Tour

Introduction | Members | News | The Basics | Carrier List | Resources | Sales Report

Members

Members | What's New | Search | Specs | Rates | Sales

Members of AnnuitySpecs that have a paid subscription to the site can Sign-in on two different areas of the website. There is a Members Sign-in area on the right navigation of the Home page, and there is also a Sign-in link located in the top right-hand corner of each page.

Upon signing-in to the site, you will be brought to the Members Home page. This page is the gateway that gives you access to all of the paid services that AnnuitySpecs provides. You can access all of the paid services on this page, as well as through the right navigation of members pages. Let’s talk about those valuable services that you are gaining access to.

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What's New in Indexed Annuities

What’s New in Indexed Annuities (a.k.a. What’s New) keeps you up-to-date on what products have been recently launched or removed from the market. This page is organized in alphabetical order, with new product launches listed on the left, and product discontinuations on the right. What’s New in Indexed Annuities defaults to the last three months of products. We archive the page, however, and if you were to use the drop-down box at the top left-hand side of the page, you can access What’s New for previous quarters. This feature of the website comes in particularly handy for trend reports, or for determining strategy when analyzing a competitor insurance carrier.

Each link on the What’s New in Indexed Annuities page will link you to a product profile spec page. This specification is the same basic template that will be displayed for the 450+ product profiles that are housed on the AnnuitySpecs.com website any given day. These profiles can be accessed from the What’s New page, as well as from the Specs page which list each carrier’s product portfolio.

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Search

To utilize our dynamic search engine, click on the Members menu on the top navigation, and click Use Search or click on the Search link on the right navigation. This feature gives you the capability of searching the entire Indexed Annuity market for specific products, or products with a given criteria. This portion of AnnuitySpecs is particularly useful for Broker/Dealers that need to create "Approved Lists." It also features handy filters that no other site offers, allowing you to search for products that:

• Don’t have bonuses that require annuitization
• Allow 10% penalty-free withdrawals annually, with no limit
• Pay only the full Account Value upon death at all ages

The Search Results page gives you a glimpse of how many products meet your search criteria. You can select up to four products in the View column, to compare in a side-by-side product comparison via PDF. This is especially helpful in competitive situations, or when comparing products for analysis of a client’s needs.

All product specifications are noted with the date that the information was last updated. This is essential when saving specs or side-by-sides on your computer, or when emailing them to a fellow agent, IMO, or B/D.

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Specs

Product specifications for individual insurance carriers can be accessed by clicking Members on the top navigation, and then Use Specs, or by clicking the Specs link on the right-hand navigation. This will take you to a page that lists the names of all of the carriers in the Indexed Annuity market. Carriers that have left the market are indicated with an asterisk (*) after their name. The page is organized in alphabetical order from left to right. At this point, you select the name of the carrier that you are interested in seeing product specifications for. This will link you to a page of product names.

Some companies will have a section on the right-hand side of the Specs page, which lists products which are "No Longer Actively Marketed." These product specs will be in gray. These are specs for products that are:

• Not available for sale anywhere
• Soon to be taken off of the market
• Being replaced by new product due to state approvals, etc.

This is a feature that makes our website unique, as there is no other website that archives Indexed Annuity products that are no longer available for sale. This can be an important resource for those needing to compare carrier products that replace older products in the lineup, or for agents that are attempting to assist orphaned policyholders. (Note: it is important to be aware of the fact AnnuitySpecs.com does not have an archived spec for every Indexed Annuity ever sold. However, all Indexed Annuities that have been removed from the market since the launch of AnnuitySpecs.com in June of 2005 have been archived.)

Once on a carrier's Specs page, you select the name of the product that you are interested in reviewing, and you will be linked to the product profile.

If you wish to compare multiple products in a carrier’s portfolio at once, the Search portion of the site is most effective.

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Rates

If you are interested in benchmarking rates for a product against other comparable rates, you can go to the Rates portion of the site. This can be accessed by going to Members and clicking on Use Rates, or by clicking the Rates link on the right navigation. You will receive eight different choices for how you wish your rates to be sorted. This is a value-added feature of AnnuitySpecs, which is not offered by ANY competitor. As a subscriber, you can sort rates by:

• Bonus
• Cap Rate
• Company
• Participation Rate
• Product
• Spread Rate
• Street Level Compensation
• Surrender Charge Duration

The Rates pages are organized the way a Home Office rate-setting committee would want it, to effectively compare Indexed Annuity rates for setting their rates, caps, spreads, etc. against competitors. Several factors are taken into consideration:

• FIRST, grids are broken down by crediting method; you will only find monthly point-to-points by other monthly point-to points, and daily averaging products with other daily averagings. (Actuaries know that a product with monthly averaging can afford a higher cap than that of an annual point-to-point for example, so we need to compare apples to apples.)
• SECOND, grids are broken down by how frequently interest is credited; you will only find annual resets next to other annual resets. (How many times have you had someone ask you why Product A has a cap of 7%, and Product B has a cap of 15%? Only to answer them that they are comparing an annual point-to-point against a two-year point-to-point. We’re taking the guess work out of your hands: we’re the experts, let us do the work!)
• THIRD, grids are broken down by whether or not there is a bonus on the products. You will not find bonus products next to non-bonus products. (Actuaries understand that bonus product can not have as high of caps as non-bonus products, all other things being equal.) Separating these products in the grids is important for accurate comparison of rates.

So, a logical progression through the rates page would show the following crediting methods:

• Monthly Point-to-Point
• Annual Point-to-Point
• Two-Year Point-to-Point
• Monthly Averaging
• Two-Year Monthly Averaging
• Daily Averaging
• Fixed
• Fixed with Multi-Year Guarantee
• Gain Triggered
• New York Rates

A couple of things about the Rates reports: first, they have an incredible amount of data (one entry for every single crediting method on every product available today, with few exceptions). Imagine a report that offers information for each product on the market (some 330+ today), and each of the crediting methods available on each product (some products have as many as 13 different crediting methods)! That means that you could potentially scroll down the Rates report for quite a while. We’ve increased functionality of the page by giving you a "jump menu" to quicken your journey to your desired crediting method grid. This menu lists the more common crediting methods available on the market today. Corresponding Jump to Top links are also provided at the bottom of each of the grids.

We’ve also added a new feature to Rates, by allowing you to filter your results on the report and minimize the entries that are on the page. The first drop-down on the upper-left corner of the page will allow you to select a single crediting method type to be displayed on the page. If you wish to filter the report even more, the drop-down to the right allows you to select your crediting duration and bonus option. Use the Reload Rates button after selecting your filters, and the page will display your desired results.

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Sales

Quarterly, year-to-date, annual, and cumulative Indexed Annuity sales data can be found by going to Members, and clicking on Use Sales, or by clicking on the Sales Information link on the right navigation. This is a convenient benefit for our members that do not want to have to sort through years of articles or reports.

Note: The information displayed in this tour may be outdated. To view the most up-to-date information please join AnnuitySpecs to view the member pages.