Annuity Sales Clear $100 Billion for the Tenth Straight Quarter

Ten consecutive quarters above $100 billion. That milestone, reached quietly at the start of 2026, says something important about where retirement income planning has arrived — and where it appears to be staying.

Total U.S. annuity sales reached $104.6 billion in the first quarter of 2026, according to preliminary results from LIMRA’s U.S. Individual Annuity Sales Survey, which represents approximately 87% of the total U.S. annuity market. The figure was down 2% from the first quarter of 2025, but the year-over-year comparison obscures the more durable story: demand for annuities has not retreated. It has stabilized at a level that would have seemed extraordinary just a few years ago.

“Although first quarter sales were slightly below prior year’s results, the threshold for annuity sales appears to be stabilized above $100 billion, highlighting the continued interest in principal protection and guaranteed income,” said Bryan Hodgens, senior vice president and head of LIMRA research.

What Is Driving the Demand

The sustained volume is not a coincidence, and it is not the product of a single favorable factor. Several forces are operating simultaneously — and they reinforce each other in ways that make this level of demand durable rather than cyclical.

Demographics are foundational. The United States is in the middle of what researchers call Peak 65, a period in which more than 4 million Americans are turning 65 each year. Many of these individuals do not have access to traditional pensions and are arriving at retirement without a guaranteed income floor. Annuities fill that gap directly, and the sheer volume of people entering this stage of life has created a sustained wave of demand that will persist for years.

Market volatility is a second driver. The first quarter of 2026 was marked by elevated economic uncertainty and equity market swings — and rather than retreating from annuities, buyers moved toward them. Hodgens noted that “at a time when consumers registered significant economic concerns and market volatility was at its highest in a year, demand for registered indexed-linked and income annuities grew as investors sought greater protected growth opportunity and the ability to lock in guaranteed retirement income.”

That pattern — volatility accelerating annuity demand rather than dampening it — reflects a meaningful shift in how protection-oriented products are being used. They are increasingly serving as an alternative to moving assets to cash, keeping clients invested while managing downside risk.

RILAs Continue Their Ascent

The standout performer in the first quarter was the registered index-linked annuity. RILA sales jumped 21% year over year to $21.2 billion — their second-best quarter on record — extending a streak of year-over-year growth that now spans 30 consecutive quarters.

RILAs occupy a specific niche: they offer equity-linked growth potential with a defined level of downside protection, making them attractive to investors who want market participation without full exposure. As Keith Golembiewski, assistant vice president and head of LIMRA Annuity Research, put it: “As more pre-retirees need to create future guaranteed income in retirement, RILAs are an attractive solution.”

LIMRA is forecasting that full-year 2026 RILA sales will exceed the record set in 2025 — a projection that reflects both continuing product innovation and the expansion of RILA distribution across broker-dealers, RIAs, and independent channels. The category has grown more than 270% since 2020, reshaping the annuity market’s composition in ways that would not have been predictable a decade ago.

The RILA surge has come partly at the expense of fixed indexed annuities, which slipped 4% year over year to $26.6 billion in the first quarter. LIMRA attributes the decline directly to carriers and distributors shifting attention toward RILAs — not to any weakening in demand for protection-oriented products overall.

Income Annuities Rise Sharply

At the other end of the product spectrum, income annuities had a strong quarter. Single premium immediate annuity sales jumped 22% year over year to $3.7 billion, while deferred income annuity sales rose 6% to $1 billion. Both categories benefit from the relatively stable interest rate environment that has persisted as the Federal Reserve has held rates steady.

Income annuities convert a lump sum into a guaranteed monthly payment, either immediately or at a future date. They are the most direct expression of what most retirees say they want — predictable income that does not depend on market performance — and the growth in this category reflects an increasing willingness among retirees and near-retirees to trade flexibility for certainty.

That preference shows up clearly in advisor survey data as well. In a spring 2026 pulse survey by InspereX, 59% of financial professionals said clients seeking income are primarily prioritizing stable, predictable cash flow. Only 13% cited principal preservation and 12% cited the highest yield possible as the top priority. Certainty, not return maximization, is what most income-focused clients are asking for.

Annuity Category	Q1 2026 Sales	Year-Over-Year Change
Total annuity market	$104.6 billion	-2%
Registered index-linked annuities (RILAs)	$21.2 billion	+21%
Fixed indexed annuities (FIAs)	$26.6 billion	-4%
Fixed-rate deferred annuities	$34.0 billion	-16%
Traditional variable annuities	$16.1 billion	+9%
Single premium immediate annuities (SPIAs)	$3.7 billion	+22%
Deferred income annuities (DIAs)	$1.0 billion	+6%

Fixed-Rate Products Lose Ground

Not every category shared in the growth. Total fixed-rate deferred annuity sales fell 16% to $34 billion in the first quarter. The decline reflects a rotation away from products whose appeal was closely tied to the elevated interest rate environment of recent years. As rates stabilized and the relative advantage of fixed-rate annuities over competing fixed income options narrowed, buyers shifted toward products offering more upside participation.

Fixed-rate deferred annuities still represent roughly a third of total annuity market volume — making them the single largest product category by dollar amount — but their declining share of a growing market reflects the broader structural shift toward indexed and income-oriented solutions.

Traditional variable annuities bucked this trend, rising 9% year over year to $16.1 billion, marking their third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. The gains suggest that some buyers remain willing to accept full market exposure when they see sufficient upside potential — a preference that coexists alongside the strong demand for protection-oriented alternatives.

Advisors Are Leaning Into Protection Strategies

The InspereX spring 2026 pulse survey adds an important dimension to the LIMRA data by capturing what is happening at the advisor-client level. Among financial professionals surveyed, 54% said they expect to moderately or significantly increase their use of protection-oriented strategies in client portfolios for the remainder of 2026. Only 19% said they planned no changes.

The reasons advisors cite are consistent with what the sales data reflects. Seventy-one percent said they use protection strategies to provide peace of mind for clients, 67% to reduce or eliminate risk exposure, and 64% to deliver growth alongside protection. When protection strategies are introduced during volatile markets, the most common outcome — reported by 39% of advisors — is that assets that would otherwise have moved to cash remain invested instead.

That last finding matters for retirement outcomes. Assets that flee to cash during market downturns miss recoveries and compound less over time. Protection-oriented strategies, including annuities, give clients a way to stay invested while managing the anxiety that volatility produces. The behavioral benefit runs alongside the financial one.

A Structural Shift, Not a Cyclical Spike

Ten consecutive quarters above $100 billion is not a trend. It is a new baseline. The annuity market has passed through interest rate cycles, periods of equity volatility, and a wide range of economic environments over the past two and a half years — and demand has remained firmly above a threshold that once seemed like a ceiling.

The forces sustaining that demand are not going away. Peak 65 will continue to send millions of Americans into retirement each year through at least the end of the decade. The shift away from defined benefit pensions shows no sign of reversing. And the growing preference among retirees for predictable income over maximum yield — visible in both the LIMRA product data and the InspereX advisor survey — reflects a fundamental change in how retirement security is being defined.

The annuity market is not growing because conditions happen to favor it right now. It is growing because the retirement system needs what annuities provide — and that need is structural.

Source: LIMRA, via InsuranceNewsNet. Read the original release.