March 2024
21Mar

2023 US life statutory results: Individual annuity growth hits 21-year high

A resilient domestic economy, rising interest rates and ample supply of attractive products led to outsized expansion in individual annuities during a year of otherwise mixed growth in business volumes for the US life insurance industry. According to estimates from S&P Global Market Intelligence, individual annuity direct premiums and considerations surged by 21.8% in 2023. This data, aggregated from individual entity reports available as of March 11, marks a third straight year of double-digit growth, and the most substantial annual...

March 21, 2024
News,
Read more...
06Mar

Expert panel: How DC plan members can hedge longevity risk for more effective decumulation

Retiring baby boomers are in an era of decumulation anxiety, as they convert their pension assets into income that they fear won’t hold up over the entirety of their retirement. The decumulation problem is complex for defined contribution pension plan sponsors because it involves transferring lump sum pension assets to retirees who may lack investment expertise and who may not know how to distribute their savings to cover their entire retirement horizon. It’s not obvious how to calibrate between having the desired...

March 6, 2024
News, , ,
Read more...

February 2024
13Feb

Vietnam’s workers cash out pensions early ahead of new law

Vietnam is amending its pension laws in an attempt to deter people from abandoning the fund before retirement. Yet in some quarters, the pending change is having the opposite effect. Many workers critical to the world's electronics and clothing supply chains were already taking early payouts to deal with hardships, such as those brought on by the pandemic. Now, more of them are getting jittery after hearing the upcoming law could cut payouts in half, and the communist country is...

February 13, 2024
News, ,
Read more...

January 2024
25Jan

Kenya. Pensioners in tears over their delayed gratuity

“I regret having ever worked for the government,” says Mama Pauline Kiragu before she falls into deep silence. This is the cry for justice for millions of aging Kenyans — who worked in the civil service — waiting for pension payments running into billions of shillings. After many years of toil, most of them have retired home lonely fighting vagaries of old age, sickly, weak, dependent and poor. Thousands are unable to access their savings for upkeep and medical care. Others have...

January 25, 2024
News, ,
Read more...
22Jan

UK woman’s pension stopped as provider refuses to believe she’s alive

A retired UK teacher's pension has been stopped after her provider repeatably refused to believe she's still alive. The Guardian have reported that 85-year-old Eileen McGrath was forced to endure Christmas with no pension payments after Teachers’ Pensions confused her for someone else, who was dead. “In November I had received two letters from Teachers’ Pensions asking me euphemistically if I was dead,” she said. “I immediately called to make it clear that I was very much alive. Nevertheless, a week...

January 22, 2024
News,
Read more...
18Jan

Ghana. Academic activities to halt as SSA-UoG, FUSAG declare ‘indefinite strike action’

The Senior Staff Association-Universities of Ghana (SSA-UoG) and the Federation of Universities Senior Staff Association of Ghana (FUSAG) have declared an indefinite industrial action with immediate effect. The decision follows, among other things, the failure of the government to address the above bodies’ concerns regarding pensions and the reversal of what they describe as an illegal cancellation of their overtime allowance. Speaking at a news conference at the University of Ghana, Legon, in Accra, the National Chairman of the SSA-UoG, Isaac...

January 18, 2024
News,
Read more...
10Jan

UK. Morningstar expects up to 300 funds to opt for sustainability label

Up to 300 funds are expected to assign themselves a sustainability label this year, as part of new rules from the UK’s financial regulator. In November, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) unveiled a labelling regime for investment products wishing to market themselves as considering environmental and social issues. It identifies four legitimate approaches, including targeting real-world impact and supporting companies that are transitioning to more sustainable practices. A report published today by research house Morningstar predicts that “about 300 UK open-...

January 10, 2024
News, ,
Read more...
10Jan

Why Retirement Gets Better With Annuities

Everyone aspires to have a steady source of income after retirement that replaces as much as possible of their pre-retirement earning. But for many people, one big challenge in saving for that goal is to find the right financial product that accommodates their specific requirements, such as when they want to retire or how much more they need over and above their Social Security benefits. A new research paper by experts at Wharton and elsewhere solves that challenge with a...

January 10, 2024
News, ,
Read more...

December 2023
15Dec

Annuities Are Back in Favour

"In an environment of high market volatility and high interest rates, life annuities are an option to consider again," says Spencer Look, director at the Morningstar Center of retirement and policy studies in Chicago. "Interest rates, he continues, are allowing annuity income levels not seen since the mid-2000s." The figures in Quebec confirm this, showing an increase of 17.7% between 2021 and 2022. Of the six main product categories listed in the 2022 Annual Report on Financial Institutions and Credit...

December 15, 2023
News, ,
Read more...
01Dec

Subjective survival beliefs and the life-cycle model

By Seung Yeon Jeong, Iqbal Owadally, Steven Haberman & Douglas Wright Evidence from panel surveys of households, collected over several years and in different countries, shows that people’s perception about their remaining lifetime deviates from actuarial data. This has consequences for consumption, savings and investment over an individual’s financial life cycle, and in particular for retirement planning and the purchase of annuities. We use data from the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances to estimate subjective survival probabilities at different ages....

December 1, 2023
Articles, Pension design, , ,
Read more...