Wink Reports 10% Increase in Individual Deferred Annuity Sales

Consumers’ inflation fears helped sales of individual annuities that offer income growth potential in the third quarter and hurt sales of other individual annuities.

Wink has reported the details in a summary of results from its latest annuity issuer survey.

Overall sales of individual deferred annuities climbed 10% between the third quarter of 2020 and the third quarter of 2021, to $60 billion.

Sales of both types of variable annuities that Wink tracks climbed more than 25%. Sales of non-variable indexed annuity contracts — which promise to protect the holder’s account value but have features that can increase the crediting rate — also climbed more than 25%.

Sales of traditional fixed annuities and of multi-year guaranteed annuity contracts, which pay rates that stay fixed through the course of two or more years, fell more than 25%.

Wink based the new annuity sales figures on data from 14 index-linked variable annuity issuers, 48 variable annuity issuers, 57 traditional fixed annuity issuers and 80 multi-year guaranteed annuity (MYGA) issuers.

Here’s a look at how sales of some of the types of annuities Wink tracks changed between the fourth quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2021:

• Index-linked variable annuity contracts: $9.1 billion (up 46%).
• Traditional variable annuities: $22 billion (up 27%).
• Indexed annuities filed as non-variable contracts: $17 billion (up 26%).
• Traditional fixed annuities: $361 million (down 26%).
• Multi-year guaranteed annuity contracts: $22 billion (down 31%)