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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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Variable Annuity Industry Sales in 4Q15 – Hard to Get a Handle On

As is our custom, we reviewed fourth quarter results of publicly-traded insurers we monitor regularly, and found it hard to come up with a strong indication as to where the industry finished for that period....

A Rough Market Start – Does it Portend Anything for Annuities?

Just as we were getting back into the swing of things after the holidays, there was a sharp decline in the stock market, which prompted us to think of what the implications could be for...

On 2015: A Time of Shifting Realities For the Variable Annuity Business

Each year we provide, with our last issue of December, a quick rundown of how the variable annuity business performed so far, from our perspective, and a few forward-looking thoughts for the New Year. While...

The Deferred Income Annuity – A Product With a Hopeful Future

In this report we’ll discuss deferred income annuities (DIAs), products that, in our view, were built to provide less risky forms of guaranteed income as compared to living benefits, and to answer longstanding objections to...

Some Brief Thoughts Regarding Q3 Annuity Industry Sales

Industry research firms began reporting third quarter sales not long ago, and the numbers confirmed our earlier suspicions, that variable annuity sales would fell in the quarter, while total industry output was sustained through a...

Variable Annuity Sales Were Down in Q3 for Leading Stock-Traded Insurers

We just completed our third quarter review of variable annuity business results of selected stock-traded insurers and found that for all of them, sales fell sequentially during that time period. Market volatility was the most-often...

Considering Themes Relevant to the VA Industry in 2Q15 – and Beyond

It seems like the year is going by very fast – the third quarter is winding down already and yet, in our view, it’s hard to forecast how the variable annuity business will finish up...

Thoughts on Variable Annuity Contract Share Classes – and Suitability

This commentary will be a short reflection on how a distribution arm of Voya Financial has curtailed the sale of certain variable annuity share classes with guaranteed benefits, at the insistence of regulators. It’s our...

Income Considerations – That Will Affect Annuity Products in the Future

This commentary will be a brief reflection on recent developments regarding the income-taking aspects of annuities that we think our subscribers should monitor – as it’s not clear to us yet how much of an...