Annuity issuers are making a concerted effort to implement and promote paperless document delivery services.
A growing number of 401(k) plan sponsors, retirees, record keepers and regulators want retirees to stay in their plans well into, or even straight through, retirement, PIMCO has found.
TIAA-CREF’s TC Listens website is an innovative new medium for obtaining client feedback online.
TIPS can preserve purchasing power, provide systematic income and offer the assurance of a government guarantee for retirees depending on income from their investments.
With variable annuity sales down, firms are intensifying online product marketing campaigns to reach more prospective investors.
Annuity issuers are reaching out to non-English-speaking investors through websites written in Spanish and Asian languages, according to Corporate Insight.
PIMCO and its Allianz affiliates recently sponsored a new study, “Behavioral Finance and the Post-Retirement Crisis.” PIMCO Retirement Product Manager Tom Streiff explains how the study’s findings can foster the development of successful retirement income products.
A growing number of annuity issuers are using creative approaches on Twitter to reach new audiences online.
Many firms have launched engaging online sales campaigns focusing on the Roth IRA conversion opportunities that will be available in 2010.
Annuity firms introduced enhanced online security measures in 2009, but they remain laggards in the financial service industry.
The annuity industry has been slow to adopt social media. But given the industry’s target audiences, does it matter? Download an excerpt from the report "Social Media: Trends and Tactics in the Financial Services Industry."
Our latest research shows that dynamic displays, such as Flash interfaces, offer firms engaging new ways to present and market online educational content to advisors.
Industry Views are special reports that are sponsored and independent from RIJ's editorial content.
Wed, Sep 01, 2010
It might rid the financial services marketplace of situations where the customer enters into transactions without knowing that there's an adversarial relationship, this well-known columnist believes.
Tue, Aug 31, 2010
The SEC could help investors distinguish between bespoke advice and off-the-rack advice that’s merely “suitable.”
Tue, Aug 24, 2010
Jack Marrion and friends offer hard evidence that FIAs pay off when other investments don't. Their analysis is compelling, but I'm not ready to convert.
Tue, Aug 17, 2010
The new Income Link rider pays out between 5% and 10% of the income base for a few years, then 4% for life. "It's designed for higher income in the near-term," says Dave Paulsen, Transamerica's national sales manager.
Tue, Aug 17, 2010
A recent study by a doctoral candidate at the University of Virginia examines all of the reasons why people don't buy income annuities--and reveals two hidden reasons why they should.
Wed, Aug 11, 2010
When clients discover that products have been sold to them without the adequate use of process, some advisors will surely face a day of reckoning, says the president of The Strategic Distribution Institute, LLC.
Wed, Aug 04, 2010
“It's marketed as a gap product, such as between early retirement and pension benefits or to bridge until longevity insurance kicks in,” said Tamiko Toland, an annuity industry analyst at Strategic Insight, Inc.
Wed, Aug 04, 2010
With his National Retirement Security Plan, independent fiduciary Matthew Hutcheson hopes to bring lower fees, better management to small and micro retirement plans.
Sun, Jul 18, 2010
“We expect that the SEC proposals will be adopted much as proposed," says Fred Reish, the well-known ERISA lawyer. But a TDF expert says plan fiduciaries should do more than merely comply with them.
Sun, Jul 18, 2010
TDFs have always been a sales strategy more than an investment strategy, and we should recognize that.
Wed, Jul 14, 2010
Cash levels as a percent of assets reached a cyclical high of 12% in 1991. Today, that ratio is less than 4%. With mutual funds already nearly fully invested, where will the money come from to take stocks higher?
Wed, Jul 14, 2010
Under my plan, the SSA would tell people their benefit at a specific retirement age (either an earliest age or a "normal" age). Then it would show a simple set of penalties or bonuses for withdrawing money or depositing it with Social Security.
Wed, Jul 07, 2010
An actuary-turned-entrepreneur claims to have invented a cheap, benign, versatile new income distribution tool. But he’s coyly cryptic about its secret sauce.
Tue, Jul 06, 2010
The complexity of the typical retiree's cash flows makes it nearly impossible for a planner to apply a simple rule of thumb like the 4% strategy, even if he or she wanted to.
Thu, Jul 01, 2010
Curiosity about investments in secondary market annuities, which earn up to 9%, is growing. But these “factored products” are scarce—and virtually unregulated.
Wed, Jun 30, 2010
A consortium of advisors who represent Securities America offered these suggestions for how investors and their advisors can adjust to the expiration of EGTRRA and JGTRRA at the end of 2010.
Thu, Jun 24, 2010
After highlighting new VA contracts from big issuers last week, we now turn to four new products from second-tier or regional insurers, all of them with sturdy A-level strength ratings from Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s.
Tue, Jun 22, 2010
Jay Hauenstein, a dually-licensed advisor in Mississippi who manages about $10 million in VA assets, looks for contracts with strong roll-ups and death benefits.
Thu, Jun 17, 2010
A year or more after the financial crisis, major VA annuity issuers are trying to do more with less—less risk, that is. Here are nine of the latest efforts.
Thu, Jun 17, 2010
Prudential Financial and Jackson National Life rack up sales with variable annuity contracts that ignore the adage, ‘Simplify, simplify, simplify.’
