Research & Reports
Earnings Review: VA Industry Sales Probably Declined in 2Q13
After reviewing second quarter results of stock-traded insurers we monitor regularly, it’s our suspicion that variable annuity industry sales dropped during that time period, which would not be surprising given all the product de-risking that...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from July, 2013
In July there was a pickup in filing activity related to variable insurance portfolios, with a number of interesting registrations, including two brand-new fund trusts. A good number of the new registrations are scheduled to...
Summer Moves on the VA Scene – a Mix of Innovation and De-Risking
This summer has been slow in terms of variable annuity product filings – as usually is the case for the time of year – however we have seen enough interesting things come through to give...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from June, 2013
Usually in June we see a slowdown in variable insurance fund filings, but this year we thought there was a good bit of activity, which we’ll discuss in this commentary…
Update on Hartford’s Initiative: Some of Our Suspicions Have Been Confirmed
In our last few commentaries we’ve shared our suspicion that, based on language in some recent SEC filings, four state insurance departments might not allow some or all of Hartford’s planned sub-account restrictions on certain...
More Summer Product Initiatives Are Arising on the Variable Annuity Scene
In this commentary we will return to a few storylines from around the variable annuity business that we have been tracking of late, and weigh in on new ones that we have seen emerge…
An Update on Variable Annuity Contract and GLWB Filings in 2013
We have been sifting through recent filings of variable annuity contracts and lifetime withdrawal benefits and, while we haven’t been seeing quite as much activity in the pipeline as in past years, we did catch...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from April-May, 2013
In this commentary we’ll get caught up with variable insurance fund filings from the months of April and May, a time period that was fairly active, however we didn’t see a large number of new...
Lincoln National Communicates Confidence in Its Annuity Business
Investors and analysts are very curious as to how variable annuity operations may affect the health and profitability of insurers, especially since companies are now pulling away from selling rich guarantees. As we noted in...