Form N-4 Files Dataset

The Form N-4 Files dataset is the machine-readable corpus of every Form N-4 and Form N-4/A filing submitted to EDGAR — the dual-Act registration statements that U.S. life insurance companies file to register variable annuity contracts issued through separate accounts organized as unit investment trusts (UITs). One record corresponds to one EDGAR accession: a single registration event for one separate account and the variable annuity contracts it funds, materialized as a per-accession folder containing a metadata.json filing manifest plus every textual document from the original EDGAR submission. The dataset spans the full EDGAR era for this form, from June 1994 through the present, and captures both initial registrations (N-4) and the amendments (N-4/A) that update them — annual financial-statement refreshes, new riders and contract forms, Section 26(c) underlying-fund substitutions, and pre-effective amendments responding to staff comments. Containers are distributed in ZIP format with TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF payloads inside.

Dataset APIs

Dataset Files

What This Dataset Contains

The dataset packages the EDGAR submissions filed on Form N-4 and Form N-4/A — the dedicated dual-Act registration statement for variable annuity contracts issued through insurance-company separate accounts that are organized and operated as unit investment trusts. A single Form N-4 simultaneously serves two registration purposes: it registers the variable annuity contract as a security under the Securities Act of 1933, and it registers the separate account as an investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Form N-4 was adopted by the SEC in 1985 (Investment Company Act Release No. 14575) as the dedicated registration form for UIT-type variable annuity separate accounts, replacing prior use of Form N-8B-2 and Form S-6.

Coverage is the full filer population for this form: U.S. life insurance companies (and their U.S. life insurance subsidiaries) that issue variable annuity contracts through registered separate accounts, plus the separate accounts themselves as co-registrants. Pre-EDGAR filings were on paper and are outside the dataset; the earliest machine-readable records start in June 1994, consistent with the EDGAR phase-in for investment company registrants. Both N-4 and N-4/A form types are included, and containers are distributed as monthly ZIPs with TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF file types inside.

Content Structure of a Single Record

What one record represents

A single record in the Form N-4 Files dataset corresponds to one EDGAR submission filed on Form N-4 or Form N-4/A — that is, one accession number assigned by EDGAR when an insurance-company separate account organized as a unit investment trust submits a registration statement, or a pre-effective or post-effective amendment to one, for variable annuity contracts. Each record is materialized as a per-accession folder whose name is the 18-digit zero-padded accession number (no dashes). The folder contains a metadata.json filing manifest plus every textual document from the original EDGAR submission, with each <DOCUMENT> block from the source SGML wrapper extracted into its own .htm file. Image attachments referenced by the filing (chart graphics, index logos, scanned signatures, fund logos) and the consolidated .txt complete-submission bundle that EDGAR builds around the sub-documents are intentionally not unpacked into the folder; they remain enumerated in metadata.json and retrievable from EDGAR via their documentUrl.

What the underlying filing is

Form N-4 is a dual-Act registration statement used by insurance-company separate accounts that are organized as unit investment trusts (UITs) and that issue variable annuity contracts. A single Form N-4 simultaneously registers the variable annuity contract as a security under the Securities Act of 1933 and the separate account as an investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Because of this duality, every N-4 cover page carries two file numbers — a 333- Securities Act file number identifying the contract registration, and an 811- Investment Company Act file number identifying the separate account — and every cover page reproduces two parallel amendment-counter boxes, one for each Act. The two counters move independently: the 1933 Act amendment number resets per registration statement, while the 1940 Act amendment number is a cumulative running counter for the separate account that frequently runs into the hundreds for long-lived accounts.

Form N-4/A is the amendment counterpart used for both pre-effective and post-effective amendments. Most post-effective amendments are filed under Rule 485, which provides two distinct effectiveness pathways:

• Rule 485(a) — used when the amendment introduces material changes (new benefits, new contract forms, materially altered fee structures, or other changes that warrant Commission review). 485(a) amendments carry a delayed effective date, defaulting to 60 days after filing (75 days for filings that include a new series) unless the registrant designates a different date permitted by the rule.
• Rule 485(b) — the routine-update pathway, used for annual financial-statement updates, immaterial clarifications, and other changes within the rule's enumerated categories. 485(b) amendments become effective automatically on the date designated by the registrant, generally the date the amendment is filed or shortly thereafter.

The amendment posture (485(a) vs. 485(b), pre-effective vs. post-effective) is encoded on the cover page in the check-box rows beside the 1933 Act and 1940 Act amendment counters and is the principal driver of which exhibits a given N-4/A carries.

Because the separate account is a pass-through legal vehicle that holds investor premiums and allocates them among underlying mutual-fund subaccounts, the prospectus must describe two distinct enterprises: the separate account itself and the depositor insurance company that funds and administers the contract. Each Form N-4 typically registers one or more named contract forms (for example a "Select Income" variable annuity), which in EDGAR's series and classes taxonomy surface as one or more series IDs (S00…) each with one or more class-contract IDs (C00…).

Record container layout

Each accession folder follows a consistent shape. At the root sits metadata.json, the filing-level manifest. Alongside it are the textual filing documents, one .htm file per <DOCUMENT> element from the original EDGAR SGML submission. Each such .htm file preserves the original SGML wrapper: the file begins with header tags — <DOCUMENT>, <TYPE>, <SEQUENCE>, <FILENAME>, <DESCRIPTION>, <TEXT> — before the <html> body opens and closes with matching </TEXT></DOCUMENT> markers at the end. This means the EDGAR document type, sequence number, original EDGAR filename, and human-readable description are directly recoverable from each file body without consulting the manifest. Pipelines that hand the file to an HTML parser must either tolerate the SGML preamble or strip it first.

The file types found in the dataset are TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF; in modern N-4 records the body is almost entirely .htm documents plus the metadata.json, with PDF appearing occasionally for scanned contract forms, application forms, and signed certifications.