Wed, Jun 09, 2010
Bill Klinger's decumulation method involves techniques for moving payout rates up or down in response to market fluctuations. The New Jersey professor has also created the Retirement Quant planning tool.
Wed, Jun 02, 2010
Britain’s new ‘Lib-Con’ coalition aims to stop forcing retirees to annuitize their savings. It could be a step toward U.S./U.K. policy convergence.
Wed, Jun 02, 2010
"Retirementology," a new book by Jackson National Life executive Greg Salsbury, Ph.D., approaches the serious topic of retirement planning in a mordantly funny way.
Wed, May 26, 2010
At the Lifetime Income Summit in Washington last week, federal officials and financial industry executives amiably swapped views. But competitive tensions lay not far beneath the surface. Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-ND (at left), was a featured speaker.
Wed, May 26, 2010
“Thank God I'm not the average retiree trying to decide who or what to believe regarding what to do with my retirement savings.”
Wed, May 19, 2010
Even Alan Greenspan is said to fret about the potential for a collapse in Treasury prices, reports this week's guest writer.
Wed, May 12, 2010
In the final week or two of its RFI on in-plan annuities, the Labor Department began receiving comments from the industry that has a big stake in the way 401(k) assets are distributed.
Wed, May 12, 2010
In print, on radio and on TV, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich helped fuel the rumor that 401(k) plans were under attack.
Wed, May 12, 2010
Some behavioral finance experts believe that principles of psychology could be used to boost annuity sales.
Wed, May 05, 2010
Glide paths of TDFs differ markedly as the investor comes within ten years of retirement, and this divergence can lead to unpleasant surprises.
Wed, May 05, 2010
Last week, the Government Accountability Office sent a snapshot of America’s retirement income status to Sen. Herb Kohl, who will hold hearings on the topic in June.
Wed, Apr 28, 2010
A PIMCO executive’s new book is an ode to custom target date funds—and offers a glimpse of the Allianz unit’s retirement business strategy going forward.
Wed, Apr 28, 2010
"SecureFoundation" wraps a lifetime income rider around a set of proprietary target date funds for an all-in annual fee of 160 basis points.
Wed, Apr 21, 2010
"It should be noncontroversial that we can’t afford any more innovation on Wall Street," says the author of several books on the financial system.
Wed, Apr 21, 2010
Depending on the rate one uses to discount future obligations, state and local government pension plans face a funding shortfall in the wide range from $1 trillion to $3 trillion.
Wed, Apr 14, 2010
Surz, the president of San Clemente, CA-based Target Date Solutions, uses proprietary tools to dissect the first quarter's equity returns.
Wed, Apr 14, 2010
Joe Bellersen, president of Qualified Annuity Services, Inc., explains how employer plans lost their guaranteed income mojo over the past 30 years, and offers advice on how they might get it back.
Wed, Apr 07, 2010
Collective trust funds and target date funds are ‘made for each other,’ one analyst said. But will CTF-TDF hybrids create the same false sense of security among 401(k) participants that TDF mutual funds have?
Wed, Apr 07, 2010
The New School economist and 401(k) critic reveals that her notoriety is, in part, the result of a misunderstanding that went viral--with help from Rush Limbaugh.
Wed, Mar 31, 2010
The contract costs 2.25% a year, including 100 bps for the income rider, 75 bps for the M&E risk fee, and 50 bps for fund management, says Bill Lowe, president of ING Financial Solutions.
Wed, Mar 31, 2010
Even good retirement plans can backfire if you do not carefully consider the effect of disability and lost earning power on retirement savings.
Thu, Mar 25, 2010
In the Arizona desert, Mike Zwecher had a vision that led to his new book on building outcome-oriented retirement portfolios.
Wed, Mar 17, 2010
With three trading platforms around the globe, the Chicago-based actuarial consultant has come a long way from merely advising insurers.
Wed, Mar 10, 2010
Ibbotson president Peng Chen asks, “Are you a stock or a bond?”
Wed, Mar 10, 2010
The legendary Roger Ibbotson told money managers that there’s hidden gold in low-turnover stocks.
Wed, Mar 03, 2010
As of March 2, the responses to the Obama administration's request for input on lifetime options in 401(k) plans tended to be angry but well-reasoned.
Tue, Mar 02, 2010
The Department of Labor proposes a subtle change in 401(k) advice regulations that may have huge repercussions for fund companies.
Wed, Feb 24, 2010
Since current Wall Street risk management methods are in the interest of those who work on Wall Street, they will not be changed except by regulatory means.
Wed, Feb 24, 2010
"I'll-work-till-I-drop" is often the first, but rarely the most sensible, response to a setback in retirement savings.
Thu, Feb 18, 2010
Jack Marrion predicts that by 2020 the securities industry will exercise control over the annuity market in the U.S.
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RIJ Publishing, 4340 Knollwood Dr., Emmaus, PA 18049, 610-965-3103
Retirement Income Journal is a new online magazine dedicated to writing for and about the industry that has coalesced around the challenge of helping Americans turn their savings into secure lifetime incomes. This industry includes members of the insurance, asset management, banking, pension, structured products, reverse mortgage, information technology, financial planning and academic communities and the professional organizations that serve them.
Send editorial queries to kerry.pechter@retirementincomejournal.com.
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