Research & Reports
VA Industry Sales Remained Weak in Q2 – And May Drop Further
Leading industry research firms released second-quarter 2016 annuity sales data not long ago, and results for variable annuities were down substantially over last year, while some fixed annuity product types did fairly well…
We Suspect VA Industry Sales Were Probably Down Again in 1Q16
We just finished conducting our review of first quarter results of publicly-traded insurers we monitor regularly, and for all of them, variable annuity sales fell, thus we suspect the industry experienced a similar result…
Free Riffing – On Current Themes in the Variable Annuity Industry
Product filing activity around the variable annuity business has been kind of slow in our opinion, at least compared to past years, so in this report we’ll do some “riffing” – offering up impromptu thoughts...
Casual Thoughts on the Variable Annuity Business as Q1 Winds Down
This will be a very brief commentary containing random thoughts on the variable annuity scene, as it looks to us at this point in the year. The brevity of this report is mostly due to...
Variable Annuity Industry Sales in 4Q15 – Hard to Get a Handle On
As is our custom, we reviewed fourth quarter results of publicly-traded insurers we monitor regularly, and found it hard to come up with a strong indication as to where the industry finished for that period....
A Rough Market Start – Does it Portend Anything for Annuities?
Just as we were getting back into the swing of things after the holidays, there was a sharp decline in the stock market, which prompted us to think of what the implications could be for...
On 2015: A Time of Shifting Realities For the Variable Annuity Business
Each year we provide, with our last issue of December, a quick rundown of how the variable annuity business performed so far, from our perspective, and a few forward-looking thoughts for the New Year. While...
Some Brief Thoughts Regarding Q3 Annuity Industry Sales
Industry research firms began reporting third quarter sales not long ago, and the numbers confirmed our earlier suspicions, that variable annuity sales would fell in the quarter, while total industry output was sustained through a...
Variable Annuity Sales Were Down in Q3 for Leading Stock-Traded Insurers
We just completed our third quarter review of variable annuity business results of selected stock-traded insurers and found that for all of them, sales fell sequentially during that time period. Market volatility was the most-often...