Operator
Operator
Good day, everyone, and welcome to AIG's fourth quarter financial results conference call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Liz Werner. Please go ahead.
American International Group, Inc. (AIG)
Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 12, 2016
$73.63
-0.73%
Same-Day
-1.77%
1 Week
-1.70%
1 Month
-0.17%
vs S&P
-9.12%
Operator
Operator
Good day, everyone, and welcome to AIG's fourth quarter financial results conference call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Liz Werner. Please go ahead.
Elizabeth A. Werner - Vice President, Investor Relations
Management
Thank you, Anthony. Before we begin, I'd like the address the format of today's call. Consistent with our strategy update call, during our Q&A session, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'd like to take as many questions as possible and ask that you get back in queue to ask additional questions. You will be limited to one minute to ask your question, and I apologize in advance if you're cut off. Today's presentation may contain certain forward-looking statements, which are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or events. Actual performance and events may differ, possibly materially, from such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause this include the factors described in our first, second, and third quarter Form 10-Q and our 2014 Form 10-K under Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations and under Risk Factors. AIG Is not under any obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking comments and statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Today's presentation may contain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of such measures to the most comparable GAAP figures is included in our financial supplement, which is available on our website. Nothing in today's presentation or in oral statements made in connection with this presentation is intended to constitute nor shall be deemed to constitute an offer of any securities for sale or the solicitation of an offer to purchase any securities in any jurisdiction. This morning's prepared remarks will begin with our CEO, Peter Hancock, followed by our incoming CFO, Sid Sankaran, the head of our Commercial Business, Rob Schimek; and the head of Consumer, Kevin Hogan. Our Chief Investment Officer, Doug Dachille, is also joining us this morning in the room. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Peter Hancock.
Peter D. Hancock - President and Chief Executive Officer
Management
Thank you, Liz. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining our fourth quarter call. In today's call, I'll highlight unusual items in the quarter. And importantly, I'll provide an update on our progress in executing on our strategic plan, which we presented on January 26. We and the board feel that our plan maximizes franchise value for all stakeholders and is based on achievable goals. This quarter is a further step in providing additional transparency to assess our progress towards our goals. Before I comment on the quarter, I want to mention yesterday's news that our Board of Directors agreed to expand the size of AIG's board from 14 to 16 seats. We believe this resolution is in the best interests of all our stakeholders, and most importantly allows us to focus on executing our strategic plan. Our fourth quarter results were impacted by our actions to strengthen reserves and the lower returns on alternative investments. As we have previously disclosed, we completed a number of in-depth reserve reviews of our long-tail lines, and we responded quickly to new information. As part of our strategic plan, we announced our intentions to reduce and narrow our hedge fund allocation, which we believe will lead to greater risk-adjusted returns and contribute to our $25 billion return of capital through 2017. During the fourth quarter we took a number of actions towards our goal of being a more streamlined, focused insurer. Importantly, I announced a smaller executive leadership team, a management structure that has already resulted in increased accountability across our businesses and accelerated our decision-making. This team is already executing on our strategic plan, and today you'll hear from some of them directly. Core to our strategic plan are the organizational changes, strategic actions, and operating improvements which we presented on January…
Elizabeth A. Werner - Vice President, Investor Relations
Management
Anthony, could we start our Q&A session, please?
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And it appears our first question comes from Tom Gallagher with Credit Suisse. Thomas George Gallagher - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Good morning. Sid, I just wanted to ask you a question on your comment on the impact from the life reinsurance deals. So the $5 billion you're going to free up, you said you would lose $250 million of NII. If you look at that from a after-tax standpoint, you're only giving up a 3% to 4% return on that capital. Are there any other lost earnings associated with that or is that it, and is that a third-party reinsurance deal? Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: Obviously, we are reinsuring the life reserves with external parties, but there also are internal parties and internal reinsurance in the structure. What I would say is your estimates on the ROE give-up are roughly accurate. And just a reminder is that the additional liquidity to the parent comes both from freed-up capital as well as from the acceleration of tax-sharing payments from the subsidiaries. Thomas George Gallagher - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay, so it's not the full, the $5 billion capital release. There are some tax benefits in addition to that. Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes, that's correct. And so the costs on the transaction are economically attractive for us when we look at the additional liquidity.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Larry Greenberg with Janney.
