AMP US Equity☆

Item 1A. Risk Factors

Our operations and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those described below, that could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations and could cause the trading price of our common stock to decline. We believe that the following information identifies the material factors affecting our company based on the information we currently know. However, the risks and uncertainties our company faces are not limited to those described below. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe to be immaterial may also adversely affect our business.

Market Risks

The COVID-19 pandemic creates significant risks and uncertainties for our business.

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (“COVID-19”) pandemic has created and continues to create significant and pervasive societal, economic and market disruption globally. In particular, financial markets have seen increased volatility and significant changes to the value of investments. If the value of assets under management decreases, our revenue and operating results could be substantially impacted. While portions of world economies have been differently impacted by the pandemic, there is still significant uncertainty around the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacts our business, results of operations, and financial condition depends on current and future developments. These developments are highly uncertain, including the scope, duration and severity of the pandemic, success of worldwide vaccination efforts, possible mutations of COVID-19 or similar diseases, the effectiveness of our remote working and our ongoing phased office reopenings, the measures that may be taken by various governmental authorities in response to the outbreak (such as legislative action, stimulus, quarantines and travel restrictions, effectiveness of health care, and new or interim regulation), the actions of third parties in response to the pandemic, and the possible further impacts on the global economy. It is unclear when we will have a sustained recovery and what that recovery will look like, so we seek to effectively manage our risks, but our ability to do so is subject to the inherent limitations of obtaining timely, reliable analysis in an ever-changing situation. No assurance can be given that the steps we have taken will continue to be effective or appropriate.

Starting in the end of the first quarter of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted, and will likely continue to impact, each of our business segments. Consumer demand, client investing decisions in light of ongoing economic uncertainty, our fee and investment income, our owned asset values, and our credit reserve and other financial or actuarial assumptions and reserve calculations have been, and may further be, negatively impacted from a decline and volatility of asset prices, sustained reduction in interest rates, nonperformance credit spreads, credit deterioration, decreased liquidity in trading markets and other economic and market effects of the global pandemic. Though we have navigated the first months of the pandemic, we continue to actively monitor the potential direct and indirect impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic may have on our segments. The most significant impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the operational and financial results of our core business segments include:

•In our Advice & Wealth Management segment, the significant and ongoing impact of reduced interest rates, and the fee income impact from volatile equity markets and transactional client activity driven by client investing decisions from ongoing economic uncertainty;

•In our Asset Management segment, volatile average equity markets and changes in consumer demand and client investing decisions in light of ongoing economic uncertainty; and

•In our Retirement & Protection Solutions segment, the significant reduction in interest rates and the impact of volatile equity market levels on spread and fee income and the associated deferred acquisition cost amortization as well as changes in consumer demand and the operating environment that altered our mix of sales and product offerings.

If these conditions continue or worsen, we could experience volatility and uncertainty in volumes, uncertainty in availability and price levels of financial assets and hedges, reduced client activity and fees, increased mortality and morbidity in our insurance policyholder base, increased constraints and costs of capital, possible impacts to our credit ratings and other negative impacts on our financial position.

COVID-19 has had wide-reaching impacts, making many decisions, interactions and transactions more complex. The COVID 19 pandemic may also affect the ability of our suppliers, distributors, vendors, reinsurers and other counterparties to provide products and services and otherwise fulfill their commitments to us.

Our financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected by market fluctuations and by economic, political and other factors.

Our financial condition and results of operations may be materially affected by market fluctuations and by economic and other factors. Such factors, which can be global, regional, national or local in nature, include: (i) the COVID-19 pandemic, or any variation thereof; (ii) political, social, economic and market conditions; (iii) the availability and cost of capital; (iv) the level and volatility of equity prices, commodity prices and interest rates, currency values and other market indices; (v) technological changes and events; (vi) U.S. and foreign government fiscal and tax policies; (vii) U.S. and foreign government ability, real or perceived, to avoid defaulting on government securities; (viii) the availability and cost of credit; (ix) inflation; (x) investor sentiment and confidence in the financial markets; (xi) terrorism and armed conflicts; and (xii) natural disasters such as weather catastrophes and widespread health emergencies. Furthermore, changes in consumer economic variables, such as the number and size of personal bankruptcy filings, the rate of unemployment, decreases in property values, and the level of consumer confidence and consumer debt, may substantially affect

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consumer loan levels and credit quality, which, in turn, could impact client activity in all of our businesses. These factors also may have an impact on our ability to achieve our strategic objectives.

Declines and volatility in U.S. and global market conditions (such as that from COVID-19) have impacted our businesses in the past, are impacting us now and may do so again. Our businesses have been, and in the future may be, adversely affected by U.S. and global capital market and credit crises, the repricing of credit risk, equity market volatility and decline and stress or recession in the U.S. and global economies generally. Each of our segments operates in these markets with exposure for us and our clients in securities, loans, derivatives, alternative investments, seed capital and other commitments. It is difficult to predict when, how long and to what extent the aforementioned adverse conditions will exist, which of our markets, products and businesses will be directly affected and to what extent our clients may seek to bring claims arising out of investment performance that is affected by these conditions. As a result, these factors could materially adversely impact our financial condition and results of operations.

These factors will also impact client behavior. Market downturns, stagnation, and volatility may cause, and have caused, individual investors to limit or decrease their participation in global markets negatively impacting our retail business and/or our product sales. Market conditions, regulatory actions, tax laws, and our competitive industry environment are among the reasons current shareholders in our mutual funds, OEICs, SICAVs, unit trusts and investment trusts, contractholders in our annuity products and policyholders in our protection products may opt to withdraw cash values for those products (or for certain protection products, to reduce their withdrawal activity). If we are unable to offer appropriate product alternatives which encourage customers to continue purchasing in the face of actual or perceived market volatility, our sales and management fee revenues could decline.

Downturns and volatility in markets (including equity, fixed income, real estate, infrastructure and other markets) have had, and may in the future have, an adverse effect on the revenues and returns from our asset management services, retail advisory accounts, variable annuity contracts and banking products. Because the profitability of these products and services depends on fees related primarily to the value of assets under management, declines in the markets will reduce our revenues because the value of the investment assets we manage will be reduced. In addition, a significant portion of our revenue is derived from investment management agreements with the Columbia Management family of mutual funds which are terminable on 60 days’ notice. Although some contracts governing investment management services are subject to termination for failure to meet performance benchmarks, institutional and individual clients can terminate their relationships with us or our financial advisors at will or on relatively short notice. Further, a number of the products and services we make available to our clients are those offered by third parties and negative perceptions of these financial products and services (or the financial industry in general) may impact the number of withdrawals and redemptions or reduce purchases made by our clients, which would adversely impact the levels of our assets under management. Our clients can also reduce the aggregate amount of managed assets or shift their funds to other types of accounts with different rate structures, for any number of reasons, including investment performance, changes in prevailing interest rates, changes in investment preferences or investment management strategy (for example, “active” or “passive” investing styles), changes in our (or our advisors’) reputation in the marketplace, changes in client or relationship management, loss of key investment management personnel and financial market performance. This reduction in managed assets, and the associated decrease in revenues and earnings, could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Most of our variable annuity products contain guaranteed minimum death benefits and guaranteed minimum withdrawal and accumulation benefits. Decline or volatility in equity and/or bond markets could result in guaranteed minimum benefits being higher than what current account values would support, which would adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. Although we have hedged a portion of the guarantees for the variable annuity contracts to mitigate the financial loss of equity and/or bond market declines or volatility, there can be no assurance that such a decline or volatility would not materially impact the profitability of certain products or product lines or our financial condition or results of operations. Further, the cost of hedging our liability for these guarantees has increased as a result of low interest rates and volatility in the equity markets as well as broad-based market and regulatory-driven changes in the collateral requirements of hedge trading counterparties. In addition, heightened volatility (and the transition away from LIBOR as a widely accepted interest rate reference) creates greater uncertainty for future hedging effectiveness.

Changes in interest rates and prolonged periods of low interest rates and even negative interest rates may adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Certain of our insurance, annuity, investment products and banking products are sensitive to interest rate fluctuations (inclusive of changes in credit spreads), which could cause future impacts associated with such fluctuations to differ from our historical costs. In addition, interest rate fluctuations (and impacts from volatility or low interest rates on changes in credit spreads) could result in fluctuations in the valuation of certain minimum guaranteed benefits contained in some of our variable annuity products. Although we typically hedge to mitigate some of the effect of such fluctuations, significant changes in interest rates (or prolonged periods of low interest rates) could have a material adverse impact on the profitability of certain products or product lines or our results of operations.

Interest rate fluctuations also could have an adverse effect on the results of our investment portfolio. During periods of declining market interest rates or stagnancy of low interest rates, the interest we receive on variable interest rate investments decreases and we are forced to reinvest the cash we receive as interest or return of principal on our investments in lower-yielding high-grade instruments or in lower-credit instruments to maintain comparable returns. Issuers of certain callable fixed income securities also may decide to

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prepay their obligations in order to borrow at lower market rates, which increases the risk that we may have to reinvest the cash proceeds of these securities in lower-yielding or lower-credit instruments.

During these periods, our spread may be reduced or could become negative, primarily because some of our products have guaranteed minimum crediting rates. Due to the long-term nature of the liabilities associated with certain of our businesses, such as long term care and universal life with secondary guarantees as well as fixed annuities and guaranteed benefits on variable annuities, sustained declines in or stagnancy of low long-term interest rates may subject us to reinvestment risks and increased hedging costs. In addition, reduced or negative spreads may require us to accelerate amortization of deferred acquisition costs (“DAC”), which would increase our expenses and reduce our net earnings in the period where we accelerate amortization of DAC. The pattern of DAC amortization is impacted by the use of certain assumptions, including interest margins, mortality rates, persistency rates, maintenance expense levels and customer asset value growth rates for variable products. We periodically review and, where appropriate, adjust our assumptions.

During periods of increasing market interest rates, we may offer higher crediting rates on interest-sensitive products, such as universal life insurance, fixed annuities and face-amount certificates, and we may increase crediting rates on in force products to keep these products competitive (which could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations). Because yields on invested assets may not increase as quickly as current interest rates, we may have to accept a lower spread and thus lower profitability or face a decline in sales and greater loss of existing contracts and related assets. In addition, increases in market interest rates may cause increased policy surrenders, withdrawals from life insurance policies and annuity contracts and requests for policy loans, as policyholders and contractholders seek to shift assets to products with perceived higher returns. This process may lead to an earlier than expected outflow of cash from our business. These withdrawals and surrenders may require investment assets to be sold at a time when the prices of those assets are lower because of the increase in market interest rates, which may result in investment losses. Also, increases in market interest rates may result in extension of certain cash flows from structured mortgage assets. An increase in policy surrenders and withdrawals also may require us to accelerate amortization of DAC or other intangibles or cause an impairment of goodwill, which would increase our expenses and reduce our net earnings in the period.

Adverse capital and credit market conditions or a downgrade in our credit ratings may significantly affect our ability to meet liquidity needs, our access to capital and our cost of capital.

Volatility, uncertainty and disruption in the capital and credit markets may decrease available liquidity, which we may need to pay our expenses and dividends. If the market conditions hinder our availability to obtain capital, our business could suffer.

Our liquidity needs are satisfied primarily through our reserves and the cash generated by our operations. We believe the level of cash and securities we maintain, combined with expected cash inflows from investments and operations, is adequate to meet anticipated short-term and long-term payment obligations. In the event current resources are insufficient to satisfy our needs, we may access financing sources such as bank debt. Additional financing depends on a variety of factors such as market conditions, the general availability of credit, the volume of trading activities, the overall availability of credit to the financial services industry, our credit ratings and credit capacity, actions by our regulators, and perceptions held by shareholders, customers or lenders.

Further, the financial strength ratings which various rating organizations publish as a measure of an insurance company’s ability to meet contractholder and policyholder obligations, are important to maintain public confidence in our products, our competitive position, and the ability to market our products. Any future downgrade in our financial strength ratings, or the announced potential for a downgrade, could have a significant adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations in many ways, including: (i) reducing new sales of insurance and annuity products and investment products; (ii) adversely affecting our relationships with our advisors and third-party distributors of our products; (iii) materially increasing the number or amount of policy surrenders and withdrawals by contractholders and policyholders; (iv) requiring us to reduce prices for many of our products and services to remain competitive; and (v) adversely affecting our ability to obtain reinsurance or obtain reasonable pricing on reinsurance.

Ratings agencies have and may continue to increase the frequency and scope of their credit reviews, adjust upward the capital and other requirements employed in the rating organizations’ models for maintenance of ratings levels (including adjusting the framework under which they view our Company’s business mix that drives these requirements), or downgrade ratings applied to particular classes of securities or types of institutions, and our ratings could be changed at any time and without any notice by the rating organizations.

Market conditions or decisions by our ratings agencies that hinder our access to capital may limit our ability to satisfy statutory capital targets, generate fee income and market-related revenue to meet liquidity needs and access the capital necessary to grow our business. As such, we may be forced to delay raising capital, issue different types of capital than we would otherwise, less effectively deploy such capital, or bear an unattractive cost of capital which could decrease our profitability and significantly reduce our financial flexibility.

Business Risks

Intense competition and the economics of changes in our product revenue mix and distribution channels could negatively impact our ability to maintain or increase our market share and profitability.

