Unum Group reported total revenue of about $13.08 billion and net income of $738.5 million for FY2025, down from $1.78 billion of net income in 2024. The Chattanooga, Tennessee-based insurer sells disability, life, accident, critical illness, dental, vision and leave-management coverage mainly through employers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Poland, and is led by president and CEO Rick McKenney.
How Does Unum Group Make Money?
Most of Unum's revenue is insurance premiums. Employers pay for core group coverage such as long-term and short-term disability and group life, while employees pay for voluntary products, many sold by Colonial Life agents, through payroll deduction. Because disability and life claims are paid over many years, Unum holds large reserves and earns net investment income on the bonds and mortgage loans that back them. It also collects fees for services such as leave and absence administration, which covers FMLA and state paid-leave programs.
Results are reported in Unum US, Unum International (the UK and Poland), Colonial Life, the Closed Block of legacy long-term care and individual disability policies, and a Corporate segment. The Closed Block no longer takes new business, but changes in its reserve assumptions can move reported earnings sharply, which is why net income fell in 2025 while revenue rose about 1.5%.
Who Founded Unum Group and When?
Unum traces its roots to Union Mutual Life Insurance Company, chartered in Maine in 1848 with Nathaniel C. Deering and John A. Poor among its organizers. It wrote its first policy in 1849. Union Mutual demutualized and became UNUM Corporation in 1986, and bought Colonial Companies, the parent of Colonial Life, in 1993. In 1999 UNUM merged with Chattanooga-based Provident Companies to form UnumProvident. The company took the Unum Group name in 2007.
Shrinking the Long-Term Care Block
In July 2025 Unum closed a deal ceding $3.4 billion of individual long-term care statutory reserves to Fortitude Re. In July 2026 it agreed a second deal covering about 50,000 individual long-term care policies and $3.8 billion of statutory reserves, expected to close during 2026. Unum keeps administering the policies, and expects about $11.0 billion of long-term care statutory reserves to remain afterward, mostly group policies.
What Are the Biggest Risks Facing Unum Group?
The main risks are reserve assumptions in the remaining long-term care block; disability claim trends, which tend to worsen in a recession; interest rates and credit quality in the investment portfolio; and regulatory scrutiny of claims handling, highlighted by the 2004 multistate settlement in which the company paid a $15 million fine and agreed to reassess about 200,000 denied claims.
