Research & Reports
VA Guaranteed Accumulation Benefits – More Popularity in the Offing?
In the variable annuity marketplace guaranteed living benefits have certainly proven their worth, although there are some types that have just not gotten as much acceptance as others for various reasons. Even so, it’s our...
Growing Assets and Escalating Income – GLWB Upgrades Keep Coming
We must confess we were a bit surprised by the increase in variable annuity living benefit filing activity that’s gone on lately. In recent weeks a fresh batch of riders has been registered with the...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from June, 2008
With this commentary we’re catching up again with our monthly reporting on variable insurance filings, in June we noticed more initial registrations than we were expecting, however we believe this activity reflects the fact that...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from April and May, 2008
Normally we publish a report each month on variable insurance fund highlights but over the recent past, so much has been happening with variable annuity living benefits and contracts that we ended up foregoing that...
The Province of VA Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits – A Constantly Shifting Terrain
In the variable annuity business, it’s crucial for leading companies to have new ideas in the pipeline at all times because the living benefits arms wars are still being waged with great intensity. The way...
VA Income Benefits Are Evolving to Offer New Forms of Guaranteed Income
We believe that Guaranteed Minimum Income Benefits (GMIBs) are still formidable weapons in the variable annuity benefit arsenal, they have been around for awhile and many financial advisors still find them quite attractive. While innovation...
As Went the Market, So Went the Industry – VA Results of Public Insurers in 1Q08
Based on first quarter variable annuity sales of public insurers we track regularly – and some early estimates of how the industry fared – the first quarter of 2008 was a period where industry deposits...
Insurers Are Ironing Out Details of Group Annuity Certificate Products
Even though not even two months has elapsed, much activity has occurred since we last weighed in on new group annuity certificate products that were built to wrap lifetime withdrawal benefits around retail mutual funds...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from March, 2008
This commentary is our regular look back at notable SEC filings of variable insurance funds from the previous month. In March we did not see many new registrations, but there were numerous adjustments of different...