Our businesses operate in intensely competitive industries, including broker-dealers, banks, asset managers, insurers and other financial institutions, some of which have a larger market share, more desirable technology, less regulation or greater financial resources than we do. Furthermore, our competitors may be better able to address trends, structural changes, or movement of assets

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resulting from industry changes in response to the uncertain regulatory environment in the U.S. and around the world. We could experience lower sales, higher costs, or other developments that could negatively impact our results of operations.

A drop in our investment performance as compared to that of our competitors could negatively impact our revenues and profitability.

Investment performance is a key competitive factor for our retail and institutional asset management products and services. Strong investment performance helps to ensure the retention of our products and services by our clients and creates new sales of products and services. It may also result in higher ratings by ratings services such as Morningstar or Lipper, which may compound the foregoing effects. Strong investment performance and its effects are important elements to our stated goals of growing assets under management and greater economies of scale.

There can be no assurance as to how future investment performance will compare to our competitors or that historical performance will be indicative of future returns. Any drop or perceived drop in investment performance as compared to our competitors could cause a decline in sales of our mutual funds and other investment products, an increase in redemptions and the termination of institutional asset management relationships. These impacts may reduce our aggregate amount of assets under management and reduce management fees. Poor investment performance could also adversely affect our ability to expand the distribution of our products through unaffiliated third parties. Further, any drop in market share of mutual funds sales by our advisors may further reduce profits as sales of other companies’ mutual funds are less profitable than sales of our proprietary funds.

We face intense competition in attracting and retaining key talent.

Our continued success depends to a substantial degree on our ability to attract and retain qualified people in a very competitive market. We are dependent on our network of advisors to drive growth and results in our wealth management business and for a significant portion of the sales of our products and the recruiting environment for financial advisors is highly competitive. In addition, the investment performance of our asset management products and services and the retention of our products and services by our clients are dependent upon the strategies and decisions of our portfolio managers and analysts. From time to time there are regulatory-driven or other trends and developments within the industry, such as changes around the Protocol for Broker Recruiting, that could potentially impact the dynamics between us and our competitors. If we are unable to attract and retain qualified individuals or our recruiting and retention costs increase significantly, our financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely impacted.

The impairment, negative performance or default by other financial institutions or other third parties could adversely affect us.

We have exposure to many different industries and counterparties, and we routinely execute transactions with counterparties in the financial services industry, including broker-dealers, commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds, insurers, reinsurers, investment funds and other institutions. The operations of U.S. and global financial services institutions are interconnected and a decline in the financial condition of one or more financial services institutions may expose us to credit losses or defaults, limit our access to liquidity or otherwise disrupt the operations of our businesses. While we regularly assess our exposure to different industries and counterparties, the performance and financial strength of specific institutions are subject to rapid change, the timing and extent of which cannot be known.

Many transactions with and investments in the products and securities of other financial institutions expose us to credit risk in the event of default of our counterparty. With respect to secured transactions, our credit risk may be exacerbated when the collateral we hold cannot be realized upon or is liquidated at prices insufficient to recover the full amount of the loan or derivative exposure. We also have exposure to financial institutions in the form of unsecured debt instruments, derivative transactions (including with respect to derivatives hedging our exposure on variable annuity contracts with guaranteed benefits), reinsurance, repurchase and underwriting arrangements and equity investments Any such losses or impairments to the carrying value of these assets could materially and adversely impact our business and results of operations.

Issuers of the fixed maturity securities that we own may default on principal and interest payments. Some of our fixed maturity securities may have ratings below investment-grade. Default-related declines in the value of our fixed maturity securities portfolio or consumer credit holdings could cause our net earnings to decline and could also cause us to contribute capital to some of our regulated subsidiaries, which may require us to obtain funding during periods of unfavorable market conditions.

Capital and credit market volatility can exacerbate, and has exacerbated, the risk of third-party defaults, bankruptcy filings, foreclosures, legal actions and other events that may limit the value of or restrict our access and our clients’ access to cash and investments. Although we are not required to do so, we have elected in the past, and we may elect in the future, to compensate clients for losses incurred in response to such events, provide clients with temporary credit or liquidity or other support related to products that we manage, or provide credit liquidity or other support to the financial products we manage. If we elect to provide additional support, we could incur losses from the support we provide and incur additional costs, including financing costs, in connection with the support. These losses and additional costs could be material and could adversely impact our results of operations. If we were to take such actions we may also restrict or otherwise utilize our corporate assets, limiting our flexibility to use these assets for other purposes, and may be required to raise additional capital.

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We may not be able to maintain our unaffiliated third-party distribution channels and the sale of unaffiliated products may diminish sales of our own products.

We distribute certain of our investment products through unaffiliated third-party advisors and financial institutions. Maintaining and deepening relationships with these unaffiliated distributors is an important part of our growth strategy, as strong third-party distribution arrangements enhance our ability to market our products and to increase our assets under management, revenues and profitability. Access to distribution channels is subject to intense competition due to the large number of competitors and products in the investment advisory and annuities industries as well as regulatory and consumer trends driving escalating compliance, disclosure and risk management requirements for distributors. Relationships with our distributors are subject to periodic negotiation that may result in increased distribution costs and/or reductions in the amount of our products marketed.

As a result, there can be no assurance that the distribution relationships we have established will continue. Any such reduction in access to third-party distributors may have a material adverse effect on our ability to market our products and to generate revenue in our Asset Management segments. Further, any increase in the costs to distribute our products or reduction in the type or amount of products made available for sale may have a material effect on our revenues and profitability.

The sale of third-party products to our clients (and additional openings of our advisor network to products of unaffiliated insurance companies and asset managers) may lower sales of our companies’ own products, lead to higher surrenders or redemptions, or other developments which might not be fully offset by higher distribution revenues or other benefits, possibly resulting in an adverse effect on our results of operations.

Our valuation of fixed maturity and equity securities may include methodologies, estimations and assumptions which are subject to differing interpretations and could result in changes to investment valuations that may materially adversely impact our results of operations or financial condition.

Fixed maturity, equity, trading securities and short-term investments, which are reported at fair value on the Consolidated Balance Sheets, represent the majority of our total cash and invested assets. The determination of fair values by management in the absence of quoted market prices is based on valuation methodologies, securities we deem to be comparable, and assumptions deemed appropriate given the circumstances. The fair value estimates are made at a specific point in time, based on available market information and judgments about financial instruments, including estimates of the timing and amounts of expected future cash flows and the credit standing of the issuer or counterparty. Factors considered in estimating fair value include: coupon rate, maturity, estimated duration, call provisions, sinking fund requirements, credit rating, industry sector of the issuer, current interest rates and credit spreads, and quoted market prices of comparable securities. The use of different methodologies and assumptions may have a material effect on the estimated fair value amounts.

During periods of market disruption, including periods of significantly rising or high interest rates and rapidly widening credit spreads or illiquidity, it may be difficult to value certain of our securities. There may be certain asset classes that were in active markets with significant observable data that become illiquid due to the financial environment. In such cases, the valuation of certain securities may require additional subjectivity and management judgment. As such, valuations may include inputs and assumptions that are less observable and may require greater estimation as well as valuation methods that are more sophisticated, which may result in values less than the value at which the investments may be ultimately sold. Further, rapidly changing and unexpected credit and equity market conditions could materially impact the valuation of securities as reported within our consolidated financial statements and the period-to-period changes in value could vary significantly. Decreases in value may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations or financial condition.

The determination of the amount of allowances taken on certain loans and investments is subject to management’s evaluation and judgment and could materially impact our results of operations or financial position.

The determination of the amount of allowances vary by investment type and is based upon our periodic evaluation and assessment of inherent and known risks associated with the respective asset class.

Management uses its best judgment in evaluating the cause of the decline in the estimated fair value of the security and in assessing the prospects for recovery. Inherent in management’s evaluation of the security are assumptions and estimates about the operations of the issuer and its future earnings potential. The determination of the amount of allowances on loans is based upon the asset’s expected life, considering past events, current conditions and reasonable and supportable economic forecasts. Such evaluations and assessments are revised as conditions change and new information becomes available. Historical trends may not be indicative of future impairments or allowances.

Some of our investments are relatively illiquid.

We invest a portion of our owned assets in certain privately placed fixed income securities, mortgage loans, and limited partnership interests, all of which are relatively illiquid. These asset classes represented 11.7% of the carrying value of our investment portfolio as of December 31, 2020. If we require significant amounts of cash on short notice in excess of our normal cash requirements, we may have difficulty selling these investments in a timely manner or be forced to sell them for an amount less than we would otherwise have been able to realize, or both, which could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

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The elimination of LIBOR may adversely affect the interest rates on, and value of, certain derivatives and floating rate securities we hold, the activities we conduct, and any other assets or liabilities, the value of which is tied to LIBOR.

The elimination of LIBOR and transition to alternative reference rates may have an adverse impact on the value of, return on and trading markets for a broad array of financial products, including any LIBOR-based securities, loans and derivatives that are included in our financial assets and liabilities. U.S. Dollar LIBOR is anticipated to be phased out by June 30, 2023, and replaced by the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, and all other LIBOR currencies are anticipated to be phased out by December 31, 2021. There will be significant work required to transition to the new benchmark rates and implement necessary changes to our systems, processes and models. This may impact our existing transaction data, products, systems, operations, valuation and financial risk management processes. In addition, LIBOR may perform differently during the phase-out period than in the past which could result in lower interest payments and a reduction in the value of certain assets. Accordingly, it is difficult to predict the full impact of the transition away from LIBOR on various derivatives, floating rate securities and other securities we hold, the activities we conduct in our various businesses, and any other assets or liabilities (as well as contractual rights and obligations), the value of which is tied to LIBOR. The value or profitability of these products and instruments, and our costs of operations, may be adversely affected until new reference rates and fallbacks for both legacy and new products, instruments and contracts are commercially accepted.

Insurance Risks

The failure of other insurers could require us to pay higher assessments to state insurance guaranty funds.

Our insurance companies are required by law to be members of the guaranty fund association in every state where they are licensed to do business. In the event of insolvency of one or more unaffiliated insurance companies, our insurance companies could be adversely affected by the requirement to pay assessments to the guaranty fund associations. Uncertainty and volatility in the U.S. economy and financial markets in recent years, plus the repercussions of a heightened regulatory environment, have weakened or may weaken the financial condition of numerous insurers, including insurers currently in receiverships, increasing the risk of triggering guaranty fund assessments.

If the counterparties to our reinsurance arrangements default or otherwise fail to fulfill their obligations, we may be exposed to risks we had sought to mitigate, which could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

We use reinsurance to mitigate certain of our risks. Reinsurance does not relieve us of our direct liability to our policyholders and contractholders, even when the reinsurer is liable to us. Accordingly, we bear credit and performance risk with respect to our reinsurers, including Commonwealth Annuity and Life Insurance Company and Genworth Life Insurance Company. In July 2016, we finalized various confidential enhancements with Genworth Life Insurance Company that have been shared, in the normal course of regular reviews, with our Domiciliary Regulators and rating agencies. A reinsurer’s insolvency or its inability or unwillingness to make payments under the terms of our reinsurance agreement could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

If our reserves for future policy benefits and claims or for future certificate redemptions and maturities are inadequate, we may be required to increase our reserve liabilities, which would adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

We establish reserves as estimates of our liabilities to provide for future obligations under our insurance policies, annuities and investment certificate contracts. Reserves do not represent an exact calculation of the liability but, rather, are estimates of contract benefits and related expenses we expect to incur over time. The assumptions and estimates we make in establishing reserves require certain judgments about future experience and, therefore, are inherently uncertain. We cannot determine with precision the actual amounts that we will pay for contract benefits, the timing of payments, or whether the assets supporting our stated reserves will increase to the levels we estimate before payment of benefits or claims. We monitor our reserve levels continually. If we were to conclude that our reserves are insufficient to cover actual or expected contract benefits, we would be required to increase our reserves and incur income statement charges for the period in which we make the determination, which would adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

Our insurance profitability relies on our assumptions including those regarding morbidity rates, mortality rates and benefit utilization as well as the future persistency of our insurance policies and annuity contracts.

We set prices for RiverSource Life disability insurance (and historically LTC insurance) as well as some annuity products based upon expected claim payment patterns, derived from assumptions we make about our policyholders and contractholders, including expenses, fees, investment returns, and morbidity and mortality rates. The long-term profitability of these products depends upon how our actual experience compares with our pricing assumptions. Actual experience can differ from our assumptions for many reasons over the time an insurance product is held and it remains to be seen how the COVID-19 pandemic will impact our assumptions. If mortality rates are higher than our pricing assumptions, we could be required to make greater payments under our life insurance policies and annuity contracts with guaranteed minimum death benefits than we have projected.

The prices and profitability of our life insurance and deferred annuity products are based in part upon assumptions related to persistency (the probability that a policy or contract will remain in force from one period to the next). For most of our life insurance and deferred annuity products, actual persistency that is lower than our persistency assumptions could have an adverse impact on profitability, especially in the early years of a policy or contract because we would be required to accelerate the amortization of expenses we deferred in connection with the acquisition of the policy or contract.

