Strategy. The Adviser allocates a portion of the Portfolio to a capital appreciation and income component (the "Capital Appreciation and Income Component") managed by Franklin Advisers, Inc. ("Franklin Advisers" or a "Sub-Adviser") and a portion to a managed risk component (the "Managed Risk Component"). The Capital Appreciation and Income Component is further sub-divided into equity and fixed-income sleeves, both of which are managed by Franklin Advisers. Milliman Financial Risk Management, LLC ("Milliman" or a "Sub-Adviser") manages the Managed Risk Component pursuant to a strategy that seeks to manage portfolio volatility and provide downside risk management. The Adviser seeks to achieve the Portfolio's investment objective by allocating, under normal circumstances, at least 80% of the Portfolio's net assets, plus any borrowings for … Show more… The Adviser allocates a portion of the Portfolio to a capital appreciation and income component (the "Capital Appreciation and Income Component") managed by Franklin Advisers, Inc. ("Franklin Advisers" or a "Sub-Adviser") and a portion to a managed risk component (the "Managed Risk Component"). The Capital Appreciation and Income Component is further sub-divided into equity and fixed-income sleeves, both of which are managed by Franklin Advisers. Milliman Financial Risk Management, LLC ("Milliman" or a "Sub-Adviser") manages the Managed Risk Component pursuant to a strategy that seeks to manage portfolio volatility and provide downside risk management. The Adviser seeks to achieve the Portfolio's investment objective by allocating, under normal circumstances, at least 80% of the Portfolio's net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, to the Capital Appreciation and Income Component and up to 20% of the Portfolio's net assets to the Managed Risk Component. The Adviser expects to further allocate approximately 75% of the Portfolio's Capital Appreciation and Income Component to the equity sleeve and approximately 25% to the fixed-income sleeve. The Adviser may modify the target allocations from time to time. Franklin Advisers manages the equity sleeve of the Portfolio pursuant to a rising dividends strategy which seeks to invest in equity securities, primarily common stock, that have paid consistently rising dividends. Companies that have paid consistently rising dividends include those companies that currently pay dividends on their common stock and have maintained or increased their dividend rate during the last four consecutive years. Under normal market conditions, pursuant to the rising dividends strategy, the equity sleeve will seek to invest at least 65% of its net assets in securities of companies that have: consistently increased dividends in at least 8 out of the last 10 years and have not decreased dividends during that time; increased dividends substantially (at least 100%) over the last 10 years; reinvested earnings, paying out less than 65% of current earnings in dividends (except for utility companies); and either long-term debt that is no more than 50% of total capitalization (except for utility companies) or senior debt that has been rated investment grade by at least one of the major bond rating organizations. For the rising dividends strategy, Franklin Advisers typically seeks to invest the rest of the equity sleeve's net assets in equity securities of companies that pay dividends but do not meet all of the above criteria. Through its equity sleeve, the Portfolio may invest in companies of any size, across the entire market spectrum including smaller and midsize companies. Although Franklin Advisers will generally seek to invest the Portfolio's equity sleeve across all sectors, from time to time, based on economic conditions, the sleeve may have significant positions in particular sectors. Franklin Advisers may invest up to 25% of the equity sleeve's net assets in foreign securities (which may include the purchase of depositary receipts) and 5% of its net assets in exchange traded funds (ETFs). The equity sleeve may enter into repurchase agreements. In its investing following the rising dividends strategy, Franklin Advisers takes a research driven, fundamental, "bottom-up" approach that focuses primarily on individual securities. Franklin Advisers looks for companies for the rising dividends strategy that it believes are fundamentally sound and attempts to acquire them at attractive prices. The equity sleeve does not necessarily focus on companies whose securities pay a high dividend rate but rather on companies that consistently increase their dividends. For the equity sleeve, Franklin Advisers employs a bottom-up stock selection process that makes investments without regard to the securities normally comprising the benchmark that the equity sleeve of the Portfolio uses for performance comparison purposes. In its management of the fixed-income sleeve, Franklin Advisers invests predominantly in investment grade securities and investments or in unrated securities and investments Franklin Advisers believes are of comparable quality. Securities rated in the top four ratings categories by one or more independent rating organizations such as S&P Global Ratings ("S&P ?") (rated BBB or better) or Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") (rated Baa or higher) are considered investment grade. Securities rated BB or lower by S&P ? or Ba or lower by Moody's are considered to be below investment grade. Derivatives with reference securities that are investment grade are considered to be investment grade. The fixed-income sleeve of the Portfolio may invest up to 20% of its total assets in non-investment grade debt securities, including up to 5% in securities rated lower than B by S&P ? or Moody's, which may include defaulted securities, or in unrated securities and investments Franklin Advisers believes are of comparable quality. (In calculating the above non-investment grade debt limitations, the Portfolio combines its non-investment grade debt securities with the net long and short exposure to non-investment grade debt securities from derivative instruments.) The fixed-income sleeve of the Portfolio may invest up to 25% of its total assets in foreign securities, including up to 20% of its total assets in non-U.S. dollar denominated securities and up to 10% of its total assets in emerging market securities. The fixed-income sleeve of the Portfolio may invest in many different securities issued or guaranteed by the