Research & Reports
Our Customary Look Back on the Variable Annuity Industry In 2017
As usual, our last commentary of December is a reflection on how the variable annuity business performed this year, based upon what we know thus far from sales levels and product developments…
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from November, 2017
During November the rate of variable fund filing tends to slow down, and such was the case this year. We noticed no new registrations and only a moderate amount of other activity…
Ohio National Files Exchange Program Targeting Vintage GMIBs
Over the past five years we have seen a number of insurers offer incentives to clients to cash out of their variable annuity benefits as a risk reduction measure. However late last week Ohio National...
New Coverage: Summaries of I-Share and Low-Cost VA Contracts
This table contains summaries of 62 variable annuity contracts that we have determined to be low cost and /or sold through fee-based advisors…
Concerning Trends in Fee-Based Variable Annuity Contracts
For a number of reasons there is now much interest around the industry in variable annuities built for sale through fee-based financial advisors; with that fact in mind, in this report we’ll provide some perspective...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from October, 2017
This report contains our coverage of noteworthy variable fund filings from October. It was a fairly active time – during the month we saw new fund registrations along with numerous changes to investment platforms…
Some Bright Spots Amid Insurers’ Variable Annuity Sales Results in Q3
After reviewing earnings calls of stock-traded insurance companies we cover regularly, we came away with the impression that for of them, variable annuity results were lackluster, although there were a few instances of modest improvement…
Principal Financial Files New VA Internal Exchange Offer
While we have seen a few insurers offer to buyout owners of vintage guaranteed lifetime benefits for risk-reduction purposes, a company that has taken a different approach is Principal Financial. Earlier this week it filed...
Random Thoughts – on Current Conditions in the VA Market
Third quarter earnings season is now underway, and we are highly interested in what conference calls might reveal about the variable annuity business. We’re suspecting that sales levels might have started improve at least a...