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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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Insurers Are Developing More Variations on the Investment-Only VA

As the year began, we were confident more investment-only variable annuities were on the drawing board and we were curious as to how insurers might tinker with the concept. It just so happens that some...

Earnings Held Up for Insurers in Q3 – But VA Sales? Not So Much

It seems to us that most variable annuity insurers fared well this third quarter from an earnings standpoint, helped by a rise in the stock market. However VA sales were down for the group of...

Principal Financial to Offer a GLWB Exchange Program – Not a Buyback

It’s our opinion that vintage variable annuity benefits remain problematic for quite a few insurers, and we expect more de-risking measures to be taken over time.  Last week Principal Financial filed a program that will...

Summer Moves on the VA Scene – a Mix of Innovation and De-Risking

This summer has been slow in terms of variable annuity product filings – as usually is the case for the time of year – however we have seen enough interesting things come through to give...

VA Insurers Say They Are Managing Benefit Risks – But Still Want to Trim Them

It’s been a while since we checked in on variable annuity guaranteed benefit risk levels, and we were reminded of that fact by MetLife’s recent investor day, where the topic was discussed at length. We...

Insurers are Reshaping Annuities to Offer Unique Income-Focused Guarantees

The annuity industry is now in a period where it is seeking to develop new product types, using the lessons learned during the heady days of the variable annuity arms race. It is abundantly clear...

“What’s Working?” – Thoughts On the Industry As it Awaits Q4 Sales Data

In this report we’ll try to break from our usual preoccupation with product nuances to raise questions as to where the variable annuity business is headed. It’s clear that most insurers are moving beyond offering...

Insurers Are Building New VA Living Benefits to Handle Interest Rate Risks

As variable annuity insurers have been scaling back on their products, they have tended to make more refined adjustments over time, aimed at addressing specific contingency factors. Recently we have seen a few insurers introduce...

MetLife’s New Index Annuity – An Example of Reverse Engineering

Last week we shared a rumor that a few insurers were planning to come out with renditions of AXA Equitable’s Structured Capital Strategies, a hybrid index/variable annuity, and said we had not seen a filing...