RILA Sales Jump 21% to $21.2B as Annuities Hit 10th Straight $100B Quarter

LIMRA's Q1 2026 annuity survey put total sales at $104.6 billion, down 2% year over year but the tenth consecutive quarter above $100 billion. Inside that total, registered index-linked annuities rose 21% to $21.2 billion while fixed-rate deferred fell 16%. RILAs are now the product carrying the market's growth, and they are also the most hedge-intensive thing on the shelf.

Key Takeaways

$21.2 billion of RILA sales, up 21%, the 30th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, against fixed-rate deferred down 16% and fixed indexed down 4%.
RILAs are roughly 20% of the annuity mix, up from about 15% two years ago, while fixed-rate deferred fell from roughly 40% to 33%.
370 basis points is a representative option budget: a 5.2% general account earned rate less a 1.5% required spread, which is what sets the cap rate a consumer sees.
Carrier count went from three a decade ago to over 22, with Equitable at roughly 19.6% share on infrastructure inherited from its variable annuity platform.
RILAs stay under VM-21, explicitly excluded from the VM-22 framework that became optional on January 1, 2026.

What the Quarter Shows

Product	Q1 2026 Sales	YoY Change	Key Trend
Fixed-Rate Deferred (FRD)	$34.0B	-16%	Normalizing from rate-lock rush; still one-third of market
Fixed Indexed Annuity (FIA)	$26.6B	-4%	Slight pullback from record 2025 pace
Registered Index-Linked (RILA)	$21.2B	+21%	Second-best quarter; 30th consecutive growth quarter
Traditional Variable Annuity	$16.1B	+9%	Third consecutive quarterly gain despite volatility
Single Premium Immediate (SPIA)	$3.7B	+22%	Income demand strengthening among near-retirees
Deferred Income Annuity (DIA)	$1.0B	+6%	Modest growth; underweight relative to SPIA

The total of $104.6 billion annualizes near $418 billion, below the $464.1 billion 2025 record but above any pre-2022 year, on data representing about 87% of the US market. LIMRA's Bryan Hodgens described the level as stabilized above $100 billion.

The mix is where the movement is. RILAs reached roughly 20% of total sales against about 15% two years ago, while fixed-rate deferred fell from roughly 40% to 33%. Full-year 2025 RILA sales were $79.5 billion, up 20%, and LIMRA projects 2026 above $85 billion.

Advisor behaviour suggests this is not only substitution. LIMRA found 59% of clients seeking income prioritize stable, predictable cash flows, 54% of advisors plan to increase protection strategies, and 39% report clients staying invested rather than moving to cash once downside protection is introduced. That last figure implies RILAs are enlarging the addressable market rather than only taking share from fixed and variable products.

The Cap Rate Is an Output, and Two Carriers Compute It Differently

RILA pricing is an option budget problem. The carrier starts from its gross earned rate on the general account portfolio, subtracts the spread required for expenses, profit, and capital, and spends whatever remains on the option structure. The cap rate is what falls out.

Work it through. A carrier earning 5.2% against a 1.5% required spread has 370 basis points for options. At current implied volatility on one-year S&P 500 options, that supports a cap in the 12% to 14% range on a 10% buffer product, depending on strike placement and negotiated OTC pricing. A carrier with a higher-yielding portfolio, often one backed by private credit or structured assets, can afford a better cap from the same product design.

Design changes the cost too. A buffer product needs a call spread plus a short put at the buffer attachment. A floor product needs a call spread plus a put spread, retaining the downside rather than selling it, which costs more to hedge and is why floor designs carry lower caps at the same term.

The larger cost difference is structural, and a Milliman analysis identifies it. Variable annuity guaranteed living benefits gain value when markets fall; RILA buffer obligations gain value when markets rise. A carrier running both in one hedge program reduces total notional, transaction cost, and earnings volatility. Carriers running both floor and buffer products can also net an out-of-the-money put internally rather than crossing the spread twice, worth an estimated 12 or more basis points.

That advantage shows in the league table. Equitable leads at roughly 19.6% share on infrastructure inherited from its legacy variable annuity platform, followed by Allianz Life, Jackson, Brighthouse, and Lincoln. The carrier count has gone from three a decade ago to over 22, and a new entrant without a variable annuity book either accepts higher hedge cost, expressed as a lower cap or a thinner margin, or builds dynamic hedging capability that takes years.

Athene's Amplify 3.0, launched in May 2026 with 1% and 100% buffer options alongside conventional 10%, 20%, and 30% buffers plus a performance lock, is the alternative strategy: compete on design where you cannot compete on hedge cost.

Growth Erodes Both Inputs the Pricing Depends On

The reserving load scales faster than the block. RILAs are variable annuities for statutory purposes, so they sit under VM-21 and are explicitly excluded from VM-22, which became optional on January 1, 2026 and is mandatory from January 1, 2029. VM-21 requires the greater of a conditional tail expectation at the 70th percentile and the standard scenario amount, which means projecting cash flows across a thousand or more stochastic scenarios and averaging the worst 30%.

Every product configuration needs its own projection. A carrier offering six buffer levels, several indices, and terms of one, two, three, and six years carries dozens of distinct configurations, and each scenario has to model the interaction of accumulated value, crediting formula, buffer protection, and hedge position. At the $85 billion of projected 2026 sales, that is a technology problem before it is an actuarial one.

Capital moves the same way, and against the carriers pricing most aggressively. C-3 requirements build on the VM-21 distribution, typically the difference between CTE 98 and the statutory reserve. A more generous cap means a higher embedded option cost and a wider tail, so the carrier that wins the sale on cap rate pays for it in capital. The GOES scenario generator, in field testing for a year-end 2027 effective date, will recalibrate the scenarios driving both.

The harder constraint is the option market itself. A carrier writing $4 billion of RILA sales a quarter is buying billions of dollars of option notional from a finite set of OTC counterparties. Several large writers scaling at once put concentrated, one-directional demand into that market, and any move in option pricing compresses the 370 basis points available to set caps. The growth that makes the product attractive consumes the budget that prices it, and that feedback runs through the market microstructure rather than through anything a pricing model observes.

Rates are the other input, and it is not stable either. The option budget starts from the general account earned rate, so a faster easing path than markets price forces the choice between lower caps on new business and thinner margins on written business. The FOMC's 8-4 split in April 2026 is a reminder that the rate assumption feeding a cap-rate model is currently bimodal.

RILA Sales Jump 21% to $21.2 Billion as Annuities Post 10th Consecutive $100 Billion Quarter

Key Takeaways

What the Quarter Shows

The Cap Rate Is an Output, and Two Carriers Compute It Differently

Growth Erodes Both Inputs the Pricing Depends On

Further Reading

Sources