Out of Commission
Wondering what life under a strict fiduciary standard might be like? Just ask investors in the U.K. (also known as 'the nanny state') where sales commissions were banned from...
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The Elephant in the Room
It's difficult if not impossible for anyone to describe the contours and textures of the annuity/retirement income business, or even any particular section of it. But fortunately there are...
TDF ‘Heretic’: Ron Surz
This week's RetiremEntrepreneur is Ron Surz, president of San Clemente, Calif-based Target Date Solutions, which designs--and advocates for-- safer 'glidepaths' for TDFs. The 'cyberclone' image is taken from one...
Have Your Danish, and Eat It Too
A novel retirement plan design, called TimePension (“Tidspension” in Danish) uses a buffer account to smooth out market volatility and ensure a stable income in retirement.
RetiremEntrepreneur: Mike Alfred
"Save like you will retire, but live like you won't," is part of Alfred's personal retirement philosophy. He is co-founder and CEO of BrightScope, the first firm to rate...
Most Advisors Favor ERISA Fiduciary Standard: Survey
More than 380 advisors from a broad set of business models, registration types and compensation schemes participated in the survey, which was co-sponsored by fi360 and ThinkAdvisor.com
It’s an Index! It’s an Income Calculator! It’s a Fund!
BlackRock’s new CoRI helps older DC plan participants find out how large an income annuity they can afford to buy at retirement—but it stops short of helping them buy...
How to Make Annuitization More Appealing
In the embedded video, Brigitte Madrian of Harvard (pictured) describes the results of two surveys of older Americans about lifetime income that she and a team of other Ivy...
Public Pensions, Version 2.0
In New Brunswick, Canada, city officials and union leaders are experimenting with a new, more frugal kind of public pension that’s based on the principle of “Shared Risk.”
Reel Returns
Native Montanan Bryan Anderson, founder of AnnuityStraightTalk.com, is the second subject in our series on 'RetiremEntrepreneurs.' Flyfishing here (right) with a client, he's helping make secondary market annuities a...
Zombie 401(k) Accounts
Who ya gonna call when former participants disappear, but their retirement accounts remain undead and their checks ($735,000, in one case) go uncashed?
Closer to Where You Belong
Whither the variable annuity business? We asked Bruce Ferris of Prudential, Liz Forget of MetLife, Eric Henderson of Nationwide Financial, Dan Herr of Lincoln Financial Group, Richard Moran, formerly...
The Upside of Falling Bond Prices
Don't worry, be happy. Maine actuary Joe Tomlinson, writing at AdvisorPerspectives.com, argued that retirees who intend to take systematic withdrawals from a bond fund over a long period will...
The Future of Variable Annuities
Ken Mungan and Casey Malone of Milliman, Chad Slawner and Guillaume de Gantes of McKinsey, Tim Paris of Ruark Consulting, Jerry Golden and Moshe Milevsky share their visions of...
Where to Get Old Variable Annuities Appraised
Advisor Mark Cortazzo’s new business, Annuity Review, is aimed at alerting VA owners to the hidden value in contracts that they might otherwise surrender or misuse.
Anatomy of AXA’s New VA Buy-Back Offer
The carrying costs of its VA riders are hurting AXA Equitable’s bottom line. A new GMIB rider buy-back offer is intended to reduce those costs. But will contract owners...
Measuring You for an ERISA Suit
There are “people out there” who are “running algorithms to spot good targets for excessive fees lawsuits,” said Jason Roberts, CEO of Pension Resource Institute in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
Deficient Frontier
A forthcoming research article suggests that the concept of the efficient frontier should be replaced—and in practice is often replaced by planners—by the more flexible concept of the 'efficient...
The Borzi Ballet
In this 3-min. video, Assistant Sec. of Labor Phyllis Borzi responds to IRI CEO Cathy Weatherford's question about Borzi's anticipated re-proposal of a "fiduciary rule" for retirement plan advisors....
Disaster Flick
"Broken Eggs" is a forthcoming film about Boomers and retirement, produced by Chad Parks, founder of The Online 401k. You might learn a lot about your target market by...
