subscriber-login-icon
Subscriber Login

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.

Late Summer Filings Held Yet More IOVA Products, Assorted Changes

In this report we’ll get caught up with product filings from late August – of particular note is that the batch included a number of investment-only variable annuities (IOVAs), providing further evidence that the trend...

VA Insurers’ Profits Were Up in 2Q14 – But Sales? Perhaps by a Little

During the second quarter publicly-traded insurers we monitor regularly experienced increased profitability within their variable annuity operations, however sales for most were somewhat lackluster, as has been the case of late…

VA Insurers Move Ahead With Rider Buyback Packages, Other Incentives

In recent weeks we have seen new interesting things coming from variable insurers: rider buyout offers, benefit updates and other initiatives scheduled to come out later this year. In this commentary we’ll get caught up...

MetLife Files a New Simplified Variable Annuity – With a GMAB

In recent reports we’ve opined about how slow activity along the variable annuity product pipeline has become this summer. Yet last Friday MetLife cut through the seasonal doldrums by registering an interesting new contract with...

Summer – A Good Time to Evaluate Directions in the Variable Business

In recent weeks we’ve seen a reduction in variable annuity product flings, which is typical for this time of year. This slower pace gives us the opportunity this week to reflect on currents of activity...

Principal Financial Files a New VA Contract – With an Optional DIA Module

Late last week Principal Financial registered a new variable annuity containing a deferred income annuity (DIA) sleeve, and because of that development we thought we’d take the opportunity to consider the progress of such features...

Identifying Trends in Variable Annuity Industry Product Changes in 2014

Since the start of the year we have been steadily tracking modifications to variable annuity products and in this commentary we’ll share what we think are prevailing trends from around the industry…

Jackson is Revamping its GLWBs – Adding Tiered Withdrawal Rates, Fees

Jackson National is an insurer that tends to make interesting – if not downright intriguing – product moves and late last week we saw another example of this in a filing that contained alterations to...

Another Structured Annuity is On The Way – This Time from ING

To date, only a few insurers have come out with structured annuities, which contain a basket of index-linked options with buffers to protect investors against a set percentage of losses. That’s why we were somewhat...