管理層發言
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Brighthouse Financials’ Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Michelle and I will be your coordinator today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will facilitate a question-and-answer session towards the end of the conference call. In fairness to all participants, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Dana Amante, Head of Investor Relations. Ms. Amante, you may proceed.
Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to Brighthouse Financials’ fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call. Materials for today's call were released last night and can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website. We encourage you to review all of these materials. Today, you will hear from Eric Steigerwalt, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Ed Spehar, our Chief Financial Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call up for a question and answer period. Also, here with us today to participate in the discussions are Myles Lambert, our Chief Distribution and Marketing Officer; David Rosenbaum, Head of Product and Underwriting; and John Rosenthal, our Chief Investment Officer. Before we begin, I would like to note that our discussion during this call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Brighthouse Financial's actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of risks and uncertainties described from time to time in Brighthouse Financial's filings with the SEC. Information discussed on today's call speaks only as of today, February 12, 2025. The company undertakes no obligation to update any information discussed on today's call. During this call, we will be discussing certain financial measures that are not based on generally accepted accounting principles, also known as non-GAAP measures. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures on a historical basis to the most directly comparable GAAP measures and related definitions may be found in our earnings release, slide presentation and financial supplement. And finally, references to statutory results, including certain statutory-based measures used by management are preliminary due to the timing of the filing of the statutory statements. And now, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Eric Steigerwalt.
Thank you, Dana. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining the call today. 2024 was a year of successes and challenges for Brighthouse Financial. While we made significant strides in our growth strategy last year, our statutory results have been disappointing. However, we have been actively engaged in and continue to make progress on several strategic initiatives aimed at improving capital efficiency, unlocking capital, and staying within our target combined risk-based capital ratio range in normal market conditions. I'm very pleased with the progress we have made on these initiatives, and I'll discuss that shortly. First, I'd like to highlight some of our accomplishments in 2024, particularly our success in our growth strategy. This is evident from our consistent growth in sales of our flagship Shield product suite and fixed-indexed annuities. We entered the worksite channel with the launch of BlackRock's LifePath paycheck, saw steady growth in life insurance product sales, and launched the latest version of our shield product along with enhancements to our SmartCare product suite. In terms of annuity sales, we reported $10 billion in total sales for 2024, with record sales of our shield-level annuities at $7.7 billion, a 12% increase from 2023. Our Shield products, known as registered index-linked annuities, have positioned us as a leader in the RILA market. In 2024, we announced updates to our Shield product suite to ensure it remains competitive and meets clients' evolving needs. Our life insurance business also performed well, achieving $120 million in life insurance sales for the year, an 18% increase over 2023, alongside new enhancements to SmartCare. Last year, we collaborated with BlackRock to introduce the LifePath paycheck solution in defined contribution plans and received our first deposits from this initiative, which is very exciting. Recently, BlackRock confirmed that LPP is now live in six employer retirement plans with $16 billion in assets under management, which we are thrilled about. We value our collaboration with BlackRock on this innovative retirement solution and anticipate it will help us reach new clients in the worksite channel. As we've emphasized before, maintaining expense discipline is crucial. I'm pleased to report that our corporate expenses for the full year decreased by over 7% compared to last year. Our achievements in 2024 reflect our commitment to executing our focused strategy, which I've discussed previously. As I've mentioned, our success in growing our Shield annuity block of business has increased the complexity of managing our variable annuity and Shield business together, leading to strain in our statutory results. Nonetheless, we continue to implement our capital-focused initiatives and have made significant headway. For example, by the end of the year, we fully transitioned to hedging all new Shield annuity business independently and are revising our hedging strategy for our in-force variable annuity and Shield book, now considered a closed block of business. Despite refining our hedging program, our financial and risk management strategy remains focused on safeguarding our statutory balance sheet under adverse market scenarios. Our strategic initiatives also encompass reinsurance opportunities. As noted in our third quarter earnings call, effective September 30, 2024, we completed a reinsurance agreement with a third party for a legacy block of fixed and payout annuities, enhancing capital efficiencies and bringing our estimated combined RBC ratio back to our target range. Additionally, in the fourth quarter, we