Sales of Variable Indexed Annuities Shine

Sales of indexed annuities that are registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as securities soared in the third quarter, and that helped push sales of U.S. individual annuities over zero.

Analysts at the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute have published the new quarterly sales figures for the variable indexed annuities, which they call "registered index-linked annuities," or RILAs, today, in their latest batch of annuity issuer survey data.

The analysts found that the participants' overall U.S. individual annuity sales increased 1% between the third quarter of 2018 and the third quarter of 2019, to $59 billion.

RILA sales climbed 62%, to $4.8 billion, even as sales of other variable annuities fell 2%, to $22 billion.

Sales of deferred income annuities increased 7%, to $590 million.

Todd Giesing, a staffer at the data provider, said in a statement about the results that RILA contracts with guaranteed lifetime benefit (GLB) riders performed especially well.

"In the third quarter, RILA sales with GLB riders increased more than $500 million," Giesing said in the statement.

The share of RILA sales coming from products with GLB riders increased to about 15% in the third quarter, from 3% in the second quarter, Giesing said.

Here's a look at how sales of some of the other types of annuities changed between the third quarter of 2018 and the latest quarter: