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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.

In Transition – VA Industry Leaders Downshift, Prepare for Fire Sales

Based on the kind of shifts in variable annuity sales that took place during the second quarter, it’s hard for us to guess at how the industry might perform going forward. One thing we can...

“Trading Places” – De-Risking Caused Shifts in the VA Market During 2Q11

The second quarter is traditionally one of the best for variable annuity sales, and we are hearing estimates from our contacts that the industry performed well this time around. However we’re also getting the distinct...

Shifting and Moving – Some Thoughts on Competition in the VA Space

It’s our contention that we are in a period of transition within the variable annuity industry, because some leading insurers have hinted their sales have exceeded comfort levels, and these companies will thus be de-risking....

Benefits and Sales – are Intimately Linked in This Variable Annuity Market

It probably no longer bears repeating, but an insurer’s variable annuity deposits nowadays are directly connected to the relative strength of its guaranteed benefits. We are in a period where this rule of thumb is...

Summer Sizzle – VA Product and Benefit Changes Keep Coming

Lately we’ve seen a number of new or revised variable annuity contracts and benefits filed with the SEC, and we find that interesting, since during the summer such activity tends to slow down. We suspect...

Hartford Launches New VA Products – at an Interesting Time for the Industry

Today Hartford announced the launch of new variable annuity contracts and benefits as part of an initiative to re-energize its sales in the U.S. In this commentary we’ll give our thoughts on this move, given...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from April, 2011

The volume of variable insurance fund filings with the SEC during the month of April was fairly slow as compared with other months of the year. We didn’t see any new registrations and we figure...

“In Sync” – VA Sales in 1Q11 Followed Flow of the Financial Markets

Variable annuity sales for stock-traded insurers we cover regularly were split down the middle in the first quarter of this year, one half reporting some measure of improvement sequentially while the rest did not fare...

More Thoughts on Variable Annuity Contract Trends, Other Issues

In this commentary we are continuing our discussion of variable annuity product trends from last week, to take note of actions being taken by insurers to meet varying sources of demand. In addition, we have...