Two structurally distinct filing shapes share the N-4 form type and both occur in the dataset, frequently inside the same monthly container:

1. Heavyweight registration packages. A full N-4 or N-4/A consists of one large primary HTML document carrying the entire prospectus body (commonly 1–5 MB and occasionally larger), plus a sequence of EX-99.27* exhibits as separate .htm files. These are the substantive registration filings.
2. Lightweight class-code request letters. Short administrative N-4 submissions — typically a 2–3 KB single-document letter — used to establish a registration statement under a newly assigned CIK or to request that EDGAR assign a class-contract identifier to a new contract form. These accessions contain only metadata.json plus one short HTML letter (filenames in the form *_33actxclasscodereqltr.htm). Their HTML payload is largely boilerplate, but their seriesAndClassesContractsInformation carries the meaningful structured content — the new S00…/C00… IDs being established.

Distinguishing the two shapes in bulk requires inspecting documentFormatFiles (document count, primary-document size, exhibit types) rather than relying on form type alone.

metadata.json — the filing manifest

metadata.json is a flat JSON object capturing filing-level metadata for the accession. Its principal fields:

• formType — "N-4" or "N-4/A".
• accessionNo — the dashed accession number (e.g. "0000072499-25-000066").
• filedAt — ISO 8601 timestamp with timezone for the EDGAR acceptance time.
• description — human-readable form description.
• linkToFilingDetails, linkToTxt, linkToHtml, linkToXbrl — canonical EDGAR URLs for the primary document, the full-submission text (SGML), the filing-index page, and (when present) the XBRL instance.
• dataFiles — array of structured data files associated with the submission; populated for filings that include Inline XBRL prospectus tagging and otherwise empty.
• id — internal 32-character hex identifier for the dataset record.
• documentFormatFiles — an ordered array describing every document in the original EDGAR submission. Each entry carries sequence, size (bytes, as a string), documentUrl, optional description, and an EDGAR document type such as "N-4", "EX-99.27D2", "EX-99.27O", "EX-99.27P", or "GRAPHIC". This list is the authoritative inventory of what the filer submitted, including images and the full-submission .txt that the dataset references but does not unpack.
• entities — array of filer/registrant entity objects with cik, companyName, fileNo, irsNo, sic, stateOfIncorporation, fiscalYearEnd, act, type, and filmNo. N-4 filings commonly carry two or more entity rows because the separate account and the depositor insurance company are both registrants on the cover.
• seriesAndClassesContractsInformation — the variable-product taxonomy: each series ID is paired with the registrant name and a classesContracts[] list, where each contract carries a name and a classContract ID. A single accession may register one contract under one series, multiple contracts under a single series, or — on consolidated amendments — touch multiple series. This object is the canonical join key for tracking a specific contract across its initial registration and subsequent amendments, including amendments filed by sister insurers (typically a New York–domiciled affiliate registering a parallel contract under a different CIK).

The primary N-4 document — internal structure

The primary document (sequence 1, type N-4 or N-4/A) carries the full registration statement and its associated prospectus. Its layout follows the standard Form N-4 template.

Cover page. The opening of the primary document is the EDGAR cover page, which reproduces the dual-Act registration boxes. One box registers the contract under the Securities Act of 1933 with check-box rows for "Pre-Effective Amendment No." and "Post-Effective Amendment No."; a parallel box registers the separate account under the Investment Company Act of 1940 with a row for "Amendment No." The cover identifies the separate account as the registrant (e.g. a depositor's "Variable Account B"), names the depositor insurance company as the issuer of the contracts, and provides the principal-office address and phone number plus an agent for service of process. The cover-page banner also reproduces the dual file numbers in the form 333-______; 811-______.

Part A — the prospectus. The bulk of the primary document is Part A, the prospectus delivered to contract owners. Required content under Form N-4's instructions includes: an "Overview of the Contract" and a "Key Information Table" near the front of the document (these standardized sections are products of the 2020 modernization, discussed below); the fee table summarizing transaction expenses, periodic charges deducted from the separate account, and underlying-portfolio operating expenses, accompanied by an example illustrating cumulative costs over 1, 3, 5, and 10 years; descriptions of the separate account and the depositor; the variable annuity contract's purchase, accumulation, surrender, and annuitization mechanics; each optional benefit (death benefits, guaranteed living benefits such as GMIB, GMWB, and GMAB, performance-lock features, and income riders); the underlying portfolio options that serve as subaccount investments; charges and expenses; federal tax considerations; voting rights, distributions, and contract administration; and risks specific to variable annuities, the separate account, and each optional benefit.

Part B — the Statement of Additional Information (SAI). Form N-4 requires a Statement of Additional Information as Part B, providing more detailed disclosure than Part A: information about the depositor and separate account, principal underwriters, services and service providers, brokerage allocation, purchases and pricing of contracts, additional tax information, and the financial statements of the separate account and the depositor insurance company. Whether Part B is bound into the same primary document or filed as a discrete exhibit varies by registrant; in modern practice the prospectus body and the financial statements typically coexist within the single large primary HTML.

Part C — Other Information. Part C lists undertakings, the schedule of exhibits required by Item 27, the directors and officers of the depositor, persons controlled by or under common control with the depositor, indemnification, business and other connections of the principal underwriter, the location of accounts and records, management services, and the form's signatures (separate account, depositor, and individual signatories acting under the powers of attorney filed as EX-99.27P).

Item 27 exhibits (the EX-99.27 series)

Form N-4 enumerates required exhibits in Item 27 of Part C, and the dataset's exhibit naming mirrors that schedule exactly: each exhibit document is named ex27<letter><digits>.htm and tagged in documentFormatFiles[].type as EX-99.27<letter><digits>. The Item 27 letter codes correspond to the following content slots, which together cover the corporate, contractual, legal-opinion, and disclosure-overlay materials required by the form:

• EX-99.27A — board resolutions authorizing the contract and separate account.
• EX-99.27B — custodian agreements (where applicable to the separate account).
• EX-99.27C — principal underwriting agreements.
• EX-99.27D — the contract forms themselves: the variable annuity contract, contract schedules, riders, and endorsements. Sub-numbered variants (EX-99.27D2, EX-99.27D11, EX-99.27D16, EX-99.27D17, etc.) correspond to distinct contract schedules and feature riders such as performance-lock riders, income-benefit riders, and rider-specific contract schedules — each filed as its own document.
• EX-99.27E — the application form for the variable annuity contract (e.g. EX-99.27E1).
• EX-99.27F — depositor administrative or service contracts.
• EX-99.27G — reinsurance contracts.
• EX-99.27H — participation agreements with the underlying funds whose portfolios serve as subaccount investments.
• EX-99.27I — administrative services agreements.
• EX-99.27J — other material contracts.
• EX-99.27K — opinion and consent of counsel as to the legality of the securities being registered.
• EX-99.27L — actuarial opinion and consent.
• EX-99.27M — independent registered public accounting firm consent.
• EX-99.27N — financial-statement schedules and other financial data not embedded in Part B.
• EX-99.27O — the Initial Summary Prospectus for new investors, the layered-disclosure exhibit introduced under Rule 498A (see below).
• EX-99.27P — powers of attorney authorizing named attorneys-in-fact to sign EDGAR filings on behalf of each director and officer of the depositor; the document lists each principal and the corresponding attorneys-in-fact.
• EX-99.27Q — additional certifications, letters from the independent accountants regarding unaudited interim financials, and other miscellaneous exhibits.

The Updating Summary Prospectus required for existing contract owners under Rule 498A is filed as an additional EX-99.27 exhibit alongside the Initial Summary Prospectus when the registrant is operating under the layered-disclosure regime.

A given accession rarely carries every Item 27 letter. On amendments, filers commonly include only the exhibits that have changed since the last amendment and rely on incorporation by reference under Rule 411 for the rest, with a textual incorporation reference appearing in the relevant exhibit slot rather than the full document. Reconstructing the complete exhibit corpus for a contract therefore typically requires walking the chain of amendments under the same 333- Securities Act file number.

Series and class-contracts information

Variable products are tracked in EDGAR through the series-and-classes layer, and N-4 records expose this directly via seriesAndClassesContractsInformation. Each series (S00…) corresponds to a distinct contract family registered by the depositor; each class-contract (C00…) corresponds to a specific marketed contract form within that family, often differing by sales-charge structure, distribution channel, or feature set. The same series identifier persists across the initial registration and every subsequent amendment, which makes it the reliable key for assembling a contract's full disclosure history. Class-code request letters use this same field to list the new class-contract IDs being established, which is why the short administrative N-4 letters carry meaningful structured metadata even when their HTML payload is only a few kilobytes.

What the dataset record includes

Each record includes the parsed metadata.json manifest, the primary N-4 or N-4/A registration-statement document with its full prospectus and any bound-in SAI and Part C content, every textual exhibit (EX-99.27* and any other typed exhibits or cover letters), and the original SGML <DOCUMENT> wrapper around each file so that document type, sequence, EDGAR filename, and description remain machine-recoverable directly from each file body.

What is excluded or structurally separate

Image attachments — the entries in documentFormatFiles whose type is "GRAPHIC", with extensions such as .jpg, .png, and .gif — are intentionally not extracted into the per-accession folder. They are still enumerated in metadata.json and remain retrievable from EDGAR via documentUrl, but the dataset does not duplicate the binary payloads. As a consequence, charts, performance graphics, and index logos render as broken-image placeholders if the HTML is opened in a browser; the textual narrative remains complete and only the embedded graphical content is unavailable. The consolidated .txt complete-submission bundle (the SGML container EDGAR builds around all sub-documents) is similarly referenced via linkToTxt but not redundantly unpacked, since the dataset already provides each <DOCUMENT> as a standalone .htm file. Exhibits incorporated by reference under Rule 411 carry only the textual incorporation reference inside the relevant exhibit slot, with the underlying document residing in the historically referenced accession.

Evolution of required content and structure

Form N-4 has undergone several substantive content reorganizations since its adoption that are visible across the dataset:

• Adoption and early structure (1985 onward). Form N-4 was adopted in 1985 to consolidate variable-annuity registration into a dedicated dual-Act form. Early filings follow the Part A / Part B / Part C structure with narrative-heavy disclosure and limited tabular standardization.
• Fee-table and risk-disclosure standardization (late 1990s through 2000s). Successive amendments to Form N-4 standardized the fee table, the cost example, and the description of contract charges, and progressively required more explicit disclosure of optional benefits (death benefits, GMIB, GMWB, GMAB) as those features proliferated in the variable-annuity market.
• 2020 Variable Contract Summary Prospectus modernization (Rule 498A). In March 2020 the SEC adopted Rule 498A under the Securities Act and corresponding amendments to Form N-4, creating a layered disclosure regime specifically for variable annuity and variable life contracts. Under this regime a registrant may satisfy its prospectus-delivery obligation by sending an Initial Summary Prospectus to new investors and an Updating Summary Prospectus to existing contract owners on an annual basis, with the full statutory prospectus made available online and in paper on request. The form itself was reorganized to require, among other items, a Key Information Table at the front of the statutory prospectus, an Overview of the Contract section, and standardized headings for benefits, principal risks, fees and expenses, taxes, and other contract features. Filings made under Rule 498A introduce the EX-99.27O Initial Summary Prospectus exhibit and the parallel Updating Summary Prospectus exhibit into the Item 27 schedule. Compliance with the rule was voluntary from July 2020 and became mandatory beginning July 1, 2022; post-effective amendments filed under Rule 485 progressively migrated existing contracts onto the modernized format.
• Inline XBRL prospectus tagging. The 2020 modernization also imposed Inline XBRL tagging requirements on specified prospectus disclosures, including the Key Information Table, the fee table, and the principal-risk and similar standardized items. The tagging compliance date for variable-contract registrants was aligned with the Rule 498A mandatory-compliance date of July 2022. Filings made under the new rules carry Inline XBRL tags embedded in the primary HTML and corresponding entries in dataFiles/linkToXbrl; filings predating the compliance date and amendments outside the tagged-disclosure scope do not.

