“This legislation will encourage product innovation and ensure investors can easily find the information they need about RILAs and other innovative products without having to wade through irrelevant, excessive and confusing disclosure documents,” Richman said.
Under current SEC rules, these annuities must be registered using forms designed primarily for equity offerings—and thus require extensive information irrelevant to prospective annuity purchasers, the Insured Retirement Institute said.
The forms also require the disclosure of financial information prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, which many insurers are not otherwise required to produce.
The legislation will address the “misalignment between the current registration forms used for [these annuities] and the information needed by investors who might benefit from purchasing these products,” the institute said.