Form 485B24F Files Dataset

The Form 485B24F Files Dataset is a closed historical archive of EDGAR submissions tagged with the discontinued submission type 485B24F — a hybrid post-effective amendment that simultaneously declared immediate effectiveness under Rule 485(b) of the Securities Act of 1933 and registered an indefinite number of additional shares or contract interests under Rule 24f-2 of the Investment Company Act of 1940. Each record is a single accession-level filing folder for one submission, filed by an insurance company separate account — typically a variable annuity or variable life separate account — registered under both Acts and operated by a sponsoring life insurer that signs the amendment as depositor. The dataset spans September 1994 through January 1998, the narrow window during which EDGAR carried this dedicated submission code; the 485B24F type was retired when the SEC's 1998 amendments to Rule 24f-2 split indefinite-share registration into a standalone annual Form 24F-2 notice and reduced the disclosure half of the filing to a plain 485BPOS. The archive is distributed as ZIP containers holding metadata.json and plain-text document-N.txt bodies, and because the underlying submission code is permanently retired, the corpus is bounded and will not grow.

Dataset APIs

Dataset Files

What This Dataset Contains

The dataset captures every EDGAR submission carrying the 485B24F form type during the period in which that code existed. Each record corresponds to one accession number — one EDGAR submission of a post-effective amendment that combined a Rule 485(b) immediate-effectiveness declaration with a Rule 24f-2 indefinite-share registration. The atomic unit is the accession-level filing folder, named with the 18-digit zero-padded EDGAR accession number (the dashed form XXXXXXXXXX-XX-XXXXXX collapsed to XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX).

Form 485B24F is a hybrid post-effective amendment used by separate accounts — typically variable annuity and variable life insurance separate accounts maintained by life-insurance companies — that were registered with the SEC on Form N-1A, Form N-3, Form N-4, or, for unit investment trusts funding variable life contracts, Form S-6 / Form N-8B-2. The form bundles two regulatory mechanics into one submission:

• the Rule 485(b) post-effective amendment, which becomes effective automatically on filing (or on a designated near-term date) without staff review, on the registrant's representation that the amendment raises no novel or material issues; and
• the Rule 24f-2 declaration, by which an open-end management investment company or unit investment trust registers an indefinite number of additional shares or interests, paying registration fees in arrears via a Rule 24f-2 notice rather than registering a fixed dollar amount up front.

Because the SEC discontinued the 485B24F submission type in January 1998 — when EDGAR submission codes were restructured and Rule 24f-2 was overhauled so that indefinite share registration no longer required a per-amendment election — the dataset covers a closed historical window from September 1994 through January 1998 and will not grow. All records originate from the pre-HTML era of EDGAR; document bodies are plain ASCII text in fixed-width column layout, distributed as ZIP containers holding metadata.json and document-N.txt files.

Content Structure of a Single Record

The body of a 485B24F filing is not a free-standing prospectus. It is an amendment that updates a previously effective registration statement, which remains the source of the prospectus, the statement of additional information (SAI), the fee tables, the investment objectives and policies, and the financial statements. Two filing patterns appear across the dataset:

• a "full" amendment that physically restates the prospectus (Part A) and SAI (Part B), with refreshed fee tables, expense examples, condensed financial information, and signature pages; or
• a "compact" amendment that consists primarily of a facing page, an incorporation-by-reference recital, the Rule 24f-2 indefinite-share declaration, the requisite undertakings, and signatures, leaving the prospectus and SAI text in the predecessor filing chain.

On-disk layout

A record materialises on disk as a directory containing two kinds of files:

• exactly one metadata.json describing the EDGAR submission as a whole and enumerating its constituent documents; and
• one or more document-N.txt files (sequence-numbered starting at 1), each carrying the plain-text body of one document from the submission.

The text files preserve the EDGAR-era ASCII rendering of the filing, including fixed-column layout, <PAGE> markers between physical printed pages, and <TABLE>...</TABLE> markers wrapping fee tables, expense examples, condensed financial data, and signature rosters. The text files are pre-stripped to the document body: they do not carry the surrounding <DOCUMENT>...<TYPE>...<SEQUENCE>...<FILENAME>...<DESCRIPTION>...<TEXT> SGML wrappers that EDGAR's Public Dissemination Service used to delimit individual documents inside the aggregate submission file. The wrapper-level metadata (sequence number, document type, filename, description, byte size) is hoisted into metadata.json. Image documents that were part of the original submission (graphics, scanned signatures, logos) are excluded entirely; their documentFormatFiles entries remain in the metadata but no document-N.txt is materialised on disk for them.