Evolution of file format

Records span the full EDGAR era for Form N-4, from the earliest filings in the mid-1990s to the present:

• Early EDGAR plain-text era (mid-1990s). Initial N-4 filings were submitted as ASCII text within an SGML <DOCUMENT> wrapper. The prospectus body, exhibits, and signatures appeared as long plain-text blocks with minimal tabular structure; fee tables were rendered with whitespace alignment.
• HTML era (late 1990s onward). EDGAR's adoption of HTML as a permitted submission format moved N-4 filings to HTML payloads inside the same SGML wrapper, enabling true tables, intra-document hyperlinks, and embedded images (referenced as separate GRAPHIC documents). The dataset's per-document .htm files reflect this format for the vast majority of historical records.
• PDF. PDF appears occasionally as an exhibit format for scanned contract forms, application forms, and signed certifications, and is preserved when present.
• Modern HTML with Inline XBRL embedding (2022 onward). Primary documents in modern filings are typically generated by document-automation tools such as Broadridge PROfile or Workiva (Wdesk) — visible in HTML comments at the top of each document — and increasingly carry Inline XBRL tags around the disclosures specified by the 2020 amendments. The linkToXbrl field and dataFiles array become populated for these filings; for older or out-of-scope filings they remain empty.

Interpretation notes

• Two filing shapes share the N-4 form type. Substantive registration packages and short class-code-establishment letters both arrive as N-4 (or N-4/A) accessions and must be distinguished by inspecting documentFormatFiles rather than by form type.
• Two registrants per filing is normal. The cover identifies both the separate account and the depositor insurance company, and entities reflects this. Depositor-level disclosure (financial statements, directors and officers, business connections) and separate-account-level disclosure (UIT mechanics, accumulation units, voting pass-through) are distinct and both required.
• Two amendment counters move independently. The 1933 Act post-effective amendment counter and the 1940 Act amendment counter advance on different schedules; reading either alone is insufficient to locate a filing in the registration history.
• 485(a) versus 485(b) drives exhibit composition. A 485(b) annual update typically refreshes financial statements, accountant consents, and the Key Information Table while incorporating most other exhibits by reference; a 485(a) material-change amendment more often reissues contract-form exhibits (EX-99.27D*), summary prospectuses, and legal opinions.
• Series/class identifiers are the contract-level join key. Tracking a specific contract across initial registration, amendments, and parallel filings by sister insurers relies on the S00… series ID and C00… class-contract ID, not on accession numbers or CIKs alone.
• Item 27 exhibit slots are sparsely populated per accession. Reconstructing a contract's full exhibit corpus typically requires walking the chain of amendments under the same 333- file number and resolving Rule 411 incorporation-by-reference pointers.
• Financial statements usually live inside the primary document. The separate-account and depositor financial statements that satisfy the Part B / Item 23 requirements typically appear within the large primary HTML; the EX-99.27N and EX-99.27Q slots may carry supplementary financial schedules and accountant letters.
• SGML wrappers are preserved on every file. Each .htm opens with <DOCUMENT>, <TYPE>, <SEQUENCE>, <FILENAME>, <DESCRIPTION>, and <TEXT> headers and closes with </TEXT></DOCUMENT> after the HTML body. Extraction pipelines should either parse these as SGML preambles or strip them before invoking an HTML parser.
• Image stripping affects rendering fidelity, not text completeness. Charts, index logos, and performance graphics show as broken-image placeholders when the HTML is rendered in a browser, but the prospectus narrative, fee tables, and exhibit text are fully intact in the dataset payload.

Who Files or Publishes This Dataset, and When

Who files

Form N-4 is a joint registration statement filed by two co-registrants:

• The separate account, which is the registered investment company. For variable annuity products covered by Form N-4, the separate account is a UIT under Section 4(2) of the Investment Company Act. It is a segregated pool of assets established under state insurance law, insulated from the insurer's general account, and used to fund variable annuity benefits.
• The depositor, which is the life insurance company that establishes and maintains the separate account, issues the variable annuity contracts, and sponsors the UIT. The depositor signs the registration statement, prepares the disclosures, and is the operative legal filer; the separate account has no separate management or board of its own.

Both names typically appear on the EDGAR cover, often with the depositor as the larger reporting entity and the separate account as the registrant on whose behalf the filing is made.

The filer population is narrow: U.S. life insurance companies (and their U.S. life insurance subsidiaries) that issue variable annuity contracts through registered separate accounts. Property-casualty insurers, health insurers, and life insurers that issue only fixed annuities do not file Form N-4. Foreign insurers generally do not file because U.S.-sold variable annuities are issued by U.S.-domiciled or U.S.-licensed life insurers.

Form N-4 is not used by:

• Variable life insurance separate accounts (use Form N-6).
• Variable annuity separate accounts organized as management investment company rather than UITs (use Form N-3).
• Open-end mutual funds, including the underlying funds whose shares the N-4 subaccounts hold (use Form N-1A).
• Closed-end funds (N-2), BDCs, ETPs, or face-amount certificate companies.

What triggers a filing

Form N-4 filings are event-driven against a periodic update backbone:

• Initial registration (Form N-4). Filed when launching a new separate account or a new variable annuity contract series funded through an existing separate account. The filing simultaneously registers the variable annuity contracts as securities under the Securities Act of 1933 and the separate account as an investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940.
• Pre-effective amendment (Form N-4/A). Filed before the initial registration is declared effective, typically in response to staff comments from the Division of Investment Management. Effectiveness is governed by Section 8(a) of the Securities Act, under which the registration becomes effective on the 20th day after the latest amendment unless the SEC orders delay or the registrant requests acceleration under Section 8(a). For investment company filings, registrants commonly file successive pre-effective amendments and then request acceleration so the staff can declare the registration effective on a coordinated date.
• Post-effective amendment (Form N-4/A). Filed to update an already effective registration. Common triggers:
  • Annual update to refresh audited financial statements of the separate account and the depositor, and to update the fee table and other time-sensitive disclosures.
  • New riders or features, such as guaranteed minimum income, withdrawal, accumulation, or death benefit riders; new contract classes; new optional benefits; or new subaccount investment options.
  • Material changes to existing contract terms, surrender charge schedules, mortality and expense risk charges, or administrative fees.
  • Section 26(c) of the Investment Company Act substitutions, when an underlying fund held by a subaccount is replaced. Section 26(c) of the Investment Company Act prohibits a UIT depositor from substituting one underlying security for another without prior SEC approval; the approved substitution is reflected in a corresponding amendment to the contract prospectus.
  • Sticker supplements for interim material changes between annual updates, filed under Rule 497.
  • Restatements to consolidate prior amendments or add new contract forms.

