Research & Reports

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...

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...

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...

The recovery in the financial markets that took place in the second quarter not only helped variable annuity sales bounce back for most insurers, another positive development was a reduction in the levels of risk...

It’s once again time for us to offer our quarterly commentary on variable annuity sales for the stock-traded insurers we regularly monitor, and to discuss relevant themes facing the industry. We’ll start off by saying...

Recently we’ve been soliciting opinions (and, we must admit, a few rumors) from our industry contacts on which variable annuity players got some sales momentum during the second quarter, to help us get some early...

As we commence the third quarter – usually a pretty slow period for variable industry sales – the pace of de-risking seems to be settling down a bit, but the process is not over by...

Now that the second quarter is wrapping up we figured we’d take a few moments to take quick stock of that period, how the variable annuity industry might have performed. It’s our opinion that when...

This week we’re following up on our previous commentary with further notes on recent filings of variable annuity contracts and benefits. In monitoring what’s been going on we’re of the opinion that now more than...