Why 401(k) Plan Sponsors Remain Wary of Annuities
The SECURE Act of 2019 did too little, too soon, in opening up 401(k) plans to all kinds of annuities. Some big 401(k) plans are ready to offer in-plan...
401(k)/IRA
RIJ Launches the 401(k) Income Research Center
RIJ intends to give plan sponsors, plan advisors, retirement plan service providers and others an up-to-date, easy-to-access source of curated information and competitive intelligence on products and processes that...
Recurring Idea: Give the ‘Tax Expenditure’ to the Poor
The Penn Wharton Budget Model, a group that assesses new spending programs, calculates that, if the US Treasury eliminated the tax deduction for contributions to retirement plans, it could...
Should Participants Get Lifetime Income By ‘Default’?
The ERISA Advisory Council heard testimony on whether to tweak the rules for Qualified Default Investment Alternatives to accommodate—or exclude—annuities. Advisors to 401(k) plans should read this.
What Recordkeepers Think about 401(k) Annuities
The Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association (DCIIA), a Washington, DC-based trade group, recently conducted a survey of recordkeepers to measure their progress toward facilitating income options in 401(k) plans.
MetLife and Micruity expand their DC savings-to-income IT partnership
The two firms have already worked together on connecting MetLife’s retirement income services with Fidelity’s Guaranteed Income Direct and State Street Global Advisors IncomeWise platforms.
A Plan Sponsor’s Guide to In-Plan Annuities
Broadridge, Cannex, The Index Standard, Micruity, and ERISA attorney Fred Reish have co-produced a 39-page guide designed to help 401(k) plan sponsors choose a retirement income tool for their...
BlackRock relaunches its “LifePath Paycheck” retirement income tool
'DCIO' asset managers like BlackRock must find ways to retain participant assets post-retirement and enrich the value of their target date funds. They must also make themselves relevant to...
Auto workers’ DC plan will link to Hueler Income Solutions
Union workers at General Motors and Stellantis (Chrysler et alia) in Detroit will be able to link directly from their 401(k) platform or employee benefits portal to the Hueler...
MetLife to offer income annuities on Fidelity’s platform
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,...
Meet the Newest Platform in the 401(k) Annuity Space
'We’re a product design firm,' ALEXIncome co-founder E. Graham Clark told RIJ. 'We feel we’ve built the best process for integrating annuities into retirement accounts.'
This Year’s Legal Battles
The life/annuity industry faces three big legal issues this year. All stem from, or are complicated by, the patchwork regulation of financial products in the US, our out-of-date pension...
Fidelity’s Plan Sponsors Can Now Offer Annuities
Income products issued by MetLife, Pacific Life, Prudential Financial and Western & Southern Financial Group are available on the Fidelity platform, with additional insurers to be added in the future, Fidelity said in its...
‘Sticking to the Plan’ While Taking Income
Pension Plus is a recent entry in the race to sell decumulation tools to 401(k) plan sponsors. Shlomo Benartzi, the behavioral finance expert, conceived it. Retirement industry veteran Mike...
Iceland’s Tiny But Great Collective DC Plan
I visited Iceland in mid-2022 to interview pension experts in Reykjavik, the capital city and to fish for brown trout in the rivers near Akureyri, a harbor town on...
Of Athene, Pension Risk Transfers, and Fiduciaries
The ERISA Advisory Council recently heard comments on changing the criteria that fiduciaries use when vetting annuity providers in pension risk transfer deals. Athene's vice chairman defended his company's...
Pension experts assess ‘OregonSaves’
Workers in industries and firms with low wages, volatile wages, and high turnover have trouble saving, even in state-sponsored, auto-enrolled Roth IRAs, research shows.
How do 401(k) participants save? Vanguard knows.
Vanguard released its 2022 edition of 'How America Saves,' a compendium of data on millions of Vanguard-administered 401(k) plan accounts. Of participants ages 65+, half had balances under $88k....
Church-affiliated retirement plan adopts Pacific Life longevity annuity
'We are honored to be selected as the provider for the QLAC portion of the LifeStage Retirement Income program,' said Ruth Schau, senior director of Pension Solutions for Pacific...
Envestnet and Kestra co-launch platform for plan advisers
Envestnet's cloud-based platform supports more than 108,000 advisors and 6,000 companies. Kestra Financial, based in Austin, Texas, is part of Kestra Holdings.
