A New Film, ‘The Baby Boomer Dilemma,’ Praises Annuities
By the end of this cautionary tale, you might want to run out and, like Tom Hegna, buy a dozen annuities. (In photo: The film's fictional couple, under financial...
A 5-Year Cushion against Market Risk
'Prudent Asset Allocation' gives you the confidence of knowing that over the next five years, you don’t have to worry about market conditions,” says Louis S. Harvey of Dalbar,...
MassMutual flies into the ‘Bermuda Triangle’
MassMutual has all the pieces--a life insurer that issues fixed annuities, a stake in a Bermuda reinsurer, a big in-house asset manager, and various partnerships--that should enable it to...
‘Smart,’ from UK, Enters the US PEP Market
'Smart' is the recently-launched American branch of a British fintech with expertise in a kind of retirement savings plan that's called a 'master trust' in the UK and a...
Why Asset Managers Keep Buying Annuity Issuers
What is concerning are not so much the practices of pioneers of this business. More concerning are the 'me-too' players--smaller johnny-come-lately asset managers who want some of those billions...
Research Roundup
Almost every controversial subject in the US today--from Fed policy to machine learning to immigration--contains an element or theme related to retirement policy. The articles reviewed in this month's Research...
The ‘Catch-22’ of Social Security
Don't let the pundits confuse you into trading your retirement parachute for paper. We need Social Security AND employer-sponsored retirement savings plans.
‘Retirement Bonds’ could increase income, lower risk: EDHEC
Similar to the SeLFIES proposed by Robert Merton and Arun Muralidhar, the Retirement Bonds proposed by Lionel Martellini and Shahyar Safaee of France's EDHEC Risk Institute would guarantee safe...
A Revolt Against PE-Led Annuity Issuers
Matt Zagula is an annuity wholesaler and fixed indexed annuity (FIA) designer. He and forensic accountant Tom Gober created the TSR ratio, a scale for rating FIA issuers. Mutual...
Don’t Fight Inflation with Unemployment
If our current inflationary trend is caused by kinks in the global supply chain, does it make sense to raise interest rates, knock asset prices down, and put people...
How to Dodge the ‘Inflation Ninja’
'Inflation is like a ninja,' write the authors of a timely article in The Journal of Investing. These experts from the CFA Institute and Franklin Templeton review the major...
Thanks-givings (Not Misgivings) about Social Security
This year I'm claiming the Social Security benefits that I've earned on my own work record. I'm old enough now to be truly thankful for Social Security, whose future...
The Alt-Asset Teams that Reinvent Annuity Companies
'Insurance Solutions' groups use private assets to boost the returns of life/annuity company investment portfolios. RIJ talks with Todd Fonner of Investcorp Insurance Solutions about this trend.
One Life Insurer’s Pivot to Private Assets
American Equity Investment Life’s ‘AEL 2.0’ strategy is designed to help it thrive even in a low yield environment. Allocating up to 40% of its money to ‘private assets’...
The Trust Gap between Advisers and Black Women
A new study by The American College's Center for Economic Empowerment and Equality shows that Black women don't trust financial advisers. But to learn the origins of that mistrust,...
NAIC Eyes ‘Bermuda Triangle’ Strategy
A document from the NAIC's Financial Stability Task Force reflects the concerns that the NAIC has heard from a variety of sources about the increased ownership of life insurers...
Charting the Bitcoin Universe (and other New Research)
This Research Roundup offers a map of the world of cryptocurrency trading, a look at 'Participating Longevity-Linked Annuities,' an investing strategy for low-yield times from David Blanchett, and answers...
Another Annuity Issuer Enters the ‘Bermuda Triangle’
American Equity Investment Life Insurance Co., a top-ten fixed indexed annuity seller, is partnering with Brookfield Asset Management on a $10 billion reinsurance and investment deal. Their plan looks...
Inflation, Debt, Debt, Interest Rates, Taxes: They Can’t All Be Low
If you read the papers, watch the news, or scroll through sites, you'd get the impression that all four horsemen of the financial apocalypse will attack us at once....
The New Table Stakes: ‘Unified Managed Income’
To get attention today, income calculation software has to do a lot. Like tell wealth managers and recordkeepers when, in what quantity, and from what sources they should send...
