Research & Reports

Because of the steady flow of tweaks and adjustments insurers have been making to their variable annuity offerings, it’s not easy to determine which changes are meaningful, and which are simply “noise.” In this commentary...

Now that the second quarter is wrapping up we figured we’d take a few moments to take quick stock of that period, how the variable annuity industry might have performed. It’s our opinion that when...

We hear there is a feeling around the industry that, due to the impact of the tumultuous markets, annuity insurers are “looking for the next business model” and are re-appraising their contracts, underlying funds, distribution...

First quarter earnings season concluded last week for the publicly-traded insurers we regularly monitor, and for most of them, variable annuity deposits and net flows declined, much as we expected. What surprised us were accounting...

A number of leading variable annuity insurers have started to take more drastic steps to trim their risk profiles, cut costs and otherwise regroup during this difficult period, and we expect more activity of this...

We’re figuring that the myriad reductions variable annuity insurers have been making to their benefits and features signal the potential for reduced deposits and net flows for the industry, not to mention big shifts in...

Just as we were this time last year, we’re very curious about the performance of the variable annuity business in the first quarter – especially given the kind of difficult market conditions we’re in –...

Since the second half of last year, the variable annuity business has been in transition, and a nearly constant stream of adjustments have been made to contracts, riders, not to mention other things, these certainly...

Lately we’ve learned there was movement along the variable annuity sales leader board during the fourth quarter. For now we think the top 25 will remain in place, with some shifting within that group, although...