Happy Friday, readers! It’s a common saying in the retirement plan industry that the back-end of the savings effort (i.e., spending down accumulated assets in a sustainable and efficient way) is far more complicated than the accumulation effort. This is because plan participants all have different longevity expectations, different beliefs about how they would like to live in retirement, and different conclusions about how to weigh longevity risk versus the risk of under-consumption. Making matters even more difficult, survey data shows that plan sponsors are not necessarily thinking strictly about annuities when contemplating the addition of an in-plan retirement income option. Despite this, recordkeepers and asset managers most commonly point to an annuity-based product as being top-of-mind for plan sponsor clients. Will 2019 deliver greater clarity on this vexing topic?
According to Cerulli research, the various parties involved in the implementation of an in-plan retirement income solution are often not on the same page about basic terminology and definitions.
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The department believes an oversight bureau, created to assess the financial strength of annuity providers, would help employers and advisers become more comfortable including annuities in retirement plans.
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Nearly all of those who work with an adviser feel they have prepared themselves well for estimating their monthly income needs in retirement, Voya Financial learned in a survey.
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The proposal is intended to help investors better understand these contracts’ features, fees and risks, and to more easily find the information needed to make an informed investment decision.
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Variable annuities continue to face challenges in the wake of transaction processing disruptions caused by the now-vacated DOL fiduciary rule; however, experts anticipate sales to recover as business processes normalize and newer product types come to market.
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A bipartisan compromise solution to end the multiemployer pension crisis is urgently required, sources agree, and one could finally be forthcoming in the U.S. Congress.
Though retirement plans can allow individuals to self-certify that they qualify for a penalty-free coronavirus-related distribution, should the IRS discover otherwise during a future audit, a participant can be subject to substantial penalties.
