Description: This study is designed to analyze new planning approaches and strategies that combine SPIAs with other techniques to create retirement income synergies. Using historical scenarios, it evaluates how different retirement income strategies hypothetically would have met four separate client goals: sustainable income, liquidity, accessibility and legacy. This report summarizes study findings and includes “planning points” to help readers interpret the study data.

Description: The standard for measuring retirement income adequacy has been the final earnings replacement rate (usually targeted at 70%). But - does it work?

Description: Diverse Risks 2016 Call for Essays

Description: Defined contribution plans need to do more than simply offer participants a menu of investment choices--the average worker is not building a secure retirement. Because both employers and employees face constraints, the solution is not as straightforward as delaying retirement or boosting contributions. Features like automatic enrollment can help somewhat, but are not enough. Truly innovative solutions are needed. There are numerous different proposals for improved retirement plans, both in the US and internationally. Individual proposals often contain an evaluation section dealing with benefits and risks, but what is lacking is a full quantitative evaluation framework that can be uniformly applied to a number of different proposals. This essay lays the groundwork for a potential research project to build such a quantitative assessment framework.