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…
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...
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…
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...
Another Update on Variable Annuity Contract and Benefit Filings
This will be yet another one of our reports covering recent variable annuity product filings we found interesting. Most of them involved alterations to existing contracts and riders; there were also updates to annuities in...
Some VA Insurers Experienced Slight Sequential Sales Growth in 2Q17
As we suspected, some stock-traded insurance companies we cover regularly garnered increases in variable annuity sales sequentially, which we attribute partly to seasonality – since the second quarter is usually a strong one for the...
A Summer Reflection – On Current Conditions in the VA Business
As second quarter earnings season has gotten underway, in this commentary we’ll provide a few thoughts about how we think the variable annuity industry has been performing. We will make sure to follow up with...
On New VA and Structured Annuity Contracts Filed Recently With the SEC
Just when we thought product development pipeline activity had gotten as slow as it could possibly get, we noticed interesting filings last week of new variable and structured annuities, which should launch sometime this year…
Summer Thoughts – On Competitive Conditions in the VA Business
As we opined in our last commentary, activity along the variable annuity product pipeline continues to be rather slow, thus we don’t have a great deal of new developments to cover. Our intention with this...