Description: Retirees and their advisors should construct diversified portfolios of retirement income, allocating among various retirement income classes that include Social Security, annuities, and systematic withdrawals from invested assets. This essay discusses the pros and cons of various retirement income generators and the issues with constructing retirement income portfolios.

Description: Retirement income security under defined contribution plans depends upon sufficient savings and decumulating that savings so it provides an adequate income throughout retirement. Investment risk and longevity risk inherently complicate the latter task. The economic rationale for annuitization is clear in this context. However, annuitization rates have historically been very low, a phenomenon that is still not well understood. If retirees are making “rational” decisions based on full information, if their choices are consistent with the pursuit of their financial priorities, then low annuitization rates are not an issue for concern. In this case, retirees who annuitize and retirees who do not must have different financial priorities. However, research by the TIAA Institute shows that the decision to not annuitize is inconsistent with the stated financial priorities of most non-annuitants. It appears that non-annuitants do not und erstand that annuitization would address their financial priorities for retirement.

Description: Structured-note annuities provide a retirement solution for the masses while allowing effective hedging and balance sheet usage for the insurance complex.

Description: This article is a summary of a session at the SOA 1997 Annual Meeting that focused on opportunities for selling insurance and annuities through banks.

Description: Fixed Annuities—Product Design and Investment Considerations

Description: An update on the principle-based reserves (PBR) process and possible valuation manual adoption, with recommendations to actuaries on how to prepare.

Description: The article discusses the developments thus far with the adoption of the NAIC Valuation Manual and what steps still lie ahead. It also discusses the NAIC Life Actuarial Task Force’s response to the NAIC’s VM-20 Impact Study. In general, outcomes of the Phase III testing support the suggestion that the modifications made to VM-20 as a result of the NAIC Impact Study made progress in addressing the excessive conservatism demonstrated in the Phase I and Phase II testing.

Description: Feature article discussing fixed indexed annuity (FIA) products with guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit (GLWB) riders.

Description: A pension actuary and a life actuary collaborate to express public pension liability and asset issues in terms and figures that an insurer would use

Description: The 1990s saw the rise of many types of variable investment products within the life insurance industry. It was only natural that hedging strategies and products would emerge in response to the inherent risk of loss of value in variable life and annuity products. This article explains a 21st-century twist on the concept for annuities, the Enhanced Earnings Death Benefit EEDB Rider.