Research & Reports
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...
Jackson National Moves to Limit 1035s Over the Remainder of This Year
Last Tuesday Jackson National sent a letter to financial advisors announcing the temporary suspension of 1035 exchanges and qualified transfers of assets into three variable annuity contract suites effective October 25. In this commentary we’ll...
Recent Revelations – Regarding VA Insurers’ Planned Product Changes
In this report we won’t be commenting on much in the way of brand-new developments on the variable annuity scene, rather we have some interesting nuances from product filings to share with you…
Prudential Files Another Update to its Highest Daily Lifetime Income Rider
Last Friday Prudential filed a new version of its leading variable annuity lifetime withdrawal benefit, Highest Daily Lifetime Income, and we have to assume that reductions will be made as compared to the current version,...
It’s Out With the Old, In With the New – as Annuity Insurers Enter Autumn
If we were asked to describe how the autumn season is shaping up for the annuity industry so far, we’d say that it’s a time when insurers are following through with new ideas and steadily...
Jackson National Upgrades its VA Riders – a Counterintuitive Move?
Last week Jackson National sent out a field release that confirmed the company will be following through with variable annuity product changes – including some enhancements – which it filed earlier in the year. In...
At Summer’s End – VA Insurers Were Making Further Product Adjustments
Over the last few weeks of this summer we noticed an interesting mixture of variable annuity product movements, a good number scheduled to take effect during the fall, which we’ll cover in this commentary. We...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from July, 2013
In July there was a pickup in filing activity related to variable insurance portfolios, with a number of interesting registrations, including two brand-new fund trusts. A good number of the new registrations are scheduled to...
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...