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For our LTC insurance and universal life insurance policies with secondary guarantees (as well as variable annuities with guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefits), actual persistency that is higher than our persistency assumptions could have a negative impact on profitability. If these policies remain in force longer than we assumed, we could be required to make greater benefit payments than we had anticipated when we priced or partially reinsured these products.

The risk that our claims experience may differ significantly from our pricing assumptions is particularly significant for our LTC insurance products notwithstanding our ability to implement future price increases with regulatory approvals. Though we discontinued offering LTC products in 2003, LTC insurance policies provide for long-duration coverage and, therefore, our actual claims experience will emerge over many years. Our ability to forecast future claim rates for LTC insurance is more limited than life insurance. We have sought to moderate these uncertainties to some extent by partially reinsuring LTC policies at the time the policies were underwritten and limiting our present stand-alone LTC insurance offerings to policies underwritten fully by unaffiliated third-party insurers, and we have also implemented rate increases and provided reduced benefit options on certain in force policies.

Because our assumptions regarding persistency experience are inherently uncertain, reserves for future policy benefits and claims may prove to be inadequate if actual persistency experience is different from those assumptions. Although some of our products permit us to increase premiums during the life of the policy or contract, we cannot guarantee that these increases would be sufficient to maintain profitability. Additionally, some of these pricing changes require regulatory approval, which may not be forthcoming. Moreover, many of our products do not permit us to increase premiums or limit those increases during the life of the policy or contract, while premiums on certain other products (primarily LTC insurance) may not be increased without prior regulatory approval. Significant deviations in experience from pricing expectations regarding persistency could have an adverse effect on the profitability of our products.

Operations Risks

A failure to protect our reputation could adversely affect our businesses.

Our reputation is one of our most important assets. Our ability to attract and retain customers, investors, employees and advisors is highly dependent upon external perceptions of our company. Damage to our reputation could cause significant harm to our business and prospects. Reputational damage may arise from numerous sources including litigation or regulatory actions, failing to deliver minimum standards of service and quality, compliance failures, any perceived or actual weakness in our financial strength or liquidity, clients’ or potential clients’ perceived failure of how we address certain political, social or environmental topics, technological, cybersecurity, or other security breaches (including attempted or inadvertent breaches) resulting in improper disclosure of client or employee personal information, unethical or improper behavior and the misconduct or error of our employees, advisors and counterparties. Additionally, a failure to develop new products and services, or successfully manage associated operational risks, could harm our reputation and potentially expose us to additional costs, or negative public relations or social media campaigns. Any negative incidents can quickly erode trust and confidence, particularly if they result in adverse mainstream and social media publicity, governmental investigations or litigation. Adverse developments with respect to our industry may also, by association, negatively impact our reputation or result in greater regulatory or legislative scrutiny or litigation against us.

Misconduct by our employees and advisors may be difficult to detect and deter and may damage our reputation. Misconduct or errors by our employees and advisors could result in violations of law, regulatory sanctions and/or serious reputational or financial harm. Misconduct or errors can occur in each of our businesses. We cannot always deter misconduct by our employees and advisors, and the precautions we take to prevent and detect this activity may not be effective in all cases. Preventing and detecting misconduct among our franchisee advisors who are not employees of our company presents additional challenges and could have an adverse effect on our business. Our reputation depends on our continued identification of and mitigation against conflicts of interest. We have procedures and controls that are designed to identify, address and appropriately disclose perceived conflicts of interest, though our reputation could be damaged if we fail, or appear to fail, to address conflicts of interest appropriately.

In addition, the SEC and other federal and state regulators, as well as foreign regulators, have increased their scrutiny of potential conflicts of interest. It is possible that potential or perceived conflicts could give rise to litigation or enforcement actions. Also, it is possible that the regulatory scrutiny of, and litigation in connection with, conflicts of interest will make our clients less willing to enter into transactions in which such a conflict may occur, which would adversely affect our businesses.

Our operational systems and networks (as well as those of our franchise advisors) are subject to evolving cybersecurity or other technological risks, which could result in the disclosure of confidential information, loss of our proprietary information, damage to our reputation, additional costs to us, regulatory penalties and other adverse impacts.

Our business is reliant upon internal and third-party-controlled and operated technology systems and networks to process, transmit and store information, including our clients’ and advisors’ personal information, as well as our proprietary information, and to conduct many of our business activities and transactions. Maintaining the security and integrity of this information and these systems and networks, and appropriately responding to any cybersecurity and privacy incidents (including attempts), is critical to the success of our business operations, including our reputation, the retention of our advisors and clients, and to the protection of our proprietary information and our clients’ personal information. To date, we have not experienced any material breaches of or interference with our centrally controlled systems and networks. However, we routinely face and address such evolving threats and have been able to detect

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and respond to these incidents to date without a material loss of client financial assets or information through the use of ongoing monitoring and continual improvement of our security capabilities and incident response manual.

We and our advisors, as well as our service providers, have also been threatened by phishing and spear phishing scams, social engineering attacks, account takeovers, introductions of malware, attempts at electronic break-ins, and the submission of fraudulent payment requests. The number of attempted phishing attacks has increased substantially every year, which is expected to continue. Attempted or successful breaches or interference by third parties or by insiders that may occur in the future could have a material adverse impact on our business, reputation, financial condition or results of operations.

On a corporate basis, various regulations, and in some cases contractual obligations, require us to establish and maintain corporate policies and technical and operational measures designed to protect sensitive client, employee, contractor and vendor information, and to respond to cybersecurity incidents. We have established policies and implemented such technical and operational measures ourselves and have in place policies that require our franchisee advisors who control locally their own technology operations to do the same. Changes in our business or technological advancements may also require corresponding changes in our systems, networks and data security and response measures. While accessing our products and services, our customers may use computers and other devices that sit outside of our security control environment. In addition, the ever-increasing reliance on technology systems and networks and the occurrence and potential adverse impact of attacks on such systems and networks (including in recent well-publicized security breaches at other companies), both generally and in the financial services industry, have enhanced government and regulatory scrutiny of the measures taken by companies to protect against cybersecurity threats. As these threats, and government and regulatory oversight of associated risks, continue to evolve, we may be required to expend additional resources to enhance or expand upon the technical and operational security and response measures we currently maintain or that we allow franchise advisors to maintain and control locally.

Despite the measures we have taken and may in the future take to address and mitigate cybersecurity, privacy and technology risks, we cannot be certain that our systems and networks will not be subject to successful attacks, breaches or interference. Nor can we be certain that franchise advisors will comply with our policies and procedures in this regard, or that clients will engage in safe online practices. Furthermore, human error occurs from time to time and such mistakes can lead to the inadvertent disclosure of sensitive information. Any such event may result in operational disruptions, as well as unauthorized access to or the disclosure or loss of, our proprietary information or client, employee, vendor, or advisor personal information, which in turn may result in legal claims, regulatory scrutiny and liability, reputational damage, the incurrence of costs to respond to, eliminate, or mitigate further exposure, the loss of clients or advisors, or other damage to our business. While we maintain cyber liability insurance that provides both third-party liability and first-party liability coverages, it may not protect us against all cybersecurity-related losses. Furthermore, we may be subject to indemnification costs and liability to third parties if we breach any confidentiality or security obligations regarding vendor data or for losses related to the data. In addition, the trend toward broad consumer and general-public notification of such incidents could exacerbate the harm to our business, reputation, financial condition or results of operations in the event of a breach. Even if we successfully protect our technology infrastructure and the confidentiality of sensitive data and conduct appropriate incident response, we may incur significant expenses in connection with our responses to any such attacks, as well as the adoption, implementation and maintenance of appropriate security measures. In addition, our regulators may seek to hold our company responsible for the acts, mistakes or omissions of our franchise advisors even where they procure and control much of the physical office space and technology infrastructure they use to operate their businesses locally.

Protection from system interruptions and operating errors is important to our business. If we experience a sustained interruption to our telecommunications or data processing systems, or other failure in operational execution, it could harm our business.

Operating errors and system or network interruptions could delay and disrupt our operations. Interruptions could be caused by mistake or other operational failures by service provider staff, employee or advisor error or malfeasance, interference by third parties, including hackers, our implementation of new technology, or maintenance of existing technology. Our financial, accounting, data processing or other operating systems and facilities may fail to operate or report data properly, experience connectivity disruptions or otherwise become disabled as a result of events that are wholly or partially beyond our control, adversely affecting our ability to process transactions or provide products and services to our clients. Further, we cannot control the execution of any business continuity or incident response plans implemented by our service providers or our franchise advisors.

We rely on third-party service providers and vendors for certain communications, technology and business functions and other services, and we face the risk of their operational failure (including, without limitation, failure caused by an inaccuracy, untimeliness or other deficiency in data reporting), technical or security failures, termination or capacity constraints of any of the clearing agents, exchanges, clearing houses or other third-party service providers that we use to facilitate or are component providers to our securities transactions and other product manufacturing and distribution activities. These risks are heightened by our deployment in response to both investor interest and evolution in the financial markets of increasingly sophisticated products. Any such failure, termination or constraint or flawed execution or response could adversely impact our ability to effect transactions, service our clients, manage our exposure to risk, or otherwise achieve desired outcomes.

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Risk management policies and procedures may not be fully effective in identifying or mitigating risk exposure in all market environments, new products, vendors, or against all types of risk, including employee and financial advisor misconduct.

Our policies and procedures to identify, monitor and manage risks may not be fully effective in mitigating our risk exposure in all market environments or against all types of risk. Many of our methods of managing risk and the associated exposures are based upon our use of observed historical experience or expectations about future experience (e.g. market behavior, client/policyholder behavior, mortality, etc.) or statistics based on historical models. Experience may not emerge as expected and during periods of market volatility, or due to unforeseen events, the historically-derived experience and correlations may not be valid. As a result, these methods and models may not predict future exposures accurately, which could be significantly greater than what our models indicate. Further some controls are manual and are subject to inherent limitations. This could cause us to incur investment losses or cause our hedging and other risk management strategies to be ineffective. Other risk management methods depend upon the evaluation of information regarding markets, clients, catastrophe occurrence or other matters that are publicly available or otherwise accessible to us, which may not always be accurate, complete, up-to-date or properly evaluated.

Our financial performance also requires us to develop, effectively manage, and market new products and services that appropriately anticipate or respond to changes in the industry and evolving client demands. The development and introduction of new products and services, including the creation of Asset Management products with a focus on environmental, social and governance matters, require continued innovative effort and may require significant time, resources, and ongoing support. Substantial risk and uncertainties are associated with the introduction of new products and services, including the implementation of new and appropriate operational controls and procedures, shifting client and market preferences, the introduction of competing products or services and compliance with regulatory requirements.

Management of operational, legal and regulatory risks requires, among other things, policies and procedures to record properly and verify a large number of transactions and events, and these policies and procedures may not be fully effective in mitigating our risk exposure in all market environments or against all types of risk, including those associated with our key vendors. Insurance and other traditional risk-shifting tools may be held by or available to us in order to manage certain exposures, but they are subject to terms such as deductibles, coinsurance, limits and policy exclusions, as well as risk of counterparty denial of coverage, default or insolvency.

As a holding company, we depend on the ability of our subsidiaries to transfer funds to us to pay dividends and to meet our obligations.

We act as a holding company for our subsidiaries, through which substantially all of our operations are conducted. Dividends from our subsidiaries and permitted payments to us under our intercompany arrangements with our subsidiaries are our principal sources of cash to pay shareholder dividends and to meet our other financial obligations. These obligations include our operating expenses and interest and principal on our borrowings. If the cash we receive from our subsidiaries pursuant to dividend payment and intercompany arrangements is insufficient for us to fund any of these obligations, we may be required to raise cash through the incurrence of additional debt, the issuance of additional equity or the sale of assets. If any of this happens, it could adversely impact our financial condition and results of operations.

Insurance, banking and securities laws and regulations, including the FRB’s 2019 proposal for a new capital framework for ISLHCs, termed the “Building Block Approach” and the NAIC’s “Group Capital Calculation” represents an insurance-focused capital framework, may regulate the ability of many of our subsidiaries (such as our insurance, banking and brokerage subsidiaries and our face-amount certificate company) to pay dividends or make other permitted payments. Additionally, the rating organizations effectively impose various capital requirements on our company and our insurance company subsidiaries in order for us to maintain our ratings and the ratings of our insurance subsidiaries We must manage our business within the expectations of the patchwork of regulations and capital expectations from these parties. As asset values decline or other financial drivers to our business worsen, our and our subsidiaries’ ability to pay dividends or make other permitted payments can be reduced. Additionally, the various asset classes held by our subsidiaries, and used in determining required capital levels, are weighted differently or are restricted as to the proportion in which they may be held depending upon their liquidity, credit risk and other factors. The regulatory capital requirements and dividend-paying ability of our subsidiaries may also be affected by a change in the mix of products sold by such subsidiaries. Further, the capital requirements imposed upon our subsidiaries may be impacted by heightened regulatory or rating organization scrutiny and intervention, which could negatively affect our and our subsidiaries’ ability to pay dividends or make other permitted payments. Additionally, in the past we have found it necessary and advisable to provide support to certain of our subsidiaries in order to maintain adequate capital for regulatory or other purposes and we may provide such support in the future. The provision of such support could adversely affect our excess capital, liquidity, and the dividends or other permitted payments received from our subsidiaries.