metadata.json fields

metadata.json is a single JSON object describing the filing at submission level. The principal fields are:

• formType — always "485B24F" for records in this dataset.
• accessionNo — the dashed EDGAR accession number (XXXXXXXXXX-XX-XXXXXX); the folder name is the same number with dashes removed.
• filedAt — ISO-8601 timestamp of EDGAR acceptance, with Eastern-time offset.
• periodOfReport — the as-of date the filing reports against; for a 485(b) amendment this is often identical to or close to the filing date.
• description — short human-readable label such as "Form 485B24F - Post Effective Amendments".
• linkToFilingDetails — URL of the EDGAR archive folder for the filing.
• linkToTxt — URL of the full SGML submission text file on sec.gov.
• linkToHtml — URL of the EDGAR index page for the filing.
• linkToXbrl — empty; structured financial reporting on EDGAR post-dates this form.
• id — opaque internal identifier.
• documentFormatFiles — array, one element per document declared in the EDGAR header. Each element carries sequence (a numeric string starting at "1", blank for the aggregate "complete submission text file" entry), size (byte length as a string), type (per-document type code such as "485B24F" for the main amendment or an exhibit code such as "EX-99"), description, and documentUrl pointing back to EDGAR.
• dataFiles — array of additional structured-data attachments; effectively empty for this form, since the pre-1998 EDGAR workflow for separate-account amendments did not include structured data exhibits.
• seriesAndClassesContractsInformation — array intended to carry series-and-class metadata for investment companies; empty across the dataset because the SEC's series/class identifier framework for variable-product separate accounts post-dates the discontinuation of Form 485B24F.
• entities — one or more entity blocks describing the filer and any co-registrants. Each entity carries companyName (with a role suffix such as (Filer) glued onto the name as preserved from the EDGAR header), cik, fileNo (the 1933/1940 Act file number, e.g. 33-90208), irsNo, sic, filmNo, stateOfIncorporation, fiscalYearEnd, act (the governing securities act), and type (entity-type code).

To bind metadata rows to local files, iterate documentFormatFiles and join by sequence, skipping rows whose sequence is blank — those describe the aggregate EDGAR submission file rather than an on-disk artefact — and skipping rows whose type denotes an image format, since those are not materialised locally either.

document-N.txt structure and the underlying amendment

Each document-N.txt is a fixed-width ASCII rendering of one document from the submission, in EDGAR's pre-HTML era format. The opening lines of the principal (sequence-1) document of a 485B24F filing form a facing-page header carrying:

• the as-filed date, often introduced by the legend "As filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on [date]";
• the 1933 Act registration number (e.g. Registration # 33-90208) and, where applicable, the 1940 Act file number (811-XXXXX);
• the centred "SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION / Washington, DC 20549" heading;
• a title block identifying the document as POST-EFFECTIVE AMENDMENT NO. N to Form N-1A, Form N-3, Form N-4, Form N-8B-2, or Form S-6, with check-box indications that the amendment is filed under Rule 485(b) and that shares are being registered under Rule 24f-2;
• the exact name and address of the registrant separate account and of the depositor / sponsoring insurance company; and
• the name and address of the agent for service.

<PAGE> markers separate the physical printed pages that follow. The substantive body falls into one of two patterns:

• Full restatement amendments proceed through Part A (the prospectus), Part B (the SAI), and Part C (other information) of the underlying registration form. Part A typically carries a synopsis, a fee table inside <TABLE> markers, an expense example, condensed financial information, a description of the separate account and the variable contracts it funds, the investment objectives and policies of each underlying mutual fund or sub-account, charges and deductions (mortality-and-expense risk charges, administrative charges, contract-maintenance fees, surrender charges), federal tax treatment, voting rights pass-through, and other contract-level disclosures. Part B contains additional information on management, principal underwriters, brokerage allocation, custodians, independent accountants, and the financial statements of the separate account and (often) of the depositor insurance company. Part C contains the undertakings, the exhibit index, the signatures, and the powers of attorney; exhibits filed with the amendment are listed in the exhibit index and either reproduced in subsequent document-N.txt files or incorporated by reference to prior filings.

• Compact share-count amendments are much briefer. The body comprises the facing page, a short statement that Parts A and B of the registration statement remain as previously filed and are incorporated by reference, the Rule 24f-2 declaration of an indefinite number of additional shares, the required undertakings, and the signature pages. The dataset includes a representative example of this pattern: a 1996 Post-Effective Amendment No. 2 on Form S-6 by the Acacia National Variable Life Insurance Separate Account 1, signed on behalf of the depositor, consisting of a single short text document with no separately attached prospectus or financial statements.

