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: Recent guidance in the form of Rev. Proc. 2006- 13 provides a general safe harbor for the fair market value of a deferred-annuity contract when determining the amount includible in income on conversion of a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.

Description: A review of the last 50 years, concluding that the insurance industry in Canada has been slow to react to consumers' shift in focus from long-term security to rate of return.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to study mortality-based securities, such as mortality bonds and swaps, and to price the proposed mortality securities. The focus is on individual annuity data, although some of the modeling techniques could be applied to other lines of annuity or life insurance.

Description: This paper suggests a possible framework for the mandatory annuitization of U.S. retirement savings, considers the experience of other countries and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of mandatory annuitization.

Description: This paper explains how legal reforms related to annuities have decreased the popularity of annuities among plan sponsors, and then describes how a proposal for a federal charter option for life insurance companies could hold some promise for persuading plan sponsors to put annuities back into savings plans.

Description: This article explores the development of the annuity market in the UK over the past 20 years. It examines the explosive growth achieved by the enhanced annuity market and delves into the kinds of customers attracted by these products and the kinds of enhancements typically presented. It also explores the impact of government policy changes which have lead to annuity volumes declining and 'drawdown' product becoming more popular.

Description: This research report analyzed the effects of different types of informational interventions on annuity-related behavioral intentions and beliefs, such as estimated retirement age and life expectancy.

Description: This is a panel discussion about H.R. 10 pension plans, i.e., tax deferred retirement savings plans for the owners of an unincorporated business and its employees. The following questions are addressed: To what extent is coverage under H.R. 10 being provided under individual policies and under group contracts? What problems are presented in each approach? If special plans are used, what provisions must be included? If normal contracts are used, what modifications or endorsements must be made? What plans are generally used? If split-funding is not used with normal contracts, how are increases in contributions handled? To what extent are trust or custodial accounts being used? From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1964, Vol. 16 Pt. 2.

Description: The paper will focus on two broad areas, integration of insurance products with investment products to mitigate the risk of outliving one’s assets in post-retirement financial planning. Modeling and pricing for the longevity risk in the secondary market in insurance.