The operation of our business in foreign markets and our investments in non-U.S. denominated securities and investment products subjects us to exchange rate and other risks in connection with international operations and earnings and income generated overseas.

While we are a U.S.-based company, a portion of our business operations occurs outside of the U.S. and some of our investments are not denominated in U.S. dollars. As a result, we are exposed to certain foreign currency exchange risks that could reduce U.S. dollar equivalent earnings as well as negatively impact our general account and other proprietary investment portfolios. Appreciation of the U.S. dollar could unfavorably affect net income from foreign operations, the value of non-U.S. dollar denominated investments and investments in foreign subsidiaries. In comparison, depreciation of the U.S. dollar could positively affect our net income from foreign

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operations and the value of non-U.S. dollar denominated investments, though such depreciation could also diminish investor, creditor and rating organizations’ perceptions of our company compared to peer companies that have a relatively greater proportion of foreign operations or investments.

In addition, conducting and increasing our international operations subjects us to new risks that, generally, we have not faced in the U.S., including: (i) potentially adverse tax consequences, including the complexities of foreign value added tax systems and restrictions on the repatriation of earnings; (ii) the localization of our solutions and related costs; (iii) the burdens of complying with a wide variety of foreign laws and different legal standards, including laws and regulations; and (iv) social and economic situations outside of the U.S. The occurrence of any one of these risks could negatively affect our international business and, consequently, our results of operations generally. Additionally, operating in international markets also requires significant management attention and financial resources and we cannot be certain these operations will produce desired levels of revenues or profitability.

In particular, the full impact of Brexit remains uncertain. The impact of Brexit in the near- and long-term is still unknown and could have additional adverse effects on economies, financial markets, currencies and asset valuations around the world, including the value of the Columbia Threadneedle Investments funds’ portfolio investments.

The occurrence of natural or man-made disasters and catastrophes could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

The occurrence of natural disasters and catastrophes, including earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, fires, blackouts, severe winter weather, explosions, pandemic disease (such as COVID-19) and man-made disasters, including acts of terrorism, riots, civil unrest including large-scale protests, insurrections and military actions, could adversely affect our results of operations or financial condition. Such disasters and catastrophes may damage our facilities, preventing our service providers, employees and financial advisors from performing their roles, or otherwise disturbing our ordinary business operations and by impacting insurance claims, as described below. These impacts could be particularly severe to the extent they affect access to physical facilities, the physical well-being of large numbers of our employees, our computer-based data processing, transmission, storage and retrieval systems and destroy or release valuable data. Such disasters and catastrophes may also impact us indirectly by changing the condition and behaviors of our customers, business counterparties and regulators, as well as by causing declines or volatility in the economic and financial markets.

The potential effects of natural and man-made disasters and catastrophes on certain of our businesses include but are not limited to the following: (i) a catastrophic loss of life may materially increase the amount of or accelerate the timing in which benefits are paid under our insurance policies; (ii) an increase in claims and any resulting increase in claims reserves caused by a disaster may harm the financial condition of our reinsurers, thereby impacting the cost and availability of reinsurance and the probability of default on reinsurance recoveries; (iii) widespread unavailability of staff; and (iv) declines and volatility in the financial markets that may decrease the value of our assets under management and administration, which could harm our financial condition and reduce our management fees.

Legal, Regulatory and Tax Risks

Legal and regulatory actions are inherent in our businesses and could result in financial losses or harm our businesses.

We are, and in the future may be, subject to legal and regulatory actions in the ordinary course of our operations, both domestically and internationally. Actions brought against us may result in awards, settlements, penalties, injunctions or other adverse results, including reputational damage. In addition, we may incur significant expenses in connection with our defense against such actions regardless of their outcome. Various regulatory and governmental bodies have the authority to review our products and business practices and those of our employees and independent financial advisors and to bring regulatory or other legal actions against us if, in their view, our practices, or those of our employees or advisors, are improper. Pending legal and regulatory actions include proceedings relating to aspects of our businesses and operations that are specific to us and proceedings that are typical of the industries and businesses in which we operate. Some of these proceedings have been brought on behalf of various alleged classes of complainants.

Our businesses are regulated heavily, and changes to the laws and regulations applicable to our businesses may have an adverse effect on our operations, reputation and financial condition.

Virtually all aspects of our business, including the activities of our parent company and our various subsidiaries, are subject to various federal, state and international laws and regulations. For a discussion of the regulatory framework in which we operate, see “Business - Regulation” included in Part I, Item 1 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Compliance with these applicable laws and regulations is time-consuming and personnel-intensive, and we have invested and will continue to invest substantial resources to ensure compliance by our parent company and our subsidiaries, directors, officers, employees, registered representatives and agents. Further, any future legislation or changes to the laws and regulations applicable to our businesses, as well as changes to the interpretation and enforcement of such laws and regulations, may affect our operations and financial condition. Legislation could require changes to our business operations or our regulatory reporting relationships. Such changes may impact our business operations and profitability, increase our costs of doing business, increase compliance costs as well as have a material effect on fee rates, interest rates and foreign exchange rates, which could materially impact our products, services, investments, results of operations, products and liquidity in ways that we cannot predict. Ongoing changes to regulation and oversight of the financial industry may produce

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results, the full impact of which cannot be immediately ascertained as government intervention could distort customary and expected commercial behavior.

Certain examples of legislative and regulatory changes that may impact our businesses are described below. Some of the changes could present operational challenges and increase costs. Ultimately the complexities and increased costs of legislative and regulatory changes could have an impact on our ability to offer cost-effective and innovative products to our clients.

Regulation of Products and Services: Any mandated reductions or restructuring of the fees we charge for our products and services resulting from regulatory initiatives or proceedings could reduce our revenues and/or earnings. For example, the DOL could propose changes to regulations that define our advisors’ relationships with their clients, such as requiring a fiduciary relationship between our advisors and clients.

Insurance Regulation: Changes in the state regulatory requirements applicable to our insurance companies that are made for the benefit of the consumer sometimes lead to additional expense for the insurer and, thus, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. Further, we cannot predict the effect that proposed federal legislation may have on our businesses or competitors, such as the option of federally chartered insurers, a mandated federal systemic risk regulator, future initiatives of the FIO within the Department of the Treasury or by any of the Domiciliary Regulators, the NAIC or the International Association of Insurance Supervisors with respect to insurance holding company supervision, capital standards or systemic risk regulation. As discussed earlier, the NAIC’s Group Capital calculation and the FRB’s 2019 proposal for a new capital framework for ISLHCs, would create new capital requirements (even if there are any refinements to the proposal) which could potentially impact the way we structure our capital or manage our business.

International Regulation: Potential measures taken by foreign and international authorities regarding anti-bribery, the nationalization or expropriation of assets, the imposition of limits on foreign ownership of local companies, increased environmental sustainability or governance requirements, changes in laws (including tax laws and regulations) and in their application or interpretation, imposition of large fines, political instability, dividend limitations, price controls, changes in applicable currency, currency exchange controls, or other restrictions that prevent us from transferring funds from these operations out of the countries in which they operate or converting local currencies we hold to U.S. dollars or other currencies may negatively affect our business.

Employment Regulation: A portion of our advisor force consists of independent contractors. Legislative or regulatory action that redefines the criteria for determining whether a person is an employee or an independent contractor could materially impact our industry and our relationships with our advisors, their staff, and our business, resulting in an adverse effect on our results or operations.

Privacy and Data: Our business is subject to comprehensive legal requirements concerning the use and protection of personal information, including client and employee information, from a multitude of different functional regulators and law enforcement bodies. This regulatory framework is rapidly changing through an ever-increasing patchwork of state laws and regulation and international developments like GDPR. Further developments could negatively impact our business and operations.

As a Savings and Loan Holding Company, we are subject to supervision by the FRB and various prudential standards that may limit our activities and strategies.

Ameriprise Financial is subject to ongoing supervision by the FRB, including supervision and prudential standards, certain capital requirements, stress-testing, resolution planning, information security and privacy, and certain risk management requirements. Further, as a financial holding company, our activities are limited to those that are financial in nature, incidental to a financial activity or, with FRB approval, complementary to a financial activity. Our broker-dealers and bank subsidiary are limited in their ability to lend or transact with affiliates and are subject to minimum regulatory capital and other requirements, as well as limitations on their ability to use funds deposited with them in brokerage or bank accounts to fund their businesses. These requirements may hinder our ability to access funds from our subsidiaries. We may also become subject to a prohibition or limitations on our ability to pay dividends or repurchase our common stock. The federal banking regulators, including the OCC, the FRB and the FDIC, as well as the SEC (through FINRA) have the authority and under certain circumstances, the obligation, to limit or prohibit dividend payments and stock repurchases by the banking organizations they supervise, including Ameriprise and its bank subsidiaries. Any changes to regulations or changes to the supervisory approach may also result in increased compliance costs to the extent we are required to modify our existing compliance policies, procedures and practices.

Compliance with bank holding company laws and regulations, including the Volcker Rule, impacts the structure and availability of certain of our products and services and our costs in providing those products and services. Costs of compliance may be driven by how these laws and regulations and the scale of Ameriprise Bank evolves over the course of time.

Failure to meet one or more of these requirements could, depending on the violation, limit Ameriprise’s ability to undertake new activities, continue certain activities, or make acquisitions other than those permitted generally for bank holding companies. Execution of our business strategies also may require certain regulatory approvals or consents, which may include approvals of the FRB and other domestic and non-U.S. regulatory authorities. These regulatory authorities may impose conditions on the activities or transactions contemplated by our business strategies which may impact negatively our ability to realize fully the expected benefits of certain opportunities.

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Changes in corporate tax laws and regulations and changes in the interpretation of such laws and regulations, as well as adverse determinations regarding the application of such laws and regulations, could adversely affect our earnings and could make some of our products less attractive to clients.

We are subject to the income tax laws of the U.S., its states and municipalities and those of the foreign jurisdictions in which we have significant business operations. We must make judgments and interpretations about the application of these inherently complex tax laws when determining the provision for income taxes and must also make estimates about when in the future certain items affect taxable income in the various tax jurisdictions. In addition, changes to the Internal Revenue Code, administrative rulings or court decisions could increase our provision for income taxes and reduce our earnings.

Many of the products we issue or on which our businesses are based (including both insurance products and non-insurance products) receive favorable treatment under current U.S. federal income or estate tax law. Changes in U.S. federal income or estate tax law could reduce or eliminate the tax advantages of certain of our products and thus make such products less attractive to clients or cause a change in client demand and activity.

We may not be able to protect our intellectual property and may be subject to infringement claims.

We rely on a combination of contractual rights and copyright, trademark, patent and trade secret laws to establish and protect our intellectual property. Although we use a broad range of measures to protect our intellectual property rights, third parties may infringe or misappropriate our intellectual property or attempt to use the same to defraud others. We may have to litigate to enforce and protect our brand and reputation, copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets and know-how, or to determine their scope, validity or enforceability, which represents a diversion of resources that may be significant in amount and may not prove successful. The loss of intellectual property protection or the inability to secure or enforce the protection of our intellectual property assets could have a material adverse effect on our business and our ability to compete.

We also may be subject to costly litigation in the event that another party alleges our operations or activities infringe upon or constitute misappropriation of such other party’s intellectual property rights. Third parties may have, or may eventually be issued, patents or other protections that could be infringed by our products, methods, processes or services or could otherwise limit our ability to offer certain product features. Any party that holds such a patent could make a claim of infringement against us. The threat of patent litigation from non-practicing entities is increasing for financial services firms like ours. We have successfully resolved all such cases to date but may not always be able to do so without significant financial impact. We may also be subject to claims by third parties for breach of copyright, trademark, license usage rights, or misappropriation of trade secret rights. Any such claims and any resulting litigation could result in significant liability for damages. If we were found to have infringed or misappropriated a third-party patent or other intellectual property rights, we could incur substantial liability, and in some circumstances could be enjoined from providing certain products or services to our customers or utilizing and benefiting from certain methods, processes, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets or licenses, or alternatively could be required to enter into costly licensing arrangements with third parties, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Changes in and the adoption of accounting standards could have a material impact on our financial statements

Our accounting policies are fundamental to how we record and report our results of operations and financial condition. We prepare our financial statements in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”), the SEC and other regulators often change the financial accounting and reporting standards governing the preparation of our financial statements. These changes are sometimes difficult to predict and could impose additional governance, internal control and disclosure demands. In some cases, we could be required to apply a new or revised standard retroactively, resulting in our restating prior period financial statements. As an example, in August 2018, the FASB updated the accounting standard related to long-duration insurance and annuity contracts that will be effective January 1, 2023, that is expected to result in significant changes to how we account for and report our insurance and annuity contracts (both in-force and new business), including updating assumptions used to measure the liability for future policy benefits for traditional and limited-payment contracts, measurement of market risk benefits and amortization of DAC. It is possible that accounting changes could have a material effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

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Item 2. Properties

We operate our business from two principal locations, both of which are located in Minneapolis, Minnesota: the Ameriprise Financial Center, an 959,000 square foot building that we lease, and our Client Service Center, an 871,000 square foot building, that we own. Generally, we lease the premises we occupy in other locations, including the 38,000 square foot executive offices that we lease in New York City and branch offices for our employee advisors throughout the U.S.

