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Research & Reports

Soleares Research, LLC is a market research and consulting firm servicing the annuity and life insurance businesses. We provide, through our website, periodic articles that cover important industry trends; we also offer clients phone or on-site consultations, executive briefings and presentations. We pride ourselves on first-class customer service and responsiveness to our clients. We aim to be an indispensable resource to the marketplace.
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Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from May, 2007

After reviewing variable fund filings from the month of May we found, as usual, interesting new registrations plus numerous changes and adjustments to fees and expenses, sub-advisors and other matters. Of particular note were some...

VA Contract Notebook: Tendencies Within New Designs Filed This Year

With this report we’re going to take a little time to consider what’s currently popular in variable annuity contract designs, based on our understanding of sales trends and our evaluations of new products filed this...

Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from April, 2007

During April we didn’t identify a great many new variable fund registrations, rather most SEC filings over the month consisted of routine annual prospectus updates, many of which reiterated, or made official, changes or adjustments...

From Flat to Just Slightly Up: VA Insurers See Moderate Sales in Q1

For the publicly-traded variable annuity insurers we track on a quarterly basis, 2007 seemed to start off on a slow note, at least on a sequential basis: a few companies saw modest increases in sales...

Following Up on Recent Revisions to VA Guaranteed Living Benefits

As the May prospectus update season is now in full swing, we anticipate that a fresh stream of new variable annuity living benefit concepts will be coming out due to competitive pressure. It’s always challenging...

The Latest News on Variable Annuities in Defined Contribution Plans

In this commentary we’re going to quickly give our perspective on news and developments related to variable annuities and defined contribution (DC) plans, especially 401(k)s, since many insurers perceive these programs to be a possible...

More of a Bargain: Movements in VA Contract Design and Structure

If there’s any one trend in variable annuity design we see building momentum, it’s that of insurers offering contracts with lower-than-average costs, usually combined with a relatively modest number of sub-accounts and optional benefits. Since...

Beyond Product – Insurers Work to Become Retirement Planners, Aggregators

There’s little doubt that success in the variable annuity marketplace over the years has been largely dictated by product and distribution strength, competition depending on what’s currently in favor, whether it be the latest VA...

Continuing the Discussion: VA Industry Issues Informing Product Designs

With this commentary we’ll follow up on our previous report by reflecting on some important themes in the variable annuity industry and how they are intimately connected to the products, features and funds being marketed...