Tue, May 15, 2012
NY Life launched its Guaranteed Future Income Annuity, a deferred income product, in mid-2011 and has found traction among pre-retirees who want income about 10 years later. We spoke about it with Matthew Grove, vice president of Guaranteed Lifetime Income at the mutual insurer.
Wed, May 09, 2012
Kelli Hueler, creator of the Income Solutions online income annuity sales platform, delivered an academic paper at the Pension Research Council's annual conference at the Wharton School last week, and provided insight into her "out of plan" income option for rollovers from 401(k) plans.
Tue, May 01, 2012
The climate was ideal, but annuities upstaged sunbathing at the 2012 Retirement Industry Conference at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando last week.
Tue, Apr 24, 2012
Pershing LLC, Sovereign Bank, and Securities America have all made Income for Life Model (IFLM) software available to advisors. That represents growth for IFLM, and progress for the income paradigm. (Sculpture by Stephane Cauchy.)
Tue, Apr 17, 2012
Are bond yields awful? Are investors terrified of equities? Then it’s perfect weather for indexed annuities, the unpredictable but often effective knuckleballs of the annuity world. Check out these new "stacked" offerings from Security Benefit Life and Aviva.
Mon, Apr 09, 2012
Connecting with investors via full-size computer screens is so last-decade. People now live on their smartphones, and the financial industry has little choice but to follow.
Tue, Apr 03, 2012
At a vulnerable juncture in the evolution of their products, publicly-held VA issuers are feeling unprecedented pressure from Wall Street. That was made clear by speakers at the IRI Marketing Conference in New York this week.
Wed, Mar 28, 2012
In an effort to de-risk its book of GMIB business, Transamerica Life is offering to buy back the benefit. And one firm, Achaean Financial, wants to help insurers convert some of their living benefits to immediate variable annuities. Is this the start of a trend?
Wed, Mar 21, 2012
Here's how the wealthy buy lifetime income while giving zip to insurance companies, a pittance to the IRS and--unless they live a very long time--a sizable gift to charity.
Tue, Mar 13, 2012
ARIA Retirement Solutions and AEGON/Transamerica have created a stand-alone living benefit (SALB) for the $1.3 trillion managed account market.
Tue, Mar 06, 2012
Jackson National Life's newest variable annuity contract, Elite Access, offers a variety of high-turnover alternative investment options inside a tax-deferred wrapper--and no living benefits.
Wed, Feb 29, 2012
In this video, Mark J. Warshawsky, director of Retirement Research at Towers Watson, discusses his new book, Retirement Income (MIT Press, 2012) with RIJ editor Kerry Pechter. Their conversation focuses on the author's recommended strategy of buying a series of immediate annuities during retirement.
Mon, Feb 20, 2012
Patient investors in search of stock-market bargains might consider the shares of U.S. life insurance companies.
Tue, Feb 14, 2012
In the retirement income field, research ranges from almost “pure” science to borderline business promotion. It's not always easy to identify the boundary between the two.
Tue, Feb 07, 2012
What were the most significant decumulation research papers published last year? These ten articles can certainly claim to be among them.
Wed, Feb 01, 2012
Carmen Reinhart, co-author with Kenneth Rogoff of the best-selling "This Time Is Different," spoke at the IMCA conference in New York this week. We're five years into a 10-year recovery from the credit binge, she said.
Wed, Jan 25, 2012
A directory of 27 software tools accompanies this overview of the rapidly evolving financial planning technology industry.
Wed, Jan 18, 2012
ING U.S. Retirement will combine its own target date funds with the AllianceBernstein three-insurer annuity platform to offer a lifetime income option to its 52,000 small and mid-sized plans.
Tue, Jan 10, 2012
Advisors can’t do everything themselves. But they need to be careful in choosing what to hand off to a software tool, a vendor or an assistant.
Tue, Jan 03, 2012
Here are brief reviews of four noteworthy but not-widely-known retirement income planning software tools, provided by the publisher of Virtual Office News and the T3 Newsletter. Mr. Bruckenstein is also a CFP.
Tue, Dec 20, 2011
The variable annuity with a lifetime income benefit--sometimes known as an exotic put option or an embedded derivative--was a product that has come back to bite many of the companies that sold it. Was this product ever the best solution for the Boomer retirement challenge?
Mon, Dec 12, 2011
"TIPS can play an important role in most retirement portfolios," writes this Tokyo-based economics professor. "... Like other assets, "TIPS have risks and do not eliminate the need for broad diversification." This article first appeared in Advisor Perspectives.
Wed, Dec 07, 2011
As the living benefits of variable annuities became more valuable during the financial crisis, contract owners astutely held on to them, according to a presentation by Ruark Consulting at a recent Society of Actuaries meeting in Chicago.
Tue, Nov 29, 2011
Like the Ford Mustang in 1965, the variable annuity with a lifetime income rider seemed like the right Boomer product at the right time in 2006. Then came the Crisis. A new survey by Cogent Research and the Insured Retirement Institute looks at where the VA is today and where it's headed.
Tue, Nov 22, 2011
VA issuers may be able to offer rich living benefits safely and inexpensively by embedding a futures-based hedging strategy inside their investment options. That's what Ohio National seems to have done. (Image by Spectrumphotofile.)
Sun, Nov 13, 2011
At least three proposals have been floated to open state pensions to private sector workers who have no retirement plan. Given the troubles of many state plans, that's counterintuitive. Artwork by Zaza Khabuliani.
