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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.

Another Structured Annuity is On The Way – This Time from ING

To date, only a few insurers have come out with structured annuities, which contain a basket of index-linked options with buffers to protect investors against a set percentage of losses. That’s why we were somewhat...

Signs from Earnings Calls Point to Lower VA Industry Deposits in 1Q14

In the first quarter of this year variable annuity sales fell, on a sequential basis, for every member of our group of publicly-traded insurers we watch regularly, which makes us pretty sure that the industry...

VA Benefit Buybacks, Special Offers Come Through in May Filings

While the May variable annuity prospectus update season has been somewhat slower than usual, we did see a few interesting product initiatives filed recently, including instances of buyout programs and other incentives targeting holders of...

It Looks Like for Most Insurers, VA Sales Were Down Again in 4Q13

We reviewed fourth quarter earnings results for selected publicly-traded insurers we track regularly and came to the conclusion that variable annuity industry deposits dropped for the quarter and the year as a whole. We think...

Earnings Held Up for Insurers in Q3 – But VA Sales? Not So Much

It seems to us that most variable annuity insurers fared well this third quarter from an earnings standpoint, helped by a rise in the stock market. However VA sales were down for the group of...

Update on Hartford’s Initiative: Some of Our Suspicions Have Been Confirmed

In our last few commentaries we’ve shared our suspicion that, based on language in some recent SEC filings, four state insurance departments might not allow some or all of Hartford’s planned sub-account restrictions on certain...

More Summer Product Initiatives Are Arising on the Variable Annuity Scene

In this commentary we will return to a few storylines from around the variable annuity business that we have been tracking of late, and weigh in on new ones that we have seen emerge…

Lincoln National Communicates Confidence in Its Annuity Business

Investors and analysts are very curious as to how variable annuity operations may affect the health and profitability of insurers, especially since companies are now pulling away from selling rich guarantees. As we noted in...

VA Insurers Say They Are Managing Benefit Risks – But Still Want to Trim Them

It’s been a while since we checked in on variable annuity guaranteed benefit risk levels, and we were reminded of that fact by MetLife’s recent investor day, where the topic was discussed at length. We...