There are substantial efforts underway in many parts of the industry to develop similar sorts of benchmarking tools for assessing, comparing and monitoring the growing variety of lifetime income programs for defined contribution plans. A very real challenge these developers face arises from the fundamental difference in the nature of the investments involved: existing equity
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The Notion of DC Lifetime Income as a Participant Investment Choice
The growing acceptance of the idea that defined contribution plans need to provide participant access to a “DB-Like” retirement income benefit is only really possible now because of the foundational work over the past two decades by key policy thought leaders like Mark Iwry, David John, and a handful of others.
Further success of this…
The Fiduciary Rule’s Foray Into Uncharted Territory
Generating over 19,000 written comments, the DOL’s proposed fiduciary rule changes clearly hit a “vein.” Though the proposed changes are complex and multi-tiered, there are two of them which are particularly garnering most of the attention.
The first is the proposal to compel the application of a version of the retirement plan fiduciary rules to…
A Preview of of Lifetime Income Issues Under the Proposed Fiduciary Regime
There is much to be considered under the new set fiduciary rules recently proposed by the DOL, especially as we sort through the (very extensive) details of this new regulatory regime. We are already hearing much about the impact and change which would be introduced into the market over the expansive reach of this new…
CITs and Lifetime Income Guarantees
Revenue Ruling 2012-3; the preamble to the QLAC Regs; IRS Notice 2014-66; and the Oct. 23, 2014 DOL Information Letter to Treasury are just a few of the critical building blocks which have enabled an exciting new generation of lifetime income products which we are now seeing in the market. The three 2019 SECURE ACT…
Cost Effective Equity Asset Pooling Between Unrelated Retirement Plans: The Insurance Separate Account
Let’s face it. Annuities generally are not well received in much of the retirement plan adviser community. From the historical impression that “annuities are sold, not bought;” to some advisers perceived baggage associated with being that ghastly “licensed insurance agent;” to the historically “salty” nature of a number of retail annuities; there is a lingering…
Two Seemingly Oblique, But Valuable, 2.0 403(b) Gems
The IRS’s 2007 403(b) regulations fundamentally altered the 403(b) marketplace. The imposition by of those regulations of greater responsibility on 403(b) plan sponsors for maintaining the continued tax favored status of their plans triggered, among other things, efforts by a number of employers, employer related groups and advisers to attempt to consolidate both the compliance…
Lifetime Income’s QPDA and the IQPA
The Key Role of the Quirky 403(b) “Master Custodial Agreement”
Many practitioners will point to the 2007 403(b) regs (the “new regs” as many of us often still call them, 16 years later…) as being a real seminal moment in the market, and probably rightfully so. However, an even more fundamental development occurred some 7 or 8 years earlier, which still has deep reverberations in…
The 403(b) CIT and the 12 Month Put
One of the inevitable results of Congress’s failure to cobble together some sort of compromise on what the most suitable “Securities Fix” would be for the 403(b) CIT is a flurry of activity to find some way to craft a solution which would permit 403(b) plans’ investments in 81-100 trusts without a statutory fix. From…