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...
New living benefit rider from W&S has 7% (simple) 10-year roll-up
The rider has an aggressive roll-up that’s paid for with a substantial rider charge and the issuer’s right to raise the charge to 2% a year.
Explained: The fall and rise in the average retirement age since 1880
In a paper entitled "The Average Retirement Age - An Update," the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College describes the factors that drove earlier retirement...
With acquisition, Envestnet arms itself against robo-advice threat
“Upside helps financial advisors compete against other digital advisors, or ‘robo advisors,’ by leveraging technology and algorithms to advise, manage, and serve clients,” an Envestnet release said.
In Denmark, interests of retirees and urban renters collide
A new law requiring 25% of construction land in Denmark to be used for “social housing” could hurt the value of real estate investments by pension funds and disrupt...
The Bucket
Late-breaking news about Fidelity's new IRA bonus offer, and brief items from Wagner Law Firm, 401k Averages Book, Cerulli Associates, Betterment and Northwestern Mutual.
Rising sales of “medically underwritten” group annuities reported in UK
Four UK insurers offer medically underwritten group (“bulk”) annuities: Aviva, Just Retirement, Legal & General, and Partnership, with Partnership and Just Retirement doing the majority of business.
A product that ‘no one likes’ sold over $235 billion in 2014
Americans contributed $12.4 billion to immediate or deferred income annuities in 2014, and $48.2 billion to indexed annuities, many of which had income riders, according to LIMRA. VA sales...