established another reinsurance agreement with a third party for a legacy block of universal life and variable universal life products that yielded further capital benefits. As mentioned earlier, our financial and risk management strategy continues to focus on protecting our balance sheet, which is vital to support our distribution network and the customers they serve. As of December 31, 2024, our estimated combined RBC ratio was approximately 400%, indicating we are at the low end of our target. This figure incorporates a $100 million capital contribution from the holding company to Brighthouse Life Insurance Company. Ed will provide more details on our statutory results shortly. Liquid assets at the holding company were $1.1 billion as of December 31, 2024. After factoring in the contribution to BLIC, liquid assets remain strong at $1 billion. Moreover, in 2024, we returned capital to shareholders through a $250 million stock repurchase, which included $60 million repurchased in the fourth quarter. Since launching our repurchase program in August 2018, we've reduced the number of shares outstanding by more than 50%. As of year-to-date February 7th, we repurchased an additional $25 million of our stock. Looking ahead to 2025, we are committed to executing our business strategy while focusing on capital efficiency initiatives and maintaining our combined RBC ratio within the target range. To conclude, I am proud of our accomplishments in 2024. Despite challenges, we upheld a strong liquidity position, reduced corporate expenses by 7% compared to 2023 without compromising expense discipline. We achieved record sales of our shield-level annuities and welcomed the launch of BlackRock's LifePath paycheck product. We finished the year with an estimated combined RBC ratio of around 400% and continue to make progress on our strategic initiatives. Now, I will hand the call over to Ed for a discussion on our financial results.
Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. As Eric mentioned, we contributed $100 million to BLIC effective for year-end statutory financial statements to bring our estimated combined RBC ratio to approximately 400% or the low end of our target range in normal market conditions. Given that it is year-end, which is the only time our subsidiaries officially report an RBC figure. We felt it was appropriate to be in our range. Our combined total adjusted capital or TAC was approximately $5.4 billion at December 31st, which also reflects the capital contribution. Without the contribution, we estimate that our combined RBC ratio would've been in the mid-390s. I would like to make a few comments on the decision to contribute capital to BLIC. First, we have repeatedly stated that we believe our franchise value is driven by distribution and that we are committed to our distribution partners and the customers that they serve. Given the importance of both distribution and the financial strength of our operating companies, we determined it was prudent to make a relatively modest contribution from the holding company to our largest operating subsidiary. Second, we have consistently highlighted the importance of maintaining a conservative position at the holding company, both in terms of cash and capital structure. It is critical to have flexibility to deal with the uncertainty that is inherent in the financial services industry, and our results last year illustrate this fact. After the contribution, we still have approximately $1 billion of cash and liquid assets at the holding company. Finally, while we do not typically provide a forward look on RBC, we're making an exception in this instance, given this is the first time we've contributed cash from the holding company to an operating subsidiary since our early days as a public company. Our financial plan currently anticipates that our combined RBC ratio will be relatively stable over the next few years without additional support from the holding company. As Eric discussed, we made significant progress in 2024 on our capital-focused strategic initiatives designed to improve capital efficiency, unlock capital, and return our combined RBC ratio to our target range in normal market conditions. Keep in mind that while our statutory results benefited from the reinsurance agreement entered in the fourth quarter, as well as us hedging Shield new business on a standalone basis, our VA and Shield business is not immune to large quarterly market moves. Specifically, in the fourth quarter, interest rates were up approximately 80 basis points, as measured by the 10-year U.S. Treasury, and there was a significant steepening in the yield curve. The combined impact of the significant changes in interest rates and the yield curve shape resulted in a negative impact on our annuity statutory results, which contributed to the $300 million decline in TAC in the quarter. As I have discussed in the past, there is an element of timing for market impacts. In this case, there was a current period cost from the movement in rates; however, we would expect to see the benefit from higher interest rates over time. Additionally, there was a net $200 million increase in asset adequacy testing reserves, which contributed to the decline in TAC, driven by legacy fixed annuity blocks. At December 31st, holding company liquid assets were approximately $1.1 billion. Pro forma for the capital contribution, holding company liquid assets are approximately $1 billion. Now turning to adjusted earnings results in the fourth quarter. Adjusted earnings for the quarter of $304 million reflect a $48 million unfavorable notable item, or $0.80 per share, related to actuarial model updates. Adjusted earnings, excluding the impact from the notable item, were $352 million, which compares with adjusted earnings on the same basis of $243 million in the third quarter of 2024 and $189 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. Excluding the impact of the notable item, the adjusted