Research & Reports
Phased Cutbacks to Benefits Continue, May Updates Start to Come In
This week we intended to focus exclusively on developments in variable annuity Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits (GLWBs) however we will mention a few notable changes to other benefit categories, since a few interesting things have...
Evaluating the Cycle of Change and What it Means for the VA Business
These are very interesting times for the variable annuity industry, if for no other reason than the sheer amount of product and feature amendments that have been occurring since late last year. We think that...
Reflecting on 2008: a Turning Point Year for Variable Annuity Players
This is our customary early retrospective of the past year for the variable annuity business, in which we’ll offer a narrative of how things unfolded chronologically in 2008, the market conditions that arose and their...
Pace of VA Changes is Ramping Up: Price Increases, Benefit Revisions, More
Judging by the sheer amount of activity from variable annuity insurers recently – most of them are trimming the richness of their benefit guarantees and/or raising pricing – we think it’s safe to say the...
Benefit Bases, Risks and Related Competitive Matters on the VA Scene
By now it’s obvious that in the variable annuity business leading players have either started to cut back on the generosity of their guaranteed benefits or are thinking strongly about doing so, since the downturn...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from October, 2008
In this report we’ll offer our usual coverage of noteworthy variable insurance fund filings from the month before – in this case, October – and make some observations on recent developments in investment options around...
A Shift in the Living Benefit Arms Race – VA Insurers Start to Scale Back
In the past six years the variable annuity industry has been marked by fierce competition between insurers over who has the richest guaranteed living benefits, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the...