Cyril Tuohy is a writer based in Pennsylvania. He has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. He can be reached at [email protected].
A new VA rider introduced by Pacific Life targets buyers who want “income soon.” The company’s Core Protect Plus rider…
A survey shows consumers are becoming more comfortable with risk but at the same time terrified of an economic cataclysm devastating their savings. Could an annuity help soothe those anxious consumers?
Variable universal life used to be a hot product line but their sales dipped around 2000 and had not recovered since. But lately they are showing some signs of life.
Sales of fee-based VAs, one of the industry’s best hopes for cracking the registered investment advisor channel, rose 70 percent to $780 million over the year-ago period, LIMRA reported.
Annuities and fiduciary duty are usually mentioned together in the context of protecting clients in annuity transactions. But an annuity provider is turning that around by saying advisors are failing their fiduciary duty when they do not include annuities in the discussion.
Universal life sales fell 19 percent in the first quarter compared to the first quarter of last year. Not even white-hot indexed UL sales could lift the segment.
Securian has tweaked its SecureCare linked-benefit life and long-term care contract to give the product more flexibility in a growing…
Analysts are surprised that American Equity is suddenly a takeover target for private equity buyers. But the company has an appealingly growing business with stable assets.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has not defined what a best interest standard means in its more than 100 pages of rule-making. But whatever it is, don’t expect it to be implemented before 2020.
Banks and broker-dealers are asking, and getting, shorter surrender periods to sell fixed indexed annuities. They now sell more than a third of all FIAs.
Companies usually associated with variable annuities are moving up the charts on the fixed indexed annuity side of the business. Some are taking routes other than the independent channel to get there.
The increase in commissions is not enormous but agents might find the change refreshing after years of declining compensation.
Younger clients aren’t all about the money, even if they have money. Some say RIAs will need to include personal well-being in their holistic practices.
The new variable annuities are not even all variable, but they all carry some level of risk for the investor.
Variable annuity sales are expected to turn positive this year, propelled by the easing of regulation, but also benefiting from the innovation that regulation had inspired.
A Morgan Stanley analyst’s report sees significant strain on the life insurance industry, much of it from long-term care insurance. The report points to rising interest rates and the nearly dead Department of Labor fiduciary rule.
Lincoln Financial jumped into a fast-growing segment of the variable annuity market with its first buffered VA. The company’s Level…
Advisors are getting older and so are their clients. They both probably need to learn about succession planning for a secure retirement. Not only is it a service but also a lot of opportunity that comes with the liquidation of a business.
Buffered products helped Allianz level out an otherwise uneven first quarter. The increasingly popular variation of variable annuities is considered “capital-efficient” for insurance companies.
When the Department of Labor postponed the full implementation of its fiduciary rule, it apparently also opened the gate to more annuity sales. Companies across the board are reporting stronger performance in earnings calls.