earnings results in the fourth quarter were approximately $70 million, or $1.17 per share, above our average quarterly run rate expectation. Our underwriting margin was approximately $40 million higher than our average quarterly expectation, driven by lower claim volume net of reinsurance in both our life and runoff segments. There was also a benefit of approximately $30 million versus our average quarterly run rate expectation from non-trendable items, equally split among investments, tax, and corporate expenses. Alternative investment income was at the upper end of our long-term expectation of a 9% to 11% annual return, yielding approximately 2.6% in the fourth quarter. This contributed to higher net investment income compared with the third quarter, shifting to results by segment. The annuity segment reported adjusted earnings, less notable items of $327 million. Sequentially, annuity results were driven by higher net investment income, partially offset by a lower underwriting margin. The life segment reported adjusted earnings of $52 million and were higher sequentially, which was driven by higher net investment income and a higher underwriting margin. This was partially offset by higher expenses. The runoff segment had an adjusted loss of $27 million. Sequentially, results reflected higher net investment income and a higher underwriting margin. The corporate and other segment reported zero adjusted earnings, which reflected a lower tax benefit in the quarter, partially offset by lower expenses sequentially. In closing, we are pleased with our progress on strategic initiatives and believe we have illustrated our commitment to maintaining a strong statutory balance sheet. Finally, we continue to have substantial cash at the holding company.
分析師問答
Our first question is from Wes Carmichael with Autonomous Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Ed, I was hoping you could touch a little bit on the driver's RBC in the quarter. I think it declined if you exclude the capital contribution reinsurance, but maybe you could just touch on, I know you quantified the capital contribution, but reinsurance transaction as well. That'd be great. Thank you.
Yes, good morning, Wes. This is going to be a long answer, but I hope it helps you understand the quarter better. A lot happened this quarter. We benefited from our strategic initiatives, including the reinsurance you mentioned, the standalone hedging for Shield new business, as well as some market factors. Additionally, we conducted year-end asset adequacy testing. Let’s start with the strategic initiatives. In our supplement, you’ll see we made some normalizing adjustments for normal statutory filings, and it ended up being a positive number in the fourth quarter, even with the AAT impact included. If you do the math, it rounds to around $300 million, while the actual impact from these positive items is over $400 million. The benefits from these strategic initiatives fall into that category. There are two key aspects to consider. Firstly, we talked about hedging Shield new business on a standalone basis starting in July. The real advantage comes when this is integrated into your statutory modeling. In the fourth quarter, we made statutory modeling adjustments related to hedging Shield new business and also for our Shield level pay plus product, both the new and old versions. This is significant because financial statements must account for future hedges linked to this standalone hedging approach within your liability cash flows, leading to a notable benefit in the fourth quarter. The second positive initiative was the reinsurance deal. We concluded a reinsurance transaction for a legacy block of UL, VUL, and life, which improved our RBC by about 10 to 15 points. So, that's the real positive takeaway from these strategic initiatives, which were quite significant and exceeded $400 million. Transitioning to normal statutory, we experienced roughly a $200 million loss in this quarter. I mentioned the impact of interest rates earlier. Within normal statutory, there was about a $350 million negative effect due to rates. To clarify, higher interest rates generally benefit a VA block by lowering the present value of future claims and reducing future claims, but this is somewhat offset by lower bond fund values. Now, concerning the statutory impact, both in the short and long term: in the immediate term, with long rates increasing and the yield curve steepening, we see losses on the derivatives that hedge rate risk, and we don’t fully benefit from the rate changes because the yield curve has not moved in a parallel manner. The statutory framework heavily relies on both one-year and 20-year rates, so the rise in long rates predominantly affects your hedge assets, while the lack of a parallel movement in the yield curve doesn’t positively impact your liabilities as expected. Over time, you will see benefits, primarily through the mean reversion point adjustments in the statutory framework for the 20-year treasury. For example, at the end of September, we anticipated two MRP increases in our three-year financial plan; now, based on year-end results, we expect three increases. This illustrates a timing issue with rates. Lastly, regarding the asset adequacy testing reserve, we noted an increase of around $200 million. This pertains to a legacy block of fixed annuities, which amounts to about $8 billion in reserves. This block is older and lacks significant surrender charge protection. In our testing this year, we observed that in high rate scenarios, we could see a significant uptick in lapses, which may force us to sell bonds at a loss to meet outflows. Thus, we're assessing various conservative scenarios in cash flow testing, and this year the up-rate scenario indicated potential shortfalls, prompting the $200 million reserve set aside. I know that was a lot of information, but I hope you can piece it together to grasp what influenced the results this quarter.
