Financial Crisis

Variable annuity sales in the United States continue to decline in the wake of the financial crisis and capital market turmoil. First quarter sales of variable annuities totaled $30.4 billion. This represents a 26% decrease from the same period a year ago. Total variable annuity sales for 2008 totaled $154.8 billion, a drop of 15.1% from 2007. The top 5 variable annuity companies in terms of revenue were lead by MetLife : By individual companies, MetLife re-captured the No. 1 spot, with $3.7...

The financial crisis may have one unintended consequence that would prove beneficial for millions of retirees. There is a renewed focus among providers of retirement income products in the wake of the financial crisis. The crisis has provided an opportunity for the remaining life and annuity insurers and asset managers to rethink their product offerings. The result could be a wave of innovation that is focused on retirement income and asset decumulation rather than asset accumulation and...

What are older investors to do right now? Get out of the stock market entirely? Stay out of the market if you have already decided to get out? Get back into the market now or wait and risk further increases while on the sidelines? Place the majority of your savings in bonds? Purchase an immediate annuity ? Purchase that immediate annuity with inflation protection? Tough questions for both investors and their advisors. There are some good thoughts and discussions shared in a recent New York...

Life and annuity insurers have been revamping their variable annuity product offerings to better fit a post financial crisis environment. As discussed in recent blog entries , variable annuity product revamps basically boil down to increasing prices and benefit reductions. The unanswered question is what impact the product changes will have on variable annuity sales. According to a recent Wall Street Journal Article, variable annuity sales grew at an 11% annual rate from 1995 through 2007...