Our principal leases are in the following locations:

•Columbia Threadneedle Investments leased offices in Boston containing approximately 130,000 square feet and in 2021 will be moving to newly leased office space, leases approximately 66,000 square feet of a shared building in London (as well as a second location in Swindon, U.K.), approximately 39,000 square feet of a shared building in New York and also leases property in a number of other cities to support its global operations; and

•Las Vegas, Nevada (supporting aspects of our Advice & Wealth Management businesses) and Gurugram and Noida India (supporting our broader business in the U.S.).

We believe that the facilities owned or occupied by our company suit our needs and are well maintained.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

For a discussion of material legal proceedings, see Note 26 to our Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, which is incorporated herein by reference.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

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PART II.

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Our common stock trades principally on The New York Stock Exchange under the trading symbol AMP. As of February 12, 2021, we had approximately 12,587 common shareholders of record. Information regarding our equity compensation plans can be found in Part III, Item 12 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Information comparing the cumulative total shareholder return on our common stock to the cumulative total return for certain indices is set forth under the heading “Performance Graph” provided in our 2020 Annual Report to Shareholders and is furnished herewith.

We are primarily a holding company and, as a result, our ability to pay dividends in the future will depend on receiving dividends from our subsidiaries. For information regarding our ability to pay dividends, see the information set forth under the heading “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Liquidity and Capital Resources” contained in Part II, Item 7 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Share Repurchases

The following table presents the information with respect to purchases made by or on behalf of Ameriprise Financial, Inc. or any “affiliated purchaser” (as defined in Rule 10b-18(a)(3) under the Exchange Act), of our common stock during the fourth quarter of 2020:

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Totals

N/A Not applicable.

(1) In February 2019, our Board of Directors authorized a repurchase up to $2.5 billion of our common stock through March 31, 2021. In August 2020, our Board of Directors authorized an expenditure of up to $2.5 billion for the repurchase of our common stock through September 30, 2022. The share repurchase program does not require the purchase of any minimum number of shares, and depending on market conditions and other factors, these purchases may be commenced or suspended at any time without prior notice. Acquisitions under the share repurchase program may be made in the open market, through privately negotiated transactions or block trades or other means.

(2) Includes restricted shares withheld pursuant to the terms of awards under the Company’s share-based compensation plans to offset tax withholding obligations that occur upon vesting and release of restricted shares. The value of the restricted shares withheld is the closing price of common stock of Ameriprise Financial, Inc. on the date the relevant transaction occurs. Also includes shares withheld pursuant to the net settlement of Non-Qualified Stock Option (“NQSO”) exercises to offset tax withholding obligations that occur upon exercise and to cover the strike price of the NQSO. The value of the shares withheld pursuant to the net settlement of NQSO exercises is the closing price of common stock of Ameriprise Financial, Inc. on the day prior to the date the relevant transaction occurs.

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Item 6. Selected Financial Data

The following table sets forth selected consolidated financial information derived from our Consolidated Financial Statements as of December 31, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 and for the five-year period ended December 31, 2020. The selected financial data presented below should be read in conjunction with our Consolidated Financial Statements and Notes included elsewhere in this report and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” On January 1, 2018, we retrospectively applied the new accounting standard for revenue recognition to each reporting period presented in the financial statements.

Years Ended December 31,

(in millions, except per share data)

Income Statement Data:

December 31,

(in millions)

Balance Sheet Data:

(1) Represents amounts before consolidated investment entities, as reported on our Consolidated Balance Sheets.

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Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis of our consolidated financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the “Forward-Looking Statements,” our Consolidated Financial Statements and Notes that follow and the “Consolidated Five-Year Summary of Selected Financial Data” and the “Risk Factors” included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K. References to “Ameriprise Financial,” “Ameriprise,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to Ameriprise Financial, Inc. exclusively, to our entire family of companies, or to one or more of our subsidiaries.

Overview

Ameriprise is a diversified financial services company with a 125-year history of providing financial solutions. We are a long-standing leader in financial planning and advice with $1.1 trillion in assets under management and administration as of December 31, 2020. We offer a broad range of products and services designed to achieve individual and institutional clients’ financial objectives. For additional discussion of our businesses, see Part I, Item 1 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (‘‘COVID-19’’) pandemic presents ongoing significant economic and societal disruption and market volatility, which has had and will continue to have ongoing impacts to our business and operating environment driven by a low interest rate environment, significant volatility in the equity markets and the potential associated implications to client behavior. There are no reliable estimates of how long the pandemic will last, how many people are likely to be affected by it, or its impact on the overall economy.

We continue to implement comprehensive strategies to navigate the operating environment spurred by the pandemic. During the first quarter, we implemented a work-from-home protocol for virtually all of our employee population, restricted business travel, and provided resources for complying with the guidance from the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and governments. We have begun a thoughtful phased reopening of our office locations while complying with applicable health agencies’ guidelines and governmental orders. We continue to operate successfully and satisfy elevated customer service volumes in this unique time - client service and the health and safety of our clients, advisors and employees remain our priorities while our employees and advisors have various work arrangements. The pandemic strategy we have employed is flexible and scalable, recognizing this pandemic is widespread and occurs in multiple waves, affecting different communities at different times with varying levels of severity.

There was significant economic volatility during 2020 and our results of operations continue to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. There is still uncertainty surrounding the magnitude, duration, speed and reach of the ongoing global pandemic, success of worldwide vaccination efforts, as well as the impact of actions that have been or could be taken by governmental authorities, clients or other third parties. While we have successfully adapted to a virtual work environment and deployed numerous adaptive business strategies so far this year, we believe the pandemic and its accompanying impact on the global financial markets and on our operations and financial results may cause results not to be comparable to previous years. The results presented in this report are not necessarily indicative of future operating results. For further information regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and any potentially material effects, see Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K - “Risk Factors”.

The products and services we provide retail clients and, to a lesser extent, institutional clients, are the primary source of our revenues and net income. Revenues and net income are significantly affected by investment performance and the total value and composition of assets we manage and administer for our retail and institutional clients as well as the distribution fees we receive from other companies. These factors, in turn, are largely determined by overall investment market performance and the depth and breadth of our individual client relationships.

Financial markets and macroeconomic conditions have had and will continue to have a significant impact on our operating and performance results. In addition, the business, political and regulatory environments in which we operate are subject to elevated uncertainty and substantial, frequent change. Accordingly, we expect to continue focusing on our key strategic objectives and obtaining operational and strategic leverage from our core capabilities. The success of these and other strategies may be affected by the factors discussed in Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K - “Risk Factors” - and other factors as discussed herein.

Equity price, credit market and interest rate fluctuations can have a significant impact on our results of operations, primarily due to the effects they have on the asset management and other asset-based fees we earn, the value of deferred acquisition costs (“DAC”) and deferred sales inducement costs (“DSIC”) assets, the values of liabilities for guaranteed benefits associated with our variable annuities and the values of derivatives held to hedge these benefits and the “spread” income generated on our fixed deferred annuities, fixed insurance, fixed portion of variable annuities and variable insurance contracts and deposit products.

Earnings, as well as adjusted operating earnings, will be negatively impacted by the ongoing low interest rate environment should it continue. In addition to continuing spread compression in our interest sensitive product lines, a sustained low interest rate environment may result in increases to our reserves and changes in various rate assumptions we use to amortize DAC and DSIC, which may negatively impact our adjusted operating earnings. For additional discussion on our interest rate risk, see Item 7A. “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.”

In the third quarter, we updated our market-related assumptions and implemented model changes related to our living benefit valuation. In addition, we conducted our annual review of life insurance and annuity valuation assumptions relative to current

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experience and management expectations including modeling changes. These aforementioned changes are collectively referred to as unlocking. We also reviewed our active life future policy benefit reserve adequacy for our long term care (“LTC”) business in the third quarter. See our Consolidated and Segment Results of Operations sections for the pretax impacts on our revenues and expenses attributable to unlocking and LTC loss recognition.

During the third quarter of 2020, as we continue to reposition the business and implement strategies focusing on product features and sales, the composition of our reportable segments changed from five to four segments. The Chief Operating Decision Maker (“CODM”) now manages the Annuities and Protection business as one operating segment, referred to as Retirement & Protection Solutions. The Retirement & Protection Solutions segment will include Retirement Solutions (Variable Annuities and Payout Annuities) and Protection Solutions (Life and Disability Insurance). In addition, we moved the Fixed Annuities and Fixed Indexed Annuities (collectively “FA”) business to the Corporate & Other segment as a closed block. These segment reporting changes align with the way our CODM began assessing the performance of our reportable segments and other business activities effective in the third quarter of 2020. Certain prior period amounts have been revised to conform to the current presentation. These changes have no impact on previously reported consolidated balance sheets or statements of operations, comprehensive income, stockholders equity, or cash flows.

On October 1, 2019, we completed the sale of our Ameriprise Auto & Home Insurance business (“AAH”) to American Family Insurance Mutual Holding Company (American Family Insurance). See Note 19 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information on the sale of AAH. This sale is consistent with our focus on our core growth areas of Advice & Wealth Management and Asset Management.

In 2018, we made the strategic decision to expand the banking products and services we can provide directly to our clients, and commenced the process to convert Ameriprise National Trust Bank into a federal savings bank with the capabilities to offer FDIC insured deposits and a range of lending products. We completed that process, received regulatory approvals and converted Ameriprise National Trust Bank to a federal savings bank in May 2019.

We consolidate certain variable interest entities for which we provide asset management services. These entities are defined as consolidated investment entities (“CIEs”). While the consolidation of the CIEs impacts our balance sheet and income statement, our exposure to these entities is unchanged and there is no impact to the underlying business results. For further information on CIEs, see Note 5 to our Consolidated Financial Statements. The results of operations of the CIEs are reflected in the Corporate & Other segment. On a consolidated basis, the management fees we earn for the services we provide to the CIEs and the related general and administrative expenses are eliminated and the changes in the fair value of assets and liabilities related to the CIEs, primarily syndicated loans and debt, are reflected in net investment income. We include the fees from these entities in the management and financial advice fees line within our Asset Management segment.

While our Consolidated Financial Statements are prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”), management believes that adjusted operating measures, which exclude net realized investment gains or losses, net of the related DSIC and DAC amortization, unearned revenue amortization and the reinsurance accrual; the market impact on non-traditional long-duration products (including variable and fixed deferred annuity contracts and universal life (“UL”) insurance contracts), net of hedges and the related DSIC and DAC amortization, unearned revenue amortization and the reinsurance accrual; mean reversion related impacts (the impact on variable annuity and variable universal life (“VUL”) products for the difference between assumed and updated separate account investment performance on DAC, DSIC, unearned revenue amortization, reinsurance accrual and additional insurance benefit reserves); the market impact of hedges to offset interest rate changes on unrealized gains or losses for certain investments; gain or loss on disposal of a business that is not considered discontinued operations; integration and restructuring charges; income (loss) from discontinued operations; and the impact of consolidating CIEs, best reflect the underlying performance of our core operations and facilitate a more meaningful trend analysis. Management uses these non-GAAP measures to evaluate our financial performance on a basis comparable to that used by some securities analysts and investors. Also, certain of these non-GAAP measures are taken into consideration, to varying degrees, for purposes of business planning and analysis and for certain compensation-related matters. Throughout our Management’s Discussion and Analysis, these non-GAAP measures are referred to as adjusted operating measures. These non-GAAP measures should not be viewed as a substitute for U.S. GAAP measures.

It is management’s priority to increase shareholder value over a multi-year horizon by achieving our on-average, over-time financial targets.

Our financial targets are:

•Adjusted operating earnings per diluted share growth of 12% to 15%, and

•Adjusted operating return on equity excluding accumulated other comprehensive income (“AOCI”) of over 30%.

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The following tables reconcile our GAAP measures to adjusted operating measures:

Per Diluted Share

Years Ended December 31, Years Ended December 31,

(in millions, except per share amounts)

Less: Net realized investment gains (losses) (1) (10) (4) (0.08) (0.03)

Add: Mean reversion related impacts (1) (87) (57) (0.69) (0.42)

Add: Market impact of hedges on investments (1) — 35 — 0.26

Less: Gain on disposal of business (1) — 213 — 1.57

Add: Integration/restructuring charges (1) 4 17 0.03 0.12

Less: Net income (loss) attributable to CIEs 3 1 0.02 0.01

Weighted average common shares outstanding:

(1) Pretax adjusted operating adjustments.

(2) Calculated using the statutory tax rate of 21%.

The following table reconciles net income to adjusted operating earnings and the five-point average of quarter-end equity to adjusted operating equity:

Years Ended December 31,

(in millions)

Adjusted operating earnings $ 1,770 $ 2,190

Total Ameriprise Financial, Inc. shareholders’ equity $ 6,171 $ 5,837

Less: Equity impacts attributable to CIEs 1 1

Adjusted operating equity $ 5,869 $ 5,714

Return on equity, excluding AOCI 26.1 % 33.1 %

Adjusted operating return on equity, excluding AOCI (2) 30.2 % 38.3 %

(1) Adjustments reflect the sum of after-tax net realized investment gains/losses, net of DSIC and DAC amortization, unearned revenue amortization and the reinsurance accrual; the market impact on non-traditional long-duration products (including variable and fixed deferred annuity contracts and UL insurance contracts), net of hedges and related DSIC and DAC amortization, unearned revenue amortization and the reinsurance accrual; mean reversion related impacts; the market impact of hedges to offset interest rate changes on unrealized gains or losses for certain investments; gain or loss on disposal of a business that is not considered discontinued operations; integration and restructuring charges; income (loss) from discontinued operations; and net income (loss) from consolidated investment entities. After-tax is calculated using the statutory tax rate of 21%.

