We would love to hear from you. Click on the ‘Contact Us’ link to the right and choose your favorite way to reach-out!

wscdsdc

media/speaking contact

Jamie Johnson

business contact

Victoria Peterson

Contact Us

855.ask.wink

Close [x]
pattern

Industry News

Categories

  • Industry Articles (21,155)
  • Industry Conferences (2)
  • Industry Job Openings (35)
  • Moore on the Market (414)
  • Negative Media (144)
  • Positive Media (73)
  • Sheryl's Articles (800)
  • Wink's Articles (353)
  • Wink's Inside Story (274)
  • Wink's Press Releases (123)
  • Blog Archives

  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • August 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • November 2008
  • September 2008
  • May 2008
  • February 2008
  • August 2006
  • 5 Big Questions About Annuities for 2018

    December 19, 2017 by Allison Bell

    Making predictions about how 2018 might look for annuities could be even trickier than predicting how the year might look for life insurance.

    Every trend that puts shadows and mist over the life insurance market puts the same shadows and mist over the annuity market.

    Annuity issuers, meanwhile, face two additional opposing forces of hostility.

    Click HERE to read the original story via ThinkAdvisor.

    On the one side, portfolio diversification lovers ask why anyone, ever, would pay anything for an income guarantee. For the diversification lovers, the universal answer to all problems, from the possibility of running short of assets in retirement, to bad breath, is a target date mutual fund.

    On the other side, doomsayers wonder how well an insurance company can make good on guarantees, given how uncertain the future always is. For the doomsayers, the only good annuity issuer would be one that quietly accumulates Treasury bills and never does anything scary, such as agreeing to pay a stream of income to an annuity holder.

    The annuity writers, meanwhile, soldier onward, stunned by the realizing that the wave of boomer retirements they have been musing about since, say 1955, is now upon us.

    Here are five questions we may use to try to make some sense of what’s going on in the annuity market in the coming year.


    1. How will annuity crediting rates compare with bank certificate of deposit (CD) rates?

    One of the bread-and-butter issues in the annuity market is whether annuities will look like a good deal for consumers when compared with CDs. In the past few months, bank CDs have been looking like a better deal, according to Wink.

    Analysts at Fitch Ratings have a related question: Whether fierce competition between indexed annuity issuers will lead some to take on too much risk.

    “While competitive pressures may affect individual insurer’s sales, Fitch is more concerned about pressure on pricing and a potential ‘arms race’ with the introduction of more aggressive product features, including income riders,” the Fitch analysts write in a 2018 outlook report.


    2. Will anyone buy, or sell, the new fee-based annuity contracts?

    In 2017, insurers prepared for the DOL fiduciary rule by rolling out many fee-based products. LIMRA reported in November, however, that fee-based products accounted for only about 0.1% of U.S. individual annuity sales in the third quarter.

     

    3. How well can issuers buy their way out of benefits obligations guaranteed when interest rates were much higher?

    Publicly traded long-term care insurance (LTCI) issuers are starting to open up and talk to securities analysts about a painful truth: They now see increasing LTCI premiums, or persuading the policyholders to accept reduced “landing spot” benefits, as an important activity for keeping a block of in-force LTCI business stable.

    Annuity issuers are starting to be about as forthright about efforts to persuade contract holders to accept cash now in exchange for giving up part or all of some difficult-to-support future benefits guarantees.

    Some issuers have had good luck with guarantee buyouts. Will the annuity guarantee buyout trend accelerate?


    4. Will the aging of the boomers increase society’s overall awareness of annuities?

    The United States is still a country dominated by people who think they are investing for a bigger, brighter future.

    Now that the boomers are getting less young, and buying annuities, will that start to change the country’s financial services culture?


    5. Just how dead is the U.S. Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule?

    The Labor Department says it dislikes the compliance framework the Obama administration created, but officials there, and at state insurance departments, still seem to like the idea of making retirement advisors put the interests of customers first.

    That ambivalence could give rise to new compliance challenges for companies that write, distribute and sell annuities.

    The Fitch analysts cite “regulatory uncertainty” in the individual annuity market as one of the top credit concerns for companies operating in the life insurance sector in 2018. 

    The Insured Retirement Institute, a group for players in the annuity market and other, related markets, said in its 2018 outlook report that it’s watching out for many federal and state regulatory projects, includng new sales standard and disclosure rules.

    IRI said it’s still trying to get the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to ease up on past efforts to make issuers of indexed annuities, buffered annuities and structured annuities comply with the same filing rules that apply to issuers of variable annuities.

    Originally Posted at ThinkAdvisor on December 19, 2017 by Allison Bell.

    Categories: Wink's Articles
    currency