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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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Variable Annuity Sales Were Down in Q3 for Leading Stock-Traded Insurers

We just completed our third quarter review of variable annuity business results of selected stock-traded insurers and found that for all of them, sales fell sequentially during that time period. Market volatility was the most-often...

Use of Benefit Rate Sheets – on the Rise as a Risk Management Tool

Currently those variable annuity insurers selling benefits in which key parameters are reset periodically via rate sheet are still a minority within the industry, however we expect the group will grow in number over time,...

Regarding the Return of a Long-Term Care Rider – and a VA Product Update

In this report we’ll discuss Lincoln National’s re-filing last week of a variable annuity long-term care benefit – a revised version of one originally submitted to the SEC about six years ago. We’ll also touch...

Zurich American Offers Buyback to Owners of Vintage VA Contracts, Riders

This week we’re going to comment on an interesting new variable annuity buyout launched fairly recently by Zurich American Life, an insurer that long ago pulled out of selling new contracts. The fact the company...

Notes on Interesting New Structured Annuities Filed Lately with the SEC

In this commentary we’ll cover a topic we haven’t visited for a while: structured annuities, as a few new ones were filed with the SEC recently, some of them updates to existing contracts. We’ll also...

Considering Themes Relevant to the VA Industry in 2Q15 – and Beyond

It seems like the year is going by very fast – the third quarter is winding down already and yet, in our view, it’s hard to forecast how the variable annuity business will finish up...

Notes on New VA and GLWB from Ameritas – and Recent Filings

. In this report we will catch up with recent variable annuity product filings submitted to the SEC, among them a contract from Ameritas registered last week that contains a new guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit…

Thoughts on Variable Annuity Contract Share Classes – and Suitability

This commentary will be a short reflection on how a distribution arm of Voya Financial has curtailed the sale of certain variable annuity share classes with guaranteed benefits, at the insistence of regulators. It’s our...

Thoughts from Q2 Earnings Season – We Suspect VA Sales Improved

Overall, we’re of the opinion that second quarter earnings for stock-traded insurers we watch regularly were pretty strong, and for all of them, variable annuity sales went up sequentially, thus we suspect the industry experienced...