N-4 vs. N-4/A in practice

The N-4 form type is used only for the initial registration statement establishing the registration. Every subsequent submission to that registration — whether a pre-effective amendment responding to staff comments, an annual update with refreshed financials, an addition of a new rider, or a Section 26(c) substitution amendment — is filed as N-4/A. The N-4/A cover page and EDGAR header indicate the governing rule (Rule 472 for pre-effective, Rule 485(a) or 485(b) for post-effective), and after the initial effective date essentially all updating activity for a registration is N-4/A traffic.

Effectiveness mechanics for post-effective amendments

Rule 485 under the Securities Act governs when post-effective amendments to Form N-4 become effective. Rule 485(a) filings become effective on a delayed basis — 60 days after filing under Rule 485(a)(1), or 75 days under Rule 485(a)(2) for amendments adding a new series — and are required when the amendment contains material changes outside the scope of Rule 485(b), giving the staff time to review. Rule 485(b) filings become effective immediately on filing (or on a later date designated by the registrant, up to 30 days out) and are limited to specified categories of non-material updates — chiefly the annual update to bring financial statements current, conforming changes required by SEC rules, and other narrowly defined items. Annual financial-statement-only updates are the prototypical Rule 485(b) filing. The cover page of an N-4/A identifies the paragraph of Rule 485 under which the registrant is filing.

Prospectus delivery and Rule 498A

Rule 498A under the Securities Act, adopted in 2020, established the variable contract summary prospectus regime for variable annuities and variable life. It permits a depositor to satisfy statutory prospectus delivery for a variable contract by delivering an Initial Summary Prospectus to new investors and an Updating Summary Prospectus annually to existing contract owners, provided the full statutory prospectus, SAI, and underlying fund prospectuses are posted online and delivered on request. Rule 498A is a delivery option, not a separate registration form: the underlying registration is still on Form N-4, and adoption of the rule drove a wave of Form N-4 post-effective amendments restructuring contract disclosures to fit the summary prospectus framework. Definitive prospectuses, summary prospectuses, and stickers are filed on EDGAR under Rule 497.

Timing in practice

• Initial N-4: filed at the depositor's discretion when launching a product; effectiveness driven by staff review and Section 8(a) of the Securities Act.
• Annual update N-4/A: filed in time for the updated registration to be effective within roughly four months after the separate account's fiscal year end, with materially changed amendments filed under Rule 485(a) (60- or 75-day delay) and pure financial-statement updates filed under Rule 485(b).
• Interim material change: handled either by a sticker supplement filed under Rule 497 or by a Rule 485(a) post-effective amendment, depending on the magnitude of the change.
• Pre-effective N-4/A: filed during the initial review window in response to staff comments.

Important distinctions

• Filer vs. audience. The depositor (and, nominally, the separate account) is the filer. Contract owners are the disclosure audience, never filers.
• N-4 vs. N-6 vs. N-3. N-4 covers variable annuities funded by a UIT separate account; N-6 covers variable life; N-3 covers variable annuities funded by a separate account organized as a management investment company. The choice of separate-account structure (UIT or management company) at formation determines the form.
• N-4 vs. N-1A. The mutual funds underlying the subaccounts file their own N-1A registration statements. Those filings are separate from the N-4, even though their prospectuses travel with the variable annuity prospectus at point of sale.
• One registration, multiple contracts. A single Form N-4 can register multiple contract forms sold through the same separate account, so the count of insurer filers is meaningfully smaller than the count of contracts described in the filings.
• Fixed account components. Many variable annuities include a fixed account option backed by the insurer's general account. The general account interest is typically not a registered security; Form N-4 covers the variable component and disclosures about the fixed component as relevant.
• Exempt group contracts. Certain group variable annuity contracts that qualify for Securities Act exemptions (for example, some qualified plan contracts) are not registered on Form N-4 at all.

Earliest records

Pre-EDGAR filings were on paper and are outside this dataset. The earliest machine-readable records here are from June 1994, consistent with the EDGAR phase-in for investment company registrants, and the dataset runs through the present.

How This Dataset Differs From Similar Datasets or Filings

Form N-4 sits in a tight cluster of SEC forms covering variable insurance products and the funds that support them. The most useful comparisons are the other N-series forms, the Rule 485 amendment vehicles that actually carry most ongoing N-4 updates through EDGAR, the Rule 498A summary prospectus layer, and a few adjacent registration and reporting forms.

Form N-3 — variable annuities through managed separate accounts

The closest structural sibling. Both are dual 1933 Act / 1940 Act registration statements for variable annuity contracts filed by insurance separate accounts. The difference is the legal form of the separate account: N-3 is used when the account is a management investment company investing directly in portfolio securities; N-4 is used when the account is a unit investment trust investing in shares of underlying mutual funds. N-3 disclosure therefore looks fund-like (investment policies, board, adviser); N-4 disclosure focuses on contract mechanics plus a directory of underlying funds. N-3 filings are rare in practice — the UIT structure dominates the variable annuity market.

Form N-6 — variable life insurance through separate accounts

The variable-life analogue of N-4. Same filer population (life insurers and their separate accounts), same dual-act registration, similar prospectus architecture. The product differs: variable life provides a death benefit and cash value; variable annuities provide accumulation and payout. The disclosure footprint differs accordingly — N-6 emphasizes cost of insurance, death benefit options, lapse provisions, and life-policy surrender mechanics; N-4 emphasizes annuitization options, living-benefit riders (GLWB, GMIB, GMAB), and accumulation-phase mechanics. Complementary, not substitutable.

Form N-1A — open-end mutual funds (the underlying portfolios)

Registers the open-end funds that sit inside an N-4 contract as investment options. N-4 references the available N-1A funds; the N-1A filings carry the fund-level disclosure (objectives, strategies, holdings posture, fund-level fees). N-4 does not disclose underlying portfolio strategy in depth; N-1A does not disclose contract charges, annuity benefits, or M&E risk. They describe two layers of one product and must be read together.

