Ameriprise Financial Inc's Suppliers Performance

We reinsure a portion of the insurance risks associated with our life, disability income, long term care and property casualty insurance products through reinsurance agreements with unaffiliated reinsurance companies. We use reinsurance to limit losses, reduce exposure to large and catastrophic risks and provide additional capacity for future growth. To manage exposure to losses from reinsurer insolvencies, we evaluate the financial condition of reinsurers prior to entering into new reinsurance treaties and on a periodic basis during the terms of the treaties. Our insurance companies remain primarily liable as the direct insurers on all risks reinsured.

We have an integrated customer management system that serves as the hub of our technology platform. In addition, we have specialized product engines that manage individual brokerage, mutual fund, insurance and face amount certificate accounts. Over the years we have updated our platform to include new product lines such as brokerage, deposit, credit and products of other companies, wrap accounts and e-commerce capabilities for our financial advisors and clients. We also use a proprietary suite of processes, methods and tools for our financial planning services. We update our technological capabilities regularly to help maintain an adaptive platform design that aims to enhance the productivity of our advisors to allow for faster, lower-cost responses to emerging business opportunities, compliance requirements and marketplace trends.

Most of our applications run on a technology infrastructure we outsourced to IBM in 2002. Under this arrangement, IBM is responsible for all mainframe, mid-range, computing network and storage operations, which includes a portion of our web hosting operations. Also, we outsource our voice network operations to AT&T. In addition to these two arrangements, we outsourced our internal help desk, production support and a substantial portion of the development and maintenance of our computer applications to other firms. In 2012, we completed a major replacement of our brokerage and clearing platforms involving the transition of all of our all advisors and clients to the new technology platform.

We have developed and maintain a comprehensive business continuity plan that covers business disruptions of varying severity and scope and addresses the loss of a geographic area, building, staff, data systems and/or telecommunications capabilities. We review and test our business continuity plan on an ongoing basis and update it as necessary. We require our key technology vendors and service providers to do the same. Under our business continuity plan, we expect to be able to continue doing business and to resume operations with minimal service impacts. However, under certain scenarios, the time that it would take for us to recover and resume operations may significantly increase depending on the extent and geographic scope of the disruption and the number of personnel affected.

We reinsure a portion of the insurance risks associated with our life, disability income, long term care and property casualty insurance products through reinsurance agreements with unaffiliated reinsurance companies. We use reinsurance to limit losses, reduce exposure to large and catastrophic risks and provide additional capacity for future growth. To manage exposure to losses from reinsurer insolvencies, we evaluate the financial condition of reinsurers prior to entering into new reinsurance treaties and on a periodic basis during the terms of the treaties. Our insurance companies remain primarily liable as the direct insurers on all risks reinsured.

We have an integrated customer management system that serves as the hub of our technology platform. In addition, we have specialized product engines that manage individual brokerage, mutual fund, insurance and face amount certificate accounts. Over the years we have updated our platform to include new product lines such as brokerage, deposit, credit and products of other companies, wrap accounts and e-commerce capabilities for our financial advisors and clients. We also use a proprietary suite of processes, methods and tools for our financial planning services. We update our technological capabilities regularly to help maintain an adaptive platform design that aims to enhance the productivity of our advisors to allow for faster, lower-cost responses to emerging business opportunities, compliance requirements and marketplace trends.

Most of our applications run on a technology infrastructure we outsourced to IBM in 2002. Under this arrangement, IBM is responsible for all mainframe, mid-range, computing network and storage operations, which includes a portion of our web hosting operations. Also, we outsource our voice network operations to AT&T. In addition to these two arrangements, we outsourced our internal help desk, production support and a substantial portion of the development and maintenance of our computer applications to other firms. In 2012, we completed a major replacement of our brokerage and clearing platforms involving the transition of all of our all advisors and clients to the new technology platform.

We have developed and maintain a comprehensive business continuity plan that covers business disruptions of varying severity and scope and addresses the loss of a geographic area, building, staff, data systems and/or telecommunications capabilities. We review and test our business continuity plan on an ongoing basis and update it as necessary. We require our key technology vendors and service providers to do the same. Under our business continuity plan, we expect to be able to continue doing business and to resume operations with minimal service impacts. However, under certain scenarios, the time that it would take for us to recover and resume operations may significantly increase depending on the extent and geographic scope of the disruption and the number of personnel affected.