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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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“Trick or Treat” – a Bag Full of De-Risking, Fire Sales, and a Market Bounce

If we were to liken the variable annuity industry to a ship on the high seas, we’d have to say it has been tossed around by contrary winds of late. Choppy equity markets and low...

More Thoughts on Prospects for the Industry, Given the Current Environment

We fully expect more product de-risking, and other changes and adjustments, to occur on the variable annuity scene over the last quarter of the year. However we also think the value proposition of the industry...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from August, 2011

As is our habit, we sifted through SEC filings related to variable insurance funds, and in August found numerous changes and adjustments to investment platforms, in particular there were plenty of mergers and liquidations, either...

The Latest VA Contract Designs – With Pricing, Options as Priorities

This week, we thought it would be a good time to check in on new variable annuity contract filings with the SEC, since we’ve seen a good number come through recently…

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from July, 2011

We were somewhat surprised to uncover a fairly large batch of new variable insurance portfolios registered during July – because it’s not something we normally see during the summer. In this commentary we’ll touch on...

Shifting and Moving – Some Thoughts on Competition in the VA Space

It’s our contention that we are in a period of transition within the variable annuity industry, because some leading insurers have hinted their sales have exceeded comfort levels, and these companies will thus be de-risking....

Benefits and Sales – are Intimately Linked in This Variable Annuity Market

It probably no longer bears repeating, but an insurer’s variable annuity deposits nowadays are directly connected to the relative strength of its guaranteed benefits. We are in a period where this rule of thumb is...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from June, 2011

In this, our regular commentary about variable insurance funds from the prior month, we’ll start off by saying this June we saw a familiar pattern for the time of year, namely that there were not...

Emerging Details – Regarding MetLife’s New VA Guaranteed Benefits

Since we published our last report, we discovered that MetLife registered its new variable annuity guaranteed benefits with the Florida insurance department, and that filing contained more information – albeit some of it bracketed –...