Insurance Companies

Jackson National is the latest in a list of insurance companies to report strong earnings and annuity sales. Jackson National Life Insurance Company reported sales and deposits of $6.1 billion during the first six months of 2009. Variable annuity sales were $3.8 billion for the first two quarters. Fixed annuity sales were also strong at $1.9 billion. Source: Investment News Full Story

The hedging programs used by insurance companies to support the guaranteed living benefit features in their variable annuity products have held-up well recently. Milliman reports that insurance companies supported 94% of their guarantees for the six month period ending in March 2009. The success of the hedging programs and the highly volatile capital market environment have encouraged many insurers to increase their hedging efforts. As reported in an earlier post , the increase in hedging...