Jackson Surpasses $20 Billion Mark

By Cyril Tuohy

InsuranceNewsNet

Jackson National, the top seller of annuities in the U.S., booked $20.7 billion in total sales and deposits in the first nine months of the year, an increase of 5.4 percent over last year, the company reported.

President and chief executive officer Mike Wells said in a statement that the latest results were a “reflection of our ability to create and market innovative products that meet the evolving needs of advisors and investors.”

The decline in sales of variable annuities (VA) with living benefits was offset by higher sales of VAs sold under the Elite Access brand. These VAs don’t have guarantees.

“Jackson has carved out a leadership position in the traditional VA with living benefits space, but has also made significant progress in growing Elite Access into an important sales contributor,” said Clifford Jack, executive vice president and head of retail for Jackson.

VA sales reached $15.5 billion in the first nine months, compared to $15.3 billion in the year-ago period, the company said.

VAs are classified as investment products because their value varies depending on the market. The S&P 500 this year is up more than 25 percent since the beginning of the year.

In October, Jackson said it would be paring back on sales of new VAs offering optional guaranteed benefits to balance guaranteed and nonguaranteed business to avoid exposure concentrations “to any single product type.”

Sales of fixed indexed annuities totaled $1.3 billion in the first nine months, compared to $1.2 billion last year. Fixed annuity sales were $679.6 million, a decrease from $713.5 million in the first nine months of 2012, the company also said.

Jackson also said it had sold $1.1 billion of institutional products in the first nine months, more than double the $440.5 million in the first nine months of last year.

Curian Capital, Jackson’s asset management subsidiary, generated deposits of $2.1 billion during the first three quarters, an increase of 11.1 percent compared to the year-ago period, the company said.

Jackson also said that Curian’s assets under management have reached $10.3 billion as of Sept. 30.

Jack said that the success of the Elite Access line of VAs and the deposit growth at Curian mean that in the first nine months of this year, nearly 40 of all fee-based sales were generated by products without living benefits.

Jackson, based in Lansing, Mich., is a subsidiary of U.K.-based Prudential PLC.

Cyril Tuohy is a writer based in Pennsylvania. He has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. Cyril may be reached at cyril.tuohy@innfeedback.com.

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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 cyril.tuohy@innfeedback.com.