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Total annuity sales reached $57.8 billion for the first quarter of 2019, a slight dip from the last quarter of 2018, with fixed annuity sales surging from the year-ago quarter, according to the Insured Retirement Institute.
Market volatility late last year and interest rate pressures tell part of the story, according to data researchers.
Industrywide annuity sales rose 17.5% year over year but dipped 3.6% from the fourth quarter, the IRI said Friday, based on data reported by Beacon Research and Morningstar.
Sales of variable annuities declined from the fourth quarter 2018, down almost 10% from 2018 fourth quarter sales, hitting $20.7 billion. Sales dipped the same percentage amount — 9.8% —from the year-ago first quarter, as well.
However, net assets of variable annuities were up 6.5% to $1.93 in the first quarter from fourth-quarter 2018 due to equity market recovery after the volatility at the end of last year, according to the research.
These numbers are still off a high of over $2 trillion from the third quarter of 2018. There has been pressure from negative net asset flow, but Morningstar's senior quantitative analyst Michael Manetta anticipates sales "resuming an upward trajectory as newer product types such as structured annuities come into broader use."
