Annuities

Life insurance sales through banks, which set records in 2010, are now trending downward sales fell 30% in the first quarter, according to research firm Kehrer-LIMRA.

Not only have investors lost faith in the stock market, but a substantial number say they will never invest in the stock market again, according to a survey released on Friday by Prudential Financial.

For the first time in two years fixed annuity sales rose, according to the Beacon Research Fixed Annuity Premium Study released on Thursday.

Guaranteed living benefits were adopted, when they were offered with variable annuities, 86% in the first quarter, according to LIMRA. That was down from a peak of 90% in the first quarter of 2009, notes Dan Beatrice senior analyst, retirement research with LIMRA.

Continuing a comeback after a difficult 2010, annuity sales through banks topped $4 billion in March to reach their highest level since exactly two years earlier, according to research firm Kehrer-LIMRA.

Variable annuities sales in 2011 climbed significantly in early 2011, continuing a trend begun last year, and reversing a slide that saw them fall from a high of $184 billion in 2007 to a low of $128 billion in 2009.

Product includes portfolios managed like institutional and endowment funds.

Allianz Life Insurance Co., the largest annuity provider in the U.S. with more than $2 billion in sales last year, this week announced a strategic partnership with seven broker-dealers that will add its Allianz Retirement ProSM variable annuity to their advisory platforms.

How is a financial advisor supposed to go through the array of annuity products on offer and find the best ones for each client’s investment and retirement needs, especially when many of the products on offer are changing almost every year?

According to data compiled for IRI by Morningstar, Inc., new sales were $136.6 billion in 2010, up 10.3% from 2009, when new sales totaled $123.9 billion. What’s more, assets reached an all-time high of $1.5 trillion, finally lifting the variable annuity industry above the pre-crisis levels of the third quarter of 2007.

Last year, total annuity sales through banks declined 25% from the prior year, which itself was down 18% from the year before that, according to Kehrer-LIMRA. Yet newly release data from the Michael White-ABIA Bank Annuity Fee Income Report shows that income from annuities was down just 1.8%.

Early indications are that March will follow suit, according to Kehrer-LIMRA.

"Recent reports describe 2010 as the worst year for bank-sold annuities in the past decade, so the 4th quarter decline in the BHC Annuity Index comes as little surprise,” said Andrew Singer, the editor of the index.

Fixed and variable annuities sold in through banks each changed course, the former rising and the latter falling in January, according to the Kehrer-Jackson Monthly Bank Annuity Sales Survey.

Continued poor rate spreads between CDs and annuity yields pushed bank-sold annuity sales last year to their lowest level since 2000 and off more than 25% from what was widely viewed as a lackluster 2009.

The Lansing, Mich.-based company just launched an online portfolio construction tool—aptly named the Portfolio Construction Tool—that helps advisers assemble portfolios customized to their clients.

Bank sales of total annuities regressed slightly in January, according to the latest Kehrer-Jackson Monthly Bank Annuity Sales Survey, but overall investor interest still remains much higher for both than it was at this time last year.

Fixed and variable annuities each changed course, the former rising and the latter falling in January of this year, according to the Kehrer-Jackson Monthly Bank Annuity Sales Survey.

Variable annuities with guaranteed living benefit riders surged up 78% in the past two years to more than $521 billion in the fourth quarter of this year, according to a new LIMRA report charting the sales prowess of more than 95% of the variable annuity sector.

Fixed indexed and income annuity sales shook off a lackluster to start to the year to finish 2010 with some much-needed momentum, according to Beacon Research's latest research.