December. I would say population excess mortality, when you look over 2024, 2025, continues to be modest. We're seeing reasonable trends there.

I guess what I really mean is, like, if we think about over kind of a longer-term period, I think, Axel, you mentioned a $300 million economic benefit that, you know, that you haven't recognized yet. Just, you know, I know there's probably an element of COVID pull forward, you know, there's the GLP-1 phenomenon. That was more of kind of what I meant.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, certainly we're, you know, we're pleased to see that there are some favorable tailwinds, you know, in the future on the horizon. You mentioned GLP-1 specifically. Just to reiterate, you know, we haven't made any material changes to our assumptions due to GLP-1s, but the benefit we expect to see does give us more confidence that our existing mortality improvement assumptions will be realized in the future. You know, we continue to see signs of positive momentum as well related to GLP-1s in 2026, with the recent approval of oral GLP-1s, reducing prices and broadening access, including Medicare and Medicaid coverage in the U.S. You know, that's a trend we continue to follow. You know, if and when appropriate, we would reflect that in our assumptions.

Okay, thanks. Just on the excess capital, I saw in the slide deck you had mentioned there was, I think $200 million negative impact from correction to subsidiary regulatory capital. I was just hoping you could run through that math. What drove that?

Yeah, happy to take that. This is Axel. Each year we update our excess capital estimates as part of the completion of our annual regulatory and rating agency capital models. The adjustment that's discussed on the slide reflects first a correction in one of our subsidiary regulatory capital calculations. Second, annual experience and assumptions updates. Third, changes to subsidiary excess capital from finalizing year-end calculations and as well as additions to the entities included in the analysis. Importantly, we remain very well capitalized across all our legal entities and capital frameworks. That provides us with significant financial flexibility to deploy capital into the business and return capital to shareholders.

The next question comes from Wes Carmichael with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. My first question was just on earnings seasonality. In the past, especially before LDTI, I think we thought about the first quarter as being weaker from an earnings perspective, particularly from mortality in the U.S. When you step back now in a post-LDTI world, how should we think about it, you know, thinking about all the geographies, but the seasonality in terms of the first quarter versus the rest of the year?

Yeah. Wes, this is Jonathan. Thanks for the question. We do expect some higher claims in the winter months, as you point out, both from the flu and from other causes. Our assumptions reflect the seasonality, which is incorporated into our reserves. An average flu season is essentially built in as higher Q1 claims expectation. Under LDTI, we would expect any differences to that higher expectation to be partially offset from an earnings perspective, although this is dependent on how the experience emerges by type of cohort. This seasonality assumption is something we routinely review as part of our annual assumption process.

Okay. Jonathan, any help with, I mean, how we can think or maybe just like in a percentage basis of how much lower the first quarter would be than the rest of the year?

Yeah. I mean, I think because we take the seasonality into account, I think that levelizes what you would expect from an earnings perspective to a large extent, other than potentially some seasonality that comes through on uncapped cohorts. I think under LDTI, there should be less earnings impact from that than you would have seen in the past.

The next question comes from Wilma Burdis with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Just to make sure I understand correctly, the $26 million benefit will flip to be negative ending in the year at zero. Is that correct on the margin? Then it'll come out evenly across the next three quarters. Just help us understand that piece a little bit. Thanks.

Hi, Wilma. This is Axel. For the EMEA segment, this relates to an annual premium treaty where the premium from an accounting perspective is recognized all in the first quarter, while the claims come through the four quarters. This is something that we've had already last year and before. Assuming those treaties stay in place, that would continue to be the case. This pattern of earnings would continue to be the case in the future.

Okay. Thank you. Maybe you could talk a little bit about what you're seeing on new in-forced block transactions. You know, there's been a lot of strong interest in the market in general, but maybe some ebbs and flows there. Can you just talk about what you're seeing there on spread expectations and also the level of interest in more complex deal structures? Thanks.

Yeah, sure. There's a lot there. Let me firstly start off just our pipeline. I'll give some color to that. Look, we see the pipeline remain strong, high quality and very importantly, diversified across the globe. I'll take you through just the three regions. Firstly, Asia continues to be strong, both in our product development area as well as serving the middle class, as well as the Financial Solutions as clients adjust to new capital frameworks in markets such as Japan and Korea. In the U.K. longevity, we continue to be a market leader, we're seeing continued strong business momentum there, driven by our immensely strong team.