No, appreciate it. And I guess my follow up is just on hedging. I know Shield is fully transitioned. Can you just comment on where you are with the legacy VA portfolio and maybe just any update on timing of long-term free cash flow projections would be helpful?
Sure. So, we continue to focus on what our strategy will be for this legacy block of VA and shield, the old shield. That is, there's a lot of work that's still underway. This is a very important initiative for us. I want to remind everyone though that our underlying approach to managing this risk has not changed, which is we have a maximum loss tolerance of up to $500 million and we are on a statutory basis and we are focused on relative to CTE98 and we are focused on managing that risk so that there is no issue for market movements and interest rate movements. So, there's no change in managing the risk itself. But we are looking at what is the appropriate strategy going forward for that back book now that we are hedging all our new business on a standalone basis. The long-term statutory free cash flow projections, I think I had a question. Well, I know I had a question last quarter about timing and related to our work on the hedging change, we need to complete the work on what we do with this back book before we would complete those free cash flow projections. So, we said last quarter that we were targeting mid-year, I said that is going to be dependent on the progress we make on this key strategic initiative. And so, I think I would just say we're going to have to wait and see what the timing is. If I had to guess, I would say it's probably going to slip from what I said last quarter, but it's much more important for us to get this back-book hedging strategy factored into those projections than it is to rush getting those projections out.
Got it. Thank you.
And our next question comes from Suneet Kamath with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning. First question, just on the stable RBC, should we think stable meaning at 400% or somewhere in that range that you target? And then does that outlook contemplate any subsidiary dividends out of BLIC?
Good morning, Suneet. I think we’re not going to be more specific than saying stable. You could interpret stable in different ways, but I would suggest that if it’s around 400% at year-end and we aim to be within our target range in normal markets, that should give you some idea of what stable means. Regarding dividends, our financial plan does include taking money from operating companies after this year.
I have a second question for Eric. I understand the strategy, but when considering the company's setup, does it make sense for it to remain a public entity on its own? The reason I ask is that Ed just explained the quarterly changes in RBC with many variables involved, which seems to create a level of complexity and confusion that we don't see with other companies. Those companies tend to be more diversified and operate beyond just annuities. So, how do you view the complexity of your situation in relation to the possibility of not being public in the future? Thank you.