Form N-2 — closed-end funds

Same N-series family, but closed-end funds are not standard funding vehicles for variable annuity separate accounts and N-2 carries no insurance contract disclosure. Listed only as a boundary marker; N-4 researchers rarely cross-reference it.

Forms N-CSR and N-CEN — periodic operational reports

Different regime entirely. Form N-CSR (certified shareholder reports with audited financials) and Form N-CEN (annual census-style operational data) are periodic backward-looking reports filed by registered investment companies — primarily the underlying funds and, where applicable, the separate account or depositor. N-4 is a forward-looking registration document updated by post-effective amendment. Financial statements are the only meaningful content overlap; fee tables, benefit terms, and risk disclosure live only in N-4.

Form S-1 — general 1933 Act registration

The catch-all Securities Act form. Variable annuities issued through registered separate accounts are required to use the specialized N-series because they are simultaneously 1940 Act investment company securities. Form S-1 has no separate-account disclosure architecture and is effectively never used for these products. Included only to explain why the N-series exists.

Forms 485APOS and 485BPOS — the post-effective amendment cover types

The most practically important distinction for EDGAR work. Most ongoing N-4 updates do not arrive under the form-type code "N-4/A." They arrive under Rule 485 cover types: 485APOS (post-effective amendment under Rule 485(a), subject to staff review with a delayed effective date — used for material changes such as new benefit riders, fee changes, or fund menu restructurings) and 485BPOS (post-effective amendment under Rule 485(b), effective immediately or on a designated date — used for annual updates and non-material changes). The substantive prospectus and exhibits inside are N-4 content; the 485 form type is just the procedural cover. A dataset filtered strictly on N-4 and N-4/A captures initial registrations and direct amendments but misses the bulk of the post-effective amendment lifecycle. To track a contract's full disclosure history, pair this dataset with 485APOS/485BPOS filings keyed to the same registrant and CIK.

Initial and Updating Summary Prospectuses (Rule 498A)

Rule 498A established a layered disclosure regime for variable contracts: an Initial Summary Prospectus (ISP) for new investors and an Updating Summary Prospectus (USP) for existing contract owners, with the full statutory prospectus available online. These are not separate form types — they are filed as exhibits inside the N-4 (or N-6) registration framework and live alongside the full prospectus in the same filings. They differ from the full N-4 prospectus in length, structure, and audience: prescribed key-information tables, important-questions sections, and concise benefit/risk summaries built for retail delivery. The full prospectus remains the authoritative document.

Form 24F-2 — annual notice of securities sold

A fee-and-volume notice, not a disclosure document. UIT separate accounts register an indefinite amount of securities under Rule 24f-2 and file Form 24F-2 annually to declare units sold and remit the registration fee. Operationally linked to N-4 (the same registrants file both) but informationally orthogonal: N-4 describes and registers the product; 24F-2 reports volume and pays the fee.

Boundary summary

Form N-4 is the registration-statement record for one specific product-and-structure pairing: variable annuity contracts issued through UIT-organized insurance separate accounts. It is not fund-level disclosure (N-1A), not variable life (N-6), not managed-separate-account variable annuities (N-3), not periodic operational reporting (N-CSR / N-CEN), and not a fee remittance (24F-2). The most important practical caveat is procedural: ongoing updates to N-4 registrations flow predominantly through 485APOS and 485BPOS cover types rather than the literal "N-4/A" form code, so a complete lifecycle view of any contract's disclosure requires pairing this dataset with the corresponding Rule 485 filings.

Who Uses This Dataset

Form N-4 filings combine variable annuity prospectus content, fee tables, rider mechanics, separate account financials, and a full exhibit set in one record. The professions below each work on a specific layer.

Variable annuity product actuaries

Pricing and product development actuaries at life insurers use peer N-4s to benchmark separate account economics. They pull M&E risk charges, administrative and distribution charges, contract maintenance fees, contingent deferred sales charge schedules, and the mechanics of GLWB, GMAB, GMWB, GMIB, and hybrid riders: roll-up rates, ratchet and step-up logic, withdrawal percentages by attainment age, spousal continuation, investment-allocation constraints, and whether rider fees are assessed on account value or benefit base. Output feeds rider repricing, new-product filings, reinsurance pricing memos, and competitor lapse and utilization assumptions in stochastic projections.

SEC counsel and outside securities lawyers

In-house and outside counsel handling 1933 Act and 1940 Act registration work treat the dataset as a drafting library. They benchmark prospectus organization, risk factors, tax and charges disclosure, and UIT separate account descriptions across peers. Specific uses: staging post-effective amendments under Rule 485(a) versus Rule 485(b); structuring Initial Summary Prospectus and Updating Summary Prospectus disclosure under Rule 498A, including statutory prospectus cross-references and exhibit hyperlinking; and drafting underwriting agreements, fund participation agreements, and EX-99.27 auditor consents.

Insurer compliance and disclosure teams

Compliance and disclosure officers reconcile the federal prospectus against the state-approved contract and against marketing material. They focus on fee tables, fee examples, free-look provisions, optional benefit elections, conflicts disclosure tied to revenue sharing and affiliated underlying portfolios, and plain-English benefit and risk descriptions. Workflow: periodic disclosure reviews, internal audit responses, and remediation when illustrations or sales pieces drift from the registration statement.

Competitive intelligence and product strategy

Product strategy groups inside life insurers use N-4 and N-4/A filings as the authoritative source on competitor VA economics. They extract M&E charges, rider fees, surrender schedules, free-withdrawal percentages, bonus credits, fixed-account and DCA crediting rates, and subaccount menus into comparison grids that drive product-committee decisions on launches, repricings, feature withdrawals, and capacity actions. Amendments are watched closely because they signal mid-cycle pricing or rider de-risking by peers.

