
Research & Reports
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...
Q4 Launches – Products Insurers Hope Will Attract Sales into the New Year
It’s our feeling that these days, most variable annuity insurers are in a “reactive mode” in that few are making truly bold moves with their products; rather they are content to make modifications and enhancements...
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...
Back to School – Viewpoints on VA Industry Issues as Q3 Winds Down
The weather has gotten cooler, football season has commenced, and families are back from vacation, all these things serving to remind us that we are coming to the end of the third quarter. In this...
Contract Trends – Fresh Ideas, Approaches in New Registrations
We continue to see new variable annuity contracts in the pipeline that have what we call non-traditional chassis and pricing, and we think insurance companies are developing such products to anticipate future needs – not...
Rising Tide – Variable Annuity Insurers See Deposits Lift in Q2
We were somewhat surprised to find that variable annuity deposits for most of the stock-traded life insurance companies we monitor regularly were quite strong in the second quarter. Therefore we now suspect the industry as...
Q2 Expectations – For Variable Annuity Industry Sales, Net Flows
Second-quarter earnings season for insurance companies is now underway and we’re looking forward to learning how variable annuity sales went, however we are not very optimistic about how the industry as a whole fared, for...
VA Contract Update – Designs Moving in Specialized Directions
Judging by new variable annuities we’ve seen registered with the SEC this year, we get the impression that a good number of them were built to meet very specific needs and issues of distributors. It...
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...