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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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A Season of Change: VA Sales Fall as Insurers Cut Back on Their Products

The year 2012 was a time when insurers made reductions to their variable annuity products: these moves included the trimming of guarantees, fee increases, closures of contracts and riders, installation of tighter investment restrictions, cuts...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from October, 2012

This October we thought that the rate of variable fund filing activity with the SEC was about what we usually see this time of year. There were relatively few new portfolio registrations. A continuing trend...

Industry VA Sales Look Steady for Q3 – But Earnings Results Were Mixed

After reviewing the variable annuity business results of the group of stock-traded insurers we track regularly, we’re figuring that third quarter industry sales were flat to slightly up sequentially, and probably got a little lift...

VA Insurers Are Developing New Limits on Contracts, Riders, Underlying Funds

This year most variable annuity insurers have been cutting back on the generosity of their guarantees, however we think any companies seeking to remain competitive are sort of walking a fine line – they want...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from September, 2012

This report is our customary roundup of noteworthy variable insurance fund filings from the prior month. In September we did not notice many new registrations, rather most of the filing activity involved changes to existing...

Regarding Risk – and How VA Insurers’ Methods Are Evolving to Manage It

This year has been one of rapid change, as variable annuity insurers of all sizes have sought to reduce their product-related risks in one form or another, and we’re sure that anyone looking at all...

Thoughts on Variable Annuity Change Trends As We Enter 4Q12

Variable annuity insurers have certainly been very active this year in de-risking their products in response to competitive and market-related conditions, however in recent weeks filing activity has slowed down a bit. It could be...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from July-August, 2012

In this report we’ll get caught up with variable insurance fund developments from July and August. During those months we detected an interesting mix of new registrations, fee and expense adjustments, reorganizations and manager changes…

Newer Annuity Types That Are Emerging During this Period of De-Risking

For the most part, variable annuity insurers are moving away from selling risky benefits, but we think that the process of de-risking will take time, because industry sales are still largely driven by the richest...