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Research & Reports

Soleares Research, LLC is a market research and consulting firm servicing the annuity and life insurance businesses. We provide, through our website, periodic articles that cover important industry trends; we also offer clients phone or on-site consultations, executive briefings and presentations. We pride ourselves on first-class customer service and responsiveness to our clients. We aim to be an indispensable resource to the marketplace.

Checking Up on Trends in Variable Annuity GMIBs – Changing, Mixing, Matching

On the variable annuity scene, insurers are still changing their guaranteed living benefits with great alacrity in response to market conditions, albeit less aggressively than in the past, and while most of this movement is...

A Look at the Pipeline: What’s in New VA Contracts Registered This Year

One of the many ongoing tasks we have on our “to-do list” is to stay current with what’s happening in new variable annuity contracts coming to market, so in this commentary we’ll catch up with...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from September, 2009

During September the rate of variable insurance fund filings with the SEC slowed down a bit – as is the tendency each year – and accordingly there were relatively few new registrations. We think activity...

Factors Influencing the Positioning of VA Benefits in the Current Environment

To continue with an opinion we expressed last week: over the remainder of the year we expect to see a mixture of aggression and retreat on the part of variable annuity insurers, as some will...

VA Insurers Will Pursue Studied Tactics, New Directions, During Q4

As the fourth quarter commences we get the sense that the variable annuity business is thankful for the recent appreciation in the financial markets, however there is concern over whether the recovery will persist. For...

Recent Distribution Moves – That Are Influencing VA Product, Rider Offerings

Through the second quarter of this year, there remains a lead pack of variable annuity writers still offering relatively rich living benefits, and by our reckoning, this fact contributed to their robust sales during that...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from August, 2009

During August we identified a number of new variable insurance portfolios filed with the SEC, most of them funds of funds (F-of-Fs), however the most frequent activity – as has been the case in recent...

Taking Inventory of Relevant VA Industry Themes Through 3Q09

Now that summer is winding down, that means we’ll soon be in a familiar time between the end of a quarter and when official data come out, when we’ll be conversing with contacts, swapping anecdotal...

VA Insurers are Downshifting, Looking to Trim Risk on their GLWBs

During the first half of this year, a few variable annuity insurers were still selling relatively rich Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits (GLWBs), looking to grab market share at a time when most competitors were scaling...