Annuity Market News articles from September 2006

Annuity Market News archives from September 2006

Debate Over NASD Suitability Rule Rages On.(National Association of Securities Dealers)
September 1, 2006... The variable annuity industry and the NASD still disagree over key sections of proposed Rule 2821, the NASD's initiative to stamp out unsuitable sales and exchanges of deferred VA contracts. The rule, first proposed two years ago, would...

New York Life Annuity Tied to Interest Rates: Allows Investors to Benefit From Rising Rates.(New York Life Insurance and Annuity Corp.)
September 1, 2006... When shopping for mortgages, home buyers know they can refinance if interest rates fall. But people hesitate to buy fixed income annuities because they know they can't "refinance" when rates go up. Until now, that is. As part of a...

VA Issuers Ignore Index Fund Performance.(variable annuity )
September 1, 2006... You'd think that insurers would jump at the chance to offer a variable annuity containing a mutual fund that has outperformed 80% of all mutual funds over the long term. Not necessarily so. Over the past 20 years, the Standard & Poor's...

Japan's Variable Sales Poised to Surpass Fixed.(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Japanese investors contributed 4.17 trillion ($35.8 billion) to new variable annuity contracts in fiscal 2005, 61% more than the previous year. Sales of fixed contracts declined10%, to 4.63 trillion ($39.8. billion). Almost half of...

Independent Website Rates Products.(AnnuityIQ.com)
September 1, 2006... Brokers and investors have a new source of information to compare annuity products. Website AnnuityIQ.com, based out of Syracuse, N.Y., rates deferred variable annuity products and benefits. It also provides a contract screening tool and...

At Deadline.(Charles Gary Cowden)(Cowden & Associates)(Midland National Life Insurance Co.)
September 1, 2006... Agent Gets 14 Years for Selling Bogus Annuities A Florida insurance agent has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for defrauding seven people, including at least two senior citizens, of more than $2 million in an annuity investment scheme....

People Moves.(ING America Life Corp.)(Dennis Higgins )(Nick Bond )(Allianz Life Insurance)(Dave Sipprell )
September 1, 2006... ING Fixed Annuities Expands Distribution, Hires Two Regional VPs ING's U.S.-based fixed annuities business has expanded and refined its national distribution strategy. The company has expanded its regional structure, added two regional...

Medically Underwritten Annuities Boost Payments.
September 1, 2006... As Baby Boomers become seniors, more and more of them will be facing the prospect of catastrophic illness. For them, talk about outliving their income will be a cruel joke. But with immediate annuities that take into account medical problems,...

Corrections.
September 1, 2006... The story on low-cost variable annuities in the August issue misrepresented the terms of Protective Life Insurance's ProtectiveRewards B2A annuity. The annual reward is equal to 0.25% of the total annuity contract value, starting on the eighth...