Too Much ‘Hocus Pocus’
David Lau of DPL Financial Partners, the fee-based annuity platform, likes indexed annuities but doubts the value of the 'volatility-controlled' indexes often featured in them.
Annuities
Structured annuity (RILA) sales volume up 89% in 1Q2021: LIMRA SRI
'RILAs offer better pricing than indexed annuities to investors looking to mitigate downside risk and enjoy potential investment growth as the bull market continues,' said Todd Giesing of LIMRA...
Get a Downside Buffer with Your Variable Annuity
Delaware Life executives Tom Seitz and Dale Uthoff explain their new variable annuity, Accelerator Prime, with RIJ. Like hot-selling registered index-linked annuities, it offers a downside "buffer."
Did QLACs Get a Last-Minute Haircut?
The Ways and Means Committee considered raising the limit on pre-tax contributions to a deferred income annuity to $200,000, but then, apparently for budget reasons, let the current limit...
Secure 2.0: A Booster Shot for Qualified Savings Industry
The proposed bill would allow ETFs in variable annuities and remove the 25% limit on the share of IRA money that can be used to buy a Qualified Longevity...
Expect RILAs to outsell FIAs by 2024: Wink
'At the current pace, sales of structured annuities (aka registered index-linked annuities or RILAs) will have climbed higher than those of indexed annuities at a comparable point in the...
ALI announces new research chair, ties with CANNEX
The Alliance for Lifetime Income said economist Jason Fichtner will chair its Retirement Income Institute and that it would partner with CANNEX to produce new research on annuities.
Security Benefit Life’s Secret Sauce
Joe Wittrock, CIO at Security Benefit Life, explains how the firm's investments outperform. Eldridge Industries, run by ex-Guggenheim president Todd Boehly, owns SBL, Billboard magazine (right, with Billie Eilish...
Updates from Allianz Life, Athene and Investors Heritage
New caps on AllianzIM Buffered Outcome ETFs; Investors Heritage Life offers climate-friendly index on new FIA; AccuMax is launched by Athene.
VAs suffer record outflows, but enjoy record assets
As Morningstar's quarterly VA sales report for 4Q2020 shows, the VA business is complicated, with record-high sales of index-linked VAs, record-high VA assets on the books, but record...
Research Roundup
Here's new research on tax avoidance among the very rich, the logic that millionaires use when buying equities, considerations for plan sponsors when estimating income from 401(k) balances, and...
Pandemic Hurt Annuity Sales in 2020
Annuity sales were buoyed in 2020 by a spike in purchases of registered index-linked annuities (up 38%) and fixed annuities (up 10%). Income annuity sales are north of $10...
How the pandemic affected indexed annuity owner behavior
'Given record low interest rates, and disruptions to sales channels, there was no way to know whether past patterns would continue. We’re intrigued by how some changed—and others didn’t,'...
Bermuda Triangle Part IV: The Reinsurance Angle
Publicly-held life insurers are using reinsurance to improve their balance sheets. But at what cost? 'I believe that many of these blocks of business are only being funded in...
Are Target Date Funds the Perfect Vehicle for ‘In-Plan’ Annuities?
'Nearly two-thirds (63%) of target-date managers suggest the first-quarter 2020 period of heightened market volatility will increase client demand for guaranteed investments,' according to a Cerulli Associates analyst.
Take ‘AIM’ at Retirement Income Goals
In this excerpt from his new book, 'Lifetime Income to Retire with Strength,' AM Best actuary Bruno Caron presents an example of his 'AIM' retirement income planning method. He...
Annuity Sales Rebound in Third Quarter: WinkIntel
Annuity sales emerged from the shadows of COVID-19 in the third quarter. Sales of multi-year guarantee annuity contracts (MYGAs) and of structured annuities (RILAs) were up by double-digits from...
Equitable enhances its flagship buffered annuity, or RILA
Available on Nov. 23, the eight new options add to the Dual Direction feature on Equitable's Structured Capital Strategies Plus buffered annuity.
‘Survival pessimism’ dulls the appetite for annuities
Those in their early 60s underestimate the chance of survival to 75 by more than 25 percentage points, on average, and those in their early 70s underestimate survival to...
Biden’s Retirement Policy
Biden has made strong promises about fixing Social Security, strengthening labor unions, and helping to finance a green economy. Will he be able to keep those promises? Does he...
