Talking Annuities with AIG’s Todd Solash
Solash, who leads AIG's Individual Retirement business, spoke with us about the company's approach to the annuity market. The NAIC recently reported AIG's overall Life and Retirement businesses as...
The Incredible Shrinking Income Rider
Several variable annuity issuers offer optional income riders that allow a 7% or 8% withdrawal rate at age 70 unless or until the account value falls to zero, at...
A Textbook Way to Sell Annuities
If you’ve ever heard David Macchia speak, you’ll probably recognize his voice coming through the text of his new book. In 'Lucky Retiree,' Macchia explains retirement risks and time-segmentation...
Taken to the Cleaners, in Yehud
A better prime minister than Bibi Netanyahu would be Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely, said Aviram, who with his mother operates the laundry that I've frequented in...
Inside Seeking Alpha’s Money Machine
Content is currency for Seeking Alpha, as long as the editors (and their algorithms) keep making smart decisions about which content readers will be willing to pay for.
How Seeking Alpha Seeks Alpha—from Israel
At Seeking Alpha’s Tel Aviv headquarters, RIJ talked to the firm’s CEO, Eli Hoffmann, about how the blogger-clearinghouse makes a ton of money helping people who are trying to...
Shekel by Shekel: How Israelis Save
For the last decade, Israeli workers have contributed to mandatory defined contribution savings plans at work and must convert at least part of their savings to a lifetime income...
A Genuine ‘Value Fund’ Is Hard to Find
"Even if the fund says ‘value,’ there’s no likelihood that it’s a value fund,” said Martin Lettau of UC-Berkeley, co-author of a study showing that Dimensional's value funds may...
New Social Security Bill Calls for Tax and Benefit Hikes
The bill proposes slowly raising the payroll tax by 1.2 percentage points for employers and employees over the next 23 years, and applies the payroll tax to incomes above...
Alliance for Lifetime Income Sponsors Rolling Stones’ New Tour
The two dozen life insurers and asset managers in the Alliance for Lifetime Income have purchased sole signage sponsorship of the Rolling Stones 2019 US tour. The Alliance expects...
An FIA Designed By RIAs
The "ClearLine" fixed indexed annuity was developed by Security Benefit Life and DPL Financial Partners with input from the registered investment advisors who use DPL's no-commission annuity purchasing platform.
Ibbotson Taken to Task over Indexed Annuities
Michael Edesess and Bob Huebscher have challenged Roger Ibbotson's favorable analysis of fixed indexed annuities on at least two grounds. It was another battle in the endless war between...
Holy Annuities! RIJ Goes to Israel
If it’s winter in east-central Pennsylvania, then you can bet that RIJ’s virtual offices will be someplace where the weather is mild and the local retirement financing system promises...
Notable Retirement Research of 2018
Our selection of ten outstanding retirement-related research papers from 2018 starts off with a summary of Joe Tomlinson's proposal for three new annuity products that have never been issued...
Annuities, RIAs and ‘Cargo Cult’ Thinking
Brighthouse Financial's Shield structured annuity joins products from Allianz Life, Jackson National and Global Atlantic on the Envestnet Insurance Exchange, where annuity issuers hope to engage registered investment advisors....
Jack Bogle’s Spirit Lives On
'Costs matter,' he was famous for saying. I think people, and a quaint desire to help make the world a more honest and prosperous place, mattered to him more....
Two Client-Centric Income Strategies
We compare two easy-as-pie annuity strategies: Income starting at age 80 versus guaranteed income for the first 10 years of retirement. One hedges longevity risk, the other hedges sequence...
Money Myths, Legal Realities
At a conference at Harvard Law School called "Money as a Democratic Medium," law professors debated the origins, purposes, and rightful ownership of money in the modern era. (Photo:...
BlackRock, Microsoft & Retirement: What’s Up?
BlackRock and Microsoft's cryptic announcement of a new partnership on a platform for plan participants has puzzled industry executives, who shared their views 'on background' with RIJ. (Pictured: A...
The Newest Retirement Income Fintech
Kindur, which debuts in January, is a low-cost, digital advice-and-investment-management engine that will help Boomers turn income from annuities and investments into a retirement paycheck. Its founder is Rhian...
