Research & Reports
On 2015: A Time of Shifting Realities For the Variable Annuity Business
Each year we provide, with our last issue of December, a quick rundown of how the variable annuity business performed so far, from our perspective, and a few forward-looking thoughts for the New Year. While...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from November, 2015
During November we saw an interesting mix of filings related to variable insurance funds, including some new registrations. Among the many changes included modifications to the objectives of managed-volatility portfolios, and more conversions of money...
The Deferred Income Annuity – A Product With a Hopeful Future
In this report we’ll discuss deferred income annuities (DIAs), products that, in our view, were built to provide less risky forms of guaranteed income as compared to living benefits, and to answer longstanding objections to...
Some Brief Thoughts Regarding Q3 Annuity Industry Sales
Industry research firms began reporting third quarter sales not long ago, and the numbers confirmed our earlier suspicions, that variable annuity sales would fell in the quarter, while total industry output was sustained through a...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from October, 2015
During October we saw a number of new variable fund registrations, including a few that will feature volatility management. In this report we’ll discuss them, as well as other fund-related developments…
An Update on Recent Filings – Including a New Structured Annuity
This report will cover a few interesting new product filings we’ve seen of late from around the industry, including the registration of a new structured annuity…
Variable Annuity Sales Were Down in Q3 for Leading Stock-Traded Insurers
We just completed our third quarter review of variable annuity business results of selected stock-traded insurers and found that for all of them, sales fell sequentially during that time period. Market volatility was the most-often...
Use of Benefit Rate Sheets – on the Rise as a Risk Management Tool
Currently those variable annuity insurers selling benefits in which key parameters are reset periodically via rate sheet are still a minority within the industry, however we expect the group will grow in number over time,...
Update: Variable Insurance Volatility-Managed Portfolios
This updated spreadsheet of variable insurance volatility-managed portfolios contains data through the second quarter of 2015. By our count there were 206 such portfolios in operation at quarter end, containing about $234 billion in assets…