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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.

“Next Generation” VA Withdrawal Benefits and Shapes They Are Taking

The rate of filing activity around variable annuity Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefits (GMWBs) remains vigorous and will probably pick up as we approach the May prospectus update season. Since the beginning of the year some...

Dueling GMIBs – The Arms Race Persists on Base Growth, Special Provisions

We’re constantly maintaining that the importance of living benefits to the variable annuity business cannot be overstated. Although most of the market right now is concentrated on lifetime withdrawal benefits, there’s been resurgence in competition...

Impressions on the Variable Annuity Business in 2007 – Part II

In this report, our last of the year, we’ll conclude our two-part commentary summarizing key forces influencing the sale of variable annuities in 2007 – our main three being “features, shelf space and scale” –...

A Simpler Story – Insurers Move to Streamline VA Sub-Accounts, Features

In getting started with the New Year, we’ll comment on a growing tendency for insurers to trim the number of sub-account options and features on their variable annuities in order to make them simpler for...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from October, 2006

Over the month of October, we identified 46 new variable funds registered, and these reflected the current popular interest in hedging and shorting strategies, Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), and the use of mathematical modeling in devising...

Seeing VA Business Priorities Revealed Through Public Insurers’ Q3 Results

The third quarter was a mixed bag for the nine major public variable insurers we regularly track, as all saw sales levels fall sequentially, but apparently these companies don’t feel the results were troubling and...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from August, 2006

Over the month of August we saw a pickup in the rate of new variable insurance fund registrations, with eight coming out. In addition there were many adjustments done to fund platforms – albeit in...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from July, 2006

In composing our usual roundup of variable fund filings from the previous month, we did not see a great many new registrations in July. We identified just two, but they were fairly notable: one was...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from June, 2006

We identified 14 new variable insurance funds filed in the month of June, a fairly good number. In addition, activity was fairly energetic around sub-advisory and name changes, mergers, closings and other modifications, covering a...