(2) Adjusted operating return on equity, excluding AOCI is calculated using adjusted operating earnings in the numerator and Ameriprise Financial shareholders’ equity, excluding AOCI and the impact of consolidating investment entities using a five-point average of quarter-end equity in the denominator. After-tax is calculated using the statutory rate of 21%.

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Critical Accounting Estimates

The accounting and reporting policies that we use affect our Consolidated Financial Statements. Certain of our accounting and reporting policies are critical to an understanding of our consolidated results of operations and financial condition and, in some cases, the application of these policies can be significantly affected by the estimates, judgments and assumptions made by management during the preparation of our Consolidated Financial Statements. The accounting and reporting policies and estimates we have identified as fundamental to a full understanding of our consolidated results of operations and financial condition are described below. See Note 2 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for further information about our accounting policies.

Valuation of Investments

The most significant component of our investments is our Available-for-Sale securities, which we carry at fair value within our Consolidated Balance Sheets. See Note 15 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for discussion of the fair value of our Available-for-Sale securities. Financial markets are subject to significant movements in valuation and liquidity, which can impact our ability to liquidate and the selling price that can be realized for our securities and increases the use of judgment in determining the estimated fair value of certain investments.

Deferred Acquisition Costs

See Note 2 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for discussion of our DAC accounting policy.

Non-Traditional Long-Duration Products

For our non-traditional long-duration products (including variable, structured variable and fixed deferred annuity contracts, UL and VUL insurance products), our DAC balance at any reporting date is based on projections that show management expects there to be estimated gross profits (“EGPs”) after that date to amortize the remaining balance. These projections are inherently uncertain because they require management to make assumptions about financial markets, mortality levels and contractholder and policyholder behavior over periods extending well into the future. Projection periods used for our annuity products are typically 30 to 50 years and for our UL insurance products 50 years or longer.

EGPs vary based on persistency rates (assumptions at which contractholders and policyholders are expected to surrender, make withdrawals from and make deposits to their contracts), mortality levels, client asset value growth rates (based on equity and bond market performance), variable annuity benefit utilization and interest margins (the spread between earned rates on invested assets and rates credited to contractholder and policyholder accounts). Changes in these assumptions can be offsetting and we are unable to predict their movement or offsetting impact over time. When assumptions are changed, the percentage of EGPs used to amortize DAC might also change. A change in the required amortization percentage is applied retrospectively; an increase in amortization percentage will result in a decrease in the DAC balance and an increase in DAC amortization expense, while a decrease in amortization percentage will result in an increase in the DAC balance and a decrease in DAC amortization expense. The effect on the DAC balance that would result from the realization of unrealized gains (losses) on securities is recognized with an offset to accumulated other comprehensive income on the consolidated balance sheet.

The client asset value growth rates are the rates at which variable annuity and VUL insurance contract values invested in separate accounts are assumed to appreciate in the future. The rates used vary by equity and fixed income investments. The long-term client asset value growth rates are based on assumed gross annual returns of 9% for equity funds and 5.4% for fixed income funds. We typically use a five-year mean reversion process as a guideline in setting near-term equity fund growth rates based on a long-term view of financial market performance as well as recent actual performance. The suggested near-term equity fund growth rate is reviewed quarterly to ensure consistency with management’s assessment of anticipated equity market performance.

A decrease of 100 basis points in separate account fund growth rate assumptions is likely to result in an increase in DAC amortization and an increase in benefits and claims expense for variable annuity and VUL insurance contracts. The following table presents the estimated impact to current period pretax income:

Estimated Impact to Pretax Income (1)

DAC Amortization Benefits and Claims Expense Total

(in millions)

(1) An increase in the above assumptions by 100 basis points would result in an increase to pretax income for approximately the same amount.

An assessment of sensitivity associated with changes in any single assumption would not necessarily be an indicator of future results.

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Traditional Long-Duration Products

For our traditional long-duration products (including traditional life and disability income (“DI”) insurance products), our DAC balance at any reporting date is based on projections that show management expects there to be adequate premiums after the date to amortize the remaining balance. These projections are inherently uncertain because they require management to make assumptions over periods extending well into the future. These assumptions include interest rates, persistency rates and mortality and morbidity rates and are not modified (unlocked) unless recoverability testing determines that reserves are inadequate. Projection periods used for our traditional life insurance are up to 30 years. Projection periods for our DI products are up to 45 years. We may experience accelerated amortization of DAC if policies terminate earlier than projected or a slower rate of amortization of DAC if policies persist longer than projected.

For traditional life and DI insurance products, the assumptions provide for adverse deviations in experience and are revised only if management concludes experience will be so adverse that DAC are not recoverable. If management concludes that DAC are not recoverable, DAC are reduced to the amount that is recoverable based on best estimate assumptions.

Future Policy Benefits and Claims

We establish reserves to cover the benefits associated with non-traditional and traditional long-duration products. Non-traditional long-duration products include variable and structured variable annuity contracts, fixed annuity contracts and UL and VUL policies. Traditional long-duration products include term life, whole life, DI and LTC insurance products.

Guarantees accounted for as insurance liabilities include guaranteed minimum death benefits (“GMDB”), gain gross-up (“GGU”), guaranteed minimum income benefit (“GMIB”) and the life contingent benefits associated with guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit (“GMWB”). In addition, UL and VUL policies with product features that result in profits followed by losses are accounted for as insurance liabilities.

Guarantees accounted for as embedded derivatives include guaranteed minimum accumulation benefit (“GMAB”) and the non-life contingent benefits associated with GMWB. In addition, the portion of structured variable annuities, indexed annuities and IUL policies allocated to the indexed account is accounted for as an embedded derivative.

The establishment of reserves is an estimation process using a variety of methods, assumptions and data elements. If actual experience is better than or equal to the results of the estimation process, then reserves should be adequate to provide for future benefits and expenses. If actual experience is worse than the results of the estimation process, additional reserves may be required.

Non-Traditional Long-Duration Products, including Embedded Derivatives

UL and VUL

A portion of our UL and VUL policies have product features that result in profits followed by losses from the insurance component of the contract. These profits followed by losses can be generated by the cost structure of the product or secondary guarantees in the contract. The secondary guarantee ensures that, subject to specified conditions, the policy will not terminate and will continue to provide a death benefit even if there is insufficient policy value to cover the monthly deductions and charges. The liability for these future losses is determined using actuarial models to estimate the death benefits in excess of account value and recognizing the excess over the estimated life based on expected assessments (e.g. cost of insurance charges, contractual administrative charges, similar fees and investment margin). Significant assumptions made in projecting future benefits and assessments relate to client asset value growth rates, mortality, persistency and investment margins and are consistent with those used for DAC valuation for the same contracts. See Note 12 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for information regarding the liability for contracts with secondary guarantees.

Variable Annuities

We have approximately $86 billion of variable annuity account value that has been issued over a period of more than fifty years. The diversified variable annuity block consists of $31 billion of account value with no living benefit guarantees and $55 billion of account value with living benefit guarantees, primarily GMWB provisions. The business is predominately issued through the Ameriprise Financial® advisor network. The majority of the variable annuity contracts offered by us contain GMDB provisions. We also offer variable annuities with death benefit provisions that gross up the amount payable by a certain percentage of contract earnings which are referred to as GGU benefits. In addition, we offer contracts with GMWB and GMAB provisions and, until May 2007, we offered contracts containing GMIB provisions. See Note 12 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for further discussion of our variable annuity contracts.

In determining the liabilities for GMDB, GGU, GMIB and the life contingent benefits associated with GMWB, we project these benefits and contract assessments using actuarial models to simulate various equity market scenarios. Significant assumptions made in projecting future benefits and assessments relate to customer asset value growth rates, mortality, persistency, benefit utilization and investment margins and are consistent with those used for DAC valuation for the same contracts. As with DAC, management reviews, and where appropriate, adjusts its assumptions each quarter. Unless management identifies a material deviation over the course of quarterly monitoring, management reviews and updates these assumptions annually in the third quarter of each year.

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Regarding the exposure to variable annuity living benefit guarantees, the source of behavioral risk is driven by changes in policyholder surrenders and utilization of guaranteed withdrawal benefits. We have extensive experience studies and analysis to monitor changes and trends in policyholder behavior. A significant volume of company-specific policyholder experience data is available and provides management with the ability to regularly analyze policyholder behavior. On a monthly basis, actual surrender and benefit utilization experience is compared to expectations. Experience data includes detailed policy information providing the opportunity to review impacts of multiple variables. The ability to analyze differences in experience, such as presence of a living benefit rider, existence of surrender charges, and tax qualifications provide us an effective approach in quickly detecting changes in policyholder behavior.

At least annually, we perform a thorough policyholder behavior analysis to validate the assumptions included in our benefit reserve, embedded derivative and DAC balances. The variable annuity assumptions and resulting reserve computations reflect multiple policyholder variables. Differentiation in assumptions by policyholder age, existence of surrender charges, guaranteed withdrawal utilization, and tax qualification are examples of factors recognized in establishing management’s assumptions used in reserve calculations. The extensive data derived from our variable annuity block informs management in confirming previous assumptions and revising the variable annuity behavior assumptions. Changes in assumptions are governed by a review and approval process to ensure an appropriate measurement of all impacted financial statement balances.

See the table in the previous discussion of “Deferred Acquisition Costs” for the estimated impact to benefits and claims expense related to variable annuity and VUL insurance contracts resulting from a decrease of 100 basis points in separate account fund growth rate assumptions.

Embedded Derivatives

The fair value of embedded derivatives related to GMAB and the non-life contingent benefits associated with GMWB provisions fluctuate based on equity, interest rate and credit markets which can cause these embedded derivatives to be either an asset or a liability. The fair value of embedded derivatives related to structured variable annuities, indexed annuities and IUL fluctuate based on equity markets and interest rates and is a liability. In addition, embedded derivatives are impacted by an estimate of our nonperformance risk adjustment. This estimate includes a spread over the LIBOR swap curve as of the balance sheet date. As our estimate of this spread over LIBOR widens or tightens, the liability will decrease or increase.

Additionally, our Corporate Actuarial Department calculates the fair value of the embedded derivatives on a monthly basis. During this process, control checks are performed to validate the completeness of the data. Actuarial management approves various components of the valuation along with the final results. The change in the fair value of the embedded derivatives is reviewed monthly with senior management.

See Note 15 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for information regarding the fair value measurement of embedded derivatives.

Traditional Long-Duration Products

Liabilities for unpaid amounts on reported DI and LTC claims include any periodic or other benefit amounts due and accrued, along with estimates of the present value of obligations for continuing benefit payments. These unpaid amounts are calculated using anticipated claim continuance rates based on established industry tables, adjusted as appropriate for our experience. The discount rates used to calculate present values are based on average interest rates earned on assets supporting the liability for unpaid amounts.

Liabilities for estimates of benefits that will become payable on future claims on term life, whole life and DI policies are based on the net level premium and LTC policies are based on a gross premium valuation reflecting management’s current best estimate assumptions. Net level premium includes anticipated premium payments, mortality and morbidity rates, policy persistency and interest rates earned on assets supporting the liability. Gross premium valuation includes expected premium rate increases, benefit reductions, morbidity rates, policy persistency and interest rates earned on assets supporting the liability. Anticipated mortality and morbidity rates are based on established industry mortality and morbidity tables, with modifications based on our experience. Anticipated premium payments and persistency rates vary by policy form, issue age, policy duration and certain other pricing factors.

Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities

We use derivative instruments to manage our exposure to various market risks. All derivatives are recorded at fair value. The fair value of our derivative instruments is determined using either market quotes or valuation models that are based upon the net present value of estimated future cash flows and incorporate current market observable inputs to the extent available.

For further details on the types of derivatives we use and how we account for them, see Note 2, Note 15 and Note 17 to our Consolidated Financial Statements. For discussion of our market risk exposures and hedging program and related sensitivity testing, see Item 7A. “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.”

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

For information regarding recent accounting pronouncements and their expected impact on our future consolidated results of operations and financial condition, see Note 3 to our Consolidated Financial Statements.

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Sources of Revenues and Expenses

Management and Financial Advice Fees

Management and financial advice fees relate primarily to fees earned from managing mutual funds, private funds, separate account and wrap account assets and institutional investments, as well as fees earned from providing financial advice, administrative services (including transfer agent and administration fees earned from providing services to retail mutual funds) and other custodial services. Management and financial advice fees include performance-based incentive management fees, which we may receive on certain management contracts. Management and financial advice fees also include mortality and expense risk fees.

Distribution Fees

Distribution fees primarily include point-of-sale fees (such as mutual fund front-end sales loads) and asset-based fees (such as 12b-1 distribution and shareholder service fees). Distribution fees also include amounts received under marketing support arrangements for sales of mutual funds and other companies’ products, such as through our wrap accounts, as well as surrender charges on annuities and UL and VUL insurance.

