Athene Wants to Sell More Annuities: Earnings

According to figures from the Secure Retirement Institute, "Athene placed first for fixed indexed annuity industry sales in the second and third quarters, and we believe our strong fourth quarter will place us in a similar position when full-year industry results are published," Wheeler said.

Wheeler said he expects Athene's retail inflows to face some pressure this year — for reasons that could be good for financial professionals and their clients.

"We're observing numerous insurers becoming more aggressive, underwriting new business at levels that would imply break-even or negative spread," Wheeler said.

One of Athene's goals is to expand distribution for its registered index-linked annuities (RILAs), or indexed annuities filed as variable insurance products, Wheeler said.

"A lot of producers who used to sell [variable annuities] are now selling RILA products," Wheeler said. Many producers want to get the RILA contracts they sell from the companies that used to provide the non-RILA variable annuities they used to sell, he said.

Belardi, Athene's CEO, emphasized that Athene believes its uniquely positioned to weather current trends in the broader economy.

"We are strengthened by our multi-channel distribution platform and ability to pivot between our channels, despite the challenging macro backdrop, amidst historically low interest rates and the ongoing COVID-19 crisis," Belardi said.

American Equity Investment Life Holding Co. (NYSE: AEL)

American Equity Life, another insurer that released earnings Wednesday, is reporting $8.7 million in net income for the fourth quarter of 2020 on $1 billion in revenue, compared with $220 million in net income on $1.1 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2019.

Overall annuity sales increased to $1.8 billion, from $844 million in the year-earlier quarter.

Here's what happened to deposits into four types of annuities between the year-earlier quarter and the latest quarter:

• Non-Variable Indexed Annuities: $607 million (down from $833 million)
• Annual Reset Fixed-Rate Annuities: $1.7 million (down from $1.8 million)
• Multi-Year Fixed-Rate Annuities: $1.2 billion (up from $81 million)
• Single-Premium Immediate Annuities: $7.8 million (up from $4.9 million)

Anant Bhalla, the chief executive officer at the West Des Moines, Iowa-based company, said, in a comment included in the company's earnings announcement, that the company saw itself as reintroducing itself to the market in the fourth quarter, with the launch of new single-premium deferred annuity products at both the American Equity Life unit and the Eagle Life unit.

"We used the fourth quarter to tell distribution we were back and committed to offering competitive products," Bhalla said.

American Equity is now getting ready to introduce an annuity that will gives purchasers access to "global risk-controlled asset allocation and sector-specific allocations," as well as to traditional stock index choices, Bhalla said.