Lifetime Income

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Traditional annuities are inflexible. Period. You get the monthly benefit you pay for. They provide a very valuable benefit which should be part of anyone’s retirement planning, but this inflexibility can be scary, as it takes away from the participant the ability to address unexpected contingencies. This fear comes from the second point: the funds used to buy the traditional annuity are gone for good. Other than payments made under a survivor annuity, the traditional annuity doesn’t give the participant any access to funds to pay for contingencies, nor does it typically pay a death benefit. So what’s a fiduciary to do?
Continue Reading Addressing Fiduciary Concerns in the Purchase of 401(k) Distributed Annuities: Dealing With The Five “I’s”- Part 2, Inflexibility and Inaccessability

The Swagger

I had the privilege to speak on a 403(b) panel at the recent DOL/ASPPA "DOL Speaks" seminar,   with Lisa Alexander and Susan Reese of the DOL.  Our own panel went very well, with Susan and Lisa both speaking directly to and recognizing the transition problems related to this new 403(b) world. As Lisa…

I sat sown this morning to follow up with Part 2 of my mini-series addressing the fiduciary risks in purchasing DC annuities (link here to Part 1), when a Plan Sponsor magazine article caught my attention. It spoke of a study which linked  the lack of pensions with the risk of poverty among women…

The first element in a fiduciary review is to get at least a layman’s grasp on the nature of insurance and insurance regulation. Pooling risks with others is an uncomfortable concept that is foreign to fiduciary with a defined contribution mindset Because of pooling and this “30 year risk,” insurance is regulated in ways of no other industry…
Continue Reading Addressing Fiduciary Concerns in the Purchase of 401(k) Distributed Annuities: Dealing With The Five “I’s”- Part 1, Irrevocability

It has been a couple of weeks since we’ve last posted a blog, and with good reason. Between Evan, Monica and I, this two month span has us doing some 15 presentations and articles, whie keeping up with clients (and a couple of us squeezing in some overdue vacation time!).  Monica is speaking this week…

It is back to the future, in an odd sort of way. There is growing trade press coverage on the interests of 401(k) plans and plan participants on turning a portion of participants’ account balances into a "defined benefit-like" guaranteed income stream. Follow, for example, this link to Plan Advisor.com.

There are really two ways…