Annuity Sales

The popularity of living benefit features is one thing that seems clear when looking at variable annuity sales data. The vast majority of variable annuity sales include one of several living benefit or guaranteed living benefit features. National Underwriter reports that Bellevue, Washington-based Symetra will be selling a line of low cost variable annuities that do not contain any living benefit features. Apparently Symetra considers the GLB -free variable annuity as an underserved niche. The...

MetLife announced second quarter results yesterday that included record revenue of $11.8 billion. Operating earnings totaled $1.3 billion—an increase of 45 percent from the second quarter of 2010. U.S. annuity sales increased 48 percent to $7.3 billion for the second quarter. The Alico acquisition appears to be a factor in international sales. Total reported international sales doubled year-over-year, and were up 25 percent when compared with combined results for the same reporting period...

An interesting article from Darla Mercado at Investment News discusses a recent report on the U.S. variable annuity industry from Cerulli Associates. While no secret to industry analysts, the report provides a reminder that the vast majority of variable annuity sales in the United States are exchanges of existing products. The result is a sort of recycling of variable annuity assets rather than net inflows of new assets into the industry. Also surprising is the fact that gross sales of variable...

U.S. variable annuity sales grew by 24 percent from the same period a year earlier. Variable annuity sales for the first quarter of 2011 totaled $38.9 billion. LIMRA reports that 16 of the top 20 variable annuity providers experienced sales growth relative to the previous year. Prudential led the industry with a 40 percent increase and $6.81 billion in variable annuity sales in the first quarter. Sales at MetLife increased 41 percent to $5.68 billion. The strong sales results are attributed in...

Australia's largest annuity company, Challenger, reported record sales for the most recent quarter and increased its full year sales target by 28.5 percent. Challenger increased its forward-looking annual sales target from $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion. The company attributes part of the sales upsurge to a $5 million advertising campaign that was launchded this past February. The ad campaign focused on retail annuity sales. According to an article in The Australian: "Challenger expects life...