Tabular sections — fee tables, expense examples, per-sub-account condensed financial information, accumulation-unit-value histories, and signature rosters — are wrapped in <TABLE>...</TABLE> markers so the column-aligned ASCII layout is preserved for downstream rendering. Signature blocks at the end of the amendment carry the names and titles of the principal executive officer, the principal financial officer, and a majority of the directors (or trustees) of the depositor, alongside a power-of-attorney recital. Where signatures are executed by an attorney-in-fact, the underlying power of attorney is filed as an exhibit either in the same submission or in a prior amendment in the same registration chain.

Typical exhibits and components

When exhibits accompany the amendment, they appear as additional sequenced rows in documentFormatFiles and as additional document-N.txt files. Exhibits commonly attached to a 485B24F filing include:

• consents of independent accountants (Exhibit 23 / Exhibit 99 family);
• opinion-of-counsel letters as to the legality of the securities being registered;
• powers of attorney executed by directors and officers of the depositor;
• specimen variable-contract forms, contract endorsements, and rider forms;
• participation, fund-of-funds, or service agreements between the separate account, the depositor, and underlying investment companies;
• amendments to underwriting and distribution agreements; and
• the Rule 24f-2 notice itself, or a cross-reference to a separately filed Rule 24f-2 notice.

Image-format exhibits (scanned signatures, organisational charts, photographic logos) are excluded from the dataset; the documentFormatFiles array still records their existence, type, and original size.

Included content

A record contains, for one accession number: the metadata.json block described above; the plain-text body of every non-image document declared in the original submission, each in its own sequence-numbered text file; and sufficient identifiers — accession number, filer and co-registrant CIKs, 1933/1940 Act file numbers, filing date, period of report, document types — to anchor the record back to EDGAR and to its predecessor and successor filings in the same registration-statement chain.

Excluded or separate content

Several pieces of content are structurally outside the record:

• Image attachments declared in the EDGAR header are not bundled into the accession folder.
• The aggregate "complete submission text file" — the single SGML file EDGAR serves containing all documents wrapped in <DOCUMENT> / <TEXT> markers — is not duplicated locally; the corresponding row in documentFormatFiles (with blank sequence) acts as a pointer to the EDGAR-hosted version.
• The previously effective registration statement and prior post-effective amendments to which the 485B24F amendment relates are separate filings with their own accession numbers and are not bundled into the 485B24F record, even when the amendment incorporates their substantive content by reference. Reconstructing a complete prospectus or SAI as updated by a compact 485B24F generally requires retrieving those predecessor filings.
• Subsequent Rule 24f-2 notices reporting actual share sales and remitting registration fees are filed under separate submission types (24F-2NT, 24F-2EL) and are not part of this dataset.

Structural and regulatory evolution, 1994-1998

The 485B24F submission window is narrow, and the underlying disclosure requirements were comparatively stable, but several structural elements shifted:

• The 485B24F code was introduced so that EDGAR and the staff could distinguish post-effective amendments combining a Rule 485(b) immediate-effectiveness declaration with a Rule 24f-2 indefinite share registration. Before its introduction, the same substantive filing was submitted as a 485BPOS paired with a separate Rule 24f-2 notice.
• During 1995 and 1996 the SEC's modernisation of variable-product disclosure — including amendments to Form N-4 and the contract-summary prospectus initiatives — progressively reshaped the prospectus content inside Part A, most visibly through standardised fee-table formatting, harmonised expense examples, and more granular disclosure of mortality-and-expense, administrative, and contract-maintenance charges. The form's filing mechanics were unaffected.
• The discontinuation of Form 485B24F in January 1998 followed the SEC's broader revision of EDGAR submission types and the restructuring of Rule 24f-2. After that date, indefinite share registration no longer required an election on each post-effective amendment, and Rule 485(b) amendments were filed simply as 485BPOS, with Rule 24f-2 fee mechanics handled through the separate 24F-2NT notice channel.

Format characteristics

All records in the dataset originate from the pre-HTML era of EDGAR. Document bodies are plain ASCII text in fixed-width column layout, with <PAGE> markers separating physical printed pages and <TABLE>...</TABLE> markers preserving column-aligned tabular content (fee tables, expense examples, condensed financial information, accumulation-unit-value histories, and signature rosters). The dataset's text files are pre-stripped of the <DOCUMENT> / <TYPE> / <SEQUENCE> / <FILENAME> / <DESCRIPTION> / <TEXT> SGML wrappers that delimited documents inside the aggregate submission file; the equivalent information is carried in documentFormatFiles. HTML rendering of EDGAR submissions did not arrive until after the 485B24F type had been retired, and no HTML or XBRL artefacts appear anywhere in the dataset.

