Table of Contents CITIZENS, INC. Changes in accounting standards may adversely affect our reported results of operations and financial condition. Our consolidated financial statements are subject to the application of GAAP in the U.S. and in Bermuda which are periodically revised and/or expanded. Accordingly, we are required to adopt new or revised accounting standards issued by recognized authoritative bodies, including the FASB, the BMA and the NAIC. Future accounting standards we adopt, including the FASB’s accounting standard update related to long-duration insurance contracts, will change current accounting and disclosure requirements applicable to our consolidated financial statements. Such changes may have a material effect on our reported results of operations or financial condition. In addition, the required adoption of new accounting standards may result in significant incremental costs associated with initial implementation and ongoing compliance. See  Note 1. Summary of Significant Accounting Policies in the notes to our consolidated financial statements contained herein for additional information regarding accounting updates. Our risk management program may leave us exposed to unidentified or unanticipated risk, which could negatively affect our business. We have devoted significant resources to develop our enterprise risk management program, which has the objective of managing risks to which the Company is exposed. There are, however, inherent limitations to risk management strategies because there may exist, or develop in the future, risks that we have not appropriately anticipated or identified. For instance, as our business changes and the markets in which we operate evolve, our risk management framework may not advance at the same pace as those changes. As a result, there is a risk that new products or new business strategies may present risks that are not appropriately identified, monitored or managed. If our risk management framework is ineffective, the Company may suffer unexpected losses and could be materially adversely affected. The failure of our business recovery and incident management processes to resume our business operations in the event of a catastrophe, cyber attack, or other event could adversely affect our profitability, results of operations, or financial condition. In the event of a disaster such as a catastrophe, an epidemic, a cyber attack, cyber security breach or other information technology systems failure, a terrorist attack, or war, unanticipated problems with our disaster recovery systems could have a material adverse impact on our ability to conduct business and on our results of operations and financial condition, particularly if those problems affect our information technology systems and destroy valuable data or result in a significant failure of our internal control environment. In addition, in the event that a significant number of our employees were unavailable in the event of a disaster, our ability to effectively conduct business could be severely compromised. The failure of our information technology and/or disaster recovery systems for any reason could cause significant interruptions or malfunctions in our or our customers’ operations and result in the loss, theft, or failure to maintain the security, confidentiality or privacy of sensitive data, including personal information relating to our customers. Such a failure could harm our reputation, subject us to regulatory sanctions, legal claims, and increased expenses, and lead to a loss of customers and revenues. We depend on the ability of our insurance subsidiaries to make payments to us in sufficient amounts for us to conduct our operations. Our insurance subsidiaries are restricted by applicable laws and regulations in the amounts of payments they may make to us and their ability to transfer funds to us may be impaired by adverse financial results or a change in capital requirements. Accordingly, internal sources of capital and liquidity may not always be sufficient. If we need to seek external capital, adverse market conditions may affect our access to capital or our cost of capital. As a holding company, our principal asset is the stock of our subsidiaries. We rely primarily on statutorily permissible payments from our insurance company subsidiaries, principally through service agreements we have with our subsidiaries, to meet our working capital and other corporate expenses. The ability of our insurance company subsidiaries to make payments to us is subject to regulation by the states and jurisdictions in which they are domiciled, and these payments depend primarily on approved service agreements between us and these subsidiaries and, to a lesser extent, the statutory surplus (which is the excess of assets over liabilities as determined under statutory accounting practices prescribed by an insurance company's state of domicile), future statutory earnings (which are earnings as determined in accordance with statutory accounting practices) and regulatory restrictions. December 31, 2019 | 10-K 19