Research & Reports
Concerning the RIA Market – and Noteworthy Product Filings
The number of variable annuity contracts designed for fee-based financial advisors has been growing of late, and in this commentary we’ll share some thoughts as to the why this is happening, and weigh in on...
GLWB Movements – Answering the Competition, Preparing for Next Year
It’s our feeling that newer variable annuity lifetime withdrawal benefits getting filed of late – plus various modifications to existing ones – are being introduced this quarter to “prime the pump” for next year. Barring...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from September, 2010
It’s time again for us to conduct our monthly review of variable insurance fund filings. We thought the industry was pretty active during September, with insurers making quite a few modifications to their investment platforms…
Competitive Direction: Tactics VA Market Leaders May Employ, Near Term
It will take a little while before variable annuity industry sales results from the third quarter come out, and at this point we are unsure what those numbers may reveal, since we are not expecting...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from August, 2010
It’s once again time for us to provide our monthly update on filings of variable insurance funds, and our first observation is that in August there were few new registrations, but we’re used to seeing...
GLWB Fiddling – Recent Creativity in Rider Designs and Functions
In the variable annuity marketplace there remains a minority of insurers who are tweaking and modifying their guaranteed living benefits regularly, to match up better against the competition. We would say we’re in a period...
Competitive Notes – “Must Have” Features for VA Products, Riders
Over the recent past, product filing around the variable annuity industry has been somewhat slower than usual, which to us suggests that any moves companies are making are meaningful from a competitive standpoint. In this...
Odds and Ends – Catching Up on Product Filings, Tweaks Around the Business
The prospectus update season might have been quieter than usual, but in recent weeks we’ve seen an interesting assortment of variable annuity product and feature filings, most of which will take effect during July and...
Variable Annuity Sales from 1Q10 – Could The Industry Be Back on Track?
The fortunes of the variable annuity business are still largely dictated by the performance of companies with the most attractive guaranteed living benefits, and, based on some improvement we saw from a few insurers we...
