Dividend restrictions - Insurance subsidiaries (Detail) - USD ($) $ in Billions	Dec. 31, 2017	Dec. 31, 2016
Principal Insurance Subsidiaries [Member]
Statutory Accounting Practices [Line Items]
Amount available for payment of dividends without prior regulatory approval during 2018	$ 16
United States Based Property and Casualty Insurance Subsidiaries [Member]
Statutory Accounting Practices [Line Items]
Statutory shareholders' equity	$ 170	$ 136

Line items represent financial concepts included in a table. These concepts are used to disclose reportable information associated with domain members defined in one or many axes to the table.

No definition available.

+ Details

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- Definition

Amount of dividends available for payment after computation of statutory restrictions on capital surplus.

+ References

Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 235
-SubTopic 10
-Section S99
-Paragraph 1
-Subparagraph (SX 210.4-08.(e))
-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=26873400&loc=d3e23780-122690

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- Definition

The amount of statutory capital and surplus (stockholders' equity) as of the balance sheet date using prescribed or permitted statutory accounting practices (rather than GAAP, if different) of the state or country.

+ References

Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 944
-SubTopic 210
-Section S99
-Paragraph 1
-Subparagraph (SX 210.7-03(a)(23)(c))
-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=6879938&loc=d3e572229-122910

Reference 2: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 944
-SubTopic 505
-Section 50
-Paragraph 1
-Subparagraph (a)
-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=6486098&loc=d3e24708-158529

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- Details

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