Removing ‘Lapse Risk’ from Variable Annuities
“Almost every major variable annuity writer has absorbed large write-downs on ‘policyholder behavior assumption updates,’” said a Munich Re executive. “So how do we take out that risk?”
Deep in the Data Mines
At the Society of Actuaries Equity-Based Insurance Guarantees conference in Chicago this week, the use of 'predictive modeling' to unearth buried or cryptic data was strongly encouraged.
RetirePreneur: Mark Warshawsky
With his new venture, ReLIAS LLC, the well-known retirement scholar-turned-entrepreneur Mark Warshawsky plans to market a process for helping retirees build ladders of single premium immediate annuities with part of their savings.
TIPS for the Long Run?
Whether you'd prefer the new Dimensional Target Date Retirement Income Funds over one of the "big three" TDFs might depend on whether you share Robert Merton and Zvi Bodie's belief that stocks aren't necessarily safe in the long run. (Photo: Merton explaining the Black-Scholes-Merton options pricing model in 1977.)
Featured
Vanguard captures 82.5% of 2015 fund flows through October
Investors returned to high-yield bonds in November after preferring government bonds for several months. “Investors might be trying to anticipate the potential December interest-rate raise,” wrote Morningstar analyst Alina Lamy.
Fidelity and Betterment: From Collaborators to Competitors
Fidelity Investments is testing 'Fidelity Go,' a robo-advice portal aimed at Millennials, and building a digital interface between its affiliated advisors and its clearing service to replace the interface that Betterment Institutional provided until recently.
News
Third-quarter FIA sales up 13%
Total third quarter sales of indexed annuities were $13.8 billion, up 13% from the previous quarter, and up nearly 21% from the same period last year.
ICI releases first-half DC participant activity study
Only 1.8% of DC plan participants stopped contributing in the first half of 2015, compared with 2.1% in the first half of 2014.
EY releases ‘ US life-annuity insurance outlook’
"After years of bolstering their balance sheets, life-annuity firms are in a strong position to invest in the innovations and technologies needed to fuel growth," said Doug French, principal, Financial Services and Insurance and Actuarial Services at Ernst & Young LLP.