Lawrence D. Greenberg - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC
Management
Thank you and good morning. I guess this would be for Rob. Rob, it just seems very challenging to take 4 points off the loss ratio for 2016, particularly given that probably a third of the earned premiums for the year had already been written last year. So on the reinsurance piece, which appears that it probably plays a pretty significant role here, you mentioned the quota share for I guess the worst performing part of product set 2. Will reinsurance also be used for product set 3? And then I guess the quota share is mostly designed to just change the mix and get more high loss ratio business out of the portfolio. Is that correct? And then finally -
Elizabeth A. Werner - Vice President, Investor Relations
Management
Hey, Larry, it's Liz. I think you went over the one question and one follow-up. So let's just start with your first two.
Lawrence D. Greenberg - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC
Management
Okay.
Elizabeth A. Werner - Vice President, Investor Relations
Management
And I actually think we'll be able to get to the rest of them if you just get back in queue. Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: All right. Hi, Larry, thanks for your question. The first thing I want to say to you is we're not starting flat footed on any of our actions here. So actions were being taken in 2015 which we'll see beginning in the first part of 2016. The second thing I want to say is, regarding use of reinsurance, I know there is a lot of questions about that. The first thing I want to say is we don't think it's a long-term sustainable strategy to be looking to arbitrage our reinsurers. That's not the strategy here. We're partners with our reinsurers and we see many opportunities for our reinsurance strategy to benefit AIG as well as the reinsurers. I think there's three key points I'd like to make regarding how this worked with the reinsurers. First, you should know I think the reinsurers have an increasingly favorable view about the quality of the data and the quality of our underwriting. Second, the reinsurers themselves receive significant diversification benefits in their capital models, which make business like our U.S. casualty business more attractive for them. And third, the long-tail nature of our U.S. casualty business, for example, gives the reinsurers a significant deal of flexibility in their investment allocation decisions, which might differ from the way AIG might choose to structure its investment portfolio. I would say most of our actions will be with the reinsurers in product set 2. And it will be on the higher end of the loss ratios of product set 2, which is where the U.S. casualty business sits. The reinsurance will change of course our mix of business because if you reduce the amount of business in product set 2 that is U.S. casualty, the range in loss ratios in product set 2 is pretty wide. It ranges from as low as the low 50s to as high as the 80s. And so therefore, you'll get a lot of benefit from reinsuring the U.S. casualty business, which is higher loss ratio business in product set 2.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Meyer Shields with KBW. Meyer Shields - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thanks, good morning. Peter, on the January 26 call, you were pretty explicit that the 6 points of accident year improvement were actually for all of 2017. Can you talk about what's changed from then till now so that it's a run rate at the end of the year? Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: Well I just want to be clear. Obviously, it is our intention to drive all 6 points of the improvement in the accident year loss ratio by the end of 2017. Meyer Shields - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Right, I understand that. So what is the goal for the 2017 accident year loss ratio? Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: Close to 60% on an adjusted basis.
Peter D. Hancock - President and Chief Executive Officer
Management
Ex-cats. Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: Ex-cats, that's what the adjustment is.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Josh Stirling with Sanford Bernstein. Josh Clayton Stirling - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Hi, good morning, Peter and the rest of the team. Listen, I want to applaud you for taking shareholders on the board. I think it's refreshing and it's great to see you guys are so willing to take shareholders' views into consideration, and I appreciate you putting shareholders first. But everybody here at home today is trying to figure out what the impact actually is likely to be from your expansion of the board, what the impact on your strategy and performance is likely to prove out. And I'm wondering if you can give us a sense of the conversations you've had on the board and with your new likely board members so that we can have a better sense of how you expect this to go. At a minimum, is it going to be business-as-usual with those two new members, or ultimately are you going to have a different approach to making decisions? And could you even go so far as to have a strategic review committee created with some of these independent board members to pursue a review? Thank you.