Wholesalers and broker-dealer due-diligence teams

Product-review committees and due-diligence analysts at distributing broker-dealers use the prospectus, SAI, and rider sections to support product approval and ongoing supervision. The disclosure feeds Reg BI Care Obligation analysis, FINRA Rule 2330 review for deferred variable annuity recommendations and exchanges, and Rule 3110 supervisory procedures. Reviewers compare aggregate cost stacks, surrender period length, share classes, rider trade-offs, and subaccount menus to set approved-product lists and client-profile guidance, and re-review when issuers file amendments.

Independent BD and RIA research analysts

Independent research desks and RIA investment committees evaluating annuities for advisory clients run side-by-side comparisons covering total annual cost, rider fee ranges including the maximum charge, allocation restrictions triggered by living benefit elections, exchange and reallocation rules, and underlying portfolio expense ratios from the fund appendix. Output is a vetted shortlist used in client recommendations, 1035 exchange analyses, and IAR training.

Insurance sector equity and credit analysts

Sell-side and buy-side analysts covering life and annuity issuers track product mix, rider generosity, and pricing discipline by comparing successive amendments for changes in M&E, rider fees, roll-up rates, and step-up frequency. Where included, separate account and depositor financial statements support views on tail risk in living benefit blocks, hedging program disclosure, and long-duration guarantee exposure. Output feeds earnings models, sum-of-the-parts work, and credit notes on insurance holding companies.

Academic researchers in insurance and household finance

Researchers in insurance economics, household finance, and the annuitization literature use the longitudinal corpus to measure how rider design, fee structures, and disclosure language have evolved across rate cycles and regulatory change. The N-4/A series supports event studies around milestones such as Rule 498A adoption, and the cross-section supports work on disclosure readability and consumer outcomes.

Plaintiffs and defense counsel in VA litigation and FINRA arbitration

Counsel handling suitability claims, unsuitable 1035 exchange disputes, senior investor matters, and class actions anchor cases on the prospectus version effective on the sale date. Key elements: fee table, surrender schedule, free-look provisions, rider trade-offs, and market-risk and loss-of-principal language. In FINRA arbitration, the contemporaneous N-4 and any N-4/A define what a registered representative was required to know and disclose, supporting expert reports comparing the recommendation to the contract's actual economics.

State insurance regulators and SEC examiners

State insurance department actuaries, market conduct examiners, and SEC investment-company exam staff compare federal disclosure against state filings and marketing material. They focus on charges, fee examples, rider mechanics, separate account descriptions, and amendment timing for material changes. Use cases include market conduct exams, rider-specific sweeps, and coordinated reviews of multi-state products.

Data engineers at VA product database vendors

Engineering teams building variable annuity intelligence platforms parse fee tables, surrender schedules, rider definitions, subaccount lists, and contract series identifiers from N-4 HTML and PDF documents into normalized schemas that power product comparison tools, illustration engines, and broker-dealer due-diligence platforms. The full archive supports point-in-time reconstruction of contract terms as of any historical sale date.

LLM and RAG developers in insurance and wealth

Teams building retrieval-augmented systems and domain models for insurance and wealth use the corpus to ground Q&A for advisers, compliance reviewers, and consumers, and to fine-tune classifiers that detect rider types, identify share classes, or extract fee components. The amendment history is useful for testing versioned-document and effective-date handling.

Specific Use Cases

The use cases below trace concrete workflows that map directly onto the prospectus body, the Item 27 exhibit slots, the seriesAndClassesContractsInformation taxonomy, and the amendment chain captured in each record.

Competitive intelligence on rider economics

Product strategy teams at life insurers build a peer grid that joins each C00… class-contract ID to the rider fee, roll-up rate, ratchet frequency, withdrawal percentages by attainment age, and benefit-base versus account-value charging mechanic for every GLWB, GMIB, GMWB, and GMAB on the market. The fee table and benefit sections of the primary N-4 document feed the grid; EX-99.27D* contract and rider exhibits supply the precise contractual language. Successive 485APOS and 485BPOS amendments under the same 333- file number are diffed to flag mid-cycle de-risking, roll-up cuts, and rider closures before they appear in trade-press summaries.

Fee and surrender-charge benchmarking

Compliance, due-diligence, and independent research teams normalize the standardized fee table — M&E risk charge, administrative charge, distribution charge, contract maintenance fee, CDSC schedule, free-withdrawal percentage, and underlying-fund weighted expense — across an approved-product universe of contracts. The 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year cost example anchors apples-to-apples cost-stack comparisons; the share-class layer in seriesAndClassesContractsInformation separates B-share, L-share, C-share, I-share, and fee-based variants of the same series. Output drives approved-product lists, share-class selection guidance, and 1035 exchange cost-benefit memos.

Suitability, Reg BI, and FINRA Rule 2330 review files

Broker-dealer product committees and supervisory principals assemble a per-recommendation file from the N-4 prospectus that was effective on the trade date: Key Information Table, fee example, surrender schedule, free-look provision, rider trade-offs, and allocation restrictions imposed by living-benefit election. The Initial Summary Prospectus exhibit (EX-99.27O) is paired with the full statutory prospectus to evidence layered delivery under Rule 498A. Reviewers re-run the analysis when a 485(a) amendment changes a material term, refreshing the Care Obligation documentation and Rule 2330 deferred-variable-annuity exchange justification.

Sell-side and buy-side insurance equity and credit analysis

Analysts covering life and annuity issuers run a longitudinal extract across each depositor's CIK that tracks rider fees, roll-up rates, step-up frequency, and benefit-base mechanics across every 485APOS and N-4/A in the registration history. The separate-account and depositor financial statements bound into Part B feed views on living-benefit block reserves, hedge-program disclosure, and long-duration guarantee exposure. Output feeds earnings-model assumptions for VA fee-margin compression, sum-of-the-parts valuation of in-force blocks, and credit notes on insurance holding companies tightening or loosening rider generosity.

Expert-witness reconstruction in annuity litigation and FINRA arbitration

Plaintiffs' and defense counsel pin the prospectus version effective on the sale date by walking the 333- file number's amendment chain, using filedAt and the 485 effectiveness pathway to identify the document delivered to the contract owner. The fee table, surrender schedule, free-look text, market-risk language, and the specific rider terms in the relevant EX-99.27D* exhibit anchor expert reports comparing the recommendation against the contract's actual economics. Powers of attorney in EX-99.27P and counsel and actuarial opinions in EX-99.27K and EX-99.27L support authenticity and chain-of-disclosure foundations.

