Club Vita: Where Levity Meets Longevity Risk
The cartoon characters in hazmat suits on Club Vita's website handle "toxic waste." It's a metaphor for the actuarial consultancy's real service: helping the remaining DB plans in the...
_Position: Cover
An Algorithm That Loves Annuities
PrARI, the retirement product allocation calculator that Cannex recently acquired with its purchase of the Qwema Group, shows advisers how to maximize retirement income (or legacy) using a blend...
Short on Shares, Women Share Homes
Single, divorced and widowed older women are reducing their expenses by sharing a home or apartment with similarly situated women. A new website helps them find each other. ...
Merrill Lynch’s Intentions are “Clear”
"I want to be careful not to call it a product or a service. It’s an approach,” said David Tyrie, head of Personal Wealth and Retirement at Merrill...
MetLife’s New DIA, and Its Competition
This story includes a handy chart that can help you compare the features of the deferred income annuity contracts currently offered by eleven U.S. life insurers. MetLife’s is the...
Is Social Security Unsociable to Annuities?
Virtually all American retirees already own a pension that's more generous than any retail annuity could ever be: their Social Security benefits. But how much does the entitlement "crowd...
Ten Images that Explain Retirement
No, this image isn't one of them! A while ago, we asked retirement advisers what images they use to illustrate complex financial principles. The frequent response: “When you find...
The Retirement Industry Conference
Want lots of 2013 data on annuity sales and VA rider use? You’ll find it—plus Richard Thaler’s crowd-stumping riddle—in this roundup of news from the recent LIMRA/LOMA/SoA conference in...
With New Indexed Annuity, Nationwide Takes a Walk on the Wild Side
In February, Nationwide introduced New Heights, a fixed indexed annuity with an enticing "uncapped" crediting strategy and a novel living benefit rider for the b/d and independent agent channels....
Whose Retirement Crisis Is It, Anyway?
The thrust of last week’s ICI Retirement Summit was that there’s no broad retirement savings crisis needing government action. But that doesn’t mean Boomers won’t need help with decumulation....
Bill Sharpe’s New Retirement Blog
On the verge of his 80th birthday, Sharpe, who won the 1990 Nobel Prize for his Capital Asset Pricing Model, has been writing a blog that documents his work...
Managed-Vol: Bromide for Queasy Retirees
Managed-volatility funds can adequately address the income volatility worries of many high net worth retirees, say Milliman and Jefferson National, both of whom are pitching such funds. ...
In Radical Move, Britain Deregulates Retirement
“Pensioners will have complete freedom to draw down as much or as little of their pension pot as they want, any time they want,” said the UK Chancellor of...
Two Advisers, Two Strong Opinions of FIAs
If annuities in general incite controversy, FIAs are easily the most polarizing annuities. Just listen to what Howard Kaplan, an LPL adviser in the New York area, and Harry...
FIAs Come In From the Cold–Sort Of
In this first of a series of RIJ articles on the evolution of fixed indexed annuities, you’ll hear from people at three broker-dealers: One who embraces them, one who...
Must-Read Income Research of 2013
Many outstanding research papers on retirement income were published in 2013. The ten described here contain ideas that annuity product developers, annuity marketers and financial advisers can apply to...
Send in the Robots (Don’t Bother, They’re Here)
At the "T3" financial software trade show last week, a pair of robots warmed up the crowd with jokes about the limitations of high-tech planning tools. RIJ visited with...
Are You Being Served?
After my father died, I called his reverse mortgage lender and said the house was theirs. Little did I know that I'd get "sued," that the house had to...
Video: RIJ Editor at The American College
In this video, Retirement Income Journal publisher and editor Kerry Pechter chats with David Littell of The American College about opportunities and challenges that await advisers who choose to...
Obama Gives ‘Auto-IRA’ a Shout Out—and a New Name
Mr. Obama has ordered the creation (on a pilot basis) of a "myRA" program, bringing closer to fruition a multi-year effort by liberal policymakers to expand access to workplace...