In the U.S., we continue to benefit from strategically repositioning around our biometric and underwriting strengths, as well as the industry realignment that's taking place there. I just want to reiterate and remind everyone that, you know, look, our focus is very much on our sweet spot, which combines both the biometric and asset capabilities. You know, we are very disciplined and will not hesitate to walk away from any transactions that do not meet our risk-return trade-off.

The next question comes from Tom Gallagher with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Good morning. First question is just on the bit of the slower growth you saw in U.S. Traditional. Can you talk a bit about what's going on in that market more broadly? Like, is the market slowing somewhat? Are companies ceding less or has that been stable? I'm just wondering if the broader industry is becoming more constructive on mortality, whether companies might look to re-retain more themselves. Thanks.

Okay. Hi, Tom. This is Axel. I can get started and pass it on to Tony for a bit more color on the business. In 2025, we had some strategic recaptures as part of management actions that reduced the ongoing premiums. That makes the year-over-year comparison more challenging. This is actually a good thing because the recaptures tended to be lower quality and less profitable blocks, and this also reduces volatility. Let me remind you that the premiums also that are associated with the Equitable block are now reported in the Financial Solutions segment. Look, ultimately, we are pleased with our U.S. Traditional business as we continue to improve the overall risk profile and as we see strong momentum in our strategic underwriting initiatives.

We're confident that this performance will be reflected in our results over time.

Yeah. Look, there's just not much to add to what Axel said except for we had a very strong 2025 on U.S. Trad. When we say that, it's the type of transactions, the focus on underwriting biometric capabilities, that momentum absolutely continues on into 2026. We continue to be very optimistic and positive around our prospects on the U.S. Traditional business, winning very high quality business, very good returns, and adding a lot of value to our client partnerships.

Guys, do you have any sense of cession rates though for the industry more broadly? I'm just curious, has that been stable? Is that changing at all?

Yeah, look, we don't have that at our fingertips at the moment. I mean, we focus, you know, once again on delivering just those comprehensive solutions where, it could be in product development nature, it could be underwriting, solutions in nature. I really focus on adding that value to the client and in partnership. The cession rates itself, I mean, obviously we note over time, but, you know, we feel we can control our own destiny by really focusing on our clients' problems and looking for win-win solutions.

The next question comes from Joe Hurwitz with Dowling & Partners. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Earlier this year, you guys brought up the prospect of potentially launching a sidecar for complex liabilities like long-term care and universal life with secondary guarantees. I just wanted to see if you could provide an update on that potential vehicle and if you're seeing parties interest in committing capital to it.

Thanks, Joel. This is Axel. Let me start by saying, look, third-party capital remains a core element of our capital management strategy. It enhances our flexibility to fund growth, return capital to shareholders, while also generating incremental fee income for our shareholders over time. Our current focus is on fully deploying Ruby Re, which is still expected this year. There are pros and cons to various sidecar structures and types of liabilities, but I would say it's too early for us to be specific on this as we're focusing on completing Ruby capital deployment. We will update you as appropriate. As it relates to ULSG long-term care risks, you know, at the end of the day, these risks are less than 10% of our balance sheet today, and we expect it to remain this way going forward.

Got you. That's helpful, Axel. Maybe just on Ruby Re, how much capital do you have left to deploy this year

We have the last piece of capital identified in terms of the blocks of business that are going to go to the sidecar, and we're just in the process of getting that approved by the investors and then working through the process with our regulator.

The next question comes from Pablo Singzon with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. My questions are not about the quarter specifically, so thanks in advance for indulging me. First, there's this widely held industry view that as the P&C cycle softens, the large multi-line European reinsurers tend to be more competitive on the life side. Do you agree with that view? If so, how do you think competition from that part of the market unfolds given price softening in P&C?

Sure. Pablo, let me take that. You know, look, what you share is a view I've heard both sides of that equation as to when the P&C cycle softens or hardens. Let me try and address competition in general as to how we see it. You know, look, in our spot, you know, where in our sweet spot, where we focus on transactions with both biometric and asset risks, it continues to be very stable. You know, we focus on this sweet spot by leveraging off our key strengths, our strong local presence and relationships. In some ways, we feel RGA is unique, one of one player in that space.

In addition, is that with our global platform, we have this strategic optionality to pursue the best risk-adjusted opportunities that arise around the world. You know, with that all in mind, we remain very excited about our business momentum and disciplined positioning in the reinsurance market.

