Investors' concerns about negative market returns are likely to create a greater demand for guaranteed products such as variable annuities, but the downturn in the markets has changed the insurers' cost of managing the hedging risk of VAs.
In a nod to today's touchy political environment regarding executive compensation, financial advisers at the firm born out of a joint venture between Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney will not receive retention bonuses.
As the broad market continues its free fall, independent broker-dealer Woodbury (Minn.) Financial Services Inc. is grappling with changes in senior management and the lingering problems of its owner, The Hartford (Conn.) Financial Services Group Inc.
Advisers may complain about variable annuities, but most still endorse the product.
The irony is powerful: Just as client demand for quality advice is reaching an all-time high, the business models that support the selling of advice have never looked worse.
Mutual fund executives probably won't be dancing in the street over reports of modest inflows into stock mutual funds in January.
As this year's returning chairman of the NAIC's Life Insurance and Annuities (A) Committee, Eric R. Dinallo's priorities are making sure that consumers are protected while helping carriers steer a course through choppy economic waters.
The tide has finally turned for prime money market mutual funds.
Wealth managers in the Phoenix area say that the financial crisis and its calamitous impact on the stock market is forcing them to rethink their investment strategies.
With the equity markets testing new bear-market lows as part of a five-month run that has seen the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index fall by 38%, it can be disorienting to discover a stock moving aggressively in the opposite direction.
