Research & Reports

In our last report we discussed how insurers are building fee reductions into their variable annuities, which we think is good for the industry in that it may help counter some negative perceptions. This week,...

We always look forward to reviewing major public insurers’ quarterly calls during earnings season, as these companies in many ways act as barometers for the health of the variable annuity business as a whole. In...

Variable Universal Life (VUL) policies certainly have a lot going for them in terms of optionality and flexibility, with the insured being able to adjust the death benefit, the timing and level of premium payments,...

We recently took time to reflect on divergent trends within the pricing and structure of variable annuities, a topic that should become more “front-and-center” in the future and cut across distribution outlets, since products and...

With this commentary we’ll resume our coverage of first quarter earnings calls and show how some insurers, due to their scale and ability to offer cutting-edge ideas, have seen resurgence in their variable annuity sales,...

Last week we listened to first quarter earnings conference calls of five publicly-traded insurers who do business in the U.S. variable space, and for some of these companies, annuity sales improved, although surrenders – more...

While our primary concentration is on the variable insurance business, from time to time we will reflect on the equity-indexed annuity, or EIA, and now is a good time to do so. There are a...

In our quick look at spousal lifetime withdrawal benefit provisions last month, we commented on some features that were still in the filing stage. It turns out that a few of these were formally launched...

In the second installment in a regular commentary of The Soleares Report, we are going to review variable annuity business fourth quarter reports and consider what happened in 2005 as a whole. In future weeks...