Honorable Mention
A.M. Best affirms Ohio National’s A+ rating, despite lawsuits; $24 million settlement in BB&T Bank excessive fee case; AIG names new chief financial officer; E*Trade offers online investing tool;...
Steve Vernon’s Guide to Retirement Success
Steve Vernon's latest book on retirement, "Retirement Game-Changers," teaches anyone how to win not just the game of retirement income, but the game of life-after-55. Vernon (pictured) is...
The Links between Golf and RMDs
RMDs produce zero change in a client’s wealth. They just create a 'balance sheet' adjustment, where money moves from a pre-tax to an after-tax account, current taxes get paid,...
Greetings from the First ‘Retirement Management Forum’
Some 200 members of the Investments & Wealth Institute (IWI) came to Amelia Island, Florida, this week to learn about the principles underlying the Retirement Management Advisor designation, which...
Annuities ‘Compensate’ Even Short-Lived People
'Nature wants us to pool longevity risk,' writes annuity expert Moshe Milevsky. He explains why in a new paper, 'Swimming with Sharks: Longevity, Volatility and the Value of Risk...
Where the Income Puck is Going
Producers selling indexed annuities with living benefits in the context of the semi-robo retirement income plans: This is emerging model for selling income products to Boomers. It’s not ideal....
2018: A come-back year for indexed annuities
Indexed annuities were once the problem child of the annuity world. Now, having survived the Obama Department of Labor's attempt to corral them, they're more like the darling of...
Employer Match vs. Auto-Enrollment; The Winner Is…
'Most of the estimates from the literature substantially understate the effect of matching,' write analysts Nadia Karamcheva and Justin Falk of the Congressional Budget Office's Microeconomic Studies Division. (Image...
‘Auto-Portability’ Gets Closer to Reality
After five years of pitching their idea for automatically moving assets from one 401(k) plan to the next when a worker changes jobs, Retirement Clearinghouse this week received the...
Ohio National Sued for Compensation Breach
So far in November, three variable annuity sellers, including Commonwealth Financial, have filed federal class action lawsuits against Ohio National Life, which this fall left the annuity business and...
A Retirement Income Plan from United Income
One of the smallest of the robo-advisors (United Income) has some of the biggest backers (Morningstar's chairman and eBay's founder) and a veteran (HelloWallet) CEO. RIJ asked United Income...
‘I’m Not Retired. I’m Independent.’
Unlike, retirement, “independence” has no demeaning or dismissive connotations. Every American yearns for independence. It’s the ideal on which our country was built. When’s your Independence Day?
New Bedfellows: Richard Neal and the 401(k) Industry
As the next Ways & Means chairman, the liberal Massachusetts congressman won't just be the gatekeeper of retirement legislation. He’s also the only legislator who can ask for President...
What’s Up, Doc Huffman?
Ohio National Life's withdrawal from the annuity business continues to rile advisors and broker-dealers who carry a lot of the insurer's rich old living benefit products on their books--and...
An Industry Haunted by Its Own History
The ghost of demutualization haunts much of the annuity industry today. But that topic was not on the agenda of the annual LIMRA conference in New York earlier this week...
Honorable Mention
Arthur Laffer, the supply-sider, dabbles in financial wellness; BBVA launches robo-advice tool on BNY Mellon Pershing platform; Migration to bonds finally reverses: TrimTabs.
Which Annuities Pay Out the Most?
The answer depends on whether your clients want income to start now or in five years or 10 years. Indexed annuities offer the highest minimum income guarantees, if you...
‘RIAs, You’ve Got to Try This’: Macchia
'A recent article said that high valuations make this the worst possible time to retire. I say, This is the perfect time to retire if your advisor has provided...
Will Fee-Only Advisors Warm to Annuities?
At the National Association of Personal Financial Planners' meeting in Philadelphia this week, Wade Pfau of The American College and David Lau of DPL Financial Planners urged fee-only advisors...
Ohio National Hits the Trail
Advisors who sold rich Ohio National variable annuities with guaranteed minimum income benefits are fuming at the insurer's announcement that it would no longer pay "trail" commissions to certain...
