10 Top Annuity Bills of 2022, So Far

Members of Congress have not moved much new annuity-related legislation through their pipes so far this year. Lawmakers have introduced 42 stand-alone bills that mention annuities, at least in passing, since Jan. 1, but they have advanced just three of the bills through a committee, and none to the House or Senate floor, according to a search of the official Congress.gov legislation tracking database. We filtered out the bills that mentioned "annuities" only in connection with efforts to fund federal pension plans, then ranked the remaining 2022 bills by how far they have progressed through Congress. Only five of the bills have moved anywhere. To come up with another five entries, we ranked the remaining bills in terms of whether they have attracted a bipartisan list of co-sponsors and potential relevance to the individual annuity market. For a look at the results, see the slideshow gallery.

Caveats

The rankings used here reflect the information for stand-alone bills available through Congress.gov. The rankings do not include legislation packaged as bill amendments and may reflect gaps in Congress.gov data, and the effects of the methods Congress.gov managers use to classify, label and code certain types of data. Several bills included in the gallery had companion bills in the other chamber. In most cases, however, the companion bills appeared on low slots in our bill performance rankings, because they had no co-sponsors, or sponsors and co-sponsors from just one party. Lawmakers have moved some annuity-related bills ahead this year, but most of the bills that moved were introduced in 2021. In July, for example, the House Financial Services Committee advanced H.R. 4865, a registered index-linked annuity registration bill, by a voice vote. But that bill was introduced in July 2021.

The History

By this time in 2018 — after the last mid-term elections — lawmakers had introduced 58 annuity-related bills and gotten eight through a committee. By the end of November 2014, lawmakers had introduced 45 annuity-related bills and moved six through a committee. But members of Congress still have a chance to pass major annuity legislation this year. In late 2020, for example, toward the end of the administration of former President Donald Trump, Congress sent him the bill that created Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. CAA, 2021 brought the No Surprises Act to life. That act could help protect your clients, and your own family, against big, unexpected out-of-network medical bills. The U.S. Capitol. (Photo: Shutterstock)