U.S. indexed annuity sales for the first quarter were $14.2 billion; up 4.4 percent from the previous quarter, and up 10 percent from the same period last year, according to Wink’s Sales & Market Report. It was the biggest increase in sales in nearly two years, said Sheryl Moore, president and CEO of Moore Market Intelligence and Wink Inc., which produces the report. “I look forward to seeing how improvements in interest rates will affect sales throughout the remainder of 2018,” she said. Also this week, the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute revised its predicted growth in total sales of fixed index annuities for the year, Financial Planning reported.LIMRA increased its growth estimates to between 5 and 10 percent, up from a forecast of zero to 5 percent in October. Todd Giesing, the LIMRA Institute’s director of annuity research, cited a court decision vacating the fiduciary rule in March and “the expectation for positive economic factors” as key reasons for revising the predicted sales upward.