Your clients might be more interested in hearing about annuities these days because of all of the upheaval in the world.
The people who manage the assets supporting the annuities are also thinking about the upheaval.
About 33% of the 154 insurance asset managers in the Americas polled by Goldman Sachs Asset Management earlier this year ranked "tariffs/trade disputes" as one of the three top macroeconomic threats to their investment portfolios, and 31% ranked "geopolitical tensions" as a top 3 threat, according to a new survey report.
That means a total of 64% of the participants identified international conflicts as a top 3 threat.
The only other threat that worried insurance asset managers in the Americas as much as international conflict was a possible U.S. economic slowdown, which was also listed as a major concern by 64% of the survey participants.
Insurance asset managers in the rest of the world were even more worried about international conflict: About 69% of the asset managers in the Asia-Pacific region and 87% of the asset managers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa ranked international conflict as a top 3 threat.
What it means: Executives from U.S. and Canadian life and annuity issuers have said little about concerns about international conflict during conference calls with securities analysts and other public events, but the Goldman Sachs survey results show their asset managers are worried.
The survey: Goldman Sachs fielded the latest survey from Jan. 16 through Feb. 7. The survey began when the Trump administration was talking about imposing major new tariffs on imports from Canada, China and Mexico. The only tariff change that actually took effect during the survey period was a new 10% tariff on imports from China. The extra tariff on imports from China began to apply Feb. 4.
The participants included 405 asset managers at all types of insurers in locations all over the world, but about half were at life and health issuers, and 38% were in the Americas.
A Goldman economist's view: Jan Hatzius, Goldman Sachs' chief economist, sees inflation driven by increases in tariffs as a big problem.
"We expect policy uncertainty — especially trade — to pose significant headwinds to global growth this year," Hatzius said.
Other survey findings: The asset managers in the Americas said they would likely respond to their worries by reducing exposure to stock market volatility risk and instead get extra gains by investing in assets with longer durations and less liquidity.
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