Research & Reports
An Up-and-Coming Product Line – VAs for Defined Contribution Plans, Rollovers
As more Baby Boomers reach retirement age, financial services firms will be competing over who will manage the trillions of dollars these folks have socked away in their defined contribution (DC) plans. We anticipate a...
Summertime in the Variable Annuity Business – Not as Slow as You Think
Recently, in compiling information and data for our reports we’ve been sorting through many regulatory filings, and will continue to do so of course, but this week we’re going to pause a bit from those...
Under the Chassis – Updating our Research on New VA Contract Registrations
One of the many research activities we’ve taken upon ourselves is to monitor new variable annuity registrations, in order to be up on the latest industry priorities in terms of product development. We recently caught...
Our Summer Studies Will Involve Gathering More Data on VA Products, Features
One of our objectives for the upcoming third quarter – traditionally a time each year when variable annuity sales tend to tail off regardless of how the market is doing – will be to pore...
Reviewing Variable Insurance Fund Filings from April and May, 2008
Normally we publish a report each month on variable insurance fund highlights but over the recent past, so much has been happening with variable annuity living benefits and contracts that we ended up foregoing that...
The Province of VA Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits – A Constantly Shifting Terrain
In the variable annuity business, it’s crucial for leading companies to have new ideas in the pipeline at all times because the living benefits arms wars are still being waged with great intensity. The way...
VA Income Benefits Are Evolving to Offer New Forms of Guaranteed Income
We believe that Guaranteed Minimum Income Benefits (GMIBs) are still formidable weapons in the variable annuity benefit arsenal, they have been around for awhile and many financial advisors still find them quite attractive. While innovation...
As Went the Market, So Went the Industry – VA Results of Public Insurers in 1Q08
Based on first quarter variable annuity sales of public insurers we track regularly – and some early estimates of how the industry fared – the first quarter of 2008 was a period where industry deposits...
Insurers Are Ironing Out Details of Group Annuity Certificate Products
Even though not even two months has elapsed, much activity has occurred since we last weighed in on new group annuity certificate products that were built to wrap lifetime withdrawal benefits around retail mutual funds...
