Research & Reports
Summer Sizzle – VA Product and Benefit Changes Keep Coming
Lately we’ve seen a number of new or revised variable annuity contracts and benefits filed with the SEC, and we find that interesting, since during the summer such activity tends to slow down. We suspect...
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 –...
“Cliffhanger” Filings – Containing New Guaranteed Benefits from MetLife
Late last week MetLife submitted initial registrations of several new variable annuity guaranteed death and income benefits to the SEC, and we thought this was noteworthy for a number of reasons. In this report we’ll...
Hartford Launches New VA Products – at an Interesting Time for the Industry
Today Hartford announced the launch of new variable annuity contracts and benefits as part of an initiative to re-energize its sales in the U.S. In this commentary we’ll give our thoughts on this move, given...
Chassis Variations – Reflecting a Trend in VA Specialization
In recent months there’s been quite a bit of filing activity related to variable annuity contracts, and we think this is due to distributors getting more involved in the manufacturing process. Many SEC documents we’ve...
“In Sync” – VA Sales in 1Q11 Followed Flow of the Financial Markets
Variable annuity sales for stock-traded insurers we cover regularly were split down the middle in the first quarter of this year, one half reporting some measure of improvement sequentially while the rest did not fare...
Issues of Interest – Based on Questions We’ve Fielded, and Recent Filing Activity
We are in the latter stages of the variable annuity prospectus update season and over the past few weeks we have fielded product related questions which we think are indicative of what folks in the...
A Contract Update – and Other Notes from the May Prospectus Season
At this time of year there’s a deluge of variable annuity prospectus updates being submitted to the SEC, and, as usual, we’ve been sifting through those documents in an effort to find newsworthy things to...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from March, 2011
During March we noticed but a moderate stream of variable insurance fund filings with the SEC, typical for the time of year, as much activity involved platform tweaks and modifications of one form or another....