Peter D. Hancock - President and Chief Executive Officer
Management
So as we've said publicly, we are pleased that we have reached a solution that averts a very distracting proxy fight, and that the inclusion of two new board members will add an extra degree of scrutiny on the way in which we execute our strategic plan. And so we would not want to comment on any future dynamics between management and the board, but the process to date is that the existing board of 14 and management have developed this strategy in close collaboration. And so we expect continued close collaboration between management and the board going forward.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Jay Cohen with Bank of America. Jay Arman Cohen - Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc.: Thank you. While we'd like to see the overhead expense ratios improving, I think in every area within Property Casualty, the acquisition expense ratios rose, and some of that may be business mix change. But can you talk more specifically what's going on there? Maybe that's for Rob. Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: Jay, I think you're right. As we continue to work on our mix of business, in general what you should think is the higher loss ratio more complex business simply carries a lower acquisition cost. And the business mix that we've been shifting to will carry a somewhat higher acquisition cost. The net effect of that we think is a net positive in our overall ROE and a positive in the overall combined ratio. Jay Arman Cohen - Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc.: It's offset to some extent by lower loss ratios then. Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: That's right, significantly offset by lower loss ratios.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Jimmy Bhullar with JPMorgan.
Jamminder Singh Bhullar - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Management
Good morning. I'm wondering if you could talk about just pricing trends in the P&C market and how they might have changed in the last few months or so, and related to that, what your expectations are for premium growth in this environment, especially as you raise prices and pull back from certain lines in the P&C market. Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: Jimmy, first of all, I always try to remind people we deal in a lot of countries and in a lot of products. So when people ask about the market, there's no simple single answer to that. And so we experience different results with pricing in different parts of our portfolio. Maybe the bigger change that we would have seen in the fourth quarter is an improvement in the U.S. Casualty pricing environment, as we've driven a bunch of our remediation activities, as I said earlier, in 2015, which will benefit us more in 2016. I think our competitors are also seeing many of the same things we're seeing, and so I think there's pretty good discipline with respect to U.S. Casualty at this point. With that said, the U.S. property market, in particular the excess and surplus lines property market, has been and continues to be highly competitive. It's why you see AIG shifting its strategy to an increase in the level of engineers that we've added onto our team and seeking to use capabilities and expertise outside of our capital as the primary advantage and the primary thing we offer in the marketplace. So we do expect it to continue to be a mixed bag product by product and geography by geography.
Jamminder Singh Bhullar - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Management
Just on premium growth, your expectations over the next two to three years as you're trying to improve your margin, should we assume a dramatic decline in the premiums? Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: I mentioned on the January 26 call, Jimmy, I believe, we do expect our premium volume to go down in 2016. It will go down partly because of our remediation efforts with respect to exits and remediation in that Product Group 3, partly because of the use of reinsurance. But it will be offset by the fact that we continue to see opportunities to grow in places where we have a sustainable competitive advantage anywhere in the world and with various products.
Jamminder Singh Bhullar - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Management
Thank you.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Jay Gelb with Barclays.
Jay Gelb - Barclays Capital, Inc.
Management
Thank you. I had a question on the normalized return on equity target. I'm having a little trouble getting to your ranges, primarily due to the sharp drop-off in partnership income. So in the first half of 2015, there was $1.4 billion of partnership income, and that dropped off to almost zero in the fourth quarter. I'm just trying to get a perspective of how much your ROE targets take into account expectations of a normalized maybe high single-digit return in alternative investments relative to basically zero that we saw in the fourth quarter. Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: Jay, it's Sid here. No, we factored that in entirely in our two-year strategic plan. And so we've accounted for the change between a normalized return from the hedge funds and alternatives and the reinvestment strategies that I referred to in my remarks.