You got it, Suneet. You broke up a touch there, but I think I got it all. Look, we've been dealing with complexity for seven and a half years now. There have been a number of periods where that complexity has been far less. Recently, as we've discussed, and whether it's part of Ed's answer here or answers we've given in the past, when we ended up with as much Shield on the books as we were hoping for to sort of balance the old VA book, that created an interesting situation for us. And I would agree that that situation not only sounds complex, but is complex. And so, what we've done is broken it apart into, essentially two pieces. I'm overly simplifying here. One, for all Shield new business to be hedged on a standalone basis. And then two, as Ed's previous answer sort of illuminated, figuring out how we're going to hedge what I called previously kind of a closed block of VA and older Shield. So, when we think about what we've got to do to manage this complexity, some years it's been far more simple. This last year, 2024, I agree, it was complicated. And so, whether it's running the company as efficiently as we can on sort of a BAU basis, right? Everything that we do on a normal basis to run this company. And then adding in these strategic initiatives, whether it's things like reinsurance, other initiatives that we're thinking about, we're always trying to think of new initiatives, or the fairly large initiative associated with the hedging program. We are a public company, and we're running this company every day to, over time, create long-term shareholder value. Even as you think about it, we're roughly at year seven and a half. We've repurchased $2.5 billion of stock, and that adds up to more than 50% of the original shares outstanding. So, all I can tell you is we're going to continue to run the company as we have. And when you do hit periods of complexity, you just power through it, which is exactly what you've seen us do over the last couple of quarters, including the fourth quarter. And that won't stop as we go through 2025.
Okay, thanks for the answer.
Thank you. And one moment as we move on to our next question. And our next question is going to come from the line of Wilma Burdis with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Could you provide an overview of the factors that have contributed to normalized debt losses in the most recent quarters? Is it due to RILA benefiting from higher equity markets, or is it related to hedging on traditional variable annuities? Please share your insights.
Good morning. We have discussed the typical volatility linked to market fluctuations, which we've experienced in various ways over the past quarters. We can certainly update you on our previous comments regarding market movements. Additionally, we have mentioned the challenges posed by new business and how this influenced our decision to adjust our hedging strategy. Once we reached a balance in our risk profile between VA and Shield, we noticed that the previous benefits from our management strategy diminished, necessitating a change. This resulted in added strain in 2024, more than we expected going forward, for a couple of reasons. First, our new approach to managing hedging, and second, we are investigating a flow reinsurance deal for Shield new business, which could ease capital strain. We are making progress in this area with several interested parties, so it's important to keep this initiative top of mind as we move forward this year.
Are there additional opportunities to expand the portfolios? If so, can you provide details about the capital that would be necessary? Additionally, you've done well with expense management this year. Is there potential for further reductions that could enhance organic cash flow generation?
Wilma, it's John. Yes, there are likely some opportunities to increase yield. Overall, our portfolio allocation has stayed relatively stable throughout the year. We still maintain a risk-off approach. We invest across all fixed-income asset classes. Spreads are tight, so we don't see a strong reason to focus heavily on any one sector. However, we are ready to take advantage of any widening spreads and market dislocations if they arise. Eric, would you like to add anything?
Yes, I'll take the second half, Wilma. Yes, we had a good year with respect to expenses in 2024, expenses are down 7% year-over-year. As I've said over the years, actually, my real focus is on the expense ratio, right? So, keeping that expense ratio down has been a focus, frankly, since day one, and that was a long time ago. We're not afraid though, to invest in growth. So, I would just sort of say, Wilma, as you think about 2025, certainly, there are inflationary effects out there, and they will affect all companies, including ours. But my real focus is to grow revenues sort of faster than our expense margins. And I expect that to continue in 2025. So, the expense discipline is alive and well.
Thank you. And one moment as we move on to our next question. And our next question is going to come from the line of Jimmy Bhullar with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Ed, could you share your thoughts on your intentions regarding the company's RBC ratio? If it's around 400%, should we expect you to take additional actions, like acquiring insurance, to increase that ratio for some extra cushion, or are you satisfied operating at 400%?
Good morning, Jimmy. First, I want to express that we are comfortable operating at a 400% RBC ratio. Typically, in stable market conditions, we mention our range as being between 400% and 450%. Over time, as your mix changes, it’s reasonable to consider that the range might decrease. While I'm not implying this will happen in the near future, it makes sense given the evolving risk profile of the company. Additionally, we are always seeking opportunities to unlock capital, which has been a consistent effort for us over the years and will continue to be so. We believe that our various strategic initiatives, including our approach with the back book of variable annuities and Shield, as well as any further reinsurance we may implement, will enhance capital efficiency and possibly unlock capital. This is why we remain focused on these initiatives.