Tue, Nov 08, 2011
U.S. life insurers can weather the impact of 'Operation Twist' for a few years, Moody’s Investors Service says. But another five-plus years of rock-bottom interest rates could damage profits and ratings.
Wed, Nov 02, 2011
For retirees who say, 'Don't sell me a product!', Thornburg Investment Management recommends a retirement income strategy built on 'endowment' spending, three buckets and its own dividend fund.
Tue, Oct 25, 2011
The Money Management Institute has identified 34 financial services firms that have created what it calls Personal Retirement Income Solution Management (PRISM) tools or programs.
Sun, Oct 16, 2011
An 'Occupy Wall Street' protester at New York's Zuccotti Park expresses her opinion. The same day, at the NY Athletic Club, Wall Streeters themselves criticized their own industry.
Wed, Oct 12, 2011
John Hancock Financial Network will offer its advisors the Retirement Sustainability Quotient, an income planning tool that Moshe Milevsky (pictured) developed for ManuLife Financial, JHFN's Canadian parent.
Wed, Oct 05, 2011
Guest speakers Fareed Zakaria (pictured) urged more fiscal stimulus for the economy while Andrew Friedman warned of looming tax hikes at the Insured Retirement Institute's conference in Boston. "Boom Time" was the conference theme this year.
Tue, Sep 27, 2011
Internet start-up Personal Capital is out to prove that mutual funds and face-to-face financial advice are obsolete. (At center, CEO Bill Harris, with Jim Del Favero, VP, product management (seated) and Ehsan Lavassani, engineering director.
Tue, Sep 20, 2011
The Dept. of Labor's bid to strengthen the fiduciary standard for advisers to retirement plans and IRAs became a political football. Now the DoL has agreed to revise and "re-propose" its proposal. Was the football fumbled... or stripped?
Tue, Sep 13, 2011
While vacationing in the upper Rio Grande Valley this summer, I caught two good-sized trout and a glimpse of my fantasy retirement. (Photo of the author by Lisa Higgins).
Tue, Sep 06, 2011
Concerned that your insurance company might be designated a SIFI (Systemically Important Financial Institution)? Then read Deloitte's primer on SIFIs. Here's a synopsis and a link.
Tue, Aug 30, 2011
Experts from Aegon Global Pensions, De Nederlandsche Bank and other Dutch pension and financial consulting firms are helping the Amsterdam-based P&D Network plant the seeds for "micropension" programs in the developing world. The final part of a two-part series.
Tue, Aug 23, 2011
You've heard of micro-credit: those mini-loans to female entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Now a micro-pension movement is underway, and one of the first pilot projects starts next month in Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Part I of a two-part article.
Fri, Aug 12, 2011
The Society of Actuaries' recent book (available here in pdf form) puts the reader at the center of a web of hundreds of articles, research studies, other resources relevant to the risks and opportunities of Boomer retirement.
Mon, Aug 08, 2011
As an advisor, you can actually put clients in an annuity 'frame of mind.' These and other findings from behavioral finance research were presented at the 2011 Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision-Making last June.
Tue, Aug 02, 2011
Deferral bonuses, a key feature of many VAs, may not prevent contract owners from taking withdrawals, according to Milliman’s latest survey of issuers of VA guaranteed living benefits. Photo courtesy of Whimsicalwhisk.com.
Tue, Jul 26, 2011
Andrew Carnegie, founder of the non-profit Teacher's Insurance & Annuity Association, now TIAA-CREF, could not possibly have foreseen how his group annuity would lead to today's profitable trillion-dollar variable annuity industry.
Tue, Jul 19, 2011
How did upstart Jackson National Life get near the top of the VA heap? And why are so many advisors nervous that it may 'de-risk' its popular Perspective contract? JNL EVP Clifford Jack tells RIJ all that he can...
Tue, Jul 12, 2011
In an about-face on VAs, The Hartford has gone back to the GLWB, tempering its risks with a CPPI fund. The arrival of Steve Kluever from Jackson National in March reflects the new thinking.
Tue, Jul 05, 2011
VA issuers should take a cue from Michael Jordan, and realize that team players win more championships than individual stars, advises Bing Waldert of Cerulli Associates.
Wed, Jun 29, 2011
With the announcement of a retirement research center, Putnam Investments joins the "thought-leadership" game. It's all part of CEO Bob Reynolds' campaign to rebuild a tarnished brand--and to change the way America saves.
Mon, Jun 20, 2011
Launched five years ago, Ernst & Young's Retirement Income Knowledge Bank has become a useful map of the competitive landscape for insurers and broker-dealers.
Wed, Jun 15, 2011
In touting his firm's LifePath TDF-based deferred income option, Chip Castille of BlackRock emphasized that insurers should position in-plan annuities as retirement income enhancers rather than longevity risk mitigators. (I.e., appeal to greed, not fear.)
Tue, Jun 07, 2011
Prudential Financial, Raymond James, ING, Fidelity Investments and E*Trade all advertised during the French Open final between Rafael Nadal (above) and Roger Federer on NBC TV last Sunday--all vying for the "elite demographic" that follows tennis.
Tue, May 31, 2011
Not Warren Mosler, bond trader, racecar dabbler, Senatorial candidate and recent author of “The Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds.”
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RIJ Publishing, 4340 Knollwood Dr., Emmaus, PA 18049, 610-965-3103
Retirement Income Journal is an 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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