MetLife is working with Fidelity Investments to offer the MetLife Guaranteed Income Program, a fixed immediate income annuity, through Fidelity’s new retirement income solution, Guaranteed Income Direct, according to a news release. The program relies on Micruity data-sharing technology.
MetLife said its research indicates “growing interest in these fixed immediate income annuities products among plan participants and an increasing number of plan sponsors taking actions to implement them” as a result of the passage of the SECURE Act in 2019. The Act helped ease plan sponsor concerns about potential liability for the failure of the annuity provider they chose.
The MetLife solution enables participants at all savings levels to purchase an immediate income annuity through an insurer selected by their employer and annuitize any portion of their savings, the release said. Assets not used to purchase the annuity remain invested in the plan.
Retirees who choose to receive their savings as a lump sum rather than annuitize can face significant risk of depleting their money too quickly and having no guaranteed income other than Social Security, MetLife said. A MetLife survey found that among retirees who took a lump sum from their DC plan, 34% depleted the lump sum in 5 years, on average.
Micruity is a data infrastructure company on a mission to improve retirement income security. The Micruity Advanced Routing System (MARS) facilitates frictionless data sharing between insurers, asset managers, recordkeepers, and connected stakeholders through a single point of service that lowers the administrative burden and enhances the user experience of retirement income products, enabling plan sponsors to turn retirement savings plans into retirement income plans at scale.
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