Dark Horse Candidate
How did upstart Jackson National Life get near the top of the VA heap? And why are so many advisors nervous that it may 'de-risk' its popular Perspective contract?...
_Position: Cover
The Stag Brings Back GLWBs
In an about-face on VAs, The Hartford has gone back to the GLWB, tempering its risks with a CPPI fund. The arrival of Steve Kluever from Jackson National in...
VAs: In Search of a Winning Formula
VA issuers should take a cue from Michael Jordan, and realize that team players win more championships than individual stars, advises Bing Waldert of Cerulli Associates.
Putnam, A Work in Progress
With the announcement of a retirement research center, Putnam Investments joins the "thought-leadership" game. It's all part of CEO Bob Reynolds' campaign to rebuild a tarnished brand--and to change...
What’s Your Competition Doing? E&Y Knows
Launched five years ago, Ernst & Young's Retirement Income Knowledge Bank has become a useful map of the competitive landscape for insurers and broker-dealers.
At SPARK conference, a Plug for In-Plan Annuities
In touting his firm's LifePath TDF-based deferred income option, Chip Castille of BlackRock emphasized that insurers should position in-plan annuities as retirement income enhancers rather than longevity risk mitigators....
At Your Service: Courting the Affluent Tennis Fan
Prudential Financial, Raymond James, ING, Fidelity Investments and E*Trade all advertised during the French Open final between Rafael Nadal (above) and Roger Federer on NBC TV last Sunday--all vying...
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Debt?
Not Warren Mosler, bond trader, racecar dabbler, Senatorial candidate and recent author of “The Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds.”
How to End ‘Annuicide’
Compensation-wise, income annuities can backfire for many advisors. An industry committee wants to solve the problem, but it’s not easy.
MassMutual Rediscovers the Immediate Annuity
A few years ago, MassMutual mothballed Jerry Golden’s SPIA tool for advisors. Now, post-crisis, the company has re-embraced SPIAs, and sales are up.
Channel Surfing for Low-Cost SPIAs
Where can you find lowest SPIA prices on the web? RIJ compared prices at Immediateannuites, Income Solutions, Fidelity and (as a benchmark) Cannex. And the winner was...
A $100 Billion Market for SPIAs?
Income annuities aren't a good product fit for every insurance company. But for New York Life, a mutual company with tons of reserves and a big book of life...
Understanding the Black Investor
African Americans in general have fewer assets, less faith in Wall Street and less appetite for risk than whites, but their need for financial guidance is arguably that much...
The Bankers Who Control the World
Some goldbugs have accused the Bank of International Settlements of engineering the 2008 financial crisis to subvert the dollar. This account of a visit to BIS' Swiss headquarters, first...
How To Market to Advisors
Here's a smarter way for retirement income product manufacturers to segment and sell into the advisor market, according to survey analysts Howard Schneider of GDC Research and Dennis Gallant...
Plan Sponsor Group Joins Hueler SPIA Platform
The deal will allow the 1,200 members of the Profit-Sharing Council of America to give their six million plan participants access to a no-load, multi-issuer SPIA platform. (Photo of...
Profits, Politics and the Ruin of Fannie & Freddie
Here is the first of three excerpts from "Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Debacle of Mortgage Finance," the compact, illuminating new book by four NYU...
RIIA ‘Gets’ Open Architecture
Few organizations seem to understand the ascendancy of "open architecture" better than the Retirement Income Industry Association, whose mantra is "the view across the silos." Here's a report on...
Take the ‘Gauss’ Work Out of Saving
Using "non-Gaussian" analysis, Jim Otar has created a benchmark for evaluating retirement savings vehicles--and discovered that cautious savers might want to hold fewer equities.
Morningstar’s ‘Secret Sauce’
Speaking at the 2011 Morningstar/Ibbotson Conference in Orlando, Roger Ibbotson (above) described low-liquidity as a largely unrecognized source of alpha in stocks and mutual funds.
