Research & Reports
Various Reflections – from Last Week’s Retirement Industry Conference
We have found that the annual LIMRA/LOMA/Society of Actuaries Retirement Industry Conference always manages to stimulate healthy conversation and debate and this year’s edition, held last week in Las Vegas, was no different. In this...
A Brief Update on Variable Product Managed-Volatility Portfolios
In this report we’ll get caught up with trends in variable managed-volatility portfolios, which over the past few years have been gathering assets at a fairly rapid pace. We’ll also share a few corrections and...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from February, 2015
This February we saw a fairly large number of new variable insurance funds get registered with the SEC, which is typical for the time of year, as insurers prepare to update their products in May....
VA Industry Sales Growth in Q4 Looks Doubtful to Us, All Things Considered
As is our practice each quarter, we reviewed earnings results for selected stock-traded insurers we track regularly, and came to the conclusion that for most of them, variable annuity operations performed more or less in...
VA Sales in 2014 Were Slow Again, Reflecting a Retooling Environment
Each year we devote the last commentary of December to taking a quick look back at the past year in the variable annuity business, and we’ll do so again this time, and also make some...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from October, 2014
As usual there weren’t a large number of variable insurance fund filings during this October, as most new registrations are submitted to the SEC earlier in the year. Still, there were a few interesting developments...
AEGON and Assumptions – Further Thoughts on Q3 Numbers
In this commentary we’ll offer up some comments on third-quarter results of Dutch insurer AEGON, because it has a substantial variable annuity business in the U.S. and its experience in the quarter mirrored that of...
The Q3 Market Uptick Boosted VA Assets – as For Sales? We’re Not Sure
Third quarter earnings season for the publicly-traded insurers we watch regularly concluded last week, and for most of those companies, variable annuity business operations retained profitability, largely because the stock market’s rise caused assets under...
Thoughts on Q3 VA Industry Sales – and a Few Product Developments
Earnings season for publicly-traded insurers is now underway but won’t finish until midway through next month, so in this commentary we’ll offer up some of our suspicions on how variable annuity sales moved in the...