
Research & Reports
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from December, 2014
This past December we saw no new registrations of variable insurance funds, but that isn’t out of the ordinary because filing activity usually slows down late in the year. In any event, plenty of other...
The VA Industry’s Product De-Risking Theme Is Continuing Into 2015
In this commentary we will get caught up with recent variable annuity filings – a good number of them involving de-risking – that we think provide great examples of how industry trends and themes that...
VA Sales in 2014 Were Slow Again, Reflecting a Retooling Environment
Each year we devote the last commentary of December to taking a quick look back at the past year in the variable annuity business, and we’ll do so again this time, and also make some...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from November, 2014
This report will cover noteworthy variable insurance fund filings from November – which was a fairly active month – and also briefly discuss trends in variable managed-volatility funds…
An Update on VA Industry Filing Activity at the Start of December
Activity along the variable annuity product pipeline has been somewhat slow of late, reflecting the fact that most insurers are retooling their offerings – and yet recently we’ve noticed a company, MetLife, file new guaranteed...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from October, 2014
As usual there weren’t a large number of variable insurance fund filings during this October, as most new registrations are submitted to the SEC earlier in the year. Still, there were a few interesting developments...
The Q3 Market Uptick Boosted VA Assets – as For Sales? We’re Not Sure
Third quarter earnings season for the publicly-traded insurers we watch regularly concluded last week, and for most of those companies, variable annuity business operations retained profitability, largely because the stock market’s rise caused assets under...
Various Benefit Updates, Changes From Around the VA Business
In recent weeks the variable annuity product pipeline hasn’t exactly been buzzing with activity, but we have seen a few tweaks and rider updates – most, but not all, involving de-risking – and we’ll discuss...
Thoughts on Q3 VA Industry Sales – and a Few Product Developments
Earnings season for publicly-traded insurers is now underway but won’t finish until midway through next month, so in this commentary we’ll offer up some of our suspicions on how variable annuity sales moved in the...