Thanks, Tony. And then my second question also has to do with competition, but from a different angle. You know, an increasing number of U.S. primary insurers are setting up internal reinsurance captives to generate capital efficiencies, and some have even started writing a third-party business. And some of them have set up sidecars that are not that different from Ruby Re. I guess what's your view on this trend? Does it reflect just enormous market opportunity, or is it an ambiguous sign of just more competition entering the space? Thanks.

Yeah. Let me try and address that. You know, we definitely have been seeing that increased competition in various markets around the world. That competition, once again, is really more for the vanilla, asset-intensive type transactions. That's what these vehicles are really being set up for. You know, once again, I just reiterate, our sweet spot is transactions that have both asset and biometric risk. We feel we're really uniquely positioned one of one to do that. You know, whether it's in Japan, where this market is large, or in the U.S., we are very optimistic about our ongoing momentum in these markets. You know, Q1 was a really strong proof point of our success in executing on our strategy in this area.

The next question comes from Alex Scott with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. First one I have for you is on some of the in-force management actions you guys have done over time. It felt like maybe there's a heightened element of that over the last few years. I just wanted to understand where we're at in the sort of timeframe of completing that. Is there some of that still ahead of you? Are we at the point now where it's more just sort of normal course? You know, I guess specifically on older age experience, you know, are you still seeing, you know, the need to do some of that action on those blocks specifically?

All right. Thank you, Alex. This is Axel. Let me take that. Look, managing our in-force business, you know, like I said, is a core part of our strategy and will continue to be. We've had very good success with these efforts over the past several years. In the first quarter, specifically, we did not have any notable in-force management actions. We expect to remain active going forward, but the timing and size of these actions is unpredictable. We're projecting a more limited financial impact compared to recent experience in the near-term.

Got it. That's helpful. Second question I have is, I think in the U.K., there's some proposed regulation around captive reinsurance and, you know, limiting some of the uses of that. I mean, is there anything around that that could be an opportunity, or I guess, you know, a risk at all to your structures? Just interested in how that might impact you.

Hi, Alex. This is Jonathan. I think you're referring to the recent information that's come up from the PRA related to counterparty charges. It's very new, but at this point we don't expect it to have a big impact on our business. It's related to funded reinsurance, and the majority of our longevity business that we do in the U.K. is on a swap basis where we take just the longevity risk and not the asset risk. Just to size our block for you, about 90% of our in-force block for our Longevity business is done on a swap basis.

Initial industry takeaways are that there might be a compression of overall economics for ceding companies due to the higher charge, but there will also be an increased linkage to reinsure credit quality and collateral strength, and that should favor strong counterparties like RGA.

There's a follow-up question from Wes Carmichael with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. You may be muted.

Thanks for taking the follow-up. My follow-up is on the economic biometric experience, just the $343 million that's going to be recognized in future periods. Can you just give us a sense on is it material over the next 12 months how much of that comes in, or is the duration longer that's probably pretty small?

Yeah. Thanks, Wes, for the question. That amount, right? Meaning the difference between the economic claims experience that has not yet been recognized through the accounting results has grown in recent periods, and it's gonna come through the accounting results over a long time period. The current annual impact to future earnings is baked into our expectations, and it's approximately $20 million a year.

Got it. Thanks. That's helpful. Thanks, Axel. The follow-up is on a regulatory topic. I think over the past call it year and a half, the NAIC has worked on this Actuarial Guideline 55 on actuarial or on asset adequacy testing for reinsurance. I think it's disclosure only, but curious if there's any impact to RGA if you think this is material for the industry or not. Would just want your color on that.

Sure. Yeah, happy to take that. So in the U.S., you know, our standard business practice utilizes our flagship U.S. entity, RGA Re, as a reinsurer facing clients. As an onshore entity, our clients can confidently transact with a AA-rated counterparty and be exempt from AG 55. We believe that's an attractive option for our clients, especially combined with our broader solutions and the partnership mindset that we bring to those long-term reinsurance relationships. For RGA, we're constantly modeling transactions across a variety of accounting and capital frameworks, and we have an open dialogue with our regulators on the expected impacts of any regulations. Our business model does not rely on any particular regulatory regime, so the additional requirements of AG 55 are really just an extension of our existing practices from a regulatory perspective.

We do not expect it to have a material impact for RGA.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tony Cheng for any closing remarks.

Yeah. Look, thank you for your continued interest in RGA. We are pleased with the strong start for the year, and we look forward to continue to deliver in the future. This concludes our Q1 conference call. Thank you.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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