Jay Gelb - Barclays Capital, Inc.
Management
But, Sid, this is entirely related to essentially zero returns or maybe more of a headwind in the first half of 2016. What are you assuming in your ROE target for 2016 for alternative returns? Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: We normalize for performance, not volume, and so we're normalizing here. As I said in my remarks, if you assume 9%, that has been the normalized performance that we've assumed. And obviously, as we shift out of the hedge fund portfolio, we are shifting to a normalized return on fixed income and commercial mortgage loans.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Michael Nannizzi with Goldman Sachs. Michael Nannizzi - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks. Let's talk a bit about commercial insurance here. But in Consumer, where we haven't got a lot of detail, international has consistently been a problem. When does that get better, and what exactly are we doing there in order to try to fix that business and get it to a better place? I understand Japan, but I feel like that merger has been sitting in front of us now for some time with the carrot of lower expenses. Could we get some color on that? And any granularity would really be helpful. Kevin T. Hogan - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Consumer: Yes, sure, Mike. First with respect to Japan, the merger is progressing. We're proceeding right now through the integration and regression testing of about 110 systems. And there has been a new regulatory requirement for a change in the earthquake property rates. And as you can imagine, whilst we're trying to do this integration and regression testing, to have to stop, open up the systems, introduce those new earthquake rates, and then go back to integration and regression testing, that's essentially what has pushed us back six months or so in terms of the expectation of the integration date. And our strategy is in fact to try to advance as many benefits from the work we've already in recognition of the fact that we can do so. And examples of that are our ability to recently change our direct marketing strategy and move that away from the American Home legal entity and into Fuji Life and the other companies, which will generate further savings that we can now realize. And so outside of Japan, what I can say is…
Peter D. Hancock - President and Chief Executive Officer
Management
So this is the very much the thinking behind the modular business reporting, where Japan will be one of the first of the nine modular business units that will be shown in the financial supplement and will give you clear transparency around ROE and capital and so on. So we are very committed to giving you more granular disclosures, and the team is working hard to be delivering those on a schedule that's consistent with the high-quality control over financial disclosures that we obviously want to stick to. But in terms of prospective ROE, perhaps I should just mention that we have in our risk-adjusted profit framework elevated the hurdle rate for all businesses and all territories to a minimum of 10%, which is a shift from where we were a year ago where territories with low nominal interest rates and with low beta we rewarded with a lower hurdle rate. And we have in great discussions with several of our large shareholders agreed that we should have a minimum hurdle rate of 10%, and that applies to Japan as well as elsewhere.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes John Nadel from Piper Jaffray. John M. Nadel - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Thank you, good morning. I have one question on rating agency reactions to your strategic update. And the other, I just wanted to talk about the parent company cash as we roll forward here into January or February. Peter, I think I was pretty surprised, and I know a number of folks were surprised by the rating agencies' negative outlooks and maybe even one or two ratings being cut following the strategic update. And I guess I'm just – Peter, I just want to gauge your confidence level that these negative outlooks will not turn into downgrades, all else equal, as a result of the $25 billion return of capital. And then separately, just with the parent company ending the year at $9.2 billion of liquid assets, if we roll forward here into the first part of the first quarter, you've already used $5.4 billion. So you've got under $4 billion in cash or liquid assets at the parent. How quickly does that recover?
