Tag: Annuities

The effort to de-risk defined benefit (DB) pension plans is an immensely complex task that presents no shortage of challenges or opportunities to retirement plan sponsors and consultants.

New research from a coalition of retirement industry groups suggests financial advisers are moving away from the use and recommendation of annuities, despite industry buzz around income products.

Survey results from the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute (SRI) indicate that in-plan guaranty features are growing in number and in assets.

Three factors create a roadblock to retirement income for advisers' clients: low yield, adequate equity exposure and managing volatility.

More Americans realize they aren’t on track to meet retirement income needs, according to Northwestern Mutual, but the country as a whole is struggling to address longevity risk.

The attractiveness of pension annuitization, as tracked by Dietrich & Associates’ Pension Risk Transfer Index, is relatively unchanged from March.

More than half of retirees say they have withdrawn funds from retirement accounts, usually to cover short-term expenses, without a strategy in place to mitigate longevity risk.

Employers are finding more reasons to de-risk their defined benefit (DB) retirement plans, says a new analysis from Buck Consultants.

Some defined benefit (DB) plan sponsors are reluctant to transfer liabilities to an insurer, saying it is too expensive, particularly compared with the accounting liability, Mercer says.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) recently proposed rules about the treatment of rollovers from defined contribution (DC) plans to defined benefit plans (DB).

Today, the retirement plan industry is placing greater emphasis on getting participants to and through retirement successfully.

Defined contribution (DC) plans are increasingly adopting practices similar to defined benefit (DB) plans to improve participant outcomes, including automatic enrollment and “do-it-for-me” investments.

Market conditions like those seen in 2013 benefited those plan sponsors that had not yet moved to de-risk their defined benefit (DB) plans.

The estimated cost, as a percentage of accounting liability, of a U.S. retiree annuity purchase decreased during February from 108.5% to 108.4%, according to Mercer.

For the United States, the estimated cost, as a percentage of accounting liability, of a retiree annuity purchase remained level during January at 108.5%, according to the Mercer...

A strong recovery in asset values and pension funding levels hasn’t slowed the pace of change in institutional investment portfolio strategies, according to an analysis from Greenwich Associates.

Retirement readiness improved for Baby Boomers and Generation X households during 2013, says a new report.

The Dietrich Pension Risk Transfer Index fell nearly three points in February to 95.33.

Financial professionals often suggest a 4% annual withdrawal rate for retired workers living off accumulated assets, but one service provider is pushing a more sophisticated approach.

Unprotected pensions, loss of retiree health care benefits and reduced Social Security payments worry retirees.