Interpretation and extraction notes

• A compact 485B24F that incorporates the prospectus and SAI by reference will not contain readable prospectus text on its own; treating the document body as a self-contained prospectus will miss most of the substantive disclosure, which lives in the predecessor registration-statement chain.
• The sequence field in documentFormatFiles is the join key between metadata and on-disk files. Rows with blank sequence describe the aggregate EDGAR submission text file rather than a local artefact and should be skipped when binding to document-N.txt. Rows whose type denotes an image format also have no on-disk file in the dataset.
• Filer-name strings inside entities preserve EDGAR-header role suffixes such as (Filer) glued onto the company name. Downstream consumers normalising entity names should strip these suffixes explicitly.
• Filings typically involve two related entities: the separate account (the registrant) and the depositor insurance company (the operator and signatory). Both appear in entities; the CIK that anchors the registration-statement chain is the separate account's, not the depositor's.
• The 1933 Act file number on the cover page (e.g. 33-90208) ties the 485B24F amendment to its parent registration statement. Combined with the CIKs of the separate account and the depositor, it is the most reliable key for assembling the full document chain across predecessor and successor amendments.
• Power-of-attorney signatures are the norm rather than the exception. The underlying power-of-attorney instrument may itself be filed as an exhibit in the same submission or in a prior post-effective amendment in the same chain.
• Because the dataset window is closed at January 1998, the corpus is static. Records will not be amended in place by future filings, although later filings under other submission types (485BPOS, 24F-2NT, N-4/A) may extend the same registration-statement chain and supply more current disclosure.

Who Files or Publishes This Dataset, and When

Who files

The filers are insurance company separate accounts registered as management investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940. These are segregated asset pools established by life insurers under state insurance law to fund variable insurance products — primarily variable annuity contracts and, in some cases, variable life insurance contracts. Because contract owners bear the investment risk, the contracts are also securities under the Securities Act of 1933, producing dual registration under both Acts.

Three roles appear on a typical 485B24F submission:

• Registrant: the separate account itself (e.g., "XYZ Life Insurance Company Separate Account A").
• Depositor / signatory: the sponsoring life insurance company, which executes and submits the filing on behalf of the account.
• Principal underwriter: typically a broker-dealer affiliate that distributes the contracts; named in the registration statement but not the filer.

Contract owners are investors in the registered securities, not filers. Operating companies, foreign private issuers, and closed-end funds (Form N-2) do not appear in this dataset.

The underlying registration statement is almost always Form N-3 (separate accounts organized as managed investment companies offering variable annuities), with a smaller number of Form N-1A managed separate accounts. Pure unit investment trust separate accounts on Form N-4 generally did not use 485B24F because Rule 24f-2's indefinite-share mechanics applied differently to UIT structures.

What triggers a filing

A 485B24F submission is the EDGAR routing label for a single filing that combines two regulatory actions:

1. A Rule 485(b) post-effective amendment to an existing Securities Act registration statement. Rule 485(b) permits immediate effectiveness on the date designated by the registrant, but only for non-material updates — refreshing financial statements, redesignating an effective date, incorporating prior staff comments already cleared under a 485(a) filing, or making ministerial changes. Material or substantive changes must be filed under Rule 485(a) (EDGAR type 485APOS) with a delayed effective date for staff review.

2. A Rule 24f-2 indefinite-share registration component. Pre-1998 Rule 24f-2 allowed open-end management companies and qualifying separate accounts to register an indefinite number of shares or contract interests, with registration fees calculated on actual net sales.

When both actions occurred in the same submission, EDGAR tagged it 485B24F. When a 485(b) amendment had no Rule 24f-2 component, it was filed as 485BPOS instead.

When records arise

The cadence is functionally annual, driven by the prospectus-update obligation under Section 10(a)(3) of the Securities Act: variable contracts are sold on a continuous basis, so the prospectus must remain current and incorporate updated audited financials within the statutory staleness window. Each registrant chose an annual update cycle aligned with its fiscal year.

The typical sequence:

• A 485APOS amendment is filed with a delayed effective date (often 60 or 75 days) to allow staff review of any material changes.
• A clean, post-comment 485(b) version is then filed for immediate effectiveness on a registrant-selected date.
• When that 485(b) filing also carried a Rule 24f-2 share-registration action, EDGAR captured it as 485B24F.

