Tour

Introduction | Members | News | The Basics | Carrier List | Resources | Sales Report

Members

Members | What's New | Search | Specs | Rates | Historical Rates | Sales

Members of AnnuitySpecs that have a paid subscription to the website can sign-in on two different areas of the website. There is a Members Sign-in area on the right navigation of the Home page, and there is also a Sign-in link located in the top right-hand corner of each page.

Upon signing-in to the website, you will be brought to the Members Home page. This page is the gateway that gives you access to all of the paid services that AnnuitySpecs.com provides. You can access all of the paid services on this page, as well as through the right navigation of members pages. Let’s talk about those valuable services that you are gaining access to.

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What's New in Annuities

What’s New in Annuities (a.k.a. What’s New) keeps you up-to-date on what products have been recently launched or removed from the market. This page is organized in alphabetical order, with new product launches listed on the left, and product discontinuations on the right. What’s New in Annuities defaults to the last three months of activity in annuity products. We archive the page, however, and if you use the drop-down box at the top left-hand side of the page, you can access What’s New for previous quarters. If you are specifically interested in seeing What’s New for only one type of annuity- Fixed, Indexed, or Multi-Year Guaranteed- you can use the drop-down box at the top center of the page to filter your list. This feature of the website comes in particularly handy for trend reports, or for determining strategy when analyzing a competitor insurance carrier.

Each link on the What’s New in Annuities page will link you to a product profile spec page. This specification is the same basic template that will be displayed for the 800+ product profiles that are housed on the AnnuitySpecs.com website any given day. These profiles can be accessed from the What’s New page, as well as from the Product Specs page, which lists each carrier’s product portfolio.

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Product Search

To utilize our dynamic search engine, click on the Members Home menu on the top navigation, and click Use Search or click on the Product Search link on the right navigation. This feature gives you the capability of searching the annuity market for specific products, Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits, or other product features, based on the criteria you choose. This portion of AnnuitySpecs.com is particularly useful for Broker/Dealers that need to create "Approved Lists." It also features handy filters that no other site offers, allowing you to search for products that:

• Have Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefit (GLWB) riders
• Offer enhanced death benefit options
• Feature rainbow crediting methods
• Allow 10% penalty-free withdrawals annually, with no limit
• Pay only the full Account Value upon death at all ages

The Search Results page gives you a glimpse of how many products meet your search criteria. You can select up to four products in the View column, to compare in a side-by-side product comparison via PDF. This is especially helpful in competitive situations, or when comparing products for analysis of a client’s needs.

All product specifications are noted with the date that the information was last updated. This is essential when saving specs or side-by-sides on your computer, or when emailing them to a fellow agent, marketing organization, or B/D.

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Product Specs

Product specifications for individual insurance companies can be accessed by clicking Members Home on the top navigation, and then Use Specs, or by clicking the Product Specs link on the right-hand navigation. This will take you to a page that lists the names of the companies in the annuity market. Insurance companies that have exited the market are indicated with an asterisk (*) after their name. The page is organized in alphabetical order from left to right. At this point, you select the name of the insurance company that you are interested in seeing product specifications for. This will link you to a page of product names.

Some companies will have a section on the right-hand side of their Product Specs page, which lists products which are "No Longer Actively Marketed." These product specifications will be in gray. These are specs for products that are:

• Not available for sale anywhere
• Soon to be taken off of the market, or
• Being replaced by a new product due to state approvals, etc.

This is a feature that makes our website unique, as there is no other website that archives annuity products that are no longer available for sale. This can be an important resource for those needing to compare insurance company’s annuity products that replace older products in the lineup, or for agents that are attempting to assist orphaned policyholders. (Note: it is important to be aware of the fact AnnuitySpecs.com does not have an archived spec for every annuity ever sold. However, Indexed Annuities that have been removed from the market since the launch of AnnuitySpecs.com in June of 2005 have been archived, as have Fixed Annuities that have been removed from the market since 2010.)

Once on a carrier's Product Specs page, you select the name of the product that you are interested in reviewing, and you will be linked to the product profile.

If you wish to compare multiple products in a carrier’s portfolio at once, the Product Search portion of the site provides this functionality.

