Top 20 Companies for Annuity Sales: 2014

LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute has released its top 20 rankings of total, variable and fixed annuity writers in 2014.

Overall, annuities finished 2014 strong. According to the insurance researcher's fourth-quarter 2014 U.S. Annuity Sales Survey, total U.S. annuity sales in 2014 rose 3% to $235.8 billion.

Todd Giesing, senior business analyst for LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute, attributes this rise in part to record annual sales in indexed and income annuities.

"Despite interest rates falling nearly a percentage point in 2014, indexed annuities and income annuity sales — fixed immediate and deferred income — topped record sales levels," said Giesing, in a statement. "The performance of these products certainly propelled overall annuity sales to increase in 2014."

Indexed annuity sales reached $48.2 billion in 2014, up $9 billion or 23% from a year earlier. LIMRA also notes that indexed annuities held more than a 50% market share of all fixed annuity sales in 2014 – for the first time. Immediate income annuity sales jumped 17% in 2014, totaling $9.7 billion.

Overall fixed annuity sales were $95.7 billion in 2014, improving 13% compared with 2013. Variable annuity (VA) sales fell 4% in 2014, totaling $140.1 billion. This represents the lowest annual VA sales since 2009.

According to LIMRA, the top 10 variable annuity companies accounted for almost three-fourths of total VA sales in 2014. The top ten fixed annuity companies accounted for just over half of total fixed annuity sales in 2014, LIMRA says.

Read on for the rankings of the top 20 companies in variable, fixed and total annuity sales in 2013.