Prudential is new No. 1 seller of overall individual annuities

Prudential Financial Inc. has taken the crown from MetLife Inc. as the biggest seller of overall individual annuities and variable annuities in the United States for the first half of this year, according to data released last week by LIMRA.

The insurer sold $10.9 billion in overall individual annuities and $10.2 billion in variable annuities in the first half, compared with $6.3 billion and $5.5 billion, respectively, a year earlier.

Prudential topped MetLife, whose first-half sales of overall individual annuities slipped to $9.8 billion, from $13.3 billion a year earlier. The company sold $8.51 billion in variable annuities in the first half, basically unchanged from a year earlier.

During the course of the past year, the list of the top five overall individual annuity sellers has shifted. In the second quarter of 2009, New York Life Insurance Co., TIAA-CREF, Prudential and Lincoln Financial Group rounded out the top five.

Some new names have hit the top of the overall individual annuity sellers’ charts since then, with Jackson National Life Insurance Co. and AIG Cos. in third and fifth place, respectively. MetLife placed second, while TIAA-CREF finished fourth.

The shift among sales leaders can be tied to the adjustments that the insurers made to their products, said Kevin Loffredi, senior vice president at Advanced Sales & Marketing Corp., an annuity research organization.

For instance, John Hancock Financial Services and ING Groep NV both pulled back sharply on living benefits tied to their variable annuities. Both released simplified variable annuities this year.

As a result, ING slid from sixth place to 10th among annuity providers, and John Hancock from fifth to 15th.

“Everyone who’s dropped their benefits is losing billions of dollars [in annuity sales],” Mr. Loffredi said. “That money has to go somewhere, so it’ll go to those insurers’ nearest neighbors.”

E-mail Darla Mercado at [email protected].