There is no event-based external deadline in the 8-K sense; timing is set by the registrant's own annual update calendar.

Historical window

The dataset covers September 1994 through January 1998. The start reflects early mandatory EDGAR adoption for investment company filers; the end reflects the SEC's 1998 amendment of Rule 24f-2, which moved indefinite-share registration to a standalone annual Form 24F-2 notice. After that change, the same economic activity was split between a 485BPOS filing and a separate 24F-2 notice, and the combined 485B24F tag was retired. The dataset is therefore a closed historical population.

Important distinctions

• 485B24F vs. 485BPOS vs. 485APOS. All three are post-effective amendments to investment company registration statements. 485APOS uses Rule 485(a) with delayed effectiveness for staff review. 485BPOS uses Rule 485(b) for immediate effectiveness without a Rule 24f-2 component. 485B24F is the pre-1998 variant of 485BPOS that additionally carried a Rule 24f-2 indefinite-share declaration.
• Management company vs. UIT separate accounts. Form 485B24F is specific to separate accounts registered as management investment companies (typically Form N-3). UIT-structured separate accounts on Form N-4 used different routing because Rule 24f-2 applied differently to them.
• Filer vs. registrant. The named registrant is the separate account; the operational filer is the sponsoring insurer (the depositor). Contract owners are not filers.
• Out of scope. Operating companies (which use S-series forms and Rule 462), foreign private issuers, and closed-end funds (Form N-2) never appear in this dataset.
• Amendments to amendments. Subsequent amendments to the same registration statement after a 485B24F effective date are filed as new 485-series submissions, not as amendments to the 485B24F itself.

How This Dataset Differs From Similar Datasets or Filings

Form 485B24F was a hybrid submission: a Rule 485(b) post-effective amendment fused with a Rule 24f-2 indefinite-share declaration, used by open-end funds and variable-product separate accounts until its retirement in January 1998. Its closest neighbors fall into three groups: the other 485-prefixed amendments (which differ along two axes, Rule 485(a) vs 485(b) and Rule 24e-2 vs 24f-2 vs none), the standalone 24f-2 and 497 filings that absorbed parts of its function, and the underlying N-series registration statements it amended.

485BPOS — post-effective amendment, Rule 485(b), immediate effectiveness

The direct modern successor. Both become effective on filing and are restricted to non-material updates (annual refreshes, financial statements, minor disclosure edits). The only structural difference: 485B24F bundled a Rule 24f-2 declaration of additional shares into the same accession; 485BPOS does not. Post-January-1998, what would have been a single 485B24F filing typically appears as a 485BPOS plus a separately filed 24F-2NT.

485APOS — post-effective amendment, Rule 485(b)'s 485(a) sibling, delayed effectiveness

Used when the amendment carries material changes (new strategies, fundamental policy changes, new fee structures, novel share classes) that require staff review and a 60- or 75-day delay. 485B24F could not host material changes because Rule 485(b) bars them. For tracking substantive fund change, look at 485APOS (and historically 485A24F); 485B24F filings are routine maintenance updates.

485A24F — the 485(a) twin of 485B24F

Identical bundling logic but on the delayed-effectiveness 485(a) track, retired in the same January 1998 cleanup. The split between 485A24F and 485B24F mirrors 485APOS vs 485BPOS: 485A24F carries material changes pending review, 485B24F carries non-material updates. Reconstructing a fund's full 1994-1997 amendment history with indefinite-share registration requires pulling both.

485A24E and 485B24E — Rule 24e-2 predecessors

Same 485(a)/485(b) structure, but the share-registration leg is anchored to Rule 24e-2 (the older share-registration mechanism) instead of Rule 24f-2. Form-body content (prospectus, SAI, financials, exhibits) is essentially the same; the legal citation and fee mechanics differ. The 24E variants were already being phased down during the 485B24F era. A fund's pre-1998 history can therefore migrate from 24E-suffixed to 24F-suffixed forms over time. (See 485A24E and 485B24E for the corresponding submission codes.)

24F-2 and 24F-2NT — standalone Rule 24f-2 notices

The post-1998 home of the 24f-2 declaration that 485B24F formerly carried inline. Filed annually within 90 days of fiscal year end, these are short tabular notices reporting net share sales and remitting registration fees in arrears. They are the complement to 485BPOS, not a substitute: 485BPOS carries the disclosure amendment, 24F-2NT carries the share-count and fee record. One pre-1998 485B24F accession typically maps to a (485BPOS + 24F-2NT) pair afterward.