Hey, Jimmy, it's Eric. I'll just add a little bit because I think it's a good question. So, remember, you know this very well. You've got the interplay between what's your capital level at your insurance subsidiaries, especially BLIC, and then when you got the holding company. And of course, we still got $1 billion up at the holding company. And Ed and I have talked about that for years. We always felt that was prudent and we still think it's prudent, obviously. But yeah, we can run at 400%. You've got the liquidity of the holding company. And we've never pushed money down. But we just thought, as you heard Ed say, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes ago, that it just made a lot of sense to get the RBC ratio at the end of the year within the range. It's really helpful for distributors. And I like helping our distributors. So even after we did that, we still got $1 billion up at the holding company. And as you heard Ed say, we do in our three-year plan expect to have dividends up to the holding company. So yes, we are comfortable.
And just on the dividend point, are you expecting dividends every year, or was that more of a cumulative comment?
That is more of a cumulative comment. I think, as we've done in the past, we prefer to talk about any forward-looking metrics on a multi-year basis rather than any single period.
Okay. And then on fixed annuity sales, they were down this quarter, a decent amount. So is that because of competition, or something from distribution, or just a desire to sort of preserve capital. Can you talk about what drove the decline there?
Good morning, Jimmy, it's Myles speaking. So, FIA sales were down for the year as expected. As a reminder, midyear, we had a transition into a new reinsurance partner. Our FIA sales were up for the year, driven by our successful launch of our SecureKey product. On a combined basis, we exceeded our expectations for fixed sales but we continue to balance growth, pricing discipline and managing capital, and we're happy with our overall results.
And our next question comes from the line of John Barnidge with Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
My question is on the investment management of the portfolio. How much expense is there associated with the outsourcing of that?
John, it's John. We don't really provide that. We provide an overall investment expense number. You can see in our financials and you can assume that IMA type fees are the majority of that.
My follow-up question. How much outsourcing is concentrated in the most hands? As a percent basis, I'm not looking for who?
We have about a dozen external managers that we trust and consider to be world-class, and we utilize their capabilities across various sectors. We prefer not to disclose specifics about who manages which amounts of money.
Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Krueger with KBW. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. I guess a question on reinsurance. So, you've done a couple of in-force deals. I guess when you look forward, are you still looking to do more things like that and I guess, would you broaden the scope to also perhaps include some of the liabilities, the SUL liabilities in BRCD as well?
Good morning, Ryan. In response to Jimmy's question, I mentioned that we consistently seek ways to make prudent capital decisions. If additional transactions are beneficial for us, we will pursue them and evaluate everything to determine their feasibility. Up to this point, we have completed some legacy blocks, including the annuity block discussed in the third quarter and the life deal with UL and VUL mentioned this quarter. We have primarily focused on more straightforward transactions. I wouldn’t call them easy, as there was considerable effort involved, but they were relatively simpler. As we consider other businesses or legacy operations you brought up, there will be more complexity and it will require more effort, but it is certainly something we are contemplating.
And then going back to the stable RBC comment. Over the next few years, I think there's some different moving parts over the next few years when you, I guess, on your own company-specific side, the change to the hedging of the closed block of variable annuities and Shield, and then you have some changes going into effect, I think are on pace, scheduled for next year on variable annuity capital and reserving requirements. I guess, have you tried to contemplate all of these moving parts into that forward outlook already or give any thoughts there?
Sure. So, you highlight two areas that will create some level of uncertainty about what the framework will look like. Most, I would say in particular, you're referring to the upcoming change in the economic scenario generator, which is scheduled at this point for the 2026 financial statements, correct? That's what you're asking about.
That was part of it. I also think your changes to the legacy hedging play a role as well.
