A few months after suspending their product sales in New York, Prudential Financial Inc. has announced it will reintroduce its fee-based variable annuities in New York. The company initially put a halt on the sales due to the state’s new best-interest rules for annuity and life insurance sales.
Prudential sent out a memo on Friday, letting advisors know that it would be reintroducing its Prudential Premier Advisor annuity in New York on Monday.
The law that had come into question was Insurance Regulation 187, which upped the sales standard for brokers and advisors recommending annuities and life insurance products to consumers. The new standard for annuities sales went into effect on August 1, and will begin for life insurance products on February 1, 2020. The regulation requires New York insures that sell both fee- and commision-based annuity products to make insurance recommendations in consumers' best interests and that they show their clients a comparison showing the differences between the products.
Initially, agents were concerned about the disclosure requirements contained in the rule, but now that seems to have been cleared up, thanks to The New York Department of Financial Services, which issued guidance on some of the major questions on the subject on September 11.
According to a Prudential memo about the subject, "The New York Department of Financial Services has provided updated guidance and sales of the product will resume while we partner with the NYDFS to obtain approval of a comparison disclosure."
