The Long and Short Annuities: Strong Sales Performance through the First Quarter Generated Welcome Fee Income. Will That Pace Continue? What Impact Will New FINRA Regs Have?
Why this work is in the frame
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Bibliographic record
Abstract
Annuity fee income jumped sharply in the first quarter--welcome news to an industry with an operating revenue problem. With no significant change in banks' net interest income expected soon, and service charges on deposit accounts pinched, the sale of annuities can give a boost to earnings. Annuities are subject to market forces, of course, but have solid long-term potential. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A significant turnaround Annuity fee income took off in second half 2010. Then, in first-quarter 2011, annuity commissions registered their high-water mark, reaching a record $748.2 million, up 28.4% from first quarter 2010, according to the Michael White-ABIA Bank Annuity Fee Income Report, compiled by Michael White Associates and sponsored by the American Bankers Insurance Association. To get there, 40.1% of reporting bank holding companies participated in annuity sales; also, 12% of banks contributed $204.2 million, or 27.2% of the total. Among the top 50 BHCs in annuity concentration (i.e., annuity fee income as a percent of noninterest income), the median ratio was 7.3% in first quarter 2011. Among the top 50 small banks, the median was 16.6%. Overcoming broker bias These results were achieved despite the fact that some Series 7 securities brokers dislike annuities. They typically believe annuity guarantees are too expensive and that mutual funds, laddered bonds, and other securities are better buys. Community banks (those under $4 billion in assets) tend to orientate more toward financial planning and sales of packaged products like annuities. These different attitudes and approaches to delivering financial services are reflected in the fact that, in first quarter 2011, annuities represented 13.1% of investment program income among big banks, versus 25% at community banks. An important factor in successfully distributing annuities among big-bank brokers has been a resurgence in the deployment of field wholesalers. These wholesalers, usually employed by insurers, are critical in delivering to financial advisors needed product training; sales ideas; and professional sales, marketing, and service support. Community banks receive similar assistance through their use of third-party marketers. Near-term environment Fixed annuities thrive when decent rate spreads exist between 5-year certificates of deposits and the average effective yield of fixed annuities guaranteed for 5 years. Historically, those spreads were about 150 basis points, but in recent months they have been compressed to low double-digit figures leading to a decline in fixed annuity sales. Current low spreads will likely continue, as interest rates remain depressed. Many people don't want to get locked in to low rates only to see rates rise, but they remain wary of variable annuities. Concerns about low interest rates and inflation, however, could give impetus to sales of certain indexed annuities, which have come to life now that the Dodd-Frank Act has declared that they are not investments. Earlier this year, variable annuity sales experienced a recovery attributed to the improved performance of U.S. equities. That helped offset a decline in fixed annuity sales. However, the steep declines and volatility in the stock market in July and August have harmed investor confidence, so variable sales could slow as well. Still, variable annuity sales could be stimulated, considering that Morningstar reported in mid-August that second-quarter development of guaranteed benefits for variable annuities tripled over those of first quarter, and that average living benefit expenses continued to fall. Long-term environment If annuity sales do slow, it will not be for long, because the long-term environment is favorable. Baby-boomer demographics underscore a huge need for annuities, especially given the faded economic prospects of recent years, steep declines in consumers' personal and pension assets, and retreat to guarantees and safety. …
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.010 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it