subscriber-login-icon
Subscriber Login

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.

“Stealing the Show” – A Select Few VA Players Excel During 3Q09

During the third quarter we saw a familiar pattern that’s emerged lately in the variable annuity business, that of a minority of insurers – those still selling the richer guaranteed benefits – posting exceptional sales,...

Spanning the Seasons – VA Product Launches Scheduled for Summer and Fall

As we commence the third quarter – usually a pretty slow period for variable industry sales – the pace of de-risking seems to be settling down a bit, but the process is not over by...

Keeping Things Interesting – Further Variations In VA Product Offerings

Right now on the variable annuity scene insurers are still making changes and adjustments at a rather brisk pace, and we expect that pattern to continue well into the summer, even though it is usually...

Q1 Results Brought New Accounting Adjustments for the VA Business

First quarter earnings season concluded last week for the publicly-traded insurers we regularly monitor, and for most of them, variable annuity deposits and net flows declined, much as we expected. What surprised us were accounting...

Sliding Finish to a Volatile 2008 as Downward Markets Jolt VA Players

Fourth-quarter earnings season has almost concluded and in this report we’ll offer our customary review of variable annuity operating results for selected publicly-traded insurers. As we expected, most companies went through a difficult time during...

Reflecting on 2008: a Turning Point Year for Variable Annuity Players

This is our customary early retrospective of the past year for the variable annuity business, in which we’ll offer a narrative of how things unfolded chronologically in 2008, the market conditions that arose and their...

Benefit Bases, Risks and Related Competitive Matters on the VA Scene

By now it’s obvious that in the variable annuity business leading players have either started to cut back on the generosity of their guaranteed benefits or are thinking strongly about doing so, since the downturn...

Our Q3 Commentary Part I – Variable Annuity Insurers Face a Difficult Time

This is the first installment of our third quarter commentary on variable annuity results for selected insurers we monitor regularly, and next week we’ll follow up on others that have not yet reported. Thus far,...

Musing on the State of Variable Annuities During the Current Market Turmoil

Recently we’ve been contemplating the “value proposition” of the variable annuity, how the product might be positioned and sold given the existing market climate. Earnings season is now underway and we think results from last...