Other Expenses

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2018

Other Income and Expenses [Abstract]

Other Expenses

10. Other Expenses

Information on other expenses was as follows:

	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2018			2017
	(In millions)
Employee related costs	$	937		$	937
Third party staffing costs	380			362
General and administrative expenses	243			221
Pension, postretirement and postemployment benefit costs	49			79
Premium taxes, other taxes, and licenses & fees	179			175
Commissions and other variable expenses	1,416			1,304
Capitalization of DAC	(796		)	(713		)
Amortization of DAC and VOBA	693			663
Amortization of negative VOBA	(22		)	(43		)
Interest expense on debt	286			283
Total other expenses	$	3,365		$	3,268

Certain prior year amounts have been reclassified to conform to the current year presentation, which has been revised to align the expense categories with the Company’s businesses. The reclassifications did not result in a change to total other expenses.

See Note 3 for further information on Separation-related transaction costs.

Restructuring Charges

The Company commenced in 2016 a unit cost improvement program related to the Company’s refreshed enterprise strategy. This global strategy focuses on transforming the Company to become more digital, driving efficiencies and innovation to achieve competitive advantage, and simplified, decreasing the costs and risks associated with the Company’s highly complex industry to customers and shareholders. Restructuring charges related to this program are included in other expenses. As the expenses relate to an enterprise-wide initiative, they are reported in Corporate & Other. Such restructuring charges were as follows:

	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2018			2017
	Severance
	(In millions)
Balance, beginning of period	$	22		$	35
Restructuring charges	9			11
Cash payments	(12		)	(8		)
Balance, end of period	$	19		$	38
Total restructuring charges incurred since inception of initiative	$	82		$	46

Management anticipates further restructuring charges through the year ending December 31, 2019. However, such restructuring plans were not sufficiently developed to enable management to make an estimate of such restructuring charges at March 31, 2018.