Academic studies of variable annuity product design

Researchers in insurance economics and household finance use the multi-decade corpus to measure how rider design, M&E pricing, and disclosure readability have evolved across rate cycles, the post-2008 GLWB de-risking wave, and the Rule 498A modernization. Event studies use filedAt and the 1940 Act amendment counter to align filings with regulatory milestones; cross-sectional studies exploit the series and class-contract layer to construct contract-level panels with consistent identifiers across amendments and across sister-insurer parallel filings.

RAG and LLM training over annuity prospectus text

AI teams chunk the primary N-4 HTML by the standardized headings introduced in 2020 — Overview of the Contract, Key Information Table, fee table, principal risks, benefits, taxes — and index the chunks against accessionNo, series ID, class-contract ID, and filedAt for versioned retrieval. Inline XBRL tags on the Key Information Table and fee table in post-2022 filings provide ground-truth labels for fine-tuning extractors of M&E, rider fee, surrender schedule, and free-withdrawal percentage. The amendment chain is a natural test bed for effective-date-aware retrieval: the model must return the prospectus that was operative on a given query date rather than the most recent one.

Dataset Access

The Form N-4 Files dataset is accessible through three endpoints: a metadata index, a full dataset archive, and individual monthly container files. Coverage starts on 1994-06-01 and includes both N-4 and N-4/A form types, with containers distributed in ZIP format.

Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-n4-files.json

This endpoint returns dataset-level metadata such as the dataset name, description, last refresh timestamp, earliest sample date, total record count, total size, form types covered, container format, and the list of file types included in each container. It also provides the full dataset download URL and an array of per-container entries, each with its own download URL, key, size in bytes, record count, and last updated timestamp. This endpoint does not require an API key. Poll it daily to detect which containers were updated in the most recent refresh run and decide which files to re-download.

Example response:

          1
          {
        

          2
            "datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-695a-b1c7-48b950930cd1",
        

          3
            "datasetDownloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-n4-files.zip",
        

          4
            "name": "Form N-4 Files Dataset",
        

          5
            "updatedAt": "2026-04-21T02:58:37.247Z",
        

          6
            "earliestSampleDate": "1994-06-01",
        

          7
            "totalRecords": 30551,
        

          8
            "totalSize": 1065775093,
        

          9
            "formTypes": ["N-4", "N-4/A"],
        

          10
            "containerFormat": "ZIP",
        

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

          12
            "containers": [
        

          13
              {
        

          14
                "downloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-n4-files/2025/2025-07.zip",
        

          15
                "key": "2025/2025-07.zip",
        

          16
                "size": 13818783,
        

          17
                "records": 154,
        

          18
                "updatedAt": "2026-04-21T02:58:37.247Z"
        

          19
              }
        

          20
            ]
        

          21
          }
        

Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-n4-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Downloads the complete archive containing every Form N-4 and Form N-4/A filing in the dataset as a single ZIP file. This endpoint requires an API key.

Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-n4-files/2025/2025-07.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Downloads one monthly container, organized by year and month, instead of the full dataset. Use this option to fetch only the slices you need or to replace containers that changed in the latest refresh. This endpoint requires an API key.

Frequently Asked Questions

What forms does this dataset cover?

The dataset covers Form N-4 (the initial dual-Act registration statement for variable annuity contracts issued through UIT-organized insurance separate accounts) and Form N-4/A (its pre-effective and post-effective amendments). Form N-4 simultaneously registers the variable annuity contract under the Securities Act of 1933 and the separate account under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

What does one record in this dataset represent?

One record corresponds to one EDGAR submission — one accession number — filed on Form N-4 or Form N-4/A. Each record is materialized as a per-accession folder containing a metadata.json filing manifest plus every textual document from the original EDGAR submission, with each <DOCUMENT> block extracted into its own .htm file and the original SGML wrapper preserved.

Who is required to file Form N-4?

Form N-4 is filed jointly by two co-registrants: the separate account (the UIT registered as an investment company) and the depositor, the U.S. life insurance company that establishes and maintains the separate account, issues the variable annuity contracts, and signs the registration statement. Property-casualty insurers, health insurers, fixed-only annuity issuers, variable life separate accounts (which use Form N-6), and managed-separate-account variable annuity issuers (which use Form N-3) do not file Form N-4.

What time period does the dataset cover?

The dataset begins on June 1, 1994, the start of the EDGAR phase-in for investment company registrants, and runs through the present. Form N-4 was adopted by the SEC in 1985, but pre-EDGAR filings were on paper and are outside the dataset.

What file format is the dataset distributed in?

Records are distributed as monthly ZIP containers. Inside each container, the file types are TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF: each accession folder carries a metadata.json manifest and one .htm file per <DOCUMENT> from the original EDGAR submission, with PDF appearing occasionally for scanned contract forms, application forms, and signed certifications. Image attachments (GRAPHIC documents) and the consolidated full-submission .txt are referenced in metadata.json but not unpacked into the folder.

How does this dataset differ from 485APOS and 485BPOS filings?

Most ongoing N-4 updates do not arrive under the form-type code "N-4/A" — they arrive under Rule 485 cover types: 485APOS (post-effective amendments under Rule 485(a) for material changes) and 485BPOS (post-effective amendments under Rule 485(b) for annual updates and non-material changes). The substantive prospectus and exhibits inside those filings are N-4 content, but the form type is the procedural cover. A complete lifecycle view of any contract's disclosure history requires pairing this dataset with 485APOS and 485BPOS filings keyed to the same registrant and CIK.

How do I track a single variable annuity contract across amendments?

Use the seriesAndClassesContractsInformation object in metadata.json. Each contract family carries a stable series ID (S00…) and each marketed contract form a stable class-contract ID (C00…); these identifiers persist across the initial registration and every subsequent amendment, including parallel filings by sister insurers under different CIKs. Combined with the 333- Securities Act file number, they are the reliable join key for assembling a contract's full disclosure history.