MVA Annuity Sales Were Wicked Hot: IRI
New sales numbers suggest that the contracts should be handled with oven mitts.
Annuity market trackers at the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) are seeing even more heat in the market-value adjusted (MVA) annuity market than the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute is.
The LIMRA institute analysts have estimated that overall U.S. sales of individual annuities increased to $63 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018, up 23% from the year-earlier quarter, with MVA annuity sales increasing 36%, to about $3.4 billion.
IRI analysts reported Monday that total annuity sales increased 23.5%, to $59 billion, with MVA annuity sales climbing 61%, to $4.1 billion.
(Related: Book Value Annuity Sales Rise 94%)
LIMRA found that sales of another type of fixed annuity, book value annuities, increased 102%, to $9.9 billion.
IRI says book value annuity sales increased 91%, to $4.6 billion.
IRI gets its variable annuity sales data from Morningstar Inc. and its non-variable annuity sales data from Beacon Research Inc.
Most of the IRI numbers are close to what the LIMRA institute is reporting.
Here’s what IRI says about sales of some other types of annuities, when compared with the year-earlier results:
- Indexed Annuities: Up 42%.
- Income Annuities: Up 91%.
- Variable Annuities: Down 4.3%.
— Read Something Unusual Happened to Q4 Annuity Sales: IRI, on ThinkAdvisor.
— Connect with ThinkAdvisor Life/Health on LinkedIn and Twitter.