Retire Rich

February 5, 2008

A Whole New Retirement Landscape

In lockstep with a broadened direction by insurance firms to strip off the complex bells-and-whistles riders and bonuses of the recent past and to issue packaged retirement income solutions-and meet the demands of the new buzzword: decumulation-the other publication I edit, Annuity Market News just relaunched on Friday as Retirement Income Reporter.

A 14-year-old publication, RIR's direction now is not only to keep up with the shift to a whole new retirement landscape, but to do so in a sophisticated, high-level and witty tone, thanks to the insight and humor of Senior Editor Kerry Pechter and longtime contributor and nationally syndicated columnist and author Alan Lavine.

Many readers, including those here at Money Management Executive, will recognize the logic of the change. The annuity business has already begun to evolve into the business of providing retirement income to Baby Boomers. We needed a name and a mission that would allow us to follow that evolution wherever it leads.

We won't be any less passionate about annuities or the insurance companies that issue them. We'll just add every type of income product to the mix.

If anything, we'll be more responsive to the needs of our RIR and MME readership, which includes an increasingly wide range of manufacturers, distributors, intermediaries and technology vendors.

By diversifying our coverage, we should be able to put out an even more informative publication than before. You'll inevitably see a greater variety of perspectives and less preaching to the converted. In our minds, that's a healthy development.

We're not affiliated with any other entity that has "Retirement Income" in its name. We risked being perceived as hopping on the bandwagon when we picked those two words. We're deliberately hopping on this long-anticipated bandwagon-to stay close to this major, breaking American story.

We'll continue to co-publish NAVA's monthly membership Outlook. As you know, NAVA changed its slogan not long ago to the "Association for Insured Retirement Solutions." We are independent of NAVA, and we arrived at our decision to change our name by an entirely different route-though probably for similar reasons. For now, the web address remains annuitymarketnews.com.

If you'd care to comment on our change of name, either for or against, we invite you to e-mail the editors. You'll find out e-mail addresses on the newsletter's masthead. Mine's elizabeth.barney@sourcemedia.com. As the saying goes, let's stay interactive.

Recent Posts

Tear a Page From the AARP/Today Show Playbook

America has yet to witness the tremendous societal transformation retiring Boomers will have, as the oldest is a mere 64 and the youngest, 46. But we are beginning to see signs of the tsunami-sized impact this army of 77 million will have on the workplace, the economy, healthcare and even the arts and entertainment. AARP has just formed a timely, unbelievably beneficial partnership with NBC's "Today Show." Beginning tomorrow, March 9, the No. 1 morning news program that reaches 5.9 million viewers a day, is bringing back former Emmy Award-winning host Jane Pauley to produce and report a monthly segment called, "Your Life Calling."

It's About Time for an About-Face for Funds

It's about time mutual fund product developers thought out of the Morningstar investment-style box to give portfolio managers the ability to do an about-face.

One of the most critical discussions to come out of the financial crisis has been the questioning of the rigid investment mandates of mutual funds and the soundness of 60-year-old modern portfolio theory-since correlations between investment classes are obviously becoming more intricately woven in the global economy of the 21st century and the markets are prone to increasingly higher volatility and risk.

Extreme Makeover: 401(k) Edition

Investors are about to test drive 401(k) plans with a 21st Century whole new look and feel. The Department of Labor is promising streamlined rules for 401(k) advice that plan sponsors may actually use. The government is looking into the possibility of offering annuities or other lifetime income options in defined contribution plans.

C- Grade is Nothing To Crow About for 401(k)s

The mutual fund industry should proudly celebrate Americans' 73% approval rating for 401(k)s, according to an Investment Company Institute report, "Enduring Confidence in the 401(k) System." In our book, a 73% rating equals a C- grade that, in fact, should be a wake-up call for the industry to do a far better job of equipping Americans to adequately prepare for a decent and healthy life in their old age.

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