12 Fast Facts About Annuity Issuers' Graders

A team at the Society of Actuaries has come out with a critical new tool for annuity professionals: a guide to the insurance rating process. Your clients are looking at annuities because they're hungry for retirement income guarantees. But, as all annuity issuers state near any mention of guarantees, the guarantees depend on the strength of the issuer. Several SOA committees and the group's new SOA Research Institute arm have joined to explain what the rating agencies are and how they try to verify that annuity issuers have the ability to pay the promised annuity benefits. For a look at 12 rating agency facts, based on the SOA guide, see the gallery above. (Some cell phone users may need to turn their phones 90 degrees to see the text.) Credit: Sergey Nivens/Adobe Stock