Peter D. Hancock - President and Chief Executive Officer
Management
So let me just start, and I'll hand it over to Sid to complete. We've been extremely consistent in saying that we manage the AIG enterprise in a way that factors in all stakeholders. We use that word very deliberately. And our policyholders in particular are very mindful of our commitment to maintaining a strong balance sheet and the ability to deliver our large long-term promises. And to the extent that they look at the rating agencies as a guide, we are very mindful of their reactions to our plans and our specific actions. And as we developed this two-year strategic plan, we've worked very closely with all the rating agencies to pressure-test different assumptions. And so the actions they took were not a surprise, but I've been saying consistently that the rating agencies were more of a binding constraint than any kind of Fed oversight of AIG. And the guide to our own thinking here is very much our own internal assessment of risk. And we are very pleased, especially in the light of recent market volatility, that we've done so much over the last four years to derisk the balance sheet of the company, the vulnerability to contingent liquidity. And so we are confident that once we execute on the goals in this plan, the ratings outlook will become positive again. But, Sid, maybe you can answer the specific liquidity questions and elaborate, if you like, on the rating agencies. Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes, the only elaboration, Peter, I'd say is just a reminder, John. We continue to have strong ratings on our core life and property casualty operating companies, most of those with stable outlooks. So we believe our planned operating improvements are going to support maintaining those strong ratings and actually improving them over time. On liquidity, I'd point you to my comments around our target. You've obviously referenced some of the outflows. But just a quick reminder, in the first quarter we have an assortment of inflows that are coming from dividends, tax-sharing payments, as well as further liquidations of asset sales, some of which that we've already executed. So again, as I said, we target $6 billion to $8 billion. We may be higher or lower than that from time to time. But we're very confident in the balance sheet, and obviously that was core to this entire strategic plan.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Brian Meredith with UBS.
Brian Robert Meredith - UBS Securities LLC
Management
Yes, thanks. Rob, I was hoping you could give us maybe a breakdown of how much of the 400 basis point improvement in the adjusted loss ratio by year-end 2016 comes from the reinsurance, maybe shifting assets to the legacy portfolio, and normalization in the severe loss ratio and in pricing and underwriting actions. And then lastly also, how are you going to manage not losing good business with the bad business as you go through this process? Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: All right, Brian, thanks for the questions. So let me say that I think it's reasonably easy for me to tell you regarding legacy that we've already informed the market of the exits that we have, and the only thing moving into legacy is the businesses we have exited. With respect to the drivers, I would say to you first that each part of our business, Property, casualty, specialty and financial lines plays a part. Obviously, the remediation role for property and casualty are the most significant, whereas I see the opportunity for growth in strategic areas, particularly for financial lines and for some of our specialty products. With respect to which actions will drive it, it's reasonably evenly mixed between what I would call reinsurance and business mix, strategic growth in some of the lines I just described where we have opportunities and our loss ratios and our competitive advantages allow us to succeed in the marketplace, and then a contribution of course from exits that have already been announced and our work on risk selection and client selection. So I might just say as think of it as three basic buckets, strategic growth, reinsurance and business mix, exits slash clients and risk selection as being reasonably equal in terms of their relative contributions.
Brian Robert Meredith - UBS Securities LLC
Management
Thank you. Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: You're welcome.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Paul Newsome with Sandler O'Neill. Paul Newsome - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: I would like a general question about the property casualty reserves and how core are they to the capital that you expect to pull out of the company over time. It seems to me that the rating agencies' concerns are primarily focused on whether or not the $3.6 billion was enough. And so if you could, perhaps talk about either how, first, how comfortable you are with those reserve levels. And then how sensitive are the capital amounts you're going to pull out of the company to issues over reserve development? Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah Paul, I'd really point you to the comments I made on the January 26 call as well as the information we've released in our 8-K. We believe after applying enhanced methods and assumptions and strengthening our reserves that we are going to help mitigate the risk of future quarterly reserve volatility around the selected best estimate reserve. And as a result, I think our plans are confident in our level of capital for our PC operating subsidiaries.
Peter D. Hancock - President and Chief Executive Officer
Management
And I think as a reminder, remember the $25 billion capital return walk that we disclosed on January 26, the first bar of that chart includes the injection of holding company cash into the subsidiary to fund the reserve strengthening, so it starts off with a fully funded reserve. Paul Newsome - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: I guess my question is if we have more unfavorable reserve development, does that mean we have to pull more capital into the property casualty business, which means less to the parent? Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: Look, Paul, I think obviously capital is going to be sensitive to our future projections. So as I said, our future projections on reserve mitigate the risk of future quarterly reserve volatility, and we don't comment on hypotheticals.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Charles Sebaski with BMO Capital Markets.
