Description: Feature article discussing the SOA’s Retirement 20/20 initiative.

Description: MacGinnitie discusses how retirement may change in the 21st century. First, he discusses what forces are shaping current retirement trends and what might happen to redefine retirement in the 21st century. He then examines what this might mean for private pension systems, and how actuaries can adapt.

Description: This article announces the restructuring of the Retirement Needs Framework Task Force into the Committee on Post-retirement Needs and Risks. Past accomplishments and the new initiatives are outlined.

Description: This is a transcript of a session at the Spring 1975 Meeting in New York and discussed the impact of economic conditions on current pension plan design, funding indexed benefits, investment of pension funds, actuarial responsibilities under ERISA and future outlook. 1975 Record, Vol.1, No.2

Description: Many retirement actuaries have experience developing, implementing, and monitoring Liability Driven Investing (LDI) strategies for plan sponsors. These strategies typically involve modifying a plan’s investment strategy to remove a significant portion of the investment and interest rate risk now or at some point in the future when specific triggers are met. The tactics often involve the use of fixed income assets to cash flow and/or duration match the liabilities. In the spirit of helping actuaries expand their roles in an evolving defined contribution world, this article explores the application of LDI and derisking strategies within defined contribution and individual retirement accounts. The economic theory behind this approach is called the lifecycle hypothesis, or lifecycle finance. The benefits of the lifecycle finance method are that it provides a safe approach to save for retirement and a secure source of floor income during retirement. Similar to pension plans, each individual has his or her own idiosyncratic needs, wants, and risks that should be considered. Actuaries are uniquely situated to help defined contribution plan sponsors, individuals, and even themselves implement the lifecycle finance approach by developing and distributing tools and methods that focus on income (rather than wealth), LDI strategies, and personalization.

Description: This presentation presents a decumulation strategy during retirement with the purchase of deferred annuities.

Description: This article highlighs the activities of the SOA Retirement Systems Practice Area including research projects, demographic retirement models, Social Security, and professional development.

Description: Collective Defined Contribution Plans offer an option in plan design that lies somewhere between defined benefit and defined contribution plans. This is achieved by fixing the contributions to the plan, but allowing benefits to fluctuate based on experience. This article provides a basic summary of how they can be structured. There are limitations to their use in the US, but are gaining in popularity elsewhere around the globe.

Description: All things considered, caution needs to be applied to the use of so-called “standard” mortality tables. Sharpening up these blunt estimates by using individual assumptions reveals material differences in the structure of longevity, both between plans and within plans.

Description: This article is a review of the National Summit on Retirement Savings held on June 4-5, 1998 in Washington, D.C. The summit focused on the implications of low savings rates on the aging of America and was designed to help policy makers and all Americans think about ways to increase retirement savings.