Products March 19, 2019

Vanguard Launches Consultant Hub for Retirement Plan Consultants

Features of the Consultant Hub include a retirement plan comparison tool and custom investment reporting, among other things.

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Vanguard’s Institutional Investor Group launched Consultant Hub—a secure, dedicated web portal designed to help consultants enhance their value and build thoughtful, streamlined plans that can inform decisions and provide enhanced insights to retirement plan clients.

The goal of the Consultant Hub is to provide plan sponsors and consultants with a data-driven view into the retirement readiness of their employee populations. With a focus on the technology and resources necessary to better manage their plans, features of the Consultant Hub include: a retirement plan comparison tool, custom investment reporting, a subadvisor view, news alerts for Vanguard fund changes and access to Vanguard’s latest research and commentary.

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In addition, consultants will have access to data for recordkeeping plans, participant investments, fund performance and benchmarks.

More information is here.
The Markets March 19, 2019

Medium and Large Plans Drive Peak Pension Risk Transfer Sales in 2018

In 2018, single premium buy-out product sales peaked at $26 billion, more than 14% higher than 2017, according to LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute’s quarterly U.S. Group Annuity Risk Transfer Survey.

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U.S. single premium pension buy-out product sales exceeded $10.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018, nearly level with fourth quarter 2017 results.

This is only the third time fourth quarter sales have surpassed $10 billion, according to LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute’s quarterly U.S. Group Annuity Risk Transfer Survey.

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In 2018, single premium buy-out product sales peaked at $26 billion, more than 14% higher than 2017. Total single premium product sales (including buy-ins) exceeded $11.3 billion in the fourth quarter 2018. For the year, total single premium product sales were $27.3 billion.

“A big driver of the 2018 buy-out sales was a combination of mid- to large-PRT [pension risk transfer] deals,” says Eugene Noble, research analyst, LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute. “We also saw two new insurance companies enter the PRT market this year.”

Total assets of buy-out products were $135.5 billion in 2018, more than 18% higher than the prior year. Survey participants reported 29,632 contracts sold as of December 31, 2018.

Seventeen companies participated in this survey. A breakout of pension buy-out sales by quarter since 2012 is available in the LIMRA Data Bank.

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