Charles Joseph Sebaski - BMO Capital Markets
United States
Good morning, just wanted to follow up first on the commercial P&C accident loss ratio. On both slides four and 13, you added a footnote about year end, that the improvement is 4 points and then 2 points is year end, and I guess that's a change from the January 26 presentation. And I wanted to know what the expectation for those actual full years are versus the year-end run rate. And then additionally, Sid, on the $9 billion of capital freed from legacy portfolios that's in the presentation, I don't see where that is highlighted in the January 26 bridge to $25 billion. And I'm wondering, is that new capital, or was that incorporated somewhere in that bridge to $25 billion? Thank you. Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: So I'll start by just clarifying. Again, our view is that the decrease in the Commercial adjusted accident year loss ratio will be approximately 6 points in total by the end of 2017. And just a reminder, and 4 points at the end of 2016. But it's just, it's not a linear process, and we can only make the changes if policies come up for renewal with proper notification to our policyholders. So market conditions, renewal, timing, et cetera will impact the way you'll see that emerge. But it is our belief that we have enough levers at our disposal that should enable us to be able to deliver four points in 2016 and two points additional in 2017. Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: Charles, it's Sid here. On your second question, I would point you to slide five in the strategic update. Just a reminder, the legacy capital is a capital projection. Page five illustrates our funding lock for our share repurchase. So what you're going to see is that $9 billion that you're referring to on capital is return to shareholders via various funding sources in this walk. So I'd point you to page five in the footnotes there.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Larry Greenberg with Janney.
Lawrence D. Greenberg - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC
Management
Hi, thanks. I guess back to Rob and reinsurance, I'm curious if you will also utilize excess of loss structures in the plan. And you've mentioned lost and net investment income from other sources of the plan. Will there be lost investment income in the future associated with the PC reinsurance? Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: So first of all, regarding excess of loss, yes, we'll use all types of reinsurance that are available at our disposal. And I just wanted to highlight that maybe one of the bigger changes was our use of proportional or excess of loss reinsurance. But we currently use and will continue to use excess of loss. With respect to how it flows through in investment results, let me let Sid comment. Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes, there will be a reduction in net investment income from lower premiums and reinsurance, and that's been factored into the January 26 strategic update figures for Rob and his PTOI walk.
Lawrence D. Greenberg - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC
Management
Can that be quantified? Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: We're not disclosing that right now. Obviously, as we execute on our strategies, we'll comment on reinsurance transactions and the impact of associated net investment income.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Michael Nannizzi with Goldman Sachs. Michael Nannizzi - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks, just a quick follow-up here. Rob, on the actions taken in Commercial, most of the changes are implying a reduction in premium. You said in your comments that there will be some premium reduction from the actions you're taking, but there will be premium growth from other opportunities. Can you give us just some context? What are you thinking about what premiums will be? What's going to happen to that top line on a net basis? And can you give us the gross reductions just so we can understand what actions are being taken and the magnitude of those actions at higher – or I should say lower profitability, just to understand what that template looks like? Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: All right, so let me see if I can help you out with this, Michael. I disclosed again some of this on the January 26 call. I expect that they'll be something like $1 billion of lower premium as it relates to reinsurance transactions. Now that will depend on actual deals we get done, the timing we get them done, et cetera, but that gives you a basic idea of relative size. With respect to exits and remediation and other actions we'll take, you should expect something like about the same amount of reduction in premium which would be about another $1 billion, so you're talking about $2 billion of both in the reduction direction. With that said, we have changes in mix of business and very attractive opportunities in more strategic parts of our business that we think currently meet our ROE target hurdles, and we will grow. And that number you should think of as being something in the vicinity of $600 million. So we think our reduction in net premiums in 2016 is approximately $1.4 billion – $1.5 billion. Again, it will depend on what happens in the market, market conditions, et cetera, but that gives you a basic idea of what we're expecting. Michael Nannizzi - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Great, thank you. Robert S. Schimek - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Commercial, American International Group, Inc.: You're welcome.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Meyer Shields with KBW. Meyer Shields - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thanks. Sid, you mentioned something about additional disclosures by year-end 2016, and I'm not sure what you're referencing. Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: I think that was just in response to questions about modular business units and the operating ROE versus legacy. Meyer Shields - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Brian Meredith with UBS.