497 — definitive prospectus deposits under Rule 497

Rule 497 filings deposit final, as-used prospectus or SAI text, including stickers and supplements. They are not amendments to the registration statement and do not register shares. Overlap with 485B24F is limited to prospectus text content; a 485B24F amendment is the underlying legal change, while a Form 497 is the corresponding delivery copy.

N-1A, N-3, N-4, N-6 (and S-6) — the underlying registration statements

These are the registrations that 485-series amendments operate on: N-1A for open-end mutual funds, N-3 for separate accounts organized as management investment companies offering variable annuities, N-4 for UIT-structured variable annuity separate accounts, N-6 for variable life separate accounts, and S-6 for older UITs. The relationship is hierarchical: the N- or S-form establishes the registration; 485B24F updates it. Researchers needing the baseline prospectus must consult the original N-/S-form; 485B24F shows only the amended state.

Key differences in practice

• Bundling: 485B24F = 485(b) amendment + 24f-2 declaration in one accession. 485BPOS, 485APOS, and standalone 24F-2/24F-2NT each carry only one of those functions.
• Materiality: 485B24F and 485BPOS are limited to non-material updates; 485APOS and 485A24F carry material changes requiring staff review.
• Rule basis for share registration: 24F-suffixed forms cite Rule 24f-2; 24E-suffixed forms cite the older Rule 24e-2.
• Fee timing: 485B24F paid registration fees at amendment time based on shares declared; under the post-1998 regime, fees are paid in arrears via 24F-2NT based on actual net sales.
• Filing cadence: 485B24F is event-driven (filed with each qualifying amendment); 24F-2NT is annual and fiscal-year-anchored; 497 is high-frequency and tied to delivery.

Boundary summary

The Form 485B24F Files Dataset is a closed historical corpus of a discontinued hybrid submission type. No single modern form reproduces it: the disclosure half lives on as 485BPOS, the share-registration half as 24F-2NT, and the two are no longer co-filed. 485A24F covers the material-change counterpart in the same era; 485A24E and 485B24E cover the earlier Rule 24e-2 regime. For research on routine, non-material post-effective amendment activity by indefinite-share-registering funds and separate accounts during the mid-1990s, 485B24F is the authoritative and non-substitutable source. (For the broader statutory anchor on declarations of effectiveness, see Section 8(a) of the Securities Act.)

Who Uses This Dataset

Because the 485B24F submission code is permanently retired, users are not chasing live signals; they are reconstructing legacy registration states and disclosure lineage for variable-product separate accounts that were filing during the 1994-1998 window.

Insurance carrier legal and compliance teams

In-house counsel and registration teams at life insurers retrieve the last pre-1998 posture of variable annuity and variable life separate accounts still in force. They pull filer name, CIK, and effective dates from the metadata file to confirm registration sequencing, and consult the prospectus, SAI, and fee tables in the document bodies as the operative disclosure for contracts in their tail years. The Rule 24f-2 declaration language is referenced when reconciling legacy share counts against current Form 24F-2 notices.

Securities lawyers and outside counsel

1940 Act and insurance-products counsel use the records to build chain-of-title documents for separate accounts during reorganizations, demutualization unwinds, or sales of closed blocks. They compare investment objectives and policies across successive amendments, lift signature rosters and undertakings to evidence officer and director authorizations, and use the final pre-retirement filing as the anchor point for regulatory-standing representations in M&A diligence.

Registration paralegals and SEC compliance officers

Paralegals managing long-lived separate accounts look up the pre-migration state of a registrant before EDGAR moved to Form 485BPOS and standalone Form 24F-2. They rely on the metadata file for accession number, CIK, and effective date, and on the body documents for fee tables, sales loads, and mortality and expense risk charges. This baseline supports current post-effective amendments and responses to staff comment letters that reference legacy disclosure.

Fund administrators and transfer agents

Administrators servicing mid-1990s variable contracts use the dataset to reconstruct share-registration history for accounts still on the books. They focus on the Rule 24f-2 declaration, fee tables governing charges at issue, and prospectus descriptions of sub-accounts and underlying funds to support policyholder inquiries, audit trails, and reconciliations during account mergers or fund substitutions.

Academic researchers in fund disclosure and regulation

Researchers studying variable-product disclosure, the evolution of Rule 24f-2, and EDGAR's mid-1990s transition treat the corpus as a bounded, fully enumerable population. They run textual analysis on prospectus and SAI bodies, cross-sectional studies on fee tables, and network analysis on signature blocks linking officers and directors across sponsoring insurers.

