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Life Health > Annuities > Variable Annuities

Cannex Adds Annuity Benefits Comparison System

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An annuity analysis tool maker has finally released two major new comparative illustration tools.

Cannex Financial Exchanges Ltd. says the new tools, which represent the culmination of more than a decade of research, can help advisors show clients how annuities from multiple carriers might perform in a wide range of scenarios.

The Cannex VA Analysis system illustrates how variable annuities might perform, and the Cannex FIA Analysis system illustrates how indexed annuities might perform, the company says.

The systems can illustrate what might happen to the guaranteed portions of contracts and riders.

The systems can also show what might happen to the performance of annuity components with returns linked to the performance of variable annuity separate accounts or investment index benchmarks, according to Cannex.

The systems now hold data on annuities from about two dozen insurers.

(Related: Have Trouble Comparing VA, FIA Riders? Test Drive This Tool)

Product designers at Cannex have built a simulation process into the systems, to try to help users understand how the products might do in many different randomly generated situations, rather than in just a handful of good, bad and moderate situations.

The tools also take changes in how cash might flow into a contract into account, Cannex says.

An advisor can use a number of different contract components to sort and rank the annuities being compared.

Tamiko Toland, the head of annuity research at Cannex, said in a statement about the new tools that annuity developers might be able to use them to improve their contracts.

Product developers can use the tools “to test the competitiveness of new product concepts,” Toland said.

About a year ago, Cannex said it would to roll the analysis tools out in early 2017, and it may have met that target for beta testers. Cannex now reports that some distributors are already using the tools.

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