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Research & Reports

Soleares Research, LLC is a market research and consulting firm servicing the annuity and life insurance businesses. We provide, through our website, periodic articles that cover important industry trends; we also offer clients phone or on-site consultations, executive briefings and presentations. We pride ourselves on first-class customer service and responsiveness to our clients. We aim to be an indispensable resource to the marketplace.
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VA Industry Sales Growth in Q4 Looks Doubtful to Us, All Things Considered

As is our practice each quarter, we reviewed earnings results for selected stock-traded insurers we track regularly, and came to the conclusion that for most of them, variable annuity operations performed more or less in...

Forethought Registers New VA Contract With Enriched GLWBs

For the most part, variable annuity insurers have been scaling back on the generosity of their guaranteed benefits, but there are a few out there who are not afraid to offer rather aggressive features, and...

Getting Clarity on Transamerica’s Recent VA Product Moves

Last week we noted how Transamerica filed to remove optional guaranteed death and living benefits from one of its variable annuity contracts – something we found quite intriguing – and in this report we will...

VA Sales in 2014 Were Slow Again, Reflecting a Retooling Environment

Each year we devote the last commentary of December to taking a quick look back at the past year in the variable annuity business, and we’ll do so again this time, and also make some...

Sizing Up the Playing Field – More Thoughts on 3Q14 Industry Sales

In this commentary we’ll provide more of our observations on annuity sales in the third quarter, and consider the competitive landscape as we enter the holiday season…

An Update on VA Industry Filing Activity at the Start of December

Activity along the variable annuity product pipeline has been somewhat slow of late, reflecting the fact that most insurers are retooling their offerings – and yet recently we’ve noticed a company, MetLife, file new guaranteed...

AEGON and Assumptions – Further Thoughts on Q3 Numbers

In this commentary we’ll offer up some comments on third-quarter results of Dutch insurer AEGON, because it has a substantial variable annuity business in the U.S. and its experience in the quarter mirrored that of...

The Q3 Market Uptick Boosted VA Assets – as For Sales? We’re Not Sure

Third quarter earnings season for the publicly-traded insurers we watch regularly concluded last week, and for most of those companies, variable annuity business operations retained profitability, largely because the stock market’s rise caused assets under...

Thoughts on Q3 VA Industry Sales – and a Few Product Developments

Earnings season for publicly-traded insurers is now underway but won’t finish until midway through next month, so in this commentary we’ll offer up some of our suspicions on how variable annuity sales moved in the...