Net Investment Income

Net investment income primarily includes interest income on fixed maturity securities classified as Available-for-Sale, mortgage loans, policy loans, margin loans, pledged asset lines of credit, other investments, cash and cash equivalents and investments of CIEs; the changes in fair value of trading securities, certain derivatives and certain assets and liabilities of CIEs; the pro rata share of net income or loss on equity method investments; and realized gains and losses on the sale of investments and changes for the allowance for credit losses.

Premiums, policy and contract charges

Premiums include premiums on traditional life, DI and LTC insurance and immediate annuities with a life contingent feature and are net of reinsurance premiums. Additionally, prior to the sale of AAH on October 1, 2019, premiums included earned premiums from auto and home insurance products. Policy and contract charges include variable annuity rider charges and UL and VUL insurance charges, which consist of cost of insurance charges (net of reinsurance premiums and cost of reinsurance for UL and VUL insurance products) and administrative charges.

Other Revenues

Other revenues primarily include the accretion on the fixed annuities reinsurance deposit receivable and other miscellaneous revenues.

For discussion of our accounting policies on revenue recognition, see Note 2 to our Consolidated Financial Statements.

Banking and Deposit Interest Expense

Banking and deposit interest expense primarily includes interest expense related to investment certificates and banking deposits. The changes in fair value of stock market certificate embedded derivatives and the derivatives hedging stock market certificates are included within banking and deposit interest expense.

Distribution Expenses

Distribution expenses primarily include compensation paid to our financial advisors, registered representatives, third-party distributors and wholesalers. The portion of these costs which are incremental and direct to the acquisition of a new or renewal insurance policy or annuity contract issued by the RiverSource Life companies are deferred. The amounts capitalized and amortized are based on actual distribution costs. The majority of these costs, such as advisor and wholesaler compensation, vary directly with the level of sales. Distribution expenses also include marketing support and other distribution and administration related payments made to affiliated and unaffiliated distributors of products provided by our affiliates. The majority of these expenses vary with the level of sales, or assets held, by these distributors, and the remainder is fixed. Distribution expenses also include wholesaling costs.

Interest Credited to Fixed Accounts

Interest credited to fixed accounts represents amounts earned by contractholders and policyholders on fixed account values associated with UL and VUL insurance and annuity contracts. The changes in fair value of fixed deferred indexed annuity and IUL embedded derivatives and the derivatives hedging these products are also included within interest credited to fixed accounts.

Benefits, Claims, Losses and Settlement Expenses

Benefits, claims, losses and settlement expenses consist of amounts paid and changes in liabilities held for anticipated future benefit payments under insurance policies and annuity contracts, along with costs to process and pay such amounts. Amounts are net of benefit payments recovered or expected to be recovered under reinsurance contracts. Benefits under variable annuity guarantees include the changes in fair value of GMWB and GMAB embedded derivatives and the derivatives hedging these benefits, as well as the changes in fair value of derivatives hedging GMDB provisions. The changes in fair value of structured variable annuity embedded derivatives and the derivatives hedging this product, as well as the amortization of DSIC are also included in benefits, claims losses and settlement expenses.

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Amortization of DAC

Direct sales commissions and other costs capitalized as DAC are amortized over time. For annuity and UL/VUL contracts, DAC are amortized based on projections of EGPs over amortization periods equal to the approximate life of the business. For other insurance products, DAC are generally amortized as a percentage of premiums over amortization periods equal to the premium-paying period.

Interest and Debt Expense

Interest and debt expense primarily includes interest on corporate debt and CIE debt, the impact of interest rate hedging activities and amortization of debt issuance costs.

General and Administrative Expense

General and administrative expense includes compensation, share-based awards and other benefits for employees (other than employees directly related to distribution, such as financial advisors), professional and consultant fees, information technology, facilities and equipment, advertising and promotion, legal and regulatory and corporate related expenses.

Assets Under Management and Administration

Assets under management (“AUM”) include external client assets for which we provide investment management services, such as the assets of the Columbia Threadneedle Investmentsfunds, institutional clients and clients in our advisor platform held in wrap accounts as well as assets managed by sub-advisors selected by us. AUM also includes certain assets on our Consolidated Balance Sheets for which we provide investment management services and recognize management fees in our Asset Management segment, such as the assets of the general account and the variable product funds held in the separate accounts of our life insurance subsidiaries and CIEs.

Assets under administration (“AUA”) include assets for which we provide administrative services such as client assets invested in other companies’ products that we offer outside of our wrap accounts. These assets include those held in clients’ brokerage accounts. We generally record revenues received from administered assets as distribution fees. We do not exercise management discretion over these assets and do not earn a management fee. These assets are not reported on our Consolidated Balance Sheets. AUA also includes certain assets on our Consolidated Balance Sheets for which we do not provide investment management services and do not recognize management fees, such as investments in non-affiliated funds held in the separate accounts of our life insurance subsidiaries.

AUM and AUA do not include assets under advisement, for which we provide advisory services such as model portfolios but do not have full discretionary investment authority.

The following table presents detail regarding our AUM and AUA:

December 31, Change

(in billions)

Assets Under Management and Administration

Total AUM increased $107.9 billion, or 14%, to $886.0 billion as of December 31, 2020 compared to $778.1 billion as of December 31, 2019 due to a $61.6 billion increase in Advice & Wealth Management AUM driven by wrap account net inflows and market appreciation and a $52.4 billion increase in Asset Management AUM driven by market appreciation and continued improvement in net flows, partially offset by retail fund distributions. See our segment results of operations discussion for additional information on changes in our AUM.

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Consolidated Results of Operations

Year Ended December 31, 2020 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2019

The following table presents our consolidated results of operations:

Years Ended December 31, Change

(in millions)

Revenues

Management and financial advice fees $ 7,368 $ 7,015 $ 353 5 %

Gain on disposal of business — 213 (213) NM

Banking and deposit interest expense 59 136 (77) (57)

Expenses

Interest credited to fixed accounts 644 669 (25) (4)

Benefits, claims, losses and settlement expenses 1,806 2,576 (770) (30)

Amortization of deferred acquisition costs 277 179 98 55

NM Not Meaningful.

Overall

Pretax income decreased $401 million, or 18%, to $1.8 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $2.2 billion for the prior year. The following impacts were significant drivers of the year-over-year change in pretax income:

•The unfavorable impact of unlocking and LTC loss recognition was $454 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $16 million for the prior year.

•A negative impact of $384 million in the Advice & Wealth Management segment from lower short-term interest rates.

•A gain of $213 million recognized on the sale of AAH in the prior year.

•The market impact on non-traditional long-duration products (including variable and fixed deferred annuity contracts and UL insurance contracts), net of hedges and the related DSIC and DAC amortization, unearned revenue amortization and the reinsurance accrual was an expense of $375 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to an expense of $591 million for the prior year.

•A positive impact from higher average equity markets compared to the prior year. Our average weighted equity index (“WEI”), which is a proxy for equity movements on AUM, increased 7% for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to the prior year. The average S&P 500 index was 10% higher for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to the prior year. The disconnect between the increase in the WEI and S&P 500 was larger than usual, primarily due to the outperformance of the S&P 500 compared to international and small cap indices.

•The market impact of hedges on investments was nil for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to an expense of $35 million for the prior year.

•A decrease in impairments of our investment in affordable housing partnerships, which was $2 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $35 million for the prior year.

•The mean reversion related impact was a benefit of $87 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to a benefit of $57 million for the prior year.

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The following table presents the total pretax impacts on our revenues and expenses attributable to unlocking and LTC loss recognition for the years ended December 31:

(in millions)

Premiums, policy and contract charges $ (1) $ 5

Total revenues (1) 5

Benefits, claims, losses and settlement expenses:

LTC unlocking and loss recognition 141 8

Unlocking impact, excluding LTC 212 (1)

Total benefits, claims, losses and settlement expenses 353 7

Amortization of DAC 100 14

Pretax income (1) $ (454) $ (16)

(1) Includes a $12 million net expense and $4 million net benefit related to the market impact on non-traditional long-duration products for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, respectively, which is excluded from adjusted operating earnings. Refer to Results of Operations by Segment for the impact to pretax adjusted operating earnings attributable to unlocking and LTC loss recognition.

The primary drivers of the unfavorable unlocking impact excluding LTC in 2020 were consistent with the prior year and include the following items:

•Updates to our interest rate assumptions resulted in a higher expense in 2020 compared to the prior year.

•Lower surrenders assumptions on variable annuities with living benefit guarantees resulted in a higher expense in 2020 compared to the prior year.

•Changes in equity market volatility and correlation assumptions on variable annuities resulted in a lower benefit in 2020 compared to the prior year.

The primary drivers of the unfavorable LTC unlocking and loss recognition in 2020 were consistent to the prior year and include the following items:

•Updates to our interest rates assumptions resulted in a higher expense in 2020 compared to the prior year.

•Assumptions regarding morbidity, mortality and persistency were more in line with experience and resulted in a lower expense in 2020 compared to the prior year.

•Approved and expected premium rate increases and benefit reductions resulted in a lower benefit in 2020 compared to the prior year.

The total unfavorable impact of updates to our interest rate assumptions noted above for unlocking and LTC loss recognition was $405 million. This non-cash unfavorable impact was primarily driven by the reduction of our ultimate 10-year Treasury rate assumption from 5% to 3.5% due to recent interest rate trends and extending the grading period from three years to 6.5 years with no grading in 2020.

Net Revenues

Net revenues decreased $1.1 billion, or 8%, to $11.9 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $13.0 billion for the prior year.

Management and financial advice fees increased $353 million, or 5%, to $7.4 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $7.0 billion for the prior year primarily due to higher wrap account net inflows and higher average equity markets, partially offset by lower performance fees.

Distribution fees decreased $258 million, or 13%, to $1.7 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $1.9 billion for the prior year primarily due to $317 million of lower fees on off-balance sheet brokerage cash due to a decrease in short-term interest rates, partially offset by higher average equity markets.

Net investment income decreased $212 million, or 14% to $1.3 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $1.5 billion for the prior year primarily due to the following impacts:

•The unfavorable impact of lower interest rates, including lower short-term interest rates on the investment portfolio supporting the certificate and on-balance sheet brokerage cash products.

•The unfavorable impact of fixed annuity net outflows and the fixed annuities reinsurance transaction.

•A decrease of $45 million due to the prior year sale of AAH.

•The favorable market impact of hedges on investments of $35 million in the prior year.

•A decrease of $17 million in net investment income of CIEs.

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•The favorable impact of higher average invested assets related to the bank, offset by lower average certificate balances.

•Lower impairments of our investment in affordable housing partnerships.

Premiums, policy and contract charges decreased $829 million, or 37%, to $1.4 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $2.2 billion for the prior year primarily reflecting the sale of AAH. Premiums in the prior year included $827 million from AAH.

Gain on disposal of business of $213 million for the prior year was recognized on the sale of AAH, net of an affinity partner payment of $100 million.

Banking and deposit interest expense decreased $77 million, or 57%, to $59 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $136 million for the prior year due to lower average crediting rates on certificates and lower average certificate balances.

Expenses

Total expenses decreased $667 million, or 6%, to $10.1 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $10.7 billion for the prior year.

Distribution expenses increased $249 million, or 7%, to $4.1 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $3.8 billion for the prior year reflecting higher advisor compensation primarily due to an increase in wrap account balances driven by higher net inflows and higher average equity markets.

Interest credited to fixed accounts decreased $25 million, or 4%, to $644 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $669 million for the prior year primarily reflecting the following items:

•A $49 million decrease in expense from the unhedged nonperformance credit spread risk adjustment on IUL benefits. The unfavorable impact of the nonperformance credit spread was $18 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to an unfavorable impact of $67 million for the prior year.

•A $22 million increase in expense from other market impacts on IUL benefits, net of hedges, which was a benefit of $32 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to a benefit of $54 million for the prior year. The increase in expense was primarily due to an increase in the IUL embedded derivative, which is reflecting higher option costs.

Benefits, claims, losses and settlement expenses decreased $770 million, or 30%, to $1.8 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $2.6 billion for the prior year primarily reflecting the following items:

•A $517 million decrease in expense from the unhedged nonperformance credit spread risk adjustment on variable annuity guaranteed benefits driven by an increase in the undiscounted embedded derivative liability. The favorable impact of the nonperformance credit spread was $342 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to an unfavorable impact of $175 million for the prior year. As the estimate of the nonperformance credit spread over the LIBOR swap curve tightens or widens, the embedded derivative liability will increase or decrease. As the embedded derivative liability on which the nonperformance credit spread is applied increases (decreases), the impact of the nonperformance credit spread is favorable (unfavorable) to expense.

•A $254 million increase in expense from other market impacts on variable annuity guaranteed benefits, net of hedges in place to offset those risks and the related DSIC amortization. This increase was the result of an unfavorable $1.6 billion change in the market impact on variable annuity guaranteed living benefits reserves, partially offset by a favorable $1.3 billion change in the market impact on derivatives hedging the variable annuity guaranteed benefits and a favorable $2 million change in the DSIC offset. The main market drivers contributing to these changes are summarized below:

•Equity market impact on the variable annuity guaranteed living benefits liability net of the impact on the corresponding hedge assets resulted in a higher expense for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to the prior year.

•Volatility impact on the variable annuity guaranteed living benefits liability net of the impact on the corresponding hedge assets resulted in a higher expense for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to the prior year.

