Cash Surrender Value of Life Insurance Policies, Net

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2023

Cash Surrender Value of Life Insurance Policies, Net

Cash Surrender Value of Life Insurance Policies, Net

Note 8. Cash Surrender Value of Life Insurance Policies, Net

The cash surrender value of all life insurance policies held by us, net of loans and related accrued interest, was $43.8 million and $42.0 million as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

Our wholly owned subsidiary, Earle M. Jorgensen Company (“EMJ”), is the owner and beneficiary of life insurance policies on all former nonunion employees of a predecessor company, including certain current employees of EMJ. These policies, by providing payments to EMJ upon the death of covered individuals, were designed to provide cash to EMJ in order to repurchase shares held by employees in EMJ’s former employee stock ownership plan and shares held individually by employees upon the termination of their employment. Reliance is also the beneficiary of key person life insurance policies held by a grantor trust for the benefit of participants of the Reliance Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan.

Cash surrender value of life insurance policies, net increases by a portion of premiums paid and from interest and investment earnings and decreases by cost of insurance charges, investment losses and interest on policy loans, as applicable.

Annually, we borrow against the cash surrender value of policies to pay a portion of the premiums and accrued interest owed on loans against those policies. We borrowed $75.6 million, $73.1 million and $68.0 million, respectively, against the cash surrender value of certain policies, which was used to partially pay premiums and accrued interest owed of $96.5 million, $93.0 million and $86.3 million in 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. The interest rate on outstanding borrowings under the EMJ life insurance policies is fixed at 11.76% and the portion of the policy cash surrender value that the borrowings relate to earns interest and dividend income at 11.26%. The unborrowed portion of the policy cash surrender value earns income at a rate commensurate with certain risk-free U.S. Treasury bond yields but not less than 4.0%. All other life insurance policies earn investment income or incur losses based on the performance of the underlying investments held by the policies.

As of December 31, 2023 and 2022, loans and accrued interest outstanding on EMJ’s life insurance policies were $897.9 million and $849.5 million, respectively.

Income earned on our life insurance policies and redemptions, interest expense on borrowings against cash surrender values and cost of insurance charges are included in the Other (income) expense, net caption in the accompanying consolidated statements of income as follows:

	Year Ended December 31,
	2023		2022		2021
	(in millions)
Investment income from life insurance policies	$	(97.5)	$	(85.2)	$	(84.6)
Interest expense on life insurance policy loans		98.4		91.6		85.5
Life insurance policy cost of insurance		16.9		15.7		14.4
Income from life insurance policy redemptions		(11.7)		(6.6)		(6.2)
Life insurance policy expense, net	$	6.1	$	15.5	$	9.1