App-ward Mobility
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.
_Position: Cover
Heat from the Street
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...
Act V of the VA Drama
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...
The Weird Math of Charitable Gift Annuities
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.
Will RIAs Sing This ARIA?
ARIA Retirement Solutions and AEGON/Transamerica have created a stand-alone living benefit (SALB) for the $1.3 trillion managed account market.
Jackson Hits the Alt-Option Key
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.
The Income Expert
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...
Low Hanging Life Insurers
Patient investors in search of stock-market bargains might consider the shares of U.S. life insurance companies.
Science, Business, or Something In-Between?
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.
The Best Retirement Research of 2011
What were the most significant decumulation research papers published last year? These ten articles can certainly claim to be among them.
Halfway Back to Prosperity?
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...
Sounds Like a Plan
A directory of 27 software tools accompanies this overview of the rapidly evolving financial planning technology industry.
Lion’s Share
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...
The Outer Limits of Outsourcing
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.
Four Income Planning Tools
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...
About those Embedded Derivatives
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...
Don’t Go Overboard with TIPS
"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...
Running Lapse around Variable Annuities
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...
The “Evolution of the Annuity Industry”
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...
Airbag-Equipped Annuities
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...
