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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.

VA Insurers Are Taking Measured Steps in Adjusting Their Products

It seems to us that most variable annuity insurers lately have been exercising great care in making changes to their contracts and benefits in response to competitive conditions. In recent weeks we have seen more...

Departures, De-Risking Dampened Variable Annuity Sales in 1Q12

As we usually do on each quarter, we compiled variable annuity sales results for 10 stock-traded insurers we watch on a regular basis, because performance of this group has proven to be a good early...

VA Insurers are Looking to Calibrate Their Sales – Using a Variety of Means

Around the variable annuity industry some insurers are attempting to regulate their rate of business through focused initiatives, whether related to product, distribution, or both. Some are trying to deliberately slow their sales; others are...

“Bowing Out” – Hartford’s Departure from the VA Space and What it May Portend

Hartford’s decision to discontinue sales of individual annuities has triggered a number of related events in recent days, and we get the feeling that more interesting developments are yet to come. Moreover we believe that...

VA Insurers are Taking Divergent Paths in this Period of Uncertainty

The way we see it, variable annuity insurers are moving in one of two directions these days: either de-risking, or enhancing their products with an eye toward moving up the market share ranks. What this...

The Price of De-Risking: Sales for Most VA Issuers Dropped in 4Q11

After reviewing variable annuity sales of selected publicly-traded insurers from the fourth quarter of 2011, we’re of the opinion that, for that time period, industry-wide deposits declined a bit sequentially. However for the full year,...

Results Are Coming In – and VA Sales Appear to Have Cooled Off

As we write this, stock-traded insurers are in the middle of earnings season, and 4Q11 variable annuity sales data are being released. So far, most companies we monitor regularly have been reporting sequential declines in...

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...