Those factors are not included in my comments because there’s no way to determine what the final ESG framework will look like. I would suggest that if a very conservative economic scenario generator is implemented, a higher RBC ratio might not be necessary. This is one way to consider it, as reflecting much of the risk on the balance sheet today means the capital cushion required for adverse deviations should be less. That’s why it’s not part of my comments. Additionally, it's important to note that our expectations for the RBC ratio will be influenced by typical market conditions. In our financial plan, we anticipate a moderate scenario moving forward—slightly below normal market returns and slightly above normal credit losses, but nothing significantly out of the ordinary. This is why we describe it as stable. A different market environment could lead to a different outcome for the RBC ratio, whether positively or negatively. Regarding hedging, one of our main objectives is to simplify things. Although this will never be completely straightforward, we aim to make it easier. We may decide to take some capital impact if it helps provide a clearer picture of managing risk, but I am not saying that it will happen or that I expect it to. It’s just a potential trade-off that we might consider, which hasn’t been included in my remarks about a stable RBC ratio.
Our next question is going to come from the line of Nick Annitto with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Maybe just more of a high-level question, maybe for Miles or David, but can you just comment on the kind of competitive environment or dynamics in the RILA business? It just seems like a lot of companies are already in it and starting to launch newer refreshed products would be good to get your kind of near-term or intermediate-term outlook on it?
It's Myles. I'll take it, and David can certainly chime in. But look, there's a lot of demand for these products in the marketplace. Customers are looking to stay invested with protection. They're focused on retirement planning. So, the market has expanded quite a bit. It's expanded as it relates to new distributors selling these products. There's a lot of new features on these products, including income riders. But we feel really great about our competitive positioning. Last year was our best year yet as it relates to Shield sales. And we continue to do a number of different things to enhance our offering, whether it's Shield Level Play Plus, which is Shield with an income rider or a Step Rate Edge, which is a new crediting strategy. David, anything you want to add on that?
No, I think you covered it.
Our next question comes from the line of Tom Gallagher with Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I have a few questions. Regarding the stable RBC, should we assume that means you'll have positive statutory earnings but an increase in required capital? That's my first question. Additionally, do you expect to continue the share repurchase, which will likely depend on the drawdown of HoldCo excess in the near term?
Tom, so I don't want to go too far down the path of this forward-looking plan topic. But the answer to your question is yes, it does assume that the results over the plan period would be positive earnings.
Yes, he's pointing at me, Tom. Look, generally, as Ed just said and as you know, we don't talk about share repurchases going forward. We just haven't done that. All I can do to help you out is point to history, which is pretty consistent. And as I mentioned, I'm not sure on whose question, maybe Jimmy's, over our history as a public company, has added up to repurchases of north of $2.5 billion.
Got you. For my follow-up, could you provide more details on the risk transfer deals you completed, specifically regarding the deposit size for the fixed annuities and payouts on those annuities? Additionally, how significant were the life insurance deals in terms of reserves or insurance in force?
Hey, Tom. I'm hesitant to go too deep into the reserves for the life deal since we are still exploring other opportunities. I mentioned earlier in response to Wes's question that you might assume a range of 10 to 15 RBC points, which is mainly driven by the numerator of the calculation. You can do the math to estimate a range, but I won't provide further specifics on that. Could you please repeat your question about the annuity side?
Yeah, just the size of the 3Q annuity deal. How big were the assets or deposits on those?
Yeah, it was approximately $8 billion.
Can I just sneak in one more just from a standpoint of BRCD?
I would expect nothing less, Tom.
Hey, I'm at the end of the chain here. So, I'm doing my best. But anyway, the BRCD, is there any way you can frame that? Because I think investors are trying to figure out, is that still a source of value? It certainly has been in the past. Because when I look at the $5.4 billion of TAC and BLIC and NELICO, I think there's also some additional value from BRCD. Do you have a surplus number that's back in the $24 billion of SUL reserves? Or do you really just fund the reserves?
Yes, it's more of the latter. Regarding BRCD, we have taken $1.2 billion in dividends out, and $600 million on two occasions. We needed regulatory approval each time because all dividends from BRCD are considered extraordinary. We successfully demonstrated that it was appropriate to withdraw these funds. I’ve mentioned several times that I do not see BRCD as a consistent source of capital for Brighthouse. While it is properly capitalized, it represents a runoff block of older business and I do not regard it as a source of additional cash for BLIC or the holding company.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now turn the call over to Dana Amante for closing remarks.
Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, everyone, for joining today's call, and have a good day.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.