Research & Reports
Update: Variable Insurance Volatility-Managed Portfolios
We have just posted an updated spreadsheet of variable insurance volatility-managed portfolios, with data through the second quarter of 2014. By our count there were 187 such portfolios in operation, containing $200.2 billion in assets…
An Update on Trends in Variable Insurance Volatility-Control Portfolios
Variable insurance volatility-control portfolios continue to gather assets at a brisk pace around the industry – and not just because of the introduction of brand-new ones. In recent months a large number of existing portfolios...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from August, 2014
In this report we’ll cover noteworthy variable insurance fund developments from August, a month that we thought was rather busy, considering the season…
Thoughts About Directions in Variable Annuity Sales As Q3 Winds Down
The start of the fall season is close upon us, as is the end of the third quarter, so in this commentary we’ll provide some quick thoughts about where we think variable annuity industry sales...
Late Summer Filings Held Yet More IOVA Products, Assorted Changes
In this report we’ll get caught up with product filings from late August – of particular note is that the batch included a number of investment-only variable annuities (IOVAs), providing further evidence that the trend...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from July, 2014
In July we saw an increase in variable insurance fund filing activity and some interesting new registrations, which we’ll cover in this commentary. We’ll also attempt to put some filing trends in perspective, particularly those...
MetLife Becomes Latest Insurer to File an Investment-Only VA
For a while now we had a suspicion MetLife would come out with an investment-only variable annuity, since so many of its peers have done so. As it turns out the insurer filed one not...
VA Insurers’ Profits Were Up in 2Q14 – But Sales? Perhaps by a Little
During the second quarter publicly-traded insurers we monitor regularly experienced increased profitability within their variable annuity operations, however sales for most were somewhat lackluster, as has been the case of late…
VA Insurers Move Ahead With Rider Buyback Packages, Other Incentives
In recent weeks we have seen new interesting things coming from variable insurers: rider buyout offers, benefit updates and other initiatives scheduled to come out later this year. In this commentary we’ll get caught up...