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Annuities Research

Digging into the Customer Experience: Annuities

Corporate Insight’s Annuity Monitor keeps clients on top of developments in the annuity business. Our value-added annuities research digs deeply to identify and assess specific aspects not only of the customer experience, but also the ways in which leading insurers market their annuity products to independent financial advisors.


Year-End Account Statements PDF Print E-mail
This report looks at year-end statement mailings sent out by the 16 Annuity Monitor firms in January 2008. We evaluated the following aspects of fourth quarter or annual statements:
  • Statement Presentation & Layout
  • Statement Summary Information
  • Mailers & Statement Stuffers
Overall, Annuity Monitor firms’ year-end statements are adequate and provide clients with a respectable amount of contract performance data. The statement layouts were particularly impressive as a majority of firms used easily distinguishable bolded sectional headings and large font to enhance readability. In addition, 63% of firms incorporated color into their statements.

Contract and investment option summaries were passable – only two firms failed to provide adequate annual data. Pertinent contract data such as performance (gain/loss), payments and withdrawals were offered by over 80% of firms, while 75% included both past and present values in the investment option summary.

The biggest flaw we found was an overwhelming lack of transparency. Only half of the firms included surrender information while only 25% displayed fees and charges on the statement. Further, only one firm offered a personal rate of return. Most firms also missed out on a good marketing opportunity – only 25% enclosed promotional materials for products, online features, etc. in the mailing.
 

Subjects

Account reporting

Segment: Annuities
Publication date: Thursday, June 05, 2008
# Pages: (62 pages)
 
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