U.S. government or by non-U.S. governments or their respective agencies or instrumentalities, including mortgage-backed securities, including collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), and inflation-indexed securities issued by the U.S. Treasury. Mortgage-backed securities represent an interest in a pool of mortgage loans made by banks and other financial institutions to finance purchases of homes, commercial buildings and other real estate. The individual mortgage loans are packaged or "pooled" together for sale to investors. As the underlying mortgage loans are paid off, investors receive principal and interest payments. These securities may be fixed-rate or adjustable-rate mortgage-backed securities. The fixed-income sleeve of the Portfolio may also invest a small portion of its assets directly in mortgage loans. Some of the mortgage-backed securities in which the fixed-income sleeve of the Portfolio invests are issued or guaranteed by the U.S. government, its agencies or instrumentalities or by U.S. government-sponsored entities ("GSEs"), while others are issued by private entities and not guaranteed. Mortgage-backed securities issued by GSEs, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, include credit risk transfer securities. Credit risk transfer securities are structured without any government guarantee or underlying collateral, such that (i) interest is paid directly by the GSE and (ii) principal is paid in accordance with the principal payments and default performance of a certain specified pool of residential mortgage loans acquired by the GSE. The Portfolio may also invest in privately issued credit risk transfer securities. The fixed-income sleeve of the Portfolio may purchase or sell mortgage-backed and other asset-backed securities on a delayed delivery or forward commitment basis through the "to-be-announced" ("TBA") market. With TBA transactions, the particular securities to be delivered must meet specified terms and standards. Asset-backed securities are securities backed by loans, leases, and other receivables. The fixed-income sleeve of the Portfolio also may invest in corporate loans made to, or issued by, borrowers that are U.S. companies, foreign borrowers and U.S. subsidiaries of foreign borrowers, which typically have floating interest rates. Floating interest rates vary with and are periodically adjusted to a generally recognized base interest rate such as a reference rate (e.g., the Secured Overnight Financing Rate) or the Prime Rate. The fixed-income sleeve also may invest in mortgage dollar rolls and in fixed-rate mortgage securities, including non-agency CMOs, issued by a private entity. The fixed-income sleeve of the Portfolio regularly enters into interest rate, credit and currency-related transactions involving certain derivative instruments, including currency and cross-currency forwards, currency options, currency and currency index futures contracts, interest rate/bond futures contracts and options on such contracts, options on ETFs, and swaps agreements, which may include interest rate, inflation index, fixed-income total return, currency and credit default swaps, futures contracts on credit default swaps on indices (also known as credit index futures), and options on interest rate and credit default swaps. The fixed-income sleeve of the Portfolio may also invest in collateralized debt obligations. The use of these derivative transactions may allow the fixed-income sleeve of the Portfolio to obtain net long or short exposures to select currencies, interest rates, countries, duration or credit risks. For example, the Portfolio may sell 10-year U.S. treasury futures to hedge its duration exposure in the United States. These derivatives may be used to enhance Portfolio returns, increase liquidity, gain exposure to certain instruments or markets in a more efficient or less expensive way and/or hedge risks associated with its other portfolio investments. The results of such transactions may also represent, from time to time, a significant component of the investment returns of the fixed-income sleeve. In the Managed Risk Component, the Adviser seeks to manage return volatility by employing Milliman to execute a managed risk strategy, which consists of using hedge instruments to reduce the downside risk of the Portfolio's securities. Milliman may use hedge instruments to accomplish this goal, which may include: equity futures contracts, treasury futures contracts, currency futures contracts, and other hedge instruments judged by Milliman to be necessary to achieve the goals of the managed risk strategy. Milliman may also buy or sell hedge instruments based on one or more market indices in an attempt to maintain the Portfolio's volatility at the targeted level in an environment in which Milliman expects market volatility to decrease or increase, respectively. Milliman selects individual hedge instruments that it believes will have prices that are highly correlated to the Portfolio's positions. Milliman adjusts hedge instruments to manage overall net Portfolio risk exposure, in an attempt to stabilize the volatility of the Portfolio around a predetermined target level and reduce the potential for portfolio losses during periods of significant and sustained market decline. Milliman seeks to monitor and forecast volatility in the markets using a proprietary model, and adjust the Portfolio's hedge instruments accordingly. In addition, Milliman will monitor liquidity levels of relevant hedge instruments and transparency provided by exchanges or counterparties in hedging transactions. Milliman adjusts futures positions to manage overall net Portfolio risk exposure. Milliman may, during periods of rising security prices, implement strategies to preserve gains on the Portfolio's positions. Milliman may, during periods of falling security prices, implement additional strategies to reduce losses in adverse market conditions. In these situations, Milliman's activity could significantly reduce the Portfolio's net economic exposure to equity securities. Following market declines, a downside rebalancing strategy will be used to decrease the amount of hedge instruments used to hedge the Portfolio. Milliman also adjusts hedge instruments to realign individual hedges when the Adviser rebalances the Portfolio's asset allocation profile. Depending on market conditions, scenarios may occur where the Portfolio has no positions in any hedge instruments. Show less