Research & Reports

Lately we’ve been seeing fresh product reductions taking place around the variable annuity business, and we think that the effectiveness of such moves will depend largely on how each insurer will look, competitively, after making...

Judging by some Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits (GLWBs) being introduced to the variable annuity space lately, we’d have to say that a few insurers are bucking the general trend towards product de-risking. Instead of pulling...

It’s our sense that, unless there is a dramatic (and sustained) rebound in the financial markets near term, most variable annuity insurers will be in de-risking mode. For that reason we expect more of the...

We thought the month of May was rather active in terms of SEC filings related to variable insurance underlying funds. There was an interesting mix of movement: sub-account platforms were streamlined, new management fee arrangements...

Enough new product initiatives have been happening around the variable annuity industry to make us curious as to how such ideas may translate into sales over the rest of the year. Last week we saw...

We continue to see interesting adjustments and enhancements being introduced to variable annuity products, which we think shows that there are still stiff winds of competition around the industry, however muted from the arms race...

After reviewing fourth quarter variable annuity sales results of stock-traded insurers in our regular coverage group, we strongly suspect that the industry fared well during that time period as well. What remains to be seen...

It’s become our custom with the last report of December to offer reflections on how the variable annuity business performed over the past year, and suggest issues to watch in the future. We admit that...

As is our custom, we delved into the variable annuity business results of 10 stock-traded insurers we track, and, overall, came away with a pretty positive impression about the third quarter. We say this even...