Policy analysts and financial historians

Analysts at trade associations and regulatory research groups examine investment objectives, fee structures, and standardized undertakings to study how variable-product disclosure converged before the 1998 reforms. Output supports retrospective policy work and historical reference material for rulemaking that touches separate accounts.

Data engineers building EDGAR archives

Engineers maintaining comprehensive EDGAR mirrors and compliance data lakes ingest the dataset to close lineage gaps for discontinued submission types. They index the metadata file on CIK, filer, accession, and date, store document bodies for full-text retrieval, and use the corpus to validate form-type taxonomies and document submission-type retirements in internal data dictionaries.

LLM and retrieval-system developers

Teams building retrieval systems over historical SEC content use the corpus as a self-contained slice of pre-1998 investment-company disclosure. It is small enough to embed exhaustively but specific enough to test coverage on variable-insurance language, Rule 24f-2 mechanics, and older EDGAR text-formatting conventions. Document bodies feed chunking and embedding pipelines; metadata supplies filter keys.

Specific Use Cases

The use cases below reflect the dataset's character as a closed, bounded archive of a discontinued hybrid submission type: legacy reconstruction, lineage research, archive completeness, and bounded-corpus content analysis.

Chain-of-title reconstruction for in-force separate accounts

Insurance-carrier counsel and outside 1940 Act lawyers assemble the pre-1998 amendment history of a variable annuity or variable life separate account that is still in run-off. The 1933 Act file number on each facing page, paired with the separate-account CIK in entities, anchors the registration chain across predecessor 485BPOS filings and successor 24F-2NT notices. Signature rosters and powers of attorney lifted from the document bodies evidence officer and director authorizations as of the last pre-retirement amendment.

M&A and closed-block diligence on legacy variable products

Diligence teams reviewing the sale, reinsurance, or demutualization of a closed block of mid-1990s variable contracts pull the final 485B24F in each registration chain to capture the operative pre-1998 prospectus, SAI, fee table, and mortality-and-expense charge schedule. The Rule 24f-2 declaration language is cross-referenced against current 24F-2NT notices to reconcile legacy share counts and identify gaps in the seller's disclosure record.

Reconciling Rule 24e-2 to Rule 24f-2 migration history

Researchers and registration paralegals tracing how a fund family migrated from Rule 24e-2 to Rule 24f-2 indefinite-share registration use the 485B24F corpus together with 485A24F, 485A24E, and 485B24E filings on EDGAR. The documentFormatFiles exhibit list and the registration-fee citations in the document body identify the precise amendment at which a registrant switched rule basis, supporting fee-history audits and white-paper work on the 1998 Rule 24f-2 overhaul.

EDGAR archive completeness and form-taxonomy validation

Data engineers maintaining EDGAR mirrors ingest the dataset to close coverage on a retired submission code that does not appear in modern crawls. The corpus forms a fully enumerable set against which form-type taxonomies, accession-number ranges, and pre-HTML SGML wrapper handling can be tested. The pre-stripped <DOCUMENT>/<TEXT> bodies and hoisted document-format metadata are used as fixtures for parsers that must round-trip 1990s EDGAR submissions.

Bounded-corpus retrieval and embedding fixtures for LLM systems

Teams building retrieval systems over historical SEC content use the corpus as a small, self-contained slice of pre-1998 investment-company disclosure. The fixed-width ASCII bodies, <PAGE> markers, and <TABLE>-wrapped fee tables exercise chunking and table-extraction pipelines on EDGAR-era formatting that modern HTML-trained extractors typically mishandle. Metadata fields (accessionNo, cik, filedAt, fileNo) supply filter keys for evaluation harnesses scoped to variable-insurance language and Rule 24f-2 mechanics.

Cross-sectional academic study of variable-product disclosure

Researchers studying the convergence of variable-annuity and variable-life disclosure before the 1998 reforms treat the corpus as a closed sample. Workflows include parsing fee tables and expense examples for cross-sectional comparison of mortality-and-expense and contract-maintenance charges, textual analysis of investment-objective and tax-treatment sections, and network analysis on signature blocks to map officer and director ties across sponsoring insurers.

Dataset Access

Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-485b24f-files.json

This endpoint returns dataset metadata including the name, description, last updated timestamp, earliest sample date (1994-09-01), total record count, total size, covered form types (485B24F), container format (ZIP), and contained file types (TXT, JSON). It also returns the full dataset download URL and the list of individual container files, each with its own size, record count, updated timestamp, and download URL. Polling this endpoint lets you detect which containers changed in the most recent refresh run and decide which ones to re-download. This endpoint does not require an API key.