•Interest rate impact on the variable annuity guaranteed living benefits liability net of the impact on the corresponding hedge assets resulted in a benefit for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to an expense in the prior year.

•Other unhedged items, including the difference between the assumed and actual underlying separate account investment performance, fixed income credit exposures, transaction costs and various contractholder behavioral items, were a net unfavorable impact compared to the prior year.

•The impact of unlocking excluding LTC was an expense of $212 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to a benefit of $1 million for the prior year. The unlocking impact for 2020 primarily reflected a higher unfavorable impact from updates to our interest rate assumptions and lower surrenders on variable annuities with living benefit guarantees partially offset by a lower benefit from changes in equity market volatility and correlation assumptions on variable annuities compared to the prior year.

•Our annual review of LTC active life future policy benefit reserve adequacy in 2020 resulted in unlocking and loss recognition of $141 million compared to $8 million in the prior year. The unlocking and loss recognition in 2020 was primarily due to a higher unfavorable impact from updates to our interest rates assumptions, a lower unfavorable impact from lesser changes to

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assumptions regarding morbidity, mortality and persistency and a lower benefit from approved and expected premium rate increases and benefit reductions compared to the prior year.

•A $719 million decrease in auto and home expenses reflecting the prior year sale of AAH.

•The mean reversion related impact was a benefit of $53 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to a benefit of $26 million for the prior year.

•A $49 million decrease in reserves for immediate annuities with a life contingent feature primarily due to lower sales. This impact is offset by a decrease in premiums.

Amortization of DAC increased $98 million, or 55%, to $277 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $179 million for the prior year primarily reflecting the following items:

•The impact of unlocking in 2020 was an expense of $100 million compared to an expense of $14 million in the prior year period. The unlocking impact in 2020 primarily reflected a higher unfavorable impact from updates to our interest rate assumptions and lower surrenders on variable annuities with living benefit guarantees compared to the prior year.

•The DAC offset to the market impact on non-traditional long-duration products was a benefit of $5 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to a benefit of $82 million for the prior year.

•A $43 million decrease in auto and home expenses reflecting the prior year sale of AAH.

Interest and debt expense decreased $52 million, or 24%, to $162 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $214 million for the prior year primarily due to a decrease in interest expense of CIEs, as well as lower levels of corporate debt and lower interest rates.

General and administrative expense decreased $167 million, or 5%, to $3.1 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $3.3 billion for the prior year primarily reflecting a $90 million decrease in auto and home expenses reflecting the prior year sale of AAH, lower performance fee compensation, disciplined expense management and reengineering.

Income Taxes

Our effective tax rate was 16.2% for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to 15.2% for the prior year. See Note 24 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for additional discussion on income taxes.

Results of Operations by Segment

Year Ended December 31, 2020 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2019

Adjusted operating earnings is the measure of segment profit or loss management uses to evaluate segment performance. Adjusted operating earnings should not be viewed as a substitute for GAAP pretax income. We believe the presentation of segment adjusted operating earnings as we measure it for management purposes enhances the understanding of our business by reflecting the underlying performance of our core operations and facilitating a more meaningful trend analysis. See Note 28 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for further information on the presentation of segment results and our definition of adjusted operating earnings.

The following table presents summary financial information by segment:

Years Ended December 31,

(in millions)

Advice & Wealth Management

Adjusted operating earnings $ 1,321 $ 1,509

Asset Management

Adjusted operating earnings $ 697 $ 661

Retirement & Protection Solutions

Adjusted operating earnings $ 480 $ 724

Corporate & Other

Adjusted operating loss $ (369) $ (286)

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The following table presents the segment pretax adjusted operating impacts on our revenues and expenses attributable to unlocking and LTC loss recognition for the years ended December 31:

Segment Pretax Adjusted Operating Increase (Decrease) 2020 2019

(in millions)

Premiums, policy and contract charges $ 2 $ (3) $ 5 $ —

Total revenues 2 (3) 5 —

Benefits, claims, losses and settlement expenses

LTC unlocking and loss recognition — 141 — 8

Unlocking, excluding LTC 189 7 6 (2)

Total benefits, claims, losses and settlement expenses 189 148 6 6

Pretax income (loss) $ (295) $ (147) $ (16) $ (4)

Advice & Wealth Management

The following table presents the changes in wrap account assets and average balances for the years ended December 31:

(in billions)

Market appreciation (depreciation) and other 38.4 48.4

Advisory wrap account assets ending balance (1) $ 375.7 $ 314.3

Average advisory wrap account assets (2) $ 318.3 $ 282.9

(1) Advisory wrap account assets represent those assets for which clients receive advisory services and are the primary driver of revenue earned on wrap accounts. Clients may hold non-advisory investments in their wrap accounts that do not incur an advisory fee. Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2019, all advisory fee billing is calculated in advance on a monthly basis using point-in-time assets. Prior to the fourth quarter of 2019, some advisory accounts billed in arrears on a quarterly or monthly basis using average daily assets.

(2) Average ending balances are calculated using an average of the prior period’s ending balance and all months in the current period excluding the most recent month for the twelve months ended December 31, 2020 and 2019.

Wrap account assets increased $62.5 billion, or 20%, during the year ended December 31, 2020 due to net inflows of $24.1 billion and market appreciation and other of $38.4 billion. Average advisory wrap account assets increased $35.4 billion, or 13%, compared to the prior year reflecting net inflows and market appreciation.

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The following table presents the results of operations of our Advice & Wealth Management segment on an adjusted operating basis:

Years Ended December 31, Change

(in millions)

Revenues

Banking and deposit interest expense 59 136 (77) (57)

Expenses

Interest and debt expense 10 11 (1) (9)

Our Advice & Wealth Management segment pretax adjusted operating earnings, which exclude net realized investment gains or losses, decreased $188 million, or 12%, to $1.3 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $1.5 billion for the prior year due to lower interest rates, partially offset by higher average wrap account balances reflecting wrap account net inflows and equity market appreciation. Pretax adjusted operating margin was 19.8% for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to 22.9% for the prior year.

We launched Ameriprise Bank, FSB in the second quarter of 2019. Since then, we have continued to add deposits, with $7.4 billion of cash sweep balances as of December 31, 2020. In the third quarter of 2019, we purchased the existing Ameriprise portfolio of credit card accounts from a third party bank, and in the fourth quarter of 2020, we acquired $224 million in an existing portfolio of brokerage client pledged asset lines of credit that are a 50% participation interest with a third party bank.

Net Revenues

Net revenues exclude net realized investment gains or losses. Net revenues increased $76 million or 1%, to $6.7 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $6.6 billion for the prior year. Adjusted operating net revenue per advisor increased to $674,000 for the year ended December 31, 2020, up 2%, from $664,000 for the prior year.

Management and financial fees increased $370 million, or 10%, to $4.2 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $3.8 billion for the prior year primarily due to growth in wrap account assets. Average advisory wrap account assets increased $35.4 billion, or 13%, compared to the prior year reflecting net inflows and market appreciation.

Distribution fees decreased $279 million, or 12%, to $2.0 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $2.3 billion for the prior year reflecting $317 million of lower fees on off-balance sheet brokerage cash due to a decrease in short-term interest rates, partially offset by higher average equity markets.

Net investment income decreased $98 million, or 24%, to $313 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $411 million for the prior year primarily due to the unfavorable impact of lower short-term interest rates on the investment portfolio supporting the certificate and on-balance sheet brokerage cash products, as well as lower certificate balances, partially offset by higher average invested assets due to increased bank deposits.

Banking and deposit interest expense decreased $77 million, or 57%, to $59 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $136 million for the prior year primarily due to lower average crediting rates on certificates and lower average certificate balances.

Expenses

Total expenses increased $264 million, or 5%, to $5.4 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $5.1 billion for the prior year.

Distribution expenses increased $232 million, or 6%, to $3.9 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $3.7 billion for the prior year reflecting higher advisor compensation due to wrap account net inflows and market appreciation, as well as investments in recruiting experienced advisors.

General and administrative expense increased $33 million, or 2%, for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to the prior year primarily due to bank-related expenses and investments in the business for future growth, partially offset by reengineering.

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Asset Management

The following tables present the mutual fund performance of our retail Columbia Threadneedle Investments funds as of December 31:

ColumbiaMutual Fund Rankings in top 2 Lipper Quartiles 2020 2019

Domestic Equity Equal weighted 1 year 68 % 59 %

Asset weighted 1 year 73 % 75 %

International Equity Equal weighted 1 year 71 % 100 %

Asset weighted 1 year 61 % 100 %

Taxable Fixed Income Equal weighted 1 year 76 % 83 %

Asset weighted 1 year 88 % 90 %

Tax Exempt Fixed Income Equal weighted 1 year 68 % 89 %

Asset weighted 1 year 54 % 93 %

Asset Allocation Funds Equal weighted 1 year 71 % 64 %

Asset weighted 1 year 94 % 86 %

Number of funds with 4 or 5 Morningstar star ratings Overall 53 56

Percent of funds with 4 or 5 Morningstar star ratings Overall 58 % 54 %

Percent of assets with 4 or 5 Morningstar star ratings Overall 65 % 66 %

Mutual fund performance rankings are based on the performance of the Institutional Class for Columbia branded mutual funds. Only funds with Institutional Class shares are included. Prior period rankings have been adjusted to reflect the change in a fund’s investment category to more accurately reflect its investment strategy.

Equal Weighted Rankings in Top 2 Quartiles: Counts the number of funds with above median ranking divided by the total number of funds. Asset size is not a factor.

Asset Weighted Rankings in Top 2 Quartiles: Sums the total assets of the funds with above median ranking divided by total assets of all funds. Funds with more assets will receive a greater share of the total percentage above or below median.

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Equity Equal weighted 1 year 80 % 87 %

Asset weighted 1 year 86 % 91 %

Fixed Income Equal weighted 1 year 96 % 78 %

Asset weighted 1 year 99 % 75 %

Allocation (Managed) Funds Equal weighted 1 year 89 % 100 %

Asset weighted 1 year 99 % 100 %

The performance of each fund is measured on a consistent basis against the most appropriate benchmark — a peer group of similar funds or an index.

Equal weighted: Counts the number of funds with above median ranking (if measured against peer group) or above index performance (if measured against an index) divided by the total number of funds. Asset size is not a factor.

Asset weighted: Sums the assets of the funds with above median ranking (if measured against peer group) or above index performance (if measured against an index) divided by the total sum of assets in the funds. Funds with more assets will receive a greater share of the total percentage above or below median or index.

Aggregated Allocation (Managed) Funds include funds that invest in other funds of the Threadneedle range including those funds that invest in both equity and fixed income.

Aggregated Threadneedle data includes funds on the Threadneedle platform sub-advised by Columbia Management as well as advisors not affiliated with Ameriprise Financial, Inc.

The following table presents managed assets by type:

December 31, Change Average (1) Change

December 31,

(in billions) (in billions)

(1) Average ending balances are calculated using an average of the prior period’s ending balance and all months in the current period.

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The following tables present the changes in global managed assets:

Years Ended December 31,

(in billions)

Global Retail Funds

Net VP/VIT fund flows (2.9) (2.7)

Net new flows (0.1) (9.6)

Reinvested dividends 10.0 9.7

Market appreciation (depreciation) and other 35.5 50.3

Foreign currency translation (1) 2.2 0.5

Global Institutional

Net flows (4.2) (7.2)

Market appreciation (depreciation) and other (3) 16.9 29.7

Foreign currency translation (1) 3.7 1.4

Total net flows $ 5.7 $ (7.1)

Former Parent Company Related (4)

Retail net new flows $ 0.5 $ (0.9)

Institutional net new flows (3.4) (3.4)

Total net new flows $ (2.9) $ (4.3)

(1) Amounts represent local currency to US dollar translation for reporting purposes.

(2) Includes $1.3 billion of net flows from our recently launched structured variable annuity product.

(3) Includes $3.0 billion and $4.6 billion for the total change in Affiliated General Account Assets, excluding net flows related to our recently launched structured variable annuity product, during the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

(4) Former parent company related assets and net new flows are included in the rollforwards above.

The United Kingdom’s (“U.K.”) and the European Union’s (“EU”) trade and cooperation agreement did not include cross-border financial services. As a result, our U.K. asset management business is no longer able to market its services into the EU on a passporting basis and must now comply with local EU and country requirements as a non-EU firm, which includes leveraging our Luxembourg-based management company affiliate to provide services and marketing to EU clients and investors. As a result the full impact of Brexit remains uncertain.

Total segment AUM increased $52.4 billion, or 11%, during the year ended December 31, 2020 driven by market appreciation and net inflows. Net inflows were $5.7 billion for the year ended December 31, 2020, a $12.8 billion improvement compared to the prior year.

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The following table presents the results of operations of our Asset Management segment on an adjusted operating basis:

Years Ended December 31, Change

(in millions)

Revenues

Management and financial advice fees $ 2,475 $ 2,488 $ (13) (1) %

Net investment income 3 15 (12) (80)

Other revenues 2 2 — —

Banking and deposit interest expense — — — —

Expenses

Amortization of deferred acquisition costs 11 9 2 22

Interest and debt expense 5 25 (20) (80)

Adjusted operating earnings $ 697 $ 661 $ 36 5 %