Unum Group

Unum’s purpose of helping the working world thrive throughout life’s moments is a north star that guides our actions every day. As a leading provider of financial protection insurance benefits in the U.S., U.K. and Poland, we protect nearly 45 million individuals and their families during the financial hardships that can occur in the event of illness, injury or loss of life. We also partner with 174,000 employer clients that manage workplace wellbeing and regulatory challenges in today’s quickly evolving workplace.

In 2023, Unum continued to deliver strong earnings and growth. After-tax adjusted operating earnings were $1.5 billion as the company saw a double-digit increase in sales and strong earned premium growth, both compared with 2022 results. Demand for our products and services remained robust as new digital capabilities enhanced the customer experience and streamlined administration for employer clients. Claims experience continued to largely return to historic levels in most of our product lines. The company also benefited from strong employment, wage inflation and favorable interest rates as these macro-economic trends largely continued from 2022.

These results, along with our ability to steadily generate strong cash flow, help us accelerate growth by funding ongoing reinvestment in our business and supporting our ability to take advantage of strategic opportunities that may arise — all while returning capital to shareholders.

Below are key financial performance measures from 2023. Additional measures, including those we use for annual and long-term incentive decisions, can be found beginning on page 66.

(1)After-tax adjusted operating results and book value per share, excluding AOCI, are non-GAAP financial measures. Information about the non-GAAP financial measures used in this proxy statement is set forth in “A Note About Non-GAAP Financial Measures” on page 2. For a reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures to the non-GAAP financial measures, refer to Appendix A of this proxy statement.

(2)Assuming dilution.

(3)Prior financial information has been adjusted to reflect our modified retrospective adoption, effective January 1, 2023, of the ASU 2018-12, related to targeted improvements to the accounting for long-duration contracts. Changes from this ASU were applied as of January 1, 2021, also referred to as the transition date.

Operating Highlights

By living our purpose, we are laser-focused on meeting the needs of our customers. In 2023, Unum paid $7.9 billion in benefits to people facing illness, injury or loss of life. Satisfaction metrics measuring our engagement with customers and partners increased throughout the year as we implemented new service and support capabilities across the enterprise.

We have transformed our business over the last several years through significant investments in our digital capabilities. By investing in technologies that anticipate and deliver on evolving customer expectations, we have continued to separate ourselves from the competition and seize opportunities in the marketplace. These technologies create new digital experiences for customers, automate and modernize business processes, track key metrics, deliver new products and services to market faster, and improve customer satisfaction. Through our efforts to continuously improve, we strive to enrich the experience for our customers and enhance the effectiveness of our people.

Our well-diversified portfolio delivers consistent investment income. Due to the nature of our business, we invest in long-term securities focusing on asset liability management and sound risk management. In 2023, our portfolio performed well in a volatile interest rate environment.

Long-Term Care Performance

The same discipline that allows our core franchise to be successful also benefits our long-term care (LTC) business. LTC is part of our Closed Block that consists of policies that we continue to service and support, but no longer actively market. We manage this block with a combination of rate increases, risk management, tailored investment strategy and ongoing monitoring of emerging experience to inform updates to our reserve liability assumptions and appropriate capital levels.

Following an examination of one of our Maine-domiciled insurers, in 2020 the Maine Bureau of Insurance required us to establish additional LTC statutory reserves, permitting this to be done over a period of seven years. We completed the recognition of these additional required reserves at the end of 2023, ahead of schedule, and view this action as further increasing margin over our best estimate assumptions. Our actions have provided a strong capital position behind the business, which has mitigated the need for future contributions under current assumptions.

We continue to take actions, such as those described above, to provide for the long-term stability of this block and promote transparency for our shareholders and customers.

We provide a critical financial safety net for millions of people, a fact that drives us to deliver for those who count on us. This focus on doing the right thing guides our approach to sustainability and social responsibility. Unum has a long tradition of engaging with shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers and communities on these matters.

The Governance Committee of the Board provides oversight and guides the company's sustainability strategy and initiatives. Over the last few years, we have continued to strengthen and mature our management and disclosure of environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters, and to evaluate and address emerging risks to our business, including climate change and increased regulatory focus on key issues. We also continue to evolve our inclusion and diversity strategy and refine our approach to integrating ESG factors into our investment decisions. In addition to these targeted efforts, we remained focused on providing meaningful opportunities for engagement with our key stakeholders on these matters.

In 2023, Unum made a number of advances in our impact and sustainability-related efforts:

•We were awarded the Compliance Leader Verification designation by Ethisphere® following the assessment of our Compliance and Ethics program. In 2024, Ethisphere also recognized Unum for the fourth consecutive year as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies.

•Through our investment portfolio, we hold nearly $3 billion of investments that have a societal or environmental impact in areas such as education, infrastructure, healthcare, affordable housing, and renewable energy projects.

•We conducted scenario modeling and testing on key issues and potential risks to the company.

•We provided $14.7 million to support the communities where we operate.

Our corporate sustainability strategic framework helps create long-term value for stakeholders by implementing business strategies that focus on social, environmental, governance, and economic dimensions of doing business. Our strategic framework focuses on three areas where we believe Unum can add both societal and business value:

•Inclusive products and services — We strive to ensure that the financial security provided by our products and practices contributes to more inclusive communities.

•Responsible investments — Being in the business of insurance, we recognize that one of our greatest opportunities to influence the world around us is through our investment portfolio. Making responsible investments is key to our long-term strategy, which includes consideration of environmental, social and governance factors.

•Reducing environmental impact — We recognize the impact that environmental issues, such as climate change, could have on our business. We aim to reduce our environmental impact and prepare for environmental issues.

A more comprehensive discussion of our efforts and progress is published annually in our Impact and Sustainability Report, which is available at www.unumgroup.com/esg. See page 48 for more information about Impact and Sustainability.