Annuity FYI Blog

When buying an annuity, it’s very important that the insurer providing the product is stable. Doing so minimizes the risk that you will lose part or all of your investment. Ratings are a good way to find out about a company’s strength. Here are TheStreet.com’s 10 strongest annuity insurers, as reported by Melissa Gannon:

1. Teachers Insurance and Annuity Assocation of America (TIAA-Cref)
2. State Farm Life Insurance Company
3. Country Life Insurance Company
4. State Farm Life and Accident Insurance Company
5. American Family Life Insurance Company
6. New York Life Insurance and Annuity Corporation
7. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual)
8. Pacific Life Insurance Company
9. New York Life Insurance Company
10. Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Company

This week, both State Farm and the National Life Group announced that they will stop selling Phoenix Companies annuities. Diane Levick writes in the Hartford Courant that those firms, which combined made up 82% of Phoenix’s 2008 annuity sales, have made this decision because of Phoenix’s recent ratings downgrade from Hartford.

The firm is already struggling, given its 37% decrease in annuity sales (based on customer depositsw) in Q4 2008.