Heat from the Street
At a vulnerable juncture in the evolution of their products, publicly-held VA issuers are feeling unprecedented pressure from Wall Street. That was made clear by speakers at the IRI Marketing Conference in New York this week.
Act V of the VA Drama
In an effort to de-risk its book of GMIB business, Transamerica Life is offering to buy back the benefit. And one firm, Achaean Financial, wants to help insurers convert some of their living benefits to immediate variable annuities. Is this the start of a trend?
The Weird Math of Charitable Gift Annuities
Here's how the wealthy buy lifetime income while giving zip to insurance companies, a pittance to the IRS and--unless they live a very long time--a sizable gift to charity.
Will RIAs Sing This ARIA?
ARIA Retirement Solutions and AEGON/Transamerica have created a stand-alone living benefit (SALB) for the $1.3 trillion managed account market.
Featured
New Lincoln VA funds use Milliman-inspired volatility buffer
Lincoln Financial vice president Dan Hayes described the advent of volatility management mechanisms inside today's VAs funds-of-funds as comparable to the emergence of "4G" cellphone technology.
News
Solvency II’s discount rate would hurt FTSE 100 pensions: Deloitte survey
Using a risk-free rate to estimate pension asset growth would increase pension under-fundedness by 20% to 50%, Deloitte survey shows.
Rising T-bond yields won’t awaken bond bear: Standish
Standish's April outlook predicts that 10-year Treasury yields may settle into a new higher trading range between 2.25% and 3% by the end of 2012.
Spectrem Group estimates 2011 retirement assets at $15.374 trillion
There's enough savings in retirement plans to pay off the U.S. national debt, with a couple of hundred billion dollars left over. Maybe we should bail out our beleaguered nation and start anew...
Average retirement age of early Boomers: 58.5
65-year-old Boomers won't consider themselves “old” until they reach age 79, according to a new survey by the MetLife Mature Marketing Institute.
The Bucket
Brief or late-breaking items from BNY Mellon, LPL Financial, MassMutual Retirement Services, Natixis Global Asset Management, Prudential Retirement, Edward Jones, BMO Global Asset Management, AllianceBernstein and the Insured Retirement Institute.
A Reader Comments on the ARIA CDA
CFP Mark Cortazzo of MACRO Consulting Group says that the fee-assessment mechanism of the ARIA contingent deferred annuity taketh away even as the product's living benefit giveth.
