If It Ain’t Fixed Indexed, It’s Broken

By Kerry Pechter
Fixed indexed annuities remain a niche product, representing only about 10% of annuity sales. But that the niche has grown into an almost $50 billion-a-year business. Sales of FIAs have grown especially fast at independent broker-dealers since 2013.

Tontine Savings Accounts

By Jonathan B. Forman and Richard K. Fullmer
'While mimicking the high payouts of an actuarially fair variable life annuity, TSAs would cost significantly less than commercial life annuities,' write Forman and Fullmer.

Better than Throwing Darts

By Kerry Pechter
'We have all these insurance agents selling billions of dollars of fixed indexed annuities. But they have few clues about how the crediting rates have performed,'' says Kent Jacquay. With his Indexalyzer software, he proposes a solution.

A New Kind of Income Annuity

By Kerry Pechter
Achaean Financial and Ash Brokerage, a large Fort Wayne, Ind., BGA, are partnering on a potential retirement game-changer: Achaean's immediate indexed income annuity, couched in Ash's JourneyGuide planning software. The underwriter has yet to be named.
Featured

Is It Time to End Tax Deferral?

By Kerry Pechter
This strikes me as the issue at the heart of the controversy over the Department of Labor's conflict-of-interests proposal—the issue we duck and dodge, while pretending that it’s all about “advice.”

FINRA Sides with Brokers against DOL Proposal

By Kerry Pechter
As it stands, the “fractured approach" of the Department of Labor conflict-of-interest proposal "will confuse retirement investors, financial institutions, and advisers,” wrote FINRA executive Marcia Asquith in a comment on the DOL/EBSA website.
News