Brian Robert Meredith - UBS Securities LLC
Management
Yes, thanks. Just quickly. Sid, could you remind us where you need your fixed charge coverage ratio to be to maintain your ratings level and where it is right now? And what's the best way to track that? Siddhartha Sankaran - Chief Risk Officer & Executive Vice President: First of all, it just depends agency by agency, so I'd point you to their guidance. And what I'd say in all of our operating projections, we meet their expectations and continue to target strong fixed charge coverage. But it will depend, it differs between S&P, Moody's, and others.
Brian Robert Meredith - UBS Securities LLC
Management
Okay, thanks.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Charles Sebaski with BMO Capital Markets.
Charles Joseph Sebaski - BMO Capital Markets
United States
Good morning, guys, again. I guess a question on the Consumer business and particularly Japan. Peter, you talked about the improvement or the higher hurdle rate of a 10% ROE for the Japanese business relative to how you had it before. What would be the expectation of contraction in that business? I guess to me, a higher hurdle of 10% ROE would mean that some Japanese insurers might be able to suffice with less. Kevin T. Hogan - Executive Vice President; Chief Executive Officer, Consumer: Hi, Charles. I'll take that. First of all, we are already pricing our Life business at IRRs that are above the hurdle rate, even peers' new hurdle rate and has been some time in the low double digits, and that has been a fast-growing business for us. We made a decision a couple of years ago to consume those GAAP earnings at the rate of growth. So that has been masking our results in Japan a little bit. The other thing I think that's important to point out is if we take away the one-time project expenses associated with the merger and integration of Fuji Fire and Marine, the underlying business portfolio is generating returns we believe in that low-double-digit area. And since we've acquired Fuji Fire and Marine, we've brought their loss ratio on personal accident business down by nine full points and on automobile down by five full points. And as I mentioned in my comments, we actually grew that business for the first time in quite a long time this year. So we believe that – we're hoping that with the modular reporting, you'll be able to understand better the components of the Japanese results in the context of the hurdles that we've set.
Charles Joseph Sebaski - BMO Capital Markets
United States
So the new hurdle has no change in the business planning? I guess to me, a new hurdle would mean that that's a change from what's currently going on. And you're basically saying that you're already at that hurdle, so no change is necessary.
Peter D. Hancock - President and Chief Executive Officer
Management
Charles, this is Peter. I think that at an aggregate level, you can see that you're over the hurdle. But within the subcomponent parts, the mix changes when you raise the hurdle rate on everything. So I think that you'll see greater selectivity of business, so that the very high ROE business subsidizes in a sense the stuff that's 8% to 10%, and there will be less of the 8% to 10%, and so there's a tradeoff there. But I believe that our risk-adjusted profit framework by targeting the spread between ROE and the hurdle rate, which we call a wrap spread, times the equity employed and maximizing that risk-adjusted profit is a way to make the volume margin tradeoff in a value-accretive way for shareholders.
Operator
Operator
That does conclude our question-and-answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to Liz Werner for any additional closing remarks.
Elizabeth A. Werner - Vice President, Investor Relations
Management
Thank you, Anthony. We appreciate all your questions this morning and looking forward to speaking with you in the coming days and today. Thank you.
Operator
Operator
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation.