The Bucket
Brief or late-breaking items from Bank of the West, Vanguard, Global Retirement Partners and LPL Financial.
Surge of fixed indexed annuity sales at independent broker-dealers in 2014
Industry-wide annuity sales reached $229.4 billion in 2014, a 3.8% increase from $220.9 billion in 2013 and an 8.2% increase from $212 billion in 2012.
Voya enters the structured variable annuity game
The product resembles other structured variable annuities in the marketplace, issued by MetLife, AXA, CUNA Mutual and Allianz Life. These products offer more upside potential than fixed indexed annuities...
Value of U.S. pension and retirement accounts exceeds $21 trillion
The total assets held in employer-sponsored retirement plans were $11.3 trillion at the end of 2014, an increase of 11.5% percent from the $10.1 trillion one year earlier, according...
Ameriprise and Bank of New York Mellon settle ERISA suits
Ameriprise Financial will pay $27.5 million to settle charges that its own 401(k) plan investment options were too expensive and Bank of New York Mellon will pay $84 million...
How much should your clients start saving now? EBRI knows
The traditional 'replacement rate' method of gauging retirement savings adequacy ignores the risk of outliving one’s savings, post-retirement investment risk, and nursing home costs, according to the Employee Benefits...
New York City comptroller calls for statewide “fiduciary disclosure”
“Billions of dollars in savings are lost each year because of hidden fees and conflicted financial advice,” Scott Stringer said, borrowing a theme from the Obama administration, which has...
Quote of the Week
“You go to the doctor to make you feel better. But a doctor doesn’t have to make someone else sick in order to make you feel better.” Gus Sauter,...
New York Life’s new fixed deferred annuity has a GLWB
The Clear Income Fixed Annuity's lifetime withdrawal rider provides longevity risk protection income with more liquidity than a deferred income annuity, and is designed to compete well against...
Senate hearing on retirement
A link on the next page will send you to a video of the March 12 hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Alicia Munnell of the Center...
As UK’s annuity mandate ends, NEST weighs alternatives
The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), Britain's public workplace retirement plan option, believes that despite the end of forced annuitization, middle-class retirees will still need a default mechanism for...
Many rich people are DIY investors: Cerulli
Many high-net-worth investors use direct accounts to test their own investment ideas, provide liquidity, and even to shelter assets from their primary advisors,” the Boston-based research firm found.
The Bucket
Brief or late-breaking items from MassMutual, the Investment Company Institute, 'Enrich Life Over 50,' and the German pension market.
Daniel Kahneman on Intuition, Etc.
In this continuation of our video of Daniel Kahneman at the Investment Management Consultants Association conference in New York last month, the Nobel Prize winner explains why expertise is...
Schwab goes robo
What yesterday was called “robo-advice,” and which today some are calling the “digital advisory channel,” seems to have passed a tipping point.
Symetra launches two new fixed indexed annuities
Available in both annuities is the JPMorgan ETF Efficiente 5 Index, which generates returns by utilizing an array of exchange-traded funds and a cash index.
Cerulli: 30% of U.S. HNW investors identify as ‘self-directed’
More than half of high-net-worth investors have direct or online trading account balances between $500,000 and $1 million, according to the Boston-based research organization.
Jackson National Life income up 17% in 2014, a record
Jackson, a wholly owned subsidiary of Britain-based Prudential Plc, recorded sales and deposits of $28.3 billion in 2014, up 3% over 2013.
The Bucket
Brief or late-breaking items from ASPPA, Financial Engines, Prudential and Transamerica.
Pension buy-out sales more than double in 2014
In fourth quarter 2014 Bristol-Meyers Squibb and Motorola each transferred their group pension obligations to Prudential. The sales from these two deals represented more than half of the $8.5...
