Product Analytics
#375 | Engineered Indices & FIA
Quick Take The worlds of Indexed UL and Fixed Indexed Annuities are increasingly converging and with profound potential implications for IUL. All of the tactics that have been used in Indexed UL to massively increase illustrated performance and subsequently curtailed…
#374 | The Missed UL Opportunity
Full Article If there is one overarching trend that has dominated the life insurance and annuity landscape since interest rates started rising in 2022, then it is the seemingly insatiable appetite for fixed rate annuities. Basic fixed annuities that pay…
#373 | 2023 Mid-Year Engineered Index Observations – Part 1
Quick Take Despite the slick marketing material and splashy names, the reality is that the vast majority of engineered indices have followed the same basic structure - low volatility targets, high reliance on long-duration fixed income, Excess Return architecture and…
#370 | Securian’s Great Delinking
Full Article Yesterday, Securian dropped a bombshell announcement that, I think, will rank as one of the more surprising and shocking moves in the history of Indexed UL – a history that is inextricably intertwined with Securian itself. Securian has…
#367 | Survivorship for Accumulation
The theory behind using survivorship for accumulation is pretty straightforward. Outside of any anomalous pricing at any particular insurer, the cost of insurance rates of a survivorship policy will be less than the cost of insurance rates of a single…
#366 | Survivorship Bias
Quick Take For the first time in a long time, survivorship life insurance is showing signs of life as sales increase and new products hit the market. Beyond the natural market for survivorship in estate planning, it seems as though…
#360 | Quantifying Sequence of Return Risk with LISA
Full Article Risk is a fiendishly difficult thing to quantify. In financial theory, risk is usually quantified in terms of standard deviation – the greater the variance, the greater the risk. Famously, Nassim Taleb popularized the idea of “black swan”…
#359 | The New Weapons of AG 49-B
This article assumes a base level of knowledge about Indexed UL illustrations, the previous forms of AG 49, the impact of using engineered indices with fixed interest bonuses and the basic mechanics of the recent revisions to AG 49-A, colloquially…
#352 | The Walls are Closing In on Term Conversions
Editorial Note - I am increasingly receiving article submissions from readers and other parties. My role has always been as Executive Editor, which ostensibly means that I'm serving as an editor of this publication, not just an author. It's my…
#349 | A Reckoning in Term
2/10/23 Update On Lincoln's Q4 2022 earnings call yesterday, analysts peppered CEO Ellen Cooper and CFO Randy Freitag about Lincoln's position on Term, given that reserving for it has "negatively impacted free cash flow," as one analyst put it. The…
