In the ‘Green Zone’ with Jim Otar
The Toronto engineer-turned-advisor has self-published an exhaustive new book and launched a refined version of his Retirement Optimizer software.
‘Old People with Attitude and Expectations’
Boomers hope for a long and feisty retirement. But at the Longevity 5 conference in Manhattan last month, experts saw global aging as a threat almost as great as global warming.
A Comic Approach to Participant-Ed
A Dutch pension administrator hopes a mildly racy comic book will help educate its plans' younger bus drivers and railway workers.
RIIA Launches Designation for Retirement Advisors
Francois Gadenne and the Retirement Income Industry Association want to spread the doctrine of "build a floor, then create upside."
Featured
Zone Therapy
"Everything you have read in this book so far guides you in one direction: ignore the popular wisdom and hype. Design your own 'personal' pension for your retirement." So begins Chapter 41 of Jim Otar's book, which is reprinted here.
News
AIG and ING Sell Units to Raise Cash
Both firms are divesting major subsidiaries to pay back billions extended to them by the U.S. and Dutch governments, respectively.
Sun Life VA Sales Up 35% At Mid-Year
Sun Life was the fifteenth largest seller of variable annuities in the U.S. in the first half of 2009, with $1.4 billion in sales and a 2.3% share of the VA market.
J.P. Morgan Adopts FundQuest’s Advisor Gateway™ Platform
The program uses FundQuest's reporting, portfolio modeling, fund selection, and rebalancing technology.
New White Paper Describes New Normal
“The latest downturn shows that asset allocation alone is not enough," said LIMRA CEO Bob Kerzner.
In the U.K., Are Pensions a Retention Tool, or Just a Compliance Chore?
Only 55% of working Britons participate in a company pension “scheme” or plan, a survey by Blackrock and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development showed.
Cash-strapped Firms Hope to Delay Pension Funding Mandates
Three legislative proposals would allow companies to make interest-only payments for two years on their 2008 losses and then amortize pension shortfalls over the next seven years.
A Third of DC Plans Have Auto-Enrollment—Mercer
While 74% of employers have a targeted employee participation rate of 80% to 100% percent, only half have achieved that goal.
U.S. Life Settlements Activity Flat in 2008
“The economic crisis was the major impediment to growth in the United States life settlements market in 2008," said Scott Hawkins, analyst at Conning.
Retirement Planning a Challenge for Hispanic Americans
Only 25.6% of Hispanics are covered by employer-sponsored retirement plans, compared to 42.5% of whites and 40% of African-Americans.
The Abnormal Is the Norm
Does anyone really coast smoothly into retirement? Not guys like my friend Mark, the brilliant engineer. He married at 40, was laid off at 55, and now, at 62, is scrambling to put two kids through elite private colleges. The abnormal is the new norm.
