Q2 Annuity Sales Look Better: IRI

The Insured Retirement Institute says it’s seeing the same firming in U.S. individual fixed annuity sales that two other insurance industry organizations have detected.

Revenue from fixed annuity sales fell to $27 billion in the second quarter, IRI reported today.

That total is down 9.5% from the total IRI reported for the second quarter of 2016. But the year-over-decline has shrunk from 14% in the first quarter.

(Related: Annuity Sales May Be Starting to Firm Up: Wink)   

IRI, a Washington-based group for insurers and other players in the insurance-based retirement products market, broke the results down by product category:

• Book value annuities: Sales fell 0.7%%, to $5.7 billion. (In the first quarter, sales fell 4.5%.)

• Indexed annuities: Sales fell 7.1%, to $15 billion. (In the first quarter, sales fell 10.5%.)

• Variable annuities: Sales fell 10%, to $24 billion. (In the first quarter, sales fell 10.4%.)

Variable annuity net assets increased to $2 trillion on June 30. The variable annuity asset total was up 2.9% from the total recorded a year earlier.

IRI gets its variable annuity market data from Morningstar Inc. and its fixed annuity market data from Beacon Research.

A summary of the IRI results is available here.

LIMRA, a nonprofit industry group, and Wink, a life insurance research firm, recently reported annuity issuer survey results showing similar trends.