Example response:

          1
          {
        

          2
            "datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6a27-81ac-e1c78533879c",
        

          3
            "datasetDownloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-485b24f-files.zip",
        

          4
            "name": "Form 485B24F Files Dataset",
        

          5
            "updatedAt": "2026-04-16T08:31:24.764Z",
        

          6
            "earliestSampleDate": "1994-09-01",
        

          7
            "totalRecords": 398,
        

          8
            "totalSize": 7378872,
        

          9
            "formTypes": ["485B24F"],
        

          10
            "containerFormat": "ZIP",
        

          11
            "fileTypes": ["TXT", "JSON"],
        

          12
            "containers": [
        

          13
              {
        

          14
                "downloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-485b24f-files/1997/1997-12.zip",
        

          15
                "key": "1997/1997-12.zip",
        

          16
                "size": 421530,
        

          17
                "records": 18,
        

          18
                "updatedAt": "2026-04-16T08:31:24.764Z"
        

          19
              }
        

          20
            ]
        

          21
          }
        

Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-485b24f-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Downloads the complete dataset as a single ZIP archive covering all Form 485B24F filings from September 1994 through the form's discontinuation in January 1998. Because the dataset is small, downloading the full archive in one request is practical for most workflows. This endpoint requires an API key.

Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-485b24f-files/1997/1997-12.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Downloads one monthly container file rather than the full dataset. Use the container key values returned by the dataset index JSON API to construct the URL for any specific month within the dataset's coverage range. This endpoint requires an API key.

Frequently Asked Questions

What form does this dataset cover?

The dataset covers EDGAR submission type 485B24F — a hybrid post-effective amendment that combined a Rule 485(b) immediate-effectiveness declaration under the Securities Act of 1933 with a Rule 24f-2 indefinite-share registration under the Investment Company Act of 1940. The submission code was retired in January 1998 when the SEC restructured Rule 24f-2 and split its functions across 485BPOS and the standalone Form 24F-2 notice.

What does one record in this dataset represent?

One record is one EDGAR submission of form type 485B24F, materialised on disk as an accession-level folder named with the 18-digit zero-padded accession number. Each folder holds one metadata.json describing the submission and one or more sequence-numbered document-N.txt files carrying the plain-text body of each non-image document in the original submission.

Who is required to file Form 485B24F?

Filers are insurance company separate accounts registered as management investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940 — primarily variable annuity and, to a lesser extent, variable life separate accounts. The separate account is the named registrant; the sponsoring life insurance company (the depositor) operates the account and signs the filing. Contract owners are investors, not filers, and operating companies, foreign private issuers, and closed-end funds do not appear in this dataset.

What time period does the dataset cover?

The dataset covers September 1994 through January 1998 — a closed historical window. The start date reflects early mandatory EDGAR adoption for investment company filers, and the end date reflects the 1998 amendments to Rule 24f-2 that retired the combined 485B24F submission code.

How does this dataset differ from 485BPOS and 24F-2NT?

A pre-1998 485B24F filing carried both a Rule 485(b) post-effective amendment and a Rule 24f-2 indefinite-share declaration in a single accession. After January 1998, the disclosure half migrated to 485BPOS and the share-registration half migrated to the annual 24F-2NT notice; the two are no longer co-filed. One historical 485B24F accession therefore typically maps to a 485BPOS + 24F-2NT pair under the modern regime.

What file format is the dataset distributed in?

The dataset is distributed as ZIP container files, organized by month, holding metadata.json (a single JSON object per filing) and one or more document-N.txt files (plain ASCII bodies in EDGAR's pre-HTML fixed-width column layout, with <PAGE> and <TABLE> markers preserved). No HTML or XBRL artefacts appear, because HTML rendering of EDGAR submissions post-dates the retirement of Form 485B24F.

Why are some 485B24F filings extremely short?

Two filing patterns coexist in the corpus. A "full" amendment physically restates the prospectus (Part A) and SAI (Part B) with refreshed fee tables, expense examples, condensed financial information, and signature pages. A "compact" amendment is much briefer: a facing page, an incorporation-by-reference recital, the Rule 24f-2 indefinite-share declaration, the required undertakings, and signatures — leaving the prospectus and SAI text in the predecessor filing chain. Reconstructing a complete prospectus as updated by a compact 485B24F generally requires retrieving the predecessor registration statement and prior amendments.