Research & Reports
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from November, 2011
In this report we’ll provide our usual highlights of recent variable fund filings, and comment on the announcement today from Sun Life Financial that it will discontinue sales of variable annuities in the U.S. To...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from October, 2011
The month of October was an active one in terms of variable insurance fund filings with the SEC, and we strongly suspect that a number of the changes were connected with product initiatives insurers have...
“Headwinds” – Market Doldrums Caused Problems for VA Issuers in 3Q11
Earnings season for stock-traded insurers we monitor regularly has concluded, and, for the most part, variable annuity sales for those companies fell, due to a combination of factors that have become familiar to anyone following...
“Trick or Treat” – a Bag Full of De-Risking, Fire Sales, and a Market Bounce
If we were to liken the variable annuity industry to a ship on the high seas, we’d have to say it has been tossed around by contrary winds of late. Choppy equity markets and low...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from September, 2011
Last month we saw a nice batch of new variable insurance funds registered with the SEC, quite a few of them containing risk-levered components that we think were designed to be used in connection with...
Changing Minds – VA Insurers Cancel, Adjust, Postpone Products
By the looks of things, we are entering a period of de-risking around the variable annuity space, brought on by a variety of pressures, among them market volatility, low interest rates, and abrupt spikes in...
Evaluating Q3 – and How the Variable Annuity Industry Performed
Now that the third quarter has concluded, we’ve started estimating how the variable annuity industry might have fared over that time period. From what we’re hearing, it looks like troubling conditions in the financial markets...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from August, 2011
As is our habit, we sifted through SEC filings related to variable insurance funds, and in August found numerous changes and adjustments to investment platforms, in particular there were plenty of mergers and liquidations, either...
The Latest VA Contract Designs – With Pricing, Options as Priorities
This week, we thought it would be a good time to check in on new variable annuity contract filings with the SEC, since we’ve seen a good number come through recently…