Research & Reports

Lately we have been of the opinion that insurers are in a predicament we have seen in years past, namely that while there remains great demand for annuities – especially those that can provide investors...

Although times have been difficult for insurers, as they are coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, market volatility, rock-bottom interest rates, social upheaval and the stresses of an election year, those challenges haven’t kept them from...

Although our country is still faced with very challenging times and the financial markets have been volatile, that does not mean that variable annuity product activity has come to a standstill. Not by any means...

In this report we’ll cover notable developments of recent weeks that occurred on the variable annuity scene: rate sheet updates from two major insurers, both of which took effect today, and a new benefit buyback...

As first-quarter earnings season will be in full swing next month we’ll offer up a few thoughts on Equitable, the insurer who spun off from parent AXA via initial public offering in May of 2018....

This report contains our closing thoughts on variable annuity product filings from 2019, a period that, in our view, was lively in terms of competition among insurers, who engaged in further innovation among emerging product...

In this report we’ll get caught up with some variable annuity product filings submitted to the SEC from October through the middle of this month. It was an interesting mix, including new contracts and riders...

This year we’ve seen a number of variable annuity guaranteed benefit buyback offers, and in this report we’ll cover one filed not long ago by John Hancock. It is tentatively scheduled to commence in the...

As we were expecting, variable annuity industry sales declined in the first quarter of this year while production of fixed and fixed-index annuities rose, and we suspect those patterns will persist over the rest of...