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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.
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Pace of VA Changes is Ramping Up: Price Increases, Benefit Revisions, More

Judging by the sheer amount of activity from variable annuity insurers recently – most of them are trimming the richness of their benefit guarantees and/or raising pricing – we think it’s safe to say the...

Benefit Bases, Risks and Related Competitive Matters on the VA Scene

By now it’s obvious that in the variable annuity business leading players have either started to cut back on the generosity of their guaranteed benefits or are thinking strongly about doing so, since the downturn...

A Shift in the Living Benefit Arms Race – VA Insurers Start to Scale Back

In the past six years the variable annuity industry has been marked by fierce competition between insurers over who has the richest guaranteed living benefits, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the...

Making Sense of All the Movement – VA Contracts, Riders Set for Q4 Debuts

This week we’ll comment on an assortment of recent product moves within the variable annuity space, and we must say that we aren’t seeing a major slowdown in the rate of activity, as there are...

Atypical Designs in Variable Annuity GLWBs Sold in the State of New York

Anyone who’s been around the industry for awhile knows that the state of New York does things differently than most other jurisdictions, usually placing very firm restrictions on policies and features before they are approved....

Summertime in the Variable Annuity Business – Not as Slow as You Think

Recently, in compiling information and data for our reports we’ve been sorting through many regulatory filings, and will continue to do so of course, but this week we’re going to pause a bit from those...

VA Income Benefits Are Evolving to Offer New Forms of Guaranteed Income

We believe that Guaranteed Minimum Income Benefits (GMIBs) are still formidable weapons in the variable annuity benefit arsenal, they have been around for awhile and many financial advisors still find them quite attractive. While innovation...

“New Wave” Annuities – Offer Living Benefits to Funds, Managed Accounts

Now that the appeal of variable annuity guaranteed living benefits has been firmly established – and has grown steadily over the past several years, greatly helping insurers sustain growth – it seems only natural that...

Spring VA Product Fashions: Designs and Rollups Meant to Outdo the Rest

We’re just entering the season where new variable annuity product filings really begin to pick up, and there’s ample evidence that the guaranteed living benefit arms race is still being waged with great gusto. To...