A free e-book with more than a dozen chapters on retirement risks and various aspects of income planning and public policy is now available from the Society of Actuaries.
The “Diverse Risks Essay Collection” “explores the diverse risks associated with defined contribution plan risk management strategies; decumulation strategies for retirement; and long-term care financing,” according to the SOA.
The book includes essays that won prizes from SOA:
- First prize: “The ‘Feel Free’ Retirement Spending Strategy,” by R. Evan Inglis (First Prize). This essay provides a rule of thumb for decumulation with a range attached to it. The author keeps it fairly simple and provides some analysis as to why this rule is reasonable.
- Second prize: “Retirement: Choosing Between Bismarck and Copernicus,” by Krzysztof Ostaszewski (Second Prize). This essay suggests an entirely different view of retirement— as in retirement is when you can’t work anymore.
Four third prize articles:
- “Thinking About the Future of Retirement,” by Anna M. Rappaport. This is a “big picture” approach, focusing on retirement ages as well as a range of issues related to DC plans.
- “Longevity Insurance Benefits for Social Security,” by John A. Turner. This essay on longevity insurance proposes a change to Social Security to better achieve this goal and then focuses on how that will link to decumulation.
- “Designing and Communicating Retirement Plans for ‘Humans’” and “Portfolio Approach to Retirement Income Security,” both by Steve Vernon. The first paper proposes a design for a better retirement plan.
Vernon revisits behavioral finance issues and uses them to make recommendations about structuring employee (DC) benefit plans to offer good support for decumulation. The other paper presents a portfolio approach to retirement income security that is built on research sponsored by the SOA with the Stanford Longevity Center.
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