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On Second Thought, Make That a Single-Dip

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Kerry Pechter -

Although economists generally forecast a strengthening recovery in the U.S., researchers at the Vanguard Group calculate the chances of a “double-dip” recession in the second half of 2010 at about 20%.

In their June Research Note, “Assessing the risks to the U.S. economic recovery,” Vanguard researchers said that “most leading indicators continue to project a modest ‘U-shaped’ recovery” but added that “actual economic growth statistics should provide more volatile than the consensus growth trajectory.

“Current U.S. stock market prices anticipate a weaker-than-expected recovery while the bond market has already priced in a much stronger-than-expected recovery,” wrote the Note’s authors, Joseph H. Davis, Ph.D., Roger Aliaga-Diaz, Ph.D., Andrew J. Patterson and Charles J. Thomas.

The stock market is pointing to as much as a 34% chance of negative growth going forward, while the bond market, as expressed by the shape of the yield curve and corporate bond spreads, suggests as little as a 6% probability of a double-dip, according to Vanguard’s indexes.

But, thanks to the Fed’s zero interest rate policy, the yield curve isn’t the reliable indicator of investor sentiment that it has usually been in the past.

“Historically, when the yield curve was this steep, a recovery followed,” Aliaga-Diaz told RIJ. “The shape of the yield curve has predicted six of the last seven recessions. But under the current circumstances, where the short end of the curve has been artificially maintained at a floor level, the yield curve isn’t a reliable indication of a bull market.”

Considering that over a year has passed since the end of the 2007-2009, Aliaga-Diaz added, it is surprising to see a lingering 20% probability of a relapse into a new recession, or so-called double-dip. “That’s high for an economy that’s recovering,” he said. “It’s a weak recovery, however, and there’s some downside risk.”

Economic problems in the Eurozone, where the weaker economies have struggled with debt and spending reductions, are often mentioned as a possible threat to the U.S. recovery.

Aliaga-Diaz believes that the threat comes mainly from the possibility of contagious investor anxiety and not from a reduction in European purchases of U.S. exports. “Only about 12% of our exports go to Europe,” he said. “The bigger problem would be lack of risk appetite.”

Vanguard’s assertions are based on a proprietary “dashboard” of more than 70 individual financial and economic components that anticipate recessions and recoveries in the U.S. The dashboard is the basis for the Vanguard Economic Momentum Index.

The VEMI, which measures the change in the rate of change of the leading indicators, shot up in February 2009, predicting the job growth that occurred from November 2009 to 2010. As of June, the index was on the rebound, at slightly above zero, after falling sharply for most of the year.

“The VEMI has not yet turned significantly negative to recession-like levels as it did before the double-dip recession of 1982,” Vanguard wrote.

The Vanguard team is less upbeat than the 44 professional forecasters surveyed quarterly by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. In mid-May, their consensus was that “the outlook for the U.S. economy over the next few quarters looks stronger now than it did just three months ago.”

The forecasters, representing major banks, investment companies, universities, consulting firms and industry groups predicted GDP growth of 3.3% (annualized) in the middle quarters of 2010, with a decline to 2.8% and 2.7% in two subsequent quarters. They predicted a drop in the unemployment rate to 7.1% by 2013.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke hasn’t seen any signs that the growth rate or inflation rates merit an increase in interest rates. On June 23, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced that it would maintain a zero to 0.25% federal funds rate “for an extended period.”

“Investment in nonresidential structures continues to be weak and employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls,” the FOMC said in a release. “Housing starts remain at a depressed level. Financial conditions have become less supportive of economic growth on balance, largely reflecting developments abroad. Bank lending has continued to contract in recent months.” It added that “substantial resource slack” will keep inflation down.

This sentiment was noted by the forecasters at Prudential. In its Global Economic Outlook for July-August 2010, Prudential International Investments Advisers, LLC, commented, “Looking beyond Q2, the financial backdrop has turned less supportive of growth following the Eurozone crisis, while housing activity appears to have weakened more than expected following the expiration of the tax credit in April.”

The report continued, “These factors are raising concerns about the U.S. growth outlook for [the second half of 2010], prompting the Fed to strike a more cautious tone in its June Statement.”

On the question of inflation, the Survey of Professional Forecasters in May maintain their earlier predictions that prices will rise by more than 25% over the next 10 years. They expect the “headline inflation” rate—the rate that reflects spikes in food and energy costs that the “core inflation” rate excludes—to average 2.4% per year from 2010 to 2019. They expect both types of inflation to be under 2% in the second half of 2010.

Judging by the minutes to the June 22-23 Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the Fed governors are divided in their inflation expectations. Some see the slow economy, ipso facto, as predictive of low inflation. Others see the massive government borrowing and Fed lending over the past 18 months as highly inflationary in the long run.

“Several participants noted that a continuation of lower-than-expected inflation and high unemployment could eventually lead to a downward movement in inflation expectations that would reinforce disinflationary pressure,” the minutes said. “By contrast, a few participants noted the possibility that a potentially unsustainable fiscal position and the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet could boost inflation expectations and actual inflation over time.”

Mr. Smith Goes to the Patent Office

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Editor Test -

Ron Smith, a New York-based actuary who once worked in Vanguard’s 401(k) division, applied for a patent last January for a simple but revolutionary retirement income distribution tool that uses only mutual funds and not insurance or derivatives.

But that’s almost all he’s willing to say about it right now, pending discussions with major mutual fund providers about licensing his intellectual property, whose service mark is LISA, for “Lifetime Income Stream Accounts.” The e-press release that his startup firm, Ovacurrus LLC, broadcast this week was coyly cryptic.

“Obviously, since we filed for a patent, we think it’s unique,” Smith, a graduate of Brown University, told RIJ over the phone. “But I can’t tell you more in detail. The people who may eventually be our clients have agreed not to discuss it. So it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to talk about it.”

One could only speculate at whether this announcement constituted rumor or news. Could Smith’s brainchild be a high-tech tease, like cold fusion? Or a cheap, benign and versatile remedy like Simple Green?

The latter, Smith claims. He said it is related to target-date funds, would be a Qualified Default Investment Alternative for 401(k) plans, can provide direction during both the accumulation and distribution phases, and would add only a basis point or two to the cost of the underlying fund investments.

“This is not an annuity product,” he said. “It involves no derivatives, no hedging. But it does allow you to accomplish the same goals in a mutual fund environment. There are some market volatility controls in place, but it doesn’t tie money up. You can change your mind. You can change your mind.” It’s not a new kind of payout mutual fund, either, he said.

So what is it? “As details come out, it will seem pretty intuitive. There are no gravity-defying effects going on. Most people will say, ‘How obvious.’ They will be more likely to say, ‘Why didn’t I think of it?’ than ‘This guy’s an alchemist.’ But it’s only obvious if you look at things different from the way people have been looking at them.

“It’s an approach to providing lifelong retirement income without insurance products, using traditional investments. The product is designed for the person who wants $10,000 one year, $10,200 the next year and $10,400 the next, and so forth, using relatively traditional mutual funds. You couldn’t walk into a mutual fund company and do this today, but a Fidelity or a Vanguard could have these types of products fairly soon,” he added.

In looking for licensees, Smith is talking to mutual fund companies with early-adopter rather than fast-follower product development cultures. “For the fund companies, this would be an attractive alternative to guarantees or annuities.”

“Insurance companies that have large mutual fund operations may be interested in this. They’ll have to come to grips with whether they want creative destruction to enter the picture. If they try to protect their franchise, we’ll be a competing product. Or we could be a complimentary product. But we’re not focusing on the insurance companies,” he told RIJ.

“It will involve some tool building, so that investors can use it directly. For plan sponsor recordkeeping systems, some modest adjustments may be necessary. This will work for active 401(k) participants as well as retirees. It’s designed to be a QDIA. It also fixes a lot of the issues that people have with TDFs. It’s not just a tweaked version of the 4% systematic withdrawal method.”

LISA addresses longevity risk, capital markets risk and inflation/interest rate risk. It doesn’t help address the problem of under-saving for retirement (as life annuities can), except to the extent that it can guide 401(k) participants during the accumulation stage.

“One of the criticisms of the current 401(k) plan design is that you have 30-year-olds contributing six percent of their pay and maximizing the company match and thinking that’s all they need to do. They don’t understand what their deferrals and matches will provide in terms of retirement income. In a straightforward manner, LISA translates the person’s balance of $50,000 or so at age 30 or 40 into an income stream at age 62 or 65, and suggests appropriate ways to invest it until then,” Smith said.

“Today’s calculators can tell a 30-year-old that if you save 6% and it grows at 8%, you’ll have $800,000, for instance, at retirement. But they can’t’ tell you what the purchasing power of $800,000 will be after inflation. For the 65-year-old with $500,000, LISA says, here’s the income that $500,000 will provide. It also recommends ways to invest the assets. It acknowledges that you have to be at least partly invested in equities during a 20-year or 30-year retirement. The opportunity costs of being invested entirely in bonds at age 60 are just too high.”

Smith hopes to complete one or more licensing deals for LISA in the next six months. “Overcoming the ‘not invented here’ barrier [at fund companies] can be a problem, and people have heard the ‘new and improved’ claim so often that there’s a natural level of skepticism,” he told RIJ. “But I’m hoping that as companies do feasibility studies, it could be in place by year-end 2010.”

A Longevity Test: Science or Science Fiction?

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Editor Test -

Some 15% of the population at large may have the potential to live to be 100 years old, according to recent research published in Science magazine by Paola Sebastiani and Thomas T. Perls of Boston University.

But most of them fail to reach that age—attained by only about one of every 6,000 members of the population—because of accidents or unhealthy living, the researchers believe.

A longevity test, though not a foolproof one, may be possible. After studying the genomes of centenarians in New England, Sebastiani and Perls say they have identified a set of genetic variants that predicts extreme longevity with 77% accuracy.

Sebastiani found that 150 genetic variants were associated with extreme longevity. She then looked at a different sample of centenarians from those involved in her study and found that more than three quarters possessed many of the 150 genetic variants she had already identified. The other centenarians had few or none of the protective variants, suggesting that there are many more yet to find.

The centenarians had just as many disease-associated variants as shorter-lived mortals, so their special inheritance must be genes that protect against disease, the researchers said. If true, that could complicate attempts to predict someone’s susceptibility to disease based on disease-causing variants in that person’s genome, without considering his or her protective genes.

Only a limited number of favorable genes may be essential for reaching age 100, according to Nir Barzilai of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Enhancing those genes might provide protect against all the diseases of old age. “This is the next step to make us all healthy,” he said.

Bill Gross Cites Barrier to a Better ‘New Normal’

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Editor Test -

In the following excerpt from his July 2010 column, posted in its entirety at his company’s website, William Gross, the managing director and chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO), explains why the world economy is paralyzed:

There are 6.5 billion people in the world and will soon be one billion more. Many of them are debt-free and have never used a credit card or assumed a home mortgage.

Why can’t lenders like PIMCO lend to them, allowing developing nations to bring their consumption forward, developed nations to supply the goods and services, and the world to resume its “old normal” path toward future profits, prosperity and increasing standard of living?

To a certain extent that is what should gradually happen, promoting more rapid growth in the emerging nations and a subdued semblance of it in the G-7—a “new normal.”

But they—the developing nations—are not growing fast enough, at least internally, to return global growth to its old standards. Their financial systems are immature and reminiscent of a spindly-legged baby giraffe, having lots of upward potential but still striving for balance after a series of missteps, the most recent of which was the Asian crisis over a decade ago.

And so they produce for export, not internal consumption, and in the process leave a gaping hole in what is known as global aggregate demand. Developed nation consumers are maxed out because of too much debt, and developing nations don’t trust themselves to stretch their necks for the delicious leaves of domestic consumption just above.

It is this lack of global aggregate demand—resulting from too much debt in parts of the global economy and not enough in others–that is the essence of the problem, which only economists with names beginning in R [Rogoff, Roubini, Reinhart and Rosenberg] seem to understand (there is no R in PIMCO no matter how much I want to extend the metaphor, and yes, Paul _Rugman fits the description as well!).

If policymakers could act in unison and smoothly transition maxed-out indebted consumer nations into future producers, while simultaneously convincing lightly indebted developing nations to consume more, then our predicament would be manageable.

They cannot.

G-20 Toronto meetings aside, the world is caught up as it usually is in an “every nation for itself” mentality, with China taking its measured time to consume and the U.S. refusing to acknowledge its necessity to invest in goods for export.

Even if your last name doesn’t begin with R, the preceding explanation is all you need to know to explain what is happening to the markets, the global economy, and perhaps your own wobbly-legged standard of living in recent years.

Plans Could Save 70 Bps a Year Through Trusts and ETFs

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Editor Test -

A new brief from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College asserts that if defined contribution plans offered commingled trusts that invested in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) rather than actively managed funds, costs would fall by 70 basis points a year or more and participant balances might be 12% higher after 30 years.

The study, written by Richard W. Kopckem Francis M. Vitagliano, and Zhenya S. Karamcheva, notes that commingled trusts, big pools of assets in which pension funds invest, offer administrative and asset management costs that are 30 to 45 basis points cheaper than mutual fund providers.

Turning their attention to trading costs that are associated with high-turnover, actively-managed funds or with the impact of moving large blocks of shares, the researchers also showed that investing in ETFs can be as much as 50 basis points cheaper than investing in active funds.

“Within defined contribution pension plans, most of the money that is invested in equity mutual funds is held in actively-managed funds. Without giving up the investment objectives offered by these funds, participants in 401(k) plans could pay significantly lower costs on their assets by shifting to ETFs and commingled trusts,” the study said.

Roth Account Openings Up 89% at Fidelity

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Editor Test -

Fidelity Investments, the country’s top IRA custodian, has seen year-over-year increases in IRA contributions and new account openings for traditional, Roth and rollover IRA accounts during the first four months of 2010, the Boston-based mutual fund giant reported.

Compared with the same period in 2009:

The number of investors who contributed to their IRAs was up across all account types. Roth and Rollover IRA contributions were up more than 14 percent and Traditional IRA up more than 6 percent.

Average IRA contribution amounts increased more than 9 percent over the same time frame in 2009, to nearly $3,700 in 2010.

New account openings also increased significantly in the first four months of the year, driven by Roth IRA conversion activity and the use of Roth IRAs as a savings vehicle. In fact, Roth IRA account openings rose 89% in 2010 when compared with 2009.

“Historically we see almost half of all annual IRA contributions made during the first four months of the year, as investors revisit their retirement investing portfolios prior to the April tax deadline,” said Ken Hevert, vice president, Fidelity Investments. “The strong numbers we’ve seen this year point to a commitment to saving for retirement through tax advantaged vehicles like IRAs.”

Fidelity attributes some of the growth in Roth conversions to the Conversion Evaluator on its website. “With income limits now removed for Roth IRA conversions, investors are reexamining the Roth IRA as a potential strategy,” said Hevert. “More than 152,000 Roth Conversion Evaluator sessions have been completed by investors and advisors since the calculator’s launch in October 2009.”

As of last May 31, Fidelity Investments administered over $3.2 trillion, including managed assets of over $1.4 trillion, for more than 20 million individuals and institutions and through some 5,000 financial intermediary firms.

In Japan, Savers Grow More Conservative

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Editor Test -

Statistics on Japan’s defined contribution pension plans by an insurance industry liaison council finds that subscribers are investing primarily in ‘capital guaranteed’ assets, such as deposits and insurance, according to a report in Investments and Pensions Asia.

Corporate subscribers had assets of ¥3,689.8 billion ($41bn) at the end of fiscal 2008, of which 67% represented guaranteed products. This was a 17% increase over the previous year. Risk assets such as investment trusts fell 7%, to 32% of the total.

Deposits accounted for the largest volume of managed assets surveyed. Their ratio to overall assets climbed 3.6 points to 45%. This was followed by insurance products, at 22%. Life insurance products account for 60% of insurance products overall.

The largest product among investment trusts and other risk assets was balanced funds, representing 10% of total assets. Next was domestic equity funds at 9.1%, domestic bond funds at 5%, foreign bond funds at 4% and foreign equity funds at 3%.

Among risk assets, domestic stock funds were down 19% as a proportion of assets held, while foreign stock funds were down 28%, with a correspondingly positive growth in domestic and international bond funds.

Females had a higher ratio of capital guaranteed products at 73% (deposits 46%, insurance 27 %) versus 67% (45%, 22%) among men.  By age group, investors above age 60 and under age 19 had the highest percentages of capital guaranteed products.

The ratio for the former was particularly high at 77%. The 30-39 and 40-49 generations held a greater ratio of balanced products and domestic stock funds than other age groups. Their investment period is relatively long and their investable assets large, due to transfers from qualified pension plans and lump sum retirement payout systems, and they have actively diversified their investments.

The 4% Withdrawal Rule—Maybe Planners Have Been Wrong

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Joseph A. Tomlinson, CFP -

Economists and financial planners often disagree, and one divisive issue involves the 4% rule for safe retirement withdrawals.

Every few months, an economist demonstrates that setting a retirement income strategy based on 4% inflation-adjusted withdrawals makes no sense. He or she usually argues that lifetime spending patterns should maximize utility, and that such patterns might look very different from an inflation-adjusted withdrawals strategy.

The financial planning community rarely comments on these arguments, perhaps because economists’ papers are too technical for most planners. But, in this article, I’ll attempt to do so. My goal is to explain the financial economists’ arguments in a non-technical but in-depth way, and to respond to their criticisms from the perspective of a financial planner.

I’ve analyzed two financial economics papers on withdrawal strategies. The first paper, The 4% Rule—At What Price?, was published in three years ago by Jason Scott and Nobel laureate William Sharpe of Financial Engines, Inc., and John G. Watson of Stanford, but has recently received attention in the financial planning press.

The second paper, Spending Retirement on Planet Vulcan: The Impact of Longevity Risk Aversion on Optimal Withdrawal Rates, was published in March 2010 by academics Moshe Milevsky and Huaxiong Huang of the Individual Finance and Insurance Decisions Centre in Toronto. Both papers challenge the 4% rule, but from quite different perspectives. With apologies to the co-authors, I’ll refer to these papers as Sharpe and Milevsky.

The 4% rule

First, let’s define the 4% rule. Formulated by financial planner William P. Bengen in 1994, this guideline recommends a 30-year strategy of withdrawing 4% (pre-tax) of the value of the initial portfolio of investments each year, with annual increases by amounts based on actual inflation rates. Bengen assumed a portfolio of 50% to 75% stocks and back-tested the rule using overlapping 30-year time periods.

Since 1994, Bengen and other planners have produced variations on the 4% theme. They suggested that retirees could raise the initial withdrawal percentage if they agree not to increase withdrawals in years following future stock market declines. Such variations have been tested using both historic returns and Monte Carlo simulations.

The Sharpe paper

Financial economists often object that the 4% rule may produce consumption patterns that do not maximize lifetime utility. Sharpe uses this argument, and makes two other criticisms.

First, he calls the rule wasteful because it typically leaves excess funds at the end of life (he assumes a client with zero bequest motive). Using Monte Carlo simulations and assuming a 30-year retirement, his modeling predicts surpluses ranging from 10% to 20% of initial portfolio value.

The underlying math is straightforward. With a market-mimicking portfolio of stocks and bonds, and initial withdrawal rates low enough to hold the chance of failure to 0% to 5%, one would expect the average scenario to produce a surplus. To prevent a surplus would require spending more –and raising the probability of failure to a prohibitive 50%—or investing in low-return, risk-free assets. Sharpe’s example produces a 4.46% initial withdrawal rate. He doesn’t, however, advocate that planners recommend only risk-free assets. I’ll have more to say about his overall conclusions later.

Sharpe also accuses the 4% rule of wasting 2% to 4% of initial assets that could be saved by using options strategies to eliminate sequence-of-returns risk. He makes the subtle point that financial markets don’t compensate investors for sequence-of-returns risk, thus creating opportunities to use options as cost-free risk reduction. He uses a straight options strategy (buying and selling calls with different strike prices), as opposed to a life contingent strategy, which might include purchasing a variable annuity with a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit or one of the newer standalone living benefit products that insure taxable separately managed accounts.

Using an efficient frontier graph with Cost on the horizontal axis and Expected Utility on the vertical axis, Sharpe demonstrates that the 4% rule produces an outcome falling well below the efficient frontier. He then shows how one might narrow the gap by spending the surplus and using options to eliminate unnecessary costs. These strategies do not move us all the way to the efficient frontier. To completely close the gap, he suggests shifting consumption between periods in ways that increase utility.

Sharpe also tests “glide-path” investment strategies, which systematically reduce portfolio volatility as a retiree ages. He generally concludes that such strategies are no less wasteful than constant mix strategies.

The question remains: What would Sharpe recommend to replace the 4% rule? Disappointingly, he doesn’t provide details. Instead, he offers generalities such as, “There appears to be no doubt that a better approach can be found than that offered by combinations of desired constant real spending and risky investment,” and “It is time to replace the 4% rule with approaches better grounded in fundamental economic analysis.” We will need to wait for future papers for more specifics.

The Milevsky paper

Milevsky uses a different modeling approach in criticizing the 4% rule. His model uses stochastic mortality instead of a 30-year time horizon, and simplifies investments by assuming only risk-free assets. He provides calculations of utility-maximizing withdrawal rates using what economists refer to as “constant-relative-risk aversion” (CRRA) utility functions.

Milevsky’s modeling generates optimal withdrawal percentages, and his initial rates are in line with the 4% rule. The optimal withdrawals do not remain level, but instead decrease over the retiree’s lifetime. In one example, a 4.6% initial withdrawal rate at age 65 decreases slightly to 4.4% by age 75, but drops to 3.6% at age 90 and 2.2% at age 100. (Note, these percentages and all that follow refer to withdrawals as a percentage of the initial portfolio, and all withdrawals include adjustments for inflation.)

This pattern makes intuitive sense. Most 65-year-olds would think it reasonable to plan to spend roughly the same amount from ages 65 to 75, but they would be less likely to sacrifice income in the early years to ensure a similar annual income from ages 90 to 100—unless they are extremely averse to longevity risk.

That’s Milevsky’s point. He shows the initial withdrawal rates and the slope of planned withdrawals by age to be a function of the degree of longevity risk aversion. The risk-averse retiree is one who wants to make provision for a longer-than-expected life, so as risk aversion increases, initial withdrawal rates go down and the slope by age gets flatter. For example, the optimal initial withdrawal rate for a 65-year-old retiree might range from 4.1% to 6.3%, varying inversely with the degree of risk aversion.

Milevsky then shows the optimal withdrawal rates of a retiree who receives Social Security and/or other pension income. Other things being equal, more pension income will raise the optimal initial withdrawal percentage and increase the year-by-year tilt. For example, a 65-year-old retiree with $1,000,000 in assets, a $50,000 inflation-indexed pension, and low risk aversion might optimally consume 8% of the investment portfolio compared to 6.3% for the individual with no pension. For higher levels of risk aversion, similar proportional relationships apply, although the overall optimal withdrawal rates are lower and flatter by age.

Providing specific withdrawal percentages is not Milevsky’s goal, however. He’s out to prove that optimal planned withdrawal patterns decline by age, and may vary quite considerably as a function of risk aversion and pension income. In other words, 4% level withdrawals may be far off the mark in terms of utility maximization.

Though it’s not his central thrust, Milevsky also shows that investors can achieve higher withdrawal percentages by annuitizing some of their assets for life. A retiree with medium risk aversion and no annuitized assets, for example, would optimally plan to withdraw 4.6% at age 65, declining to 4.0% by age 80. At the opposite extreme, a client who annuitized 100% of assets could lock in a consumption rate of 6.3% for life.

Responding to the criticisms

Did Bill Bengen come up with a flawed idea in 1994, and have financial planners been doling out misinformation ever since? Should we tell clients to ignore the 4% rule and consult an economist? Or should we consider modifying the advice we dispense?

Before answering those questions, we should first ask, “How prevalent is the use of the 4% rule in actual financial planning practice?”

Stories in the Journal of Financial Planning or Financial Planning Magazine suggest that use of the 4% rule is pervasive. Hardly a month goes by without an article about the 4% rule or some variant of it. But I wonder how often the 4% rule is actually used in day-to-day financial planning practice.

Most clients have a myriad of cash flows with different timing. A client may have income streams that automatically adjust for inflation, like Social Security benefits, and others that do not, like corporate pensions. The client may have temporary expenses, such as a nearly paid mortgage, and one-time windfalls, perhaps from downsizing their housing. The complexity of the cash flows makes it nearly impossible for a planner to apply a simple rule of thumb like the 4% strategy, even if he or she wanted to.

This innate complexity forces most planners to customize their approaches to individual client cases. Ironically, the application of such customization may bring planning closer to the theoretical ideals of the financial economists mentioned here. For example, if a risk-averse client needs funding for basic recurring living expenses, the use an immediate annuity would help overcome some of the objections to the 4% rule voiced by both Sharpe and Milevsky.

Different clients may have adequate income for basic living expenses, and prefer to allocate their savings for vacation spending. They may also want to spend their vacation dollars early in retirement rather than spread them over an uncertain future. This approach, which could be implemented without any knowledge of utility theory, would satisfy Milevsky’s utility-maximizing approach.

What can we learn from financial economics?

Indeed, planners can learn a lot from financial economists. For example, Sharpe illuminates the difficulties of trying to “finance a constant, non-volatile spending plan using a volatile investment strategy.” He also alerts us to the use of options strategies to mitigate sequence-of-returns risk. Although he doesn’t dwell on it in his paper, Sharpe also cautions against “free lunch” thinking. While it is feasible to reduce uncertainty on volatile investments, he says, it is not feasible to eliminate all risk and still earn a premium over the risk-free rate.

Milevsky establishes that the front-loading of spending may make sense for utility-maximizing spending plans that recognize longevity risk. His work also demonstrates how different degrees of risk aversion may affect optimal spending patterns and provides the numerical analysis to demonstrate the orders of magnitude of the differences. In addition, he shows how pension income may influence optimal spending and how the purchase of income annuities can increase funds available for retirement.

Unlike investment returns, utility cannot be measured precisely. Nonetheless, both of the papers discussed here argue convincingly that retirement planning should focus on the maximization of utility. To do that, we as planners will have to stretch our thinking beyond the application of mechanical rules.

Interestingly, both Sharpe and Milevsky assert that planners can use annuities to reduce their clients’ investment risk and longevity risk. Our profession has focused on techniques aimed at making assets last a lifetime without adequately considering all the product alternatives. We need to listen to the criticisms of those outside our profession, and be more open to new ways of helping our clients plan for retirement.

Is a ‘Two-Cylinder’ VA Better Than a Single?

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Ryan Hinchey -

The innovative “dual account” deferred variable annuity, which several insurers have recently brought to market in various forms over the past year, is a bit unusual. It combines two investment sleeves in one all-purpose tax-deferred accumulation/income product.

The first sleeve, like any plain vanilla variable annuity, holds mutual fund-like sub-accounts and has no living benefit riders attached to it. Policyholders can also transfer money to a second sleeve whose assets are held in a more limited selection of sub-accounts with the benefit of guaranteed lifetime income.

The contract owners thus have two accounts side by side: a low-fee investment account for growth and an account for guaranteed lifetime income. As their need for liquidity and growth declines during retirement, owners can gradually re-allocate assets from the first account to the second, building their future income stream layer by layer and reducing the overall risk of the portfolio.

So far, the two available versions of these products are the Personal Retirement Manager (PRM), issued by The Hartford, and Retirement Cornerstone from Axa Equitable. (Allianz Life has a dual account product, Retirement Pro, on file with the SEC.)

The “accumulation” sleeves are similar in all three products; it’s in the “income” sleeve that their differences emerge. The Hartford product provides an easy mechanism for building a ladder of deferred income annuities. Axa’s Retirement Cornerstone allows owners to transfer money in increments to a sleeve covered by a Guaranteed Minimum Income Benefit (GMIB), while Allianz Life offers a Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefit (GLWB) on the assets.

Ryan Hinchey, FSA

Hartford’s Personal Retirement Manager offers deferred income annuities “on demand.” When policyholders transfer money to the income sleeve for the first time, they commit to a seven-year window during which they are permitted to begin their lifetime income payout. Every time a transfer is made to the income sleeve, they lock in the prevailing payout rates for that chunk of money.

As with any income annuity, the insured’s life expectancy and current interest rates determine the annual lifetime payout. Older age or higher interest rates generate a bigger annual payout for the insured. In essence, the advisor can use the PRM to build a ladder of deferred income annuities for his or her clients over time, thus diversifying the interest rate risk exposure of purchasing income annuities at a point in time.

Theoretically, a client should receive better payout rates by using this product than by purchasing a variable annuity and exchanging it for one or more deferred income annuities. After all, one set of distribution costs should be less than two.

Unfortunately these payout rates are a bit of a black box. To quote from the prospectus, “Payout rates are set at our sole discretion… there is no assurance as to future payout rates.” Nothing assures an investor that he won’t receive lower payout rates from The Hartford than what the income annuity market is offering. That’s disturbing, especially when investors buy a B share contract and have to commit their money for eight years or pay a surrender charge.

Personally, I’d advise the issuer of such a contract to post the current and historical payout rates on its website and allow the general public to see how competitive the rates are. The same goes for GMIB issuers who seldom (if ever) include the guaranteed payout rates within their glossy product brochures. Best-in-breed insurers will differentiate themselves through transparency and disclosure, and what better means to do so than through their website?

PRM should come with a warning: “Invest in the stock market at your own risk.” That’s because it lacks any kind of equity guarantee. But if you believe that an income annuity offers the best value for those whose goal is to generate income, this new hybrid design will likely pique your interest.

Interestingly, this product’s B-share has a premium-based distribution charge. This allows Hartford to recover acquisition costs over eight years regardless of market conditions. In year nine, the distribution fee disappears (although an M&E and account management fee remain), and the policyholders’ fees drop for assets in the accumulation sleeve. The Hartford wrote off $1 billion in DAC in the 2008 crisis. The new structure should help prevent that from happening again.

Axa’s Retirement Cornerstone income sleeve resembles the company’s popular Accumulator contract, but with a twist. Before contract owners annuitize the GMIB rider (which carries fees and investment restrictions), they can earn a deferral bonus or “roll-up” that increases the benefit base each year by the 10-year Treasury yield plus one percent. The policyholder can let the benefit base roll up in value or withdraw any or all of the roll-up (after a one-year wait).

The devil is in the details. The roll-up rate formula is attractively floored at 4%—but not so attractively capped at 8%. Historic Treasury rates through 1962 show that such a ceiling would have been hit about 40% of the time. The rate for May was 5.25%, which by my calculation is roughly 60 bps more generous than their formula would dictate. The high rate is likely a teaser; they are free to lower the rate back down to the formula-based levels next year.

[For additional analysis of this product, see the review in Research magazine by Moshe Milevsky of York University in Toronto.]

Allianz Life’s Retirement Pro has an income sleeve that is also linked to the 10-year Treasury, but swaps the GMIB for a GLWB. Traditionally, GLWB products calculate the guaranteed withdrawal rate from an age based table. Allianz’s product differs by establishing the withdrawal rate based on the current 10-year treasury at the time of the first withdrawal. Prior to withdrawals, the income sleeve benefits from quarterly ratchets.

Unlike Axa’s product, which automatically resets its rollup/withdrawal rate each year to current Treasury rates, Allianz locks in its withdrawal rate. There is limited opportunity to ratchet up the withdrawal amount if the right combination of market and interest rate growth plays out, however. Similar to Axa, money held in the Allianz income sleeve has additional fees and investment restrictions. Allianz keeps its withdrawal rate within 4% to 7%, an even tighter band than Axa’s.

Axa’s and Allianz’s offerings both align product design features with market-based manufacturing costs. The wholesale cost to manufacture and hedge a guaranteed lifetime benefit is based on a number of volatile factors, one of which is interest rates. The 10-year Treasury isn’t a perfect proxy for long-term rates, but anything more detailed would require a semester of advanced finance courses to understand.

From a risk management perspective, this technique will help these companies minimize losses in turbulent interest rate environments and help support their long-term guarantees. But it remains to be seen if these products may be too complicated and uncertain for consumers.

As an actuary, I welcome the introduction of the dual account products. They add control and flexibility for consumers. To echo a comment by Dr. Milevsky, they allow a good advisor to actively compare the contract’s performance with their clients’ evolving goals, and to make course adjustments as necessary.

This concept lends itself to life-cycle investing, in which people hold risky assets (like stocks) when they are young and gradually convert their portfolio to less risky assets as they near retirement. We’ve seen in recent years that annuities with an income guarantee can protect against sequence of return risk, so why not consider these dual account products (especially for non-qualified money) in that context?

For these products to gain traction, I believe, the accumulation sleeve must be effective in helping the client accumulate assets. This requires a large and diverse selection of funds, with low-fee options and minimal M&E and distribution fees. I would recommend reducing fees by scrapping any mandatory guaranteed death benefit in this sleeve.

If structured properly, dual account products offer the best of the accumulation and distribution worlds: low-cost tax-deferral with the option to move assets dynamically into a guaranteed lifetime payout vehicle over time. It’s a high-value proposition with potentially broad market appeal.

Ryan Hinchey, FSA, is a consultant at Annuity Riders.

Five Ways to Adjust to a New Tax Landscape

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Editor Test -

The provisions of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA) are scheduled to expire or “sunset” at the end of 2010.

For many investors, parting will be sweet sorrow.

EGTRRA and JGTRRA reduced tax rates on ordinary income, long-term capital gains, and qualified dividends; mitigated marriage penalties; expanded the child tax credit and the child and dependent care tax credit; and phased out limitations on itemized deductions and the phase-out of personal exemptions.

With the sunset of these provisions, individual income tax rates in 2011 are expected to stay the same for low- and middle-income taxpayers, but rates for individuals earning more than $200,000 or couples making more than $250,000 may revert to pre-2001 levels.

(Here’s a table that compares what income tax will look like in 2011 (after the sunset at end of 2010) with what the tax picture is today and could remain if we see a permanent extension of the 2001 and 2003.)

A consortium of advisors who are representatives of and offer securities through Securities America Inc. (www.securitiesamerica.com) have offered these suggestions for how investors and their advisors can adjust to a new tax landscape:

1. Catch the early bird special. In anticipation of higher tax rates, if your portfolio includes appreciated assets, this year might be a good time to take some gains off the table at the maximum capital gains rate of 15%, rather than the 20% currently slated for 2011. Investors in the 15% tax bracket or lower have no gains due on appreciated assets in 2010, but will face a 10% tax in 2011.

“Investors might also consider accelerating the sale of a home or business to avoid higher tax rates down the road,” says Don Patrick, CPP, managing director of Atlanta-based Integrated Financial Group (www.Integrated-Financial-Group.com). He notes that unlike when investors use tax loss harvesting to book a capital loss at the end of the year, there’s no wash sale rule that precludes them from buying a security right back when they sell it and register a gain.

2. Diversify retirement savings from a tax standpoint. Having taxable and non-taxable pots to draw from makes sense in an uncertain tax environment. Jim Coleman, founder of Coleman Financial Advisory Group in Waterbury, Connecticut (www.ColemanAdvisoryGroup.com), noted that the lifting of the $100,000 income limit for converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA makes diversifying possible for all taxpayers.

“Obviously, converting retirement assets to a Roth would result in reportable income and trigger additional income tax—and it may be difficult to consider paying income tax on a large IRA,” Coleman said.

“However, it’s important to realize that you don’t need to convert the entire account. While investors who converted in 2010 can spread taxes due over 2011 and 2012, those in the higher tax brackets may be better off having paid all those taxes in 2010. In promoting the extra time to pay, Uncle Sam fails to mention that the top tax bracket will increase to 39.6% from 35% in 2011. Either way, if the nation is indeed entering a long period of rising income tax rates, paying a conversion tax bill may seem like a bargain in retrospect.”

3. Use fraud losses. Because the Roth conversion is an ordinary income taxable event, taxes due can be offset by major losses due to fraud which are booked as an ordinary income loss as opposed to a capital loss, says Arthur Cooper, CFP, managing partner of Cooper McManus, a wealth management firm located in Orange County, California (www.CooperMcmanus.com).

“If you have the misfortune to take a straight fraud and theft deduction, you can convert the same amount from a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA conversion and end up with zero tax on that conversion,” he said.

It’s also possible to go back a few years for loss carry forwards to add to write-offs of ordinary income. “When you go back and zero-out tax liability, you save that 10-15% on a good chunk of the dollars,” Cooper added. “Plus, when you do a Roth IRA conversion, you convert taxable dollars into a future non-taxable income stream, so the effective tax savings is even more impactful than just zeroing out your tax liability.”

4. Rethink some standard financial planning advice. While he traditionally spends time with high level executives discussing the benefits of deferring some salary, Mike Flower, partner at Financial Principles in Fairfield, New Jersey (www.FinancialPrinciples.com), is advising high wage-earners who have the flexibility to receive ordinary income this year instead of in a later year when tax rates may be higher.

“Executives might decide to exercise their non-qualified stock options,” he said. In another departure, if future income tax rates truly skyrocket, Flower said tax qualified plans may lose some of their appeal.

“You still want to contribute to your workplace plan, certainly enough to qualify for any available company match, but with the question of whether you truly will be in a lower tax bracket in retirement, you might also consider funding accounts outside the tax-deferred arena for some diversity,” he said. “If your company’s retirement plan offers a Roth option, you might consider that so you have a pool of money to pull from in retirement where you will not owe taxes on distributions.”

Finally, while financial advisors traditionally encourage clients to make charitable contributions before the end of year, Flower said if you are considering a substantial charitable donation, you might be better off from a tax standpoint to spread it out or defer it to the future to gain a greater tax deduction.

5. Understand your father’s dividends will cost you more. Currently, the maximum tax rate on qualified dividends is 15%, but that will revert to regular income tax rates in 2011.

“Although President Obama has proposed a tax of 20% for both capital gains and dividends in 2011, if the reclassification of dividends lapses at the end of 2010, next year the top dividend rate could revert to 39.6%. Still others talk about a tripling of the current 15% rate,” said Clyde Wyatt, CLU, CFS, a director at Dallas-based Navigation Financial (www.NavigationFinancial.com).

“Whatever happens, the increase in tax on qualified dividends obviously makes dividend paying stocks less attractive in a retirement income stream.”

In addition, starting in 2013, the Healthcare and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 will levy a new 3.8% Medicare tax on investment income for individuals earning more than $200,000 or couples earning $250,000. Notably, the 3.8% surtax does not apply to distributions from IRAs and other qualified retirement plans like 401(k)s, 403(b)s and 457 plans, or Roth IRAs.

“Because income from tax exempt and tax deferred vehicles like municipal bonds, tax deferred non-qualified annuities, life insurance, and non-qualified deferred compensation do not count as investment income, investments in these vehicles should become more favorable relative to investments producing income subject to the tax,” Wyatt said.

The net effect of the capital gain tax increase and Medicare tax will be a 23.8% tax rate for higher earners–the highest rate for long-term capital gains since 1997, says John Jenkins, AEP®, EA, CFP®, president and CEO of San Diego-based Asset Preservation Strategies (www.Asset-Preservation.com). “Once these higher rates kick in, high wage-earners may try to defer income in an effort to stay below the highest tax thresholds. We’ll also be considering some advanced planning strategies to offset tax liability through the use of Section 42 tax credits (low income housing tax credits) and also oil and gas investments.”

Jenkins finds it ironic that the same investors who could help promote long-term economic growth will suffer the economic brunt of these tax increases. “In 2007, taxpayers with incomes greater than $200,000 reported 47% of all interest income, 60% of all dividends and 84% of all capital gains,” he said.

“And the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the new Medicare tax on investments will cost high-earning taxpayers an additional $30 billion annually. Further, because the modified adjusted gross income threshold at which this Medicare tax will apply will not be indexed for inflation, going forward an increasing number of taxpayers will be snared by this tax provision.”

Bottom line? The tax code is in a state of flux. In addition to these changes, the federal estate tax has already expired. If Congress doesn’t act, estate taxes will be reinstated in 2011 at a rate of 55% for estates valued at more than $1 million. While portfolios have to be re-examined in light of this change and the anticipated sunsets, planning can be done only on the basis of educated assumptions.

NIH Devotes Only 11% of Budget to Elderly Studies

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Editor Test -

Despite the rising number of elderly in the U.S., the National Institutes of Health devotes only about 11% of its $31 billion budget ($3.46 billion) to research at the National Institute on Aging, which focuses directly on health concerns of the elderly, The New York Times reported.

Most of the funds for research related to concerns of the elderly, including some involving Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and osteoporosis, came through other N.I.H. institutes.

Although there has been moderate growth in spending at all 27 N.I.H. research centers, the growth is slower at the National Institute on Aging. The Obama administration has proposed adding $1 billion, or 3.2 percent, to the N.I.H. in the 2011 fiscal year; the aging institute’s share would rise 2.9 percent.

Last year, 17.5 percent of aging institute grants were approved, compared with 20 percent approved for N.I.H. as a whole, she said. Aging research approvals are expected to drop even more, to 13 to 14 percent, when the 2010 numbers are announced, said Nancy E. Lundebjerg, chief operating officer of the American Geriatrics Society, an advocacy group.

Orszag to Depart OMB Director Post

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Editor Test -

Peter R. Orszag, who brought a strong retirement perspective to his job as budget director in the Obama administration, will leave the White House later this summer, several news organizations reported last week.

“Basically, the OMB Director is a brutal job and subject to quick burnout. I wouldn’t read any more into this than that,” wrote David Dayen on the newsblog, firedoglake, by way of explanation. Orszag’s impending departure was first rumored last April.

According to the Washington Post, likely candidates for appointment to the post of director of the Office of Management and Budget include (in order of probability):

Laura D. Tyson, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton administration who currently teaches at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

John Berry, head of the Office of Personnel Management.

Rob Nabors, who served as Orszag’s deputy before joining White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s office to focus on special projects.

Gene Sperling, a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and a top economic official in the Clinton administration.

Robert Greenstein, director of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. He served on the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform during the Clinton administration.

Byron Dorgan, North Dakota’s retiring Democratic senator.

Jeffrey Liebman, an economist with expertise on poverty, pensions and Social Security.

Jeffrey Zients, an official who has orchestrated high-profile cost savings initiatives in recent months, including planned federal hiring reforms and plans to cut $8 billion in federal building costs.

Towers Watson Explains New Pension Relief Law

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Editor Test -

On June 25, the President signed the “Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010” into law. Among other measures, the new law makes available relief for pension plan funding for years through 2011 and certain benefit restrictions for 2010.

“Those considering using the relief for 2009 will need to move quickly as any contribution adjustments must be made by September 15,” said the consulting firm of Towers Watson in a Client Advisory on the topic. The firm described the single-employer relief provisions of the law as follows:

Plan sponsors could elect to extend the shortfall amortization period from the 7 years required under the Pension Protection Act (PPA) to either 9 years (with interest-only payments for the first two years) or 15 years for shortfall amortization bases created during the years for which relief is elected.

This election could be made for any two plan years during the period 2008-2011, although most plans will not have the option of choosing relief for 2008.

Many sponsors will find it useful to elect relief for either 2009 or 2010, depending on their circumstances, and then again for 2011, when the expiration of certain PPA transition provisions will tend to create a large amortization base. If relief is elected for two years, the same option (i.e., 9 years or 15 years) must be used for both. Sponsors would have to notify plan participants and the PBGC of such elections.

The benefit restriction that prohibits future benefit accruals if a plan is funded below 60% would apply for plan years beginning on or after October 1, 2008 and before October 1, 2010 based on the greater of the funded status for the current plan year or the funded status for the plan year beginning on or after October 1, 2007 and before October 1, 2008. This will avoid the elimination of benefit accruals for 2010 for most plans and applies whether or not funding relief is elected.

The same provision would apply to the restriction on Social Security Level Income Options, meaning that such options will be permitted for most plans for 2010.

Plan sponsors that elect the extension of the amortization periods would be subject to a limitation called the cash flow rule. For a period of 3 years (for the 9-year amortization period) or 5 years (for the 15-year amortization period) the sponsor would be required to make additional “matching” contributions to the pension plan if certain payments are made.

These contributions equal compensation to any employee in excess of $1 million plus the excess of dividends and stock redemptions over the greater of EBITDA or the historical dividend amount.

The cash flow rule would not increase contributions to amounts greater than those that would have been required if no relief had been elected. Although its mechanics are unclear, the cashflow rule applies on a controlled group basis. It appears as if credit balances may be used to satisfy the obligation to make these matching contributions under the cash flow rule.

This brief description summarizes the cash flow rule; however there are many complexities involved in understanding, evaluating and administering it. For some plan sponsors it could result in substantial and unplanned contributions and thus should be evaluated carefully before funding relief is elected.

During the legislative process, several other provisions had been debated but ultimately were not included in the Act. Among the most prominent of these were:

A requirement to maintain a plan with ongoing benefit accruals in order to use the 15- year alternative amortization, Stricter nondiscrimination rules relative to cross testing,

Enhanced fee disclosures for 401(k) plans, Expanding requirements for reporting financial information to the PBGC, and Easing of credit balance rules to permit use if 80% funded in 2008.

In many situations, the funding relief provided will be substantial. However, the implications of the cash flow rule can also be significant and burdensome. Sponsors will want to evaluate their options and develop a strategy regarding the relief provisions.

The Guardian Offers New SPIA

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Editor Test -

The Guardian Insurance & Annuity Company, Inc., a unit of Guardian Life, has introduced a single premium fixed immediate annuity (SPIA) to its suite of retirement annuity products.

The Guardian Guaranteed Income Annuity (GGIA) is available in select states through GIAC agents and third-party distributors. As an inflation hedge, the product’s Annuity Payment Increase Benefit option increases the annuity payment each year by a fixed dollar amount, starting from a lower base than a level payment.

Its Payment Acceleration rider allows individuals to make a one-time withdrawal to meet short-term needs on certain policies provided certain eligibility requirements are satisfied. Several GGIA payment options offer joint life and survivor benefits.

Guardian also offers individual deferred fixed and variable annuities as well as 401(k) funding vehicles for small businesses.

A mutual insurer founded in 1860, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America offers life, long-term care, disability income, group medical and dental insurance products, and 401(k), annuities and other financial products. The company has more than 5,400 employees in the U.S. and over 3,000 financial representatives in more than 80 agencies.

The Global Distribution of Millionaires

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Editor Test -

Less than one percent of all households worldwide were classified as millionaires, but they owned about 38% of the world’s wealth, up from about 36% percent in 2008, according to the Boston Consulting Group. BCG also found that:

Households with more than $5 million in wealth represented 0.1 percent of households but owned about 21%, or $23 trillion, of the world’s wealth, up from 19% in 2008.

The number of millionaire households rose by about 14% in 2009, to 11.2 million—about where it stood at the end of 2007.

The United States had by far the most millionaire households (4.7 million) followed by Japan, China, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

Singapore saw the highest growth in millionaire households, up 35%, followed by 33% for Malaysia, 32% for Slovakia, and 31% for China.

Smaller markets had the highest concentrations of millionaire households. In Singapore and Hong Kong, millionaire households accounted for 11.4% and 8.8%, respectively, of all households.

Switzerland had the highest concentration of millionaire households in Europe and the third-highest overall at 8.4%.

Three of the six densest millionaire populations were in the Middle East—in Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Despite its large population, the U.S. had the seventh-highest density of millionaire households at 4.1%.

How Many VA Owners Will Bail Out?

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Kerry Pechter -

With billions of dollars worth of variable annuity contracts with in-the-money living benefit riders leaving their surrender periods over the next 18 months, the issuers of those contracts will soon learn how accurate their lapse rate assumptions have been.

For those who guessed right, no great shocks are likely to occur. But if issuers erred on the high side, say analysts at Oliver Wyman Group, lower-than-expected lapse rates could translate into higher-than-expected reserve requirements and a potential dent in profitability.

Generally, the presence of income guarantees is expected to result in stickier policies. “We should see lower lapses than in previous nonguaranteed blocks,” said Todd Solash, partner, and senior manager Aaron Sarfatti at the global consulting firm, which advises insurance companies on risk management and overall strategy.

As a result, aggregate reserve requirements could rise by $1 billion to $5 billion over the next 18 months for the $400 billion in outstanding VAs with living benefits, they said.

“This is approximately 10% of total industry general account reserves for living benefit guarantees,” says a recent Oliver Wyman report, A question of legacy: Measuring and managing behavioral risk in variable annuities. “Should this adverse scenario unfold, it will slowly, but surely, erode the capital position of many leading variable annuity writers who would have to post reserves and capital for the policies they had expected to lapse.”

Most issuers did a good job of hedging the market risk associated with their VA guarantees, but they didn’t necessarily anticipate policyholder behavior risk in their models, according to the report. “The magnitude of the behavioral risk wasn’t as well studied as market risk,” Solash said.

The potential magnitude of lapse rate risk is still unknown. According to the report, if the S&P 500, now at about 1,050, rises to 1,250, the reserve requirements will be much lower than if the index drops to 800. The impact will also vary by carrier, depending on the size of their VA/GLWB book of business, their lapse assumptions, the degree of “in-the-moneyness” of their riders, and the channel in which they distributed the contracts.

About 14% of issuers believe that lapse rates vary by channel, according to a 2009 Society of Actuaries survey of 29 issuers. “All of those indicating a difference distinguished between internal distribution (captive agency) and external distribution (brokers, banks, independent agents), with the latter having higher lapses,” an SOA report noted.

Policyholder persistency would be good if most variable annuity guarantees were out-of-the-money or at-the-money. Many contracts are in the money, however, despite the partial recovery of equity markets from the 2008-2009 market crash.

Issuers would be happy to see those contracts lapse. But contract owners are less likely to want to give up the now-valuable guarantees. Their advisers, mindful of suitability standards, are also less likely to recommend 1035 exchanges that would nullify the guarantees.

Therefore lapse rates in coming months might be lower than the actuarial assumptions. “[Many carriers] used historical 20% lapse rates, and the guarantee will reduce the lapse rate. It took the crisis to test the assumptions,” said Sarfatti.

The deferral bonuses or “roll-ups” that carriers offered to discourage early withdrawals from VAs with income benefits are also likely to make the contracts stickier. “I wouldn’t call [the rollup] a helpful feature” in this context, Solash told RIJ.

“The rollups can be risk mitigating in product design, but with falling interest rates and equity prices, roll-ups greater than the interest rates can be a very expensive feature.” He doesn’t believe that roll-ups will be a primary cause of lapse rate surprises, however.

The “rationality” of policyholders is one of the wild cards in forecasting lapse rates. A perfectly rational policyholder (such as a professional investor or hedge fund manager) might be counted on to surrender an out-of-the-money contract and keep an in-the-money contract. But policyholders aren’t always rational, and don’t necessarily take maximum advantage of their guarantee. Some are forced by economic hardship to cash out their contracts at the end of the surrender period.

People have also presumably purchased VA/GLWB contracts for a variety of reasons. For some, the income feature may have been the primary reason. For others, it may have been a secondary consideration. For those clients, lapse rates might be higher.

Along with the Society of Actuaries, several consulting groups have studied VA/GLWB lapse rates in recent years. Towers Perrin, Deloitte LLP, and Germany’s Risklab are among them.

They tend to agree that there’s a shortage of hard data on behavioral risk. “Historic experience is sparse for variable annuities, and companies usually have a very high level estimate regarding the level of rationality of their policyholders,” said Deloitte actuaries in a slide presentation, “Residual and Ancillary Risks in VA Guarantees.”

In its research paper, Oliver Wyman suggests that in the future VA issuers take the following steps to protect themselves against behavioral risk:

Improve behavior modeling and forecasting capabilities
Integrate behavioral risks more fully into risk management protocols
Revive the variable annuity reinsurance market

The paper also suggested that VA issuers answer these questions:

Which of my in-force blocks are most exposed to behavioral risks?
How conservative are my lapse and utilization assumptions relative to peers? Relative to experience?
What would be the impact on earnings and capital through 2012 if lapse rates for guaranteed businesses fall 25% and 50% below expectation?
How does market performance affect this impactWhat is the transaction cost incurred via the dynamic hedge program? By how much would this expenditure decrease if market exposure tolerances were doubled?
More broadly, how should I incorporate the uncertainty around behavior in the design and execution of my hedging strategies?
Do I have a business plan if behavior is worse than expected over the coming years?

“Too Good to Last”

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Editor Test -

“HIGH YIELD,” said the headline on the tiny 2” x 4” display ad in The New York Times. It was followed below by these words: “Pre Owned Annuities, Lottery Payments and Structured Settlements. Earn 7% to 9% in a 3% to 5% world.”

Through a handful of ads like that and by word-of-mouth, retail investors are discovering that they can now buy the rights to “secondary market annuities” paid by A-rated insurance companies and get better—often much better—returns than conventional fixed income investments.

But, as RIJ learned in conversations with representatives at firms that either originate (“factor”) these products or market them or both, secondary market annuities aren’t for the unsophisticated, the unwary, the impatient or the meek.

At their simplest, “they’re like real estate transactions,” one specialist said. He didn’t want his name used because he doesn’t want to stir up undue interest in what is only a $600 to $700 million-a-year business—interest that would only drive up prices. “They’re not too good to be true, but they’re too good to last,” he said.

Said another intermediary, who also asked for anonymity, “What has happened over the last seven months is that we’ve seen the inventory evaporate and the yields go down. To broadcast information about the products is to eat our young, so to speak.”

The availability of such products to retail investors didn’t even exist until a year ago. Structured settlement firms used to be funded entirely by institutional investors, which bought them to diversify their portfolios, or by investments banks, which securitized them.

At big structured settlement firms like J. G. Wentworth, that business appears to live on, in a fashion. But the financial crisis ended the era of inexpensive financing and for many smaller factoring companies the securitization option became too expensive. To survive, some firms have turned to retail investors for financing.

High returns notwithstanding, the new offerings have drawbacks. While the payouts are guaranteed by A-rated insurers, the investments are neither securities nor insurance products. The secondary annuity market is not regulated, nor are the factoring companies. The transactions aren’t as transparent as some would prefer.

The products themselves aren’t standardized, like primary market annuities. Each tends to be one-of-a-kind, like real estate, often providing idiosyncratic payment streams that adhere to the terms of the original structured settlement. And they’re illiquid. If the owner dies, for instance, there’s no immediate payout to beneficiaries. Then there’s interest rate risk. If rates skyrocket, you’re usually stuck with what you’ve got.

How they work

Secondary market annuities provide multiple or single-payment distributions over short or long periods. The distributions are paid by the insurance companies exactly as they would have been to the original owners. In this case, investors are not buying paper issued by an ad hoc securities firm or tranches in a murky pool of structured settlements.

“But you need to be careful, because both kinds of investments do exist,” said one of the intermediaries mentioned earlier.

Rather than an investment, the transaction involves the reassignment of an insurance company obligation from the original owner—the plaintiff in a damage suit—to a purchaser. The yields are high only because of the obligations sell at a discount of about 20%, and not because the annuity issuer itself offers high returns.

“These are court-ordered assignments from insurance companies,” said Scott Schwartz of Woodbridge Structured Funding, LLC, which has been in the structured settlement business since 1993, but only recently switched to selling secondary market annuities to retail investors after investment banks hiked their charges for securitization.

To purchase an annuity from Schwartz, you first have to get on his inventory list. Then he tells you what factored products are available each day, specifying the carriers, the purchase prices, the payout schedules and the effective annual yields.

The products are tricky but not impossible to resell. “But people buy them to diversify their portfolios, not to resell them,” Schwartz told RIJ. Demand is strong. “We’ve had about 50 deals a month and we sell every one of them,” he said. Investments usually range from $50,000 to $150,000, but can be as small as $15,000 or as large as $3 million.

Keith Singer, an attorney and CFP who owns Florida-based Insured Returns LLC, is also in the secondary market fixed annuity business. “The factoring companies are selling a receivable,” he told RIJ. “It’s an assignment of future payments. Buyers receive insurance company obligations. Whatever rights the original owner had, are assigned to the purchaser.

“[As an intermediary,] I may have access to three or four different future income streams at any given time. I tell clients, these are the rates, and if the product meets their needs, we proceed. However, prior to purchase we need to do a credit check and public records search of the seller.

“There is a possibility that if the seller has child support obligations or a divorce agreement, there may be other claims against those future annuity payments. The title search is not unlike the title search for a house. The process is similar to buying a house. Money goes in escrow, the buyer receives a court order and other documents from the insurance company providing good title to the future annuity payments, and then the funds are released to the seller,” Singer said.

A slew of A-rated issuers

At Annuityfyi.com, where individual investors can view all kinds of annuity and find phone numbers to connect with broker dealers, you can see examples of recent offerings. For instance, there’s a MetLife product that cost $48,186.44 and paid out an annuity-like $450 a month from 2017 to 2027 and $1,165 a month from 2027 to 2037.

The total payout is $186,810 over 20 years, which translates to an effective annual interest rate of 7.75%, according to the website. Alternately, you’ll find a Prudential product that cost $62,166 and paid $310,000 in three payments, five years apart: $65,000 in 2026, $100,000 in 2031 and $145,000 in 2036. The yield: 7.75%.

A State Farm Mutual product, purchased for $109,000, paid a lump sum of $240,000 in 2021, for a 7% yield. A Monumental Life annuity cost $164,960 and paid out $3,400 a month for 105 months (a total of $357,000) from 2017 to 2025, for a 7.25% effective yield.

Other offerings include annuities originally issued by Allstate, American General, Aviva, Fidelity, Genworth Financial, John Hancock, New York Life and Pacific Life. As the examples show, payout rates can be lumpy or smooth. The original owners may have sold only certain portions of their annuities, depending on the timing and the amount of their need for cash.

One intermediary told RIJ that none of the products at Annuityfyi.com are currently available; if they were, he said, another factoring company might “poach” them from the current factor, much as one real estate agent might try to take a listed home away from another. Apparently, that’s part of the strange and evolving world of secondary market annuities.

New VA Contracts from Smaller Issuers

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Editor Test -

Mary Beth Franklin, the well-known Kiplinger’s retirement writer, mentioned to a group of journalists recently that she herself had bought a variable annuity with a living benefit recently. One of the reporters asked which company issued it. Ohio National, she said. It was just an honest answer, not necessarily an endorsement or recommendation.

This spring, Ohio National filed a prospectus for (and perhaps markets by now) one of the four relatively new contracts that RIJ highlights this week. Last week, during the first week of a two-week update on VAs and the VA market, we focused on new products from the biggest of the insurance companies. This week, we focus on four new products from second-tier or regional insurers, all of them with A-level strength ratings from Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s.

CUNA Members VA III

This contract from CUNA Mutual (rate A, Excellent, by Best), which ranks 29^th among the top-selling variable annuity issuers, offers two living benefits, a guaranteed minimum accumulation benefit (GMAB) and guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit (GLWB), along with a 3% annual deferral bonus.

Contract owners can choose to pay their annual rider fee as a percentage of their income base (currently 1.75%) or as a percentage of their account value (1.00%). Most living benefit fees are pegged to the income base, which is likely to become significantly higher than the account value, which withdrawals and fees substantially reduce over the life of the contract.

The GLWB rider allows a choice between an Income Now and an Income Later option. As the names imply, the Income Now option is intended for people who expect to take income soon, and the Income Later is for people who expect to wait several years. Both currently offer a deferral incentive of three percent (simple interest per year) for 10 years, but owners who elect Income Later can renew their incentive two years after a withdrawal. Those who elect Income Now cannot.

The age-related payout rates are more graduated than in most other income riders. Under the Income Now option, payouts start at 4.1% for the single coverage and 3.6% for joint coverage at age 55, and rise by one-tenth of a percentage point for up to 30 years.

Under the Income Later option, the age bands for single coverage are 3% for ages 50 to 54, 3.75% for ages 55 to 60, 4% for ages 61 to 64, 4.5% for ages 65 to 69, 55 for ages 70 to 74, 5.25% for ages 75 to 79, and 5.5% for ages 80+. The payouts are 50 basis points per year less for joint contracts.

The contract also offers an optional premium credit. A purchase payment credit of 4% is available for premiums under $250,000, 5% for up to $500,000, and 6% for $500,000 or more. The first-year surrender charge is 8%, for both the B and L. The M&E fee, plus the administration fee, is 1.30% for the B share, 1.75% for the B share with the premium credit, and 1.80% for the L share.

Fund operating fees range from 74 bps to 154 bps, and there are investment restrictions for contract owners who elect either a living benefit. For instance, GMAB clients must keep 50% of their assets in a bond account and GLWB clients must keep up to 40% in a bond fund, depending on how much freedom they want to invest the rest of the money as aggressively as they wish.

Guardian Investor Variable Annuity L Series

Like CUNA, Guardian (rate A++, Superior, by Best) is a mutual insurer. In the first quarter of 2010, it ranked 25^th in variable annuity sales, with a modest $170.8 million in premiums. Its Investor L Series, however, has features as big and as eye-catching as the contracts offered by top-sellers like Prudential and Jackson National. The minimum initial premium is $10,000 for non-qualified money and $2,000 for qualified.

For instance, under the Target 200 and Target 300 GLWB options, there’s a 7% rollup that promises to double your income base after a 10-year wait and triple it after a 15-year wait. The Target 300 isn’t available in New York State. Alternately, there’s a Target Future (7% rollup, year by year) and a Target Now program that allows contract owners to step up the value of their income base to their account value, if higher, on each contract anniversary.

The payout rates are 3% a year for those age 59 and younger, 4% for those ages 60 to 64, 4.5% for those ages 65 to 69, 5% for those ages 70 to 79, and 6% for those age 80 or older.

The contract isn’t cheap. The M&E plus the administration fee is 1.65% a year, and the GLWB options currently costs 65 basis points (for Target Now), 75 basis points (for Target Future) 95 basis points (for Target 200) and 1.20% (for Target 300). The spousal options are 10 to 40 basis points higher.

The fund fees range from 36 to 168 basis points. Funds include offering by Alger Capital, BlackRock Global Investors, Columbia, Davis, Evergreen, Fidelity, Franklin, Invesco, Templeton, MFS, Oppenheimer, PIMCO, Pioneer, RiverSource, RS Investment, Van Kampen, and Value Line.

Ohio National Life OnCore Series

Annuityfyi.com, a website that markets annuities direct to consumers, currently rates the Ohio National GLWB as its “top pick.” The reason: Ohio National (rated A+, Superior, from Best) increases the minimum income base by 8% (simple interest) for every year in which no withdrawal is taken, and promises that the income base will be at least double the initial investment after 10 years.

The contract, not surprisingly, is low on liquidity, with a nine-year surrender period starting at 9% for the B share. The minimum initial investment is $5,000. During the accumulation phase, a step-up to the account value on a contract anniversary automatically restarts the waiting period for a fresh 10 years.

The payout rates are 4% from age 59½ to 64, 5% from 65 to 79, and 6% for those 80 and over. During the income phase, if the account steps up in value after the client enters a new age bracket, he or she can graduate to the next higher payout rate.

Fund fees range from 36 basis points to a maximum of 6.87%. According to the prospectus, the highest fund fees occur only if the fund companies rescind fee waivers currently in effect. Fund companies include Ohio National, AIM, ALPS, Dow Target, Dreyfus, Federated Insurance, Fidelity Franklin Templeton, Ivy Funds, Janus Aspen, Legg Mason, Dreyfus, Lazard, Morgan Stanley, Neuberger Berman, PIMCO, Prudential, and Royce.

The M&E charge and account expense charge together are 1.40% for the B-share product, and 1.70% for the bonus product. The current GLWB fee is 95 basis points (105 joint). The fee for the annual step-up benefit alone is 25 basis points. As an alternative to a GLWB, for 55 basis points a year, Ohio National will guarantee the principal value for 10 years.

For GLWB, the contract owner must invest in the middle three of five allocation models—Moderately Conservative, Balanced, and Moderate Growth, which all have pre-set allocations. There’s a 4% credit on the first $250,000 in premium, and a 5% credit for any amount of premium above $250,000. If more than $250,000 in premium is paid in the first year, the entire premium receives a 5% credit.

Integrity Life (Western & Southern) VAROOM

If you’re looking for a variable annuity that offers all exchange-traded funds as its investment subaccounts, this yet-to-be-approved $25,000-minimum contract from Integrity Life, a unit of Western & Southern Financial Group (rated A+, Superior, by Best), may be the ticket. Here’s the list of ETF options, by category:

Equity Subaccounts

iShares® S&P 500 Index Fund

iShares® S&P 500 Growth Index Fund

iShares® S&P 500 Value Index Fund

iShares® S&P MidCap 400 Index Fund

iShares® S&P SmallCap 600 Index Fund

Vanguard® Dividend Appreciation Index Fund, ETF Shares

Vanguard® Large-Cap Index Fund, ETF Shares

Vanguard® Mega Cap 300 Index Fund, ETF Shares

Fixed Income Subaccounts

iShares® Barclays Aggregate Bond Fund

iShares® Barclays Intermediate Credit Bond Fund

iShares® Barclays TIPS Bond Fund

iShares® iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond Fund

Vanguard® Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond Index Fund, ETF Shares

Vanguard® Total Bond Market Index Fund, ETF Shares

Vanguard® Variable Insurance Fund Money Market Portfolio

International and Alternative Subaccounts

iShares® S&P/Citigroup International Treasury Bond Fund

Vanguard® Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund, ETF Shares

Vanguard® Tax-Managed International Fund, Europe Pacific ETF Shares

Vanguard® REIT Index Fund, ETF Shares

ETF fees range from only 9 basis points for the S&P 500 Index to 50 basis points for a high yield bond fund. The contract, which has a five-year surrender period with a 7% maximum charge, has a combined M&E and administration charge of 1.75%, two GLWB options, and payout age-bands of 4% for those ages 60 to 64, 4.5% for ages 65 to 69, 5% for ages 70 to 74, and 5.5% for ages 75 and older. The payouts in a joint contract are based on the age of the younger spouse.

There are two GLWB options, one for 60 basis points and one for 80 basis points, depending on how much investment freedom the contract owner or the advisor wants. The extra 20 basis points apparently gets you access to a REIT ETF and an emerging markets equity ETF. The charge is the same for single and joint contracts, but the payout in a joint contract is only 90% of the payout of a single.

Here’s something a bit unusual. Rather than a roll-up, Integrity Life offers to increase the payout rate by 10 basis points for each full calendar year that the contract owner doesn’t take a withdrawal during the accumulation stage. During the first year, there’s a 75 basis point addition to the payout rate if the contract is purchased in the first quarter of the calendar year.

Plugging Leaks in VA Guarantees

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Kerry Pechter -

Insurers need to make “fundamental changes” in the way it manufacturers variable annuity living benefits, according to Milliman, the global consulting firm that already provides hedging expertise to many if not all of the major VA manufacturers.

Those fundamental changes—Milliman suggests three in a recent white paper—involve sharing more of the product’s exposures to market risk, interest rate risk and other risks with the clients, but doing it in a way that makes the product more, not less, attractive.

Without the changes, “it is not clear that the life insurance industry can continue to offer VAs,” write Milliman actuaries Ken Mungan and Deep Patel in their paper, “Sustainable Manufacturing of Variable Annuities: Toward a new model.”

“It is clear that there are significant changes underway in the VA market. We can expect a new market equilibrium to emerge over the next 12 to 24 months,” the paper said. That’s scary talk, but then hedges are insurance, and when you sell insurance you emphasize the worst case. In any case, here are the main elements of Milliman’s Sustainable Manufacturing Model:

Let the client buy the hedges

When market downturns occur and VA account values drop, the amount of money backing the guarantee drops. To blunt this effect, VA issuers buy capital market hedges, which rise in value as markets decline. Milliman proposes that the contract owners buy the hedges, along with stocks and bond funds, and hold them in the separate account.

The issuer would still ultimately be on the hook if the hedges failed to protect the account value, but it wouldn’t get beat up by short-term volatility in hedge costs. This design change would also shift basis risk—market risk that plain-vanilla hedges can’t cover—to clients. If insurers don’t have that risk, Milliman says, they can offer a wider range actively managed funds.

Design asset allocation models to target a specific volatility level

Instead of offering asset allocation models that include different percentages of equity investments, Milliman recommends, insurers should offer model portfolios that target a specific volatility level.

The technique sounds similar to the asset transfer method that Prudential uses to limit damage to the account value during a downturn. Prudential has an algorithm that automatically moves money out of equities and into bonds when equity prices fall. But Milliman suggests that managers of the model portfolios re-allocate money when volatility rises, without waiting for prices to actually fall.

“As equity market volatility increases, fund managers shift assets from equities to bonds,” Milliman’s paper says. “Similarly, as market volatility declines, assets are shifted from bonds to equities. Managers adjust the allocation periodically to stay on target, by means of transfers among underlying funds or the use of a hedge overlay.”

Re-design products to reduce interest rate risk

Interest rate risk is a big problem for VA hedging operations. The Fed-engineered reduction in interest rates in 2008 caused a sharp rise in the costs of the hedges, which are like long-term put options.

Milliman recommends design changes that link the roll-up rates (automatic increases in the benefit base during the accumulation stage) and the withdrawal rates during the income stage to the 10-year Treasury rate, so that promises become less rich when rates fall.

On the other hand, the promises become more rich when rates rise, giving contract owners more incentive to keep their contracts rather than surrender them or exchange them for high-paying fixed rate annuities.

Obstacles and benefits

As you might guess, adopting the Sustainable Manufacturing Model probably won’t be cheap. It “requires the creation of new types of VA subaccounts that contain hedge assets,” which “will require the ongoing management of a hedge program, and the insurer will need to coordinate residual on-balance-sheet hedging,” the paper says.

Strategic partners and intermediaries will also face a learning curve. “Traditional asset managers are generally not well positioned to manage hedge assets within VA subaccounts.” “Buy-in from financial advisors” will also be needed, the authors wrote.

But there’s an upside, Milliman argues. For clients who want more investment risk in their annuity portfolios, these changes will give them more of what they want. More importantly, they can reduce a VA manufacturer’s risks and perhaps determine whether it’s worth staying in the VA business at all.

Reflections of a VA-Selling Advisor

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Editor Test -

For insurers who market variable annuities through independent advisors, G. Jacob “Jay” Hauenstein III, a 43-year-old financial advisor in Laurel, Mississippi—the nearest large town is Hattiesburg, to the south—would be a good example of their target intermediary.

About $10 million of the $35 million that he manages for individual clients is in variable annuities with guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefits. In 2009, he did no VA business at all, because his high-benefit product of choice was taken off the market. But this year his clients have added about $1 million to a new set of products. He spoke with RIJ recently about the role of VAs in his practice.

“Last year I just about totally got out of that product,” said Hauenstein, who has been a member of the Million Dollar Roundtable Annuity Advisory Board. “I didn’t sell one variable annuity the whole of last year and put no additional money into the ones that I had on the books. I focused on the insurance side for a while and that kept me busy. With the downturn most people were not doing any additional investing. People want guarantees when times are scary.

“But this year I’m back in the game in a pretty big way. When the market seemed to bottom out and level off I did my homework again and came up with a couple of players who still have a solid product. MetLife has a good product, the Investors Series L. I’m doing most of my business with Prudential, the L-series. Guardian’s product’s OK. Their benefits aren’t quite as lavish but they still have a solid product and there’s backing there. Some clients just like that ‘old line’ type of mutual insurance company.

“Throughout the downturn, all of my clients have been extremely happy with the variable annuity products I’d put them in. In the case of my largest client, she has depleted a lot of her initial investment between the downturn and what she has spent. But thanks to the rollup, which matures this coming year, she is actually slightly ahead of what she’s put into it. And she’s put in a fortune.

“I’ve looked at VAs harder and harder over the years. By the time you put all the fees and hidden expenses into it, you’re going to need market performance of pre-2000 levels to make the things really gain. In the future, you probably won’t have the kind of gain they talk about in the sales literature, so your true gain is in your rollup.

“The strength has got to be that rollup. I can’t put somebody into something where they get to retirement age and their investment may be worth half of what they put into it, or if we get them up t $2 million and it goes to half of that. [The rollup] is a huge factor for me, along with the investments and the death benefit.

“Some guys hit it lucky and have exactly the right combo of timing and investments. One of my previous clients doubled his money in four years and actually got into the step-up as opposed to the 7% guarantee. He took a beating when the market turned upside down like everybody else, but he made more than his guarantee.

“I work with a lot of clients where the only money they put into the variable annuity is their ‘reserve’ fund. We don’t expect to touch it if we don’t need to. The product I used in the past solved that problem beautifully, because the living benefit and the death benefit were identical. If the client died, he passed on the maximum.

“It frustrated when my bread and butter [product was eliminated by the issuer during the financial crisis]. I found good replacements with MetLife and Prudential. In MetLife’s benefit, the continuity for the spouse is better, while with Prudential the primary investors will do the best of the two.”

[Hauenstein and his clients at one time chose mainly A-share variable annuities, because many high net worth clients seemed to prefer to pay distribution charge all at once. But he realized that he was not being paid to service the A-share clients that he’d inherited from his father and partner. So he switched to L-share contracts, which pay a trail commission.]

“The L-share gives you smaller upfront and a trail going forward,” he said. “That was much more appealing than taking an extra point up front. In my experience, guys who take the A-share usually push the clients they’d already sold toward the back burner.

“I don’t swing for the fences anymore in my investments. Too many advisors are overly aggressive, and overly optimistic. It depends on where you’re going. With the person who’s 40 years old, you can be aggressive. But you can’t do that with a 55-year-old. I’ve gone more to value-growth as opposed to aggressive-growth. I can serve my clients best by not being greedy. I don’t try to get that one last dollar by exposing five dollars. It seems to have paid off.”

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