Canadian insurer Sun Life recently announced that it will exit the variable annuity and individual life insurance markets in the United States.

Continued equity market volatility has resulted in a variable annuity business that is plagued with uncertainty and higher costs.

Insurers such as Sun Life offer guarantees that are linked to the performance of underlying equity portfolios.  These guarantees are a liability for the insurance company, and equity market volatility contributes to the cost of these liabilities.

New China Life is seeking to raise $2.3 billion in an initial public offering that would list the company on exchanges in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

New China Life is seeking the capital in market conditions that have been challenging for many of its peers.

China Life Insurance Company and Ping An Insurance have both seen their stock prices decline over 30 percent this year.  China Pacific Insurance Group has dropped more than 20 percent this year.

I am currently researching and am likely to purchase an indexed universal life insurance product.  This first-hand research and learning process has been interesting and is worth sharing.

In a nutshell, some of the key characteristics of indexed universal life insurance include:

While it might be an unusual time to provide an explanation of Swiss annuities given what has been taking place of late with the Swiss franc and related decisions made by the Swiss National Bank, it still makes sense for any financial services consumer to understand potential benefits of these products.

Those interested in understanding the differences between Registered Investment Advisors ("RIA") and traditional stockbrokers should read this Bloomberg article--this is one of the clearest and best articles that I have seen on the topic.

Life insurance companies MetLife and Prudential Financial both reported quarterly earnings that exceeded analysts' estimates.

MetLife reported record variable annuity sales and a sharp rise in its retirement product fees.

Prudential also reported strength in its annuity business.

While annuity sales were strong at both companies, higher hedging costs had an adverse impact on the reported earnings of MetLife and Prudential.

Source: Reuters

There is a strong case to be made for health care as the linchpin of retirement planning.  Virtually every major aspect of the retirement planning process is somehow correlated to or contingent on health status.  For example, health status has an impact on each of the following retirement planning components:

An article on indexed annuities appeared in Bloomberg yesterday (click here to read).

The article is substantive and comes from a credible source.  It is provides a good explanation of why surrender fees need to be a front-and-center consideration for any consumer considering the purchase of an annuity.

MetLife is reportedly discontinuing the sale of long term care insurance beginning January 1, 2011. 

The largest U.S. life insurance company cites "financial challenges" facing the industry in the current environment.

According to a recent Bloomberg article:

New York Life Insurance Company reported record sales of fixed immediate annuity products for the third quarter of 2010.

The nation's largest mutual life insurer reported $1.3 billion in fixed immediate annuity sales--an increase of 4 percent over the same period last year.

According to EVP for Retirement Income Security Chris Blunt: