Morningstar Beefs Up Annuity Data

July 8, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Money managers on the prowl for investment potential and advisors interested in comparing variable annuities opportunities, may want to take advantage of a recently beefed up database.

Morningstar says its database now covers 975 variable life policies, 30,500 subaccounts, 2,800 underlying insurance funds, and a collection of Variable Investment Trust/VA underlying funds.   With the additional underlying funds information, and Morningstar’s proprietary measurements, such as the Morningstar Rating and Morningstar Style Box, the company said managers can better compare funds for competitive research and product development, and financial advisors can research funds to better assemble client portfolios.

With the enhanced database, the company said professional investors and financial advisors could now:

  • measure variable annuity underlying fund information against open-end mutual funds to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison
  • isolate variable annuity subaccount and variable annuity fund performance information from fees and insurance expenses to conduct the most thorough analysis
  • evaluate variable annuities using the new Morningstar Rating methodology, and the new Morningstar Categories for more focused research.

Product Enhancements

The data, which is updated monthly, will be rolled out this summer in the following products:

  • Morningstar DataLab, a Web-based investment research platform for institutions
  • Morningstar Principia   features a series of six modules that provide data on more than 15,000 mutual funds, 2,600 separate accounts, 7,000 stocks, 500 closed-end funds, and 30,500 variable annuity/life subaccounts
  • Morningstar Advisor Workstation, an online investment-planning system
  • Investment Profiles, one-page summary reports for both subaccounts and underlying funds, that present key performance and portfolio information for advisors to use with clients. 

«