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Product Rates

If you are interested in benchmarking rates for a product against other comparable rates, you can go to the Product Rates portion of the site. This can be accessed by going to Members Home and clicking on Use Rates, or by clicking the Product Rates link on the right navigation. You will receive ten different choices for how you wish your rates to be sorted. This is a value-added feature of AnnuitySpecs.com, which is not offered by ANY competitor. As a subscriber, you can sort rates by:

• Bonus
• Cap Rate
• Company
• Fixed Rate
• Guarantee Period
• Participation Rate
• Product
• Spread Rate
• Street Level Compensation
• Surrender Charge Duration

The Product Rates page is organized the way a Home Office rate-setting committee would want it. This allows actuaries and analysts to effectively compare Fixed, Indexed, and Multi-Year Guaranteed Annuity rates for setting rates, caps, spreads, etc. against competitors’ rates. Several factors are taken into consideration:

• FIRST, grids are broken down by crediting method; you will only find monthly point-to-points by other monthly point-to points, daily averaging products with other daily averagings, and Multi-Year Guaranteed fixed with other Multi-Year Guaranteed fixed. (Actuaries know that a product with monthly averaging can afford a higher cap than that of an annual point-to-point for example, so we need to compare apples-to-apples.)
• SECOND, grids are broken down by how frequently interest is credited; you will only find annual resets next to other annual resets. (How many times have you had someone ask you why Product A has a cap of 7%, and Product B has a cap of 15%? Only to answer them that they are comparing an annual point-to-point against a two-year point-to-point. We’re taking the guess work out of your hands: we’re the experts, let us do the work!)
• THIRD, grids are broken down by whether or not there is a bonus on the products. You will not find bonus products next to non-bonus products. (Actuaries understand that bonus products do not have as high of rates as non-bonus products, all other things being equal.) Separating these products in the grids is important for accurate comparison of rates.

So, a logical progression through the rates page would show the following crediting methods:

• Monthly Point-to-Point
• Quarterly Point-to-Point
• Annual Point-to-Point
• Annual Point-to-Point with High Water Feature
• Annual Point-to-Point with Low Water Feature
• Two-Year Point-to-Point
• Term End Point
• Monthly Averaging
• Rolling Monthly Averaging
• Daily Averaging
• Fixed
• Fixed with Multi-Year Guarantee
• Performance Triggered
• New York Rates

A couple of details about the Product Rates reports: first, they have an incredible amount of data (one entry for every single crediting method on each annuity product, with few exceptions). Imagine a report that offers information for each annuity on the market (some 500+ today), and each of the crediting methods available on each product (some products have as many as 14 different crediting methods)! That means that you could potentially scroll down the Product Rates report for quite a while. We’ve increased functionality of the page by giving you a "jump menu" to quicken your journey to your desired crediting method grid. This menu lists the more common crediting methods available on the market today. Corresponding Jump to Top links are also provided at the bottom of each of the grids.

We also allow you to filter your results on the report in order to minimize the entries that are on the page. The first drop-down on the upper-left corner of the page will allow you to select a single crediting method type to be displayed on the page. If you wish to filter the report even more, the drop-down to the right of “Product Type” allows you to filter your results to only Fixed, Indexed, or Multi-Year Guaranteed Annuities. The drop-down to the right of “Sort By” allows you to sort the page based on ten different criteria and the drop-down just below that allows you to add a secondary sort to your results.

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Historical Rates

Historical Rates provides a new business rate history for the annuities on the website. (This is not renewal rate history for inforce annuities!) To customize your report, select a company from the “Select a Carrier” drop-down. You may further customize your report by choosing a specific product in the “Select a Product” drop-down. All crediting methods will be displayed on the report for Indexed Annuities.

This report provides the new business rate history for AnnuitySpecs annuities since this enhancement was instituted in February of 2009. You can export the report, save the file, and even email it by choosing a file type in the “Select a format” drop-down, and then clicking the “Export” link to the right.

Sales Information

Quarterly, year-to-date, annual, and cumulative Indexed Annuity sales data can be found by going to Members Home, and clicking on Use Sales Information, or by clicking on the Sales Information link on the right navigation. This is a convenient benefit for our members that do not want to have to sort through years of articles or sales reports.

Note: The information displayed in this tour may be outdated. To view the most up-to-date information please join AnnuitySpecs.com to view the member pages.