Beacon Annuity Solutions

Beacon Annuity Solutions, the business formerly known as Beacon Research, collects and sells annuity product and rate data. Its customers are insurance carriers, broker-dealers and other annuity distributors, software vendors that build annuity tools, and individual financial professionals comparing products for a client. The company says it supports more than 250,000 agents and advisors.

Its main product, AnnuityNexus, is a research portal covering fixed, fixed index, registered index-linked and variable annuities, including rider details and sales figures, with a product history going back more than 20 years. Distributors use it to manage their approved product shelf and to document suitability reviews, and carriers use it for pricing and product design. Beacon also sends custom data feeds and APIs to firms that want the data inside their order entry, illustration or policy review systems. Annuity Switchboard is a membership service that passes carrier-certified product and rate information to distribution partners to cut application errors. A living benefit calculator is in development, and the firm also does consulting.

Jeremy Alexander, a former insurance producer, founded Beacon Research in Chicago in 1997. It began with print publications, sold its first subscription in 1998 and moved online in 2001. Pricing is quoted per client.