Of Ponies, Manure Piles, and Annuities
An article about deferred income annuities in last Saturday's New York Times looked at DIAs through the "investment frame" rather than the "insurance frame." That's the wrong way to...
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The Interest Rate Enigma
"The accumulation of debt and the distortions in production and investment patterns induced by persistently low interest rates hinder the return of those rates to more normal levels," write...
British pension industry wary of “collective” DC
The UK's retirement system is a work in progress. With private DB plans expected to vanish in 2016, the government is promoting Danish-style DB/DC hybrids (not US.-style DC) as...
Voya hires Milliman to hedge its closed VA block
In 2010, Voya Financial stopped actively writing new retail variable annuity products with substantial guarantee features and separated its closed block of VA business from its ongoing businesses, according...
America’s Move to Faster Growth
During 2013, the personal wealth of Americans increased by $10 trillion: $2 billion from a rise in home values and $8 trillion from the rise in equity prices, according...
The Fiduciary Rule: Going, Going…
The longer the DoL takes to draft a new version of its proposed fiduciary rule, the likelier it is that the re-proposal—if one ever appears at all—will be timid...
Annuity Sales Rose 11% in 1Q2014: LIMRA
Despite the growing number of issuers, DIA sales were down 13% from 4Q2013. It was the first quarter-over-quarter decline for sales of DIA products since LIMRA SRI began tracking...
RetirePreneur: Ron Mastrogiovanni
Mastrogiovanni is a founder of HeathView Services, Inc., a Massachusetts-based firm that provides software tools to help plan for healthcare costs in retirement.
The One True Path to Income
As we curse the low payouts of income products, it’s worth remembering that the fault isn’t entirely in our stars (low interest rates), but also in ourselves (insufficient savings)....
Piketty and the Zeitgeist
'It is now acceptable to talk about inequality in America... This might explain why Piketty’s book has received greater attention in the US than in his native France,'...
One source of rising inequality: Power couples
Some researchers believe that the rise of professional couples with two high-powered salaries as a result of 'positive assortative matching" has helped fuel the wealth-concentration that pundits so often...
It’s 2024. Do You Know Where Your Industry Is?
A new report from Diversified Services Group, Inc. and Greenwald & Associates offers predictions from 24 industry experts about the shape of the retirement industry ten years from now....
RetirePreneur: Stan Haithcock
‘Stan the Annuity Man’ Haithcock sells fixed annuities purely for protection, not growth. A long-time critic of his own industry’s sales practices, he’s been called ‘the walking middle finger...
In 2013, Jackson National Broke Sales Records; VA Industry Broke Even
Lincoln, SunAmerica, and Aegon notched 36.9%, 39.3%, and 59.3% sales gains in 2013, respectively, according to Morningstar's quarterly Variable Annuity Sales and Assets Survey. Prudential and MetLife ended...
Waiting for the Fiduciary Train
Don't hold your breath waiting for the second draft of the Department of Labor's fiduciary proposal. That's one takeaway from a four-hour meeting at the Practicing Law Institute in...
Losing Interest
"Central banks should set a higher inflation target, which would give them more room to cut nominal interest rates in response to a future slowdown," writes economist Barry Eichengreen,...
SEI Ups its TDF Game
Six months ago, SEI, which specializes in multi-manager TDF funds, recruited veteran defined contribution specialist Scott Brooks (left) away from Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management to start making presentations...
Happy Fifth Anniversary, RIJ
Today’s issue of RIJ, which represents our 250th issue and marks our five-year anniversary as a publication, seems like an appropriate vehicle for a brief message about how we’re...
Where Young Advisors Can Give and Get Advice
“Think of the robo-advisors as high-tech, low-touch, and the high-minimum fee-only planners as low-tech, high-touch. We’re high-tech, high-touch," said Alan Moore, a young planner who, with Michael Kitces, has...
RetirePreneur: Kelli Hueler
While in Japan on business in the late 1990s, Kelli Hueler saw an aging society and had an epiphany. She realized that American retirees would soon need sources of...
