Research & Reports
“The Daily Show” – Hartford Enhances Ratchets on New Benefits
The recent filing by Hartford Life of two new variable annuity benefits that feature highest daily account value growth has the industry buzzing, and we think for good reason. Observers of the market will be...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from December, 2011
With the publication of this report we’ll conclude our regular monthly coverage of variable insurance fund filings from 2011. We thought December was quite an active month: there was a nice batch of new registrations,...
VA Insurers Tread Carefully in Adjusting Products, Launching New Ideas
As the New Year has gotten underway, we can’t say we’ve seen any real earth-shattering variable annuity products as of yet. Indeed, some tweaks and revisions filed with the SEC last year have not rolled...
“Stretching Exercises” – That Might Pull VA Products in New Directions
It’s our sense that, unless there is a dramatic (and sustained) rebound in the financial markets near term, most variable annuity insurers will be in de-risking mode. For that reason we expect more of the...
A Busy Beginning – for Product Moves Around the VA Business
Through the latter months of last year, we saw a number of variable annuity product changes in the pipeline whose details were not fully fleshed out. Because of this we got the feeling that most...
A Season of Change – In Which VA Insurers Are Moving Tentatively
Many variable annuity issuers have been filing changes to their products – mostly of the de-risking variety – but they have not taken what we would call drastic measures. We think this is because most...
A Quick Look Back – on 2011 and its Significance for the VA Industry
As we have done in the past, we reserved our last weekly commentary of this year for a reflection on how the variable annuity business performed in 2011. It is our way of getting a...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from November, 2011
In this report we’ll provide our usual highlights of recent variable fund filings, and comment on the announcement today from Sun Life Financial that it will discontinue sales of variable annuities in the U.S. To...
Winding Down – There May Be More Surprises Before the Year Ends
As we write this, product filing activity around the variable annuity business has slowed down a bit, but there remain numerous modifications in the pipeline, quite a few of them not scheduled to come out...